Aaron's space: SQL Server

SQL Server Videos (SSV)

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:00:06 GMT

Just saw a post by Jason here about http://www.sqlservervideos.com/. I immediately went to check it out and wasn't disappointed. I especially liked the fact that they had 400 level videos. So what are you waiting for? Go check it out!

SQL Server 2008 includes Transparent Data Encryption

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:40:14 GMT

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Transparent data encryption (TDE) performs real-time I/O encryption and decryption of the data and log files.

Encryption of the database file is performed at the page level. The pages in an encrypted database are encrypted before they are written to disk and decrypted when read into memory.

TDE provides the ability to comply with many laws, regulations, and guidelines established in various industries. This enables software developers to encrypt data by using AES and 3DES encryption algorithms without changing existing applications.

Check out a screencast about the new Transparent Data Encryption feature in SQL Server 2008 via MSN Video below, or if you prefer YouTube or download.

SQL 2008 RTM today

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:04:23 GMT

Well it looks like SQL 2008 RTM'd at TechEd in South Africa. Take a look at Aaron Bertrand's post or sqlmag

Did You Know? SQL Server 2008 includes Resource Governor

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:24:57 GMT

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Resource Governor enables you to manage SQL Server workload and resources by specifying limits on resource consumption by incoming requests.

In an environment where multiple distinct workloads are present on the same server, Resource Governor enables you to differentiate these workloads and allocate CPU and/or memory as they are requested, based on the limits that you specify. Resource Governor is designed to address the following types of resource issues which are commonly found in a database environment:

· Run-away queries on the server

· Unpredictable workload execution

· Setting workload priority

Check out a screencast about the new Resource Governor feature in SQL Server 2008 via MSN Video below, or if you prefer Youtube or download.

Another SQL 2005 SP2 Cumulative Update

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 03:20:26 GMT

Well it's been about 6 weeks since the last Cumulative Update so it must be time for a new one. So as of today (6/16/08) we now have 8 Cumulative Updates for SQL 2005 SP2 which you can get here. I haven't downloaded it yet, but I can tell you that I can't wait until SP3 comes out. I've installed all of them from CU1 through CU7 so far and actually found something interesting with CU6 and CU7. CU1 through CU5 got progressively larger to the point that CU5 was around 200 MB if I remember correctly, however when I downloaded CU6 and then CU7 it was significantly smaller (under 20 MB) each, so not sure what happened there.

Anyway, as always the best place I have found to look for SQL version information is SQLSecurity.com. Although Microsoft also keeps one for 2005 here and SQL Server Central also keeps a list here.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Transact-SQL Debugger

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:39:35 GMT

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The Transact-SQL debugger in SQL Server Management Studio enables you to find errors in Transact-SQL scripts, stored procedures, triggers, and functions by observing their run-time behavior. You can start the debugger when you are using the Database Engine Query Editor window.

By using the Transact-SQL debugger, you can do the following:

Step through the Transact-SQL statements in the editor line by line, or set breakpoints to stop at specific lines.
Step into or over Transact-SQL stored procedures, functions, or triggers that are run by the code in the editor window.
Watch the values that are assigned to variables, and observe system objects such as the call stack and threads.

Check out a screencast about the new T-SQL Debugger in SQL Server 2008 via MSN Video below, or if you prefer Youtube or download.

SQL 2008 RC0 and New SQL Certification

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:20:08 GMT

SQL Server 2008 RC0 has been released to the public here. It was released to MSDN and TechNet subscribers late last week, but now everyone can enjoy it.

Also looks like a new Certification has come out as well called the Microsoft Certified Master. This actually looks like a step in between the regular certs and the SQL Certified Architect (SQL Ranger). It requires that you have both the MCITP: DBA and MCITP: Developer and then attend 3 weeks of training, more info here.

SQL Server 2008 Includes Data Collector

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:09:45 GMT

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In SQL Server 2008, Microsoft has included an entire infrastructure devoted to collecting and reporting on data to improve decision making capabilities.

The Data Collector is a system that can collect data from any TSQL query like DMVs, Windows Performance Counters, and the SQL Trace. It bundles any selection of these items into a Collection Set. This data is then stored in a relational database known as the management data warehouse.

Microsoft provides three bundled collectors, however you can create custom data collectors via T-SQL and there is an API available.

