🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Storage & Capacity A SQL Server that runs out of disk stops taking writes, and depending on which volume filled up, that can mean suspended databases, a frozen transaction log, or failed backups at exactly the wrong moment. Disk space is the least…
Testing connectivity to remote server ports is a basic skill every DBA should have. Not just DBAs either, anyone running production systems needs to be able to answer one simple question quickly: Can this server actually reach that server on this port? This post shows two reliable ways to test whether a remote port is…
🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Performance & Troubleshooting › Query & Performance Tuning When users report the application is slow, the first question is always the same: what is actually running right now? Not what ran an hour ago, not what the plan cache thinks is expensive on…
When troubleshooting connectivity issues, it’s often not enough to test whether a remote port is reachable. You also need to know what is actually listening on a port locally, or whether anything is listening at all. This post focuses on the local side of the equation, what is listening on the machine itself and which…
🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Maintenance & Automation › Index Maintenance Every time SQL Server builds an execution plan that could have been improved with a better index, it makes a note of it. Those notes accumulate in memory and are queryable through the sys.dm_db_missing_index_* DMVs, and combined…
Knowing when a database was last restored is useful during incident response, audits, and general environment validation. This is not about backup schedules or restore progress.It is a simple historical check that answers one question: When was this database last restored? This post shows a reliable way to retrieve the most recent restore date and…
🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Maintenance & Automation › Index Maintenance Index fragmentation checks are usually written for one database at a time, which is fine until you inherit an instance with forty databases and no idea which of them has been skipping maintenance. Running a per-database script…
🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Security The One Login You Actually Care About Right Now Most permissions checks answer a broad question: who has sysadmin, what roles exist, what’s granted where. Useful for a periodic audit, but not what you reach for when someone asks “why does Sarah…
Deleting large volumes of data from a SQL Server table looks simple, but it can cause real problems if done carelessly. A single large DELETE can: When you’re cleaning up historical data or running routine maintenance, deleting rows in batches is usually the safest and most predictable approach. This post shows a simple, production-safe pattern…
🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Performance & Troubleshooting › Query & Performance Tuning When a SQL Server is struggling and the usual suspects (CPU, memory, blocking) come back clean, the next question is always the same: which database is hammering the disks? On a busy instance hosting ten…
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