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  • SQL SERVER – Denali Feature – Zoom Query Editor

    - by pinaldave
    SQL Server next version ‘Denali’ is coming up with very neat feature which can be used while presentations, group discussion or for people who prefers large fonts. I have increased the font size to 400 percentage and for the same reason they are very large. You can adjust the font size which is convenient to you. One more reason to go for next version of SQL Server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Free Online Training on .net and SQL

    - by pinaldave
    I around 10 Free Online Training Codes available of .NET and SQL Training from Pluralsight. I am willing to give it to someone who wants learn technology this weekend. You just have to go to my Facebook page and leave a comment explaining in one line – what course will you learn during weekend. I will send all this codes to 10 winners whom I will randomly select using Facebook. Meanwhile do you know how can you generate Zero without using any numbers in T-SQL. My friend Madhivanan has done that and I find it very interesting.Run following T-SQL code – ‘SELECT $’. He has written many other tricks how to generate zero also on his blog. On another note – I have published my answer for question about SELECT * vs SELECT COUNT(*) here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Best Practices, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQLAuthority News – Free eBook Download – Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

    - by pinaldave
    Microsoft Press has published FREE eBook on the most awaiting release of SQL Server 2008 R2. The book is written by Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner. Ross is my personal friend and one of the most active book writer in SQL Server Domain. When I see his name on any book, I am sure that it will be high quality and easy to read book. The details about the book is here: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, by Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner The book contains 10 chapters and 216 pages. PART I   Database Administration CHAPTER 1   SQL Server 2008 R2 Editions and Enhancements CHAPTER 2   Multi-Server Administration CHAPTER 3   Data-Tier Applications CHAPTER 4   High Availability and Virtualization Enhancements CHAPTER 5   Consolidation and Monitoring PART II   Business Intelligence Development CHAPTER 6   Scalable Data Warehousing CHAPTER 7   Master Data Services CHAPTER 8   Complex Event Processing with StreamInsight CHAPTER 9   Reporting Services Enhancements CHAPTER 10   Self-Service Analysis with PowerPivot More detail about the book is listed here. You can download the ebook in XPS format here and in PDF format here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Business Intelligence, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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  • 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 SERVER – Server Side Paging in SQL Server Denali – A Better Alternative SQL SERVER – Server 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

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  • SQL SERVER – Take the Quiz for a chance to win a Quadcopter Drone – Brain Teasers

    - by Pinal Dave
    It has been a long time since we ran quiz. So let us get ready for a quiz. The quiz has two parts. You have to get both the parts correct to win Quadcopter with Camera (we will call it drone). We will be giving away a total of 2 Quadcopters. The quiz is extremely easy and I will ship the Drone anywhere in the world where Amazon will ship it. Let us jump directly to the quiz. Please complete all the three questions of the contest.  Contest Part 1: Brain Teasers There are two questions for you in this part of the contest. Question: There are two 7s. How will you write select statement with a single operator that returns single 7? Hint: SELECT 7(Answer)7 Question: Write down the shortest code that produces 1 without using any numbers in the select statement? Hint: SELECT (Answer) Contest Part 2: Download and Activate Rapid SQL Question: Download and Activate Rapid SQL. Hint: You have to download and activate Rapid SQL. If you do not activate Rapid SQL, you will be disqualified for the contest. Why take risk, let us start! That’s it! Just answer above questions in the following comments area, in following format. Remember: Use comments area right below the blog to take participation in the contest Answer before June 5, 2014 midnight GMT. The winner will be announced on June 8. The winner will be selected randomly from all the valid answers. All the valid answers will be kept hidden till June 5, 2014. There will be a total of two winners. The contest is open for any country of the world where Amazon ships products. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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  • SQL SERVER – Removing Leading Zeros From Column in Table

    - by pinaldave
    Some questions surprises me and make me write code which I have never explored before. Today was similar experience as well. I have always received the question regarding how to reserve leading zeroes in SQL Server while displaying them on the SSMS or another application. I have written articles on this subject over here. SQL SERVER – Pad Ride Side of Number with 0 – Fixed Width Number Display SQL SERVER – UDF – Pad Ride Side of Number with 0 – Fixed Width Number Display SQL SERVER – Preserve Leading Zero While Coping to Excel from SSMS Today I received a very different question where the user wanted to remove leading zero and white space. I am using the same sample sent by user in this example. USE tempdb GO -- Create sample table CREATE TABLE Table1 (Col1 VARCHAR(100)) INSERT INTO Table1 (Col1) SELECT '0001' UNION ALL SELECT '000100' UNION ALL SELECT '100100' UNION ALL SELECT '000 0001' UNION ALL SELECT '00.001' UNION ALL SELECT '01.001' GO -- Original data SELECT * FROM Table1 GO -- Remove leading zeros SELECT SUBSTRING(Col1, PATINDEX('%[^0 ]%', Col1 + ' '), LEN(Col1)) FROM Table1 GO -- Clean up DROP TABLE Table1 GO Here is the resultset of above script. It will remove any leading zero or space and will display the number accordingly. This problem is a very generic problem and I am confident there are alternate solutions to this problem as well. If you have an alternate solution or can suggest a sample data which does not satisfy the SUBSTRING solution proposed, I will be glad to include them in follow up blog post with due credit. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQLAuthority News – SQL Server 2012 – Microsoft Learning Training and Certification

    - by pinaldave
    Here is the conversion I had right after I had posted my earlier blog post about Download Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RTM Now. Rajesh: So SQL Server is available for me to download? Pinal: Yes, sure check the link here. Rajesh: It is trial do you know when it will be available for everybody? Pinal: I think you mean General Availability (GA) which is on April 1st, 2012. Rajesh: I want to have head start with SQL Server 2012 examination and I want to know every single Exam 70-461: Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012 This exam is intended for SQL Server database administrators, implementers, system engineers, and developers with two or more years of experience who are seeking to prove their skills and knowledge in writing queries. Exam 70-462: Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases This exam is intended for Database Professionals who perform installation, maintenance, and configuration tasks as their primary areas of responsibility. They will often set up database systems and are responsible for making sure those systems operate efficiently. Exam 70-463: Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 The primary audience for this exam is Extract Transform Load (ETL) and Data Warehouse Developers.  They are most likely to focus on hands-on work creating business intelligence (BI) solutions including data cleansing, ETL, and Data Warehouse implementation. Exam 70-464: Developing Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases This exam is intended for database professionals who build and implement databases across an organization while ensuring high levels of data availability. They perform tasks including creating database files, creating data types and tables,  planning, creating, and optimizing indexes, implementing data integrity, implementing views, stored procedures, and functions, and managing transactions and locks. Exam 70-465: Designing Database Solutions for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 This exam is intended for database professionals who design and build database solutions in an organization.  They are responsible for the creation of plans and designs for database structure, storage, objects, and servers. Exam 70-466: Implementing Data Models and Reports with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 The primary audience for this exam is BI Developers.  They are most likely to focus on hands-on work creating the BI solution including implementing multi-dimensional data models, implementing and maintaining OLAP cubes, and creating information displays used in business decision making Exam 70-467: Designing Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 The primary audience for this exam is the BI Architect.  BI Architects are responsible for the overall design of the BI infrastructure, including how it relates to other data systems in use. Looking at Rajesh’s passion, I am motivated too! I may want to start attempting the exams in near future. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Poll – What would you love to see in SQL in Sixty Seconds?

