Getting intimate with Brent Ozar (The First Responder Kit)

Imagine this scenario, you are a database professional at your place of business and you look after a mountain of SQL Server databases and it is a battle just to keep the lights on.  If this sounds like you then you need all the help you can get. You can find this help from https://www.BrentOzar.com/first-aid/ where Brent, his team and community members (found here https://github.com/BrentOzarULTD/SQL-Server-First-Responder-Kit/graphs/contributors) have developed something known as the First Responder Kit and let me tell you, it will make your life “easier”. (In the long term)

Continue reading

SQL Server DBCC CHECKDB

A quick video clip where I show two things.

Firstly I show how since SQL Server 2014 SP1+ the snapshot is no longer hidden then finally how I check that DBCC CHECKDB has ran successfully.

Continue reading

My path from a junior to a senior DBA

A non-technical post but something I have been asked about few times so I thought that I would put pen to paper and tell you about my journey on becoming a senior DBA. You might find it fun to read.

Continue reading

TDE: Looking inside your backups

TDE (Transparent Data Encryption) encrypts the data files at rest but don’t forget that it also encrypts your backup file too. I fancied looking inside a backup of my database before enabling TDE and comparing it to when enabled.

Continue reading

Corrupt Database – I need that data now!

My database is in the recovery pending state and I want to get in and extract the data out into a new database, I have NO BACKUPS available so some data (even if it is dodgy) is better than nothing.

Continue reading