SQL Server Blog

As with single value variables, these are very simple and powerful objects which are also only active and present during the execution of your code. They are automatically dropped and tidied up once execution finishes.

I was working on one site when we got a very strange replication error appear. I’ve still no idea what caused it, but that won’t stop me posting the error message itself along with the simple solution…

There are 3 backup types within SQL Server… Full, Differential, and Transactional.



The reason for there being 3 types are not immediately obvious but understanding them is key to having a good backup strategy within your system. These are also relevant to the Recovery Mode of your databases.

In order to get up and running creating Publications on your server, you first need to either set up a Distributor, or register a pre-existing remote Distributor. To do this we’ll use the Wizard.



In SSMS, right click Replication and select “Configure Distribution…”:

When adding articles to replication one of the most important things to consider are its properties. Get these wrong and your replication may not work as expected, but get them right and you’ll be plain sailing.



When adding articles you will see the following form:

In environments in which multiple SQL Servers (or other databases such as mySQL) are present, there are many times in which server A could require data from a database on server B. In order to accommodate this scenario SQL Server presents us with the Linked Server.



This is basically an integrated means of connecting to other SQL Servers whilst also giving a level of control between the systems such as security settings.

Here I will run through a basic installation of SQL Server 2008 R2. This does not include Analysis Services or Reporting Services as they are out of the scope of this article. This literally covers the basic install and key settings that need to be considered prior to running SQL Server for the first time.

This defines how often the SQL Server Agent job runs… does it run to a schedule, or does the job run continuously.

Once you have created your publication you will need to subscribe to it (otherwise it’s pretty pointless really).



You can start the Subscription wizard from either the Publisher or the Subscriber by clicking as follows: