Search Results

Search found 91557 results on 3663 pages for 'server 2008'.

Page 153/3663 | < Previous Page | 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160  | Next Page >

  • SQL SERVER – Guest Post – Jonathan Kehayias – Wait Type – Day 16 of 28

    - by pinaldave
    Jonathan Kehayias (Blog | Twitter) is a MCITP Database Administrator and Developer, who got started in SQL Server in 2004 as a database developer and report writer in the natural gas industry. After spending two and a half years working in TSQL, in late 2006, he transitioned to the role of SQL Database Administrator. His primary passion is performance tuning, where he frequently rewrites queries for better performance and performs in depth analysis of index implementation and usage. Jonathan blogs regularly on SQLBlog, and was a coauthor of Professional SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting. On a personal note, I think Jonathan is extremely positive person. In every conversation with him I have found that he is always eager to help and encourage. Every time he finds something needs to be approved, he has contacted me without hesitation and guided me to improve, change and learn. During all the time, he has not lost his focus to help larger community. I am honored that he has accepted to provide his views on complex subject of Wait Types and Queues. Currently I am reading his series on Extended Events. Here is the guest blog post by Jonathan: SQL Server troubleshooting is all about correlating related pieces of information together to indentify where exactly the root cause of a problem lies. In my daily work as a DBA, I generally get phone calls like, “So and so application is slow, what’s wrong with the SQL Server.” One of the funny things about the letters DBA is that they go so well with Default Blame Acceptor, and I really wish that I knew exactly who the first person was that pointed that out to me, because it really fits at times. A lot of times when I get this call, the problem isn’t related to SQL Server at all, but every now and then in my initial quick checks, something pops up that makes me start looking at things further. The SQL Server is slow, we see a number of tasks waiting on ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION, IO_COMPLETION, or PAGEIOLATCH_* waits in sys.dm_exec_requests and sys.dm_exec_waiting_tasks. These are also some of the highest wait types in sys.dm_os_wait_stats for the server, so it would appear that we have a disk I/O bottleneck on the machine. A quick check of sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats() and tempdb shows a high write stall rate, while our user databases show high read stall rates on the data files. A quick check of some performance counters and Page Life Expectancy on the server is bouncing up and down in the 50-150 range, the Free Page counter consistently hits zero, and the Free List Stalls/sec counter keeps jumping over 10, but Buffer Cache Hit Ratio is 98-99%. Where exactly is the problem? In this case, which happens to be based on a real scenario I faced a few years back, the problem may not be a disk bottleneck at all; it may very well be a memory pressure issue on the server. A quick check of the system spec’s and it is a dual duo core server with 8GB RAM running SQL Server 2005 SP1 x64 on Windows Server 2003 R2 x64. Max Server memory is configured at 6GB and we think that this should be enough to handle the workload; or is it? This is a unique scenario because there are a couple of things happening inside of this system, and they all relate to what the root cause of the performance problem is on the system. If we were to query sys.dm_exec_query_stats for the TOP 10 queries, by max_physical_reads, max_logical_reads, and max_worker_time, we may be able to find some queries that were using excessive I/O and possibly CPU against the system in their worst single execution. We can also CROSS APPLY to sys.dm_exec_sql_text() and see the statement text, and also CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan() to get the execution plan stored in cache. Ok, quick check, the plans are pretty big, I see some large index seeks, that estimate 2.8GB of data movement between operators, but everything looks like it is optimized the best it can be. Nothing really stands out in the code, and the indexing looks correct, and I should have enough memory to handle this in cache, so it must be a disk I/O problem right? Not exactly! If we were to look at how much memory the plan cache is taking by querying sys.dm_os_memory_clerks for the CACHESTORE_SQLCP and CACHESTORE_OBJCP clerks we might be surprised at what we find. In SQL Server 2005 RTM and SP1, the plan cache was allowed to take up to 75% of the memory under 8GB. I’ll give you a second to go back and read that again. Yes, you read it correctly, it says 75% of the memory under 8GB, but you don’t have to take my word for it, you can validate this by reading Changes in Caching Behavior between SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 RTM and SQL Server 2005 SP2. In this scenario the application uses an entirely adhoc workload against SQL Server and this leads to plan cache bloat, and up to 4.5GB of our 6GB of memory for SQL can be consumed by the plan cache in SQL Server 2005 SP1. This in turn reduces the size of the buffer cache to just 1.5GB, causing our 2.8GB of data movement in this expensive plan to cause complete flushing of the buffer cache, not just once initially, but then another time during the queries execution, resulting in excessive physical I/O from disk. Keep in mind that this is not the only query executing at the time this occurs. Remember the output of sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats() showed high read stalls on the data files for our user databases versus higher write stalls for tempdb? The memory pressure is also forcing heavier use of tempdb to handle sorting and hashing in the environment as well. The real clue here is the Memory counters for the instance; Page Life Expectancy, Free List Pages, and Free List Stalls/sec. The fact that Page Life Expectancy is fluctuating between 50 and 150 constantly is a sign that the buffer cache is experiencing constant churn of data, once