Check out a screencast about the new data collector in SQL Server 2008 via MSN Video below, or if you prefer YouTube or download.

Did you know? SQL Server 2008 includes Merge Statement

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:51:24 GMT

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Common data scenarios require developers to write and maintain logic to determine whether to insert, update or delete information (sometimes called upsert) such as:

   1: IF FOUND    2:     THEN UPDATE    3: ELSE    4:     INSERT 

SQL Server 2008 provides the new MERGE statement within the SQL language to enable developers to provide this functionality with a single statement. This allows for code reduction and easier maintainability.

Check out a screencast about the new MERGE Statement in SQL Server 2008 below or here.

Read more about this in the SQL Server 2008 BOL ‘Inserting, Updating, and Deleting Data with MERGE’.

SQL Server 2008 Policy Based Management Screencast

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:42:45 GMT

At Magenic, Dan English and I are working on creating SQL Server 2008 screencasts highlighting the new features. He's already published a couple on his blog regarding Intellisense and Data Profiler task in SSIS. His explanation of what we're doing is so perfect, I'm just going to borrow it. :)

"A new thing we are trying internally at work is sending out weekly 'Did you know?' (DYN) emails about new features that are included in SQL Server 2008. We are trying to spread awareness and excitement about the new version of SQL Server 2008. The emails include information about a new feature, links to the topic in BOL, a internal discuss in regards to the topic, and SQL Server 2008 information (main page site, trial download site, learning portal, webcasts, and virtual labs). The other item that we are including is a screencast of the new feature. "

Here is the screencast on Policy Based Management:

SQL Server 2008 includes Policy-based Framework
Policy-based Framework is a system for managing one or more instances of SQL Server 2008. Policies can be created that manage entities on the server, such as the instance of SQL Server, databases, and other SQL Server objects. Policies can be automated to ‘enforce’, ‘check on changes’ or ‘check on schedule’.
Policy-based Framework delivers the benefits such as: Compliance with policies for system configuration; Monitors and prevents changes to the system per policies; Reduces TCO by simplifying administration tasks; Detects compliance issues in SQL Server Management Studio

Read more about this in the SQL Server 2008 BOL ‘Administering Servers by Using Policy-Based Management’.

You can view the screencast about the new Policy-Based Framework in SQL Server 2008 below, or here.

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Debugger returns in Management Studio

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:18:59 GMT

Finally we get a T-SQL debugger back into SQL Server Management tools. Evidently it was announced at the Launch Event in LA that Microsoft has decided to put the T-SQL Debugger into SQL Server Management Studio. This is something that was in Query Analyzer for SQL 2000 but we haven't had it for 2005 up until now. See here for more information. However here's the pertinent excerpt:

So what are the surprise features?

#1: we've rewritten the activity monitor to be far more useful and performant (funny word) than ever before. This was work Ken Henderson started before he passed away. One of Ken's good friends and a dev on the team, Bart Duncan, took over the work to complete it in Ken's honor. I showed this at launch.

#2: object search: yes, we're bringing back object search. In Object Explorer Details we've added a search bar that will search for database objects. It's a simple yet powerful search. Unfortunately I wasn't able to demo it at launch.

Drumroll please...

#3: the debugger: we've brought back the T-SQL debugger in Management Studio. This is huge and incredibly valuable. And yes, I demoed it at the launch event.

BTW: #3 had the highest number of votes in Connect and #2 was close behind. We did these because customers told us they are important feature to them. While Connect does have its flaws, it also has its good things. Keep the feedback coming!

</excerpt>

SQL Updates

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:53:11 GMT

In case you haven't seen or heard yet

SQL Server 2008 February CTP or CTP6 is available here.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack CTP, February 2008 here.

Cumulative update package 6 for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 is available here.

