If you are dealing with SQL Azure and a large data volume, you’re bound to run into this error. Msg 40552, Level 20, State 1, Line 1 The session has been terminated because of excessive transaction log space usage. Try modifying fewer rows in a single transaction This error is more of a pain than anything and you can work around it. The structural architecture that SQL Azure uses and all around resource allocations, doesn’t allow us to go in there and simply size a transaction log like we with SQL Server on metal. At least, I haven’t found one. With that, we run into a mess of headaches when we have anything over a few hundred thousand rows in one table. Here is what you can do, to get beyond this error.

On Saturday, April 6, 2013, Madison, WI hosted its second annual SQL Saturday. It was another successful year! We had 241 attendees, an increase over last year. It’s been exciting to watch the Wisconsin SQL Server community grow over the past five years. Once upon a time we had one user group; now we have four, and have held two of these events. Many people have thanked us for bringing the community to this area!

When working on SQL Server that is stretching IO and the subsystem to its limits, you are bound to see a buffer latch time-out error at some point. This is typically, “Time-out occurred while waiting for buffer latch type 2 or 3”. If you do, it will usually occur while you are performing a large maintenance task, integrity check or something that really impacts IO to a level that causes the buffer latch time-out. In a recent case, I ran into this during a restore operation of a database that was a few hundred GB. This usually is a fairly quick operation and one that doesn’t cause an IO issue with SQL Server but in this case, the restore was pushed to a single SSD drive. This was only due to the restore being temporary and the SSD drive was free to handle the task.

I’ve had the chance to talk to quite a few people over the last few months about my experiences with Windows 8. So far, and I can’t see it changing, I’ve been very impressed with Windows 8 and the efficiency boost it has provided me in normal, day-to-day operations. I’ve cut down the time it takes to manage how I utilize a machine. This includes even simple operations like Windows management.

I didn’t think my first blog post on LTD would be for a T-SQL Tuesday, but this month’s topic was so timely for me I had no choice but to participate. In case you don’t know, T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blogging event, with a different community host each month. This month’s host is Bob Pusateri and the topic is all about presenting. It just so happens, I’ve started doing a bit of that lately!

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday topic is all about speaking. Before getting into the topic, I’d like to thank Bob (Captain Bob as I’ve now seen his license plate) for hosting this month. T-SQL Tuesday is a great idea, started by Adam Machanic. It provides a great way to throw a blog out there on a topic each month and see how many people see that topic, have used it or explain it. The secondary part we get from it is, a great way for an entry point into blogging when you are just getting started and that first topic is elusive.

It’s the second Tuesday of the month, and you know what that means: it’s T-SQL Tuesday! This is a monthly blog series with a different topic each time. This month, our host, Bob Pusateri (blog | twitter), wants to know more about presenting. Standing up in front of a room of people and talking, especially on a technical topic, can induce nightmares. Think about everything that could go wrong. Your laptop could stop working. Your demos could fail. You could forget everything you were going to say. You could fall off the stage. (Oh, no, that’s just me.)

If you need to use a Dedicated Administrator Connection (DAC) via SSMS, you can’t just use the Connect Object Explorer, if you try you will get the following error Dedicated administrator connections are not supported via SSMS as it establishes multiple connections by design. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlStudio.Explorer) So what do you do? You can connect from within SSMS, you need to click on the Database Engine Query icon Prefix the servername with Admin: Instead of (local), you would do Admin:(local)

I’ve been running FoxPASS in Appleton, WI for 8 months. In that time, we’ve had excellent presentations from great speakers, the word has spread to many people, and there’s a lot of buzz in the community. One of my goals with the chapter is to try out new, exciting ideas. One of my favorite community projects is to grow the pool of speakers. I thought, “How can I combine these two?” I decided to try an Open Mic night – anyone could sign up to talk about any SQL-related topic for 5-10 minutes. I encouraged our members to talk about anything they enjoyed, their favorite tool or T-SQL command, or a real-life scenario they learned from.

Last week I took the final exam to acquire the MCSE – Business Intelligence certification. This blog post describes my preparation for all of the exams. It is not a strict guideline of course, it's just what suited best for me. The MCSE certification exists of 5 separate exams, of which the first 3 grant you the MCSA SQL Server certification. These are the following: 70-461: Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012 70-462: Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases 70-463: Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 70-466: Implementing Data Models and Reports with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 70-467: Designing Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2012