    - by Pinal Dave
    Last week, I had my very first SQL in Sixty Seconds Video of this year. Lots of people send me email asking for me to continue this series as it was extremely fun at times to watch the video. I am going to start the series again in the month of June. However, I need your help to decide what would like to see in SQL in Sixty Seconds Videos. Here are quick poll and I requesting you to help me with the poll. Take Our Poll (function(d,c,j){if(!d.getElementById(j)){var pd=d.createElement(c),s;pd.id=j;pd.src='http://s1.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/shortcodes/js/polldaddy-shortcode.js';s=d.getElementsByTagName(c)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(pd,s);} else if(typeof jQuery !=='undefined')jQuery(d.body).trigger('pd-script-load');}(document,'script','pd-polldaddy-loader')); Contest  If you leave a comment to this blog post and if I build a SQL in Sixty Seconds Video on it. I will send you a surprise gift (worth USD 25). Earlier Videos Here are few of my previous SQL in Sixty Seconds Video. Please check them out they should give you an idea what I usually cover in Sixty Seconds. Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Video

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  • SQL SERVER – Using MAXDOP 1 for Single Processor Query – SQL in Sixty Seconds #008 – Video

    - by pinaldave
    Today’s SQL in Sixty Seconds video is inspired from my presentation at TechEd India 2012 on Speed up! – Parallel Processes and Unparalleled Performance. There are always special cases when it is about SQL Server. There are always few queries which gives optimal performance when they are executed on single processor and there are always queries which gives optimal performance when they are executed on multiple processors. I will be presenting the how to identify such queries as well what are the best practices related to the same. In this quick video I am going to demonstrate if the query is giving optimal performance when running on single CPU how one can restrict queries to single CPU by using hint OPTION (MAXDOP 1). More on Errors: Difference Temp Table and Table Variable – Effect of Transaction Effect of TRANSACTION on Local Variable – After ROLLBACK and After COMMIT Debate – Table Variables vs Temporary Tables – Quiz – Puzzle – 13 of 31 I encourage you to submit your ideas for SQL in Sixty Seconds. We will try to accommodate as many as we can. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Video

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  • SQL SERVER – A Puzzle Part 2 – Fun with SEQUENCE in SQL Server 2012 – Guess the Next Value

    - by pinaldave
    Before continuing this blog post – please read the first part of the SEQUENCE Puzzle here A Puzzle – Fun with SEQUENCE in SQL Server 2012 – Guess the Next Value. Where we played a simple guessing game about predicting next value. The answers the of puzzle is shared on the blog posts as a comment. Now here is the next puzzle based on yesterday’s puzzle. First execute the script which I have written here. The only difference between yesterday’s script is that I have removed the MINVALUE as 1 from the syntax. Now guess what will be the next value as requested in the query. USE TempDB GO -- Create sequence CREATE SEQUENCE dbo.SequenceID AS BIGINT START WITH 3 INCREMENT BY 1 MAXVALUE 5 CYCLE NO CACHE; GO -- Following will return 3 SELECT next value FOR dbo.SequenceID; -- Following will return 4 SELECT next value FOR dbo.SequenceID; -- Following will return 5 SELECT next value FOR dbo.SequenceID; -- Following will return which number SELECT next value FOR dbo.SequenceID; -- Clean up DROP SEQUENCE dbo.SequenceID; GO Above script gave me following resultset. 3 is the starting value and 5 is the maximum value. Once Sequence reaches to maximum value what happens? and WHY? I (kindly) suggest you try to attempt to answer this question without running this code in SQL Server 2012. I am very confident that irrespective of SQL Server version you are running you will have great learning. I will follow up of the answer in comments below. Recently my friend Vinod Kumar wrote excellent blog post on SQL Server 2012: Using SEQUENCE, you can head over there for learning sequence in details. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Quiz and Video – Introduction to SQL Server Security

    - by pinaldave
    This blog post is inspired from Beginning SQL Joes 2 Pros: The SQL Hands-On Guide for Beginners – SQL Exam Prep Series 70-433 – Volume 1. [Amazon] | [Flipkart] | [Kindle] | [IndiaPlaza] This is follow up blog post of my earlier blog post on the same subject - SQL SERVER – Introduction to SQL Server Security – A Primer. In the article we discussed various basics terminology of the security. The article further covers following important concepts of security. Granting Permissions Denying Permissions Revoking Permissions Above three are the most important concepts related to security and SQL Server.  There are many more things one has to learn but without beginners fundamentals one can’t learn the advanced  concepts. Let us have small quiz and check how many of you get the fundamentals right. Quiz 1) If you granted Phil control to the server, but denied his ability to create databases, what would his effective permissions be? Phil can do everything. Phil can do nothing. Phil can do everything except create databases. 2) If you granted Phil control to the server and revoked his ability to create databases, what would his effective permissions be? Phil can do everything. Phil can do nothing. Phil can do everything except create databases. 3) You have a login named James who has Control Server permission. You want to elimintate his ability to create databases without affecting any other permissions. What SQL statement would you use? ALTER LOGIN James DISABLE DROP LOGIN James DENY CREATE DATABASE To James REVOKE CREATE DATABASE To James GRANT CREATE DATABASE To James Now make sure that you write down all the answers on the piece of paper. Watch following video and read earlier article over here. If you want to change the answer you still have chance. Solution 1) 3 2) 1 3) 3 Now compare let us check the answers and compare your answers to following answers. I am very confident you will get them correct. Available at USA: Amazon India: Flipkart | IndiaPlaza Volume: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Please leave your feedback in the comment area for the quiz and video. Did you know all the answers of the quiz? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQLAuthority News – First SQL Bangalore Event Report – Nov 24, 2012 – SQL Server User Group Bangalore