SQL 2005 Current Query Activity

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:34:58 GMT

SELECT
    sder.session_id AS [SPID],
    sdes.login_name AS [Login],
    sd.name AS [DBName],
    sder.start_time AS [Start Time],
    sder.status AS [Status],
    sder.command AS [Command],
    sdet.text AS [SQL Text],
    sder.percent_complete AS [Pct Cmplt],
    sder.estimated_completion_time AS [Est Cmplt Time],
    sder.wait_type AS [Wait],
    sder.wait_time AS [Wait Time],
    sder.last_wait_type AS [Last Wait],
    sder.cpu_time AS [CPU Time],
    sder.total_elapsed_time AS [Total Elpsd Time],
    sder.reads AS [Reads],
    sder.writes AS [Writes],
    sder.logical_reads AS [Logical Reads]
FROM
    sys.dm_exec_Requests sder
    CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(sql_handle) AS sdet
    JOIN sys.dm_exec_sessions sdes on sder.session_id = sdes.session_id
    JOIN sys.databases sd on sder.database_id = sd.database_id
WHERE
    sder.session_id <> @@SPID;

Testing

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:26:47 GMT

A colleague of mine Aaron Erickson has an interesting post on how deep testing should go here. This brings up some interesting points, for example in SQL Server I might test my own function, however I don't test SQL Functions like GETDATE, instead I assume they work properly. If I bring in CLR functions, the amount of code that doesn't get tested could potentially grow beyond the code that does get tested. So, as he points out, technically speaking I haven't fully tested my implementations and, as I mentioned I could even have < 50% coverage. So the question Aaron (that would be Aaron Erickson, as I don't talk about myself in the third person) poses is how far should we go in our testing coverage.

Thinking about it, I've actually dealt with this questions a few times without realizing it. Often I've had a project manager that doesn't know SQL Server that well and has asked questions like (and I'm paraphrasing here):

How do we validate that we didn't lose data after doing a sp_detach_db, copy and then sp_attach_db?
How do we validate we didn't lose data after doing a backup/restore?

Of course my initial reaction is, well it either works or it doesn't. However after further thought I realized that I'm saying is that I trust whoever wrote and tested those functions and I believe them to be bug free or at least bug free for how we plan to use them. While I think that MS is doing a better job getting their own internal code coverage with the use of CTPs, that way people can get the product in their hands test it themselves, I don't think if data is lost and I were smile and tell my project manager, "It's Microsoft's fault since they didn't fully test their product", I don't think I'd have a job much longer. While my client is leveraging SQL Server, I am the one responsible for the success of my work, not Microsoft (and not to mention that my name is on it and I want it to be excellent).

However on the other side of the isle: If I've tested a system function 6 months ago on a different project/client, do I need to test it again for this project/client? I'd say no since it's the same code. However if I don't have to test it, then why can't I just accept that another team tested it, even though this team was MS (even though they are changing their process often as well) ? Am I really saying that I'm the only coder in the world that I trust? I truly hope not as my workload would have just increased exponentially plus I just decided to always work alone and reinvent the wheel every time.

So we're back to the same question, how much testing should be done and how deep should we go to realize the best code we can and of course stay in proper time scope. The more I think about it, the more it sounds like we're headed back to old faithful - the 80/20 rule...

Check filegroup and file

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:53:41 GMT

Often when dealing with different filegroups or even different files in SQL Server 2005, I end up wanting to know where certain objects are logically and physically located. Here's a query that will give that information:

select 
                'Object Name' = so.name, 
                'Index Name' = si.name, 
                'Type Description' = si.type_desc,
                'FileGroup Name' = sfg.Name, 
                'System FileName' = sdf.Name
from 
                sys.indexes si 
                join sys.objects so on si.object_id = so.object_id
                join sys.schemas ss on so.schema_id = ss.schema_id
                join sys.database_files sdf on sdf.data_space_id = si.data_space_id
                join sys.filegroups sfg on sfg.data_space_id = sdf.data_space_id
where
                so.type = 'U'
                and so.Name not in ('dtproperties')
order by 
                3 desc, 4, 1, 2

sp_readrequest?

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:32:11 GMT

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So I've been running a trace on some SQL 2005 servers for awhile now and I'm starting to analyze them. One of the things I look at is statement top 10 duration. It was interesting to see all 10 entries to on every day I monitored to be:

TextData - exec sp_readrequest @receive_timeout=600000
ApplicationName - DatabaseMail90 - Id<2224>
Duraction - 609325251

The Id varied and the duration went up and down a little but that seemed interesting to me. I initially thought I had a Database mail problem and went to investigate. Nothing seemed out of place. So I went to BOL and looked up sp_readrequest only to find out it is an undocumented sp.

In fact doing a google search only comes back with 14 entries and only 1 really gives decent information which you can see here. But basically it said to ignore the entries as it's not doing any Reads, Writes, or CPUs as it is essentially doing a WAITFOR. Evidently this is due to the fact that Database Mail utilizes Service Broker to operate.

