Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

  • Creating Strong Passwords

    I was writing a presentation recently on encryption and one of the important things to show in the presentation is the use of strong passwords. Many of the encryption functions will use passwords as an alternate way to secure keys, and I hate showing bad habits, like “mystrongpassword” in examples.

    I searched around and find some interesting tricks for creating strong passwords. These were two guides that I liked:

    There are some good items in there, including the use of phrases and suffixes instead of trying to build some long word that you can easily remember. Personally I use a combination of techniques, and so far (knock on wood), my passwords have been fairly safe. At least as far as I know.

    I also use Password Safe to store passwords for various sites and I keep that in synch with Dropbox across my desktop, my iPhone (pwsafe), and my Macbook Air (Password Gorilla).

    This site also has tricks, but an interesting password tester as well that helps you score your passwords. A few of mine score in the mediocre range, which has me rethinking them and adding a few more characters to the length.

    Lastly, if you hate typing passwords, and I completely understand that, learn to type. The better you type, at least those items you type a lot, the less hassle better security is for you.

  • SQL Server 2012 Licensing VMs without SA

    I ran across a blog talking about Microsoft licensing, and found it very interesting. I learned a few things, and it’s a bookmark I’ll keep in mind.

    A subtle change, one that caught my eye. In SQL Server 2012, if you don’t have Software Assurance, you have this limitation for Enterprise Edition:

    “SQL Without Active Software Assurance (SA) VM density is limited to one VM per physical Core. VM Density can never rise above the hardware footprint. “

    Mmmm, that’s interesting. I know a lot of people were foregoing SA with after the delays with SQL Server 2005, and the idea they would not upgrade so frequently. However if you are looking to remove some old hardware, and migrate some of the older machines that might run fine in 2×2 or 4×4 environments to their own VM on a dense environment, you might be out of luck.

    Apparently that’s similar licensing to SQL Server 2008 R2. If you were upgrading from SQL Server 2008 and had SA, you had unlimited VM rights grandfathered in with R2.

    Licensing is strange and complex, especially with regards to virtualization. If  you have specific questions about something you are doing, especially if you are moving to a high volume VM environment, check with MS licensing first. It’s easy to get out of compliance, and while you won’t have to pay more yourself, you will get blamed if your company pays more.

  • Windows OS Information from SQL Server

    I ran across a thread recently where someone was asking how to get the Windows start time from within SQL Server. Since SQL Server is a process running on the Windows host, I wasn’t sure how one would do this without running something like Uptime from xp_cmdshell. There was an answer, however, that I found very interesting and hadn’t realized would provide the information.

    SELECT
DATEADD(s,((-1)*([ms_ticks]/1000)),GETDATE()) AS last_restart
FROM sys.[dm_os_sys_info];

    This queries the DMV sys.dm_os_sys_info, which contains all sorts of information from the host OS. You can get:

    • logical CPUs
    • the hyperthreading ratio
    • physical memory
    • virtual memory
    • schedulers
    • affinity
    • virtualized environment
    • virtualization hypervisor

    and more. It’s a view into a few OS level items that you don’t need often, but which you might want to check when troubleshooting some issues. Knowing that the OS restarted, in addition to the SQL service, can be valuable.

  • Renewed

    I received my fourth (or fifth?) renewal notice as a Microsoft MVP this morning. I am proud to be recognized as contributing to the SQL Server community. Thanks to everyone that reads my work or comes to see me speak and I’m glad if I can help a few of you in your SQL Server work and career.