Cláudio Silva's Blog

Answering Questions On Dropped Columns

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Howdy folks! Long time no write.

In this post, I will be answering a couple of questions from the previous posts about dropping columns.

A quick refresh

If you haven’t read the previous posts on this topic, here is the list:

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How much space can I expect to recover from a rebuild after dropping a column?

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 10:00:00 +0000

In my last article - Identify Tables With Dropped Columns - we saw how we can identify tables that have columns that were dropped.
Today, we are going to check a way to approximately calculate how much space we can expect to recover if we rebuild our table.

If you want to read the 1st article I published on this subject, you can read it here - What happens when we drop a column on a SQL Server table? Where’s my space?

Identify Tables With Dropped Columns

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 10:00:00 +0000

On my last article - What happens when we drop a column on a SQL Server table? Where’s my space? - I have shown what happens when we drop a column from a table.
Today, we are going to check if we have a way to find tables with dropped columns.

Why?

As we learnt, when we drop a column this is just a metadata operation and won’t clear the space that was being used. You may be asking - Do I have more tables with dropped columns that I’m not aware of? - And that is a legit question.
Let’s see how we can achieve this.

What happens when we drop a column on a SQL Server table? Where's my space?

Wed, 29 May 2024 11:00:00 +0000

This article was initially posted on SQLServerCentral @ 2024-04-26.

Short answer: The column is marked as ‘deleted’ and will stop being visible/usable.
But, most importantly - The record/table size will remain unchanged.

A metadata operation

Dropping a column is a metadata/logical operation, not a physical one. This means that the data isn’t removed/overwritten by this action.

If we were talking about deleting data (records), as Paul Randal mentions here :

Check Azure SQL DB Space Used

Thu, 02 May 2024 11:00:00 +0000

A couple of days ago I was doing some cleaning on some Azure SQL DBs and shrinking some files to lower the bill.
To check my progress I needed to check the size before/after the task in an easy way for multiple Azure SQL DBs.

Check Azure SQL DB storage space for 1 database

If you need to check the storage space being used by 1 Azure SQL DB, that is as easy as jumping on the portal, select the desired database and you can find the information in the Overview. This is shown below.

Query Store: How to open multiple instances of the 'Tracked Queries' dashboard

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

At the beginning of this week, I shared how you can Search for queries with Query Store GUI .

Today I want to share something, Query Store related, that bugged me for awhile and a workaround to overcome it.

NOTE: This happens at least until SSMS v19.3 (most recent version of SSMS at the time of this writing). Let’s see what newer versions bring us.

Multiple instances of the same dashboard

When you navigate through Query Store dashboards, it can become handy open two instances of the same dashboard but with a different time range, or different aggreagations or even a different metric so you can do a quick compare.

Search for queries with Query Store GUI

Mon, 29 Jan 2024 09:30:00 +0000

Hey folks, long time no write!

Today I want to bring a tip that I use every week but I found that most SSMS users are unaware it exists.
I can understand why! At the moment this isn’t the most obvious and user-friendly option. However, it can and hopefully it will improve in the future.

“But…What is it?”

I’m talking about using the Query Store GUI to search for some portion of text used in a T-SQL query and, with that, find a query that you want to analyze within it.

dbatools - Exceptions

Tue, 07 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Who doesn’t like a good red and verbose exception?

At PowerShell community we often call it a “sea of red” which we found as something that can be intimidating. The bigger the error message the more problematic it is? :-)

We don’t think so! That’s why we, within dbatools project, try to keep the output of the exceptions more user friendly and try to give the direct error message to you. No line numbers or stack traces to confuse you.

dbatools - rich datatypes

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Some datatypes can be shown in so many different forms (think measurament units, dates with short/long forms, or regional settings) that can be difficult to have a standard.

What should we show? Sizes should be always in bytes? It will be easier for you to interpret 1610612736 bytes or 1.50 GB?

That’s why we have created some rich datatypes like, DbaTime, DbaDate, DbaDatetime, DbaTimeSpan, PrettyTimeSpan or DbaSize to make it easier to read and be more consistent acrross multiple commands.

