As SQL Azure CTP is released I have included here step by step guide for how to configure the CTP.

For pricing and introduction please read SQLAuthority News – SQL Azure – Microsoft SQL Data Services – Introduction and Pricing

First it has to be configured online at https://sql.azure.com/

Login using your Live ID

Type in invitation code received from Microsoft for CTP. You can request one for your self here.

Accept the TOU.

Once logged it you will have to create server username and password.

Click on my project and it will provide you details about your servername where your data is going to be stored in Azure.

Currently default database is master database. Click on ‘Create Database’ button to create new user defined database.

After please switch to Firewall Settings tab and click on checkbox “Allow Microsoft Services Access to this server”.

Select the first rule and click on “Edit Rule”. Che the value of to IP range to either your static IP only for security purpose. If due to any reason, you want to leave it open so you can connect to your Azure from any where keep the From IP to 0.0.0.0 and change the to IP to 255.255.255.255.

After the change the settings should look like following image.

Now the next step is to connect to SQL Azure from SQL Server Management Studio. When you open SQL Server Management Studio, it opens up the connection window. CLOSE IT!

Now click on New Query.

Once click on new query enter username and password as well the servername noted earlier and click on connect. It should connect fine and new query window with master as default database should be displayed. You can start writing any query in New Query Window and result will be visible in Result Window.

Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Posted in Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL Azure

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 November Community Technology Preview
Building on SQL Server 2008, R2 provides an even more scalable data platform with comprehensive tools for managing your databases and applications, improving the quality of your data, and empowering your users to build rich analyses and reports using tools they are already familiar with.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 November Community Technology Preview Feature Pack
The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Feature Pack is a collection of stand-alone packages which provide additional value for SQL Server 2008 R2.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Books Online Community Technology Preview November 2009
Download the a community technology preview (CTP) release version of the documentation and tutorials for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 November Community Technology Preview – Express Edition
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express is a powerful and reliable data management system that delivers a rich set of features, data protection, and performance for embedded application clients, light Web applications, and local data stores.

SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies 2010
The Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies allows you to integrate your reporting environment with SharePoint to experience the benefits of using the collaborative environment provided by SharePoint.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP StreamInsight
Microsoft® SQL Server® StreamInsight is Microsoft’s new Complex Event Processing technology to help businesses derive better insights by correlating event streams from multiple sources with near-zero latency.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP Report Builder 3.0
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Report Builder 3.0 provides an intuitive report authoring environment for business and power users. It supports the full capabilities of SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services. The download provides a stand-alone installer for Report Builder 3.0.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 – PowerPivot for Microsoft® Excel 2010 – November Community Technology Preview
Microsoft® PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel 2010 provides ground-breaking technology, such as fast manipulation on large data sets (often in millions of rows), streamlined integration of data, and the ability to effortlessly share your analysis through Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

What’s New in SQL Server 2008 R2 November Community Technology Preview (CTP)
This document describes what’s new in the November CTP of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. Analysis Services, Database Engine, Reporting Services, and Service Broker all have new or enhanced features in this release. Master Data Services is a new component in this release.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

Quite often I get request if I send blog post in newsletter or through email. Here are few important links.

You can for sure get email of my post, however, I strongly suggest to visit blog as if there are any updates in my post they are reflected on blog.

Subscribe to blog post through email

Subscribe SQLAuthority Feed

Search SQLAuthority – This is very powerful search. Give it a try.

Follow me on Twitter

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Because Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services query and processing performance tuning is a fairly broad subject, this white paper organizes performance tuning techniques into the following three segments.

Enhancing Query Performance – Query performance directly impacts the quality of the end user experience. As such, it is the primary benchmark used to evaluate the success of an online analytical processing (OLAP) implementation. Analysis Services provides a variety of mechanisms to accelerate query performance, including aggregations, caching, and indexed data retrieval. In addition, you can improve query performance by optimizing the design of your dimension attributes, cubes, and Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) queries.

Enhancing Processing Performance – Processing is the operation that refreshes data in an Analysis Services database. The faster the processing performance, the sooner users can access refreshed data. Analysis Services provides a variety of mechanisms that you can use to influence processing performance, including efficient dimension design, effective aggregations, partitions, and an economical processing strategy (for example, incremental vs. full refresh vs. proactive caching).

Tuning Server Resources – There are several engine settings that can be tuned that affect both querying and processing performance.

Download SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services Performance Guide

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

I use following script very often and I realized that I have never shared this script on this blog before. Creating Comma Separated Values (CSV) from Table Column is a very common task, and we all do this many times a day. Let us see the example that I use frequently and its output.

USE AdventureWorks
GO
-- Check Table Column
SELECT Name
FROM HumanResources.Shift
GO
-- Get CSV values
SELECT SUBSTRING(
(SELECT ',' + s.Name
FROM HumanResources.Shift s
ORDER BY s.Name
FOR XML PATH('')),2,200000) AS CSV
GO

I consider XML as the best solution in terms of code and performance. Further, as I totally prefer this option, I am not even including the linka to my other articles, where I have described other options.

