Merrill Aldrich : disaster recovery

SSMS 2012 Restore GUI Gotcha

merrillaldrich — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 16:30:07 GMT

Today I want to bring to your attention an issue in the SQL Server Management Studio 2012 restore GUI. In many ways the new restore dialog is nicer than the old one, with new features and added convenience – but, as is always the Achilles heel of GUI...(read more)

T-SQL Tuesday #19: Blind Spots

merrillaldrich — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 05:31:59 GMT

A while ago I wrote a post, Visualize Disaster , prompted by a real incident we had at my office. Fortunately we came through it OK from a business point of view, but I took away an important lesson: it’s very easy, whether your organization and your...(read more)

Scandalous II: Shh! I am De-duplicating Compressed Backups

merrillaldrich — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 05:01:50 GMT

This is part II of two Scandalous posts . Watch, mouth agape, as I run with scissors, right up against prevailing wisdom! Unfollow me now, before it’s too late! Here’s the thing. There are two really outstanding posts out there on the ‘tubez that explain...(read more)

Visualize Disaster

merrillaldrich — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 05:21:00 GMT

Or, How Mirroring Off-Site Saved my #Bacon My company does most things right. Our management is very supportive, listens and generally funds the technology that makes sense for the best interest of the organization. We have good redundancy, HA and disaster...(read more)

Pop Quiz: Restore a Database to the Point in Time when a Full Backup Started?

merrillaldrich — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 18:26:00 GMT

Recently we've had to interview some SQL Server DBA candidates for our team, and we were looking for the type of open-ended technical questions that would draw out interviewees and let us get a sense of their thought process. A surprisingly simple question...(read more)

Don't get burned by replication of SQL Server files

merrillaldrich — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:45:00 GMT

Here's a tidbit for those who might have SQL server in their environments, maybe without knowing all the nitty gritty low-down: if you try to use file system replication (robocopy, xcopy, repli-whatever) to maintain a DR server from your production SQL...(read more)