A (big) SQLPackage caveat

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Context

I had a request to help with a database from a third-party vendor which uses a lot of FullText-Search (FTS) catalogs. I have to say that I just have played a handful of times with FTS, mostly in a didactic way, and not so much in the perspective of a production system and its maintenance.

Long story short, this client had a couple of problems in the past with FTS. Sometimes it wasn’t being populated as expected, other times it was giving errors that indicate the catalog has problems.

Recover database encrypted modules code with dbatools

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This article was initially posted on SQLServerCentral @ 2020-08-18. It was interesting some comments I read about it, mainly why people still use WITH ENCRYPTION when it’s simple to overcome this when we have the right permissions.

SQL Server offers an option to encrypt the code of your modules when using the WITH ENCRYPTION syntax. This allows to hide/obfuscate the modules’ code and thus keep away from prying eyes. It’s often used to protect business rules since it allows you to protect some intellectual property.

When one of your DBA colleagues leaves the company, what is your checklist?

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Whether it’s in our personal lives or the professional one, we do have checklists for certain tasks.

On the professional level, it can be purely technical like SQL Server installation, configuration or even uninstall, but they can also be not so technical like when a colleague join the team and someone needs to request permissions to access the company’s tools (such as ticketing/incidents/VPN/etc).

What about when a colleague leaves the company?

What is your checklist for this situation? At first, and the most obvious is to “rollback” the things done when that person joined the company. For instance:

Generate SQL Server Role Member Reports using dbatools and ImportExcel PowerShell modules

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This was initial posted on SQL Server Central articles .

As one of dbatools’ first members, I’ve been using it for years and it’s really my goto tool. This task was no different!

Today’s tip and trick using dbatools is about generating an Excel workbook that contains lists of SQL Server roles and its members.

The Usefulness of these Reports

These reports are especially useful when performing tech-refreshes (migrating from an old version to a newer one) and you want to do some housekeeping. For example, finding logins that should be part of a role and they are not. Once you know there are problems, you decided to do a double-check on the whole list.

TSQL Tuesday 127 - Non SQL Tips and Tricks - Windows

Tue, 09 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This month’s (#127) T-SQL Tuesday is brought by B | T ) and he asked about Non SQL Tips and tricks.

As a Windows user I know there are lots of shortcuts and small hacks, that I love, which make my life much easier! Here is my small contribution:

Windows tips & tricks and shortcuts

WIN + X -> to access a lot of management stuff in a quick way
WIN + V -> If you looking for a clipboard manager (keep multiple entries) since Windows 10 (build 1809) we can have it natively. However, I keep using ClipX .
WIN + [0-9] -> The number is linked to the position of the apps on your taskbar.
WIN + . -> Big fan of emoticons? Select one from this list
Open PowerShell (or cmd) console from a windows explorer window. How many times have you wanted to jump to the PowerShell console already on a specific folder that you have already open on the windows explorer? Just type on the address bar “PowerShell” and a new PowerShell session will open right on that location.

Open “Add or Remove programs”

A way to open the “Add or Remove programs” menu quicker, you can SHIFT + DEL on the shortcut (example: Docker Desktop) on desktop and the prompt popup will have there a link to this option.

Backup your SQL instances configurations to GIT with dbatools - Part 2 - Add parallelism

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We have seen how we can export and save the results to a folder and commit them to a GIT repository on my last blog post Backup your SQL instances configurations to GIT with dbatools – Part 1 . At the end of that post, I have mentioned that I would write about how we can lower down the execution times of our script by leveraging on parallelism.

Going parallel

When we need to manage dozens of servers/instances, even with automated scripts sometimes we would like that our script finishes faster. There are multiple reasons that a sequential (one-by-one) run takes longer. Few examples I have hit in the past:

Backup your SQL instances configurations to GIT with dbatools - Part 1

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Today I want to share how I’m keeping a copy of instances’ configurations using dbatools .

Chrissy LeMaire ( B | T ) wrote about it before on the Simplifying disaster recovery with dbatools blog post. In this post, I will add one step and save the output on a GIT repository.

Pre-requirements

You need a GIT repository
GIT tools installed on the server where you are running the script so you can commit your changes
dbatools
A list or a place to get all instances that you want to run the export

Preparation

Git repository

Clone your repository to a location where dbatools can write to.