Do you use any other method to resolve this issue? Can you find any significant difference in performance between these options? Please leave your comment here.

Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Posted in Best Practices, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Optimization, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: CSV, SQL XML

Today we will go over a very simple, but interesting subject. The following error is quite common if you use ORDER BY while creating any view:

Msg 1033, Level 15, State 1, Procedure something, Line 5
The ORDER BY clause is invalid in views, inline functions, derived tables, subqueries, and common table expressions, unless TOP or FOR XML is also specified.

The error also explains the solution for the same – use of TOP. I have seen developers and DBAs using TOP very causally when they have to use the ORDER BY clause. Theoretically, there is no need of ORDER BY in the view at all. All the ordering should be done outside the view and view should just have the SELECT statement in it.

It was quite common that to save this extra typing by including ordering inside of the view. At several instances developers want a complete resultset and for the same they include TOP 100 PERCENT along with ORDER BY, assuming that this will simulate the SELECT statement with ORDER BY.

In SQL Server 2008, this behavior is corrected by ignoring the ORDER BY clause when TOP 100% is used. Let us see a quick script for the same.

USE AdventureWorks
GO

-- SELECT from Table Without TOP or ORDER BY
SELECT *
FROM HumanResources.Shift
GO
-- SELECT from Table With TOP and ORDER BY DESC
SELECT TOP 100 PERCENT *
FROM HumanResources.Shift
ORDER BY ShiftID DESC
GO
-- Create View with same as above statement
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.views
WHERE OBJECT_ID = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[vwShift]'))
DROP VIEW [dbo].[vwShift]
GO
CREATE VIEW vwShift
AS
SELECT TOP 100 PERCENT *
FROM HumanResources.Shift
ORDER BY ShiftID DESC
GO
-- Select From View
SELECT *
FROM vwShift
GO


Let us see the result of above script here. It is quite clear from the result that in the view, ORDER BY clause is ignored and result is returned as similar as that of a regular SELECT statement without ORDER BY.

Note that SQL Server 2008 view with ORDER BY clause does not throw an error; moreover, it does not acknowledge the presence of it as well.

If you have any similar ideas as the above one, please leave a comment here.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

In SQL Server, whenever we create any key, a Primary Key automatically creates clustered index on the same. I like this feature and I use this feature every now and then.

The question is does the change of any column as Primary Key should also create a Clustered Index? Moreover, is there any case, where one would not do the same?

One of the recent conversations I had with one SQL Expert is with regard to the SSN number. The discussion was that SSN numbers are always unique and never repeated and hence are the best candidates for primary key. Additionally SSN numbers contains dashes (-), which make the datatype of the SSN numbers as String (VARCHAR or NVARCHAR). A clustered index on an integer usually performs better over a clustered index on an integer and makes the DBA to choose Primary Key of datatype Integer. At one point in our conversation, we discussed that if SSN number should be a Unique Constraint and if there should be another Identity Column as the Primary Key.

Some of the questions from our interesting discussion are as follows:

Would you have the datatype of your Primary Key as string?
Would you treat SSN as string datatype or remove the dashes and change it into an integer?
Do you have a real life example, where your primary key is not a clustered index?
What are the best practices for SSN number to store in database and obtain optimal performance?

I will post an interesting answer discussing this subject in a separate post with due credit.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

I quite often get request to summarized my ideas about Removing bookmark lookup on this blog post. Bookmark lookup or key lookup are bad for any query as they force query engine to lookpup corresponding row in the table or index as it does not find required data from just reading the data.

Here are list of my four post written on the same subject.

SQL SERVER – Query Optimization – Remove Bookmark Lookup – Remove RID Lookup – Remove Key Lookup

SQL SERVER – Query Optimization – Remove Bookmark Lookup – Remove RID Lookup – Remove Key Lookup – Part 2

SQL SERVER – Query Optimization – Remove Bookmark Lookup – Remove RID Lookup – Remove Key Lookup – Part 3

SQL SERVER – Removing Key Lookup – Seek Predicate – Predicate – An Interesting Observation Related to Datatypes

Let me know your opinion about the same and I am interested to here what you have to add to this subject.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

This 15 modules, level 300 course provides students with the knowledge and skills to capitalize on their skills and experience as an Oracle DBA to manage a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 system. This workshop provides a quick start for the Oracle DBA to map, compare, and contrast the realm of Oracle database management to SQL Server database management.

Module 1: Database and Instance
Module 2: Database Architecture
Module 3: Instance Architecture
Module 4: Data Objects
Module 5: Data Access
Module 6: Data Protection
Module 7: Basic Administration
Module 8: Server Management
Module 9: Managing Schema Objects
Module 10: Database Security
Module 11: Data Transport
Module 12: Backup and Recovery
Module 13: Performance Tuning
Module 14: Scalability and High Availability
Module 15: Monitoring

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com),

Expert SQL Server 2008 Encryption (Paperback)
Michael Coles (Author), Rodney Landrum (Author)

Link to Amazon

“What is your opinion on encryption? What I mean is: In a world filled with data, how do you see encryption?” This is the precise question Michael Coles posed to me on March 3^rd of this year, while we were heading to Starbucks in Seattle. We were both attending the Microsoft MVP Summit there.

