Lesson #1 Networking. The value of networking here is fantastic. It was great to meet and speak with some of the great bloggers. It was also a great oppurtunity to meet potential job candidates.

Lesson #2 Bring business cards. See #1 above. I learned this too late for this year and instead found myself tearing off pieces of paper. Not very fun or effecient.

Lesson #3 Hands on labs. These were a great oppurtuniy to play with some of the VMware and storage partners technology without having to build your own lab. My time these days is pretty limited so it was great to sit down for an hour at a time and try out some stuff that we might be interested in implementing.

Lesson #4 Speaker job titles. I found that the content of the sessions were directly correlated to what content was covered in the session. Marketing has its place and sometimes has some important info, however I thought the best sessions were from the architect level guys and those outside VMware. Those were the sessions where real world lessons were shared and discussed.

Lesson #5 Lack of sleep. Be prepared for a very whirlwind week and very little sleep. When there wasn’t something official going on there was probably some sort of community event happening. Each day it got tougher and tougher to get up in the morning. Trudge onward though and every minute is worth it.

Lesson #6 Pack light. I was way over packed. Next year I am going to pack much lighter. A duffle bag with a pair of pants, shorts, and a couple of t-shirts is plenty. You get a backpack with your conference pass so you can throw your stuff in it on the way home. Then use the duffle bag for all of the swag. There is lots of swag and your coworkers who did not get to go will appreciate you sharing.

So those are the things that immediately popped in mind as I set down to write this post. I have made a commitment to start blogging regularly again so I will expand on some of these later. If any of you have your own tips please share with everyone in the comments below.

I have really enjoyed being a part of the SQL community and contributing my little part. While I won’t be blogging about SQL anymore, I do plan to start blogging about virtualization sometime soon.

See ya on the other side!
-Jeremy

2010-06-29 09:41:52.80 *** Error: Could not retrieve copy settings for secondary ID '[removed]'.(Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.LogShipping) ***
2010-06-29 09:41:52.81 *** Error: The specified agent_id BECBBCC0-6867-4398-BD96-830D62D88558  or agent_type 1 do not form a valid pair for log shipping monitoring processing.(.Net SqlClient Data Provider) ***

While it is not completely clear, this means that the copy job was not able to login to the instance and query the log shipping tables in MSDB. When I was first trying to gain access to the instance I had noticed that it was configured a bit strange. Basically they had a default instance and a named instance. The default instance was used as the secondary for log shipping while the named instance was being used for dev work. Well that part isn’t so strange… However they had an alias configured to redirect the server name to the named instance. So the log shipping jobs thought it was connecting to the default instance, it was actually connecting to the named instance. To work around this I just had to add the port number to the jobs as in the example below.

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\sqllogship.exe" -Copy BECBBCC0-6867-4398-BD96-830D62D88558 -server SERVER01,1433

