SQL Server Mirroring has had a rough time the past few years. It was deprecated in SQL Server 2016, and now it's more or less being replaced by Basic Availability Groups, (which I love to refer to as "BAGS"). Database Mirroring hasn't gone the way of the Dodo yet though. Perhaps it won't be quite so popular …

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I very recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mohammad Darab. He asked some very insightful questions, and I'm so grateful he decided to ask me! You can read the full interview here. He also has a very impressive list of interviews on his site. See the entire list here!

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SQL Server 2016 is upon us, with all the much-anticipated hoopla and sexy new features people have been lusting over in the CTPs for months. It's always great to see the hype around a new release. But in the circle of (an application's) life, the arrival of new things often means others are going away for good. Let's …

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I'm already at peace with the fact that I'll never know all of SQL Server's secrets, but that doesn't stop me from being surprised every time I figure out something new. In this case, it's another "secret" hiding in plain sight (Books Online). It turns out that the DROP DATABASE statement doesn't just have to …

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When backing up a database or transaction log, SQL Server needs to know two basic things: What information the backup should contain Where it's going to be written Many options exist to control the contents and behavior of a backup: whether it's full, differential, or a log, if it should be compressed, copy_only, …

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It's 10PM*. Do you know who your sysadmin role members are? SQL Server's fixed server roles control incredibly broad permissions across your entire instance. For this reason, membership in these roles should be granted carefully and reviewed often. Fortunately, reviewing role membership is extremely easy, so you can …

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This post is part of T-SQL Tuesday #52, which is being hosted this month by Michael J. Swart (@MJSwart). Michael is asking us to argue against a popular opinion, and I'm more than happy to do so, as this is a belief that I've kept to myself for quite a while. SQL Server's row compression feature can be an amazing tool. …

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The ability to keep track of what's being executed on a SQL Server instance, or to create a read-only copy of a database at a specific point in time can be very valuable if required by the solution you are developing. But a lesser-known fact about SQL Auditing and Database Snapshots is that not only do they work well …

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I'm very proud to have contributed a chapter to Tribal SQL, which is now available for purchase at Amazon and finer bookstores everywhere. This is the first book I've had any part in writing, something I never thought I would do. I always hated English and literature classes in school – if it wasn't math, hard science, …

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When I'm presenting on SQL Server data compression, I frequently get asked if data compression and backup compression can be used together. I keep meaning to put together a blog post with a demo so I have something to direct people towards for further reading. So here we are – let's give it the old college try and find …

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