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SQL SERVER – Steps to Backup to Windows Azure storage

Moving to a cloud-based world is inevitable, it is something we need to learn soon. Ever since SQL Server 2014 has been released, the concept of uploading your backups to Blobs with Windows Azure has been around. In reality, performing a backup or restore operations with SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU4 and later requires no additional tools actually, and be done with either T-SQL or SSMS. This blog describes how to perform backup operations with T-SQL. This will be part of a series of blogs to come in the future. Let me walk through the initial steps.

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Interview Question of the Week #039 – What is Included Column Index in SQL Server 2005 and Onwards?

You may find it interesting that not many people still know what is Included Index in SQL Server. I have seen it personally around me and also have seen at Question: What is Included Column Index? Answer:  In SQL Server 2005, the functionality of non-clustered indexes is extended by adding non-key…
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SQL SERVER – Linked server creation error: OLE DB provider “SQLNCLI11” for linked server returned message “Invalid authorization specification”

One of the blog reader sent me the below mail. I always find that using linked server have been of concern and trouble at a number of places. So when the mail landed – well I was not surprised that there was a problem. It is common and hence the…
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SQL SERVER – Three Simple Guidelines for System Maintenance – Notes from the Field #098

[Note from Pinal]: This is a 98th episode of Notes from the Field series. Maintenance of the database is a very critical activity and I have always seen DBA taking it very seriously. There is a only one problem – there is no single solution or guidance for how to maintain the database. Everybody has their own opinion and way to do different tasks. System maintenance is very straight forward task but I have seen quite often experts even getting confused with the same. Many only focus on index maintenance, statistics maintenance and a few other tasks are common, but understanding the real philosophy of this task is something beyond indexes. When I asked my good friend Stuart about system maintenance, he came up with very interesting guidelines for system maintenance.

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