I first learned about this table right as I was learning about being a DBA. No, not because this is a table that a new DBA would ever be thinking about. I learned about this table because we were migrating some databases from Sybase to SQL 2000 and we needed to scrub the stored procedures … Read more
Whenever someone asks a seasoned DBA a question their answer is almost always “it depends”. Today we are going to talk about sysdepends, one of the system tables which may or may not have the data you want. And why would that be true? Well, because “it depends” on how you deploy your code! Before … Read more
Ever wonder how SQL Server manages objects inside of its memory? Well, wonder no more! Today I am going to help you understand more about the objects that are currently residing inside of the region of memory known as the plan cache. As always, please note that this system table will be removed from a … Read more
Today we are going to talk about something that has become near and dear to my heart: sysprocesses. I wish I could go back in time and meet me on Day Zero of being a DBA and say “Hey! You there! Stop picking your nose and have a look at THIS!” and then show me … Read more
How often have you wanted to know the size of your database files? And I don’t just mean one database, I am talking about all your database files. Or how about knowing if any of your databases are set to autogrow (or not grow at all)? Or how about a way to track the size … Read more
OK, so technically the fn_virtualfilestats is not exactly a system table. Please don’t email me or leave comments regarding this fact. So why am I including this in my March Madness series? Because it is so very, very important for any DBA (especially a new DBA) to know and understand that this function exists. Unlike … Read more
