A person with a small amount of SQL Server DBA experience came to me and asked if there was an automatic job deletes users or changes user permissions. I told them there was no default job that does that. I then suggested they look at the audits to see if there was any activity. Come to find out, there were no audits on the installations. I decided to implement some audits so the question I was originally asked could be answered by viewing the audits.

This led to explaining how to use audits. In SQL Server 2008 (and 2008 R2), hereinafter referenced as SQL 2008, auditing is so easy, there is no reason not to do it. Basic process for creating an audit is to create audit and then define the specification for the audit. Continue reading →

I recently was playing around with SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services and switching between Native and SharePoint integrated mode.  In the last change, I switched from SharePoint Integrated to Native but came across an error when opening the Report Manager, specifically HTTP Error 503: Service is Unavailable. As usual, I over analyzed it but did find the solution. Continue reading →

Sometimes in SQL Reporting Services, some Windows updates can break your client connect to print from SQL Report Manager or an application using the  ReportViewer control. Continue reading →

A recent installation of SQL Reporting Services installed successfully but then when testing the site, no matter how the Reporting Services Configuration Manager was configured, the Reporting Manager could not be access using the server name. I couldn’t even connect to the database engine using the server name in Management Studio. Then I remembered something. Continue reading →