In the information era, security has become one of the most vital aspects of life. Although the topic may seem a little mundane, its importance cannot be overemphasized. It is the pillar of the information age and I shudder to think where we would be without it. We don’t leave our houses unlocked and risk thieves or opportunists taking off with our valuables. We also often take precautions, not only to preserve the precious, but also to avoid the sheer hassle of replacement and misuse. So too it should be with our information.

Encryption’s roots are extremely old and it has resolved numerous security problems over the years. In days gone by, couriers were entrusted with letters sealed with a royal wax stamp. If on delivery, the seal was broken, it was obvious that there had been a security breach. This very concept evolved as CRC checksum and developed into a complex algorithm.  While CRC checksum alerted the end user to the fact that content had been modified, its limitation was that it allowed manipulation of the content to occur in the first place. With encryption, only the authenticated owner can access and modify content.

In response to Michael’s question, I began to tell him what I knew about public and private keys. He looked at me doubtfully and asked me directly if I had ever used encryption in my career. My reluctant answer to this was “No”. He strongly suggested that I not underestimate its capabilities and explore its possibilities. I took his advice and have since implemented encryption for many of my clients, who are now far safer from unauthorized access to data.

To be very honest, in my experience, not many people know much about the subject beyond a little about public and private keys.  You do not often find experts discussing symmetric and asymmetric keys, which are just the tip of the iceberg. SQL Server has come a long way with regard to security. Encryption has taken on a whole new meaning in SQL Server 2008. There are many new features such as Extensible Key Management, Transparent Data Encryption, not to mention the pre-2008 ones such as cryptographic hashing, SQL CLR and many more. In performance terms, these are great enhancements.

The one exception is Transparent Data Encryption, where the whole database is encrypted. This can considerably reduce performance if the SQL Server box is not sufficiently powerful. It this is the case, it is a good time to offload all the encryption and decryption to third-party hardware. SQL Server allows third-party management of encryption and decryption through Extensible Key Management.

Extending the earlier courier analogy, consider the fact that even if our letter is secure and safe in our hands, as soon as we hand it to the courier it is exposed to risk and can be compromised. SQL Server 2008 has many new features, which secure data while it is being communicated between applications. A number of features were introduced that check whether data is manipulated during transmission.

Data is everywhere and taking in terms of Terra Bytes (TB) is the current reality. When a large amount of data needs to be handled, there are two major challenges. The first challenge is the actual encryption process and the resources needed to perform it. The second challenge is how to use the data once it has been encrypted.  In a regular database searching through TBs of data can take a very long time. Imagine how long this could take in and encrypted database?

In Seattle, Michael and I discussed these challenges and a few more subjects. The discussion lasted more than four hours. I have always known Michael to be an excellent author. He is renowned in the industry for his expertise of XML and Full Text Search. To my mind, he is an expert who has the extraordinary ability of relating complex concepts in simple terms. No matter how long, boring or complicated the topic, his delivery is always sweet, like chocolate that melts in the mouth.

Michael always addresses uncommon subjects. Perhaps his experience as a Sergeant in the army has given him the spirit to explore the unexplored.  I have never before encountered a single book on the subject of encryption for SQL Server and Michael’s will a “first”.

I recently had the pleasure of reading it and especially like the manner in which he and his co-author, Rodney, explain the significance of encryption. While many of the concepts covered are domain-specific, quite a few topics are common to all and the appendix is a “must read” for anyone planning a security strategy. One thing that really makes this book special is the fact that each module is written independently and you can find solutions by simply reading the relevant one.

I am a hands-on developer and only like books that have a lot of workable examples. With the exception of the first chapter, the book is filled with examples and hands-on experiments. The first chapter in itself is quite unique, as it not only provides a introduction to encryption, but also the very interesting history of encryption.  Even non-technical readers will enjoy this.

Summary:
It is my great pleasure to welcome this one-of-a- kind book to the SQL Server world. There is no doubt that this book is exceptional and will inspire anyone one who is ready to take their current security mechanism to the next level using encryption.

Stars : 5 Stars

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

Introduction

Today we have a very interesting subject to look at. I tried to look for help online but have not found any other documentation besides what we have from the Book Online.

Let us try to understand what are the different kinds of hints available in SQL Server and how they are helpful.

What is a Hint?

Hints are options and strong suggestions specified for enforcement by the SQL Server query processor on DML statements. The hints override any execution plan the query optimizer might select for a query.

Before we continue to explore this subject, we need to consider one very important fact and say some words of caution. SQL Server Query optimizer is a very smart tool and it makes a best selection of execution plan. Suggesting hints to the Query Optimizer should be attempted when absolutely necessary and by experienced developers who know exactly what they are doing (or in development as a way to experiment and learn).

