Andy M Mallon - AM²

Your documentation belongs with your code

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 11:02:59 -0400

If this dog-umentation is right, can you spot all the problems in the generated arf-ifact?

For years, I’ve advocated for keeping developer documentation in the same code repository as the code it describes. In the age of AI, that practice has become even more important.

Clear, Concise, Complete, and Correct: Avoiding AI Slop

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 16:58:36 -0400

We used to call Callie "C". There’s a particular kind of writing that has become increasingly easy to produce: technically plausible, grammatically correct, reasonably well organized, and almost completely exhausting to read.

You know the stuff–it has a lot of words. It has headings for everything. It explains things that don’t need explaining, repeats the same point three different ways, and somehow manages to leave out the details you actually needed.

Consuming SQL Agent dates & durations

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 16:17:43 -0500

SQL Agent’s schema is older than me. It handles dates, times, and durations like it’s 1980 by using integers instead of date/time data types. My buddy Aaron Bertrand talks more about Dating Responsibly so that you can have a good datetime with your own database.

Migrating my Stack Overflow answers to blog posts (Sorry for the spam)

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 17:21:05 -0500

For a while, I have been thinking about using my Stack Overflow answers (and answers on other sites on the Stack Exchange Network), and storing a copy of them here, on my blog as well. All posts on the Stack Exchange network are covered under the Creative Commons BY-SA license. When Stack Overflow was created, this license was chosen to ensure that Q&A data remained an open data repository. Posts can be freely reused, re-published, etc, so long as attribution is provided (who is the post BY, and where it was published), and derivative versions are also shared under the same license (ie, Share Alike).

Not all stats should be auto-updated

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 11:19:07 -0400

Statistics auto-updates are generally a good thing–auto-update of statistics is the default behavior in SQL Server. Having the freshest information about the data “shape” helps to inform the best selection of an execution plan for queries.

Except for when it doesn’t.

Because It Depends™️

Let’s talk about the trade-offs.

T-SQL Tuesday: The last ticket I closed

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 12:41:20 -0500

For this month's T-SQL Tuesday, Brent Ozar (blog|Instagram) asks us to describe the most recent ticket we closed.

“We had a pretty significant wait spike…”

The literal last ticket I closed was “please run this script in production…”, and I don’t think it would be a very interesting blog post to talk about how I copy & pasted a query into SSMS, so let’s talk about a recent ticket instead, from the last couple of weeks.

Enforce a specific constraint to be checked first?

Fri, 06 Oct 2023 21:09:33 -0400

Question

I have the following SQL Server table :

create table Account(
 -- column names with their data types and properties
 Id int not null identity primary key,
 User varchar(50) not null,
 Job varchar(200) not null,
 
 -- table limitations
 constraint UniqueUserPerAccount unique (User),
 constraint UniqueJobPerAccount unique (Job),
)

For the two constraints I listed the more important constraint first hoping that if both constraints are violated, the first one would be triggered and displayed to the user. However, it appears the constraints are declared alphabetically by column name and therefore if both constraints fail, the UniqueJobPerAccount error, and only this error, is stated to have been violated.

AG secondary is out of sync for hours after index maintenance

Tue, 21 Feb 2023 13:17:04 -0500

Question

We have a 3TB OLTP database running Siemens Opcenter MES software at one of our manufacturing plants in China. This is setup in an Always-On Availability group with one secondary node. As this is a manufacturing plant, we are only provided 11 1/2 hours every two weeks to run index maintenance when the plant is not running production. We use Hallengren scripts to run this index maintenance.

Using OPENJSON, can't get results to GROUP BY

Sat, 24 Dec 2022 18:35:57 -0500

Question

I'm passing a JSON string to a stored procedure in order to insert warehouse inventory.

Sometimes, there will be multiple line items with the same product, going to the same shelf, on the same pallet (LPN), with the same date. I would like to aggregate those into one line in the table.

SQL Modulo Function gives the wrong value?

Fri, 18 Nov 2022 15:04:29 -0500

Question

In Javascript, Excel, Python, and a scientific calculator, the modulo operation

-34086.1576962834 % 360.0 &lt;-- python
=MOD(-34086.1576962834, 360.0) &lt;-- Excel function

gives a value of 113.84230371659942. (Or something very close to that, depending on number of decimal places and rounding.)

Is SQL Server affected by OpenSSL 3.0 Vulnerabilities: CVE 2022-3786 and CVE 2022-3602

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 03:30:24 -0500

Question

I am trying to establish whether SQL Server is affected by the recently discovered OpenSSL vulnerabilities. For example, are SQL Servers that are using TLS/Certificates to encrypt connections between client and server affected to? I believe SQL Server uses Open SSL libraries for encryption purposes. Can someone please shed light on this?

What's the use case of disabling an index?

Sun, 25 Sep 2022 17:10:28 -0400

Question

I just learned that indexes can be disabled on a table. Even the clustered index can be disabled. After that, users can’t access the index or the data if clustered index. When will we disable an index? I just don’t understand the use case.

What ports to open for sql server behind secure domain firewall

Thu, 25 Aug 2022 21:34:17 -0400

Question

We are trying to solve connectivity issues for one of the app trying to pull data from very secured sql server behind firewall. I am not that expertise in security but need help on how to proceed in opening ports for that app to pull data from sql server behind secure domain.

snapshot replication - corrupted BCP files

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 22:56:09 -0400

Question

Each night my SQLServer replication failed on a big table with the following error. It is failing on a different table each night but always on a relatively big table ( > 200,000 rows)

The process could not bulk copy into table '"dbo"."Table01"'. (Source: MSSQL_REPL, Error number: MSSQL_REPL20037)
Get help: http://help/MSSQL_REPL20037
Field size too large
Batch send failed
Violation of PRIMARY KEY constraint 'PK_Table01'. Cannot insert duplicate key in object 'dbo.Table01'. The duplicate key value is (0). (Source: MSSQLServer, Error number: 2627)
Get help: http://help/2627
Failed to send batch after max errors (Source: MSSQLServer, Error number: 3621)
Get help: http://help/3621

Publishing a Code of Conduct isn't enough

Wed, 13 Jul 2022 16:24:03 -0400

Elphie wearing her "I bark at bigots" pawkerchief I've seen more and more events & communities adopt Codes of Conduct. Even local events, local user groups, and smaller online communities are adopting Codes of Conduct. That's GREAT! ...but it's just a great start. It's not that easy.

Discoverability

The issue of discoverability is common, but easy to fix. Let’s look at a specific scenario. An event publishes a Code of Conduct, and has attendees agree to it when they sign up to attend. That’s all great. But during the event someone experiences, witnesses, or hears about behavior that sounds like a Code of Conduct violation. They didn’t think it would happen to them–even though they read & agreed to the Code of Conduct, they don’t have it memorized and need to go find it. Where do they find it?

GRANT ADMINISTER Database Bulk Operations - Incorrect syntax near ADMINISTER

Mon, 23 May 2022 01:51:34 -0400

Question

I am trying to import a bacpac file to my SQL Server Express 2016. An exception is thrown during the import with

GRANT ADMINISTER Database Bulk Operations TO [MyUser];

Returns:

Incorrect syntax near 'ADMINISTER'.

I am running the import as the sa user. Later when I try to run the SQL line directly, the same error is thrown. What can I do to resolve this?

How do I generate the private key needed to restore the encrypted backup?

Fri, 22 Apr 2022 01:10:13 -0400

Question

I'm simulating the situation where I take a backup from instance A and restore it on instance B. I followed the doc to Backup to Disk with Encryption. Since I'm using only my desktop to simulate the whole process, after taking the backup of the database I took a backup of the certificate that was used as follows:

Temporarily turn on Cascade Delete

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 10:02:25 -0400

Question

This has probably been asked before, but I couldn't find the answer.

I have a complex datamodel in sql-server-20XX (more likely to be something old) in which cascade delete has been turned off (by design).

SQL Main query value used in the WHERE in the subquery

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 16:02:11 -0500

Question

I'm really confused by this SQL here, I have this sample where I am using the value from the main query in the subquery and then using XML PATH to add a comma between the dates. The setup is 2 tables one with the dates I want to string together. I am not sure why the subquery where statement is not retuning the correct results.

How do I prevent a trigger from firing for one process?

Tue, 08 Mar 2022 09:00:16 -0500

I recently saw a question on DBA Stack Exchange (it has since been deleted by the author), who had a “special process” that ran regularly, and as part of that process, they disabled the trigger, did some stuff, and re-enabled it. During that process, the step that disables the trigger would deadlock, and cause problems. So the asker was wondering how to catch & handle the deadlock during the DISABLE TRIGGER step.

How to await the execution of the rds_backup_database stored procedure?

Thu, 03 Mar 2022 13:40:49 -0500

Question

Our team is migrating one of our databases to Amazon RDS MS SQL Server. As part of that, we have to rewrite some of our stored procedures.

We have a stored procedure that performs a database backup to a network storage.

How to change the web browser used by SSMS when you hit Ctrl+Alt+R

Tue, 15 Feb 2022 01:32:52 -0500

Question

When I am running:

Ctrl+Alt+R will run the web browser in an SSMS tab. However, this now produces the message:

I do have MS Edge installed but SSMS is not finding it. What should I do to help SSMS find MS Edge and use it?

Allow create table (dynamic name) and insert but nothing else

Mon, 14 Feb 2022 13:43:43 -0500

Question

I'm trying to find a way to allow an application to create tables and insert data into them on a SQL Server 2019 while protecting from injection attacks in case the app credentials would leak. My experience is limited when it comes to writing code that can run in parallel and writing dynamic sql that is protected from sql injection attacks.
The table name is based on input from the application, i.e. if the input is 'nds' the table name should be lake.nds_raw_log.
It is my understanding that there is no way to do this via directly granting permissions to the role for this application since creating tables is not separated from deleting or altering them.

Add default rows to the query result if restrictions are not met

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 13:12:49 -0500

Question

I have a SQL query that looks for values in a table on a range of dates.

If no record is found, I would like to generate rows with default values.

Example of one of the table existing records:

How to revoke SA permissions that seem to be "stuck" to a login?

Wed, 02 Feb 2022 13:29:23 -0500

Question

Apologies in advance if I don't use some terminology correctly here. I'm not a DBA but I've been temporarily forced into the role.

I've inherited an application that runs on SQL Server 2016 Enterprise - one instance for PROD and another for TEST. These instances are set up in an "always on" configuration, so I have one Availability Group for PROD and one for TEST. Each Availability Group has two servers in it. Each instance has multiple databases in it, but only one DB in each instance is actually used by the application - the others look to have been created for testing purposes. I'm only mentioning that there are other DBs just in case it might be relevant in some way that I'm not aware of.

CASE statement issue

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 19:52:17 -0500

Question

Can anyone help with this error?

SQL:

SELECT 
 InvoiceDate, 
 BillingAddress, 
 BillingCity, 
 Total,

 CASE
 WHEN Total &lt; 2.00 THEN 'Baseline Purchase'
 WHEN Total BETWEEN 2.00 AND 6.99 THEN 'Low Purchase'
 WHEN Total BETWEEN 7.00 AND 15.00 THEN 'Target Purchase'
 ELSE 'Top Performer'
 END AS PurchaseType

FROM 
 invoices
WHERE
 PurchaseType = 'Top Performer'
ORDER BY 
 BillingCity

Error: Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 13 Invalid column name 'PurchaseType'.

asked 2022-01-13 by Mark_72

Should I Rebuild Indexes?

Sat, 18 Dec 2021 15:56:47 -0500

Nope.

At least not for the reasons you think.

Querying SERVERPROPERTY() and DATABASEPROPERTYEX() from a view (without knowing magic)

Fri, 17 Dec 2021 11:11:50 -0500

Elphaba the pup is growing up! I'm not going to beat around the bush. I hate the `SERVERPROPERTY()` and `DATABASEPROPERTYEX()` system functions.

Loathing

The thing I hate the most about these two functions is that you need to know the right magic spells to make them work. Let’s look at SERVERPROPERTY() first. The syntax for the function is SERVERPROPERTY( ‘propertyname’ ), which is easy enough syntax, but the list of values for propertyname isn’t discoverable from SQL Server metadata, DMVs, or even IntelliSense. Instead, I need to check the docs for the list of allowable values. These property names are essentially magic words, and I need to check my spell book to make sure I get it right.

Which install kit installs sqlcmd.exe?

Sun, 12 Dec 2021 19:58:18 -0500

Question

I recently had to uninstall Visual Studio 2012 and DTS, then install VS 2017 and DTS again. Afterwards, The directory containing sqlcmd.exe was not in my PATH variable. I installed the following.

vs_Professional-vs2017-15.9.41.exe
SSDT-Setup-ENU-vs2017-15.9.9.exe

Should either of these kits install sqlcmd.exe? If not, which tool will install it? I need one that will work with SQL Server 2012+.

log_reuse_wait_desc = AVAILABILITY_REPLICA, log is 100% full but AG is all fine

Sun, 28 Nov 2021 18:58:02 -0500

Question

That's a weird scenario. The transaction log is full. It waits on AG. AG is all good. No latency, last commit/hardened time is almost real-time on all the nodes. The Estimated Recovery Time is zero. I checked this from the primary node and secondaries as well (in case if Dashboard is not updating). This page lists only two reasons for this error, a delivery latency and redo latency. Nothing applies to my system. How to troubleshoot this further?

Order by one column if not null, otherwise by another column, columns are of not matching types

Sun, 28 Nov 2021 18:14:16 -0500

Question

I have an application that uses PostgreSQL as RDBMS. There is a table containing orders placed by customers. The table has an id as primary key, an order_number (integer) and a created_at field (timestamp). id and created_at are assigned automatically when the row is created, the order_number is assigned "manually" (when the person performing the order entry process receives the order confirmation, he presses a button and the order_number is assigned as MAX(order_number) + 1, this can happen almost immediately or after a few days, or the order can be cancelled so it never receives a number). In the table there are quite a lot of rows with NULL in the order_number column: the cancelled and pending confirmation orders. This is an excerpt from the table:

Database context for sys.databases and sys.master_files

Mon, 15 Nov 2021 11:45:13 -0500

Question

I have a query that pulls information for a database from the following tables

sys.master_files
sys.databases
sys.filegroups

Currently, the context set is the specific database which I want to query about. But if the database is in a mode such that USE DB_NAME doesn't work, is it okay to use USE master? Since I am adding a where clause on the basis of DB_NAME will USE DB_NAME versus USE master make any difference?

decoding instance_name in sys.dm_os_performance_counters on Azure SQL Database

Tue, 09 Nov 2021 19:25:23 -0500

Question

doing some work with the SQL Perfmon counters and banging my head against the wall trying to work out how to translate the instance_name column to a database name. So if I run a query like the following

SQL Server service - Not Starting With Automatic Startup, "The system cannot find the file specified", but starts fine manually

Fri, 29 Oct 2021 18:56:27 -0400

Question

This is a weird one, and I've run out of ideas for how to go about troubleshooting this. Here's the issue, best as I can sum it up.

The SQL Server engine and Agent services are not started when the server first boots when they're set to Automatic. Looked through the Event Viewer, and found these errors:

Are Basic Availability Groups a reliable HA solution without integrity checks on the secondary replica?

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 16:21:08 -0400

Question

We have a few Basic Availability groups in production and I've been reading about the limitations of them. I'm concerned about the following limitations:

No backups on secondary replica.

No integrity checks on secondary replicas.

Why are there no "Daylight Time" time zones in SQL Server?

Thu, 21 Oct 2021 23:11:06 -0400

Question

I am converting the times of some datetimeoffset columns from UTC to Eastern. I am doing this via the command

UPDATE MyTable SET MyColumn = MyColumn AT TIME ZONE 'Eastern Standard Time'

This seemed to be working correctly (times were shifted 4 hours earlier and now have a -04:00 offset, exactly what I wanted), but then I realized that it's not EST, it's EDT right now.

What the heck is the SSISDB? Where does it come from?

Mon, 18 Oct 2021 09:00:15 -0400

Back in my day, we stored SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) packages in msdb, or the file system. Well, I’m neither dead nor retired, so that’s not an accurate statement–today is still “my time.” But when I was learning about SQL Server, those were the only two options. If you or your environment predate SQL Server 2012, then you might only be familiar with those two options.

How do I put the result of stored procedure in a new column in a view?

Sun, 17 Oct 2021 06:10:18 -0400

Question

I have created a stored procedure which takes as inputs a schema name and a table name and outputs an INT containing the largest value in the id column of the table. I have also created a view containing all the schema names, table names, and primary key column names in my database. I would like to add a column to this view containing the result of my stored procedure, using the schema name and table name values as inputs to the row’s stored procedure. I have tried a few different things, but I can’t find a way to do it.

Is it possible to do a partial transaction log backup with SQL Server 2017? I don't have enough disk space to do a full backup

Fri, 15 Oct 2021 18:12:37 -0400

Question

Inherited a database server to maintain and found that the transaction log is 92 GB. My plan is to do the backup of that and get it brought back down to a regular size, then fix it. The problem is I don't have enough disk space on the machine to do the backup locally, then offload. Is there a way I can run the backup for a specified size or time period so I can do it in stages?

Can I use both Log Shipping and Transaction Replication at the same time?

Fri, 15 Oct 2021 11:36:11 -0400

Question

Good Morning, I have a SQL Server 2016 that is doing Log Shipping to a DR Site. I currently want to also to Replicate (Transactional) specific Tables to another Server for Reporting Purposes.

Will there be any issues or snafu’s I should be aware of? Can I have Log Shipping and Transactional Replication configured on the same Publishing Database?

T-SQL Tuesday #143: My favorite short scripts

Tue, 12 Oct 2021 10:00:22 -0400

For this month's T-SQL Tuesday, John McCormack (blog|twitter) asks us: “What are your go-to short, handy scripts”? I've got so many handy dandy scripts, it was hard to choose.

Where to start?

I have so many go-to scripts that are short, amazing, and I use all the time. I’ve been using SQL Server since the turn of the century, and over the last two decades, I’ve found and written a lot of helpful things. And I have a terrible memory, so even if it’s just a few lines, I often keep it bookmarked or saved for when I need it. As an aside–remember that having a folder of utility scripts isn’t a sign of weakness or incompetence. If anything, it’s the opposite–those utility scripts are basically all battle scars for the database battles you’ve fought over your career. As we become senior, we just fine-tune our collection. With seniority, you don’t stop having that collection of scripts–you just get better at curating them, at making them generic & reusable.

BostonSQL

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 12:52:14 -0400

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, BostonSQL made the difficult decision to go on hiatus and stop meeting. After 18 months of pandemic, we've made the difficult decision to shut down completely. Thank you for your years of support. If you are in the Boston area, the New England SQL Server User Group is a local user group that supports users of the Microsoft Data Platform.

With the remaining funds we had in our account, we've donated them to support underrepresented groups in tech. All mailing lists & contact information for our members have been deleted.

Please join us in supporting underrepresented groups, both in tech and in everyday life. Amplify underrepresented voices in meetings. Stand up against bigotry when you see it.