every minute to two and a half minutes. If you add to the Page Life Expectancy counter, the consistent bottoming out of Free List Pages along with Free List Stalls/sec consistently spiking over 10, and you have the perfect memory pressure scenario. All of sudden it may not be that our disk subsystem is the problem, but is instead an innocent bystander and victim. Side Note: The Page Life Expectancy counter dropping briefly and then returning to normal operating values intermittently is not necessarily a sign that the server is under memory pressure. The Books Online and a number of other references will tell you that this counter should remain on average above 300 which is the time in seconds a page will remain in cache before being flushed or aged out. This number, which equates to just five minutes, is incredibly low for modern systems and most published documents pre-date the predominance of 64 bit computing and easy availability to larger amounts of memory in SQL Servers. As food for thought, consider that my personal laptop has more memory in it than most SQL Servers did at the time those numbers were posted. I would argue that today, a system churning the buffer cache every five minutes is in need of some serious tuning or a hardware upgrade. Back to our problem and its investigation: There are two things really wrong with this server; first the plan cache is excessively consuming memory and bloated in size and we need to look at that and second we need to evaluate upgrading the memory to accommodate the workload being performed. In the case of the server I was working on there were a lot of single use plans found in sys.dm_exec_cached_plans (where usecounts=1). Single use plans waste space in the plan cache, especially when they are adhoc plans for statements that had concatenated filter criteria that is not likely to reoccur with any frequency.  SQL Server 2005 doesn’t natively have a way to evict a single plan from cache like SQL Server 2008 does, but MVP Kalen Delaney, showed a hack to evict a single plan by creating a plan guide for the statement and then dropping that plan guide in her blog post Geek City: Clearing a Single Plan from Cache. We could put that hack in place in a job to automate cleaning out all the single use plans periodically, minimizing the size of the plan cache, but a better solution would be to fix the application so that it uses proper parameterized calls to the database. You didn’t write the app, and you can’t change its design? Ok, well you could try to force parameterization to occur by creating and keeping plan guides in place, or we can try forcing parameterization at the database level by using ALTER DATABASE <dbname> SET PARAMETERIZATION FORCED and that might help. If neither of these help, we could periodically dump the plan cache for that database, as discussed as being a problem in Kalen’s blog post referenced above; not an ideal scenario. The other option is to increase the memory on the server to 16GB or 32GB, if the hardware allows it, which will increase the size of the plan cache as well as the buffer cache. In SQL Server 2005 SP1, on a system with 16GB of memory, if we set max server memory to 14GB the plan cache could use at most 9GB  [(8GB*.75)+(6GB*.5)=(6+3)=9GB], leaving 5GB for the buffer cache.  If we went to 32GB of memory and set max server memory to 28GB, the plan cache could use at most 16GB [(8*.75)+(20*.5)=(6+10)=16GB], leaving 12GB for the buffer cache. Thankfully we have SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2, 3, and 4 these days which include the changes in plan cache sizing discussed in the Changes to Caching Behavior between SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 RTM and SQL Server 2005 SP2 blog post. In real life, when I was troubleshooting this problem, I spent a week trying to chase down the cause of the disk I/O bottleneck with our Server Admin and SAN Admin, and there wasn’t much that could be done immediately there, so I finally asked if we could increase the memory on the server to 16GB, which did fix the problem. It wasn’t until I had this same problem occur on another system that I actually figured out how to really troubleshoot this down to the root cause.  I couldn’t believe the size of the plan cache on the server with 16GB of memory when I actually learned about this and went back to look at it. SQL Server is constantly telling a story to anyone that will listen. As the DBA, you have to sit back and listen to all that it’s telling you and then evaluate the big picture and how all the data you can gather from SQL about performance relate to each other. One of the greatest tools out there is actually a free in the form of Diagnostic Scripts for SQL Server 2005 and 2008, created by MVP Glenn Alan Berry. Glenn’s scripts collect a majority of the information that SQL has to offer for rapid troubleshooting of problems, and he includes a lot of notes about what the outputs of each individual query might be telling you. When I read Pinal’s blog post SQL SERVER – ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION – Wait Type – Day 11 of 28, I noticed that he referenced Checking Memory Related Performance Counters in his post, but there was no real explanation about why checking memory counters is so important when looking at an I/O related wait type. I thought I’d chat with him briefly on Google Talk/Twitter DM and point this out, and offer a couple of other points I noted, so that he could add the information to his blog post if he found it useful.  Instead he asked that I write a guest blog for this. I am honored to be a guest blogger, and to be able to share this kind of information with the community. The information contained in this blog post is a glimpse at how I do troubleshooting almost every day of the week in my own environment. SQL Server provides us with a lot of information about how it is running, and where it may be having problems, it is up to us to play detective and find out how all that information comes together to tell us what’s really the problem. This blog post is written by Jonathan Kehayias (Blog | Twitter). Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: MVP, Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

