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SQL SERVER – How to Change SQL Server Collation on Microsoft Azure VM (IaaS)

Pinal Dave
SQL Tips and Tricks
SQL Azure, SQL Collation, SQL Server

I have been using Microsoft Azure, SQL Virtual Machine (IaaS) for quite some time because few of my clients ask questions about them. My clients generally use images from gallery to deploy SQL Server. Once they realized that they want to change the SQL Server collation instance. I was contacted to know the steps to do that. I learned something new so sharing via the blog.

Caution: Rebuild of system databases is as good as the fresh installation of SQL Server. YOU WOULD LOSE ALL EXISTING INFORMATION so please backup the stuff, if needed.

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SQL SERVER – FIX: Could not connect because the maximum number of 1 user connections has already been reached

Pinal Dave
SQL Tips and Tricks
SQL Connection, SQL Error Messages, SQL Scripts, SQL Server

Sometimes making a change in something for which the impact is not known, could cause a heavy loss. A similar situation happened when one of my clients called me and told that he is in big trouble and losing a lot of money every minute. Without wasting any moment, I asked what is the issue, then he told that he changed some setting in SQL Server, restarted SQL and now no one is able to connect. The application is completely down! Let us see how we can fix the error: Could not connect because the maximum number of ‘1’ user connections has already been reached.

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SQL SERVER – Finding If Status of Bulk Logging Enabled or Not From Logs

Pinal Dave
SQL Tips and Tricks
Bulk Logging, SQL Log, SQL Scripts, SQL Server

Backup related questions are always challenging and sometimes our basics is shaken when someone randomly asks us something we were not aware of. Sometimes it takes a little bit of digging around in documentation and we are in for a surprise because this has been there for quite some time. In a recent conversation with a DBA friend of mine in a consulting exercise, he came back to me with an interesting question. Let us see in this blog post about how to find the status of Bulk Logging Enabled or not from SQL logs.

Pinal, how do I know if a Bulk Logging operation was performed on my SQL Server. I know there are a number of SSIS jobs that run during the day and night and I have a number of log backups that are taken continuously. Some of these jobs actually change the recovery model to Bulk-Logged and end of the process, they turn it back to Full once the script was to end. I know I can do a number of audit settings to make sure this is captured. But is there any other way to identify which of these logs when taken have the Bulk logged operation?

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SQL SERVER – How to Query Active Directory Data Using ADSI / LDAP Linked Server

Pinal Dave
SQL Tips and Tricks
SQL Scripts, SQL Server

There are situations when you need to integrate SQL Server with other product. Once of the classic example was seen during my last visit to a client. They wanted list of email addresses and phone numbers for all users in the company to be fetched by Active Directory. I have told them that SQL can read that data via linked server. Here are the steps to learn how to query active directory data.

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SQL SERVER – How to Add Multiple New Columns to Table with Default Values?

Pinal Dave
SQL Tips and Tricks
SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Table Operation

This is a follow up blog post of my earlier blog post on the same subject. You can read my earlier blog post over here. I recently received an email where a user asked how to add more than one new column to an existing table with a default value. Very interesting and simple question. Honestly, I love simple questions as they are the most needed by users. So here is the question – “How to Add Multiple New Columns to Table with Default Values?”. Now let us try to solve this question with the help of an example.

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