Be kind to each other. ❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤍🤎🖤

What time is it in Oz?

Tue, 05 Oct 2021 15:54:03 -0400

This is our puppy Elphaba. She's from Oz...No, the other Oz. She's popular.

There was a recent post on Database Administrators, where there was some confusion over Daylight Saving Time(DST) in Australian timezones. Let’s be honest though–timezones are confusing, especially when DST comes into play. Arizona Time doesn’t observe Daylight Saving Time, so sometimes it’s the same as Mountain Time, and sometimes it’s Pacific Time.

Database Sizes error; Arithmetic overflow error converting expression to data type int

Fri, 01 Oct 2021 12:53:23 -0400

Question

I am using the below query to pull back database sizes for our SQL instances.

This cannot pull data larger than 2TB back because of the maximum number the int data type can pull back. How do I go about altering the query to return the database size, no matter how large the dbs?

SQL Server replication additional subscriber

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 08:48:16 -0400

Question

I have a publisher with the distributor on the same server which is transactional replication. There is also an active subscriber using push method.

I need to set a new subscriber up going to a different server using the same articles as the current subscriber I have. The database is huge and cannot be taken offline so I was going to do an initialize from backup instead of a new snapshot.

Always backup database with encryption

Sun, 12 Sep 2021 12:36:06 -0400

Question

Is there a way to force all database and log backups run on the server to be encrypted?

If encryption is not specified, the query will be terminated.

asked 2021-09-12 by Avi

Answer

Not in SQL Server

There is no option to force BACKUP DATABASE & BACKUP LOG to specify WITH ENCRYPTION... as part of backup commands in SQL Server.

Partitioning and existing Indexes

Sun, 12 Sep 2021 11:11:25 -0400

Question

I have a table that consumes almost 1.2 TB of space and has lots of historical data which are mostly irrelevant. Since performing bulk DELETE is going to cause a lot of heavy-lifting, I'm trying to use the concept of horizontal partitioning to create multiple partitions, each containing early data (for eg: 2017,2018... 2021) so that I can simply truncate those partitions which is less than an year, so that I can only retain the relevant operational data.

Identify how many CPUs our database server is using

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 09:48:47 -0400

Question

Our server where the Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Web Edition server is installed is running very slow.

We are thinking of increasing the number of cores licensed on it. However, we need to check how many CPU cores the database is using currently. Our Windows Server 2016 has 16 cores (dual) of CPU.

Function to create SQL TABLE does not works well using Powershell

Thu, 02 Sep 2021 11:41:40 -0400

Question

I need to get the values from a Excel Sheet (in a shared folder) to export it and then create a SQL Table in my instance. After of this I will execute a Stored Procedure (I already created) in order to create extended properties for a specific schema on tables,columns and rows.

Is it ok to change drive names/labels (NOT Drive Letters!)

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 20:50:32 -0400

Question

I realize this is likely a simplistic question but my searches only return results for Drive Letters or Database names if I include SQL Server. Please feel free to point me to existing articles or answers, and my apologies in advance :)

Azure Data Studio - Intellisense does not detect tables, yet queries work

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 05:08:49 -0400

Question

I’m breaking some new ground and trying to get into Azure Data Studio. I’m having a problem with intellisense that seems to be a bug with Azure Data Studio but I’m not sure.

I have issues with basic queries. Foreign keys, select statements and insert statements are all telling me in this example that chocolate_category does not exist, it says it is an invalid object name, or that the foreign key is invalid because the table name is invalid, etcetera.

insert on table being unnaturally slow

Mon, 16 Aug 2021 16:45:19 -0400

Question

I have an "Basic" pricing tier Azure SQL database with a table of 7 columns, an ID column of int that is the clustered index and primary key, one datetime2(0) column, 3 varchar(100) columns and 2 varchar(MAX) columns, all nullable.

What are the .BCP files inside a .bacpak file?

Mon, 16 Aug 2021 15:00:01 -0400

Question

Diving on dba.stackexchange.com I found a nice answer that teach me how to open a .bacpac file with File Explorer.

I gave it a try with the database AdventureWorks2008R2 and all I did was:

Save the database as .bacpac file
Rename the file extension to .zip
Unzip it

And there you go, you can see the tables of the database as folders and inside each folder you can see the raw data.

Job to stop other job at specific time

Fri, 13 Aug 2021 11:25:34 -0400

Question

We have a job which imports data daily from a remote SQL Server every night, I'll call it Import-Job. Most of the time this job runs through in about 15 minutes and everything is fine but due to a rather unstable VPN connection sometimes the job takes a lot more time.

Getting the first Monday after the third Friday

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 23:48:40 -0400

Question

I have seen on this site how to get the the third Friday of the month:

select quote_date
FROM table
 where datename(weekday, quote_date) = 'Friday'
and datepart(day, quote_date)&gt;=15 and datepart(day, quote_date)&lt;=21;

How would I get the first Monday after this third Friday?

Why putting SQL Agent offline caused WSFC to fail over on passive node?

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 23:17:20 -0400

Question

I have 2 node Windows Failover Cluster with Quorum disk. SQL agent is NOT a resource of the cluster.

I needed to enable service broker on the server; for that I need to set SQL Agent offline, run tsql statement then simply put it back online.

Stop using sp_hexadecimal & sp_help_revlogin

Tue, 06 Jul 2021 09:00:52 -0400

Caterpillars transform into beautiful butterflies to realize their full self, much in the same way CONVERT() changes binary into beautiful hexadecimal strings.

Since I started at Stack Overflow, I’ve had the chance to see some of the interesting challenges with running our databases at our scale.

Identify all tables with an identity column

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 18:04:50 -0400

Question

Is there a query I can run that will show me all tables with an identity column? Trying to figure out if there are any identity based tables whose current identity is nearing upper bound of int32 or int64.

Question Regarding ISDATE Function and DATENAME Functions

Thu, 01 Jul 2021 23:50:20 -0400

Question

We have had an issue this morning with a report failing due to the following error:

"Conversion failed when converting date and/or time from character string"

The issue is that in the database we had a value (in a VARCHAR field) of: '31.07/2021'

SQL Server 2012 equivalent of AT TIME ZONE capability

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 22:11:31 -0400

Question

Is there a way in SQL Server 2012 to get what the server time zone would be on a particular date/time? In SQL Server 2016, you have AT TIME ZONE, but that's not available in 2012. I have a datetimeoffset and I need to convert it to the server's timezone (on that date) before truncating it to datetime. SWITCHOFFSET only works if you know the offset, but for servers that change their timezone twice yearly, the offset will flip back and forth.

Why does SQL Server convert floats to scientific notation?

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 15:28:50 -0400

Question

I came across some weird behavior: While passing a float value into a varchar column, the values are getting converted from integers into scientific notation, and it's that scientific notation that gets stored as a string.

OLE DB provider "MSOLEDBSQL" with SQL Server not supported?

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 15:28:05 -0400

Question

I have been using linked server with the old provider (SQLNCLI) without any issue, as recommended by Microsoft, I'm planning to switch to new provider (MSOLEDBSQL). I'm able to add linked server using following T-SQL after installing the drivers

When to partition table in SQL Server based on the amount of memory on server

Fri, 25 Jun 2021 18:12:44 -0400

Question

I understand that table partitioning is mostly done for data management. I understand that table maintenance becomes more difficult for large tables, since e.g. an index rebuild cannot fit in memory or because e.g. sorts scale with O(n*log(n)) and this causes extra problems with large tables.

LGBTQ, Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging Resources

Tue, 22 Jun 2021 14:29:19 -0400

Below are some additional resources for learning more about LGBTQ inclusion, and building a community where everyone can bring their whole self to your community.

Books
Blogs & Links
Videos & Movies

Books

How to Be an Antiracist (624 pages)
Playing in the Dark, by Toni Morrison (91 pages)
Winning Marriage: The Inside Story of How Same-Sex Couples Took on the Politicians and Pundits―and Won (412 pages)

Blogs & Links

Covering, community and creating space for one another: A Pride conversation (<10 minutes to read)
Hi, I’m Andy. My pronouns are he/him. (<5 minutes to read)
How can you be more diversity-friendly and inclusive? (<10 minutes to read)
The Intersectionality Wars (~15 minutes to read)
Long Divisions: The history of racism and exclusion in the United States (~15 minutes to read)
Meritocracy prizes achievement above all else, making everyone—even the rich—miserable (<10 minutes to read)
Racism is our problem to solve (<10 minutes to read)
Stop Using Phony Science to Justify Transphobia (<10 minutes to read)
What is intersectionality, and what does it have to do with me? (<10 minutes to read)
What's important in a code of conduct? (<10 minutes to read)

Videos & Movies

Bring your whole self to work (TED talk by Mike Robbins) (12 minutes to watch)
The Life & Dealth of Martha P Johnson (Netflix) (1h 45m to watch)
The Power of Vulnerability (TED Talk by Brené Brown) (20 minutes to watch)
Saving Marriage: The Movie (Amazon) (1h 30m to watch)
Singular “they” is here to stay (YouTube) (4 minutes to watch)
Why you should bring your whole self to work (TED Talk by Carrie Dragshaw) (5 minutes to watch)

Event & Community Resources

An expression of non-boolean type specified in a context where a condition is expected, near 'AND'

Tue, 08 Jun 2021 18:45:31 -0400

Question

ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[usp_BaseScan_CycleCount_Report]
@StartDate varchar(10),
@EndDate varchar(10)

AS

BEGIN

 IF @StartDate AND @EndDate IS NOT NULL
 SELECT * 
 FROM dbo.CycleCountHistory
 WHERE RecordDate BETWEEN @StartDate AND @EndDate
 
 ELSE 
 SELECT *
 FROM dbo.CycleCountHistory
END

Error message: Msg 4145, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_BaseScan_CycleCount_Report, Line 16 An expression of non-boolean type specified in a context where a condition is expected, near 'AND'. Msg 156, Level 15, State 1, Procedure usp_BaseScan_CycleCount_Report, Line 21 Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'ELSE'.

SQL Server Configuration - Disabling the "Allow Remote Connections to this Server" Option

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 21:16:59 -0400

Question

My organization had a security audit and was told that we need to DISABLE the "allow remote connection to this server" option for all of our SQL Servers. What impact would this have on connection to the SQL Server via Management Studio (SSMS) from a client machine/desktop or from a web app that might use a connection string or any other external app? All of the documentation I see regarding connectivity issues to a SQL Server seem to include "ENABLING" this option as a solution. Is there a workaround that will allow us to disable it but still allow the access we need from the target clients?

How do I preserve leading zeros for varchar field?

Mon, 17 May 2021 17:00:31 -0400

Question

When saving a number with leading zeros into a string variable or column, leading zeros are truncated.

When I run this query:

declare @varchar as nvarchar(50)
set @varchar = 011
print @varchar

The result I get is 11.

How to convert from nchar to decimal in SQL?

Mon, 10 May 2021 18:29:23 -0400

Question

I have 2 tables(source and destination) which are respectively NOR_LABOR and ALL_LABOR_DETAILS. In the source table(NOR_LABOR) there is a column feet_produced with the data type nchar(10). In the destination table(ALL_LABOR_DETAILS) there’s a column labor_feet_produced with the data type decimal(18,4). I want to convert the feet_produced from nchar(10) to decimal(18,4) and paste it in the ALL_LABOR_DETAILS table’s labor_feet_produced column.

View SQL Code Behind Flat File Import Wizard?

Mon, 10 May 2021 17:58:41 -0400

Question

Is there a way to view and copy the code that the "Import Flat File to SQL" Wizard ultimately uses, after I have gone through all the steps (chosen file, set up data types for my columns, etc.)?

Commit or rollback SQLServer-SQLTransaction when no data changed

Fri, 07 May 2021 16:11:54 -0400

Question

we use the SqlTransaction-class in the backend to access data stored in the MS-SQLServer.

In some cases we definitely know that no data were changed by this transaction (and no errors occurred). So the question is: How to close transactions in these cases? Shall we use Commit() or Rollback(), or none of this both functions or something else? The aim is to find the most performant way to finish the transaction in a "reasonable" way.

Why is part of transaction committed when stored procedure faults?

Sun, 25 Apr 2021 23:31:33 -0400

Question

I have a stored procedure that begins by declaring a few variables then contains begin tran; After this it performs some validations on the supplied arguments (and increments an error count each time a supplied argument fails validation). If there is no error count it then proceeds to carry out 7 inserts. Following this, it has commit tran;

Cardinality , Parallel Hint alternative for MS-SQL

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 10:41:44 -0400

Question

UPDATE MARK M SET ARCHIVE_FLAG = 'N' WHERE EXISTS 
(SELECT /*+ cardinality(S1, 10) parallel(S1,8)*/ 1 FROM SHFASG S, SHIFT S1 
WHERE S.ID = S1.ID AND M.ID = S.MARKID AND ARCHIVE_FLAG &lt;&gt; 'Y');

This is the oracle query that I have, I want to create similar query for my MS SQL DB, Any help please

FAQs about the dissolution of PASS

Mon, 28 Dec 2020 12:00:14 -0500

In my prior post, I talked about how all signs pointed to it being Closing Time for PASS. Since then, PASS has announced the organization will “cease its operations and pursue dissolution.”

TL;DR;

The short version is that on 15 January, 2021, PASS will shut down all operations, including various technology assets, such as the SQLSaturday site, User Group tools, etc.

Closing Time

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 10:59:37 -0500

Open letter from Mindy Curnutt to the PASS Membership. (zoom)

This year, I’ve written a couple of critical posts targeted at PASS. If you follow me on Twitter, you know I’ve been critical there, too.

Last week, the PASS Board of Directors had their December meeting. Coming out of that meeting, Mindy Curnutt (blog|twitter) resigned from her position on the board citing “morally wrong” decisions and an experience that I will describe as being excluded from participation on the Board. We don’t know what those “morally wrong” decisions are, but I trust Mindy is not over-reacting and her concerns are legitimate.

Job management: How to get the next running date by querying MSDB

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 10:10:17 -0500

Question

Table sysjobschedules contains 2 columns next_run_date and next_run_time. With the help of sysschedules and column enable it should be easy to determine the next running date/time of a specific job.

However, when you change a schedule, sysjobschedules is only refreshed 20 minutes after alteration by the Sql Server Agent.

log send queue size and redo queue size in AG

Mon, 19 Oct 2020 22:44:00 -0400

Question

I am trying to figure out the way to monitor these 2 events

log send queue size - I can see this in perfmon
Redo queue size - I can see in dmv but not in perfmon counter

Is my VM hyperthreaded?

Sun, 18 Oct 2020 23:01:37 -0400

Question

I’ve been provided a VMware ESXi VM (running Windows Server 2016 SE) with 8 logical processors, but I can’t tell whether the VM is hyperthreaded. (This matters for SQL Server.)

C:\Users\XXXXXXX>wmic CPU Get DeviceID,NumberOfCores,NumberOfLogicalProcessors
DeviceID NumberOfCores NumberOfLogicalProcessors
CPU0 2 2
CPU1 2 2
CPU2 2 2
CPU3 2 2

wmic says there are four CPUs each with two cores. Does fact that there are two logical processors on each core mean that HT is disabled?

Always On Synchronous Commit Mode With Large Delays

Sun, 18 Oct 2020 11:37:09 -0400

Question

For SQL Server Enterprise's Always On availability groups in Synchronous Commit mode, is there some amount of latency that can't be exceeded? For example, can it work between very distant data centers, such as between the US and Europe?

Replication of only updates and inserts

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 16:01:08 -0400

Question

I have two sql servers, in the first I want to keep the data from the last three months and in the second I want to keep all the data with the purpose of getting historical reports. I know how to do a transactional replica but I don't know how to replicate only the inserts and updates, I don't want to replicate the deletions.

sp_update_schedule says @schedule_id does not exist

Tue, 06 Oct 2020 12:53:39 -0400

Question

I wrote a script that reads job schedules from msdb.dbo.sysschedules and runs sp_update_schedule to change the active_start_time for a given subset of jobs. In each case, sp_update_schedule fails with the message "The specified @schedule_id('xxx') does not exist". (MessageID 14262, Severity 16)

Multi-subnet availability group, with mixed MultiSubnetFailover support (Part 2)

Tue, 06 Oct 2020 08:00:55 -0400

In yesterday’s post, I showed how to configure an availability group (AG) to use the RegisterAllProvidersIP=0 when you can’t get clients to connect using the MultiSubnetFailover=true connection string attribute.

I mentioned that you have to make some trade-offs when you set RegisterAllProvidersIP=0, and included this comparison:

Multi-subnet availability group, without MultiSubnetFailover support (Part 1)

Mon, 05 Oct 2020 09:00:48 -0400

As a DBA, we have the opportunity & responsibility to build highly available database platforms for use by applications & users. Even if you are a DBA at a small company supporting databases for only internal applications, we are usually still responsible for providing databases as a service for application teams. Sometimes, in order for us to provide the best service, we need application teams to do some work to make use of the super awesome thing we built. And sometimes, getting application teams to make that change isn’t easy, or isn’t fast, or isn’t even possible.

Microsoft Azure hack for social justice

Sun, 04 Oct 2020 11:00:33 -0400

Photo via unsplash

Microsoft is going to be running a virtual hackathon, running from October 12 through November 20. The theme of the hack will be to use Microsoft Azure to address some social justice issue. I’m thrilled to be joining the judging panel for this event, which is at the intersection of two of my greatest passions–social justice and technology.

Can we enable tls 1.0 on MSSQL Server 2019 on database level? if yes then how?

Fri, 25 Sep 2020 20:40:09 -0400

Question

i am running sql server 2019 on Linux box and trying to connect using a Windows server 2016 client, how can we enable TLS 1.0 for SQL Server 2019 on the Database/instance level.

TIA.

asked 2020-09-25 by Rafay Pervaiz

GitHub

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 14:11:36 -0400

SQL Server 2019 Database stuck In Recovery state after restart

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 07:44:23 -0400

Question

SQL Server was restarted by mistake, when it came online, database came back in "In Recovery" mode.

Check from error it says "Recovery of database 'DB1' (5) is 8% complete (approximately 27146 seconds remain). Phase 2 of 3. This is an informational message only. No user action is required.

How to dig deeper into ASYNC_NETWORK_IO waits

Sat, 15 Aug 2020 00:48:17 -0400

Question

I've been handed a graph that comes from SolarWinds showing top wait events broken down by day. The last 2 days there's a part of the daily color coded bar representing a total of 3 hours for ASYNC_NETWORK_IO. Still trying to see if I can get access to Solar Winds panels to try and see if it offers a drill down into the graph or not.

What's important in a code of conduct?

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 11:14:10 -0400

Earlier this week, I published a post about a proposed Tech Community Equality Index, and used it to grade the largest organization in the data community, PASS.