    Read the article

  • SQL SERVER – Online Session on What is New in Denali – Today Online

    - by pinaldave
    I will be presenting today on subject Inside of Next Generation SQL Server – Denali online at Zeollar.com. This sessions are really fun as they are online, downloadable, and 100% demo oriented. I will be using SQL Server ‘Denali’ CTP 1 to present on the subject of What is New in Denali. The webcast will start at 12:30 PM sharp and will end at 1 PM India Time. It will be 100% demo oriented and no slides. I will be covering following topics in the session. SQL SERVER – Denali Feature – Zoom Query Editor SQL SERVER – Denali – Improvement in Startup Options SQL SERVER – Denali – Clipboard Ring – CTRL+SHIFT+V SQL SERVER – Denali – Multi-Monitor SSMS Windows SQL SERVER – Denali – Executing Stored Procedure with Result Sets SQL SERVER – Performance Improvement with of Executing Stored Procedure with Result Sets in Denali SQL SERVER – ‘Denali’ – A Simple Example of Contained Databases SQL SERVER – Denali – ObjectID in Negative – Local TempTable has Negative ObjectID SQL SERVERServer Side Paging in SQL Server Denali – A Better Alternative SQL SERVERServer Side Paging in SQL Server Denali Performance Comparison SQL SERVER – Denali – SEQUENCE is not IDENTITY SQL SERVER – Denali – Introduction to SEQUENCE – Simple Example of SEQUENCE If time permits we will cover few more topics as well. The session will be recorded as well. My earlier session on the Topic of Best Practices Analyzer is also available to watch online here: SQL SERVER – Video – Best Practices Analyzer using Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

    Read the article

  • SQL SERVER – Introduction to PERCENTILE_DISC() – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012

    - by pinaldave
    SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function PERCENTILE_DISC(). The book online gives following definition of this function: Computes a specific percentile for sorted values in an entire rowset or within distinct partitions of a rowset in Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate 0 (RC 0). For a given percentile value P, PERCENTILE_DISC sorts the values of the expression in the ORDER BY clause and returns the value with the smallest CUME_DIST value (with respect to the same sort specification) that is greater than or equal to P. If you are clear with understanding of the function – no need to read further. If you got lost here is the same in simple words – find value of the column which is equal or more than CUME_DIST. Before you continue reading this blog I strongly suggest you read about CUME_DIST function over here Introduction to CUME_DIST – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012. Now let’s have fun following query: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, CUME_DIST() OVER(PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY ProductID ) AS CDist, PERCENTILE_DISC(0.5) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY ProductID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS PercentileDisc FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY SalesOrderID DESC GO The above query will give us the following result: You can see that I have used PERCENTILE_DISC(0.5) in query, which is similar to finding median but not exactly. PERCENTILE_DISC() function takes a percentile as a passing parameters. It returns the value as answer which value is equal or great to the percentile value which is passed into the example. For example in above example we are passing 0.5 into the PERCENTILE_DISC() function. It will go through the resultset and identify which rows has values which are equal to or great than 0.5. In first example it found two rows which are equal to 0.5 and the value of ProductID of that row is the answer of PERCENTILE_DISC(). In some third windowed resultset there is only single row with the CUME_DIST() value as 1 and that is for sure higher than 0.5 making it as a answer. To make sure that we are clear with this example properly. Here is one more example where I am passing 0.6 as a percentile. Now let’s have fun following query: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, CUME_DIST() OVER(PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY ProductID ) AS CDist, PERCENTILE_DISC(0.6) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY ProductID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS PercentileDisc FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY SalesOrderID DESC GO The above query will give us the following result: The result of the PERCENTILE_DISC(0.6) is ProductID of which CUME_DIST() is more than 0.6. This means for SalesOrderID 43670 has row with CUME_DIST() 0.75 is the qualified row, resulting answer 773 for ProductID. I hope this explanation makes it further clear. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

    Read the article

  • SQL Server Express and VS2010 Web Application .MDF file errors

    - by nannette
    I installed SQL Server 2008 as well as SQL Server Express 2008 on my new Windows 7 development environment, along with Visual Studio 2010. I could get SQL Server 2008 to work fine, but I could not use Express .MDF databases within sample web application projects without receiving the below error: Failed to generate a user instance of SQL Server due to a failure in starting the process for the user instance. The connection will be closed. For instance, I was creating an ASP.NET Web Application. When...(read more)

    Read the article

  • SQL SERVER – Thinking about Deprecated, Discontinued Features and Breaking Changes while Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 – Guest Post by Nakul Vachhrajani