    - by pinaldave
    A very common question I often receive - Do we have SQL Server User Group in Bangalore? Yes! SQL Bangalore – we had very first meeting on Nov 24, 2012 and very soon we are going to have another User Group meeting. The goal is to keep up a monthly rhythm of User Group meeting. If you are in Bangalore area please join the Facebook page and you will keep on getting regular update about SQL Server. In the very first meeting we have five 30 minute session and had a fantastic time. We had the best of the best speakers presenting all the five sessions. The event was inaugurated by Vinod Kumar M by presenting on T-SQL Pitfalls. His excellent and eye-opening session was followed by Manas Dash. He enlightened everybody with functions introduced in SQL Server 2012. We had a surprise guest from Mumbai – Raj Chaodhary. If you know him he has a very interesting way to present sessions and he presented on SQL Joins. His hard to follow act was followed by Sudeepta who presented on Contained Database. This subject is quite entertaining and interesting. My session was last in order and I was eagerly waiting to present. I had decided to do something new this time so I had created around 52 slides and two demos. I was committed to go over all the 52 slides and both of the demos in 25 minutes of the time. I had interesting story as well. Though, I was a bit nervous I was able to go over a complete slide deck and demo in 25 minutes of the time I had. We also were very fortunate to have international guest Lynn Langit from USA present at the event as well. She presented an overview of the Big Data in very little time – something not everyone can do it efficiently. We are very thankful to our sponsor Pluralsight for awarding USD 300 worth Annual Subscription. It was the most awaited moment of the day. Well, overall we had a great fun with 100+ attendees learning SQL Server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – A Puzzle Part 3 – Fun with SEQUENCE in SQL Server 2012 – Guess the Next Value

    - by pinaldave
    Before continuing this blog post – please read the two part of the SEQUENCE Puzzle here A Puzzle – Fun with SEQUENCE in SQL Server 2012 – Guess the Next Value and A Puzzle Part 2 – Fun with SEQUENCE in SQL Server 2012 – Guess the Next Value Where we played a simple guessing game about predicting next value. The answers the of puzzle is shared on the blog posts as a comment. Now here is the next puzzle based on yesterday’s puzzle. I recently shared the puzzle of the blog post on local user group and it was appreciated by attendees. First execute the script which I have written here. Today’s script is bit different than yesterday’s script as well it will require you to do some service related activities. I suggest you try this on your personal computer’s test environment when no one is working on it. Do not attempt this on production server as it will for sure get you in trouble. The purpose to learn how sequence behave during the unexpected shutdowns and services restarts. Now guess what will be the next value as requested in the query. USE AdventureWorks2012 GO -- Create sequence CREATE SEQUENCE dbo.SequenceID AS BIGINT START WITH 1 INCREMENT BY 1 MINVALUE 1 MAXVALUE 500 CYCLE CACHE 100; GO -- Following will return 1 SELECT next value FOR dbo.SequenceID; ------------------------------------- -- simulate server crash by restarting service -- do not attempt this on production or any server in use ------------------------------------ -- Following will return ??? SELECT next value FOR dbo.SequenceID; -- Clean up DROP SEQUENCE dbo.SequenceID; GO Once the server is restarted what will be the next value for SequenceID. We can learn interesting trivia’s about this new feature of SQL Server using this puzzle. Hint: Pay special attention to the difference between new number and earlier number. Can you see the same number in the definition of the CREATE SEQUENCE? Bonus Question: How to avoid the behavior demonstrated in above mentioned query. Does it have any effect of performance? I suggest you try to attempt to answer this question without running this code in SQL Server 2012. You can restart SQL Server using command prompt as well. I will follow up of the answer in comments below. Recently my friend Vinod Kumar wrote excellent blog post on SQL Server 2012: Using SEQUENCE, you can head over there for learning sequence in details. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Storing 64-bit Unsigned Integer Value in Database

    - by Pinal Dave
    Here is a very interesting question I received in an email just another day. Some questions just are so good that it makes me wonder how come I have not faced it first hand. Anyway here is the question - “Pinal, I am migrating my database from MySQL to SQL Server and I have faced unique situation. I have been using Unsigned 64-bit integer in MySQL but when I try to migrate that column to SQL Server, I am facing an issue as there is no datatype which I find appropriate for my column. It is now too late to change the datatype and I need immediate solution. One chain of thought was to change the data type of the column from Unsigned 64-bit (BIGINT) to VARCHAR(n) but that will just change the data type for me such that I will face quite a lot of performance related issues in future. In SQL Server we also have the BIGINT data type but that is Signed 64-bit datatype. BIGINT datatype in SQL Server have range of -2^63 (-9,223,372,036,854,775,808) to 2^63-1 (9,223,372,036,854,775,807). However, my digit is much larger than this number. Is there anyway, I can store my big 64-bit Unsigned Integer without loosing much of the performance of by converting it to VARCHAR.” Very interesting question, for the sake of the argument, we can ask user that there should be no need of such a big number or if you are taking about identity column I really doubt that if your table will grow beyond this table. Here the real question which I found interesting was how to store 64-bit unsigned integer value in SQL Server without converting it to String data type. After thinking a bit, I found a fairly simple answer. I can use NUMERIC data type. I can use NUMERIC(20) datatype for 64-bit unsigned integer value, NUMERIC(10) datatype for 32-bit unsigned integer value and NUMERIC(5) datatype for 16-bit unsigned integer value. Numeric datatype supports 38 maximum of 38 precision. Now here is another thing to keep in mind. Using NUMERIC datatype will indeed accept the 64-bit unsigned integer but in future if you try to enter negative value, it will also allow the same. Hence, you will need to put any additional constraint over column to only accept positive integer there. Here is another big concern, SQL Server will store the number as numeric and will treat that as a positive integer for all the practical purpose. You will have to write in your application logic to interpret that as a 64-bit Unsigned Integer. On another side if you are using unsigned integers in your application, there are good chance that you already have logic taking care of the same. 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: SQL Datatype

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  • SQL Authority News – Play by Play with Pinal Dave – A Birthday Gift

