Jonathan Gardner

Houston Area SQL Server User Group Monthly Meeting

2010-03-09T08:29:07-08:00

When: Tuesday, March 9, 2010 – 11:30am-1:00pm
Where: Microsoft Houston Office
2000 W. Sam Houston Pkwy. S. #350
Houston, TX 77042
Pizza and drinks provided by Idera
Live Meeting
Conference Call for audio: 888.320.3585 (Passcode 76027128)
Topic: Accelerating Database Performance Using Solid State Storage
Speaker: Sumeet Bansal, Principal Solutions Architect at Fusion-io

Book Review: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 – Implementation and Maintenance – Self Pace Training Kit

2010-02-16T07:00:23-08:00

A few months ago I reviewed my training plan for 2009 and realized I needed to update my certifications and take the SQL Server 2008 – Implementation and Maintenance Exam 70-432. While I felt I had enough experience and knowledge to take the exam I wanted to ensure I would be comfortable with all of the areas covered by the exam. I turned to my training plan on Microsoft’s Learning site and purchased the recommended book by Mike Hotek (Twitter)

Price

The recommended price on the cover is $69.99. At the time of publishing this article the book could be found for around $45.00 at many bookstores including amazon.com. The book comes with a 180 day trial copy of SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, ebook, practice test, and example scripts and databases.

The Good

The book was set up in a very logical progression of technical building blocks. It started out with the very basics of proper setup and configuration. The author then progressed through some database basics and how they related specifically to SQL Server 2008. More advanced topics such as Policy Based Management, Automation, Monitoring and Performance Tuning were then covered. Finally ending with a very in depth look at High Availability solutions offered by SQL Server 2008.

The Bad

Some topics, partitioning in particular, covered basic information but could have been emphasized better as they had a very large presence on the test. That being said, Mike does cover partitioning in an entire chapter of the book but it seemed that this material was more prominent on the test that 1 chapter worth of material.

Overall

I would rate the book at 4.5 out of 5 stars. What made this book really shine was the inclusion of the practice test. After completion of a practice test, users are presented with a reading list based on the areas of the test where the user needs to straighten their skills. This reading list includes material not only in the book but aggregates information from across the web.

I strongly recommend that people interested in taking Exam 70-432 purchase this book.

MS Access ODBC Connetion Timeout Error

2010-02-04T05:00:27-08:00

There are some of us unfortunate DBAs out there that are forced to support MS Access connections to our database. I am one of those poor souls.

The Problem

I manage a Microsoft Dynamics NAV database with over 26,000 tables. When one of our users was trying to create a linked table in Access 2007 he was presented with a ODBC–call failed Timeout expired (#0) error.

Aside: I am always so appreciative of MS descriptive error messages.

I was unable to reproduce this error on my system. The main difference is that I am a member of the sysadmin fixed server role and he is not. I didn’t expect this to be my issue but ran a quick test. Low and behold when I set his user as a member of sysadmin he was able to list all of the table.

Having anyone other than a DBA as a member of the sysadmin fixed server role is unacceptable so I engaged Microsoft for some assistance.

The Environment

Physical Server HP DL380
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
SQL Server 2008 SP1 Enterprise
12 GB of RAM
Lefthand Networks iSCSI SAN

The Solution

Disable the ODBC Timeout value

On the client computer, click Start -> Run -> type “regedit” (without double quotes) and press Enter, locate the registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Access Connectivity Engine\Engines\ODBC

In Access

Click to highlight QueryTimeout, and then on the Edit menu, click Modify. Change the value to 0 (zero).

Close and re-open Access

Name That Caption Contest

2010-02-02T07:29:30-08:00

Thomas LaRock (Blog | Twitter) author of DBA Survivor: How to Become a Rockstar DBA is offering the opportunity to win a copy of his book. The contest is to create a caption for the banner on his website, also found below.

Here is my Caption

“If a backup fails and no one gets an alert, did it really fail?”

If you would like more information about the contest you can find it

here. To purchase a copy of his book you can find more information below.

MS Project Server and Backup Best Practices

2010-01-15T12:22:10-08:00

Microsoft’s Project is a very standard project management tool that most Project Managers are all to familiar with. While Project is a great application it was limited to local information. Microsoft’s Project Server extends Project’s capabilities and allows the sharing of resources and information across an Enterprise.

Project Server 2007 is built around the SharePoint platform and creates four databases upon installation that house project related data. The four databases are Archive, Draft, Published, and Reporting as can be seen in the image.

For any DBA who has tried to deal with SharePoint restores you know the nightmare that can become. Thats a topic for another post entirely. After one such incident and a help ticket with Microsoft it came to light that Project Server has a built in ‘backup’ capability. Microsoft’s words not mine. It is really more akin to version control than backups but that is besides the point.

In the Schedule Backup section of the Server Settings a Project Retention Policy (versions) setting can be found. By default this is set to zero. Microsoft’s best practices are that this be set to a minimum of 3.