--The Job Status shows if the backup job has failed in the last 2 hours.
select
ISNULL(db.name,'') as [Database Name],
CASE
	WHEN db.name IS NULL THEN 'DB is missing.'
	WHEN db.state_desc <> 'ONLINE' THEN 'DB is not online.'
	WHEN db.recovery_model_desc = 'SIMPLE' THEN 'DB is using simple recovery model.'
	WHEN pri.primary_database IS NULL THEN 'Missing log shipping primary config.'
	WHEN sec.secondary_database IS NULL THEN 'Missing log shipping primary secondary config.'
	WHEN job.name IS NULL THEN 'Backup job is missing.'
	WHEN job.enabled = 0 THEN 'Backup job is disabled.'
	WHEN schedule.name IS NULL THEN 'Job is missing a schedule.'
	WHEN schedule.enabled = 0 THEN 'Job schedule is disabled.'
	WHEN jobhist.run_status = 0 THEN 'Job has failed in the last 2 hours.'
	ELSE ''
END AS [Immediate Issue],
ISNULL(db.state_desc,'') as [Database State],
ISNULL(db.recovery_model_desc,'') as [Recovery Model],
ISNULL(pri.primary_database,'') as [Primary DB],
ISNULL(sec.secondary_database,'') as [Secondary DB],
ISNULL(sec.secondary_server,'') as [Secondary Server],
ISNULL(job.name,'') as [Backup Job Name],
CASE
	WHEN job.enabled = 0 THEN 'No'
	WHEN job.enabled = 1 THEN 'Yes'
	WHEN job.enabled IS NULL THEN ''
END as [Job Enabled],
CASE
	WHEN schedule.enabled = 0 THEN 'No'
	WHEN schedule.enabled = 1 THEN 'Yes'
	WHEN schedule.enabled IS NULL  THEN ''
	ELSE 'Unknown'
END AS [Schedule Enabled],
CASE
	WHEN jobhist.run_status = 0 THEN 'Failure'
	WHEN jobhist.run_status = 1 THEN 'Successful'
	WHEN schedule.enabled=0 OR job.enabled=0 THEN 'Disabled'
	WHEN jobhist.run_status IS NULL  THEN ''
	ELSE 'Unknown'
END AS [Job Status]
from sys.databases as db
full outer join msdb.dbo.log_shipping_primary_databases as pri
      on db.name=pri.primary_database
full outer join msdb.dbo.log_shipping_primary_secondaries as sec
      on db.name=sec.secondary_database
      OR pri.primary_id=sec.primary_id
left join msdb.dbo.sysjobs as job
      on pri.backup_job_id=job.job_id
left join msdb.dbo.sysjobschedules as jobschedule
      on job.job_id=jobschedule.job_id
left join msdb.dbo.sysschedules as schedule
      on jobschedule.schedule_id=schedule.schedule_id
left join (select job_id,
			min(run_status) AS [run_status] --0 is failed 1 is successful
			from msdb.dbo.sysjobhistory
			WHERE step_name='(Job outcome)'
			AND DATEDIFF(hh,convert(datetime,
            stuff(stuff(cast(run_date as nchar(8)), 7, 0, '-'), 5, 0, '-') + N' ' +
            stuff(stuff(substring(cast(1000000 + run_time as nchar(7)), 2, 6), 5, 0, ':'), 3, 0, ':'),
            120),GETDATE())<=2 --looks at the job history for the last 2 hours
			GROUP BY job_id) AS jobhist
		ON job.job_id=jobhist.job_id
WHERE
	pri.primary_database is NOT NULL
	OR sec.secondary_database is NOT NULL
ORDER BY
	db.name ASC

As written below it returns information for full and differential backups taken in the last week for all databases.

SELECT bu.database_name as [DB Name],
name as [Backup Name],
CASE bu.type
WHEN 'D' THEN 'FULL'
WHEN 'I' THEN 'Differential'
WHEN 'L' THEN 'Transaction Log'
END as [Backup Type],
CASE bu.is_copy_only
WHEN '1' THEN 'Copy'
ELSE ''
END as [Copy],
bf.physical_device_name as [Physcial Device Name],
bu.backup_start_date as [Start Date],
bu.backup_finish_date as [Finish Date],
CAST(DATEDIFF(s, bu.backup_start_date, bu.backup_finish_date)/3600 AS varchar) + ' hours, '
 + CAST((DATEDIFF(s, bu.backup_start_date, bu.backup_finish_date))/60%60 AS varchar)+ ' minutes, '
+ CAST((DATEDIFF(s, bu.backup_start_date, bu.backup_finish_date))%60 AS varchar)+ ' seconds'
 AS [Total Time],
CAST((bu.backup_size/1024/1024) AS int) AS [Size in MB],
bu.user_name as Username
FROM msdb.dbo.backupset as bu
INNER JOIN msdb.dbo.backupmediafamily as bf ON bu.media_set_id = bf.media_set_id
WHERE
type!='L'
--AND database_name = 'AdventureWorks'
AND DATEDIFF(d, backup_start_date, GETDATE()) <= 7
ORDER BY database_name ASC, backup_start_date DESC

I would answer that in today’s market being mediocre does not cut it. Companies need to stay ahead of the curve if they want to make it. They have a responsibility to themselves and to their customers. I think that it used to be a badge of honor when sites went down because of some new product or a great deal of attention was thrown their way. That is no longer the case. Web sites are expected to be up and running 24×7, no questions asked. And what is sitting behind most web sites? You can bet there is some sort of database server(s) setting behind it, feeding everything from content, to user preferences, to processing orders.

Yes it is true that you can install SQL Server, create a database and the thing will just run. The question though is how long and how well will it run? Is it all going to come tumbling down on your biggest sales day or during your latest promotion? In my experience if you do not have the dba skills and have been proactively taking care of your server, these are the very times you are going to experience failures.

So when should a dba start looking after the server? In my opinion there should be someone with some dba skills involved before SQL Server is even installed. Questions for server specs such as cpu, memory, disk, all need to be answered from the onset of the project. Now if you have a little 5 or 10GB db do you need to have a full time DBA? Most likely not, but in my experience it is usually somewhere around 10GB that you’ll start to see issues if no one is looking out for the server.