There are three different kinds of hints. Let us understand the basics of each of them separately.

Join Hint

This hint is used when more than one table is used in a query. Two or more tables can be joined using different kinds of joins. This hint forces the type of join algorithm that is used. Joins can be used in SELECT, UPDATE and DELETE statements.

Query Hint

This hint is used when certain kind of logic has to be applied to a whole query. Any hint used in the query is applied to the complete query, as opposed to part of it. There is no way to specify that only a certain part of a query should be used with the hint. After any query, the OPTION clause is specified to apply the logic to this query. A query always has any of the following statements: SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE, INSERT or MERGE (SQL 2K8); and this hint can be applied to all of them.

Table Hint

This hint is used when certain kind of locking mechanism of tables has to be controlled. SQL Server query optimizer always puts the appropriate kind of lock on tables, when any of the Transact SQL operations SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE, INSERT or MERGE are used. There are certain cases when the developer knows when and where to override the default behavior of the locking algorithm and these hints are useful in those scenarios.

Let us run the following simple query with different kinds of query hints and observe the actual execution plan. The analysis of execution plan is not part of this article and will be covered in future.

The above query will produce the following query execution plan.

In this article we will focus mainly on Join Hints. We will discuss other kinds of hints and their usage in a different article. There are a total of four kinds of join hints available.

Loop Join

This join is also commonly known as nested iteration. This kind of join is composed by an outer loop and an inner loop. When the query runs for each row of the outer loop, the inner loop is executed completely. This join is effective only when the outer loop query is small and the inner loop query has all the proper optimizations applied. This join method is very useful with small transactions.

Merge Join

This join has the unique requirement for tables involved in the operation to be sorted. This join keeps both of the tables sorted in parallel and compares each table row by row simultaneously with each other. It compares one row of the first table with one row of the second table. If they are equal, that row qualifies; otherwise, this join determines which row of each table has the lower value. Once the lowest value of the table is figured out, it moves on to next row of that table and compares that to the original row. This operation keeps going on until all rows from each table are completely examined. This operation can be very expensive when tables are not sorted and it’s required to sort them before they are joined. If tables have non clustered indexes over them and joins are using the same conditions, there are pretty good chances that this join performs better than other kinds of joins.

Hash Join

This is the most complex of all the other joins. There are two major components of this kind of join – build query and probe query. First, a smaller table is assigned as build query and a hash table for the same is created. This hash table is compared with the probe table. This comparison of input table and probe table is done one row at a time. One row of the probe table is hashed and compared against the other row, and qualifying rows are checked.

There are three different kinds of hash joins:  in-memory hash join, grace hash join, and recursive hash join. Let us look in more detail at these three kinds of joins.

In-Memory Hash Join

This kind of hash join is used when tables are very small and a complete table can be hashed and loaded in memory.

Grace Hash Join

This kind of hash join is used when tables are comparatively large and don’t fit in memory. Tables will be partitioned at input levels and processed in steps.

Recursive Hash Join

This kind of join is used for complex tables and for tables which are very large and require multilevel of table partitions.

SQL Server query optimizer is a smart tool and it knows when to use the right kind of join. When it comes to hash join, the query optimizer starts conservatively with in-memory hash join. If join is larger than in-memory it moves up to Grace hash join or Recursive hash join. Sometimes the optimizer makes a mistake in identifying a smaller table and it reverses the role of the build and probe table: this is called role reversal.

Remote Join

This is least-used tabled join ever. There is no example for it given in Book On Line. Every Join has two tables associated with it: Left Table and Right Table. The join usually happens on the Left Table. When Remote close is used, joins are performed on the site of Right Join. This join can only be performed on INNER JOIN as in case of OUTER join there may be NULL values on the right table which makes concept of joining on right table logically incorrect.

Summary

We have closely observed different kinds of Join Hints in this article. We will cover the remaining concepts in another article.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com), DNS

Posted in Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Joins, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

It is very easy to find out some basic details of any table using the following Stored Procedure.

USE AdventureWorks
GO
EXEC sp_spaceused [HumanResources.Shift]
GO

Above query will return following resultset

The above SP provides basic details such as rows, data size in table, and Index size of all the indexes on the table.

If we look at this carefully, a total of three indexes can be found on the table HumanResources.Shift.

USE AdventureWorks
GO
SELECT *
FROM sys.indexes
WHERE OBJECT_ID = OBJECT_ID('HumanResources.Shift')
GO

The above query will give result with query listing all the index on the table.

There is a small puzzle for all of you here. The puzzle is to write a query that will return the size for each index that is listed in above query. We need a query that will return an additional column in the above listed query and it should contain the size of the index. In our case, we will have three different sizes, which should add up to a total of 40 KB as shown in earlier query, where the total size is displayed.

I will publish the solution with due credit on this blog.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

Script of Backup, Integrity Check and Index Optimization are the most important scripts for any developer. SQL Expert and true SQL enthusiast Ola Hallengren is known for his excellent scripts.

