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Thoughts on Data Masking
Often times, production data needs to be moved to different environments for testing/developing purposes. However, some of that data can be people’s name, birthday, address, account number, etc., that we don’t want testers and/or developers to see, due to privacy and regulatory concerns. Hence the need to mask those data. I can certainly see this […]
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Sql Server database mirroring automatic failover verification
Starting with Sql Server 2005, Sql Server provides an interesting high availability option at individual database level, called database mirroring. When configured in high availability mode (principal, mirror, and witness), provided that: 1. Failover Partner information is supplied in the connection string; 2. Application code knows to retry database operations; then automatic fail over will […]
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Notes on analyzing a user minidump with WinDbg
One of my students’ Sql Server 2000 SP4 crashed. I volunteered to see if I could get anything out of it by looking at the dump file with WinDbg. A few notes: 1. The processor or Windows version that the dump file was created on does not need to match the platform on which WinDbg […]
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Resource database has been moved to a new location in Sql Server 2008
A new resource database was introduced in Sql Server 2005, and it is still with us in Sql Server 2008. In both editions, you will not be able to see it via Sql Server Management Studio. This hidden database is required. Without it, Sql Server cannot start. In Sql Server 2005, mssqlsystemresource.mdf and mssqlsystemresource.ldf are […]
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What does syspolicy_purge_history job do
After a brand new Sql Server 2008 installation or upgrade from a previous version, a job will be created during the installation/upgrade process: syspolicy_purge_history. What does it do? Before answering that question, here is a little background. Sql Server 2008 introduced a new feature called Policy Management. For example, one could define a policy that […]