One of the areas where I was critical of PASS is that their Anti-Harassment Policy (AHP) is not trans-inclusive, as it does not protect gender identity or expression. The PASS AHP is limited to “gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, religion, or any other protected classification,” and unfortunately that doesn’t include protections for trans folks. What this text implies is, “if the law doesn’t protect you, we don’t protect you.” I don’t think that is PASS’s intent, but rather a bug in their implementation. In the US, the Supreme Court recently ruled in Bostock v Clayton County, GA that employment discrimination based on sexual orientation (including transgender folks) is a protected class under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but this only applies to workplace discrimination in the United States, and doesn’t cover non-work events nor international events. Additionally, the PASS policy makes the AHP optional for SQLSaturday, and provides no guidance or mechanism for local user groups to adopt their AHP.

Tech Community Equality Index

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 05:00:19 -0400

Over the last weeks & months, I’ve had an increasing number of conversations with folks on the topics of diversity, inclusion, equality, and justice. These discussions we have with coworkers, members of the data community, family and friends are all valuable, and help us look at life in a different, more inclusive way.

Hi, I'm Andy. My pronouns are he/him.

Tue, 23 Jun 2020 05:01:47 -0400

Forget what you learned in school-- "they" is singular

Lots of folks want to be an ally to the LGBTQ community, but don’t know where to start. One great way to be an ally is relatively low-friction.

List your pronouns. Everywhere.

Put your pronouns in your social media profile & your email signature. Edit your LinkedIn profile. Put it on your business cards. Make your pronouns part of your introduction. “Hi, I’m Andy. My pronouns are he/him. Nice to meet you.”

Remove/suppress dashes from "Results to Text" output in SSMS?

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 06:58:39 -0400

Question

(This is just a "reproducer", not the real code, because that's long and complicated.)

The output of

SET NOCOUNT ON
select @@SERVICENAME
select @@version

is:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- MSSQLSERVER

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 (SP3-CU4) (KB4500181) - 12.0.6329.1 (X64) Jul 20 2019 21:42:29 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation Enterprise Edition: Core-based Licensing (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.3 <X64> (Build 9600: ) (Hypervisor)

Racism is our problem to solve

Tue, 09 Jun 2020 01:00:59 -0400

This month's T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Kenneth Fisher (blog|twitter). Kenneth asked us to talk about any non-SQL tips and tricks we have. I'm going to take the moment to give some tips on how (and why) you can help fight bigotry, racism, and racial injustice.

In the US, Racism is a white people problem

The lack of diversity in Tech is a well-documented, well-known problem. Most companies have employee resource groups (ERGs) or other programs to help tackle the problem and build a more diverse workforce. However, companies cannot solve this problem without the engagement and help of employees.

Pride is a riot

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 08:30:10 -0400

Marsha P Johnson, LGBTQ rights activist & Stonewall instigator. Last year was the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which mark the start of the modern LGBTQ rights movement in the US. In the subsequent half century, the queer community has made significant strides in our march towards equality. Sodomy laws were struck down by the courts (but only as recently as 2003), same-sex couples can be married (state-by-state, starting in Massachusetts in 2004, and only with Federal recognition in 2015), and 21 states have enacted employment laws to fully protect employees from discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. (As of today, 29 states still don't protect LGBTQ folks in the workplace: 12 states provide no protection, and 17 states provide only partial protection).

On June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Bostock v Clayton County, GA that employment discrimination based on sexual orientation (including transgender folks) is a protected class under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This adds employment/workplace protections for LGBTQ folks in the 29 states where states had previously failed to enact protections. This ruling does not affect other aspects of queer lives, as this ruling is specific to workplace protections.

One of the key instigators of the Stonewall riots was Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson, a founder of the Gay Liberation Front, a devoted member of ACT UP, and co-founder of STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries).

Why the instance name of SQL Server Express is changing?

Thu, 21 May 2020 08:12:15 -0400

Question

I'm working on a web app which is using

SQL Server Express (Microsoft SQL Server 2016 (SP1) (KB3182545) - 13.0.4001.0 (X64) Oct 28 2016 18:17:30 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation Express Edition (64-bit) on Windows 10 Pro 6.3 (Build 18362: )).

Recursive CTE in SQL Server to count blocking sessions

Mon, 18 May 2020 19:54:25 -0400

Question

I’m trying to make CTE to count blocking sessions on server. Currently I made a function to do so(returns blocking session amount). But still could not write this query with CTE.

 CREATE FUNCTION dbo.SESSIONS(@SESSION int)
 RETURNS INT
 AS 
 BEGIN
 DECLARE @returnValue int =0
 SET @returnValue = @returnValue + (			
 			SELECT isNULL((
 			SELECT (SELECT COUNT(session_id) FROM sys.dm_exec_requests R2 WHERE blocking_session_id =R1.blocking_session_id) AS [BLOCKING]
 			FROM sys.dm_exec_requests r1 
 WHERE blocking_session_id = R3.session_id
 			GROUP BY blocking_session_id), 0)
 			FROM sys.dm_exec_sessions R3 where session_id=@SESSION)
 
 	DECLARE @s int = (SELECT MAX(session_id) FROM sys.dm_exec_requests
 			 WHERE blocking_session_id = @SESSION)

 	IF @s IS NOT NULL
 	BEGIN
 		SET @returnValue = @returnValue + dbo.SESSIONS(@s)
 	END
 
 	RETURN @returnValue
 END

asked 2022-05-18 by mortu

Find the SQL Server service account with sys.dm_server_services

Tue, 12 May 2020 09:00:56 -0400

This is Callie. She has nothing to do with DMVs, but isn't she cute?!

SQL Server 2005 introduced Dynamic Management Views(DMVs). Technically, there are both views & functions–DMVs & DMFs, but colloquially they’re often simply referred to as just “DMVs”. DMVs simply return information about the state of the server or database and can be used for monitoring and troubleshooting of server/database health & performance.

Making non-SARGable queries seek, without changing the query

Wed, 06 May 2020 08:36:27 -0400

We’ve all been there. You’ve got a query where the JOIN or WHERE predicate is not SARGable. You’ve read about how this can be a problem, and how bad it is for performance.

Alas, you cannot change the query. Sometimes this reason is political, sometimes it’s because you’ve got a third-party app and simply don’t have access to the code. But you do have access to the database…

Replication latency when an Availability Group replica is offline

Mon, 04 May 2020 10:02:52 -0400

Assume you have configured a transactional replication publisher, which is part of an availability group (AG). Now, you have an asynchronous secondary AG (or mirroring) replica that is offline. Perhaps this is a DR node, and you are doing patching or other planned maintenance on that DR node, with it intentionally offline.

Thirsty Thursday - A five-bottle bar for eleven cocktails (and non-alcoholic alternatives)

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 16:52:41 -0400

Gin-Campari Sour

In my last Thirsty Thursday post, I published my list of essential bar equipment for folks who are interested in making mixology their quarantine hobby. Hopefully these little detours from technology & career advice will help with your work-life harmony while we’re all working from home.

Stop trying to shrink tempdb files

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 09:00:24 -0400

Every time someone shrinks a database, a kitten dies.

Stop shrinking your tempdb data files

I recently wrote about growing, shrinking, and removing tempdb files. In that article I explained that SQL Server won’t move a page that contains an internal worktable object, and thus trying to shrink tempdb files can be futile. Today, I’m going to explain how attempting to shrink tempdb files can actually be harmful.

Fixing tempdb: Growing, shrinking, and removing data files

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 09:00:37 -0400

Dropping tempdb files like they're hot

I recently came across a server where tempdb was breaking all the rules.

Data files were all different sizes. I want all data files to be the same size so that proportional fill uses them evenly.
There were 10 tempdb files, with 8 files on a dedicated disk, and 2 on a slower disk shared with other data files. And free space was sky high, so the extra files aren't needed anymore! (They were probably added to fix a short-term emergency, and never cleaned up.)
The log file was tiny, and didn't have room to grow. For a 500GB tempdb, the log file was only 4GB!

Three fixes

There are three problems I’ve got to fix. I need to (1) remove those two extra files, (2) grow the tempdb log file, and (3) even out the size of the data files (and shrink them a little to make room for the larger log file. We’re going to tackle these in the reverse order than I listed them–partially out of necessity, and partially because it’s going to be easier.

Thirsty Thursday - Essential bar equipment

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 09:37:19 -0400

I’m writing this post during the Coronavirus pandemic. Billions of people across the globe are isolating in their homes. Folks have started exploring new hobbies and interests as a way to pass the time and to keep their mind sharp. Folks are depending heavily on virtual meetings, not just for work, but to stay in touch with friends. I’ve started having “virtual happy hour” with friends, where we share a drink and chat over video call. Cocktails & mixology are a bit of a hobby for me, so I thought I would share some of my hobby with you–even if it is a bit off-topic for a tech blog.

Should I install SSMS on a server running SQL Server?

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 09:00:27 -0400

There’s a lot of advice out there on the internet that suggests that you should not install SSMS on your database servers running SQL Server.

This came up at work recently, where I was asked “Should we install SSMS on our database servers?” and my answer is:

Redgate Streamed

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 14:22:05 -0400

Last week, I had the pleasure of participating in Redgate Streamed, a three-day virtual conference organized by my friends at Redgate. My session was Shortcuts from an impatient DBA–discussing a bunch of Management Studio tips & tricks for data professionals. The virtual conference was free for all, and was recorded and freely available to watch on demand. The recording of my session is available as part of the Day 2 recording, and you can also see some equally great sessions from Day 1 and Day 3.

Should I shrink my (SQL Server) database?

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 22:47:13 -0400

Nope.

Add disk.

You think it’s OK to shrink because your scenario is special. It’s not. If you are going to shrink, practice safe shrinking.

~~DBCC SHRINKDATABASE()~~
DBCC SHRINKFILE()
Resize-Partition

Can changing database owner affect permissions or role memberships?

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 21:23:49 -0400

Question

A couple years ago we ran into a situation where we were changing the database owner from a DBA's login to sa, and immediately thereafter we received a complaint that the service login (which was NOT the DBA's login) no longer had access to the database. On checking, the service login had indeed lost it's role memberships.

When STRING_SPLIT() falls short

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 10:00:54 -0400

Aaron attempting a STONE_SPLIT at a recent curling competition. This morning, my friend Aaron Bertrand (blog|twitter) posted a plea for help with STRING_SPLIT() improvements. I'm very much in Aaron's corner on this, having written about the olden days myself.

Why `STRING_SPLIT()` is supposed to be awesome

CLR was fast, but inaccessible to many DBAs. XML was almost as good, but ugh, XML. And multi-statement table valued functions are evil but prevalent.

STRING_SPLIT() promised to be both super fast, and lift the code maintenance problem for DBAs who don’t know .NET and struggle with the crazy XML syntax.

Joining the Friends of Redgate program 🎉

Wed, 04 Mar 2020 10:03:42 -0500

I’m super excited to announce that today I was notified that I will be joining the Friends of Redgate program! 🎉💃🎊

“What’s the Friends of Redgate?” you ask?

Well, the Friends of Redgate is a program for SQL Server Community members who blog/speak/etc within the community. Redgate helps their Friends by providing collaboration opportunities for community activities, and also some VIP insider access to development teams. As a former Product Manager, I know how important it is to allow development teams direct connection to users of the product, to help provide context and feedback to the way the software gets used in the real world–especially since real world use can be different from what the development team or Product Manager intended the product use to be.

MS SQL Express 2016 on Amazon AWS: I Can Take Database Offline but Can't Bring It Online

Sun, 01 Mar 2020 10:59:06 -0500

Question

I can take databases offline (via GUI) but can't bring them back online. The server details are as follow:

RDBMS: MS SQL 2016 Express Host: Amazon AWS/RDS Free Tier

Details/History of the Problem A few months ago, I created a db instance on Amazon AWS and at the time of creation, the 'master/admin' account was setup via the AWS/RDS web page. With this 'admin' account, I have created several databases on that instance without any problems.

How to store real-time data to database

Sun, 23 Feb 2020 18:38:30 -0500

Question

Here is my situation:

I have a WebSocket connection that feeds me data real-time
I have an async callback function that gets the data and inserts into a queue
I have another thread that reads from the queue and stores it into the Postgres database, one row at a time (using python's psycopg2 library)

The problem is the real-time data comes in faster than the time it takes to insert into the database, and in a couple of hours, the server runs out of memory. (Is this because psycopg2 library is slow?)

Is it possible for master, tempdb, model and msdb to have a database_id other than 1,2,3,4 respectively?

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 12:25:11 -0500

Question

SQL Server System Databases, as far as I know, always have those same IDs and I have seen lots of maintenance scripts on the internet relying on the predicate WHERE database_id > 4 to exclude them from the actions of the script.

Fastest way to shrink LOB data in SQL Server

Thu, 16 Jan 2020 07:00:12 -0500

Question

We have a database of total size of 3886 GB. Out of which 778 GB is free. So total 3108 GB worth of data is present.

Out of which 2458 GB is "LOB Data" and 400 GB is worth "Regular".

Job waiting on CXCONSUMER

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 12:09:54 -0500

Question

We have got a procedure on SQL Server agent jobs and this job started to hang on transaction for many hours with wait stats CXCONSUMER and never complete. The problem is after we noticed that it was hanging we kill the job and started manually during and the job was working fine and completing. But right now neither starting manually or on sql agent job seems never completing and hanging on waits with CXCONSUMER.

Blocking with OBJECT_NAME()

Tue, 24 Dec 2019 10:38:36 -0500

Doggos increase blog readership by 140%. 14/10. They are good doggos.

As a DBA, you probably use the OBJECT_NAME() function quite a bit. I know I do. If you aren’t familiar with it, you can read the documentation if you want, but it’s a pretty straightforward function that converts object IDs into object names.

Do triggers start to degrade in performance (or sometimes fail) on highly transactional tables?

Sat, 21 Dec 2019 02:41:00 -0500

Question

How many transactions per second can SQL Server table triggers handle? If I had a highly transactional table that was inserted into 1,000 times a second, are insert triggers on that table reliable to fire every single time?

What the heck is the dbcreator role?

Thu, 19 Dec 2019 07:30:14 -0500

Microsoft docs defines the dbcreator role as:

Members of the dbcreator fixed server role can create, alter, drop, and restore any database.

But what specific permissions are actually included in that role? If we scroll down in the docs just a little, we’ll see a diagram that tells us that dbcreator grants two permissions:

Testing as another user...without their password

Wed, 18 Dec 2019 11:50:35 -0500

This guy doesn't have Elvis's password and is still able to impersonate him. As a DBA or SQL Developer, you've surely encountered a scenario where something worked for you, but not for another user. DBAs usually are part of the sysadmin role, or have a collection of powerful permissions. If I run code as myself, I will *never* have permissions problems because my account is sysadmin. If I want to ensure permissions are correct, I need to run the code as the less-privileged account.

Can you try now?

I honestly don’t think there is a more frustrating experience than getting into the feedback loop of making a permission change, and asking the user if it works, and when it doesn’t work, you try another change, and ask them to try again, and when it doesn’t work, you try another change, and ask them to try again, and when it doesn’t work, you try another change, and ask them to try again, and when it doesn’t work, you try another change, and ask them to try again…

I hate sp_estimate_data_compression_savings

Tue, 17 Dec 2019 10:55:26 -0500

If you’re working with compressed indexes, SQL Server provides a system stored procedure to help test the space savings of implementing data compression: sp_estimate_data_compression_savings. Starting in SQL Server 2019, it can even be used to estimate savings with columnstore.

I really don’t like sp_estimate_data_compression_savings. In fact, I kind of hate it. It’s not always very accurate–and even when it is accurate, the results can be misleading. Before I get ranty about why I don’t like it, let’s look at it in action.

INSERT EXEC statement cannot be nested

Fri, 13 Dec 2019 23:16:21 -0500

Question

I have a stored proc spGetSites that returns three columns for SiteName, SiteId and UnitCount. The stored proc runs perfectly fine. I'm trying to store the results of the stored proc to a temp table @Site to use for my report with below syntax. This time I got an error message: "INSERT EXEC statement cannot be nested"

Changing a column from int to bigint, without downtime

Wed, 11 Dec 2019 08:00:41 -0500

Changing a column from int to bigint has gotten a lot easier since I started working on SQL Server back at the turn of the century. SQL Server 2016 introduced the ability to do ALTER TABLE...ALTER COLUMN as an online operation using the WITH (ONLINE=ON) syntax in Enterprise Edition. This wonderful syntax now allows you to alter a column from int to bigint without causing major blocking. The int to bigint conversion is one of the most popular data type changes I see–A developer inevitably creates the table thinking they will never have more than 2 billion rows… then some years or months later 2 billion becomes a reality.

How to see restore history of a deleted database?

Sat, 23 Nov 2019 21:33:37 -0500

Question

For example, I had a database and I want to see which physical backup file was used to restore into it. The problem is that the database was deleted. How can I see the record?

Can't use GitKraken on private repositories

Fri, 08 Nov 2019 12:03:21 -0500

Question

I’ve been using GitKraken for a while now, since about May of this year and it never gave me any trouble, except for now. I was working on a school project and GitKraken now prevents me from opening its repository, because, apparently, this is now a Pro feature, although, I have a Github Pro account, which I use to login in Gitkraken, so, I should have access to Pro features, but I don’t.

Cannot connect to my SQL Management studio after moving a tempDB

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 22:27:39 -0400

Question

In quite a bad position here. This afternoon on my tempDB I ran the query: sp_helpfile to locate where my MDF and LOG file were. My MDF was on my C: drive and my LOG file was on a D: drive so I've run the following query to move this Log file from the D: drive back to C: drive. (This may not have been exactly the query I run as I don't remember what it was precisely!)

Is it possible to re-use a query plan from the plan cache from one database in another database?

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 18:08:43 -0400

Question

For example, if I hit the sys dynamic views to select a specific query plan, am I able to insert that query plan into another database's plan cache, that runs the same exact query? (I know the query is hashed and compared to determine when to generate a new plan, so in my example I would ensure the query truly is exactly the same character by character.)

SQL Server Page File location - where to put it?

Thu, 31 Oct 2019 08:32:27 -0400

Question

There are a lot of recommendations about the sizing of the windows page file. What I am looking for is the correct placement.

We are running a MS SQL server on a Server 2012R2 VM with multiple seperate virtual disks:

Why can't I restore encrypted backup through front end?

Wed, 30 Oct 2019 12:41:23 -0400

Question

I’m just starting to experiment with encrypting backups, I think I now understand it and have got the process working, but something strange is happening with restoring.

On Server A (SQL 2014 Standard) I have created a new master key and certificate and successfully produced an encrypted bak file and have also exported the key and cert files.

How to create date buckets in T-SQL

Mon, 28 Oct 2019 10:00:47 -0400

I was fiddling around with some data, looking at making a quick aging report. I probably should have reached for Power BI Desktop, but sometimes I can be stubborn, and I wanted to get my T-SQL to work–if nothing else to figure out how to make it work.

Does a Window 10 license allow using it as a Web server?

Sun, 27 Oct 2019 17:50:53 -0400

Question

I am looking to set up a Web server for a project.