Please try it out and let me know what you think. The documentation is available on http://ola.hallengren.com/Documentation.html and the script can be downloaded from http://ola.hallengren.com.

Here is brief documentation sent by Ola himself for his script in his own words.

Backup Maintenance

I think that most of you have experienced the error messages “BACKUP LOG cannot be performed because there is no current database backup.” and “Cannot perform a differential backup for database “”, because a current database backup does not exist.”.

This usually happens when you have created a new database or when you have changed recovery model of a database from Simple to Full.

The consequence is that the database is not getting backed up, until a full backup (or a differential backup for the BACKUP LOG error message if that can be done) has been performed. It will also create some noise in your monitoring system.

The solution is to check if a differential or transaction log backup can be performed before doing the backup. This can be done by checking sys.master_files.differential_base_lsn and sys.database_recovery_status.last_log_backup_lsn.

The backup solution that I have developed has a parameter called @ChangeBackupType.

EXECUTE dbo.DatabaseBackup @Databases = 'USER_DATABASES', @Directory = 'C:\Backup', @BackupType = 'LOG', @ChangeBackupType = 'Y'

If it’s a new database in Full recovery model, the backup type for that database and job run will be changed to full. If it’s a database that was newly changed to Full recovery model, then the backup type for that database and job run will be changed to differential. The next time the job runs a transaction log backup will be performed for that database.

New databases start getting backed up quickly and no more “BACKUP LOG cannot be performed because there is no current database backup.” and “Cannot perform a differential backup for database “”, because a current database backup does not exist.”.

Index Optimization

The design idea is categorize all indexes based on their fragmentation level (High, Medium or Low) and whether there are columns with LOB (Large Object) data types. For each category you can define an action. The possible actions are to rebuild indexes online or offline, reorganize indexes, update statistics, reorganize indexes and update statistics or to do nothing.

Here’s an example.

EXECUTE dbo.IndexOptimize
@Databases = 'USER_DATABASES',
@FragmentationHigh_LOB = 'INDEX_REBUILD_OFFLINE',
@FragmentationHigh_NonLOB = 'INDEX_REBUILD_ONLINE',
@FragmentationMedium_LOB = 'INDEX_REORGANIZE',
@FragmentationMedium_NonLOB = 'INDEX_REORGANIZE',
@FragmentationLow_LOB = 'NOTHING',
@FragmentationLow_NonLOB = 'NOTHING',
@FragmentationLevel1 = 5,
@FragmentationLevel2 = 30,
@PageCountLevel = 1000


Indexes with a fragmentation above 30% are to be rebuilt, online if possible (no LOB columns), otherwise offline (LOB columns). Indexes with a fragmentation between 5% and 30% are to be reorganized. Indexes with a fragmentation below 5% or a size below 1000 pages are not to be touched.

If you are using partitioning IndexOptimize has a parameter, @PartitionLevel to do index rebuilds and reorganizations on the partition level. If you prefer to do sort operations in tempdb you can do that with the parameter @SortInTempdb and if you would like to set a fillfactor you can do that with the parameter @FillFactor.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Update: Do not forget to checkout last three photos and follow me on twitter (of course!)

I have previously documented my four-day experience of SQL PASS 2009 Summit at Seattle. There were many reasons for SQL enthusiasts to attend the SQL PASS event; I am listing my own reasons here in order of importance to me.

• Networking with SQL fellows and experts
• Putting face to the name or avatar
• Learning and improving my SQL skills
• Understanding the structure of the largest SQL Server Professional Association
• Attending my favorite training sessions

During these four days, there was so much happening that it is difficult to document everything. I had tried to cover this event briefly on a daily basis in the following blog posts:

SQLAuthority News – SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 1
SQLAuthority News – SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 2
SQLAuthority News – SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 3
SQLAuthority News – SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 4

I will list a few of the additional details that I have not included in the earlier post. Keynotes were the best part of the event, and I have covered major points of the keynote in above mentioned posts. I had met many SQL Legends during this event and included information regarding them. However, there were few things I still missed and I am listing them here. Seattle is great city, and I am visiting it the second time. This time I got an opportunity to take the Underground city tour and I had really enjoyed.

It was great to meet SQL Server MVP Glenn Berry at the MVP Summit. He is a very kind and friendly person. You will always find him hanging around with people from different organizations and countries. If you try to eavesdrop his conversation, you will hear terms like ‘dmv’, ‘performance’, and ‘optimized query’ very often. He is very much known for his excellent optimization script known as “SQL Server 2008 Diagnostic Information Queries“. If you have never taken a look at that, I urge you to go there and check this out. I believe that even if he blogs once a year only with this script, his fans will not complain. I have previously published his interview on my blog. Please note that he is the only person ever featured in an interview on this blog.

