Background
I need to install a new PowerShell module onto a server that has no access to the Internet, so I am unable to use the Install-Module command.
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Background
Whilst reading up on the finer details of High Availability Groups (HA Groups) I have discovered that it can, under certain circumstances, use Snapshot Isolation Level and therefore, row versioning. This has implications with your monitoring and maintenance tasks.
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Background
Because one of the nodes in our AG was having Windows updates applied, it was necessary to suspend data movements for all databases involved in the AG, on that server. Upon my return (after the maintenance was completed) I was unable to connect to the server, with a message that didn’t really match the circumstances – or so I believed.
Introduction
Continuing my series of XML articles I’m going to move from XML RAW to XML AUTO with a handful of examples that share features between the two. Continue reading
Introduction
Most systems that I have worked with make use of the XML data type. I don’t find it to be the most intuitive data type to work with but most aspects of it can be built upon from a few basic examples. This will be part of a developing series that will cover XML and JSON. Continue reading
Having attempted to start an old test instance from SQL Server Configuration Manager, I received the wonderful error “The request failed or the service did not respond in a timely fashion. Consult the event log or other applicable error logs for details”
Error From Configuration Manager
More helpful than some message you can get – at least it tells me where to look.
Introduction
As part of my research into the various methods of protecting sensitive data, I’ve taken a look at dynamic data masking. A short demonstration and some observations are in the following article.
A column set is an untyped XML column that can be used to update and select all sparse columns defined in the associated table. This XML is not physically stored in the table – it is in effect a calculated column that can be used to update.
Microsoft recommend its use for tables that contain a large number of sparse columns, although it is not without its overheads.
It has some interesting effects upon updates and selects, for the table that uses it.
In a previous article I described how to use a certificate to sign a stored procedure. Part of that article showed how to copy the certificate between databases by using a backup/restore method. This article shows another method – scripting. Continue reading
And how to assign Server-Level permissions to a database user.
Background
In a previous article I gave an example of assigning permissions to a user and making use of the EXECUTE AS instruction. This is a very useful way of assigning database permissions in a very granular way, where a user should not have the associated role for those permissions.
However, if the permission required relates to a server-level role then another method is required. Continue reading
Notes on SQL 