SQL Server: Fix – Msg 1204, Level 19, State 4 – The instance of the SQL Server Database Engine cannot obtain a LOCK resource at this time…

This is an error that does not happen often. In fact, I came across this for the first time when one of my co-workers Inken HOEIJMANS asked me about this. With her permission, I am reproducing her code solution here. Thank you Inken! She was trying to run a MERGE statement using a large source …

SQL Server: Fix: Transaction (Process ID) was deadlocked on lock | communication buffer resources with another process and has been chosen as the deadlock victim. Rerun the transaction

I have a nightly SQL Agent job that aggregates backup information from system views to power a Power BI dashboard that the DBA's review periodically for database backup failures. It is actually a PowerShell job that runs every night in parallel to collect the data from hundreds of instances (both SQL Server and Oracle). As …

Oracle: Resolve “ORA-01704: string literal too long” and/or Non-ANSI Language Character Display Issues

You may experience issues when it comes to special characters. It could be DML (Insert/Update/Delete) where the data is not stored properly (or) display related (SELECT) where the characters do not display correctly as they are stored in the database. You could resolve both. Please continue reading on how to. Straight-forward case: The error "ORA-01704: …

SQL Server: Time To Switch Schema Of All Objects Away From “dbo”

What are Schemas for? All of you are familiar with the default and built-in schema "dbo". When you create an object without a schema, "dbo" becomes the schema for the object. Generally, it is NOT considered a good practice from a manageability or security perspective to have everything owned by "dbo".  The alternative is to …

Eating An Elephant – How To Work With Huge Datasets In Oracle And SQL Server

Simplifying complex problems is difficult but when done, the rewards are definitely worth it. How I single-handedly managed to migrate 55 Billion rows in 4000+ tables: Last year, I created PowerPump a PowerShell based data copy server which continuously migrated 4000+ Oracle tables to SQL Server. It was no simple task given that I had …