Mathom Solutions Blog-IT

I am always on the lookout for new tools and when they are free...you can't really complain!

Here are some new ones that are rather interesting so make sure and check them out!

SQL Server 2005 Express Profiler  is a free profiler for the Express Edition of SQL Server.

SQL Scripter is a data export and scripting utility for MS SQL Server.

SSMS Tool Pak  is an Add-In that gives the Management Studio some neat features such as CRUD generation and a whole host of neat little featuers that MS left out.

Sentrigo Hedgehog Standard is a free host-based software solution for real-time database monitoring, auditing and breach prevention.

Red-Gate Log Shipping Monitor is a free tool for collating and summarising SQL Server Log Shipping activity.

I also have a list of several others over at my main website so stop over there and see the full list. 

I have been doing a lot of data migration and disaster recovery synchronization lately and had a need to run DOS commands quite frequently.  It was a pain to switch from SSMS to the command window or prompt and then run the DOS command or even more interesting the batch files I just exported.  So I found a way to run it from within SSMS.  

Type in your command and make sure to prefix it with two exclamation points !!  Then click the SQLCMD button on the tool bar and then hit Execute (F5) and voila, it runs! 

I don't know about you but I am always on the look out for new tools...so it was nice to see two new ones come out. 

1.  RSS Reporter from xSQL software. This is a FREE (for a limited time) utility that creates RSS feeds for your jobs.  The RSS Reported is installed on a server running IIS – any user that has credentials to connect to certain SQL Server instances and view job information can create a profile on the RSS Reporter. The profile for each user contains a list of SQL Server instances, the authentication method, necessary credentials for connecting to each instance, and basic configuration settings. RSS Reporter connects to all the SQL Server instances in the profile and automatically generates a set of predefined RSS Feeds. The user can then subscribe to and read those feeds from any connected device.

2.  Kernel Recovery for SQL by Nucleus Data Recovery.  Kernel Recovery for SQL – data recovery software recovers data from the corrupt Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and 2005. The corrupt, damaged .mdf database files are effectively repaired and data is recovered from them.

Tables, Views, triggers, stored procedures are easily recovered and the damaged unique keys, primary keys and foreign keys are also repaired by Kernel Recovery for SQL - data recovery software. The sql recovery software effectively recovers the deleted records, partly damaged records which get saved in separate batch files. The database rebuilding batch is created automatically by Kernel recovery for SQL with which the database can be easily recreated and the user can again work on it.

I haven't had a chance to play with either one but they do offer some interesting solutions to problems.

I don't know about you but I have my own hard earned bag of tricks and scripts that I have developed over the years.  Each new SQL Server that I inherit gets these stored procedures, jobs, scripts put on them without fail.  However, I have always wondered what Microsoft does for their SQL Servers...what scripts?, what jobs?, how often?...and the like.  Well, I came across this the other day and my questions had been answered. 

Microsoft AITScripts.zip  (downloads a zip file from from the MS download site)

The scripts in here are from Microsoft and give you a glimpse into what they do on their own DB servers for transaction logs, backups, error log cycling, index defragmentation, and so on. 

As always, I would recommned looking through the code throughly, installing them on a test server first and playing with them there as I can't be responsible for their content and I am sure MS would say the same.   

For me I was suprised to see how similar things were.  We had a lot of the same jobs/tasks but for me it was more interesting to see their code and how they do things. 

Enjoy!