    - by Pinal Dave
    Today is my birthday. Personal Note When I was young, I was always looking forward to my birthday as on this day, I used to get gifts from everybody. Now when I am getting old on each of my birthday, I have almost same feeling but the direction is different. Now on each of my birthday, I feel like giving gifts to everybody. I have received lots of support, love and respect from everybody; and now I must return it back.Well, on this birthday, I have very unique gifts for everybody – my latest course on SQL Server. How I Tune Performance I often get questions where I am asked how do I work on a normal day. I am often asked that how do I work when I have performance tuning project is assigned to me. Lots of people have expressed their desire that they want me to explain and demonstrate my own method of solving performance problem when I am facing real world problem. It is a pretty difficult task as in the real world, nothing goes as planned and usually planned demonstrations have no place there. The real world, demands real solutions and in a timely fashion. If a consultant goes to industry and does not demonstrate his/her capabilities in very first few minutes, it does not matter how much fame he/she is, the door is shown to them eventually. It is true and in my early career, I have faced it quite commonly. I have learned the trick to be honest from the start and request absolutely transparent communication from the organization where I am to consult. Play by Play Play by Play is a very unique setup. It is not planned and it is a step by step course. It is like a reality show – a very real encounter to the problem and real problem solving approach. I had a great time doing this course. Geoffrey Grosenbach (VP of Pluralsight) sits down with me to see what a SQL Server Admin does in the real world. This Play-by-Play focuses on SQL Server performance tuning and I go over optimizing queries and fine-tuning the server. The table of content of this course is very simple. Introduction In the introduction I explained my basic strategies when I am approached by a customer for performance tuning. Basic Information Gathering In this module I explain how I do gather various information for performance tuning project. It is very crucial to demonstrate to customers for consultant his capability of solving problem. I attempt to resolve a small problem which gives a big positive impact on performance, consultant have to gather proper information from the start. I demonstrate in this module, how one can collect all the important performance tuning metrics. Removing Performance Bottleneck In this module, I build upon the previous module’s statistics collected. I analysis various performance tuning measures and immediately start implementing various tweaks on the performance, which will start improving the performance of my server. This is a very effective method and it gives immediate return of efforts. Index Optimization Indexes are considered as a silver bullet for performance tuning. However, it is not true always there are plenty of examples where indexes even performs worst after implemented. The key is to understand a few of the basic properties of the index and implement the right things at the right time. In this module, I describe in detail how to do index optimizations and what are right and wrong with Index. If you are a DBA or developer, and if your application is running slow – this is must attend module for you. I have some really interesting stories to tell as well. Optimize Query with Rewrite Every problem has more than one solution, in this module we will see another very famous, but hard to master skills for performance tuning – Query Rewrite. There are few do’s and don’ts for any query rewrites. I take a very simple example and demonstrate how query rewrite can improve the performance of the query at many folds. I also share some real world funny stories in this module. This course is hosted at Pluralsight. You will need a valid login for Pluralsight to watch  Play by Play: Pinal Dave course. You can also sign up for FREE Trial of Pluralsight to watch this course. As today is my birthday – I will give 10 people (randomly) who will express their desire to learn this course, a free code. Please leave your comment and I will send you free code to watch this course for free. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Video

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  • SQL SERVER – Installing SQL Server Data Tools and SSRS

    - by Pinal Dave
    This example is from the Beginning SSRS by Kathi Kellenberger. Supporting files are available with a free download from the www.Joes2Pros.com web site. If you have installed SQL Server, but are missing the Data Tools or Reporting Services Double-click the SQL Server 2012 installation media. Click the Installation link on the left to view the Installation options. Click the top link New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation. Follow the SQL Server Setup wizard until you get to the Installation Type screen. At that screen, select Add features to an existing instance of SQL Server 2012. Click Next to move to the Feature Selection page. Select Reporting Services – Native and SQL Server Data Tools. If the Management Tools have not been installed, go ahead and choose them as well. Continue through the wizard and reboot the computer at the end of the installation if instructed to do so. Configure Reporting Services If you installed Reporting Services during the installation of the SQL Server instance, SSRS will be configured automatically for you. If you install SSRS later, then you will have to go back and configure it as a subsequent step. Click Start > All Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2012 > Configuration Tools > Reporting Services Configuration Manager > Connect on the Reporting Services Configuration Connection dialog box. On the left-hand side of the Reporting Services Configuration Manager, click Database. Click the Change Database button on the right side of the screen. Select Create a new report server database and click Next. Click through the rest of the wizard accepting the defaults. This wizard creates two databases: ReportServer, used to store report definitions and security, and ReportServerTempDB which is used as scratch space when preparing reports for user requests. Now click Web Service URL on the left-hand side of the Reporting Services Configuration Manager. Click the Apply button to accept the defaults. If the Apply button has been grayed out, move on to the next step. This step sets up the SSRS web service. The web service is the program that runs in the background that communicates between the web page, which you will set up next, and the databases. The final configuration step is to select the Report Manager URL link on the left. Accept the default settings and click Apply. If the Apply button was already grayed out, this means the SSRS was already configured. This step sets up the Report Manager web site where you will publish reports. You may be wondering if you also must install a web server on your computer. SQL Server does not require that the Internet Information Server (IIS), the Microsoft web server, be installed to run Report Manager. Click Exit to dismiss the Reporting Services Configuration Manager dialog box. Tomorrow’s Post Tomorrow’s blog post will show how to create your first report using the Report Wizard. If you want to learn SSRS in easy to simple words – I strongly recommend you to get Beginning SSRS book from Joes 2 Pros. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Reporting Services, SSRS

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  • SQL SERVER – How to Roll Back SQL Server Database Changes

    - by Pinal Dave
    In a perfect scenario, no unexpected and unplanned changes occur. There are no unpleasant surprises, no inadvertent changes. However, even with all precautions and testing, there is sometimes a need to revert a structure or data change. One of the methods that can be used in this situation is to use an older database backup that has the records or database object structure you want to revert to. For this method, you have to have the adequate full database backup and a tool that will help you with comparison and synchronization is preferred. In this article, we will focus on another method: rolling back the changes. This can be done by using: An option in SQL Server Management Studio T-SQL, or ApexSQL Log The first two solutions have been described in this article The disadvantages of these methods are that you have to know when exactly the change you want to revert happened and that all transactions on the database executed in a specific time range are rolled back – the ones you want to undo and the ones you don’t. How to easily roll back SQL Server database changes using ApexSQL Log? The biggest challenge is to roll back just specific changes, not all changes that happened in a specific time range. While SQL Server Management Studio option and T-SQL read and roll forward all transactions in the transaction log files, I will show you a solution that finds and scripts only the specific changes that match your criteria. Therefore, you don’t need to worry about all other database changes that you don’t want to roll back. ApexSQL Log is a SQL Server disaster recovery tool that reads transaction logs and provides a wide range of filters that enable you to easily rollback only specific data changes. First, connect to the online database where you want to roll back the changes. Once you select the database, ApexSQL Log will show its recovery model. Note that changes can be rolled back even for a database in the Simple recovery model, when no database and transaction log backups are available. However, ApexSQL Log achieves best results when the database is in the Full recovery model and you have a chain of subsequent transaction log backups, back to the moment when the change occurred. In this example, we will use only the online transaction log. In the next step, use filters to read only the transactions that happened in a specific time range. To remove noise, it’s recommended to use as many filters as possible. Besides filtering by the time of the transaction, ApexSQL Log can filter by the operation type: Table name: As well as transaction state (committed, aborted, running, and unknown), name of the user who committed the change, specific field values, server process IDs, and transaction description. You can select only the tables affected by the changes you want to roll back. However, if you’re not certain which tables were affected, you can leave them all selected and once the results are shown in the main grid, analyze them to find the ones you to roll back. When you set the filters, you can select how to present the results. ApexSQL Log can automatically create undo or redo scripts, export the transactions into an XML, HTML, CSV, SQL, or SQL Bulk file, and create a batch file that you can use for unattended transaction log reading. In this example, I will open the results in the grid, as I want to analyze them before rolling back the transactions. The results contain information about the transaction, as well as who and when made it. For UPDATEs, ApexSQL Log shows both old and new values, so you can easily see what has happened. To create an UNDO script that rolls back the changes, select the transactions you want to roll back and click Create undo script in the menu. For the DELETE statement selected in the screenshot above, the undo script is: INSERT INTO [Sales].[PersonCreditCard] ([BusinessEntityID], [CreditCardID], [ModifiedDate]) VALUES (297, 8010, '20050901 00:00:00.000') When it comes to rolling back database changes, ApexSQL Log has a big advantage, as it rolls back only specific transactions, while leaving all other transactions that occurred at the same time range intact. That makes ApexSQL Log a good solution for rolling back inadvertent data and schema changes on your SQL Server databases. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: ApexSQL

