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Aqua Data Studio is the industry leading multi-platform Database Integrated Development Environment (IDE) with Visual Analytics.  Data and Business Analysts love Aqua Data Studio for its Visual Analytics and scalable data management capabilities...

We’re excited to announce the release of SQL Inventory Manager 2.6.3 Database administrators need a simple, efficient way to discover, document, and manage their SQL Server environment as the organisation changes. It is important to have a way...

We’re excited to announce the release of SQL Enterprise Job Manager 2.4 SQL Enterprise Job Manager is an industry leading monitoring, scheduling and management solution for SQL Server agent jobs and Windows tasks for deployments in environments...

We are pleased to announce the general availability of SQL Secure 4.1 SQL Secure is the industry-leading, state of the art auditing and security solution for SQL Servers that helps identify vulnerabilities with SQL Server configurations and access, e...

We’re excited to announce the release of SQL Safe Backup 9.1 SQL Safe Backup provides the industry's shortest time from starting a SQL Server backup restore to being back online and operating. SQL Safe Backup dramatically lowers the cost of...

Not knowing what tools are available There are several tools that come with SQL Server that can be used for backup processing, such as SQL Server Management Studio, T-SQL, System Tables, Windows Event Viewer, SQL Server Error Logs, Alerts, and Notifi...

Inconsistent backup plans While it is hard enough to manage SQL Server, you find that having inconsistent backup plans from server to server will make your life even harder. Instead, try to classify your databases into a few groups and then apply the...

Data modeling tools should be competent at the basics of database modeling. They should be able to create logical and physical data models, propagate changes from one model to the other in both directions, create database scripts, and reverse-enginee...

Writing directly to tape A lot of third–party backup tools have agents that allow you to write directly to tape. This was great in the old days when disk space was expensive and limited. But this should not be the case anymore. You can write to...

Not understanding options Another big problem is people not being aware of the different options that are available using T-SQL commands and using SQL Server Management Studio. You should take the time to read SQL Server Books Online, so you understa...

Testing Not using restore verify option The last thing you want is to discover that your backup is not good when trying to restore it. A restore verify does at least give you some peace of mind that SQL Server could read the contents of the backup wi...

SQL Server databases are often repositories for large volumes of business-critical data. As the sizes of databases grow, restore operations become time-consuming. Database professionals need to access data in backup files quickly to reduce ...

As a seasoned SQL Server database administrator or developer, you already know that there is an abundance of tools you can use to collect server and database information to help you make informed decisions. As someone just starting out, you will find...

We’re excited to announce the release of SQL Safe Backup 9.0 SQL Safe Backup provides the industry's shortest time from starting a SQL Server backup restore to being back online and operating. SQL Safe Backup dramatically lowers the co...

Writing and tuning SQL code are two different things. There are many ways to write code so that it does the intended function. But there are also ways to make code more efficient. In most cases, we follow development techniques in repetition based on...

There are several things that could cause performance issues for a query. You can identify these by breaking down the processing time for a query into various wait states, such as locks, input/output, and the central processing unit. This can give yo...

There are many things that can cause slowdowns in SQL Server, such as resources like disk, memory, and network. But the one place where database administrators and developers have the most control and can make the biggest impact is tuning queries. SQ...

Deadlocking is a common problem that can occur in an SQL Server database. This is like blocking. But instead of being blocked forever, SQL Server chooses one session as the deadlock victim and rolls it back so the other process can continue. SQL Diag...

Blocking is a normal activity that occurs in SQL Server and it does that to control data integrity and make sure only one resource can change a set of data at one time. The problem with blocking is if SQL Server blocked a session for a long period, t...

We have Data at Rest, Data in Transit, and Data in Use. Data in Use has been covered pretty well by Data Architecture and Data Governance teams. Data Architects design databases, which are one of the main storage mechanisms, and tools like ER/Studio ...

Data modeling tools should be competent at the basics of database modeling. They should be able to create logical and physical data models, propagate changes from one model to the other in both directions, create database scripts, and reverse-enginee...

There are many advantages of using SQL Diagnostic Manager over building your own tools and one of these is the enterprise management view of all your SQL Servers in one place. We can see the entire environment fast and also see issues that need atten...

As a database administrator, monitoring database systems for performance, corruption, and data issues is an ongoing task. It is also an overwhelming task depending on how large the database environment is and the number of resources there are to mana...

Not having a good recovery process One big part of your backup process needs to include the recovery procedures. You should have a rehearsed recovery plan, so when you need to recover any of your databases, you know the exact steps to follow. Also, k...