    - by pinaldave
    Nakul Vachhrajani is a Technical Specialist and systems development professional with iGATE having a total IT experience of more than 7 years. Nakul is an active blogger with BeyondRelational.com (150+ blogs), and can also be found on forums at SQLServerCentral and BeyondRelational.com. Nakul has also been a guest columnist for SQLAuthority.com and SQLServerCentral.com. Nakul presented a webcast on the “Underappreciated Features of Microsoft SQL Server” at the Microsoft Virtual Tech Days Exclusive Webcast series (May 02-06, 2011) on May 06, 2011. He is also the author of a research paper on Database upgrade methodologies, which was published in a CSI journal, published nationwide. In addition to his passion about SQL Server, Nakul also contributes to the academia out of personal interest. He visits various colleges and universities as an external faculty to judge project activities being carried out by the students. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are his own personal opinions and do not represent his employer’s view in anyway. Blog | LinkedIn | Twitter | Google+ Let us hear the thoughts of Nakul in first person - Those who have been following my blogs would be aware that I am recently running a series on the database engine features that have been deprecated in Microsoft SQL Server 2012. Based on the response that I have received, I was quite surprised to know that most of the audience found these to be breaking changes, when in fact, they were not! It was then that I decided to write a little piece on how to plan your database upgrade such that it works with the next version of Microsoft SQL Server. Please note that the recommendations made in this article are high-level markers and are intended to help you think over the specific steps that you would need to take to upgrade your database. Refer the documentation – Understand the terms Change is the only constant in this world. Therefore, whenever customer requirements, newer architectures and designs require software vendors to make a change to the keywords, functions, etc; they ensure that they provide their end users sufficient time to migrate over to the new standards before dropping off the old ones. Microsoft does that too with it’s Microsoft SQL Server product. Whenever a new SQL Server release is announced, it comes with a list of the following features: Breaking changes These are changes that would break your currently running applications, scripts or functionalities that are based on earlier version of Microsoft SQL Server These are mostly features whose behavior has been changed keeping in mind the newer architectures and designs Lesson: These are the changes that you need to be most worried about! Discontinued features These features are no longer available in the associated version of Microsoft SQL Server These features used to be “deprecated” in the prior release Lesson: Without these changes, your database would not be compliant/may not work with the version of Microsoft SQL Server under consideration Deprecated features These features are those that are still available in the current version of Microsoft SQL Server, but are scheduled for removal in a future version. These may be removed in either the next version or any other future version of Microsoft SQL Server The features listed for deprecation will compose the list of discontinued features in the next version of SQL Server Lesson: Plan to make necessary changes required to remove/replace usage of the deprecated features with the latest recommended replacements Once a feature appears on the list, it moves from bottom to the top, i.e. it is first marked as “Deprecated” and then “Discontinued”. We know of “Breaking change” comes later on in the product life cycle. What this means is that if you want to know what features would not work with SQL Server 2012 (and you are currently using SQL Server 2008 R2), you need to refer the list of breaking changes and discontinued features in SQL Server 2012. Use the tools! There are a lot of tools and technologies around us, but it is rarely that I find teams using these tools religiously and to the best of their potential. Below are the top two tools, from Microsoft, that I use every time I plan a database upgrade. The SQL Server Upgrade Advisor Ever since SQL Server 2005 was announced, Microsoft provides a small, very light-weight tool called the “SQL Server upgrade advisor”. The upgrade advisor analyzes installed components from earlier versions of SQL Server, and then generates a report that identifies issues to fix either before or after you upgrade. The analysis examines objects that can be accessed, such as scripts, stored procedures, triggers, and trace files. Upgrade Advisor cannot analyze desktop applications or encrypted stored procedures. Refer the links towards the end of the post to know how to get the Upgrade Advisor. The SQL Server Profiler Another great tool that you can use is the one most SQL Server developers & administrators use often – the SQL Server profiler. SQL Server Profiler provides functionality to monitor the “Deprecation” event, which contains: Deprecation announcement – equivalent to features to be deprecated in a future release of SQL Server Deprecation final support – equivalent to features to be deprecated in the next release of SQL Server You can learn more using the links towards the end of the post. A basic checklist There are a lot of finer points that need to be taken care of when upgrading your database. But, it would be worth-while to identify a few basic steps in order to make your database compliant with the next version of SQL Server: Monitor the current application workload (on a test bed) via the Profiler in order to identify usage of features marked as Deprecated If none appear, you are all set! (This almost never happens) Note down all the offending queries and feature usages Run analysis sessions using the SQL Server upgrade advisor on your database Based on the inputs from the analysis report and Profiler trace sessions, Incorporate solutions for the breaking changes first Next, incorporate solutions for the discontinued features Revisit and document the upgrade strategy for your deployment scenarios Revisit the fall-back, i.e. rollback strategies in case the upgrades fail Because some programming changes are dependent upon the SQL server version, this may need to be done in consultation with the development teams Before any other enhancements are incorporated by the development team, send out the database changes into QA QA strategy should involve a comparison between an environment running the old version of SQL Server against the new one Because minimal application changes have gone in (essential changes for SQL Server version compliance only), this would be possible As an ongoing activity, keep incorporating changes recommended as per the deprecated features list As a DBA, update your coding standards to ensure that the developers are using ANSI compliant code – this code will require a change only if the ANSI standard changes Remember this: Change management is a continuous process. Keep revisiting the product release notes and incorporate recommended changes to stay prepared for the next release of SQL Server. May the power of SQL Server be with you! Links Referenced in this post Breaking changes in SQL Server 2012: Link Discontinued features in SQL Server 2012: Link Get the upgrade advisor from the Microsoft Download Center at: Link Upgrade Advisor page on MSDN: Link Profiler: Review T-SQL code to identify objects no longer supported by Microsoft: Link Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 by Vinod Kumar: Link Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Upgrade