Now on to why DBAs supporting Project Server need to know what is going on here. Project server operates by storing data in three of the four Project Server databases. When a project is created and saved to the server but not ‘Publish’ it stores the information in the, you guessed it, Draft database. Once the project has been published it moves to the Published database. I know, you are still with me. When the retention policy is set to 3 the Archive database is used to retain this information. Again not shocking. What needs to be planned for is the space that this will take. Your archive database will be, in this example, 3 times larger than your published database as well as the server activity that will be occurring when the ‘backup’ is taken.

Above is a shot of what gets backed up and when it does. This can be found in below the Project Retention Policy box on the Schedule Backup screen. It was also Best Practices to stagger these times so they didn’t all hit the Project Server queue at once.

While I have enjoyed using Project Server as a Project Manager can sometimes be a pain in the butt as a DBA. Do you have any Project Server stories you would like to share?

The Truth About Printers

2010-01-13T07:46:12-08:00

I was processing through my RSS feed this morning and ran across this image on the lifehacker.com site. It was very funny and so painfully true I had to share it.

Using OS X Automator to Combine PDFs

2010-01-12T06:30:41-08:00

It is no secret that I love my MacBook Pro. It runs today just like id did the day I purchased it almost 2 years ago. One of the built in features that I don’t use enough is Automator. Introduced in Tiger as a “personal automation assistant”, Automator allows end users to create workflows to perform repetitive tasks. While apple has an entire website dedicated to OS X Automation Automator remains a very under utilized application.

Because of the way our office scanner works I find myself needing to combine multiple scanned PDF files on a very regular basis. While not a complicated task to complete it is one that I know could be, well, automated.

Automator is a drag and drop interface. I was added the following actions to my workflow:

Ask for Finder Items – There were two options here. One was to call the files by name using the Get Finder Items command but I wanted to be able to use this workflow over and over on different file types.
Combine PDF Pages – This is where the magic happens.
Rename PDF Document – The file needs to be renamed so this command preps the document to be renamed.
Rename Finder Items – The document is then passed to the Rename Finder Items command to receive the name that I want. The file will be named ‘Untitled’ when it is passed from the Rename PDF Document command.
Move Finer Items – This final command moved the file where I want it.

This image is what the workflow will look like when it is all in place.

I have two options when saving my workflow. I can save it as just that, a workflow, or I can save it as an application. There are advantages to both. I actually save them as both, The application will simply run the workflow. In this case the application will prompt me for the PDF files that I want to combine and then run the workflow on those items. If I use the workflow file I am able to modify the workflow before I run it.

Many Automator commands, or actions as they are formally called, are available for download on Apple’s download site. Actions are also available from 3rd party sites like MacScripter.

Have a favorite Automator Action or workflow? We would love to hear from you in the comments section.

Blackberry Messenger Causes Data Outage

2009-12-28T10:45:55-08:00

It appears that the latest release of the BlackBerry Messenger application is the root cause of a major outage on Tuesday. The outage caused users to be unable to use the data services on their phones. This caused all data services including email to be unavailable.

VMware “Operation Failed Since Another Task Is In Progress”

2009-12-28T09:23:46-08:00

I had a coworker run into an interesting VMware issue today and wanted to share.

The Problem

We had a VM that was ‘frozen’ it showed that it was running but it was not responding. After trying to force restart the VM with no luck he went looking for a solution.

The Solution

Because this was in the production VMware environment we could not just reboot the host. The solution was found on the SysAdminHell Blog. The solution was in the first section of the article. The individual VM must be killed via the command shell of the host server.

The VMware community that Seth discusses in his post can be found here which also outlines the solution.

P90X Lifestyle Transformation

2009-12-23T14:35:50-08:00

Another lifetime ago I considered myself an athlete. I played football and according to some I was pretty good. I had a fairly quick time in the 40 yard dash and could lift mountains of weights. I could eat 8,000 calories in a day and it didn’t matter because I was going to burn it off on the field or in the weight room. Exercise was a major part of my life.

That was another lifetime ago. Now I am a Technology Consultant and sit in a cubicle all day. While I was happy with my life I missed the competition of the field. About 6 months ago, with the blessing of my wife, I started playing rugby with the Houston Athletic Rugby Club (HARC). After working out with the team over the summer and practice in the fall I find myself very out of shape, hardly being able to finish one half of play. After 6 months I found that while I had a strong exercise knowledge my body has changed from what I was taught and I realized I needed help. With some friends like Kim Murgatroyd Website|Blog|Twitter reporting amazing results from the P90X program I decided to give it a shot.

The Challenge

90 Days of intense workouts
Nutrition and lifestyle change

The Goals

Reduce my body fat down to that to that of an average male my age.
Change my lifestyle to be more active and make choices that reflect that.

While this blog is normally a place that I share technology knowledge I know that I am not alone in my struggles. I am not the only IT guy out there that wishes he was in better shape. This will tell my story and serve as a place for everyone to hold me accountable. I will share my successes, my struggles, and my thoughts. If you have your own stories of lifestyle transformation I would love to hear them.