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  • SQL SERVER – Columnstore Index and sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats

    - by pinaldave
    As you know I have been writing on Columnstore Index for quite a while. Recently my friend Vinod Kumar wrote about  SQL Server 2012: ColumnStore Characteristics. A fantastic read on the subject if you have yet not caught up on that subject. After the blog post I called him and asked what should I write next on this subject. He suggested that I should write on DMV script which I have prepared related to Columnstore when I was writing our SQL Server Questions and Answers book. When we were writing this book SQL Server 2012 CTP versions were available. I had written few scripts related to SQL Server columnstore Index. I like Vinod’s idea and I decided to write about DMV, which we did not cover in the book as SQL Server 2012 was not released yet. We did not want to talk about the product which was not yet released. The first script which I had written was with DMV - sys.column_store_index_stats. This DMV was displaying the statistics of the columnstore indexes. When I attempted to run it on SQL Server 2012 RTM it gave me error suggesting that this DMV does not exists. Here is the script which I ran: SELECT * FROM sys.column_store_index_stats; It generated following error: Msg 208, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Invalid object name ‘column_store_index_stats’. I was pretty confident that this DMV was available when I had written the scripts. The next reaction was to type ‘sys.’ only in SSMS and wait for intelisense to popup DMV list. I scrolled down and noticed that above said DMV did not exists there as well. Now this is not bug or missing feature. This was indeed something can happen because the version which I was practicing was early CTP version. If you go to the page of the DMV here, it clearly stats notice on the top of the page. This documentation is for preview only, and is subject to change in later releases. Now this was not alarming but my next thought was if this DMV is not there where can I find the information which this DMV was providing. Well, while I was thinking about this, I noticed that my another friend Balmukund Lakhani was online on personal messenger. Well, Balmukund is “Know All” kid. I have yet to find situation where I have not got my answers from him. I immediately pinged him and asked the question regarding where can I find information of ‘column_store_index_stats’. His answer was very abrupt but enlightening for sure. Here is our conversation: Pinal: Where can I find information of column_store_index_stats? Balmukund: Assume you have never worked with CTP before and now try to find the information which you are trying to find. Honestly  it was fantastic response from him. I was confused as I have played extensively with CTP versions of SQL Server 2012. Now his response give me big hint. I should have not looked for DMV but rather should have focused on what I wanted to do. I wanted to retrieve the statistics related to the index. In SQL Server 2008/R2, I was able to retrieve the statistics of the index from the DMV - sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats. I used the same DMV on SQL Server 2012 and it did retrieved the necessary information for me. Here is the updated script which gave me all the necessary information I was looking for. Matter of the fact, if I have used my earlier SQL Server 2008 R2 script this would have just worked fine. SELECT DB_NAME(Database_ID) DBName, SCHEMA_NAME(schema_id) AS SchemaName, OBJECT_NAME(ius.OBJECT_ID) ObjName, i.type_desc, i.name, user_seeks, user_scans, user_lookups, user_updates,* FROM sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats ius INNER JOIN sys.indexes i ON i.index_id = ius.index_id AND ius.OBJECT_ID = i.OBJECT_ID INNER JOIN sys.tables t ON t.OBJECT_ID = i.OBJECT_ID GO Let us see the resultset of above query. You will notice that column Type_desc describes the type of the index. You can additionally write WHERE condition on the column and only retrieve only selected type of Index. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – SQL in Sixty Seconds – 5 Videos from Joes 2 Pros Series – SQL Exam Prep Series 70-433

