This is sort of a continuation of my earlier post, Importing Windows Forwarded Events into SQL Server using PowerShell, where I mentioned that I was unable to get the script to work on Windows 2008 R2 due to a known bug in Get-WinEvents. I had to end up deploying my solution to a Windows 2008 R2 Server and was required …

I know the ideal Enterprise network won't have any SQL Server Express instances, but every large network that I've ever worked on has at least a few. Many times, it's powering apps like SolarWinds or BackupExec. Since SQL Express doesn't run SQL Agent, it can be a pain to backup and maintain the systems.

There are a …

Update: You can't even independently schedule slave jobs. Count my organization as yet another that won't be implementing MultiServer Administration. Grrr.

I always forget about Multiserver Administration. I've actually never worked in an environment that uses it, even though it seems to have a lot of potential. I …

Over the past couple weeks, I've looked into a number of ways of parsing and importing Windows Forwarded Events into SQL Server: from using SSIS to LogParser to PowerShell to setting up a linked server to the "Forwarding Events.evtx" file.

Ultimately, the only thing that worked was PowerShell's Get-WinEvent …

I've known about SQL Database Snapshots for a while, but never really took the time to use the feature.  Lately, I've gotten into mirroring again and decided to play around with Database Snapshots.  I should clarify at this point that I'm speaking about the native SQL snapshot capabilities, and not a filer technology …

Each time I start a new contract, the first thing I do is search for all SQL Servers across any network/subnet to which I have access. While the documentation I get is usually paltry or non-existent. When it does exist, it's usually only for the production SQL Servers. Sometimes, most production SQL Servers aren't even …

I recently assisted in migrating a very large system from SQL Server 2005 SP3 to SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1.  The actual migration of the database went off without a hitch, but we soon encountered an odd error with the application querying a view over a linked server.

The application was web-based and began throwing an …

Okay, I've had to call Helpdesk an embarrassing 8 times today because my PowerPivot upgrade is going horribly wrong and locking out my AD account that, admittedly, I use as a "service" account. I'm really left with no choice -- I'm only granted one account on this network. Restrictive networks are so …

Whether you use a Maintenance Cleanup Task as part of a SQL 2005 or 2008 Maintenance Plan, or script out your own cleanup t-SQL, you are probably using the xp_delete_file extended procedure. For quite a while, I've occasionally come across old TLog or backup files that were missed. Without questioning it, I would clean …

I'm currently working on a project where I need to quickly make pretty graphs and charts for data in small but important SharePoint lists. After looking through a number of books and consulting with my SharePoint buddies, PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010 seems to be the best tool for the job.

Getting it to work hasn't …