The server would be using a custom application developed in VB.Net using SQL Server for data storage. The application uses 3rd party components (DLL’s) that are available for Windows only.

How to implement a unique key for a long VARCHAR column in MySQL

Sun, 27 Oct 2019 04:43:04 -0400

Question

I need to let MySQL to check the uniqueness of a VARCHAR column which is 5000 max length and is not the primary key. I can use an index of length 500 on the column to speed up query, but how to create an unique key that works?

convert sql-excel date to recognizable format

Sat, 26 Oct 2019 10:27:37 -0400

Question

I have a large csv file(1.1G) exported from SQL Server. I would like to do data wrangling in python, but I had a few problems doing this. The original csv file dates look like this 00:07.5, 00:08.3, 00:48.7, I can manually convert them to 1/12/2015 12:00:07 am, 1/12/2015 12:00:08 am, 1/12/2015 12:00:49 am in excel by formatting the entire column to make it in d/m/yy h:mm:ss, but sometimes output is weird like 100:00:00, or it just kept the time but not the dates, when I finally successfully did this, I noticed that the file size had shrank to 36.6 MB from 1.1G. I received the excel notification:

How does a database RESTORE affect plan cache?

Thu, 24 Oct 2019 10:12:48 -0400

If you restore a database, what does that do to the plan cache? Well, let’s start by looking at the documentation for RESTORE. (Emphasis mine)

Restoring a database clears the plan cache for the instance of SQL Server. Clearing the plan cache causes a recompilation of all subsequent execution plans and can cause a sudden, temporary decrease in query performance. For each cleared cachestore in the plan cache, the SQL Server error log contains the following informational message: " SQL Server has encountered %d occurrence(s) of cachestore flush for the '%s' cachestore (part of plan cache) due to some database maintenance or reconfigure operations". This message is logged every five minutes as long as the cache is flushed within that time interval.

This beautifully restored Mini would clear some cash from my bank account.

Yikes. That first sentence sounds like it is going to clear the cache for the entire instance. That seems excessive. If I restore a new database (ie, I am creating a new database from backup), that shouldn’t affect the plan cache at all. And if I restore over top an existing database, I would only expect the cache for that one database to be affected. I can’t think of a scenario where I would want to “clear the plan cache for the instance” when doing a restore.

What the heck is Accelerated Database Recovery?

Mon, 21 Oct 2019 10:00:15 -0400

The intersection of Crash Recovery Boulevard and Version Store Avenue is now known as ADR Square. Last week, I wrote about the SQL Server Version Store. The week before, I looked at crash recovery. Let's look next at a new feature in SQL Server 2019, where these two features intersect: Accelerated Database Recovery.

What is it?

Accelerated Database Recovery(ADR) is a new feature intended to speed up the recovery process, which could be very slow, particularly when there are long-running, large transactions. ADR is not just for recovery after a crash, but also helps in other scenarios where the transaction log needs to be recovered–including Availability Group secondary redo and Failover Cluster Instance failovers.

SQL log file 2TB is not enough, now what?

Fri, 18 Oct 2019 12:04:01 -0400

Question

This is a hypothetical question, that flows from the answer by sepupic where they explain that 2TB is the physical limit for SQL log file.

if you need it more than 2Tb you add the second log file.

Copying SQL Server settings to new server

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 13:26:20 -0400

Question

We are a small business using a single SQL Server 2014 instance as our main data platform.

We now need to set up a second instance (2017) to hold additional data - this is to be standalone, ie not replicated or actively linked to the main server.

What the heck is the SQL Server Version Store?

Tue, 15 Oct 2019 10:30:13 -0400

Sure, Microsoft does versioning, but check out this Microbus versioning!

Maybe you’ve read about the Read Committed Snapshot (RCSI) or Snapshot Isolation levels. Or maybe you were trying to figure out the difference between the two snapshot isolation levels. Perhaps you’ve looked into read-only secondary replicas in your Availability Group, or even had some problems with AG secondaries. Along the way, people and articles have mentioned this “version store” thing.

Recovery of database is 0% complete (approximately 1000000 seconds remain)

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 10:52:29 -0400

recovering from this crash is going to be pretty difficult

If you've ever had a server reboot unexpectedly, you've probably seen SQL Server start up, with some databases "stuck" in recovery status, then eventually they come online. Or maybe you thought "this session is stuck in rollback. It'll be quicker if I just reboot the server than wait for it to roll back!" ...only to find out that after restart, the database went into recovery, and you were left waiting impatiently for the database to come online.

In both of these scenarios, the database is going through the “crash recovery” status.

SQL database stuck in recovery

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 00:11:33 -0400

Question

I have SQL server 2017. I have one 3 TB size database there. Somehow due to long running transaction the database got stuck 'IN Recovery' mode after SQL server Restarted. When I checked the sql error logs it says 2 189 255 seconds remaining (Phase 2 of 3) completed which is almost 25 days. My goal is to bring the database online even if I lose some data.

How To Fix High DTU Usage on Specific Query

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 18:03:01 -0400

Question

I have a query that runs every few seconds on a Microsoft SQL Azure Database. It is from a web job that checks if there are actions that need to be done based on rows in a specific table (its a queueing table). Based on the image attached, does anyone have any suggestion of how i could reduce the DTU usage for the query in question, it is causing the database to reach 100% CPU.

Updates to the Data Blogger Resource Kit

Wed, 09 Oct 2019 10:31:46 -0400

Earlier this year, I published the first crack at a Data Blogger Resource Kit. When I initially created the kit, I wasn’t quite sure exactly what direction I would go with it. In the months since, I’ve started to get a better idea of where I want to go, and I’ve collected some additional resources that might be helpful for folks who are bloggers or who are interested in becoming bloggers.

Linked server from SQL server on AWS RDS to On premises MS SQL server database

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 07:17:18 -0400

Question

We are planing to migrate an on-premises SQL Server db to AWS RDS SQL Server. My only concern is how can I create a linked server from AWS RDS SQL Server to on-premises SQL Server db? Is it possible? I am checking it because there are many views using linked server to other on-premises dbs.

Supporting the LGBTQ #SQLFamily

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 22:54:39 -0400

I won’t be at PASS Summit this year, so unlike last year, I won’t be organizing an LGBTQ Meetup at PASS Summit. I’m hoping that even without the meetup, all my LGBTQ #SQLFamily friends will still get together for some fun and networking.

Monetary value in integer over decimal datatype

Sun, 15 Sep 2019 09:08:25 -0400

Question

I have came across several articles that mentioned that advise on not to store monetary value as decimal, but use integer instead. The reasoning that it does not store actual value and will cause some rounding difference/errors. But i have yet ever participate in any project that use an integer datatype for monetary value in database storage.

When to put a non-clustered index on your clustering key

Tue, 03 Sep 2019 21:17:14 -0400

These vines are clustered by Cabernet Sauvignon. #### First off, let's remember the difference between clustered & nonclustered indexes

The clustered index is organized by the key columns. It also includes every other column as part of the row structure (ie, it has the entire row).

Why does ALTER let me DROP?

Wed, 28 Aug 2019 09:00:19 -0400

I was recently chatting with a coworker, discussing why there is no discrete DROP permission for tables, procedures, etc. The conversation actually came from a #SQLHelp question on SQL Slack that was asked along the lines of “What if I want to let a user CREATE and ALTER objects, but not DROP them?”

Data Blogger Resource Kit

Mon, 27 May 2019 09:00:04 -0400

When I started out blogging 5 years ago, there was a lot that I didn’t know. I figured things out as I went. The FreeCon helped give me a giant push in the right direction. But there are some things that nobody ever tells you. While sitting in a coffee shop I decided that I wanted to have a place to drop helpful tidbits that might be useful for other bloggers, new & old.

Year 5: May 2018 - May 2019

Wed, 22 May 2019 09:00:38 -0400

In my last few posts, I’ve walked down memory lane, and talked about a ton of great successes I’ve had in my five years as blogger & speaker. It’s been fun to reminisce about how far I’ve come and brag about some success. Today’s post has a bit of a different theme.

Year 4: May 2017 - May 2018

Tue, 21 May 2019 08:30:21 -0400

In Year Three, I had a pretty big year. I kind of felt like I had peaked. I had received the Community Influencer of the Year Award and Microsoft MVP Award. Where do you go from there? Mostly, I just wanted to keep up what I was doing, and keep sharing what I was doing.

Year 3: May 2016 - May 2017

Mon, 20 May 2019 09:00:52 -0400

Year Two was a busy year, and I was taking blogging seriously. In Year Three, my goal was to keep focused on what I learned in the FreeCon the year before, and keep moving forward with both blogging and speaking at conferences and user groups. I was putting a bit more effort into my speaking (and thus easing off on the blogging some). I was still trying to get into a regular cadence of blogging, and most Sunday mornings, I was at a coffee shop in front of my laptop trying to focus. Dedicating time to blog doesn’t guarantee completed posts–but it helped. I published 27 blog posts during this 12 months–fewer than the prior year, but still averaging one post every other week. I have a full-time day job that doesn’t pay for me to blog–so those posts (and all my in-person speaking presentations) were written nights & weekends in my “free” time.

Year 2: May 2015 - May 2016

Fri, 17 May 2019 08:00:41 -0400

My blog's Terrible Twos weren't so terribleIn Year 1, I only wrote 6 blog posts. In Year 2, I made a conscious decision to take things seriously, and kicked things into high gear. During this 12-month period, I wrote 36 blog posts--my best 12-months as far as pace & productivity in these five years.

This was an incredibly transformational year. I spoke at a user group for the first time. I went to PASS Summit for the first time. I spoke at a SQL Saturday for the first time. I helped organize a SQL Saturday. I had blog posts picked up and published in multiple SQL Server newsletters. To say it was a whirlwind would be an understatement. I wrote a blog post that, to this day, remains the most popular post on this blog.

Year 1: May 2014 - May 2015

Thu, 16 May 2019 09:00:29 -0400

I wrote a little bit about starting my blog in my last post. But let’s take a closer look at that first 12 months.

I’ve lost my blog stats for that first year, so I can’t say exactly how many visitors I had. I can say that the number of views was so low that it didn’t matter. If I were going to offer a generous estimate, I would guess I got whopping 100 page views in year one (mostly from me).

Blogging on a whim

Wed, 15 May 2019 09:00:06 -0400

On May 16, 2014, I bought a domain on a whim. I’d been sitting in the NOCC (Network Operations & Control Center) at my employer, helping with maintenance. I was waiting on another team to perform their task, and champing at the bit.

#LGBT channel on SQL Slack!

Tue, 14 May 2019 09:00:34 -0400

Last night while having dinner with my husband, I had a thought and messaged Chrissy LeMaire (blog|twitter) on the SQL Server Community Slack.

Thoughts on an LGBTQ channel here? I doubt it would be very active... But I'd love to have a spot for the data queers to find each other. Especially if anyone ever has a gay in the workplace question or whatever.

It was super duper late at night in Chrissy’s timezone, but I sent the message so I wouldn’t forget. Chrissy is one of the admins on the SQL Slack workspace, and fellow member of Team Gay, so I was really looking for validation that it was a good idea, and help getting it created.

What the heck is downtime, anyway?

Mon, 15 Apr 2019 09:00:17 -0400

If a server falls in a data center and no users are around to notice, does it count as downtime? There's a lot of discussion about preventing downtime. As a DBA and IT professional, it's my sworn duty to prevent downtime. I usually describe my job as DBA something along the lines of, "to make sure data is always available to the people and applications that need it, and never available to the people and applications that shouldn't have it." Preventing downtime is certainly important for that first part--but how the heck do you define downtime?

What “downtime” means to most DBAs

When DBAs think about downtime, we often think in terms of “the server is offline” or “the database isn’t responding to queries” or even “the database isn’t responding to queries fast enough.” But is that really downtime?

Configuring the distribution database in an Availability Group

Mon, 08 Apr 2019 08:00:23 -0400

I 💜 Replication

Starting with SQL Server 2017 CU6 and SQL Server 2016 SP2-CU3, you can now configure your distribution database as part of an Availability Group (AG). Up until now, your distribution database could only be part of a standalone instance, or failover cluster instance (FCI). In this first round, there’s a pretty big list of limitations & restrictions. In fact, you’ll notice that the “supported scenarios” list is shorter than the “limitations or exclusions.”

Code to purge data based on creation date

Thu, 04 Apr 2019 08:30:16 -0400

Only one thing can spark more joy than cleaning up old data. Doggos. Yesterday, I talked about batching deletes, and the day before I talked about how much I like to delete data, and why it's necessary to do it, despite being a data packrat.

Today, let’s look at just one scenario, and how I like to handle it. In my experience, this is one of the most common purge requirements (and probably the easiest), so first, let’s look at the business requirements.

Purging data with batched deletes

Wed, 03 Apr 2019 08:30:13 -0400

This person understands that batching deletes can be helpful. Yesterday, I wrote about the importance of planning your data purges. Today, let's look at the simplest requirement for purging data: Keep data for X days after it's created. There are tons of cases where this is the rule. Log data, telemetry data, even transactional data is often retained based on X days since it is created.

Given how common this scenario is, let’s talk in a bit more detail about I like to go about deleting it. Deleting data is easy, right? DELETE t FROM dbo.Transactions AS t WHERE CreateDate <= DATEADD(dd,-90,GETDATE());

The thrill of purging old data

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 09:00:54 -0400

I get a thrill from roller coasters, but for some people it just makes them purge their lunch.

DBAs & Data professionals tend to be digital pack rats. My personal Google Drive is filled with random files that I refused to part with–even though it’s of questionable value. I lament that I do not have a copy of every paper I typed in high school or college–and I envy those who do. You never know when you’ll need notes from that meeting 6 years ago, or when you’ll need that funny GIF you created for an inside joke you no longer remember.

How to pause the subscriber end of transactional replication

Tue, 12 Feb 2019 08:10:04 -0500

Question

How do I go about pausing transactional replication on the subscriber end.

We have a publisher on Server A, a distributor on Server B and a subscriber on Server C. All are in the same network.

SQL: A love story

Mon, 21 Jan 2019 08:00:54 -0500

I’m a college drop-out. When I was trying to figure out my life, a friend (my brother’s ex) referred me to a software company where she was working–I got the job because I was (a) breathing, (b) eager to do the job, and (c) cheap. The application we built and sold was built with VB6, SQL Server, and later a bit of VB.NET. In my one year of college, I’d decided that I hate software development, but I fell in love with SQL Server. I’ve spent most of my career working with SQL Server (albeit a brief stint doing Oracle stuff), and I’m very happy that I fell in love with the SQL language and SQL Server in particular.

Failure is always an option

Tue, 15 Jan 2019 08:00:49 -0500

A while back, I had the pleasure of sitting down to talk with Bert Wagner (blog|twitter), Erin Stellato (blog|twitter), and an anonymous friend about some of our #SQLFail moments.

https://youtu.be/osqoWOw2jss

Everyone screws up

Everyone has their failures. Nobody is perfect. But failure can be a good thing. We can learn from our failures, and learn not to make the same mistakes again in the future. Failure only becomes a problem when we make the same mistake repeatedly. Bloggers spend a lot of time writing about our successes, but we’re human and we make mistakes, too. This post is a chance to share one of my memorable failures.

Managed Instance Restart

Sat, 05 Jan 2019 02:07:58 -0500

Question

Does anyone know how to restart a SQL Server Managed Instance?

The stop / start / reset are all grayed out, so that’s really. It an option.

Any thoughts?

Thanks...

asked 2019-01-05 by Kevin Wilkie

Answer

You don't restart Managed Instance. The beauty of PaaS is that the cloud service provider ensures that you get a certain uptime SLA-- 99.99% in this case.

How to analyze compression options for Azure SQL Database?

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 19:52:41 -0500

Question

What is the most efficient way to determine whether row or page or columnstore compression (or none) would be most effective for each index in an Azure SQL Database (standard or premium tier) used for OLTP, where sp_estimate_data_compression_savings is not supported?

Using PowerShell to tidy up CSV files

Fri, 28 Dec 2018 13:31:18 -0500

I was recently fussing with a CSV file that had an inconsistent number of columns. UGH. There was a bunch of historical data that had 4 columns, and then more recent data had a new attribute added with 5 columns. I spent a few minutes cursing whoever was responsible, then moved on.

Working from home: Home office tour

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 11:08:10 -0500

Callie might be the best office mate I've ever had. About two years ago, I moved my home office down into the basement at our house. At the time, I was working from home two (sometimes three) days per week, and sharing a home office with my husband was starting to feel cramped. He was rarely working at the same time as me, but only half the space was mine. The basement has a large finished room that we weren't using for anything else, so it was up for grabs. I painted my new office, and moved right in. This gave me a dedicated, and somewhat secluded place to work--no more worrying that my early morning call will disturb Ken while he sleeps on the other side of the wall, and less worry about getting interrupted during video calls.

Earlier this year, I started a new job as Product Manager for SentryOne, and work from home full time. This means I spend more (awake) time in my office than any other room in the house. Over the last few months, I’ve spent some more time making my office be someplace I actually look forward to going every day. I finished my last project over the weekend, so I thought I’d take everyone through a guided tour of my home office.

Following up on the LGBTQ Meetup at PASS Summit

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 10:13:51 -0500

It’s been almost two weeks since the LGBTQ Meetup that I organized at PASS Summit, and I wanted to offer a bit of follow-up and commentary on the event. Why did I wait two weeks before writing this follow-up? Well, tomorrow is American Thanksgiving, so I wanted to take a moment to talk about how thankful I am for the community’s support.

Installation of SQL Server Express LocalDB 2017

Sun, 04 Nov 2018 14:14:51 -0500

Question

I want to install Microsoft SQL Server LocalDB 2017 on my system. I downloaded SQL Server Express Setup (about 5.1 MB). Then I opened it and chose 'Download Media' option and then chose LocalDB. Then it downloaded SqlLocalDB.msi setup (about 45.9 MB). I ran the setup and installed it on my computer. I don't know what to do next. Can someone help me, please?

how azure sql geo replication works internally?

Fri, 02 Nov 2018 10:22:13 -0400

Question

My company moved to azure and started to use azure Sql database and geo replication.

For our on-premise servers, we heavily rely on Microsoft transactional replication to move data. Now we setup transactional replication between on-premise server (publisher) and azure sql db. Then we found that the transactional replication itself is constantly consuming 100% DTU on azure(we are using a 125 DTU P1).

SQL Visual Studio Find and Replace in Publish Profile

Mon, 29 Oct 2018 20:48:28 -0400

Question

We have source control in Visual Studio Database Projects (SSDT). To make cross database references, we utilize something like this below in Project References.

We need Project references, since Otherdatabase, can choose between two options at our company. Most of the time, its 90% Database A, and 10% Database B.

How can I permanently remove replication by script if I only have access to the subscriber?