Replicate permissions to new Login/User with dbatools

Thu, 28 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Continuing to share tips and tricks using dbatools like the Refresh databases that belongs to availability group using dbatools posted a few days ago, today I will share a way to export the permissions of a login/user at instance/database level and apply them to a new login/user.

The typical request

Client: “We have a new colleague, can you please grant them the exact same permissions I have?!”

A quick note/suggestion that may help minimize your work: If we are talking about a Windows Login, please suggest the use of AD groups to help you (so that you don’t need to do this process) and also them (they don’t need to make this request).

Export Deadlocks to file from system_health Extended Event using PowerShell

Mon, 25 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Just a quick post as may help any of you searching for this.

Scenario

Client wants to analyze most recent deadlocks that happened on a specific instance. They asked us to send the xdl files.

How do we get the deadlocks?

Depending on the version of SQL Server that you are running, there are different ways to do it. In this post I will share how you can do it from all files that belongs to the system_health extended event session. (Not only the current file). This works on SQL Server 2012 or higher version. For a better overview I recommend you to read the What are SQL Server deadlocks and how to monitor them article from SQLShack.

Refresh databases that belongs to Availability Group using dbatools

Wed, 20 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Few days ago I was surfing on Twitter when dbatools asked about how it’s PowerShell module changed the way people work .

Open and check the answers given by the community as there is really good stuff there!

My turn

I have shared one of my recipes related to database refreshes. You know, when the client says, “please restore this backup or the most recent backup on our instance.”. But what if the databases belong to an availability group? It’s not as simple as a standalone installation.

T-SQL Copy & Paste Pattern - Increasing a performance problem

Fri, 21 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Disclaimer: The title is my assumption because I saw it in the past happening this way.

This blog post aims to make you remember something: something that is obvious to you, might not be obvious to others.

Scenario

A client has a process which consists of a stored procedure that wraps a bunch of other stored procedures. The process runs for about 10 hours.

Taking a look…what is running right now?

I was curious about the process, I’ve seen this running before but never explored the code. After a couple of days of seeing it running for so long, I decided to see what would be the random query I would get executing.

Change Outlook sender mailbox with PowerShell - A workaround

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The idea of this blog post, like many others I write, is to document a workaround solution to my problem. Hopefully I can also help someone that may be looking for the solution for this problem and stumbles accidentally (or not) on my blog.

Scenario

I was helping a colleague automating the creation of emails using Microsoft Outlook using PowerShell. The following are configurable options (these will be the parameters of the script):

Temporarily enable TLS 1.0/1.1? - Be sure you check this keys

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

There are some actions that we know that will have to be repeated from time to time, but the surprise comes when it’s time to do so and the process that used to work does not work anymore.

This is a short post to document a slight change that I had to do to achieve the same final result as the first time.

Long story short

A client needed to run a setup to install an application. This setup uses a utility called minisql.exe to test database connection. The problem is that this utility only works with TLS 1.0/1.1 and, on our systems, we only have TLS 1.2 enabled.

More PowerShell Remoting coverage in dbatools

Tue, 20 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Starting on dbatools version 1.0.31 we introduced better coverage for commands that make use of PowerShell Remoting.

Which commands?

Commands like Get-DbaComputerCertificate, Get-DbaPrivilege, Get-DbaClientAlias, just to mention a few of them, make use of the internal function Invoke-Command2 which uses New-PSSession when we run it against a remote computer.

“Why have you changed it?”

Let me give you a little bit of background… At my company, I found that some dbatools commands were not working. They were returning errors related with WinRM configurations, as seen here when attempting to create a new session using New-PSSession:

Allow SQL Server Agent jobs management for non sysadmins

Tue, 13 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t know about your experience when it comes to SQL Server Agent jobs but often I receive requests to grant permission so that clients can handle their jobs in an autonomous way.

Any problem with that?

It depends 😄 If you’re not familiarized with the difficulty this can bring, let me share with you a different way to accomplish the task without adding the login to the sysadmin instance role. I’m sure that you don’t want to do that on a production instance. The next possible way is to make the login as the owner of the job and it needs to belong to one of the msdb fixed database roles ! You can take a look at this documentation and see the matrix there for each role.

dbatools v1.0? It's available - Check it out!

