If you run Quest Litespeed backups I have the blog post for you! I have a job that I created that uses Database Mail and my Litespeed Central database. It spits out a email in HTML format that tells of any backups that failed for any server the day before...

I'm happy to announce just the launch of the new Training Videos section here . As a flavor of things to come we kick off the section with one introductory video on Installing SQL Server and a more advanced video on Policy Based Management . We should...

As someone who works in IT, I get to see a lot of different technologies. Often I talk about technology as a life changing tool, such as the ability to access e-mail anywhere or being able to talk to people on the other side of the world. However, is...

Over the last few days I have been driving along the coast of western America from San Francisco to Seattle. I have made it about 70 percent of the way and I am writing this article from a ski lodge in Lake Diamond. Along the way I have been listening...

Earlier in the week I wrote about the adoption of SQL Server 2008. One of the biggest reasons that often limits the adoption of a Microsoft product is the release of the first service pack. Many companies have a policy that they will not even look at...

In the enterprise, Windows Vista is yet to gain a foothold. Many customers are reluctant to install Vista for various reasons and as a result they are still running Windows XP. Microsoft staunchly recommends that when patches are released, such as XP...

A conversation that I have with a lot of people is around the reasons to upgrade from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008. The problem is that a lot of organisations run Standard Edition and have no compelling reason or need for Enterprise Edition. Much...

If you were to look at the adoption curve, you would see that I am sitting way out on the left, meaning that I am often prepared to put up with buggy software and other strange quirks all to try version one of a new product. I owned my first cell phone...

Something that I am a big advocate of is ongoing professional development. Like many people who are in the IT profession, I went to university in order to be educated and receive formal qualifications. The problem is that this education experience could...

One of the things I enjoy about travel is the ability to experience things that you do not see in your day-to-day environment, for example, waking up to a view of the Eiffel Tower in the distance or watching the sunset over the Grand Canyon. I have been...

Reconfiguring the hardware or software on the server is a big job and you wouldn't attempt to perform the task on day-to-day basis or even not in your life time. Here is the detailed steps that are involved in this mammoth task refer to this post...

I have written a few times about what DBAs do and what their job role is. I actually think that people not knowing what DBAs do is a good thing. You see people only identify with what DBAs do when there are issues. When there is an issue with a database...

I have to admit that I am partial to watching the occasional episode of the British chef Nigella Lawson . One of the first things my wife had installed when we moved house last year was an LCD TV in the kitchen so that she could watch TV; however, I use...

It's Friday. For many of us this means a long lunch and then finishing early to head to the nearest drinking establishment. In Australia finishing up early on a Friday afternoon at beer o'clock is a long-standing tradition in many organizations...

Over the last few weeks I have been doing quite a bit of work with MySQL. I have worked almost predominately with SQL Server since I started as a DBA with little patches of Oracle development to break up the monotony. However, I would consider my Oracle...