    Read the article

  • SQL SERVER – Iridium I/O – SQL Server Deduplication that Shrinks Databases and Improves Performance

    - by Pinal Dave
    Database performance is a common problem for SQL Server DBA’s.  It seems like we spend more time on performance than just about anything else.  In many cases, we use scripts or tools that point out performance bottlenecks but we don’t have any way to fix them.  For example, what do you do when you need to speed up a query that is already tuned as well as possible?  Or what do you do when you aren’t allowed to make changes for a database supporting a purchased application? Iridium I/O for SQL Server was originally built at Confio software (makers of Ignite) because DBA’s kept asking for a way to actually fix performance instead of just pointing out performance problems. The technology is certified by Microsoft and was so promising that it was spun out into a separate company that is now run by the Confio Founder/CEO and technology management team. Iridium uses deduplication technology to both shrink the databases as well as boost IO performance.  It is intriguing to see it work.  It will deduplicate a live database as it is running transactions.  You can watch the database get smaller while user queries are running. Iridium is a simple tool to use. After installing the software, you click an “Analyze” button which will spend a minute or two on each database and estimate both your storage and performance savings.  Next, you click an “Activate” button to turn on Iridium I/O for your selected databases.  You don’t need to reboot the operating system or restart the database during any part of the process. As part of my test, I also wanted to see if there would be an impact on my databases when Iridium was removed.  The ‘revert’ process (bringing the files back to their SQL Server native format) was executed by a simple click of a button, and completed while the databases were available for normal processing. I was impressed and enjoyed playing with the software and encourage all of you to try it out.  Here is the link to the website to download Iridium for free. . Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

    Read the article

  • Cardinality Estimation Bug with Lookups in SQL Server 2008 onward

    - by Paul White
    Cost-based optimization stands or falls on the quality of cardinality estimates (expected row counts).  If the optimizer has incorrect information to start with, it is quite unlikely to produce good quality execution plans except by chance.  There are many ways we can provide good starting information to the optimizer, and even more ways for cardinality estimation to go wrong.  Good database people know this, and work hard to write optimizer-friendly queries with a schema and metadata (e.g. statistics) that reduce the chances of poor cardinality estimation producing a sub-optimal plan.  Today, I am going to look at a case where poor cardinality estimation is Microsoft’s fault, and not yours. SQL Server 2005 SELECT th.ProductID, th.TransactionID, th.TransactionDate FROM Production.TransactionHistory AS th WHERE th.ProductID = 1 AND th.TransactionDate BETWEEN '20030901' AND '20031231'; The query plan on SQL Server 2005 is as follows (if you are using a more recent version of AdventureWorks, you will need to change the year on the date range from 2003 to 2007): There is an Index Seek on ProductID = 1, followed by a Key Lookup to find the Transaction Date for each row, and finally a Filter to restrict the results to only those rows where Transaction Date falls in the range specified.  The cardinality estimate of 45 rows at the Index Seek is exactly correct.  The table is not very large, there are up-to-date statistics associated with the index, so this is as expected. The estimate for the Key Lookup is also exactly right.  Each lookup into the Clustered Index to find the Transaction Date is guaranteed to return exactly one row.  The plan shows that the Key Lookup is expected to be executed 45 times.  The estimate for the Inner Join output is also correct – 45 rows from the seek joining to one row each time, gives 45 rows as output. The Filter estimate is also very good: the optimizer estimates 16.9951 rows will match the specified range of transaction dates.  Eleven rows are produced by this query, but that small difference is quite normal and certainly nothing to worry about here.  All good so far. SQL Server 2008 onward The same query executed against an identical copy of AdventureWorks on SQL Server 2008 produces a different execution plan: The optimizer has pushed the Filter conditions seen in the 2005 plan down to the Key Lookup.  This is a good optimization – it makes sense to filter rows out as early as possible.  Unfortunately, it has made a bit of a mess of the cardinality estimates. The post-Filter estimate of 16.9951 rows seen in the 2005 plan has moved with the predicate on Transaction Date.  Instead of estimating one row, the plan now suggests that 16.9951 rows will be produced by each clustered index lookup – clearly not right!  This misinformation also confuses SQL Sentry Plan Explorer: Plan Explorer shows 765 rows expected from the Key Lookup (it multiplies a rounded estimate of 17 rows by 45 expected executions to give 765 rows total). Workarounds One workaround is to provide a covering non-clustered index (avoiding the lookup avoids the problem of course): CREATE INDEX nc1 ON Production.TransactionHistory (ProductID) INCLUDE (TransactionDate); With the Transaction Date filter applied as a residual predicate in the same operator as the seek, the estimate is again as expected: We could also force the use of the ultimate covering index (the clustered one): SELECT th.ProductID, th.TransactionID, th.TransactionDate FROM Production.TransactionHistory AS th WITH (INDEX(1)) WHERE th.ProductID = 1 AND th.TransactionDate BETWEEN '20030901' AND '20031231'; Summary Providing a covering non-clustered index for all possible queries is not always practical, and scanning the clustered index will rarely be optimal.  Nevertheless, these are the best workarounds we have today. In the meantime, watch out for poor cardinality estimates when a predicate is applied as part of a lookup. The worst thing is that the estimate after the lookup join in the 2008+ plans is wrong.  It’s not hopelessly wrong in this particular case (45 versus 16.9951 is not the end of the world) but it easily can be much worse, and there’s not much you can do about it.  Any decisions made by the optimizer after such a lookup could be based on very wrong information – which can only be bad news. If you think this situation should be improved, please vote for this Connect item. © 2012 Paul White – All Rights Reserved twitter: @SQL_Kiwi email: [email protected]