It depends! This is one most loved (or hated) phrase in the world of programmers or DBA. It is quite common to start answering question using this phrase. Mostly, this phrase initiates humor but rarely, people take this as offence. Again the intent of speaker is not always conveyed properly, it depends on how the phrase is used (I could not resist to use this phrase as well :P). I had very interesting discussion with Michelle Ufford and Jason Strate when we were waiting for coffee at one afternoon. We discussed both the sides of this phrase. Michelle suggested many good points when and why this phrase is valid. Jason also suggested that this phrase is commonly used a) when the presenter does not have sufficient information to answer or b) when the presenter does not know the answer. We discussed that it would be really interesting to start the conversation answering the most possible answer and then talking about special cases (for which it depends is quite commonly used.) Let us see one example.

Q: Does index improve performance?
A1: It depends on query and data you have.
A2: Usually YES; however, there are cases when it reduces performance, for which the query and data needs to be examined carefully.

There are times when it depends totally make sense. I use it several times; I love the blog of Andy Warren which talks is branded as it depends. This discussion between three of us was just a friendly discussion, and if you think we are talking about you, it is wrong!

During this event, I had great conversation with SQL Legend Buck Woody. This man is full of energy and may be the most loved person in this summit. His session was the funniest session I have ever attended. At the end of his session, I had more than 2 pages of my notebook filled with notes. If I have wrote down how many times, I have laughed loudly, I would have no time to do anything else. Buck had a good hour of discussion with me. We discussed many different topics, ranging from Community to Microsoft and Collage Students to SQL. I am very thankful to Buck for spending his valuable time with me – I am honored.

Joe Celko – this name is very popular in SQL world, and I admit that I was always afraid of him. Every time I see his photo, I just felt nervous. I never thought that I should meet him. Honestly, for the same reason, I did not attend his session. I was absolutely wrong. I met him right after his session was over. He is one of the most friendly people I have met in my life. He is very soft spoken. He gauges the level and understanding of other person and speaks at the same level. He made me laugh and taught many good techniques for how to become good speaker and presenter. When I said I was sorry that I was scared of him, he laughed and said that he knows this. Boy, what a mistake I did!! I should have attended his session. Well, at least I am accepting my mistake here. He is indeed a very friendly soul. He promised me that one time he will come to India.

Brian Moran is the newly elected board member; I would like to call him as ‘the Man with 1000 successful ideas‘. You have to come across him to know what I am talking about. I had the great opportunity to meet him and discuss few things, besides SQL. Brian had many excellent ideas about how to build the community, how to help SQL PASS and few excellent ideas about how to take PASS to the next level. I am glad that he is one of the board members for PASS. PASS is all about passion, and Brian clearly demonstrates the same.

I met all of them and had a great conversation with them. It was great to meet Ed Hackney; he is a wonderful person and very easily approachable. He talked about SQL community in India and how any community cannot be restrained within geographical boundaries.

I was waiting to meet Thomas LaRock. He is an excellent SQL Master, and he talked in detail about outsourcing SQL technology and SQL community. I really enjoyed meeting him and spending some time with him during the summit. I plan to learn more from him when I meet him next time.

Robert Cain, he is one of the very few SQL masters, who have expertise in .net and Business Intelligence at the same time. I have previously wrote about him in Big Thinkers – Robert Cain. He has given approval that I can write about his BI presentation on this blog. I will write about it soon.

I have previously written a lot about Greg Low on this blog. However, I just can not resist to put this excellent photo once again here. He has great respect for the international community; and he had spent some quality time with me discussing how to enhance and grow the global community. Greg gave his insight and few plan cache tips as well. You can read my review of his book ‘Book Review – The Rational Guide to Building Technical User Communities (Rational Guides)‘. You can also read our discussion on plan cache ‘SQL SERVER – Plan Caching and Schema Change – An Interesting Observation‘.

Following image is for sure very interesting! Can you recognize the person? Well, just go here and read about Mr. Denny. And I do have permission from him to publish this photo!

PASS 2010 dates are announced; this event will take place between 8 and 12 November 2010.

Following image is my favorite as it brings the future and past of PASS together. Kevin Kline, a hero of PASS summit, (as he dedicated 10 years of his life to serve PASS board) is in same frame with Rushabh Mehta, who is President Elect for 2010.

Now I am coming to the most interesting part of my experience. I want to introduce to all of you the youngest SQL PASS fan and follower. Her name is Shaivi Dave, and she is big fan of SQL PASS! Shaivi suggests that save your money and register right away for PASS. There is no other conference which is as valuable as SQL PASS.

She had conveyed her wish to SQL PASS President Elect Rushabh Mehta when she was just 19 days old. May be one of following years, we will see her at summit.

This is note is addendum to my four original posts. I strongly suggest you all to read my earlier posts for details on keynote and other SQL legends.

