Network Traffic Capture Without Installing Any Software

From time to time, there is a need to capture network traffic for troubleshooting on server. Some network tool like Wireshark is pretty popular for network capturing. However, these tool often need additional installation on the server, and depending on your security team rules, it may take days to be installed on the server.

There is an alternate way to capture network traffic on Windows OS without additional software installation. Using Netsh trace. Most of you may familiar with Netsh for different type of common purpose like firewall, http listener, network interface info, etc. Netsh could be also used to collect network trace.

Inserting and Hosting 551 Millions Records Cheaply - Case Study

Recently I worked on a pet project with cloud implementation. There was a dump file in text format with 551 million line of records which needs to be stored in a way where filtered results could be quickly returned from a query, and with a goal of low cost implementation.

The dataset is static. Large number of records. No relational requirement. The storage and querying has to be fast and low cost. Azure table storage seems to be a good candidate for this purpose. Azure table storage is a NoSQL key value store and is very cheap.

Windows Guy Learning Linux - Basic Command for Linux

If you have been working mostly with Microsoft technology stacks, switching from Windows and learning Linux could be an exciting and daunting journey. So far my journey to Linux has been fun and I love it!

Linux has GUI but mostly (almost entirely) for server and application administration are performed using command line. If you are on Windows workstation, PuTTY software could be used to ssh into Linux server.

Microsoft Recertification

Year 2016 is just around the corner. People are in holiday mood and in fact a lot of folks are on vacation at this time around. Project usually take this slow period into account and avoid any heavy personnel involvement and introduce changes only where necessary. This slow time of the year could be a great opportunity to expand knowledge and skills, and possibly look into certification / recertification.

SQL Replication - Subscriber On Different Domain

Setting up SQL Server replication with publisher / distributor on one domain and subscriber on another domain could be tricky. It could be even more interesting when these servers have the same host name. This blog post discuss issues encountered and the steps of addressing them.

SQL Server Replication - Case Study & Implementation

This post discuss of evaluating a business case, with designing and implementing SQL Server replication in a step-by-step tutorial to address the requirement.

Powershell Password Encryption & Decryption

One of the common task in Powershell script design and execution is credential encryption requirement. Some privileged account is used and its credential need to pass to the script in order to access resources. It becomes crucial especially when the execution tasks are being delegated to other users or being automated. As storing the password as clear text is huge security risk and the last thing desired, here in this blog post we discuss a few options on storing the credential securely.

Query Hint and Plan Guide

Query execution plan generated for a SQL query significantly affect the query performance. Parameter sniffing, indexes, statistics and other factors are taken into consideration for SQL Server query optimizer to produce an optimal query plan for the execution within a timely manner. Sometimes, due to certain scenarios and limitation, the query plan generated may be suboptimal. There are multiple ways to address this problem, like modifying the way the query is written, or using query hint or even plan guides under certain circumstances. This blog post discuss an example of using a query hint as well as plan guide.

Query Performance Tuning Example

As DBA, application performance issue and complaints often thrown our way. It is often fun to troubleshoot those performance issue. When it has been identified that the problem lies on SQL Server, it get even more exciting. Here is one of the example of how I tuned a query a while ago and also some lessons learned.

One Important Aspect - Mentor

Looking back to my education and career journey, there were times when I felt like it was totally stagnant, and other times of leap and bound moment. I have came to realize the importance of a mentor.