    - by pinaldave
    Joes 2 Pros SQL Server Learning series is indeed fun. Joes 2 Pros series is written for beginners and who wants to build expertise for SQL Server programming and development from fundamental. In the beginning of the series author Rick Morelan is not shy to explain the simplest concept of how to open SQL Server Management Studio. Honestly the book starts with that much basic but as it progresses further Rick discussing about various advanced concepts from query tuning to Core Architecture. This five part series is written with keeping SQL Server Exam 70-433. Instead of just focusing on what will be there in exam, this series is focusing on learning the important concepts thoroughly. This book no way take short cut to explain any concepts and at times, will go beyond the topic at length. The best part is that all the books has many companion videos explaining the concepts and videos. Every Wednesday I like to post a video which explains something in quick few seconds. Today we will go over five videos which I posted in my earlier posts related to Joes 2 Pros series. Introduction to XML Data Type Methods – SQL in Sixty Seconds #015 The XML data type was first introduced with SQL Server 2005. This data type continues with SQL Server 2008 where expanded XML features are available, most notably is the power of the XQuery language to analyze and query the values contained in your XML instance. There are five XML data type methods available in SQL Server 2008: query() – Used to extract XML fragments from an XML data type. value() – Used to extract a single value from an XML document. exist() – Used to determine if a specified node exists. Returns 1 if yes and 0 if no. modify() – Updates XML data in an XML data type. node() – Shreds XML data into multiple rows (not covered in this blog post). [Detailed Blog Post] | [Quiz with Answer] Introduction to SQL Error Actions – SQL in Sixty Seconds #014 Most people believe that when SQL Server encounters an error severity level 11 or higher the remaining SQL statements will not get executed. In addition, people also believe that if any error severity level of 11 or higher is hit inside an explicit transaction, then the whole statement will fail as a unit. While both of these beliefs are true 99% of the time, they are not true in all cases. It is these outlying cases that frequently cause unexpected results in your SQL code. To understand how to achieve consistent results you need to know the four ways SQL Error Actions can react to error severity levels 11-16: Statement Termination – The statement with the procedure fails but the code keeps on running to the next statement. Transactions are not affected. Scope Abortion – The current procedure, function or batch is aborted and the next calling scope keeps running. That is, if Stored Procedure A calls B and C, and B fails, then nothing in B runs but A continues to call C. @@Error is set but the procedure does not have a return value. Batch Termination – The entire client call is terminated. XACT_ABORT – (ON = The entire client call is terminated.) or (OFF = SQL Server will choose how to handle all errors.) [Detailed Blog Post] | [Quiz with Answer] Introduction to Basics of a Query Hint – SQL in Sixty Seconds #013 Query hints specify that the indicated hints should be used throughout the query. Query hints affect all operators in the statement and are implemented using the OPTION clause. Cautionary Note: Because the SQL Server Query Optimizer typically selects the best execution plan for a query, it is highly recommended that hints be used as a last resort for experienced developers and database administrators to achieve the desired results. [Detailed Blog Post] | [Quiz with Answer] Introduction to Hierarchical Query – SQL in Sixty Seconds #012 A CTE can be thought of as a temporary result set and are similar to a derived table in that it is not stored as an object and lasts only for the duration of the query. A CTE is generally considered to be more readable than a derived table and does not require the extra effort of declaring a Temp Table while providing the same benefits to the user. However; a CTE is more powerful than a derived table as it can also be self-referencing, or even referenced multiple times in the same query. A recursive CTE requires four elements in order to work properly: Anchor query (runs once and the results ‘seed’ the Recursive query) Recursive query (runs multiple times and is the criteria for the remaining results) UNION ALL statement to bind the Anchor and Recursive queries together. INNER JOIN statement to bind the Recursive query to the results of the CTE. [Detailed Blog Post] | [Quiz with Answer] Introduction to SQL Server Security – SQL in Sixty Seconds #011 Let’s get some basic definitions down first. Take the workplace example where “Tom” needs “Read” access to the “Financial Folder”. What are the Securable, Principal, and Permissions from that last sentence? A Securable is a resource that someone might want to access (like the Financial Folder). A Principal is anything that might want to gain access to the securable (like Tom). A Permission is the level of access a principal has to a securable (like Read). [Detailed Blog Post] | [Quiz with Answer] Please leave a comment explain which one was your favorite video as that will help me understand what works and what needs improvement. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video

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  • SQL SERVER – Concurrency Basics – Guest Post by Vinod Kumar

    - by pinaldave
    This guest post is by Vinod Kumar. Vinod Kumar has worked with SQL Server extensively since joining the industry over a decade ago. Working on various versions from SQL Server 7.0, Oracle 7.3 and other database technologies – he now works with the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) as a Technology Architect. Let us read the blog post in Vinod’s own voice. Learning is always fun when it comes to SQL Server and learning the basics again can be more fun. I did write about Transaction Logs and recovery over my blogs and the concept of simplifying the basics is a challenge. In the real world we always see checks and queues for a process – say railway reservation, banks, customer supports etc there is a process of line and queue to facilitate everyone. Shorter the queue higher is the efficiency of system (a.k.a higher is the concurrency). Every database does implement this using checks like locking, blocking mechanisms and they implement the standards in a way to facilitate higher concurrency. In this post, let us talk about the topic of Concurrency and what are the various aspects that one needs to know about concurrency inside SQL Server. Let us learn the concepts as one-liners: Concurrency can be defined as the ability of multiple processes to access or change shared data at the same time. The greater the number of concurrent user processes that can be active without interfering with each other, the greater the concurrency of the database system. Concurrency is reduced when a process that is changing data prevents other processes from reading that data or when a process that is reading data prevents other processes from changing that data. Concurrency is also affected when multiple processes are attempting to change the same data simultaneously. Two approaches to managing concurrent data access: Optimistic Concurrency Model Pessimistic Concurrency Model Concurrency Models Pessimistic Concurrency Default behavior: acquire locks to block access to data that another process is using. Assumes that enough data modification operations are in the system that any given read operation is likely affected by a data modification made by another user (assumes conflicts will occur). Avoids conflicts by acquiring a lock on data being read so no other processes can modify that data. Also acquires locks on data being modified so no other processes can access the data for either reading or modifying. Readers block writer, writers block readers and writers. Optimistic Concurrency Assumes that there are sufficiently few conflicting data modification operations in the system that any single transaction is unlikely to modify data that another transaction is modifying. Default behavior of optimistic concurrency is to use row versioning to allow data readers to see the state of the data before the modification occurs. Older versions of the data are saved so a process reading data can see the data as it was when the process started reading and not affected by any changes being made to that data. Processes modifying the data is unaffected by processes reading the data because the reader is accessing a saved version of the data rows. Readers do not block writers and writers do not block readers, but, writers can and will block writers. Transaction Processing A transaction is the basic unit of work in SQL Server. Transaction consists of SQL commands that read and update the database but the update is not considered final until a COMMIT command is issued (at least for an explicit transaction: marked with a BEGIN TRAN and the end is marked by a COMMIT TRAN or ROLLBACK TRAN). Transactions must exhibit all the ACID properties of a transaction. ACID Properties Transaction processing must guarantee the consistency and recoverability of SQL Server databases. Ensures all transactions are performed as a single unit of work regardless of hardware or system failure. A – Atomicity C – Consistency I – Isolation D- Durability Atomicity: Each transaction is treated as all or nothing – it either commits or aborts. Consistency: ensures that a transaction won’t allow the system to arrive at an incorrect logical state – the data must always be logically correct.  Consistency is honored even in the event of a system failure. Isolation: separates concurrent transactions from the updates of other incomplete transactions. SQL Server accomplishes isolation among transactions by locking data or creating row versions. Durability: After a transaction commits, the durability property ensures that the effects of the transaction persist even if a system failure occurs. If a system failure occurs while a transaction is in progress, the transaction is completely undone, leaving no partial effects on data. Transaction Dependencies In addition to supporting all four ACID properties, a transaction might exhibit few other behaviors (known as dependency problems or consistency problems). Lost Updates: Occur when two processes read the same data and both manipulate the data, changing its value and then both try to update the original data to the new value. The second process might overwrite the first update completely. Dirty Reads: Occurs when a process reads uncommitted data. If one process has changed data but not yet committed the change, another process reading the data will read it in an inconsistent state. Non-repeatable Reads: A read is non-repeatable if a process might get different values when reading the same data in two reads within the same transaction. This can happen when another process changes the data in between the reads that the first process is doing. Phantoms: Occurs when membership in a set changes. It occurs if two SELECT operations using the same predicate in the same transaction return a different number of rows. Isolation Levels SQL Server supports 5 isolation levels that control the behavior of read operations. Read Uncommitted All behaviors except for lost updates are possible. Implemented by allowing the read operations to not take any locks, and because of this, it won’t be blocked by conflicting locks acquired by other processes. The process can read data that another process has modified but not yet committed. When using the read uncommitted isolation level and scanning an entire table, SQL Server can decide to do an allocation order scan (in page-number order) instead of a logical order scan (following page pointers). If another process doing concurrent operations changes data and move rows to a new location in the table, the allocation order scan can end up reading the same row twice. Also can happen if you have read a row before it is updated and then an update moves the row to a higher page number than your scan encounters later. Performing an allocation order scan under Read Uncommitted can cause you to miss a row completely – can happen when a row on a high page number that hasn’t been read yet is updated and moved to a lower page number that has already been read. Read Committed Two varieties of read committed isolation: optimistic and pessimistic (default). Ensures that a read never reads data that another application hasn’t committed. If another transaction is updating data and has exclusive locks on data, your transaction will have to wait for the locks to be released. Your transaction must put share locks on data that are visited, which means that data might be unavailable for others to use. A share lock doesn’t prevent others from reading but prevents them from updating. Read committed (snapshot) ensures that an operation never reads uncommitted data, but not by forcing other processes to wait. SQL Server generates a version of the changed row with its previous committed values. Data being changed is still locked but other processes can see the previous versions of the data as it was before the update operation began. Repeatable Read This is a Pessimistic isolation level. Ensures that if a transaction revisits data or a query is reissued the data doesn’t change. That is, issuing the same query twice within a transaction cannot pickup any changes to data values made by another user’s transaction because no changes can be made by other transactions. However, this does allow phantom rows to appear. Preventing non-repeatable read is a desirable safeguard but cost is that all shared locks in a transaction must be held until the completion of the transaction. Snapshot Snapshot Isolation (SI) is an optimistic isolation level. Allows for processes to read older versions of committed data if the current version is locked. Difference between snapshot and read committed has to do with how old the older versions have to be. It’s possible to have two transactions executing simultaneously that give us a result that is not possible in any serial execution. Serializable This is the strongest of the pessimistic isolation level. Adds to repeatable read isolation level by ensuring that if a query is reissued rows were not added in the interim, i.e, phantoms do not appear. Preventing phantoms is another desirable safeguard, but cost of this extra safeguard is similar to that of repeatable read – all shared locks in a transaction must be held until the transaction completes. In addition serializable isolation level requires that you lock data that has been read but also data that doesn’t exist. Ex: if a SELECT returned no rows, you want it to return no. rows when the query is reissued. This is implemented in SQL Server by a special kind of lock called the key-range lock. Key-range locks require that there be an index on the column that defines the range of values. If there is no index on the column, serializable isolation requires a table lock. Gets its name from the fact that running multiple serializable transactions at the same time is equivalent of running them one at a time. Now that we understand the basics of what concurrency is, the subsequent blog posts will try to bring out the basics around locking, blocking, deadlocks because they are the fundamental blocks that make concurrency possible. Now if you are with me – let us continue learning for SQL Server Locking Basics. 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, Technology Tagged: Concurrency

