PBM and ExecuteWQL()

Another item of interest in studying for the SQL Server 2008 upgrade exam. This is a really interesting feature that could be combined with another monitoring system to give you a really complete view of your SQL servers every morning.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa394606(VS.85).aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb895209.aspx
http://sqlserverpedia.com/blog/sql-server-bloggers/executewql-in-policy-based-management/

SQL Server 2008 Extended Events

In my studies for the MP: DBA SQL Server 2008 I cam accross a topic that was not included in any of the books that I have been using. It's called Extended Events and is used in diagnosing things like dealocks and high CPU utilization. Read the MSDN article.

DMVs Related to Disk I/O

Objective: Designing a Monitoring Strategy

Sub-objective: Design a monitoring solution at the operating system level

This is a list of DMVs I have encountered in my studies of I/O as it pertains to SQL Server. I have included a brief description from the MSDN article as well as link to the article itself. These will be highly important, not only from a certification level, but also from a practical level. This list is in DBA Survivor by Thomas LaRock and many of them are also found in sources like SQL Server 2008 Administration in Action by Rod Colledge and the chapter entitled My Favorite DMVs and Why by Aaron Bertrand in MVP Deep Dives.

Creating a SQL Server 2008 Cluster in a Test Lab

Part One – Installing the Systems and Setting up Clustering

This article gives the basic steps in Server 2008 R2 to create a test lab with a 2-node, SQL Server failover cluster. To perform the steps in this article you will need a virtualization platform capable of running two instances of Windows Server 2008 R2 and an iSCSI target, such as iSCSI Cake or StarWind. Please note that many popular Open Source iSCSI systems, such as OpenFiler, do not support persistent reservations, which is a requirement of creating a failover cluster in Server 2008/Server 2008 R2. You should also have a working Active Directory infrastructure already installed.