Tue, 23 Oct 2018 23:10:17 -0400

Question

We've been building a replication network of DBs to give us some degree of Always On without paying the full price tag. Currently we have a publisher DB which replicates to a handful of subscribers, so that if the publisher goes down, we can promote a subscriber to be the new publisher. As is, this is a tedious manual process, but we want to start scripting elements of it so that the process is quicker and closer to being automated.

I'm in a book! Data Professionals at Work

Sat, 13 Oct 2018 19:34:59 -0400

Back in January, I got a message from Malathi Mahadevan (blog|twitter) asking me if I would participate in a book she was working on. The book, Data Professionals At Work, is part of Apress Media's "...At Work" series. The book is an anthology of interviews with Microsoft-focused data professionals. I want to thank Mala again for inviting me to participate, and for all the effort she put into making this book happen. A number of us will be at PASS Summit this year, so keep an eye out for details on some book-related events at Summit!

The list of interviewees spans data professionals with a wide range of specialty and experience. There are Microsoft employees, DBAs, Developers, BI Developers, and more. With such a great list of contributors, just about every data professional will find some chapters familiar and other chapters an adventure in a different career.

Can't overwrite an existing Azure SQL Managed Instance database during restore

Fri, 12 Oct 2018 01:07:27 -0400

Question

We're working on migrating some SQL Server VMs to Azure SQL Managed Instances. We did an initial backup/restore without a problem:

RESTORE DATABASE [xxx] 
 FROM URL = 'https://&lt;account-name&gt;.blob.core.windows.net/&lt;container-name&gt;/&lt;filename&gt;.bak'

After doing testing, we now need to do a fresh restore from our SQL VMs. We started doing the same process we initially did but when restoring, we got an error:

LGBTQ Meetup at PASS Summit 2018

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 09:14:30 -0400

In 2016, I organized an (unofficial) PASS Summit LGBT Meetup. It was a bit of a last-minute party, and more than once I found myself saying, “Worst case scenario, I’ll end up having a chill cocktail party with some friends.” Turns out, I under estimated myself: I sold out of (free) tickets, the room was at full capacity, we raised over $3000 for The Trevor Project, and everyone had a great time.

Under what conditions could restore of a huge database get delayed, in SQL server 2016, hosted on VM?

Fri, 05 Oct 2018 11:14:09 -0400

Question

I have system where my database gets restored every night, and off late the restore is taking a lot longer from past few days.

Here is server config:

ES 2637 XEON @ 3.5 Ghz
Windows virtual server 2012 R2 hosted in a Hyper V environment
RAM: 128 GB
8 CPUs
Ethernet: 500 Kps Throughput
Virtual Memory
- Max Size:132,096 MB
- Available: 39,395 MB
- In Use: 92,701 MB

Version:

How Large Table before Using Clustered Columnstore Index

Thu, 27 Sep 2018 16:43:03 -0400

Question

At what size should we consider applying Columnstore Index on a table? Is there a SQL Server storage or design guidance?

Our Data Warehouse is 5TB total. Additionally, we have tables which are 100GB to 1TB which compose the database. Just curious if SQL Server has guidance on how large should table before a columnstore index is applied?

How do you SUM a column without having its name?

Sat, 22 Sep 2018 10:54:20 -0400

Question

I'm stuck in a way that how to do sum on a column let's say first column of a table (result from another query) without knowing the column name with something like column position id.

Who are the extra special people in your life?

Fri, 21 Sep 2018 09:28:34 -0400

Warning: This is not my typical blog post. It has nothing to do with databases, nor IT, nor even technology. However, it has everything to do with you, with your career, and with your success. I’ve decided to turn this exercise into a public blog post, but it is a deeply personal, raw blog post. I don’t expect others to share their thoughts publicly, but I encourage everyone to take some time and do this same exercise privately.

Webinar: Azure SQL DB Managed Instance--A New Path to the Cloud

Thu, 20 Sep 2018 10:00:44 -0400

On October 2, 2018 at 11PM EDT, I’ll be joined by John Q. Martin (blog|twitter) for a webinar on Azure SQL Database Managed Instance.

~~To sign up, register here.~~

You can access the recording of the session here.

Follow-up Q & A from the live session can be found here.

Webinar: Push Your App to Enterprise Scale with Advanced SQL Server Features

Mon, 20 Aug 2018 10:00:04 -0400

On August 28, 2018 at 2PM EDT, I’ll be joining Melissa Connors (blog|twitter), Kevin Kline (blog|twitter), and Rob Sewell (blog|twitter) for a webinar on advanced SQL Server features. The webinar centers around a real-life case study of technology SentryOne is using in it’s own database. I’ll be giving an overview of each of the features, and Melissa will cover how those features helped SentryOne boost performance. Kevin & Rob will be moderating

Performance Myths: The query result cache

Mon, 23 Jul 2018 10:48:11 -0400

I was recently doing a training session when a developer commented that it was OK to run an expensive query twice because on the second execution, SQL Server would use the “results cache” and be “practically free”. It’s not the first time I’ve heard someone refer to a “results cache” in SQL Server. This is one of those myths that is almost true, which makes it that much more believable. If you don’t know better, you might think SQL Server has a “results cache” because the second execution of a query is often faster.

SQLSaturday Louisville & Columbus: Let's Chat

Thu, 19 Jul 2018 15:51:21 -0400

Last week, I broke the news that I am joining the team at SentryOne as a Product Manager. Over the next two weekends, I’ll be speaking at two different SQLSaturday events: Louisville and Columbus. These will be my first two community events after joining the SentryOne team, and I have a big favor to ask. If you’ll be at either event, I want to talk to you — and not just at my sessions. I want to have some one-on-one conversations with users.

Removing [square brackets] from generated SSMS scripts

Tue, 17 Jul 2018 10:42:04 -0400

This red panda is sad because it has to use [brackets] on its code. Might also be sad to find out it's not actually a panda.

The number of people who really love having their code [quoted] with [square brackets] is pretty small. The vast majority of people who I meet really hate them, and promptly remove them.

TSQL Tuesday #104: dbo.Check_FileSize

Mon, 09 Jul 2018 23:18:12 -0400

It’s T-SQL Tuesday, the blog party that SQL Server expert Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) started. This month’s episode is hosted by Bert Wagner (blog | vlog| twitter). The topic: Code You Would Hate To Live Without

It’s been a little bit since the last T-SQL Tuesday I joined, when I blogged about religion & politics (aka, Tabs vs Spaces). When I saw Bert’s excellent topic this month, I decided I’d try to get back on the horse again and do join the blog party again this month.

Hanging up my DBA cleats

Mon, 09 Jul 2018 10:00:52 -0400

Take the time to celebrate any #ChampagneMoment that life throws your way. Remember to toast your own accomplishments, big or small.

I’m no accidental DBA. Very shortly after I started working in tech, I realized that I wanted to be a DBA when I grew up. Eventually, I landed that DBA job, and have been a DBA ever since. I talk about my journey when I give my “How to get your dream job” talk (you can watch the recording here).

How to get your dream job - Webinar recording

Mon, 09 Jul 2018 09:30:58 -0400

I recently presented for the PASS Professional Development virtual group with my session “How to get your dream job: resume & job hunting tips.” When I’m speaking at SQLSaturdays and User Groups, I frequently meet people looking to advance their career, make a career change, or are just interested in how I got where I am. Earlier this year, I decided to turn that conversation into a 60-minute session. In addition to the one-on-one conversations, I can now do a one-to-many session to share my own experience and offer some additional advice to other data professionals.

Generating artificial CPU load 🔥

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 11:43:10 -0400

I was recently asked:

For testing, I need to generate artificial CPU load on the server, outside of SQL Server. Do you have any ideas? Maybe something with PowerShell?

I quickly replied:

Heck yea, PowerShell can do that.

I mean, I knew PowerShell could do it. I just didn’t know how.

Is that share using SMBv1?

Wed, 13 Jun 2018 13:26:28 -0400

Sharing is caring, unless the share is using SMBv1.

In case you’ve missed it (though, if you’re a data professional or other IT pro, you must live under a rock if you’ve missed it), SMBv1 should never ever be used. Alas, some shares out there still exist & use it.

Deadlock when creating a database - A Query Store bug

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 09:00:17 -0400

Earlier tonight, I sat down to install Reporting Services on my laptop. I haven’t played with SSRS 2017 yet, so I figured I’d poke around some. Much to my surprise, the configuration failed when creating the ReportServer database, reporting a deadlock. When I looked at the database instance, I found the ReportServer database there, but with no objects it in, and the ReportServerTempDB database missing.

Configuring Replication with Availability Groups

Fri, 23 Feb 2018 10:00:41 -0500

I fancy myself more of a Jedi, but I appreciate the Empire's dedication to replication

I’ve used replication and Availability Groups together before. Replication works great with an AG as both a publisher or a subscriber (though, not as a distributor–you can’t add the distribution database to an AG). I was surprised when I recently ran into a problem configuring replication on a database that was in an AG.

Using PowerShell to navigate SQL Server as a drive

Thu, 15 Feb 2018 12:33:04 -0500

I might be a SQL Server pro, but I’m still a PowerShell novice. I learn best by doing, so I keep pushing myself to do more with PowerShell so that I can learn more.

If you don’t already know this about the SqlServer PowerShell Module, you can access SQL Server via a path, as if it were a drive.

TSQL Tuesday #99: Tabs vs Spaces

Tue, 13 Feb 2018 07:02:30 -0500

It’s T-SQL Tuesday, the blog party that SQL Server expert Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) started. This month’s episode is hosted by Aaron Bertrand (blog | twitter). The topic: Dealer's Choice (Door Number 2: Bad Habits)

When I was a kid, Choose Your Own Adventure books were overwhelming because I wanted to explore every possible option–some things never change. This month for T-SQL Tuesday, Aaron offers two blogging options and I’ve chosen to do both. “Door Number 1” is a challenge to write about what you do in your free time, inspired by Drew Furgiuele’s #sqlibirum post. That blog post is over here. This post is for the “Door Number 2” option is to talk about his Bad Habits series–I’ve opted to bring up a topic Aaron hasn’t blogged about: tabs vs spaces.

TSQL Tuesday #99: SQL Tourism

Tue, 13 Feb 2018 07:00:45 -0500

It’s T-SQL Tuesday, the blog party that SQL Server expert Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) started. This month’s episode is hosted by Aaron Bertrand (blog | twitter). The topic: Dealer's Choice (Door Number 1: #sqlibrium)

When I was a kid, Choose Your Own Adventure books were overwhelming because I wanted to explore every possible option--some things never change. This month for T-SQL Tuesday, Aaron offers two blogging options and I've chosen to do both. "Door Number 1" is a challenge to write about what you do in your free time, inspired by Drew Furgiuele's #sqlibirum post. That blog post is below. My other post is for the "Door Number 2" option is to talk about his Bad Habits series--I've opted to bring up a topic Aaron hasn't blogged about: tabs vs spaces. ## SQL Tourism? What's that? I made it the term, but it's a very real thing. When I started travelling to speak at SQL Server events, I committed that I would make the most of it. To me, that means a lot more than just attending the event where I'm speaking. Sure, I want to learn and network at the event, but it means more than that, too. It means actually seeing the city where I'm speaking. It means enjoying the *entire* trip. It means making new friends, and connecting with old friends. Sometimes, it even means bringing my husband with me.

I work really hard. Some days I’m at my desk before 7:30, and working again after dinner until bedtime. My blog doesn’t write itself–most posts are written nights & weekends after I’ve finished my work obligations for my paying work. That makes it really important to have some down time when I can. When Drew Furgiuele (blog | twitter) posted his #sqlibrium post, it really struck me, because it’s something that a lot of us struggle with–remembering to strike that balance between work and life.

Updated shortcuts cheat sheet -- Now with Azure Data Studio

Thu, 08 Feb 2018 21:05:46 -0500

Updated (2018-09-24): SQL Ops Studio is now generally available, and has been renamed Azure Data Studio. I've updated the cheat sheet to reflect the name change, but the shortcuts remain the same. Feel free to grab the updated PDF with the new label, or keep the old one to prove your OG status.

Nearly two year ago, I first published my Shortcuts cheat sheet. Since then, thousands of people have downloaded it. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t expect it to be as much of a hit as it has been. When I give my one-hour talk in person, I bring card stock handouts of my cheat sheets, too. I also ask people for their favorite shortcuts, and I’ve learned some great new hidden gems.

Parsing file names from paths using T-SQL

Wed, 17 Jan 2018 07:00:40 -0500

These files are way neater than the ones on my laptop.

SQL Server is great at a lot of things. I spend a lot of time blogging about all the cool things that SQL Server does. But (you knew there was a “but”, didn’t you) SQL Server isn’t great at everything. Lets write about something that SQL Server is bad at.

Finding active transactions

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 09:04:07 -0500

Confessions of a carbaholic: When I start thinking about `ROLLBACK`, I start thinking about rolls.

Have you ever forgot to commit a transaction? Maybe you’ve even left for lunch and caused a problem while you were gone. Uncommitted transactions can cause all sorts of problems–not just blocking, but it can affect your Availability Groups & Mirroring, your TempDB version store if you’re using one of the snapshot isolation levels.

Backing up to NUL:

Sun, 31 Dec 2017 08:10:43 -0500

Backing up to NUL is like backing up directly to the trash

Linux folks have lots of jokes & fun t-shirts about /dev/null/. The null device is a handy location to dump output to, when you don’t actually care about the output. In PowerShell, you can use Out-Null to dump extra output into the ether, and keep your logs or console clean.

Interviewed by Mohammad Darab

Wed, 20 Dec 2017 10:01:42 -0500

As part of Mohammad’s series of interviews, he interviewed me on my thoughts on the future of SQL Server, the DBA role, and the cloud.

Read the interview on Mohammad’s site.

Alerting on SQL Server Blocking

Mon, 18 Dec 2017 09:00:02 -0500

When blocking becomes excessive, it can cause problems. Are your blocks excessive?

Identifying blocking is one of the most basic things that a DBA should be monitoring for. I previously wrote about how to identify blocking in SQL Server and find the leading blocker. Recently, my friend Jim Donahoe (blog | twitter) asked me about setting up email alerts related to blocking, which prompted me to clean up some additional code I have that does just this. If you haven’t already read my previous post, you should probably do that now.

Q&A with the MVP Award Program

Wed, 01 Nov 2017 11:38:58 -0400

I was recently interviewed by the Microsoft MVP Award Program about organizing the LGBT meetup at PASS Summit last year, and about running diverse, inclusive tech events here in Boston. We discuss why it’s important to have LGBT events, and other events that focus on under-represented groups, as well as how we run inclusive events here in Boston.

Ten tips for PASS Summit Attendees

Sun, 29 Oct 2017 11:54:54 -0400

I won’t be at PASS Summit this year, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give advice to those who will be there. I got an email asking for advice for Summit First-Timers, and after sending over the list of tips, I figured I’d write a blog post on the topic while I was thinking about it.

Finding the Leader Blocker

Thu, 26 Oct 2017 23:55:09 -0400

Who's at the front of the line blocking all the traffic?

During the course of normal processing in a database, blocking happens. Blocking is “by design” because your database is on ACID. In an OLTP database, most of your transactions are short in duration, so we expect blocking to also be short in duration. If blocking occurs for a long time, this can cause problems.

Change in plans for LGBT+ Meetup at PASS Summit 2017

Sun, 01 Oct 2017 14:24:20 -0400

Unfortunately, due to a change in plans, I’m not going to be at PASS Summit this year, so I won’t be hosting this meetup in 2017. Hopefully, next year the event will be back!

Still want to meet up?

If you’re bummed that this meetup isn’t happening (I know I am), I have two suggestions:

Shortcuts From an Impatient DBA Recording- DBA Fundamentals

Wed, 20 Sep 2017 08:54:21 -0400

I often get asked, “Do you have any of your sessions recorded so I can watch them online?” And the answer has always been, “No, you’ll have to come see me in person.” I’m a tad of a perfectionist, so if I was going to record something just for publication online, I’d never be happy with it. Therefore, I never even tried–I knew the time investment I’d need to be happy with the product was too steep.

LOG_RATE_GOVERNOR Wait Stat

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 13:17:55 -0400

Question

I'm noticing this wait stat on my Azure SQL database, and I've never seen it before. I've tried Googling this wait stat but haven't been able to come up with any good information on what this is, although I saw a couple mentions of it possibly being related to exceeding the Azure performance tier set for the database.

Rebuild Very Large Primary Key Index

Sat, 02 Sep 2017 22:40:43 -0400

Question

I have a SQL database that is hosted on Azure. The problem is that the size is getting out of control, I can see up to 99% fragmentation in the Primary Key clustered indexes.

I'm able to rebuild all other indexes with online=on option and it won't affect performance. The size of one of the PK Clustered indexes is greater than 200GB, and for this one a REBUILD...WITH (ONLINE=ON) causes locking.

Multi-Statement TVFs in Dynamics CRM

Tue, 22 Aug 2017 13:19:18 -0400

If you’re familiar with supporting the database behind Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you probably know that it’s not the fastest-performing database. Honestly, that shouldn’t be a surprise–it’s not designed to be a screaming-fast database. It’s designed to be a flexible database. Most Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are designed to be flexible so that they can meet the needs of many businesses in many industries with vastly different business requirements. They put those requirements ahead of database performance. That’s probably smart business, but I’m not a business person–I’m a database person. My experience with Dynamics CRM is when people come to me and say

Query a view in a procedure in which the view name is a variable

Wed, 16 Aug 2017 18:18:49 -0400

Question

My problem: I have a set of views from which I want to query dynamically. I want to load the view names by SELECT * from sys.all_views into a cursor (let's call it view_cursor) and then do something like this in a procedure:

Can SQL Server 2016 log files be applied on SQL Server 2012

Tue, 15 Aug 2017 03:53:35 -0400

Question

This is in relation to a rollback scenario from a 2012 -> 2016 upgrade.

The scenario is that the SQL Server 2012 database is restored onto 2016 and log files applied until it is up to date. Then production systems are cut over to 2016. Database is kept at compatibility level for 2012. Subsequently, incremental logs from the 2016 instance are kept until the need to roll back (let's say 8 hours worth).

Reconnect "not connected" query windows in SSMS to original connection

Mon, 14 Aug 2017 14:20:38 -0400

Question

Is there a simple way to reconnect a query window that is “not connected” to the original connection that was used by that query without manually picking the server name needed? If I click the Connect button on the SQL Editor toolbar or right click -> Connection -> Connect… it defaults the server name to the last connection I used in that SSMS session, not to the last connection used by that specific query window.

SentryOne Community Ambassador

Thu, 20 Jul 2017 10:13:28 -0400

1947 Nash Ambassador. Unfortunately, the SentryOne Community Ambassador program does not provide me with one of these.

Last week, SentryOne announced their new PAC Community Ambassador program. I’m incredibly excited to be part of this new program.

PAC? Huh?

SentryOne doesn’t fuel their monitoring software with power-pellets, the PAC is their Product Advisory Council. This is a group of their users and industry experts who help provide feedback on the product, new features, marketing, etc. Sometimes we’re beta testers, sometimes we’re a focus group, and sometimes we just share our performance woes.