Wed, 19 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Dear reader, before continue please open a PowerShell console and run the following command:

Install-Module -Name dbatools

If you are doing this on the date of this blog post, you have just installed dbatools v1.0!

After more than 200 commits, the work of more than 20 contributors and 20 days since the last published version, dbatools v1.0 is live!

To all of you that have contributed direct or indirectly to the module a big thank you!

'Ups...I have deleted some data. Can you put it back?' - dbatools for the rescue

Fri, 17 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Few days ago I received a request to restore a dozen of tables because someone have deleted more data than it was supposed. I immediately thought about dbatools for the job!

NOTE: I also thought about SSMS “Import/Export Data”. And this is ok when someone says “it’s to run just once, just now”. When you are in the IT for a while you know that is not only once :-). And what if I need to re-run? Or save it as example and share with my colleagues? Doing this using a PowerShell script makes it much more flexible.

Scripting SQL Server objects with dbatools - Beyond default options

Wed, 15 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Probably you had the need to script out some objects from a SQL Server instance/database and this is quite easy. You just need to right click on the object (well…not on every single one, try it with an Availability Group :-), no script option available) select “Script XXXX as” and you have it.

But have you realized that this option doesn’t bring all the stuff? Let’s say you are scripting a table and you have a Non-Clustered index or a trigger…using this option some of the objects under the table will not be scripted out. I understand this as each one of this is a different object, which means if you go to each one you can right click and script just that one.

Access is denied - Using DTCPing utility between two Windows Server 2016

Fri, 10 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Few days ago a client requested the configuration of MSDTC (Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator).

NOTE: If you want to know more about it here is a nice FAQ from Microsoft blogs - MSDTC Recommendations on SQL Failover Cluster ?

The client has 2 machines: one an application server and one a database server.

Both run on Windows Server 2016 OS and, the database server runs SQL Server 2016 using Availability Groups feature (where their databases resides).

SSMS GUI not working? Try to use T-SQL!

Fri, 29 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

One of the good things, when we have new clients, is that sometimes they have needs that you never heard before. This does not necessarily mean that they are complex. As a matter of fact, they can be really simple..now the question is..are they doable? :-)

From my experience, this can happen mainly because one of two reasons, they have some very specific need, or because the way the application is built will make you work with features that you haven’t played yet.

SQL Server Operations Studio and VSCode: The wrong default datetimeoffset format

Wed, 12 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post is to answer the question: “You are used to seeing in the format of yyyy-MM-dd right?” that I have raised on my blog post Don’t cutoff yourself with dates in T-SQL – Did you know… .

As you could see from that blog post, my screen shots were from VSCode and in this case using mssql extension, but this happens also on SQL Server Operations Studio .

Triggers: The hidden logic that will strike back - TSQL Tuesday #106

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is brought by Steve Jones ( b | t ) and he wants to know if triggers causes headaches or happiness to us.

This is the 106nd edition of TSQL2sDay - an Adam Machanic ( b | t ) brainchild.

Triggers are those kind of database objects that sometimes are the best bet but most of the times they will strike back.

I will be speaking @ SQLSaturday 795 Porto

Wed, 05 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

On 29th September we will have SQL Saturday Porto and I’m proud to announce that I will be speaking!

I will be speaking about dbachecks PowerShell module - dbachecks - Checking SQL Server environments with PowerShell .

The event will be held at ISEP, Rua Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida, 431, 4249-015 Porto, Portugal and you can see the full schedule here .

Don't cutoff yourself with dates in T-SQL - Did you know...

Tue, 04 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Almost all the applications we use have a lot of options. And, sometimes we even stumble across them by accident. Who’s ever heard something like “Normal user don’t even use 5% of Excel capabilities!”?

Other options, we know they exist but because the default value it’s ok (so far) we tend to forget it. It is just sitting there, waiting for the day we want/need to change it.

The oddity

Few days ago I was talking with a friend that show me some “odd behavior” when working with dates on SQL Server.

Leveraging on SQL Server metadata

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I’m working on a project where I need to convert Firebird SQL code into T-SQL code. No schema, just the modules. There are more than 1000 objects between stored procedures, views, triggers, user-defined data types, etc.

