Monthly Archives: February 2011

Don’t Be Afraid of Windows Failover Clustering!

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Glenn Berry

One of the more exciting features in SQL Server code-named “Denali” (which is the current official name for the next major version of SQL Server) is called SQL Server AlwaysOn, which Microsoft describes like this: The new SQL Server AlwaysOn … Continue reading →

Posted in SQL Server Denali | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Some Suggested SQL Server 2008 R2 Instance Configuration Settings

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Glenn Berry

Depending on your anticipated workload and which SQL Server components you have installed, there are a number of instance level settings that you should consider changing from their default values. These include Max Server Memory, optimize for ad-hoc workloads,  default … Continue reading →

Posted in SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2 | Tagged | 28 Comments

New SQL Server 2005 Cumulative Updates

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Glenn Berry

Microsoft has released two new Cumulative Updates for SQL Server 2005. The first one is SQL Server 2005 SP3 CU14, which is Build 9.00.4317. The second one is SQL Server 2005 SP4 CU2, which is Build 9.00.5259. There are only … Continue reading →

Posted in SQL Server 2005 | Tagged | 2 Comments

New Version of CPU-Z (1.57) has Been Released

Posted on February 20, 2011 by Glenn Berry

On February 18, Franck Delattre released version 1.57 of the very useful CPU-Z Utility. Here is a list of the new features: Intel Xeon “Westmere-EX” support GPU frequency report on Intel Sandy Bridge processor AMD Zacate/Ontario processors support Report TDP … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Hardware | Tagged | 1 Comment

Is CPU-Z Risky To Run on a Production Server?

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Glenn Berry

There was a conversation on Twitter recently (with the #sqlhelp hashtag) about whether it was completely safe to run the popular CPU-Z utility on a Production database server. The questioner was concerned about possible instability or even a Blue Screen … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Hardware | Tagged | 12 Comments

How to Interpret SELECT @@VERSION in SQL Server

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Glenn Berry

One common point of confusion that I often see when people run the SELECT @@VERSION query is how to properly understand the results that are returned. I have seen many people mix up the SQL Server portion of the results … Continue reading →

Posted in SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2 | Tagged | 3 Comments

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Released and Installed

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Glenn Berry

Microsoft has made Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (and Windows 7 SP1) available on MSDN and TechNet earlier today. They are using the Akamai Download Manager for these, and I was able to download them very quickly with … Continue reading →

Posted in Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Recent AMD Processor News

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Glenn Berry

AMD has released five new specific models in their Opteron 6100 series line. Of these, the one you should be interested in (from a performance viewpoint) is the 2.5GHz twelve-core Opteron 6180 SE, which becomes the new top of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Hardware | Tagged , | 1 Comment

SQL Server and the “Lock pages in memory” Right in Windows Server

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Glenn Berry

Another Windows setting you might want to enable is “Lock pages in memory”. There is some controversy within the SQL Server community and within Microsoft about whether and when you should enable this setting. Before you decide whether you want … Continue reading →

Posted in SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2 | Tagged | 58 Comments

Presentation Slides For Hardware 201 at SQLSaturday #66 in Colorado Springs

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Glenn Berry

I will be giving my Hardware 201: Selecting and Sizing Hardware for OLTP Performance presentation at SQLSaturday #66 at 1:30PM today in Colorado Springs. Here is the abstract: The foundation of database performance is the underlying server hardware and storage … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Hardware, Teaching | Tagged | Leave a comment