    Read the article

  • Creating Indicator and Gauge Report in SSRS - SQL Server 2008 R2

    SQL Server Reporting Services allows you to embed indicators and Gauges in your report to analyze the data and its state. Indicators are minimal gauges that convey the state of a single data value at a glance and are mostly used to represent state value of Key Performance Indicator (KPI). New! SQL Monitor 3.0 Red Gate's multi-server performance monitoring and alerting tool gets results from Day One.Simple to install and easy to use – download a free trial today.

    Read the article

  • SQL Server 2008: Comparing similar records - Need to still display an ID for a record when the JOIN has no matches

    - by aleppke
    I'm writing a SQL Server 2008 report that will compare genetic test results for animals. A genetic test consists of an animalId, a gene and a result. Not all animals will have the same genes tested but I need to be able to display the results side-by-side for a given set of animals and only include the genes that are present for at least one of the selected animals. My TestResult table has the following data in it: animalId gene result 1 a CC 1 b CT 1 d TT 2 a CT 2 b CT 2 c TT 3 a CT 3 b TT 3 c CC 3 d CC 3 e TT I need to generate a result set that looks like the following. Note that Animal 3 is not being displayed (user doesn't want to see its results) and neither are results for Gene "e" since neither Animal 1 nor Animal 2 have a result for that gene: SireID SireResult CalfID CalfResult Gene 1 CC 2 CT a 1 CT 2 CT b 1 NULL 2 TT c 1 TT 2 NULL d But I can only manage to get this: SireID SireResult CalfID CalfResult Gene 1 CC 2 CT a 1 CT 2 CT b NULL NULL 2 TT c 1 TT NULL NULL d This is the query I'm using. SELECT sire.animalId AS 'SireID' ,sire.result AS 'SireResult' ,calf.animalId AS 'CalfID' ,calf.result AS 'CalfResult' ,sire.gene AS 'Gene' FROM (SELECT s.animalId ,s.result ,m1.gene FROM (SELECT [animalId ] ,result ,gene FROM TestResult WHERE animalId IN (1)) s FULL JOIN (SELECT DISTINCT gene FROM TestResult WHERE animalId IN (1, 2)) m1 ON s.marker = m1.marker) sire FULL JOIN (SELECT c.animalId ,c.result ,m2.gene FROM (SELECT animalId ,result ,gene FROM TestResult WHERE animalId IN (2)) c FULL JOIN (SELECT DISTINCT gene FROM TestResult WHERE animalId IN (1, 2)) m2 ON c.gene = m2.gene) calf ON sire.gene = calf.gene How do I get the SireIDs and CalfIDs to display their values when they don't have a record associated with a particular Gene? I was thinking of using COALESCE but I can't figure out how to specify the correct animalId to pass in. Any help would be appreciated.

    Read the article

  • Visual Studio 2008 project file does not load because of an unexpected encoding change.

    - by Xenan
    In our team we have a database project in visual Studio 2008 which is under source control by Team Foundation Server. Every two weeks or so, after one co-worker checks in, the project file won't load on the other developers machines. The error message is: The project file could not be loaded. Data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1. When I look at the project file in Notepad++, the file looks like this: ??<NUL?NULxNULmNULlNUL NULvNULeNULrNULsNULiNULoNULnNUL ... and so on (you can see <?xml version in this) whereas an normal project file looks like: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> ... So probably something is wrong with the encoding of the file. This is a problem for us because it turns out to be impossible to get the file encoding correct again. The 'solution' is to throw away the project file an get the last know working version from source control. According to the file, the encoding should be UTF-16. According to Notepad++, the corrupted file is actually UTF-8. My questions are: Why is Visual Studio messing up the encoding of the project file, apparently at random times and at random machines? What should we do to prevent this? When it has happened, is there a possibility to restore the current file in the correct encoding instead of pulling an older version from source control? As a last note: the problem is with one single project file, all other project files don't expose this problem.