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  • SQLAuthority News – Training and Consultancy and Travel – Story of 30 Last 30 Days

    - by pinaldave
    Today’s blog post is not technical as usual. Here, I present a real story, and I also invite you all to share your thoughts or opinions on this post. I am a professional SQL Server Trainer; I also do consultation in the area of the Performance Tuning and Query Optimizations. In any month, I like the mix of both in my schedule. I prefer to do training for one week, and then commit the next week for some consultation work. Due to the advancement in technology, for most of the consultation works, there is no client location visit or first time visit for understanding the project. Usually, I conduct high-end training sessions or 400 level training, and these training sessions are very intensive most of the time. Always after completing the training for 5 days straight away at 400 level, I make sure to take out some time to cool down and relax. During this time, I prefer to work on optimization projects. Consultancy is great as it keeps me updated regarding what is going on in the real world. As we all know, all those trainers who have real world experience are always considered to be the best trainers. My learning is immense during my consultations with the real client and while resolving real problems. I share the same with my students the very next week when I go for training sessions. For the same reason, every class is different from the previous ones. An experience trainer would tell you that the class is best if it is driven by Students the way instructor wants! The best scenario is as described above; but you won’t get the best scenario all the time. I was on road for nearly 25 days out of the last 30 days and involved in doing various SQL Server-related trainings. Here is what I have done in the last 30 days. I have gathered the following details from my expenditure reports, which are maintained by my wife. There are few points related to my personal expenses and few other related to business. I maintain a separate list for each of these expenses, but here I have aggregated them. Last 30 days - Training 23 days - 4 – two days training classes – 8 days of training 3 – five days training classes – 15 days of training 1 – one day training classes – 2 days of training Flights 18 flights - 8 – Kingfisher 6 – Spicejet 2 – Jet light 2 – Jet connect Stay in different cities Hyderabad – 16 days Chennai – 6 days Bangalore – 2 days Ahmedabad – 6 days (Hometown) Meals – 54 (Averaging less than 2 per day) Room Services – 16 times Training Campuses – 20 times Restaurants – 6 times Home – 12 times Taxi/Cabs – 64 times (Averaging more than 2 per day) Hotel Cab – 34 times Meru Cab – 8 times Easy Cabs – 10 times Auto Rickshaw – 2 times Looking at the above statistics, I can see that I have eaten less than what I should have, which is not good, and traveled in taxi more than what I should have. Also the temperatures in different cities were very different, not to mention the humidity as well. I missed my family, especially my little girl (9 months). When I was at home, I used to have a proper healthy meal every single day; however, when I was traveling, the food was something I had to compromise on. I have previously written about my travel experience with different airlines, my opinion is still same about them. Well, I have question to all of you road warriors, how do you manage your health and enthusiasm during situations I am going through. I have couple of time stomach upset as well sour throat. I drink lots of water and do my best to keep up. Any idea? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – SSMS 2012 Reset Keyboard Shortcuts to Default

