Midnight DBA

Would you like to work with the SQL Server error logs in Powershell? Well here I'm gonna show you how. Not only do we pull in the current log, but I also show you how to get all of the historical logs for all the instances on the server as well. Good stuff.

Here I show you how to use the Carrier Method for using powershell to cycle all your error logs. This is an excellent way to get started using powershell, and I use it even though I know it fairly well.

Just returning from London and having missed filming last week, we're excited to be back. We talk about weather cams, teaching techs pride in their work, and the new SQL Server 2012 cert exams. And much more.

Today we start by talking about security vs. the appearance of security. And surprise, we talk about Sean hating devs and is mad at his SAN guy. And there's so much more.

Kaylan Yella brings us another excellent session, this time on the largest SQL installs. If you've ever wanted to have some ammo for those people in your office who blame the bad DB performance on some sort of SQL Server threshold instead of their bad coding, then here it is. Kal shows us what the best in the world are doing with SQL Server and trust me, your install is nowhere close to reaching a threshold.

We're back and on the tail of Sean's plague. This week we've got some fabulous stuff. Jen does a demo of FileTable in Denali, and Sean has a couple nice rants. We talk about a vendor who wants Sean to just shut up and do what he's told, and a great skit about disk space. We're feeling good this week so come join in the fun.

Well, we're here at the MVP Summit in Seattle. We stole a conference room at the hotel in the middle of the night to bring this show to you.

Every now and then you come across something you don't want to deal with that you're forced to handle in your SSIS packages. Here I'll discuss techniques for handling the Sql_variant data type in your packages so your data loads properly.

We've got a fabulous debacle with ShrinkDB as well as a nice powershell to add users to a bunch of servers. There's a lot more too.

You may have occasion to change the job step properties on multiple agent jobs and here I show you how. The possibilities are almost endless here and I explore a few of them with you. You can see the full script in the accompanying blog post: <a href="http://www.midnightdba.com/DBARant/?p=791">http://www.midnightdba.com/DBARant/?p=791</a>

Here I get into an elegant method for giving users a report that has a dynamic distribution list. As DBAs we don't want to be in the business of managing DLs, so here we're going to use a data-driven subscription to put DL management back in the users' hands.

One of the most common questions I get is how to deploy reports in SSRS. Here I show you pretty much everything you need to know to put your reports on the server.

This week we say goodbye to one of our favorite characters. We also have a great demo on data-driven subscriptions in SSRS and talk about security and lots of other stuff. Another great show in the can.

Tonight we have a very big announcement and we catch poor Itzik by surprise with it. We also have a quick ceremony and afterwards we discuss cluster disks, and we have a big discussion about sa rights and the people allowed to have them.

This is the first of a series to teach you how to think like and become an enterprise DBA. The skills and the mindset are different when you're managing hundreds of servers.