If you break permission inheritance on your SQL backup folder, and if you have a maintenance plan that uses subfolders to backup your databases by name, you could render your Maintenance Cleanup Task inoperable. If you encounter this problem, you probably noticed that the cleanup task appears to run successfully, but in reality it doesn’t…
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So you are running SQL Server (2005 or 2008) Express (presumably installed as part of an application server install) and you would like to make sure your databases are backing up each night. You go to load the SQL Server Management Studio only to discover it’s not there. So then you head on over to…
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If you have an application that uses SQL Server Reporting Services and you are seeing errors similar to this: ReportServerException: The report server has encountered a configuration error. Logon failed for the unattended execution account. You may have an inappropriately configured “Execution Account” for Reporting Services. If you browse to your Reporting Services log at…
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Recently I encountered a database issue on a Microsoft SQL 2008 R2 server that can only be described as a case of a phantom SPID (server process ID). What I mean by phantom is that this SPID was showing a date of 1900-01-01. All external connections to this database had been severed, but every attempt…
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To stay on top of security you need to regularly review your server configurations. It’s helpful to build a checklist to be used as part of an internal security audit review. Below is just such a checklist, specifically tailored to audit a SQL 2008 Server running on Windows Server 2008. Most of what’s in this…
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As part of an internal security review, I put together the following best practices guideline to secure SQL servers. This is just an example, and is not meant to be a comprehensive list of SQL server security parameters. DATABASE CREATION AND CHANGES New databases must be requested using a SQL database request form with proper…
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Change tracking, resource allocation and security auditing are three very important issues for any IT administrator, particularly DBAs (database administrators). One item that can easily be overlooked is at the point of database creation. Why is the database needed? Who is requesting it? Will the database be used for production or testing/development? What are the…
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