The most important resume tip

Sun, 09 Jul 2017 10:52:24 -0400

Writing a good resume is hard. People will tell you lots of rules about what you should always or never do with your resume. Should you follow those rules? Are things different because of your industry/background/geography/niche? Should you be clever or classic? It depends™.

There is one important thing to keep in mind for your resume. This tip is not a rule, but it is a universal fact. Whether you’re a battle-scarred IT veteran, or a fresh-faced college grad, keep this one tip in mind when you read or update your resume.

SQL Server FCI won't start after OS Upgrade

Thu, 06 Jul 2017 22:25:48 -0400

Question

I have a two node sql server 2008 r2 cluster that we just did an OS upgrade from windows 2008 r2 to windows 2012 r2, the OS upgrade was done in place so the SQL Server Installation stayed in tack. The cluster role won't come back online saying it's couldn't find any IP address that this instance depends on.

What’s wrong with DELETE EXISTS?

Fri, 30 Jun 2017 14:26:41 -0400

I loved playing Number Munchers on my Apple IIc

This morning, when I logged into Twitter, the tweet at the top of my timeline was from Shane O’Neill (blog|twitter). It was to his blog post, Shane, What’s wrong with DELETE EXISTS?. It’s not that unusual that Shane would talk to himself in the third person, but I was intrigued by the title.

Why Best Practices Exist: Learning from others' mistakes

Wed, 28 Jun 2017 20:00:11 -0400

The latest malware to make the headlines is really interesting to me. It’s a ransomware worm called Petya. Ransomware is particularly interesting to me as a DBA, because DBAs are responsible for keeping data safe, and ransomware is specifically designed to destroy your data. I’m not a security expert, and I don’t even pretend I am–but security is something we should all be interested in.

LGBT+ Meetup at PASS Summit 2017

Wed, 28 Jun 2017 10:27:26 -0400

UPDATE: Unfortunately, due to a change in plans, I'm not going to be at PASS Summit this year, so I won't be hosting this meetup in 2017. Check out details here.

Last year, I organized an (unofficial) PASS Summit LGBT Meetup. It was a bit of a last-minute party, and more than once I found myself saying, "Worst case scenario, I'll end up having a chill cocktail party with some friends." Turns out, I under estimated myself: I sold out of (free) tickets, the room was at full capacity, we raised over $3000 for The Trevor Project, and everyone had a great time.

In June, the LGBT+ community celebrates Pride Month, to coincide with the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City. Pride Month gives us a time to celebrate that we are proud to be ourselves, and that we aren’t ashamed to identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, straight, another label, no label, etc. Pride is a time to build our community, to promote equality, to be accepted, and to just have fun.

Spread workload with always on high availability groups

Tue, 27 Jun 2017 14:04:54 -0400

Question

I am wondering if it is possible to split up a very large query to have parts of it done on the secondary read only servers, or If this feature only allows me to run separate queries or scripts on the secondary servers. I would also like to know if anyone is using AlwaysOn High availability groups for this purpose, how is it working for you?

What is the row overhead when using Page Compression?

Fri, 28 Apr 2017 11:23:41 -0400

Question

I have created a table with 650 Numeric(19,4) columns. When I switch on Page Compression, by running

ALTER TABLE fct.MyTable REBUILD WITH (DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);

I get

Msg 1975, Level 16, State 1
Index 'PK_Mytable' row length exceeds the maximum permissible length of '8060' bytes.

Prevent Modification of dbo objects while allowing other schemas to be modified

Thu, 20 Apr 2017 14:16:40 -0400

Question

I have a vendor solution that uses a sql server (2008r2) database. We are allowed to do anything we want in our own schema, but cannot modify dbo objects without vendor permission. Any customization we make is in our own schema (cust). We have full control of this server and have always allowed sysadmin rights to any developer. Lately, I've noticed these rules have not been followed, so I want to see if I can set up permissions to stop this in the first place.

Why does it take so long to view logs on a server?

Thu, 20 Apr 2017 12:20:14 -0400

Question

I am just trying to look up more verbose information for a maintenance plan task that failed. I open up the log file viewer and check the box to view the logs for my maintenance plan. There are no active filters besides that in this example. Then I play the waiting game.....

Load balancing reads SQL Server 2016 AG

Wed, 19 Apr 2017 18:21:44 -0400

Question

I'm trying to balance read traffic between two SQL Server 2016 Enterprise Edition instances (Primary and Secondary) using availability groups and the read only routing.

Here is my current setup:

The servers are in AWS in two different AZ
The servers are in a failover cluster without shared storage
AG is enabled on both instances
The databases in an Availability Group have the "Readable Secondary" option set to Yes
I've setup the AG with the read only routing on both the current primary and secondary instances
Adding the read only switch in my application connection string allows me to route traffic to the secondary

Is there a way to have the AG Listener load balance read only traffic between the primary and secondary?

Troubleshooting Powershell errors from SQL Agent job

Wed, 19 Apr 2017 13:29:54 -0400

Question

I have a powershell script that I am trying to add in to a sql agent job, but the job step is failing with the following error

A job step received an error at line 1 in a PowerShell script. The corresponding line is 'import-module SQLPS -DisableNameChecking'. Correct the script and reschedule the job. The error information returned by PowerShell is: 'Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\PowerShell\Modules\SQLPS\Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.PSSnapins.dll' or one of its dependencies. This assembly is built by a runtime newer than the currently loaded runtime and cannot be loaded.

I assumed that the error was being caused by differences in the module path, so I explicitly set the path via $env:PSModulePath to match the path of my powershell session where the code runs fine. I am pretty new to powershell, so any help you could provide would be appreciated

Transaction Replication on AlwaysOn

Mon, 17 Apr 2017 22:21:43 -0400

Question

In our AlwayOn environment I have two SQL servers 2014 Ent.edition (SERVER A, and SERVER B). I setup a transaction replication for [database A ], pointing to listener which shouldn't cause any issue if a failover happened. Tested, worked just fine after a failover, but when I shut off one of the servers in AOAG ,in test environment, replication stops working. There is no error on the replication monitor. For testing purpose,I have inserted few records on the database it works fine on AOAG, but on the Subscriber the data modification is not replicated until I bring up the other server. Once the server is up, then the replication start to work. I'm pretty sure, I might be missing something, this can't be this way by design.

How to take SQL Server databases backup using .bat script file with time stamp

Mon, 17 Apr 2017 13:24:49 -0400

Question

I am using SQL Server Express edition, so there is no features for backup plan, I want to take databases backup using bat script, and create a scheduler to be run everyday. I have created .bat file but need to place a time stamp at the end of backup file like test_13_April_2017.

If the Database is in Readonly mode how can we drop/remove those unused roles

Mon, 17 Apr 2017 11:03:22 -0400

Question

In SQL Server, if the Database is in Read_only mode, can we drop/remove unused roles? Please let me know.

Thanks in advance

asked 2017-04-17 by Bharath Kuamr reddy

Answer

If a database is in READ_ONLY mode, it is completely read-only. The read-only-ness is not limited to user data, but anything contained in the database. This means that both DML commands (ie, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE), and DDL commands (ie, CREATE, ALTER, DROP) are prohibited.

Preventing SQL injection in dynamic SQL

Fri, 14 Apr 2017 08:29:34 -0400

Question

Let's imagine a stored procedure that retreives data and do some kind of pagination. This procedure has some inputs describing which set of data we want and how we sort it.

Here is a very simple query, but let's take it as an example.

When setting up an AlwaysOn Availability Group, should the master database be one of the "Availability Databases"?

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 17:44:16 -0400

Question

I just got a Sql Server 2016 Availability Group setup (A Primary, a Syncronous Secondary and a Async Secondary). I have five databases on the servers.

I setup an application to run queries against the server (using Entity Framework with a "failover partner" connection string.)

Releasing free space in mdf file to OS

Mon, 10 Apr 2017 13:29:43 -0400

Question

We have a 120GB database. There was table with 60GB of data which is useless and we have truncated it.

Now database size is 120GB with free space 60GB. The database will not grow up to 60GB in at least 3 months. So can we shrink the data file.

Transaction log growth during BACKUP

Mon, 10 Apr 2017 08:06:37 -0400

Over on Stack Exchange, someone asked why their transaction log was growing very fast during a full backup. An interesting tidbit to this question is that the database is in SIMPLE recovery – so the log should stay tiny, right?

Wrong. While taking a full backup of the database, SQL Server is unable to reuse the transaction log for the duration of the backup, even if the database is in SIMPLE recovery. If your database is very busy, or backups take a long period of time, this can require a large transaction log, even if the database is in SIMPLE recovery.

SQL Triggers not preventing insert

Mon, 10 Apr 2017 00:53:58 -0400

Question

I am having trouble getting a trigger to work. What it needs to do is to prevent any customer with last name Glass from being inserted into the database. This is what I have:

CREATE TRIGGER no_last_name_glass_trg
ON customer
AFTER INSERT,UPDATE
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @CUSTOMER_LAST VARCHAR;
SET @CUSTOMER_LAST= (SELECT INSERTED.customer_last FROM INSERTED);

 IF @CUSTOMER_LAST = 'Glass'
 BEGIN
 ROLLBACK
 RAISERROR('Applicant Glass Denied',14,1);
 END;
END;

The issue is when I add customers with last name of Glass, it inserts without throwing an error. Any ideas? I can make it work in Oracle, but the same method does not work in MS SQL.

Why do I have to backup a transaction log twice for it to shrink?

Fri, 07 Apr 2017 06:42:17 -0400

Question

This question was attempted twice on experts-exchange with no real answer.

I know that I should not shrink the log file - that is not the question.

If you feel like answering that one should not do it- that has been confirmed many times yes and it is not the goal of this question.

Converting date stored as a varchar

Thu, 06 Apr 2017 10:00:51 -0400

Question

I'm creating a query that has a column of dates stored as a VARCHAR in the format DD-MMM-YYYY.

Could you tell me how I can convert this into date format please?

I don't want to alter the original table in any way, as it's not mine to tinker!

Transaction log is growing very fast

Wed, 05 Apr 2017 19:45:50 -0400

Question

One of our SQL Server 2014 database transaction logs is growing very fast and I cannot find the root cause for this.

Database in Simple recovery mode. During full backup the log file grows to its limits (800GB) and backup fails.

Connecting to ReadOnly Secondary Replica of SQL Server via the Listener by Default

Fri, 31 Mar 2017 00:56:41 -0400

Question

We have the ApplicationIntent=ReadOnly properly routing our users to the Secondary ReadOnly replica. Is there a way to make this the default behavior?

Apparently the default behavior seems to be ReadWrite, and if you don't specify an ApplicationIntent it will redirect to the Primary server.

What the heck is a DTU?

Thu, 30 Mar 2017 09:42:18 -0400

No, seriously. What is a DTU?

When you’re deploying any application, one of the first questions that comes up is “What will this cost?” Most of us have gone through this sort of exercise for sizing a SQL Server installation at some point, but what if you’re deploying to the cloud? With Azure IaaS deployments, not much has changed–you’re still building a server based on CPU count, some amount of memory, and configuring storage to give you enough IOPS for your workload. However, when you make the jump to PaaS, Azure SQL Database is sized with different service tiers, where performance is measured in DTUs. What the heck is a DTU?

Blogging at SQLPerformance.com

Thu, 30 Mar 2017 09:40:00 -0400

As part of my role on the SentryOne Product Advisory Council (PAC), I’m going to occasionally be contributing posts over at SQLPerformance.com. Today, my first post was published: What the heck is a DTU?

SQLPerformance.com focuses on providing innovative and practical solutions for improving SQL Server performance. The site has long been a source of learning for me, and I’m incredibly excited to now be providing my own content to the site. Worry not, faithful reader! I’ll still be blogging here, at am2.co, but you can expect some of my performance-oriented posts to live over there.

Congratulations 2017 Microsoft MVP!

Sun, 19 Mar 2017 09:42:01 -0400

Earlier this month, I got an email with the subject line “Congratulations 2017 Microsoft MVP!” I immediately commenced doing a Snoopy happy dance (my dog, Callie, picked up on the excitement and joined in). If you aren’t familiar with the MVP Program, you might be asking,

SQLSaturday Boston 2017 Roundup

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 07:00:45 -0500

SQL Saturday Night Fever

SQLSaturday Boston was February 25. I was invited into the organizing team in 2015, and this was my third time helping to put together the event. But this time was different. This time, I was running the show. I wanted to do a quick round-up of some of the things we did differently this time–I’ll dive right in with the most important thing first…

Risks of manual failover in Always On Availability Groups

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 19:11:24 -0500

Question

In my environment, I have SQL 2014 with Always On Availability Group for databases in asynchronous with manual fail over.

We have 1 primary and 2 secondary replicas--secondary1 and sec2.

I have to do failover from primary to secondary1. I know some data loss will happen as it is a forced failover.

Customizing SSRS Sender Address

Mon, 06 Feb 2017 20:19:43 -0500

In SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), you can configure the sender address for email subscriptions at the instance level. This means that every email sent from your SSRS server will come from the same address. (On each subscription, you can optionally supply a Reply-To address, which allows users to reply to the email directly, and respond to the right person…but that’s not why we’re here.)

Keyboard shortcut to close a query tab in SSMS

Fri, 27 Jan 2017 08:00:22 -0500

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA

This series of short posts will demonstrate some lesser-known features, keyboard shortcuts, and other tips that make my day as a DBA more productive. None of these are groundbreaking super-secret features–they are the little things that I do as part of my daily work that make me more efficient.

SQL Agent Job Logs - Can't get the Error Log

Wed, 25 Jan 2017 09:59:18 -0500

Question

I've some logs that I want to extract to a report in order to get the SQL_Agent_Jobs status that runs during the night. If the Job fails then I want to receive the Error Log in a table. I am trying to get that information with this query:

Building a Twitter-bot RSS Aggregator

Wed, 11 Jan 2017 23:13:34 -0500

I hate RSS readers

I love my new bot

For some reason, about once a year, I go hunting for a new RSS reader so I can keep track of blogs that I like to read. It’s always the same process:

Dig through reviews to find an app that I think I will love.
Come up with a list of blogs that I like to read.
Install and configure RSS reader app.
Spend the night reading blog posts.
Use app for a week.
Never open RSS reader app again.

Well, it's time to stop the insanity. Its time to stop doing the same thing over and over again, hoping it will work this time. Its time to find a solution that really works.

Before I can find something that works, I need to think about

Nonclustered index storage on clustered columnstore

Fri, 06 Jan 2017 11:47:02 -0500

Question

In SQL Server, a non-unique nonclustered index on a rowstore table incorporates the base object’s bookmark (RID or clustering key) at all levels of the nonclustered index structure. The bookmark is stored as part of the nonclustered index key at all index levels.

SQL Anthology

Thu, 05 Jan 2017 20:02:55 -0500

SQL Anthology is a twitter bot that publishes links to blog posts from SQL Server data professionals and other technology professionals.

The bot & twitter feed serve as an RSS Aggregator of blogs & authors that I am interested in following. For more information on how I built this bot, read this post. If you’re interested in the source code behind the bot, I’ve made it available on GitHub.

Cannot restore azure database to local due to missing master key

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 09:26:09 -0500

Question

I create a bacpac from azure and restore to my local on-prem server. However, it throws an error like “Please create a master key in the database or open the master key in the session before performing this operation”. The reason is one of the column in the table is encrypted. I don’t know how to restore the database from azure with master key and certificate etc. Do you know what I could do?

How often to update SQL Server?

Mon, 02 Jan 2017 19:10:39 -0500

Question

I am a new DBA at a company that has never had a DBA before me. SQL Servers are never upgraded unless it is part of a Windows Update on the server. Service Packs (or CUs) are never installed. We have a mix of versions from 2000 to 2014.

Community Influencer of the Year

Sat, 31 Dec 2016 11:59:00 -0500

Last night, I was sitting at home with my husband, when I got an ominous message from Aaron Bertrand (blog|twitter):

You up? I'm about to blog about you. You've been warned. ~ Aaron Bertrand

Uhhh.... OK? It was 10:30 on a Friday night. I was pretty sure Aaron was still on vacation with his wife. Why would Aaron be blogging about me? And why was it so important that he would be publishing a blog post while he's on vacation? If it's that important, shouldn't I know about it? Well, it must be important because he had just sent me a message to warn me. I did what any level-headed, rational person would do: I brought up Aaron's blog and hit F5 every five seconds until the post went live. ## 2016 Community Influencer of the Year

I hounded Aaron for a cool badge, and he finally made one for me.

Whoa! Aaron’s post named me as his first Community Influencer of the Year. It’s a funny feeling to be the first recipient of an award. Not only was I surprised that I was in the running, I was surprised that anyone was in the running.

Does the 'reads' column in SQL Profiler mean the same as IOPS?

Wed, 21 Dec 2016 11:25:14 -0500

Question

I just executed a query that went pretty fast and the SQL Profiler said it used 30.000 reads. Now I'm looking at this page: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/disks/performance and see that a standard persistent disk has 3000 reads IOPS.

What is the MySQL equivalent of SQL Server 2016 Always Encrypted technology?

Tue, 20 Dec 2016 18:04:46 -0500

Question

What is the MySQL equivalent of SQL Server 2016 Always Encrypted technology or is there anything similar in MySQL that can act as AE?

asked 2016-12-20 by dwkd

Answer

The Always Encrypted feature provides end-to-end encryption, which encrypts data both in-flight, and at rest. Data is encrypted & decrypted on the client at the driver. Data is encrypted everywhere except for on he client machine. This is one step beyond encryption at rest (which is handled in SQL Server by Transparent Data Encryption).

TSQL Tuesday #85: Backup + Recovery + ☁️

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 22:11:48 -0500

It’s T-SQL Tuesday, the blog party that SQL Server expert Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) started. This month’s episode is hosted by Kenneth Fisher (blog| twitter). The topic: Backup & Recovery

## Your backups are my bread & butter Backup & recovery are a DBA's bread & butter. I always tell people that if you can't restore from backup in an emergency, you should at least make sure your resume is up to date--you'll need it. Part of my approach to making sure I have foolproof backups is making sure my setup is scripted and fool-proof to configure. Traditionally, this has been as simple as some T-SQL scripts that create the backup stored procedure, and create a few SQL Agent jobs.

The SQL Agent jobs would write to the NAS, use the company standard retention, and everything was set. No muss, no fuss.

How to add 1100 columns in SQL Server

Sun, 04 Dec 2016 06:49:07 -0500

Question

I need 1100 columns in a single table.I already have 928 columns in same table, now I need to add new 150 columns.

I know SQL Server allow maximum 1024 columns.

Now I will not create new table. If I create new table and join my require table, I need to make changes in many places and this is not possible for me. So I want to add all columns in same table(require table).I know this is so tough to execute this table but presently I need to serve this requirement.

December SQLSaturdays--DC & Providence, RI

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 13:08:19 -0400

Next month, I’ll be speaking at two SQLSaturday events.

