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What is a Master Database in SQL Server? – Interview Question of the Week #076

The other day, I received an email from a user, who had dropped master database in their system. I told him directly that he should have not dropped master database as that is a very important system database. It is really strange that after so many years quite a few of the people do not know what is a master database in SQL Server.

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SQL SERVER – Installation Error – The wrong diskette is in the drive. Insert (Volume Serial Number: ) into drive.

The world of working with errors always gets the better of me. It is a wonderful way to understand why SQL Server behaves in a certain way and most importantly, it helps me solve some of the problems people face on a day-to-day basis. As you might know that along with performance consultancy, I also reply to any personal email asking for help. This blog is a result of one such interaction where the client was facing an error while installing Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 2008 in a clustered environment. Let us learn about Installation Error.

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SQL SERVER – Database Mail Breaks with TLS 1.0 Disabled Discovery – Notes from the Field #128

[Note from Pinal]: In this episode of the Notes from the Field series database expert Ryan Adams explains a very critical error related to Database Mail. Ryan is one guy who spends more time with real world issues with SQL Server than anything else. He has mastered the art of resolving complex errors and document them so easily that one can’t find anywhere else. In this blog post Ryan addresses a very interesting error related to Database Mail Breaks with TLS 1.0 Disabled Discovery. Read the experience of Ryan in his own words.

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SQL SERVER – Unable to Start SQL Agent – SQL Server Agent Terminated (Normally)

Along with performance issues, I also provide consultancy in other break-fix issues like service not starting etc. These are not run of the mill, but on specific cases only. I always suggest my clients to search on my blog first and then contact me if needed. This is a great way to scale and make people empowered when it comes to solving some of the trivial issues that they might have encountered for SQL Server Agent.

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SQL SERVER to Oracle Numeric Datatype Mapping

Getting into a consulting business has its own set of challenges that I cherish big time. Recently I was consulted by a product team that had some of the best guys in the market. I was surprised why they might need my services. But I had an open mind to go through what they were doing. They were migrating their current application that was running fine in Oracle to SQL Server. My first thought was – “Wow”. Currently enterprises and organizations do think of SQL Server as a viable, competent alternative when it comes to database choice.

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SQL SERVER – Maintenance Plan Folder Missing Under Management in SQL Server Management Studio

The best part of learning is by the error messages that each one of you send me over the years. These are a great source of experimentation and a lot of searching to get to the appropriate error resolution. I take this an opportunity to connect with various people and look for active solutions one has achieved from their experience. One of my readers sent an email as shown below about Maintenance Plan Folder Missing Under Management in SQL Server Management Studio:

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SQL SERVER – FIX – Agent XPs Component is Turned Off as Part of the Security Configuration for this Server

One of my clients has installed a new instance of SQL Server and then wanted to create maintenance plan. They were complaining about getting some error and we’re looking forward for my help to solve the same. As soon as he did right click on a Maintenance Plan under “Management” node and selected “New Maintenance Plan Wizard” using SQL Server Management Studio as shown below. Let us learn how to fix Agent XPs Component is Turned Off as Part of the Security Configuration for this Server error.

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Can We Have NULL Value in Primary Key? – Interview Question of the Week #075

This is a very interesting question. I really do not know why interviews are fascinated with this question. One of the professional services I offer is to help organizations select an ideal employee for their organization and last week, I was on a conference call with a large MNC who was looking for performance tuning expert for their organization. We interviewed around 50 different employees and offered jobs to 2 experts and 1 has so far accepted it. One of the questions which I see my friends from the interview panel asking again and again was about Primary Key. I noticed that most of the candidate got it correct.

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SQL SERVER – FIX – Linked Server Error 7399 Invalid authorization specification

I have personally seen when people use Linked Server there are a number of issues from authentication to performance. These issues are part of working with something that has so many variations and permutations of actually going wrong. Many a times I suggest people to keep away from Linked Servers as much as possible. But it cannot happen all the times and there are code blocks in their application that relies on this as a requirement.

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