Someone with dba skills should be involved, not only insuring the hardware is up to snuff, but they should also be looking ahead to insure that best practices are being followed and all of the options are configured correctly. Basic things like recovery, max server memory, index maintenance plans, etc all need to be addressed before the lack of attention sneaks up and bites you.

The question of when do you need a full time dba is a bit tougher question to answer. In a nod to Paul, I have to say “It depends.” Most people would probably say that it depends on the size of the database; the larger the database, the more time needs to be spent on it. While this is generally true, it certainly is not a hard and fast rule. I have seen some customers with very small 10GB databases that seem to need constant tuning while others with multi-terabyte databases get by with little tweaking.

How can that be so you ask? The difference is in the forethought put into the server’s physical hardware, the database schema, and the queries being ran against it. If you have good hardware, a good schema, and well written queries you’ll be able to get more bang for your buck.

As an example the other day I had a client that was asking for help because their db server was just getting hammered. He already knew that corners had been cut in the past and the code was bad and that he needed more hardware to compensate. I was able to do some tuning to get them by but it would not be enough for the upcoming holiday season. Now because of negligence in the past, he was having to double the size of the hardware required. And not only was he going to be out money for the hardware but he still has to do something about the code or the site will just never scale for their planned future growth.

I can’t help but think that had a good dba been involved sooner that much of his pain could have been prevented and more money kept in their pocket. Poor planning costs money to redo code, purchase additional hardware, lost sales, and lost customer satisfaction. All too often people get caught up in what is good for the moment and forget to look ahead to the future.

A good dba with good skills can help anticipate and prevent those fires from ever starting, let alone growing out of control. A little TLC can go along way to ensure happy customers, coworkers, bosses, and spouses.

While I have been honored to be nominated in the New Blogger category, make sure you check out the other categories as well. There are some really great bloggers and articles that have been nominated. It is a great group of people and I am humbled to be amongst them. These are some of the hardest working individuals in the SQL Server community. They deserve a few minutes of your time and a vote if you like what you see.

You can vote at http://pulse.sqlserverpedia.com/awards/.

I have to say I am pretty excited about this one. At work we are very compartmentalized and I have zero access to the backup software/servers. Whenever SQL backups fail, it can sometimes lead to finger pointing and confusion in deciding if it is SQL server or the backup application at fault. Luckily our 3rd party backup app does write a pretty verbose log to the local file system so I can sometimes look through that and get a good idea of where the issue occurred and why. However sometimes I look at the log and it is just complete gibberish and I have no choice but to throw up the white flag.

Enter SQL Server Backup Simulator. With this new tool I will be able to simulate taking backups and performing restores using sqlvdi.dll just like those 3rd party applications do. This tool was just released so I can’t say just how helpful it will be but I am hopeful that this will be another great tool to add to my toolbox. It will be great if I can use this to eliminate any issues on the SQL Server side so less time is wasted going back and forth. If the issue turns out to be SQL Server it looks like the tool will provide some good information about the sqlvdi.dll versions and errors.

The SQL Server Backup Simulator can be downloaded from Codeplex. If you have used to tool please let me know. I would love to hear how it worked for you.

Sometimes one or two of the Agent Jobs steps would fail stating that they were chosen as the deadlock victim. Looking further in the steps they were pretty simple, just executing some backups and restores.

I enabled the deadlock trace flags to capture the relevant info and waited for it to fail again. Once it failed again I saw that sometimes when the backup or restore was trying to update the history tables in MSDB it was deadlocking with the queries executed in the History Cleanup. At first I thought this was weird as how could multiple steps possibly be executing at the same time.

It turns out that the Execute SQL Server Agent Job Task uses the stored procedure sp_start_job. This stored procedure starts the job and immediately reports if the job started successfully or not. It does not report if the job completed successfully. Therefore the first three steps plus the History Cleanup were all being executed at the same time.

Luckily the fix in this case was quite easy. I just removed the History Cleanup task to its own maintenance plan and we scheduled it to run at a different time. In other situations you may need to write a loop that checks the status of the job executed so that you don’t move on until the job has completed.

The fact that the Execute SQL Server Agent Job Task can run multiple steps asynchronously does not seem to be well documented anywhere, so I thought this would be a good reminder for myself and anyone else that runs into similar issues.