Category: SQL Server

How to connect to an AD Domain Secured SQL Server from a non-domain PC

The following are instructions for setting up a connection to an Active Directory (AD) Domain secured SQL Server using either SQL Server Management Studio or Visual Studio. This is especially applicable when not using a domain attached PC.

Step-by-step guide

Continue reading “How to connect to an AD Domain Secured SQL Server from a non-domain PC”

Location of your SQL Templates and how to take them with you

If you have started to create a good collection of you own SQL Templates and snippets, then you may want to copy or share them from PC to PC or from user account to user account.

You will find your personal templates here Continue reading “Location of your SQL Templates and how to take them with you”

Azure SQL Database Level Firewall Rules

If you have been using Azure SQL Servers and databases, you will already be aware that you need to configure the server level firewall. You may not know that you can also set firewall rules at database level too.
However this cannot be done through the Azure Portal. However both server and database level firewall rules can be easily managed using SQL.

Server Level

-- ========== SERVER LEVEL FIREWALL (master database connection)

-- List firewall rules
 SELECT * FROM sys.firewall_rules ORDER BY name;

 -- ADD Server firewall rule
 EXECUTE sp_set_firewall_rule @name = N'MyFirewallRule', @start_ip_address = '192.168.1.1', @end_ip_address = '192.168.1.10'

 -- DELETE Server firewall rule
 EXECUTE sp_delete_firewall_rule @name = N'MyFirewallRule'

Database Level

 -- ========== DATABASE LEVEL FIREWALL (specific database connection)

 -- List firewall rules
 SELECT * FROM sys.database_firewall_rules ORDER BY name;

 -- ADD Database firewall rule
 EXEC sp_set_database_firewall_rule @name = N'MyDBFirewallRule', @start_ip_address = '192.168.1.11', @end_ip_address = '192.168.1.11'

 -- DELETE Server firewall rule
 EXEC sp_delete_database_firewall_rule @name = N'MyDBFirewallRule'

See also

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/sql-database/sql-database-configure-firewall-settings-tsql

SSMS in High-DPI Displays: How to Stop the Madness

Got a new high resolution latop with scaling and struggling to use SSMS. Here’s the fix

SSMS in High-DPI Displays: How to Stop the Madness

Visual Studio Data Tools Schema Compare does not work against Basic edition SQL Azure databases

Before you spend any time banging your head against the wall on this, please note that SQL Data Tools schema comparisons do not work against SQL Azure Basic databases. It will fail with some kind of timeout error. Do not be tempted to start messing with your default SQL timeouts. The default is already 60 seconds and thats plenty of time for almost everything you will encounter.

To change your edition (and there are many reasons to, not least point in time continuous backups and geo replication), you will need to go to the Scale tab on your database and select at least a Standard subscription type.

 

Finding missing indexes and quick optimising of SQL Azure

If you are looking for a quick way to improve your SQL Azure performance then you can check to see if SQL Azure has determined if any useful indexes are missing.

In SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) run the following against your database

select * from sys.dm_db_missing_index_details

This will output something like (I have obscured some sensitive names)

 

For example, the above suggested I made the following indexes on AccessNoXRefs table.

For more information see http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ms345434.aspx and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/dn133166.aspx