Washington, DC - #SqlSat574 - December 3, 2016

Being a DBA is like play Pac-San. Eat all the LUNs before the SAN Admin chases you away.

The DC SQL Saturday was the first SQL Saturday I spoke at–so this one will always be a special event for me. Hopefully, I’ll be able to speak at this event every year.

T-SQL Tuesday #83: Roundup

Sun, 16 Oct 2016 20:49:50 -0400

For this month’s T-SQL Tuesday, I asked people to blog about the same old problems we’ve been dealing with for years. There were some great posts, including a batch of first-time contributors. You’ll notice some overlapping themes as you read through these responses–I think those themes represent some of the biggest, most important problems we have (like being able to restore backups). Thanks for everyone who contributed this month!

(Unofficial) PASS Summit 2016 LGBT Meetup

Wed, 12 Oct 2016 09:00:51 -0400

PASS Summit has tons of opportunities to meet like-minded folks, in addition to seeing old friends. There are the Women In Tech and Birds of a Feather Luncheons. There is the Community Zone. Friends catch up over coffee and meals. There are vendor parties. There is SQL Karaoke.

We’re still dealing with the same problems

Sat, 08 Oct 2016 16:03:29 -0400

Back in August, Allan Hirt (blog|twitter) tweeted:

In the roughly 25 years of I have been in IT, we’re still dealing with the same problems.

I had a slow day, so I generated a storm of responses. This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is inspired by this tweet. Here’s my list of problems:

T-SQL Tuesday #83: We're still dealing with the same problems

Tue, 04 Oct 2016 09:00:37 -0400

What is T-SQL Tuesday?

T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party hosted by a different blogger each month. This blog party was started by Adam Machanic (blog|twitter). You can take part by posting your own participating post that fits the topic of the month and follows the requirements below. Additionally, if you are interested in hosting a future T-SQL Tuesday, contact Adam Machanic on his blog.

Legal Stuff

Wed, 14 Sep 2016 10:54:20 -0400

Opinions and views expressed on this blog are my own, and do not represent that of my employer, parents, siblings, blood relatives, spouse, pets, nor the barista who made my coffee this morning.

I do my best to ensure content posted on this blog is accurate and correct, however there is no guarantee that I know what I am doing. All code, opinions, advice, and other content is presented solely for my own amusement, and should not be used for your own purposes without first validating it for accuracy. This applies to information on all topics–including, but not limited to: SQL Server, databases, technology, employment, breathing, walking, chewing gum, dermatology, oncology, mixology, hydrology, otolaryngology, odontology, and veterinary science.

Plan Explorer 3.0: More power and completely free

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 11:00:04 -0400

Today, SQL Sentry announced the release of Plan Explorer 3.0. There are a few big changes, so let’s dive right in.

Plan Explorer just got free-er

Up until now, Plan Explorer was essentially a freemium product. There was the free edition (which was really awesome), or you could upgrade to Pro edition for some extra features (making it awesomer). With this release, everything is now included in a single edition, and it’s all 100% free. Any feature that used to be Pro-only is now free. Multiple tabs, session history, opening deadlock files–free, free, free. Any new features? You guessed it–free.

AlwaysON Migrate from 2014 to 2016

Thu, 01 Sep 2016 19:19:24 -0400

Question

I have like 20 Listners on 2014 with approx 500 DBS,

what is the best way to migrate these with least downtime, effort

My idea is: Stop access Backup dbs Start restore dbs While restore is running: Drop AOG on 2014 Create it on 2016 Done

Podcast: Mirroring, Availability Groups, Replication, and Log shipping

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:29:03 -0400

Have you ever wondered what the best option is for making your data available in your environment? I was asked by Carlos L Chacon (blog|twitter) to be part of a panel on his podcast for an episode discussing some of the options–availability groups, mirroring, log shipping, and replication. We cover each topic in detail and explain the positives and negatives of each one.

Is it possible to change the family_guid in MSSQL?

Wed, 24 Aug 2016 19:17:43 -0400

Question

So I have a bit of a problem with some databases I'm trying to migrate to amazon RDS

We have about 20 Databases that are all derivatives of others that all share the same family_guid because they are based on backups of others. The problem is that amazon will not allow you to restore a DB that has the same family_guid of another even if they are two separate databases. This is where my question comes in, Is it possible to change the guid or am I out of luck and will need to do some exports/imports on these databases.

SQL Server 2014 slow insert

Wed, 24 Aug 2016 16:21:43 -0400

Question

I have a very strange slow insert issue, here I am providing the table structure, and the insert statement used.

The database is clean, contains no other tables, no indices, no constraints, no triggers.

I tested this on two different machines, with high speed SSD drives, 8 cores 3.5 GHz processors. The server can read IO up to 700MB/s and can write up to 300MB/s

Why is this explicit cast causing problems only with a Linked Server?

Wed, 17 Aug 2016 07:42:23 -0400

Question

I am querying data from a linked server through a view on the origin server. The view has to include a couple of standardized columns, such as Created, Modified and Deleted, but in this case the table on the source server doesn't have any suitable info. The columns are therefore explicitly cast to their respective types. I updated the view, changing a column from

Does it ever make sense to have a clustered and non clustered index for the same column

Tue, 16 Aug 2016 22:08:55 -0400

Question

Does it ever make sense to have a clustered and non clustered index for the same column

I inherited a database and a web service that goes with it.

Looking at the indexes for duplicates I see an two indexes that point at the same column (1 column and sorted the same way). One is clustered and one is not, that is the only difference I see.

I have 3 tables with dates to which I want to join to a date dimension table but it is returning many duplicates with left joins

Tue, 16 Aug 2016 11:55:03 -0400

Question

I have 4 tables with dates to which I want to join to a date dimension table but it is returning many duplicates with left joins.

Tables are basically a date field which I want to count.

PowerShell can't see network locations after SQLPS module is loaded

Mon, 15 Aug 2016 11:38:16 -0400

Question

I’m trying to automate a script that backups a database in one environment, copies it to the other, then restores it there. But there’s some strange behavior going on.

First, I try to access a network location. Works like a bliss:

Why is sql_text "select @@trancount" in open but sleeping transaction?

Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:37:19 -0400

Question

Using SQL Server Management Studio, open a query window and execute

BEGIN TRAN

In another window execute

select [text],
from sys.sysprocesses
cross apply sys.dm_exec_sql_text(sql_handle)
where status = 'sleeping'
and open_tran = 1

I see select @@trancount

What is the benefit of having multiple databases in the same Availability Group vs single AG per database

Mon, 08 Aug 2016 06:11:50 -0400

Question

We are planning a migration from current mirroring architecture to Availability Groups for several databases. For every Database we have defined the primary/secondary replica configuration.

The question that I'm unsure is: do we need to group the databases with the same primary/secondary configuration into the same AG, or use one AG per Database. What are pros&cons of having individual AGs vs AG with multiple databases? Is there a best practice to determine if a database needs its own AG or can be combined with others? Any performance or failover advantages?

Will a SELECT . . . INTO use short-circuit evaluation for a COALESCE?

Tue, 02 Aug 2016 14:45:55 -0400

Question

I'm building a stored proc that can take in two separate values that each can be used to identify a single record. One of these values may be null.

My logic is as follows: if IN_ORDER_ID is not NULL, save it to V_ORDER_ID. If it is NULL, then retrieve ORDER_ID with a query and save that to V_ORDER_ID. V_ORDER_ID is then used in the rest of the procedure.

Job hunting for database professionals

Tue, 19 Jul 2016 10:00:44 -0400

Like most people, I’ve changed jobs a few times in my life. My path from teenage grocery store cashier to Database Architect was a complicated and multi-step journey. During that journey, I’ve made some good decisions, and some bad decisions. If you’re like most tech folks, you’ve probably had a similar experience.

Benefits tell you a lot about a company

Mon, 11 Jul 2016 10:00:58 -0400

When you’re interviewing with a new company, pay attention to their benefits. Even the ones that aren’t important to you personally.

Benefits don’t just include health/dental/vision insurance and retirement/pension (I’ll call these “core benefits”). It includes life insurance, disability, maternity leave, vacation, sick time, as well as “perks” like free snacks in the lunch room, paying your cell phone bill, or a company retreat to Napa. Every one of these are important considerations.

Job hunting is like dating

Mon, 11 Jul 2016 10:00:15 -0400

Most of us spend at least eight hours per day working. In America, we spend an average of 25 minutes commuting, each way. That’s nine hours dedicated to work every day. You probably see your coworkers as much as you see your friends and significant other. That’s why finding the right fit is important.

Moving SSRS Reports between servers

Wed, 29 Jun 2016 12:30:42 -0400

Today, my friend Derik Hammer (blog|twitter) asked about moving SSRS reports between (versions and) instances of SSRS:

What is the best way to move 2008 R2 SSRS reports into an existing 2012 SSRS instance? Catalog move is insufficient here. #sqlhelp

This reminded me of a PowerShell script I wrote a few years back, so I’m dusting it off for this blog post. I’m far from a PowerShell Pro, but I think this will be helpful to other people

T-SQL Tuesday #79 - COMPRESS()ing LOB data

Tue, 14 Jun 2016 09:00:25 -0400

It’s T-SQL Tuesday, the blog party that SQL Server expert Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) started. This month’s episode is hosted by Michael J Swart (blog| twitter). The topic: SQL Server 2016 is out!

SQL Server 2016 is hot off the presses, and Michael challenges us to blog about it.

I’ve been using SSMS 2016 (I’m impressed!), but I haven’t spent tons of time using the server-side bits. As I type this intro, the 2016 installer is chugging along getting a fresh instance ready for me to explore so I can write about…

Add-Equals operator

Tue, 24 May 2016 10:00:19 -0400

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA

SSMS Template Replacement

Thu, 19 May 2016 09:00:30 -0400

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA

Microsoft sql server management studio (SSMS) shortcut for changing size of sql/result panes

Mon, 16 May 2016 11:09:17 -0400

Question

In the good old days there was a shortcut ctrl-B for changing the size of the Query & Result panes in the Query Analyzer sql editor.

In Query Analyzer, just press ctrl-B and the screen splitter handle was in focus. Then repeatedly press up/down arrows until the size was right.

T-SQL Tuesday #78– sys.dm_db_file_space_usage

Tue, 10 May 2016 10:00:59 -0400

It’s T-SQL Tuesday, the blog party that SQL Server expert Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) started. This month’s episode is hosted by Wendy Pastrick (blog| twitter). The topic: Learn something new and blog about it

SQL Server 2016 is coming out next month, and it's chock full of new features that I can learn. Row-level security is interesting. Dynamic data masking sounds fun.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you probably know I try to approach questions from a unique angle. Instead of blogging about something cutting edge or sexy, I decided to scroll through the list of system views until I found one I didn’t recognize.

My 5th DBAnniversary

Tue, 10 May 2016 09:00:43 -0400

Five years ago today, I officially became a DBA:

Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to extend to you our offer of employment for the position of Database Administrator

How I got there

I got my first job at a software company in 2003. I had no degree, I had no experience, and I had no idea what SQL Server was. The company was in start-up phase, and I was a warm body with low salary requirements and high ambition. It was a match made in heaven.

It didn’t take long before I was installing SQL Server 2000 on an NT4 server to test our application on that configuration. I learned how log shipping worked, and configured DR for our clients. I did a lot of DBA work, but I wasn’t a DBA.

How to shrink a database in 4 easy steps

Thu, 28 Apr 2016 11:00:22 -0400

I pity the fool who needs to shrink his database!

It’s a really common question: “How do I shrink my database?” Luckily, there’s also a really common answer: “Don’t.”

…but what if you really have to?

Perhaps you just implemented data compression, and have 60% free space in your database. Perhaps you just deleted a bunch of old data, and have significant free space in your database. There are a handful of scenarios where you have free space in the database, you’ll never use it, and you need to shrink. Just don’t make a habit of it.

CONVERT() to float using scientific notation

Wed, 20 Apr 2016 10:57:01 -0400

Someone posted to #sqlhelp on Twitter, asking the following: “Wondered if anyone could enlighten me as to why ISNUMERIC(‘7d8’) returns 1?”

Sure enough, SELECT ISNUMERIC('7d8') returns a 1.

WTF? d isn’t numeric!

OK, sure, if you say “seven-dee-eight” out loud it sounds like a number, but “d” is a letter, not a number.

How fast queries hurt performance

Fri, 15 Apr 2016 12:36:16 -0400

This week at work, I noticed CPU on one server seemed pretty high. I wasn’t familiar with this particular server, but based on the applications it supported, I was expecting the server to be under-utilized. I went over to vCenter to look at historical CPU performance, and see if high CPU was normal. When I looked at 30-day CPU usage, what I saw was alarming:

T-SQL Tuesday #77– My favorite SQL Server feature

Tue, 12 Apr 2016 22:51:47 -0400

It’s T-SQL Tuesday, the blog party that SQL Server expert Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) started. This month’s episode is hosted by Jens Vestergaard (blog | twitter). The topic: Favorite SQL Server Feature.

When I saw this topic, I was really excited. My mind started racing through all the awesome features in SQL Server. I spend a lot of time dealing with HA and DR--so many features to choose from...but are any of them my favorite? No, probably not. MSX and CMS have made my life so much easier, and they are incredibly cool, and I've not blogged about either of them...but...neither is my favorite.

Users in SQL Server cluster

Tue, 12 Apr 2016 12:17:30 -0400

Question

I have created a 2012 WFC and SQL Server 2014 is clustered on it. The cluster works as expected but have a question on Users:

I added a windows domain group to the cluster as sysadmin.

ReportServerTempDB in AlwaysOn Availability group

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 16:01:57 -0400

Question

ReportserverTempdb logfile is 6TB in size and growing and I need help. I am supporting a huge reporting server farm and the client wants reporting services to be in AlawysON Availability group(AAG) and we configured reportserver and reportserverTempDB on in three node Primary replica, synchronize Secondary replica and DR in a different location with manual synchronization. Microsoft recommends reportservertempdb to be in simple recovery mode but if you add it to AAG that is not an option. Does anyone has reportservertempdb in AAG? I would like to advise customer to take reporservertempDB out of AAG and we can just keep the copy of the reportservertempdb on each node and that should be fine. Please advise.

Exclude All Matching Rows

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 17:14:26 -0400

Question

I have a table that has a unique ID, name, email, and some other fields. I want to match this table against another table on email, but sometimes emails are shared. The unique ID is not shared among tables, but I will input the ID into the other table when I have identified them. Name is not unique.

Convert row into concatenated string with column names included

Wed, 06 Apr 2016 15:53:55 -0400

Question

I have a table that is several hundred columns wide. Is there a way to convert each row into a single concatenated string with the column title included without having to list each single column in the query?

SQL Server: How to export database with linked servers

Mon, 04 Apr 2016 10:27:53 -0400

Question

I'm a web developer and I want to export a database to work on it in my local machine.

I'm using generate script with data. the script is generated but without the linked servers used by some Views.

Reduce MDF file size

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 17:26:01 -0400

Question

I am working with a 500 GB SQL Server database. I need to reduce the size of the database data file after removing a large amount (50%) of the data.

I tried re indexing, it's good the database has de-fragmented. But the DB size is not reduced.

Using DateTime Variable In Where Clause

Wed, 30 Mar 2016 15:22:09 -0400

Question

I am trying to pull all data where a sale date is >= to a certain datetime. When I execute my query I get an error of:

Msg 241, Level 16, State 1, Line 15
Conversion failed when converting date and/or time from character string.

How to efficiently design MongoDB database for Uber-like application?

Wed, 30 Mar 2016 14:01:04 -0400

Question

I'm designing a MongoDB database for an Uber-like application, but since I'm new to NoSQL concept, I have several doubts.

I have three main collections - users, requests and messages. User can post a ride request, and if other user wants to give him a ride, accepts such a request and now text communication between those two users is started.

How to configure SSIS in SQL Server AlwaysOn

Wed, 30 Mar 2016 05:40:07 -0400

Question

I have AlwaysOn Availability Group setup for my SQL Server. Now I would like to configure SSIS. How do I do it? Below link provides some information but since I am not DBA it's difficult to understand this article:

UFT to SQL Server conecction which is located at different domain

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 16:42:56 -0400

Question

I need to connect to a SQL Server through UFT (Unified Functional Testing) but the problem is SQL Server is present at different domain whereas QTP (HP QuickTest Professional) is present in a different domain.

After trying to restart moved database: Unable to open the physical file "D:\Data\MYDBNAME.MDF"

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 13:01:56 -0400

Question

So the default location for databases on our server is

c:\program files\microsoft sql server\mssql11.mssqlserver\mssql\DATA

but due to space limitations we instead use

d:\data

I have now since corrected the default location to be d:\data

However I am unable to move a database that was created in the wrong location i.e. from c:\...\data to d:\data

Why is the MSDB database TRUSTWORTHY?

Thu, 24 Mar 2016 20:38:35 -0400

Question

The TRUSTWORTHY setting can be rather dangerous if you aren't careful and except for specific circumstances the recommendation is to keep it turned off. However by default the MSDB database has TRUSTWORHTY set ON by default. I'm curious why?

UnShrunk SQL Server database restore which is larger than available disk space

Tue, 22 Mar 2016 19:17:25 -0400

Question

I cannot restore a Microsoft SQL Server database due to lack of hard drive space. The original database was 1.6TB and approximately 1.4TB was deleted from it and a backup was taken without shrinking the database.

Shortcuts Cheat Sheet - SSMS & Windows

Mon, 07 Mar 2016 08:00:29 -0500

Edit: I've published an updated version of my cheat sheet. Find the latest version by in the sidebar -->

I've presented my **Shortcuts from an Impatient DBA** talk a few times now, and I really love it. Everyone learns something, whether you're a Junior Developer, or a multi-decade veteran, or a Data Platform MVP.

This past weekend, after presenting at SQLSaturday Chicago, Brent Ozar (blog|twitter) suggested that as an attendee, it would have been nice to have some sort of handout to follow along with. I guess Brent was learning so many things that he couldn’t take notes fast enough.

What's the deal with transactions in a stored procedure called by an SSRS report?

Tue, 01 Mar 2016 23:00:41 -0500

Question

Consider the following:

CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.usp_trantest AS
SELECT @@TRANCOUNT as trancount;
GO

When I call usp_trantest manually from within SSMS, the trancount is 0. If I run an SSRS report that contains a dataset that queries the same stored procedure, the trancount is logged as 1.

Decoding sql_handle

Mon, 29 Feb 2016 10:05:54 -0500

If you’ve ever looked at sys.sysprocesses or sys.dm_exec_requests (or a number of other DMVs), you’ve noticed there is a column called “sql_handle” that contains some binary gobbledygook. Books Online gives the (un)helpful definition as “Hash map of the SQL text of the request.”

sp_WhoIsActive

In the context of currently-running processes, most people decode sql_handle with Adam Machanic’s (blog|twitter) sp_WhoIsActive. It’s really easy & straightforward–if you’re not familiar with Adam’s utility, download it and check it out. My friend Mike Kane (blog|twitter) has an interesting post on parameter combinations he regularly uses when using sp_WhoIsActive.