First - the pain…

While checking the Firebird reference manuals I saw a lot of different concepts (Selectable Stored Procedures - Yes you can do SELECT FROM StoredProcedure) and different functions names with different syntax compared to T-SQL.

I will be speaking @ Tuga IT 2018

Fri, 06 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Starting on 19th of July and during 3 days the Tuga IT 2018 Summer Edition will be happening in Lisbon!

This edition will have:

4 full-day workshops 38 breakout sessions (1 hour) 5 deep dive sessions (2 hours) That is over 72 hours of content delivered by 44 awesome speakers, many of them recognized industry experts.

You can see the full schedule here . This edition will have sessions about: Cloud, Data Platform, Development, Integration, IOT, Office, PowerShell and Security.

Did you know...you can change the default file encoding for new query on SSMS?

Tue, 05 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

If you have been reading my last blog posts, you know that I’m currently working on a SQL code migration from Firebird to SQL Server.

The client provided the scripts with all modules (Stored Procedures, functions, etc) and the steps I’m following (roughly speaking) for converting are:

Open new query window
Copy and paste de object code
Save the file This is how the file look like:
Run a PowerShell script that does a find and replace based on a hashtable. Apply all the changes and save the file again.
The file refresh on SSMS This is how the file look like after the find and replace:
Unicode characters are broken :-(

So…what is happening?

The file that is used to create a new query window has ANSI encoding but when I save the file on the PowerShell script I save it as UTF-8 because the client have comments on the code with unicode characters.

SQL Saturday 731 Athens 2018

Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In less than two weeks (on 16th June) it’s time for SQL Saturday Athens and I’m proud to announce that I will be speaking!

This will be my first SQL Saturday ever both as speaker and attendee outside Portugal so I’m especially thrilled and excited to be part of it!

I will be presenting my Administrate SSRS/PBIRS with PowerShell session and I can share in first hand that it will include new demos with some fixes and enhancements that will be available on the next version of the module later this week.

Learn, Evolve and Giving Back - TSQL Tuesday 102

Tue, 08 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is brought to us by Riley Major‏ ( b | t ) and he encourage us to talk about how we are helping by giving back to our community.

This is the 102nd edition of TSQL2sDay - an Adam Machanic’s ( b | t ) brainchild.

“Let’s go back for a moment:”

I have heard about SQL Server the first time back in 2003 when I was on the high school and I had a database class. Was a slow start and, at that moment I haven’t imagined that would follow that path professionally.

Using CAST() function with User-Defined Data Types...Did you know...

Wed, 02 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I’m converting some Firebird database code to T-SQL and I’m seeing a lot of code that doesn’t work in the same way that SQL Server. No surprise - I already expected that but for those that still say that “all engines/databases are equal”…“is SQL right?” here is another proof that is not true.

On Firebird it is possible to use the CAST function using a DOMAIN (the equivalent in SQLServer is UDDT - User-Defined Data Types ) as target data-type, well turns out that on SQL Server…that is not possible.

dbachecks - Going parallel - Cut off your execution times

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

On one of the last clients I have worked, I have implemented dbachecks in order to get the state of art and know how cool or bad the environments are before start knocking down the bad practices.

This client has seven different environments with more than 100 instances and more than 2000 databases.

Serial execution

A non-parallel execution (single session) took more than 2 hours. This is not a big problem when we run it out of hours and we don’t want/need to be looking or waiting for it to finish. I set up it to run at 6 in the morning and when I arrive at the office I can refresh the Power BI dashboard a get a recent state of art.

dbachecks - Setting temporary configuration values

Tue, 24 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

dbachecks has seen the light about two months ago. As I’m writing this blog post, the module counts with more than 2600 downloads just from the PowerShell gallery . The module has about 110 configurable checks that make our live easier!

Today I will write about an option that I think users still do not realize that exists.

The default

dbachecks works with the values previously saved (for that we use Set-DbcConfig). This means that when we start a new session and the last session has changed any configuration, that configuration is now, by default, the one that will be used in the new session.

Is this command broken? I can't see some properties! - DefaultDisplayPropertySet, Get-Member and Select-Object *

Mon, 23 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Every now and again I see some people complaining about not getting the properties they want when using a PowerShell command.