SQLAuthority News – SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 1
SQLAuthority News – SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 2
SQLAuthority News – SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 3
SQLAuthority News – SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 4

If you have visited this event and have something more to add to what I have written, please feel free to add it here as a comment. I am looking forward for you all to add more details and information here. Follow me on twitter.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Many companies are considering or have already implemented consolidation of computing resources, including Microsoft SQL Server instances and databases, in their organization. A consolidation effort is a complex task that requires information, a detailed plan and timeline for success, and a strategy for administering the consolidated environment. This white paper walks through the journey of gathering and analyzing the information to base all planning and implementation decisions on; how to plan, architect, and implement consolidation; and finally, the considerations for administering a consolidated SQL Server environment.

This white paper is based on the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF). MOF is an iterative approach to the IT lifecycle, and it is designed to bring together both the technical and nontechnical sides of implementation and administration.

Download Whitepaper Consolidation Using SQL Server 2008

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Posted in SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

Disk partition alignment is a powerful tool for improving SQL Server performance. Configuring optimal disk performance is often viewed as much art as science. A best practice that is essential yet often overlooked is disk partition alignment. Windows Server 2008 attempts to align new partitions out-of-the-box, yet disk partition alignment remains a relevant technology for partitions created on prior versions of Windows.

This paper documents performance for aligned and nonaligned storage and why nonaligned partitions can negatively impact I/O performance; it explains disk partition alignment for storage configured on Windows Server 2003, including analysis, diagnosis, and remediation; and it describes how Windows Server 2008 attempts to remedy challenges related to partition alignment for new partitions yet does not correct the configuration of preexisting partitions.

The following topics are also included: background information, implementation, vendor considerations, two essential correlations, valid starting partition offsets, and the simple protocol to align partitions, define file allocation unit size, and assign drive letters. It includes results from tests that show how partition alignment can affect performance for SQL Server 2008.

The following topics are also included:

• Background information
• Implementation
• Vendor considerations
• Two essential correlations
• Valid starting partition offsets

The paper also covers the simple protocol to align partitions, define file allocation unit size, and assign drive letters.

Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

Posted in Best Practices, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

Introduction

This article will cover the most spectacular feature of SQL 2008 – Policy-based management and how the configuration of SQL Server with policy-based management architecture can make a powerful difference. Policy based management is loaded with several advantages. It can help you implement various policies for reliable configuration of the system. It also provides additional administration assistance to DBAs and helps them effortlessly manage various tasks of SQL Server across the enterprise.

Basics of Policy Management

SQL server 2008 has introduced policy management framework, which is the latest technique for SQL server database engine. SQL policy administrator uses SQL Server Management Studio to create policies that can handle entities on the server side like the SQL Server objects and the instance of SQL Server databases. It consists of three components: policy administrators (who create policies), policy management, and explicit administration. Policy-based management in SQL Server assists the database administrators in defining and enforcing policies that tie to database objects and instances. These policies allow the administrator to configure and manage SQL server across the enterprise.

The following advantages can be achieved by appropriate administration of policy management system.

• It interacts with various policies for successful system configuration.
• It handles the changes in the systems that are the result of configuration against authoring policies.
• It reduces the cost of ownership with simple elaboration of administration tasks.
• It detects various compliance issues in SQL Server Management Studio.

Policy Management Terms

To have a better grip on the concept of Policy-based management there are some key terms you need to understand.

• Target – A type of entity that is appropriately managed by Policy-based management. For example, a table, database and index, to name a few.
• Facet -A property that can be managed in policy-based management. A clear example of facet is the name of Trigger or the Auto Shrink Property of database.
• Conditions – Criteria that specifies the state of facet to true or false. For example, you can adjust the state of a facet that gives you clear specifications of all stored procedures in the Schema “Banking”.
• Policy – A set of rules specified for the server objects or the properties of database.

Practical Example of Policy Management

Exploring of Facets

Facets are database objects and each of them is a container of one or more database object. First, you need to navigate the object explorer and expand the policy-based management node and the management node. You will see conditions, policies and facets nodes. SQL Server 2008 has many different facets available to use.

To view the list of facets, expand the facet node

Double click on each of these facets to the list of the facet properties.

Let us understand the two next elements of creating condition and creating policy with real life example of Statistics. We will try to create statistic property of the database. We have property of statistic IsAutoCreated. We can set that using database property window under option tab. This property takes two values True or False.

We will follow up on this property in different steps. We will first create condition and right after we will use the same condition in a policy. That policy will be evaluated by user. User will have to two options either let us evaluated by scheduled task or fix non complaining policy manually.

Create a Condition

Creation of condition in Policy-based management is the next thing after identifying the problem. In our case, we want to make sure that everywhere IsAutoCreate is set to True everywhere.

Each facet displays different kinds of properties. As we are interested in the IsAutoCreated property of the statistics we have to select facet as Statistic.

Create a Policy

Creating a policy is the next important task after creating a condition. The condition has to be created to select the proper property of the object. However, a policy is created to specify the location where the condition has to be applied.

Please follow the instructions given in the above image. Make sure to select all target databases. In given example I have two database installed on my server that brings up two different targets servers.

This brings up an interesting concept of targets. Targets are database objects. They can be whole database or single parts of the database. It may be possible that they are different kind of objects but have same kind of properties.