Data Compression: How page compression works

Mon, 22 Feb 2016 10:00:59 -0500

SQL Server supports two kinds of data compression on rowstore data. Columnstore compression is for a different day. You can compress heaps, clustered indexes (on both tables and views), and nonclustered indexes (on both tables and views).

Compression requirements

Data compression is available in SQL Server 2008 & newer. It was introduced as an Enterprise Edition feature–if you were using Standard Edition or Express, then you were out of luck. Starting with SQL Server 2016 SP1 (thus all currently-supported versions), data compression is available across all Editions. There are benefits & costs to using data compression–as with anything, make sure you understand it before you implement it.

xp_sqlagent_enum_jobs alternative

Thu, 18 Feb 2016 10:00:21 -0500

What's `xp_sqlagent_enum_jobs`?

If you landed on this post, I'm guessing you know the answer to this, so I'll be quick. `xp_sqlagent_enum_jobs` is an undocumented (and thus, unsupported) extended procedure that gives information on whether a job is currently running, when it last ran, when it runs next, etc.

The supported alternative is to use sp_help_job (which calls xp_sqlagent_enum_jobs), but sp_help_job is difficult to use in automation because trying to do INSERT #temp EXEC sp_help_job; will result in an error due to nested INSERT...EXEC statements (Error 8164: “An INSERT EXEC statement cannot be nested.”). As a result, people often turn to calling the unsupported xp directly.

Data Compression: How row compression works

Mon, 15 Feb 2016 10:07:29 -0500

Compression requirements

Data compression is available in SQL Server 2008 & newer. It is an Enterprise Edition feature–if you’re using Standard Edition or Express, then you’re out of luck. There are benefits & costs to using data compression–as with anything, make sure you understand it before you implement it.

Speaking at #SqlSatChi - SQL Saturday #484 in Chicago

Sat, 23 Jan 2016 09:41:45 -0500

I’m really excited to be speaking in Chicago this year. I’m going to be giving my “Shortcuts From an Impatient DBA” session. I love this presentation, and I’m excited to share it in Chicago.

How’d you do that?!?

This presentation is a series of keyboard shortcuts, lesser-known SSMS features, code tricks, Windows tips, etc. Most of these are tips I picked up by watching other people and asking “How’d you do that?” Those are some of the most powerful learning moments we have–when we see something cool and learn to do it for ourselves. I’ll say it again: I love this presentation.

Windows cluster failed over, but SQL instances didn't move

Mon, 04 Jan 2016 13:48:24 -0500

Question

I recently inherited a SQL Cluster (2008R2) which for the most part behaves itself impeccably.

The windows cluster is made up of two nodes running Active/Passive, Node1 and Node2 are dedicated blades in two different data centers. There are 3 SQL instances all running on Node1. Quorum is established by a File Share Witness and we have a heartbeat between the two nodes.

Data Compression: Costs & benefits

Tue, 29 Dec 2015 15:00:56 -0500

Compression requirements

Data compression is available in SQL Server 2008 & newer. It is an Enterprise Edition feature–if you’re using Standard Edition or Express, then you’re out of luck.

sp_autostats: object-level auto update statistics

Tue, 15 Dec 2015 11:00:00 -0500

In SQL Server, auto-update statistics is a database level setting. It’s right there:

I’m not going to say whether I think Auto Update Statistics should be on or off. Instead, I’m going to argue that there are definitely scenarios when you want to have this on AND there are scenarios where you want it turned off. Can you really have this both ways? Absolutely.

DROP TABLE Bug on Filestream Garbage Collection

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 15:36:05 -0500

FILESTREAM is not a particularly popular feature of SQL Server–if you’re using it, you are in the minority. If you have a database with filestream in an Availability Group, then you’re REALLY in the minority. At my 9-5, this is being done, and it’s apparent that this combination of features isn’t a robust combination.

SSMS Vertical block highlighting & editing

Tue, 24 Nov 2015 11:00:11 -0500

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA #11

#sqlcares, #sqlwish, and #sqlfamily

Thu, 19 Nov 2015 11:00:34 -0500

I’ve been using SQL Server for a dozen years now, but I’ve only been starting to make friendships and build relationships within the SQL Server community in the last couple of years. More importantly, it has only been in the last year that I would say I have really gotten involved to the point where I feel I am part of the SQL Server family. This post isn’t about my journey, but rather it is about the incredible family of which I have found myself a member.

RECONFIGURE—When to use WITH OVERRIDE?

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 11:00:19 -0500

When you’re using sp_configure to change a system configuration, you have to run a RECONFIGURE to finalize your change. You even get the helpful output that reminds you to run RECONFIGURE:

Configuration option 'max degree of parallelism' changed from 0 to 1. 
Run the RECONFIGURE statement to install.

There are many places online with code samples (Books Online, blog posts, vendor documentation, etc) that actually use the additional “RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE” syntax: Here. Here. Here. There are even posts that switch between including “WITH OVERRIDE” and not including it Here.

Speaking at SQL Saturday #465 in Providence, RI

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 11:00:55 -0500

On December 5, I’m speaking at QL Saturday #465 in Providence, RI. My session is called “Shortcuts from an Impatient DBA."

This is an expanded version of my lightning talk from the New England SQL Server User Group earlier this year. It went over so well, I decided to expand it into a full-length session.

Speaking at SQL Saturday #470 in DC

Mon, 09 Nov 2015 11:00:43 -0500

On December 5, I’m speaking at SQL Saturday #470 in Washington DC. My session is called “Wheaton’s Law for Technology Pros” and is based on my post “Watch your step! Don’t become a DBA-hole.”

I’m really looking forward to it for lots of reasons, but in particular it’s my first SQL Saturday session. Yea, sure, I helped organize SQL Saturday Boston BI this year, so it’s not my first rodeo–but it’s my first official time speaking at a SQL Saturday. Also exciting? My session is not at the same time as Brent Ozar’s (blog|twitter)–I don’t have to compete with him. Score.

Thank you #sqlsatbostonbi 2015

Sun, 18 Oct 2015 10:16:31 -0400

Yesterday was SQL Saturday #437 or as we call it, SQL Saturday Boston BI Edition. It was my first time helping to organize a SQL Saturday (or any event like this). It was an honor to be asked to join the organizing team, knowing that they already put on some impressive events.

How to pass SSRS params into a URL

Sat, 10 Oct 2015 14:39:36 -0400

Question

I have Native SSRS configured on a 2012 instance (11.0.2100). I have two reports with images that act as buttons to toggle between the chart report and the detail report. I want to configure the action URLs to dynamically pass in parameters when switching between the reports, so that the defaults (derived from a query) are not used when switching views, the manually inputted params would persist.

Dumplings, Databases and Corporate Espionage

Thu, 08 Oct 2015 23:07:22 -0400

This blog post takes a tangent from my usual technology-specific ramblings, but I’ll make the connection eventually. Just bear with me.

Dumplings

Dan dan mien, mango bubble tea, and petite chicken dumplings in Sichuan sauce

Today, I was craving some mapo tofu, so I went to one of my favorite lunch joints, Dumpling Daughter (website|twitter). As I walked in, I realized there was a news crew filming. When I asked Nadia, the owner, about her visitors, she asked if I’d seen the Boston Globe yet–and told me to check it out. I hadn’t, so I ordered my mapo tofu, and scurried off to look up the Globe story which was easy to find because it was on the main page, above the fold.

About Andy

Thu, 01 Oct 2015 21:36:51 -0400

Photo by Conor Olmstead.

I am a SQL Server DBA and Microsoft Data Platform MVP (2015-2023) that has managed databases in the healthcare, finance, e-commerce, and non-profit sectors. Since 2003, I have been supporting high-volume, highly-available OLTP environments with demanding performance needs. I am past organizer of SQL Saturday Boston, BostonSQL, and speaker at many SQL Server user groups & SQL Saturdays.

Really Long Descriptions on SQL Agent Jobs

Fri, 25 Sep 2015 14:38:00 -0400

WARNING: Silent truncation ahead

Have you ever tried to enter a really long description on a SQL Agent job?

Maybe you were trying to put some sort of warning to people who might be trying to edit the job, or triage info for when the job fails. (Ok, so this sort of documentation should be on your wiki, not in a job description… but stuff happens)

Planning for an outage: Phone numbers

Tue, 15 Sep 2015 13:29:00 -0400

Who ya gonna call?

If there's somethin' strange in your neighborhood Who ya gonna call? If it's something weird and it won't look good Who ya gonna call?

This summer, they've been taping the new Ghostbusters movie in Boston. It's pretty cool to see the Ghostbusters car rolling through the city.

Unfortunately, the Ghostbusters aren’t the right person to call when something goes boom in your data center. I’m not saying I haven’t used ghosts and gremlins as part of a root cause analysis before–but even Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray can’t help you when there’s a storage or network issue. I’m skeptical that Kristen Wiig will be much better.

Embedded video demos in PowerPoint

Fri, 11 Sep 2015 03:09:00 -0400

This series of short posts will demonstrate some lesser-known features, keyboard shortcuts, and other tips that make my day as a DBA more productive. None of these are groundbreaking super-secret features--they are the little things that I do as part of my daily work that make me more efficient.

Embedded video demos in PowerPoint

Last night, I presented about this series of shortcuts and tips at the New England SQL Server user group. I’d set myself up with the expectation that EVERYONE would learn at least one thing from my presentation (including the two MVPs in the room). It was a high expectation, but I think I managed to deliver. But that’s not the point of this blog post.

Thanks for being awesome NE SQL!

Thu, 10 Sep 2015 01:47:00 -0400

This evening, I did my first presentation at a user group at my local user group. Sure, it was just a lightning talk, but the New England SQL Server user group is a tough crowd. People ask tough questions. Nobody is timid about interrupting you to ask their question. My friends were there--and my friends and I like to heckle each other. Oh, and mostly everyone was there to see Grant Fritchey (twitter|blog), and my opening lightning talk was standing in their way.

Those same things that make the NE SQL group intimidating also make it a really exciting, awesome group. I love that my local user group is large, active, smart, and eager to learn.

My talk went great and I got a lot of fantastic and positive feedback from people. I even managed to teach Grant something (actually, he said he learned at least two things)--considering all the things I've learned from him, I consider that a tremendous accomplishment.

If you were there and want the slides (or just couldn't make it in), you can download the slides here.

Thanks for being awesome, NE SQL buddies. See you again soon!

Will Transaction Log backup to Nul break Always On Availability Group configuration?

Mon, 31 Aug 2015 23:08:35 -0400

Question

Imagine we have two nodes participating in SQL 2012 AO. This is a test instance. During one of the index rebuild operation the log was grown up really big (250 GB). We are unable to back it up due to space constraint. What if we backup the Tlog to Nul (just to shrink it down) – will that break Always On?

Tip: Master Control Panel

Tue, 18 Aug 2015 01:00:00 -0400

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA #9

Watch your step! Don't become a DBA-hole

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 01:37:00 -0400

No, I’m not discouraging anyone from being a DBA. I’m just discouraging DBAs from being A-holes.

DBAs (and IT folk in general) have a terrible reputation for being curmudgeons, jerks, and a-holes. These guys exist, and working with them is a miserable experience–but they’re a minority. Unfortunately, they are a memorable minority and they give the rest of us a bad name.

Using SQL Agent MSX for Availability Groups

Tue, 07 Jul 2015 00:22:00 -0400

Availability Groups (AGs) are all the rage these days. Every SQL Saturday, every local Users Group, bloggers and DBAs everywhere are all talking about how cool they are. There's a lot of talk about how AGs provide a compelling alternative to Failover Cluster Instances (FCIs). The cost (nothing is free, of course) is that with AGs, you have non-contained objects that you need to manually keep in sync between nodes.

A lot has been said and blogged about syncing non-contained objects. Here. Here. Here. Here. And plenty of other places.

How to find the SQL Server Service Account

Thu, 18 Jun 2015 19:24:00 -0400

What is the service account running your instance of SQL Server?

A lot of DBAs probably know right off the top of their head–maybe because they’re using the same account for every instance. Have you ever had to audit every service account on every instance? If you’ve never done an audit, there’s a good chance a surprise might be lurking for you.

Tip: Go [count]

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 13:30:00 -0400

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA #8

Common SSMS keyboard shortcuts

Tue, 02 Jun 2015 13:30:00 -0400

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA #7

Tip: Never disable a job temporarily

Mon, 01 Jun 2015 13:30:00 -0400

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA #6

Tip: Windows Explorer address bar hack

Fri, 29 May 2015 13:30:00 -0400

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA #5

SSMS Query Shortcuts

Thu, 28 May 2015 13:30:00 -0400

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA #4

Shortcut: SQL Template Parameters

Wed, 27 May 2015 13:30:00 -0400

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA #3

Shortcut: CTRL + ]

Tue, 26 May 2015 13:30:00 -0400

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA #2

Shortcut: CTRL + SHIFT + V

Mon, 25 May 2015 14:00:00 -0400

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA

Big security loophole with SQL Logins

Thu, 30 Apr 2015 16:46:00 -0400

Aaron Bertrand (twitter|blog) recently blogged asking for help to fix a big security loophole. I read the post then, but it was only this morning that I finally got around to REALLY looking at it, thinking about it, and testing it out for myself.

Aaron can do a much better job at describing the issue than I can, so I urge you to read his blog post on the topic, or his Stack Exchange answer on the topic. Then, go up-vote the Connect item he filed.

I’ll do my best to give a quick summary of the issue here, if you don’t want to read Aaron’s full version:

Microsoft’s documentation explains that sys.logins.is_policy_checked means “Password policy is checked.” Bill Clinton was right, “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is."
This use of “is” in this terse definition could have two meanings:

As a descriptor of what has happened: “The password policy has been checked for this login."
As an instruction of what SQL Server should do in the future: “The password policy will be checked for this login."

(If you aren’t already hung-up thinking about Bill Clinton, I probably just gave you a flashback to a grammar school teacher grilling you on conjugations of the verb “to be.”)

As it turns out, the correct meaning of this column is actually #2: “The password policy will be checked for this login.” Most people (myself included) wrongly expect this column to have the other meaning.

Further, there is no DMV that describes #1: “The password policy has been checked for this login.” If an auditor asks you to prove that all SQL logins meet your password policy, there is no way to prove that.

Yes, I can use processes to manage my own environment to a point where I am confident that the passwords are strong. However, if I were an auditor, I would demand proof the DBA wasn’t skirting the rules by altering the flag before an audit (and flipping it back later).

So, I join in Aaron’s call-to-action. Go up-vote the Connect item and get this security loophole fixed.

Converting delimited values to a table (efficiently?)

Tue, 21 Apr 2015 15:33:00 -0400

This is a pretty common problem. I think it’s a question every developer has asked at one time or another: “I want to pass in a comma-separated list of values, then convert it into a table."

Every company I’ve ever worked for has had a function that does this. Everyone does it differently. It’s never efficient. I’ve seen it done in CLR, I’ve seen it done as a multi-statement table-valued user-defined function (which we all know is the devil’s work). The CLR works, but it’s a black-box to the average DBA or SQL developer. The multi-statement TVF performs terribly, but has never been used heavily enough to make it to the top of my tuning list.

This morning, I saw Pinal Dave (twitter|blog) post on his blog about this topic, and he used a really elegant XML-based solution. It’s one of those solutions that’s so simple, it’s incredibly hard.

When I got to my desk this morning, I immediately wrapped Pinal’s code into a function that was backwards compatible to a multi-statement TVF version and performance tested them head-to-head.

Here’s my function definition:

Error 3203 restoring SQL Server backup: The data is invalid

Fri, 17 Apr 2015 14:26:17 -0400

Question

I am trying to restore a .bak file (backup taken on SQL Server 2008 R2, compatibility level 100). I am restoring the backup on SQL Server 2012 edition. I get the below error. Unfortunately the original DB from where the DB was backed up is no longer available. I am new on this project. I was given the bak file on a thumb drive.

sp_executesql with output parameters

Thu, 22 Jan 2015 20:05:00 -0500

One of my coworkers asked me about output parameters from dynamic SQL today. I pointed him at sp_executesql, which allows for passing parameters into or out of dynamic SQL. The syntax can be confusing at first blush (especially for a new DBA or developer), but it’s really pretty straightforward, easy, and useful.

Formatting HTML emails in SQL

Wed, 26 Nov 2014 15:34:00 -0500

When I am writing monitoring/alerting stored procedures for my SQL Servers, its important to have those alerts be well-formatted. I like to minimize the amount of time I spend sorting through emails & alerts, and part of that is making sure that I can determine the urgency & priority of an email alert at a mere glance. More importantly, it has to be equally useful to me at my desk & on my mobile.

Restoring a SQL Server 2012 database in high availability

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 14:42:35 -0500

Question

I have a database which is in always-on high availability mode synchronized with another database on a different instance. How can I restore from a .bak file into the primary database using T-SQL?

I’m new to high availability and I’ve been advised that I need to take the database out of high availability before I can do a restore and then put it back in high availability again but I’m not sure.

Moving Replication to a new server (without re-snapshotting)

Tue, 08 Jul 2014 19:57:00 -0400

Background

The guy in this picture is a Snapshot Agent

At work, we make very extensive use of transactional replication. We have dozens of publications. Most publications have two or three subscribers. We replicate across domains, across subnets, across geographies. We use both push & pull replication (we’ve found pull works best when crossing the globe).

sp_get_basetable_list

Thu, 22 May 2014 15:18:00 -0400

At work, we make extensive use of views & synonyms. The reasons are complex (and fodder for another post), but here’s a simplified example:

Pricing data is updated multiple times per day, and we want to keep multiple generations of the pricing table online. By pointing the synonym to the latest pricing table, we can redirect users to the current/correct data. If there's a problem, we can "roll back" the latest pricing updates by simply pointing the synonym back to the prior generation of pricing data.

Obviously, this can create some confusion when you do need to find the actual table (eg, to see indexes, or to update data). What pricing table is the real pricing table? Sure– you can query system views to find out the real table(s) referenced by the synonym or view. When you do this hundreds (or thousands) of times, it can really add up. Time to automate.

SQL Server 2012 always-on backup, full vs copy-only

Fri, 25 Apr 2014 19:19:45 -0400

Question

I need a quick clarification on copy-only backup vs full backup as it pertains to transaction log numbering and restore if required.

I have SQL Server 2012 setup with always on for multiple databases. The availability groups are setup with preferred backup on replica.

some SQL Server MSX targets show as Normal, Blocked

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 12:19:30 -0400

Question

I've centralized my farm's jobs in MSX, covering about 70 instances of SQL Server. Seemingly randomly, at least once a week, several instances will stop accepting instructions. Within the MSX window Manage Target Servers, instead of all instances showing as Normal, they show as Normal, Blocked. I have failed to figure out why this happens. Defecting and re-enlisting usually cures this ill, but that means having to re-add that target in any appropriate jobs, so I would rather resolve the cause than endure the workaround.