For instance, someone was using the Get-Service command to query what was the “Startup Type” of WinRM service . For that the person used the following command:

Get-Service WinRM

which produces the following output:

As you can see, the “Startup Type” property that we can find on the user interface does not appear here!

Did you know…you can’t do arithmetic operations with datetime2 like with datetime?

Fri, 06 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I’m currently working on a SQL code migration from Firebird to SQL Server and I hit an error that I haven’t seen for some time.

The error message is the following:

Msg 206, Level 16, State 2, Line 4 Operand type clash: datetime2 is incompatible with int

This ringed the bell right away! Somewhere on the code someone was trying to do an arithmetic calculation without using the proper function.

dbachecks - A different approach for an in-progress and incremental validation

Thu, 22 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

dbachecks is a new PowerShell module from the SQL Server Community! For more information, read introducing dbachecks .

If you don’t know dbachecks, we have released a good amount of blog posts that will help you:

dbachecks - Using Power BI dashboards to analyse results

Thu, 22 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

For the last couple of months, members of the dbatools team have been working on a new PowerShell module called dbachecks. This open source PowerShell module will enable you to validate your SQL Instances. Today it is released for you all to start to use 🙂

dbachecks launch - the blog posts series

Here you can find a list of the blog posts made available today:

Announcing dbachecks – Configurable PowerShell Validation For Your SQL Instances by Rob Sewell

I will be speaking at SQL Bits 2018

Fri, 09 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In two weeks from now, on 23rd of February, I will be speaking at SQLBits 2018! It’s my first time on the largest SQL Server conference in Europe for data professionals.

I will deliver a session about SQL Server Reporting Services and PowerShell titled - “Administrating SSRS without boring web based clicks”.

You can check the great content that will be shared on the 4 days: Trainning days: Wednesday and Thursday Regular sessions: Friday and Saturday

Using dbatools to verify your SQL Server instances version compliance

Tue, 23 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

One of the main DBA’s duties is to guarantee that SQL Server instances are up-to-date in terms of patches (Service Packs, Cumulative Updates or Security Updates).

Recently, dbatools added a new command that turns this validation a piece of cake. Thanks to Simone Bizzotto (@niphlod) for baking up the command that Shawn Melton (@wsmelton) and I initially requested.

Some dbatools users already expressed their happiness with the command, like Jess Pomfret did here

New version of sp_WhoIsActive (v11.20) is available - Deployed on 123 instances in less than 1 minute

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Last night, I received Adam Machanic’s ( b | t ) newsletter “Announcing sp_whoisactive v11.20: Live Query Plans”.

For those who don’t know about it, sp_WhoIsActive is a stored procedure that provides detailed information about the sessions running on your SQL Server instance. It is a great tool when we need to troubleshoot some problems such as long-running queries or blocking. (just two examples)

This stored procedure works on any version/edition since SQL Server 2005 SP1. Although, you only will be able to see the new feature (live query plans) if you run it on SQL Server 2016 or 2017.

Using Common Table Expression (CTE) - Did you know...

Thu, 30 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Today I will write just a short blog post to do a quick reminder!

I still hear a lot of people suggesting CTEs because they think it works like a temporary table (you populate the table and then it can be/is reutilized).

It doesn’t!

From de documentation :

Specifies a temporary named result set, known as a common table expression (CTE).

Maybe they are focusing on the “temporary” word.

TSQL Tuesday 96: Folks Who Have Made a Difference

Tue, 14 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is brought to us by Ewald Cress ( blog | twitter ) and is all about “folks who have made a difference” in our careers.

Thank you, Ewald! This is a great topic!

Here is my short list

Paulo Silva ( in )

He was my first boss in the IT world! I was his apprentice when I started my internship. He was going to move to a manager position and I had to continue his work. He was responsible for the beginning of my career with SQL Server 2000 and VB6.

DELETE data on SQL Server HEAP table - Did you know...

Tue, 26 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Before I complete my question let me provide context.

I’ve received an alert saying that a specific database could not allocate a new page (disk was full)

The message that you will see on the SQL Server Error log is:

Could not allocate a new page for database ’’ because of insufficient disk space in filegroup ‘’. Create the necessary space by dropping objects in the filegroup, adding additional files to the filegroup, or setting autogrowth on for existing files in the filegroup.