    - by pinaldave
    As a technologist, I love my laptop very much and I do not lend it to anyone as I am usually worried that my settings would be messed up when I get it back from its borrower. Honestly, I love how I have set up my laptop and I enjoy the settings and programs I have placed on my computer. If someone changes things there – it will surely be annoying for me. Recently at one of the conferences I was attending in, a small accident happened – one of the speaker’s hard drives failed. The owner immediately panicked due to this and had no clue what to do. I suggested that he may not be able to show the demos but can still show a few things with the product. He accepted my suggestion and finished the presentation. Good thing everybody looked satisfied. Little did I know that a small accident was waiting for me later that day. When I opened my SQL Server Denali, all my shortcuts were totally out of order. When I hit F5, instead of executing query, it was opening up some debugging screen for me. I was very much annoyed so I decided to surf the Internet for me to know how I could reset it to SQL Server 2012 default shortcut. There were so many different advices which further confused me. After reading 4-5 different methods, I used the following method to reset my SQL Server 2012 keyboard shortcuts: Go to SSMS > Tools >> Import and Export Settings… As I wanted to reset all the settings I selected the “Reset all settings” option, but you can select other options as per your need. I suggest you save your current Settings; however, in my case, I did not like the current option so I just decided to overwrite my settings. Here I have two options –  I can either set my shortcut to SQL Server 2012 settings or Visual Studio 2010. I went ahead with the SQL Server 2012 option. Success! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Query Hint – Contest Win Joes 2 Pros Combo (USD 198) – Day 1 of 5

    - by pinaldave
    August 2011 we ran a contest where every day we give away one book for an entire month. The contest had extreme success. Lots of people participated and lots of give away. I have received lots of questions if we are doing something similar this month. Absolutely, instead of running a contest a month long we are doing something more interesting. We are giving away USD 198 worth gift every day for this week. We are giving away Joes 2 Pros 5 Volumes (BOOK) SQL 2008 Development Certification Training Kit every day. One copy in India and One in USA. Total 2 of the giveaway (worth USD 198). All the gifts are sponsored from the Koenig Training Solution and Joes 2 Pros. The books are available here Amazon | Flipkart | Indiaplaza How to Win: Read the Question Read the Hints Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India residents only) 2 Winners will be randomly selected announced on August 20th. Question of the Day: Which of the following queries will return dirty data? a) SELECT * FROM Table1 (READUNCOMMITED) b) SELECT * FROM Table1 (NOLOCK) c) SELECT * FROM Table1 (DIRTYREAD) d) SELECT * FROM Table1 (MYLOCK) Query Hints: BIG HINT POST Most SQL people know what a “Dirty Record” is. You might also call that an “Intermediate record”. In case this is new to you here is a very quick explanation. The simplest way to describe the steps of a transaction is to use an example of updating an existing record into a table. When the insert runs, SQL Server gets the data from storage, such as a hard drive, and loads it into memory and your CPU. The data in memory is changed and then saved to the storage device. Finally, a message is sent confirming the rows that were affected. For a very short period of time the update takes the data and puts it into memory (an intermediate state), not a permanent state. For every data change to a table there is a brief moment where the change is made in the intermediate state, but is not committed. During this time, any other DML statement needing that data waits until the lock is released. This is a safety feature so that SQL Server evaluates only official data. For every data change to a table there is a brief moment where the change is made in this intermediate state, but is not committed. During this time, any other DML statement (SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE) needing that data must wait until the lock is released. This is a safety feature put in place so that SQL Server evaluates only official data. Additional Hints: I have previously discussed various concepts from SQL Server Joes 2 Pros Volume 1. SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Dirty Records and Table Hints SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Row Constructors SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Finding un-matching Records SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Efficient Query Writing Strategy SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Finding Apostrophes in String and Text SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Wildcard – Querying Special Characters SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Wildcard Basics Recap Next Step: Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India) Bonus Winner Leave a comment with your favorite article from the “additional hints” section and you may be eligible for surprise gift. There is no country restriction for this Bonus Contest. Do mention why you liked it any particular blog post and I will announce the winner of the same along with the main contest. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQLAuthority News – Community Tech Days – TechEd on The Road – Ahmedabad – June 11, 2011

    - by pinaldave
    TechEd on Road is back! In Ahmedabad June 11, 2011! Inviting all Professional Developers, Project Managers, Architects, IT Managers, IT Administrators and Implementers of Ahmedabad to be a part of Tech•Ed on the Road, on 11th June, 2011. We have put together the best sessions from Tech•Ed India 2011 for you in your city. Focal point will be technologies like Database and BI, Windows 7, ASP.NET. REGISTER HERE! Venue: Venue: Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Marg, University Area, Ahmedabad, Gujarat 380 015 Time: 9:30AM – 5:30PM The biggest attraction of the event is session HTML5 – Future of the Web by Harish Vaidyanathan. He is Evangelist Lead in Microsoft and hands on developer himself. I strongly urge all of you to attend his session to understand direction of the web and Microsoft’s take on the subject. I (Pinal Dave) will be presenting on the session of SQL Server Performance Tuning and Jacob Sebastian will be presenting on T-SQL Worst Practices. Do not miss this opportunity. Those who have attended in the past know that from last two years the venue is jam packed in first few minutes. Do come in early to get better seat and reserve your spot. We will have QUIZ during the event and we will have various gifts – Watches, USB Drives, T-Shirts and many more interesting gifts. Refer the agenda today and register right away. There will be no video recording so come and visit the event in person. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Best Practices, Database, DBA, MVP, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Detecting guest User Permissions – guest User Access Status

    - by pinaldave
    Earlier I wrote the blog post SQL SERVER – Disable Guest Account – Serious Security Issue, and I got many comments asking questions related to the guest user. Here are the comments of Manoj: 1) How do we know if the uest user is enabled or disabled? 2) What is the default for guest user in SQL Server? Default settings for guest user When SQL Server is installed by default, the guest user is disabled for security reasons. If the guest user is not properly configured, it can create a major security issue. You can read more about this here. Identify guest user status There are multiple ways to identify guest user status: Using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) You can expand the database node >> Security >> Users. If you see the RED arrow pointing downward, it means that the guest user is disabled. Using sys.sysusers Here is a simple script. If you notice column dbaccess as 1, it means that the guest user is enabled and has access to the database. SELECT name, hasdbaccess FROM sys.sysusers WHERE name = 'guest' Using sys.database_principals and sys.server_permissions This script is valid in SQL Server 2005 and a later version. This is my default method recently. SELECT name, permission_name, state_desc FROM sys.database_principals dp INNER JOIN sys.server_permissions sp ON dp.principal_id = sp.grantee_principal_id WHERE name = 'guest' AND permission_name = 'CONNECT' Using sp_helprotect Just run the following stored procedure which will give you all the permissions associated with the user. sp_helprotect @username = 'guest' Disable Guest Account REVOKE CONNECT FROM guest Additionally, the guest account cannot be disabled in master and tempdb; it is always enabled. There is a special need for this. Let me ask a question back at you: In which scenario do you think this will be useful to keep the guest, and what will the additional configuration go along with the scenario? Note: Special mention to Imran Mohammed for being always there when users need help. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Security, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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