    Read the article

  • Create an SQL Express 2008 database in C# code, but login fails when trying to connect with a sysadm

    - by Andrés Gonzales
    I have a piece of code that creates an SQL Server Express 2008 in runtime, and then tries to connect to it to execute a database initialization script in Transact-SQL. The code that creates the database is the following: private void CreateDatabase() { using (var connection = new SqlConnection( "Data Source=.\\sqlexpress;Initial Catalog=master;" + "Integrated Security=true;User Instance=True;")) { connection.Open(); using (var command = connection.CreateCommand()) { command.CommandText = "CREATE DATABASE " + m_databaseFilename + " ON PRIMARY (NAME=" + m_databaseFilename + ", FILENAME='" + this.m_basePath + m_databaseFilename + ".mdf')"; command.ExecuteNonQuery(); } } } The database is created successfully. After that, I try to connect to the database to run the initialization script, by using the following code: private void ExecuteQueryFromFile(string filename) { string queryContent = File.ReadAllText(m_filePath + filename); this.m_connectionString = string.Format( @"Server=.\SQLExpress; Integrated Security=true;Initial Catalog={0};", m_databaseFilename); using (var connection = new SqlConnection(m_connectionString)) { connection.Open(); using (var command = connection.CreateCommand()) { command.CommandText = queryContent; command.CommandTimeout = 0; command.ExecuteNonQuery(); } } } However, the connection.Open() statement fails, throwing the following exception: Cannot open database "TestData" requested by the login. The login failed. Login failed for user 'MYDOMAIN\myusername'. I am completely puzzled by this error because the account I am trying to connect with has sysadmin privileges, which should allow me to connect any database (notice that I use a connection to the master database to create the database in the first place).

    Read the article

  • SQL Server 2008 need just like crosstab query on XML column?

    - by user1332896
    <abc id="abc1"> <def id="def1"> <ghi att='ghi1'> <mn id="0742d2ea" name="RF" dt="0" df="3" ty="0" /> <mn id="64d9a11b" name="CJ" dt="0" df="3" ty="0" /> <mn id="db72d154" name="FJ" dt="2" df="4" ty="0" /> <mn id="39af9fa1" name="BS" dt="0" df="2" ty="0" /> </ghi> <jkl att='jkl1'> <mn id="0742d2ea" name="RF" dt="1" gl="19" /> <mn id="64d9a11b" name="CJ" dt="0" gl="6" /> <mn id="db72d154" name="FJ" dt="0" gl="0" /> <mn id="39af9fa1" name="BS" dt="0" gl="12" /> <mn id="ac4f566f" name="DJ" dt="0" gl="9" /> <mn id="4bf3ba2f" name="RP" dt="0" gl="16" /> <mn id="db1af021" name="SC" dt="1" gl="10" /> <mn id="c4c93a2d" name="DN" dt="1" gl="15" /> </jkl> </def> </abc> I need this output. Is this possible in SQL Server 2008? id name ghiDT ghiDF ghiTY jklDT jklGL 0742d2ea RF 0 3 0 1 19 64d9a11b CJ 0 3 0 0 6 db72d154 FJ 2 4 0 0 0 39af9fa1 BS 0 2 0 0 12 ac4f566f DJ 0 0 0 0 9 4bf3ba2f RP 0 0 0 0 16 db1af021 SC 0 0 0 1 10 c4c93a2d DN 0 0 0 1 15

    Read the article

  • Why do I get a security warning in visual studio 2008 when creating a project?

    - by MikeG
    This is the error, it's basically a security warning (And here's the text grabbed off the dialog box) Security Warning for WindowsApplication4 __________________________I The WindowsApplication4 project file has been customized and could present a security risk by executing custom build steps when opened in Microsoft Visual Studio. If this project came from an untrustwoithy source, it could cause damage to your computer or compromise your private information. More Details Project load options 0 Load project for browsing Opens the project in Microsoft Visual Studio with increased security. This option allows you to browse the contents of the project, but some functionality, such as IntelliSense, is restricted, When a project is loaded for browsing, actions such as building, cleaning, publishing, or opening designers could still remain unsafe. Load project normally Opens the project normally in Microsoft Visual Studio. Use this option if you trust the source and understand the potential risks involved. Microsoft Visual Studio does not restrict any project functionality and will not prompt you again for this project. Ask me for every project in this solution OK L Cancel When click the more details button get this: Microsoft Visual Studio __ An item referring to the file was found in the project file “C:\Users\mgriffiths\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\ProjectATemp\Win dowsApplication4\WindowsApplicdtion4\W in dowsApplication4.vbproj”. Since this file is located within a system directory, root directory, or network share, it could be harmful to write to this file. OK

    Read the article

  • Can I split a single SQL 2008 DB Table into multiple filegroups, based on a discriminator column?

    - by Pure.Krome
    Hi folks, I've got a SQL Server 2008 R2 database which has a number of tables. Two of these tables contains a lot of large data .. mainly because one of them is VARBINARY(MAX) and the sister table is GEOGRAPHY. (Why two tables? Read Below if you're interested***) The data in these tables are geospatial shapes, such as zipcode boundaries. Now, the first 70K odd rows are for DataType = 1 the rest 5mil rows are for DataType = 2 Now, is it possible to split the table data into two files? so all rows that are for DataType != 2 goes into File_A and DataType = 2 goes into File_B? This way, when I backup the DB, I can skip adding File_B so my download is waaaaay smaller? Is this possible? I guessing you might be thinking - why not keep them as TWO extra tables? Mainly because in the code, the data is conceptually the same .. it's just happens that I want to split the storage of this model data. It really messes up my model if I now how two aggregates in my model, instead of one. ***Entity Framework doesn't like Tables with GEOGRAPHY, so i have to create a new table which transforms the GEOGRAPHY to VARBINARY, and then drop that into EF.

