Search Results for “disaster recovery”

The Second Concern for SQL Server Virtualization: Recoverability

Last Updated October 3, 2014

Your first concern is licensing, and once you’ve got that under control, it’s time to talk about backups, restores, and uptime. The business begins by defining the RPO and RTO requirements for high availability, disaster recovery, and “oops” deletions. Use our High Availability Planning Worksheet and fill in the “Current” column on page 1: High…

SQL Server Replication

Last Updated August 7, 2014

Kendra Little

“Replication’s slow again” SQL Server Replication SQL Server replication can be tricky. (Understatement!) Learn About Different Types of Replication, Plus Alternatives Read an introduction to SQL Server transactional replication by Kendra. What are the differences between bi-directional replication, peer to peer replication, and merge replication? Jeremiah explains. Do you really need replication anyway? Find out in…

Backups, Restores, Corruption, and You: How Strong are You?

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Jes Schultz

Backup and Recovery, CHECKDB and Corruption, SQL Server

You and your databases have a strong relationship. You back them up, and check them for corruption. They provide the business with information day after day. Don’t let your relationship come to this! Then, one day, your relationship is rocked. The backups are too slow. The restores are too slow. There is…gasp…corruption. Are you prepared…

New High Availability Planning Worksheet

Last Updated February 23, 2021

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery, SQL Server

One of the questions we ask every new client is, “How much data is this application allowed to lose, and how long is it allowed to be down for?” This leads to some really fun conversations. The business users assume that the database will never lose data and cannot go down. The IT admins assume…

“If You Can’t Do ____, You’re Not a Production DBA”

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Kendra Little

Professional Development

Recently I saw a tweet that said, “If you can’t read a query execution plan, you’re not a production DBA.” I love execution plans, and there are really great reasons to learn to read execution plans, but I disagree completely. Database Administration is not all about performance Performance is only one component to database administration. Let’s…

Satya Slips a SQL Server Standard Secret?

Last Updated February 4, 2014

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

Everybody wants to know the next SQL Server release date, pricing, and feature lists, but anybody who knows those facts is bound by non-disclosure agreement and can’t say it publicly. Every now and then, though, we get lucky and someone from Microsoft slips up. That’s why I pay particular attention to Microsoft interviews as we…

AlwaysOn Availability Groups

Last Updated April 10, 2017

Brent Ozar

We’re the proven experts on AlwaysOn Availability Groups. Erik has ways of making your Availability Group talk. SQL Server’s hottest new feature makes high availability, disaster recovery, and scale-out reads much easier. Follow our AlwaysOn Setup screenshot tour, and in a matter of minutes, you can be up and running. But are your AlwaysOn AGs only…

White Papers

Last Updated August 30, 2014

Brent Ozar

SQL Server and Cloud White Papers SQL Server AlwaysOn – The Uneasy Button Microsoft’s SQL Server 2012 high availability and disaster recovery features can ease DBA pains, plus offer new scale-out options. They come at a tremendous cost, and it’s not just the Enterprise Edition licensing fees. Download SQL server alwayson- the uneasy button [clear]…

Performance Tuning kCura Relativity

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

kCura Relativity, SQL Server

In the e-discovery business, kCura Relativity is the big gorilla, and I’ve been working with kCura and their clients since 2011. I think it’s one of the most interesting businesses I’ve ever worked with – up there with StackOverflow – and like Stack, they’re really open with their customers. George Nedwick and I staffing the…

You Can’t Kill Transactional Replication

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Kendra Little

Replication

181

Repli-Roach If SQL Server’s Transactional Replication was an animal, it would be a cockroach. It’s not pretty, but it’s resourceful and strong. Once you get even a small amount of replication in your environment it starts spreading everywhere. And if it gets out of control– well, in that case you’ve got no choice but to…

Introduction to SQL Server Failover Clusters (video)

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Kendra Little

Clustering, SQL Server

You’d love to know how to make your SQL Servers more highly available, but you’re just not sure what “clustering” is all about. We can help! In this 30 minute video Kendra Little shows you how failover clusters make your SQL Servers easier to manage. She uses diagrams and drawings to teach you the strengths…

SSD RAID Load Testing Results from a Dell PowerEdge R720

Last Updated December 9, 2018

Brent Ozar

Hardware, Load Testing, Storage

159

We’ve got a client that does big batch jobs every day, loading hundreds of gigabytes of data or more in short bursts. They were frustrated with slow performance on the batch jobs, and after we performed our SQL Critical Care® with ’em, it was really clear that their hardware was the bottleneck. They were using…

Many Masters, One Truth

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Jeremiah Peschka

Architecture, Replication

As businesses grow, many teams start considering scale out database solutions but they’re cautious – they want to know how to keep data up to date in multiple places. In theory, you can use log shipping, mirroring, or AlwaysOn Availability groups. While this answers the literal question, what people really mean is usually very different.…

Possibly Broken Log Shipping

Last Updated July 27, 2020

Brent Ozar

Transaction log shipping is an easy (and usually bulletproof) way of preparing a disaster recovery server ahead of time. The subscriber continuously restores transaction log backups from the production server. To find this problem, we look for databases in a restoring state that haven’t had a log backup applied in the last 2 days, possibly…

(Almost) Everything You Need to Know About SQL Server 2014

Last Updated June 3, 2013

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

Just when you thought SQL Server couldn’t get better, Microsoft is announcing the features for SQL Server 2014. They haven’t announced the licensing/pricing, but I’ll tell you what I do know so far. First, open this in another tab and hit play so you’ve got some background music while you read. Done with the commercial? Okay, let’s…

Cloud Alternatives to Microsoft SQL Server

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cloud Computing, SQL Server

When people say “cloud”, they’re simplifying a lot of different solutions into a single catchphrase. Let’s break out the different options and compare them. 1. SQL Server in Amazon EC2 and Azure VMs Amazon EC2 is a virtualization platform. Amazon buys servers, installs their secret sauce software, and rents you Windows virtual machines by the…

Choosing a Presentation Tool

Last Updated March 29, 2013

Brent Ozar

Writing and Presenting

If your New Year’s resolution is to start presenting at user groups and conferences, congratulations! You’re about to embark on a fulfilling journey that will enrich the lives of thousands of people. It’s a blast. Now let’s put some thought into the tool you’re going to use. You’re going to be working on these same…

Databases Five Years from Today

Last Updated April 24, 2018

Brent Ozar

Architecture

Five years from now, in March 2018, what will be different about databases? I’m a Microsoft SQL Server guy, so keep that in mind when reading my thoughts. Looking Back at 2008-2013 The big story here for me was virtualization. In mid-2008, Microsoft added support for SQL Server running under Hyper-V, and later they added…

7 Things Developers Should Know About SQL Server

Last Updated April 3, 2022

Brent Ozar

Development, SQL Server

163

Hi. I’m a former developer who’s moved into database administration, and here’s what I wish somebody would have told me when I got started. 7. SQL functions rarely perform well. Good developers like to reuse code by putting it into functions, and then calling those functions from multiple places. That’s a great practice in the…

SQL Server Failover Clusters

Last Updated July 25, 2017

Brent Ozar

Microsoft SQL Server Failover Clusters The options for high availability can get confusing, and we bet you’re having a hard time finding simple information on what a cluster does and the most common gotchas when planning a cluster. In these articles, we’ll explain what clusters are, what they’re good for, and why we like to…

Search Results for “disaster recovery”

Hi! I’m Brent Ozar.