How to find the amount of space used by data (.mdf, .ndf) and log (.ldf) files using TSQL

Well, this is a pretty simple question, and many of you out there already know how to do it. SQL Server 2005 introduced a number of system views that gives the size occupied by each data/log file in the database. So it is a matter of just querying one of those system views and read the "size" column.

We were trying to configure an alert when the file size goes above a given limit and realized that the "size" column actually stores the number of pages. Each page is 8 KB. So to get the actual size of the file in KB, you need to multiply the value in "size" column with 8.

Read the article: http://www.sqlserverandxml.com/2008/10/how-to-find-space-used-by-data-mdf-ndf.html

SQL Server 2005/2008 - Cryptography in SQL Server

Summary: Although cryptography provides SQL Server with powerful tools for encryption and verification, these are often not well understood. This can lead to poor or incomplete implementations. This white paper presents an overview of cryptographic functionality and discusses how this applies to authentication, signed procedures, permissions, and encryption. Because the target audience is the database professional and not necessarily security experts, the focus is on practical ways to use cryptography in SQL Server.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc837966.aspx

SQL Server 2008 SSMS Enhancements

I have written a few articles at www.sqlservercentral.com on the new features and enhancements added to SSMS in SQL Server 2008.

Read at: http://www.sqlserverandxml.com/2008/10/sql-server-2008-ssms-enhancements.html

SQL Server SET Options: Do not depend on the DB level settings

We have examined some of the SET options of SQL Server in the previous posts. We saw how these SET options controls the behavior of SQL Server in different cases.

We saw that some of the settings can be done at the database level. When an option is configured at the database level, all queries that you run on that database will inherit the setting, unless you change the option explicitly.

However, be aware that your data access library or the tool that you use to run your queries (SSMS, Query Analyzer etc) might change the SET options while establishing a connection to the server. They might change the SET options for the current session and when you run your queries, you might find a different behavior than expected.

Read the article here: http://www.sqlserverandxml.com/2008/10/sql-server-set-options-do-not-depend-on.html

Understanding SQL Server SET Options 4 - SET ARITHABORT ON | OFF

Part 4 of 'Understanding SQL Server SET Options' explains SET ARITABORT. ARITHABORT, along with ANSI_WARNINGS controls the behavior of SQL Server when it encounters an 'arithmetic overflow error' or 'division by zero error'.

You can find the post here: http://www.sqlserverandxml.com/2008/10/understanding-sql-server-set-options-4.html

Understanding SQL Server SET Options 3 - SET ANSI_PADDING ON | OFF

I started writing a series of posts on the SET options of SQL Server. I just posted a post on ANSI_PADDING. You can find the post at the link given below:

http://www.sqlserverandxml.com/2008/10/understanding-sql-server-set-options-3.html

UNPIVOT Example 2

We saw an example of UNPIVOT in the previous post. Let us see one more UNPIVOT example in this post

http://www.sqlserverandxml.com/2008/10/unpivot-example-2.html