    Read the article

  • Is there a free tool which can help visualize the logic of a stored procedure in SQL Server 2008 R2?

    - by Hamish Grubijan
    I would like to be able to plot a call graph of a stored procedure. I am not interested in every detail, and I am not concerned with dynamic SQL (although it would be cool to detect it and skip it maybe or mark it as such.) I would like the tool to generate a tree for me, given the server name, db name, stored proc name, a "call tree", which includes: Parent stored procedure. Every other stored procedure that is being called as a child of the caller. Every table that is being modified (updated or deleted from) as a child of the stored proc which does it. Hopefully it is clear what I am after; if not - please do ask. If there is not a tool that can do this, then I would like to try to write one myself. Python 2.6 is my language of choice, and I would like to use standard libraries as much as possible. Any suggestions? EDIT: For the purposes of bounty Warning: SQL syntax is COMPLEX. I need something that can parse all kinds of SQL 2008, even if it looks stupid. No corner cases barred :) EDIT2: I would be OK if all I am missing is graphics.

    Read the article

  • BSOD in a Hyper-V Guest VM on install

    - by Greg Hurlman
    I've got Windows Server 2008 R2 running as a development environment, with Hyper-V hosting a few different VMs. I've created a new VM - 4GB of RAM, 2 virtual procs, legacy network adapter, removed the SCSI interface. I'm booting to an ISO image of the Windows Server 2008 R2 DVD, for OS install. The problem is, after the "Windows is loading files" screen, but before the Windows logo animation, I get a blue screen: BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO yada yada yada *** STOP: 0x00000074 (etc, etc) I've used this same ISO several times to install to other VMs, no issue.

    Read the article

  • Disk performance below expectations

    - by paulH
    this is a follow-up to a previous question that I asked (Two servers with inconsistent disk speed). I have a PowerEdge R510 server with a PERC H700 integrated RAID controller (call this Server B) that was built using eight disks with 3Gb/s bandwidth that I was comparing with an almost identical server (call this Server A) that was built using four disks with 6Gb/s bandwidth. Server A had much better I/O rates than Server B. Once I discovered the difference with the disks, I had Server A rebuilt with faster 6Gbps disks. Unfortunately this resulted in no increase in the performance of the disks. Expecting that there must be some other configuration difference between the servers, we took the 6Gbps disks out of Server A and put them in Server B. This also resulted in no increase in the performance of the disks. We now have two identical servers built, with the exception that one is built with six 6Gbps disks and the other with eight 3Gbps disks, and the I/O rates of the disks is pretty much identical. This suggests that there is some bottleneck other than the disks, but I cannot understand how Server B originally had better I/O that has subsequently been 'lost'. Comparative I/O information below, as measured by SQLIO. The same parameters were used for each test. It's not the actual numbers that are significant but rather the variations between systems. In each case D: is a 2 disk RAID 1 volume, and E: is a 4 disk RAID 10 volume (apart from the original Server A, where E: was a 2 disk RAID 0 volume). Server A (original setup with 6Gpbs disks) D: Read (MB/s) 63 MB/s D: Write (MB/s) 170 MB/s E: Read (MB/s) 68 MB/s E: Write (MB/s) 320 MB/s Server B (original setup with 3Gpbs disks) D: Read (MB/s) 52 MB/s D: Write (MB/s) 88 MB/s E: Read (MB/s) 112 MB/s E: Write (MB/s) 130 MB/s Server A (new setup with 3Gpbs disks) D: Read (MB/s) 55 MB/s D: Write (MB/s) 85 MB/s E: Read (MB/s) 67 MB/s E: Write (MB/s) 180 MB/s Server B (new setup with 6Gpbs disks) D: Read (MB/s) 61 MB/s D: Write (MB/s) 95 MB/s E: Read (MB/s) 69 MB/s E: Write (MB/s) 180 MB/s Can anybody suggest any ideas what is going on here? The drives in use are as follows: Dell Seagate F617N ST3300657SS 300GB 15K RPM SAS Dell Hitachi HUS156030VLS600 300GB 3.5 inch 15000rpm 6GB SAS Hitachi Hus153030vls300 300GB Server SAS Dell ST3146855SS Seagate 3.5 inch 146GB 15K SAS

    Read the article

  • Cant install KB 980368 "The update is not applicable to your computer"

    - by JK01
    I'm trying to install KB 980368 A update is available that enables certain IIS 7.0 or IIS 7.5 handlers to handle requests whose URLs do not end with a period on a new Windows 2008 R2 server, but no matter which of the download packages I try, they all say "The update is not applicable to your computer" I have Windows 2008 R2 Standard on an Intel Xeon E5520. I need that KB to have extenstionless URLs in ASP.NET MVC2. How can I fix this?

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160  | Next Page >