Master Data Services Model Cloning

Yes! My company uses Master Data Services or MDS. Yes! It's a pain. And yes! I needed to learn how to use and administer it. For anyone that hasn't had this well meant tool forced upon on them, it feels ... (if I'm being kind) ... a little unfinished.

Based on my experience MDS administration requires an awkward mix of command line tools, the MDS web interface, and even some sql scripts and stored procs executed directly on the database. There are a few strange quirks, like the fact that individual users or groups can be set as administrators, but there is a single super-user. This super-user can only be an individual and not an AD group (although I'll be happy to be proved wrong on this!). Users in the System Administration role can deploy models, but still need to be given permissions to view and edit those models by the super-user (this has changed in SQL 2016 - multiple super-users are supported as well as AD groups are now supported as super-users).

Check for SQL Server Connectivity

My company is revamping its domain structure and tightening up network security. I am one of the guinea pigs and therefore have been put into the new domain and OU groups. Obviously, we are experiencing some teething problems. As a result I can't access things, namely SQL Server instances that I used to be able to connect to from my work station.

I needed to provide the network team a list of the instances I could no longer access and I certainly wasn't going to try to connect to each one manually. We have a very large estate and it would have taken me ages.

Cleanup SQL Server Logins

Cleaning up after someone leaves. We all do it right? Our companies all have water tight policies and procedures to handle that, or maybe they have policies but not procedures. Or maybe they just kind of don't.

Well, if your company is anything like most of the places I've worked, it's somewhere in the middle. And from a DBA perspective, especially on non-production environments, your list of logins and users becomes a bit long and messy after a while.

Restarting a service with PowerShell

We use Redgate's SQL Monitor to keep an eye on our mission critical servers. I like the product. It is reasonably user-friendly, reliable and it helps my team monitor our servers efficiently. I've used other products before and I think SQL Monitor compares favourably. No, I'm not paid by RedGate!!!

With that in mind, my team has been struggling a bit with an ongoing issue: every Monday morning one of the SQL Monitor processes was running amok and maxing out CPU! This was strange, as the product is generally pretty stable. After some investigation, we realised that the security team had started performing regular vulnerability scans over the weekends. Part of this test involved intentional failed login attempts. SQL Monitor can't seem to handle this, and the web server, specifically the "xsp4" process goes haywire and trashes the CPU.

Emergency Access to SQL Server

There are times when you need to gain access to SQL Server in an emergency. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. Actually, part of the problem is that it happens so rarely! We all get to grips with the various back-door commands required of us DBAs when we're training or taking a certification course. But after six months, even two or more years, it all gets a bit rusty.

Therefore, I decided to put together an emergency cheat-sheet. All of these processes are very well documented around the web. My purpose here is purely to list the necessary steps to get access to your server quickly. So I won't be explaining how things work. I will list different options of getting the various steps done.