While I understand and don't have a problem with things happening behind the scenes that should be ignored, I do think it's poor that these things we're supposed to ignore are undocumented anywhere. In effect, how do we know it's performing "by design" and should be ignored if we don't have any information about it?

Move HEAP Tables

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 18:47:50 GMT

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One of the things I've been doing lately for an upgrade from SQL 2000 to SQL 2005 is restructuring databases, adding filegroups and files to split out the data and non clustered indexes, leaving only the system tables in the primary filegroup.

This is actually fairly simple as we're just dropping the clustered indexes and recreating them in the new filegroup which moves the data. However we have some tables that don't have clustered indexes (i.e., HEAP tables) so I wrote a script that moves the HEAP tables into another filegroup. First it checks for an identity column and if one exists, I create a clustered index on the identity column for the new filegroup, then remove the clustered index. If an identity column doesn't exist, I create one with a clustered index on the new filegroup then drop the index and the column. Fairly simple.

On another note if anyone knows an easy way on how to move text, ntext data between to a different filegroup, let me know.

-- Aaron Lowe
-- 8/24/2007

SET NOCOUNT ON 
Print 'Starting'
DECLARE @SchemaName nvarchar(128),
        @TableName nvarchar(128),
        @SQLcmd nvarchar (1024),
        @ColumnName nvarchar(128),
        @FullQualTable nvarchar(261),
        @FileGroup nvarchar(128)

SELECT @FileGroup = DB_NAME() + '_DATA'

DECLARE HeapTables_CRSR Cursor FOR 
    select ss.name, so.name
    from 
        sys.indexes si 
        join sys.objects so on si.object_id = so.object_id
        join sys.schemas ss on so.schema_id = ss.schema_id
        join sys.database_files sdf on sdf.data_space_id = si.data_space_id
        join sys.filegroups sfg on sfg.data_space_id = sdf.data_space_id
    where
        si.type = 0
        and so.type = 'U'
        and sfg.name = 'PRIMARY'
    order by 
        so.name

OPEN HeapTables_CRSR

FETCH NEXT FROM HeapTables_CRSR INTO @SchemaName, @TableName
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
    BEGIN
        SET @FullQualTable = '[' + @SchemaName + '].[' + @TableName + ']'
        Print 'Currently working on: ' + @FullQualTable
        IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.columns WHERE OBJECT_ID = OBJECT_ID(@FullQualTable)
             and is_identity = 1)
            BEGIN
                SELECT @ColumnName = name from sys.columns WHERE OBJECT_ID = 
                    OBJECT_ID(@FullQualTable) and is_identity = 1
                SET @SQLCmd = N'CREATE CLUSTERED INDEX [IX_TempIDent] ON 
                [' + @SchemaName + '].[' + @TableName + '] ([' + 
                @ColumnName + '] ASC) ON [' + @FileGroup + '];'
                exec sp_executesql @SQLCmd
                SET @SQLCmd = N'DROP INDEX [IX_TempIDent] ON [' + @SchemaName + '].[' + 
                @TableName + '];'
                exec sp_executesql @SQLCmd                
            END
        ELSE
            BEGIN
                SET @SQLCmd = N'ALTER TABLE [' + @SchemaName + '].[' + @TableName 
                + '] ADD [TempIdent] int IDENTITY (1,1);'
                exec sp_executesql @SQLCmd
                SET @SQLCmd = N'CREATE CLUSTERED INDEX [IX_TempIDent] ON [' + 
                @SchemaName + '].[' + @TableName + 
                '] ([TempIdent] ASC) ON [' + @FileGroup + '];'
                exec sp_executesql @SQLCmd
                SET @SQLCmd = N'DROP INDEX [IX_TempIDent] ON [' + @SchemaName + '].[' + 
                @TableName + '];'
                exec sp_executesql @SQLCmd
                SET @SQLCmd = N'ALTER TABLE [' + @SchemaName + '].[' + @TableName + 
                '] DROP COLUMN [TempIdent];'
                exec sp_executesql @SQLCmd
            END
        FETCH NEXT FROM HeapTables_CRSR INTO @SchemaName, @TableName
    END
CLOSE HeapTables_CRSR
DEALLOCATE HeapTables_CRSR
Print 'Done'