Author: Nisarg Upadhyay

Nisarg is a SQL Server Database Administrator and Microsoft certified professional who has more than 5 years of experience with SQL Server administration and 2 years with Oracle 10g database administration. He has expertise in database design, performance tuning, backup and recovery, HA and DR setup, database migrations and upgrades. He has completed the Bachelors in Information Technology from Ganpat University.

Configure SQL Jobs in SQL Server using T-SQL

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SQL Server Agent is a component used for the database tasks automation. For instance, we need to perform Index maintenance on Production servers during the non-business hours only. So, we create a SQL Server job of running index maintenance and schedule it for “off” hours.

When we install SQL Server, the SQL Server Agent service is disabled. First, we enable it and start it manually. Then, we configure the SQL Server job, using SQL Server Management Studio and the system stored procedures of the MSDB database.

This article explains how to create a SQL Server Job using the system stored procedures of the MSDB database.

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Configure Database Mirroring in SQL Server

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Database mirroring is a SQL Server high availability solution provided by Microsoft, with the following components.

  1. Principal database server: a source database that you configure for the mirroring.   
  2. Mirror database server: a destination database that you must restore with NORECOVERY. Ideally, a mirrored database should be on a separate server.
  3. Witness Server: an optional component that you can set up to configure the mirror with automatic failover.
  4. Endpoint: the communication medium used by the principal and mirror server. The mirror listens on port number 5022; however, you can change it during the configuration.
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Different Ways to Monitor SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups

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In my previous articles, I have explained the step-by-step process of deploying an AlwaysOn Availability group on SQL Server 2017. In this article, I am going to explain how to monitor AlwaysOn availability groups.

First, let’s review the configuration of the availability group we had deployed previously. To do that, open SQL Server Management Studio Expand database engine from the object explorer Expand “AlwaysOn High Availability” Expand “Availability Groups.” You can see the availability group named SQLAAG. Under this availability group (SQLAAG), you can see the list of availability replicas, availability databases, and availability group listeners. Read More

SQL Server High availability: Install SQL Server failover clustered instance Part 2

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In my previous article, I have explained the step-by-step process of installing SQL Server Failover Clustered Instance. In this article, I will explain how to add a secondary node to the existing failover clustered instance.

Install SQL Server Failover Cluster instance

Once SQL Server is installed on an SQL01.dc.Local node, connect to SQL02.dc.Local and run setup.exe – SQL Server installation wizard opens. In the wizard, select “Installation” from the panel on the left and click on “Add node to a SQL Server failover cluster”. See the following image:

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SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups: Installation and configuration, Part 2

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In my previous article, I have explained the process of installing and creating a failover cluster and how to enable the AlwaysOn availability group.

In this article, I am going to explain the step-by-step deployment process of SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability groups using wizards. The deployment configurations look the following way:

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SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups: Installation and configuration, Part 1

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In this article, I will explain the process of installing pre-requisites to deploy the SQL Server AlwaysOn availability group.

For the demonstration, I have prepared a demo set up at my work station. See the following components:

Virtual Machine Host Name Purpose
Domain Controller DC.Local The domain controller is installed on this machine
Primary Replica SQL01.DC.Local This machine acts as a Primary replica in the Availability group
Secondary Replica SQL02.DC.Local This machine acts as a Secondary replica in the Availability group. This replica is in a Synchronous commit mode
Secondary Replica with SQL03.DC.Local This machine acts as a secondary replica in the Availability group. This replica is in an Asynchronous commit mode

I will explain the following actions:

  1. Installing a failover clustering role
  2. Create a failover cluster
  3. Enable AlwaysOn availability group features in SQL Server

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How to install SQL Server vNext and Azure data studio on Ubuntu 18.04

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Azure data studio is a cross-platform database management tool. This tool is used to connect, configure, and administrate SQL Server instances installed locally or in the cloud. This tool can be installed on the following operating systems:

  1. Microsoft Windows
  2. Linux
    • Redgate
    • Debian
    • Ubuntu
  3. macOS

Initially, Microsoft introduced this tool as the “SQL Server operations studio.” Later they renamed it Azure Data Studio. You can get more information about it here.

In this article, I am going to explain the step-by-step installation process of SQL Server 2017 and Azure data studio on Ubuntu. I have divided the article into two parts. Firstly, we will install SQL Server 2017, and later I will explain the process of installing Azure Data Studio. For demonstration purposes, I have created a virtual machine and installed Ubuntu 18.04 on it. You can download Ubuntu here. Read More

Move System Databases in the SQL Server Failover Cluster

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Recently, I was assigned to a project – our customer purchased a new SAN, and they wanted us to replace the old one with a new SAN. User and system databases utilized SAN, meanwhile, the operating system and SQL were installed on the server’s local disks. Lucky us..!! The idea was to move the existing user and system databases to a new SAN and keep the downtime as minimum as possible. So, to minimize the downtime, instead of reinstalling OS and SQL, we decided to use the following approach.

  1. Attach a new SAN to an existing server, create new drives on it, and add those drives to an existing failover cluster instance.
  2. Stop SQL Server, copy master, model, and msdb databases on new drives and start the SQL services.
  3. Move User databases to new drives and remove the old SAN.

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SQL Server High availability: Add new disk to an existing failover cluster instance

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In my previous article, I have explained the step-by-step process of installing a node in existing SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance. Along with that, I have also demonstrated manual failover and automatic failover.

In this article, I am going to demonstrate the process of adding a disk in a failover cluster and then move the existing database to a new drive. Read More