PowerShell Modules Central - Share with community - What PowerShell modules are you using?

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Like the blog post title states this is all about sharing with others! My idea is to share with the community which PowerShell modules you are using.

Let me introduce to you the PowerShell Modules Central

PowerShellModulesCentral is a GitHub repository that was founded as a central hub to a list of PowerShell modules that people know/use. Each module has a file describing its name, basic information about the module, as well as one or more blog posts/videos from people that have written about or used them.

Generate Markdown Table of Contents based on files within a folder with PowerShell

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I was talking with Constantine Kokkinos ( b | t ) about generating a Table Of Contents (TOC) for a GitHub repository.

He wrote a cool blog post - Generating Tables of Contents for Github Projects with PowerShell - about it and I will write this one with a different problem/solution.

Context

I’m working on a new project (news coming soon) that uses a GitHub repository and I expect to have a big number of files within a specific folder.

[PowerShell] From 20 minutes to 20 seconds - Change domain user password on multiple domains without login into each one

Thu, 14 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I’m working on a environment where I have to deal with multiple domains. The user’s password needs to be updated each 40/45 days (it depends on the domain).

Can you see the pain?

This means that every month and half I have to dedicate like 20 minutes to change my password on 10 different domains by logging in to a host that belongs to that domain to be able to change it.

Someone is not following the best practices - dbatools and Pester don't lie!

Tue, 12 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is brought to us by my good friend Rob Sewell ( b | t ). Together “Let’s get all Posh – What are you going to automate today?”

I have written some blog posts on how I use PowerShell to automate mundane tasks or some other more complex scenarios like: Find and fix SQL Server databases with empty owner property using dbatools PowerShell module or Have you backed up your SQL Logins today? or even using ReportingServicesTools module for deploy reports - SSRS Report Deployment Made Easy – 700 times Faster .

'Invalid class [0x80041010]' error when trying to access SQLServer's WMI classes

Thu, 07 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I was using open source PowerShell module dbatools ( GitHub repository ) to get the list of SQL Server services I have on a bunch of hosts so I could confirm if they are in “running” state.

– Quick note – For those who don’t know, dbatools is a module, written by the community, that makes SQL Server administration much easier using PowerShell. Today, the module has more than 260 commands. Go get it and try it! If you have any doubt you can join the team on the #dbatools channel at the Slack - SQL Server Community . – Quick note –

HTTP 403 error - PowerShell Remoting, Different Domains and Proxies

Mon, 04 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

On my day to day work I use Nagios monitoring software. I want to add some custom SQL Server scripts to enrich the monitoring, and to accomplish this I will need to:

Find a folder
Create a sub folder
Copy bunch of file
edit a ini file to verify/add new entries

all of this for every single host on my entire estate. Obviously (for me :-) ) I decided to use PowerShell!

Offline Microsoft Documentation? Download it!

Wed, 30 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

On my last article I shared how we can now Contribute to Microsoft Documentation . Today I bring another quick tip on Microsoft Documentation!

Download Microsoft Documentation

Did you know that we can download PDF files with Microsoft Documentation? I did not know until my colleague called my attention to it few days ago.

Important note: This tip is not (yet?) available for all Microsoft’s product suite. You should confirm if this tip applies to the product you need.

Contribute to Microsoft Documentation

Mon, 28 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Times have changed and Microsoft has changed the way we can contribute for documentation !

We already have access to the source code from some programs. One example is PowerShell, that has an GitHub repository where anyone can contribute!

Now anyone can contribute to the documentation too!

How and where?

If you haven’t seen before, now we have a pencil icon on the top right corner that makes possible to suggest a change.

I will be speaking at PowerShell Conference Asia 2017

Fri, 25 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Which better way could I have to launch my blog if not with great news ?!

I am so happy and excited to announce that I will be speaking at PowerShell Conference Asia in Singapore!

On 28th of October I will be presenting two sessions with the following titles:

Next step to your script…turn it into an Advanced Function
SQLServer Reporting Services administration new best friend - PowerShell

Also, on 26th there will be 2 precon: