Hardening and protecting your SQL Server environment is not a one-and-done task. It’s a continuous process. Things change. New Applications are added. Logins come and go. Servers are migrated. In such a dynamic environment, auditing data access in your SQL Server environment is critical. If you are responsible for SQL Servers, you likely ask: Who…
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You’re cleaning up some old usernames in a database. The users are no longer needed so you want to drop them and maybe even the server login. You issue the standard DROP USER username; command in the query editor and it immediately comes back with Msg 15138, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 The database…
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Phishing attacks account for more than 80% of all security incidents according to this CSO article Top cybersecurity facts, figures and statistics. And the resulting data breaches cost an average of $3.92 million. With security incidents and data breaches making the news daily, it’s important to secure your networks, including your SQL Servers. That’s not…
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One of the first things we look at when doing a SQL Server Assessment (Health Check) is the SQL Server version and patch level. We don’t stop there, of course. We check a ton of other things that can affect the SQL Server’s performance, its security, and its reliability. But we start with the version…
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If your company uses SQL Server Reporting Services as part of it reporting infrastructure, you’ve probably been asked “What SSRS reports does this user subscribe to?” Often that’s due to a job or role change in the company. Sally is leaving the department and Jonathan is taking over her responsibilities. All of Sally’s reports now…
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SQL Server. Many business depend on it. But how can you tell if your SQL Server is healthy? It’s not always obvious. SQL Server can be pretty forgiving in many ways, until it’s not. And that can put your performance and even your data at risk. The right configuration settings are critical. Unfortunately, it’s easy…
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“What’s the difference in SQL Server FCIs and AGs?” That question comes up frequently when talking High Availability and Disaster Recovery (HADR). It’s especially important when “Everything stops and people can’t do their jobs if SQL Server is unavailable.” There are a lot of how-to articles on the internet for setting up Always On Failover…
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When SQL Server is not as fast as users think it ought to be, how can you tell where the slowdown is? Where’s the performance bottleneck? Where’s the traffic jam? Is it waiting on CPU? Does it needs memory? What about the disks? Could SQL Server be slow because of disk latency? Could be. But…
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You’ve manually started DBCC CHECKDB to verify the integrity of a database. It churns. And churns. You check the Messages tab on Management Studio. Nothing. So, you start to wonder: Just how much longer will CHECKDB take to complete? A couple of minutes? A couple of hours? Who knows? How long will DBCC CHECKDB take?…
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If a user is a member of db_datareader, which grants access to a table, and db_denydatareader, which denies access to a table, which role will take precedent? That’s the question someone on LinkedIn recently posted in the SQL Server Administrators group recently. Here’s a link to the question. The LinkedIn poster essentially wanted to know…
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