While creating a policy we have kept the evaluation mode as “on demand”, which means that we will be running this policy manually, instead of scheduled job. Scheduled job is good idea to run policy.

Evaluate a Policy

As in the previous step, we have selected to evaluate the policy manually; we will evaluate that using SSMS. Right click on policy brings up with lots of options. Select Evaluate from the menu, this will bring up the following image.

On the screen of Evaluate Policies there is a button which suggests evaluating the policies. Once clicked it will give the following kind of screen with a status.

You will see a green icon in the image. This icon indicates the policy evaluated the status to True. If you notice you will find that in our example all the policies are complied with.

Fix Non-complying Policy

Now, let us change the IsAutoCreate policy of one of test databases to true and run the evaluation all over again. If you observe you will notice that one of the statuses is marked as false with a little red image on the left.

Furthermore, once you select the checkbox and clicked on the Apply button you will find an additional checkbox on the side. This Apply button will raise a popup confirming that the property of the target has been changed to comply with the policy. Next, click Ok to confirm. This will change the properties of the Test database to comply with the new policy on all of our targets specified earlier.

In our example, we have manually evaluated the policy and fixed its noncompliance. With powershell you can perform the same using SQL Server Agent.

Summary

Policy-Based Management empowers you with greater control over the procedures of database as a Database Administrator. It provides you the ability to enforce paper policies at database level. Paper polices are used as guidelines for understanding database standards. However, it necessitates some skills, time and efforts to enforce these polices. You need to go with a fine toothed comb to enforce these policies. Policy-based management system helps you define these polices and ensure that they will be enforced appropriately.

Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com), DNS

Foreign Key and Check Constraints are two types of constraints that can be disabled or enabled when required. This type of operation is needed when bulk loading operations are required or when there is no need to validate the constraint. The T-SQL Script that does the same is very simple.

USE AdventureWorks
GO
-- Disable the constraint
ALTER TABLE HumanResources.Employee
NOCHECK CONSTRAINT CK_Employee_BirthDate
GO
-- Enable the constraint
ALTER TABLE HumanResources.Employee
WITH CHECK CHECK CONSTRAINT CK_Employee_BirthDate
GO

It is very interesting that when the constraint is enabled, the world CHECK is used twice – WITH CHECK CHECK CONSTRAINT. I often ask those to find the mistake in this script when they claim to know the syntax very well.

Have you ever disabled and enabled constraints in your production environment? I would like to know why you did so.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

Here is quick list of the tools which are available for SQL Server and Sharepoint. These are recently updated resources from Microsoft.

External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint
This solution allows users to create collaboration environments that use the familiar SharePoito deploy a SharePoint-based environment for collaboration with people outside your firewall. The accelerator allows users to create collaboration environments that use the familiar SharePoint interface. Because the solution is easy to use, end users are more likely to use it rather than revert to e-mail.

SQL Server Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint Technologies
The Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies is a Web download that provides features for running a report server within a larger deployment of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services August 2009 CTP Add-In For Microsoft Sharepoint Technologies
The Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Reporting Services August CTP Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint® Products allows you to take advantage of new SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services report processing and management capabilities in SharePoint integrated mode.

High Availability of SharePoint Server Using Virtualized Environments and Database Mirroring
This paper highlights the lessons learned from a proof of concept configuration of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 across two data centers that included database mirroring.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

This is very short note announcing details about my course details for ‘MS SQL Server 2005/2008 Query Optimization And Performance Tuning‘.

The course is scheduled to be delivered from 19th Nov, 2009 and 21st Nov, 2009 in Pune, India.

This three day course is an intensive course designed to give attendees an in-depth look at the query optimization and performance tuning concepts and methods found in SQL Server 2005/2008. This course is designed to prepare the SQL Server developers and administrators for a transition to SQL Server 2005/2008 while discussing best practices for a variety of topics.

Day 1 : Strengthen the basics along with SQL Server 2005/2008 New Features

Module 01: Subqueries, Ranking Functions, Joins and Set Operations
Module 02: Table Expressions
Module 03: TOP and APPLY
Module 04: SQL Server 2008 Enhancements

Day 2: Query Optimization & Performance Tuning 1

Module 05: Logical Query Processing
Module 06: Query Tuning
Module 07:  Introduction to the Query Processor
Module 08:  Review of common query coding which causes poor performance

Day 3: Query Optimization & Performance Tuning 2

Module 09:  SQL Server Indexing and index maintenance
Module 10:  Plan Guides, query hints, UDFs, and Computed Columns
Module 11:  Understanding SQL Server Execution Plans
Module 12: Real World Index and Optimization Tips

The space are limited and I encourage you to register as soon as possible.

Call to register – +91 98817 95739, +91 98508 43664, +91 99229 33319

Email to register – workshop “at” seedinfotech.com

If due to any reason, you can not attend this course, please call or email on details above for future schedule for the course and location.

Click to Enlarge

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)