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• SQL SERVER – 2000 – DBCC SQLPERF(waitstats) – Wait Type – Day 24 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  I have received many comments, email, suggestions and motivations for my current series of wait types and wait statistics. One of the questions which I keep on receiving almost every other day is whether all of the discussions I have presented so far are also applicable to SQL Server 2000. Additionally, I receive another question asking me if wait statistics matters in SQL Server 2000. If it is, then the asker wants to know how to measure wait types for SQL Server 2000. In SQL Server, you can run the following command to get a list of all the wait types: DBCC SQLPERF(waitstats) The query above will work in SQL Server 2005/2008/R2  because of backup compatibility. As you might have noticed, I have been discussing everything keeping SQL Server 2005+ in mind, but I have given little consideration on SQL Server 2000. However, I am pretty sure that most of the suggestions I have provided are applicable to SQL Server 2000. The wait types I have been discussing mostly exist in SQL Server 2000 as well. But the difference of the 2000 version is that it gets late recent releases, but it is worth it. Wait types are very essential to measure performance bottleneck. Because of this, I do not have to state that I am big fan of them just so I could identify performance bottleneck. Please read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and there is no way that I claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading Book OnLine for further clarification. All the discussion of Wait Stats in this blog is generic and varies from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on a development server before implementing it to a production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Identify Most Resource Intensive Queries – SQL in Sixty Seconds #029 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  There are a few questions I often get asked. I wonder how interesting is that in our daily life all of us have to often need the same kind of information at the same time. Here is the example of the similar questions: How many user created tables are there in the database? How many non clustered indexes each of the tables in the database have? Is table Heap or has clustered index on it? How many rows each of the tables is contained in the database? I finally wrote down a very quick script (in less than sixty seconds when I originally wrote it) which can answer above questions. I also created a very quick video to explain the results and how to execute the script. Here is the complete script which I have used in the SQL in Sixty Seconds Video. SELECT [schema_name] = s.name, table_name = o.name, MAX(i1.type_desc) ClusteredIndexorHeap, COUNT(i.TYPE) NoOfNonClusteredIndex, p.rows FROM sys.indexes i INNER JOIN sys.objects o ON i.[object_id] = o.[object_id] INNER JOIN sys.schemas s ON o.[schema_id] = s.[schema_id] LEFT JOIN sys.partitions p ON p.OBJECT_ID = o.OBJECT_ID AND p.index_id IN (0,1) LEFT JOIN sys.indexes i1 ON i.OBJECT_ID = i1.OBJECT_ID AND i1.TYPE IN (0,1) WHERE o.TYPE IN ('U') AND i.TYPE = 2 GROUP BY s.name, o.name, p.rows ORDER BY schema_name, table_name Related Tips in SQL in Sixty Seconds: Find Row Count in Table – Find Largest Table in Database Find Row Count in Table – Find Largest Table in Database – T-SQL Identify Numbers of Non Clustered Index on Tables for Entire Database Index Levels, Page Count, Record Count and DMV – sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats Index Levels and Delete Operations – Page Level Observation What would you like to see in the next SQL in Sixty Seconds video? 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 Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video Tagged: Excel

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #003

  - by pinaldave

  Here is the list of curetted articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2006 This was the first year of my blogging and lots of new things I was learning as I go. I was indeed an infant in blogging a few years ago. However, as time passed by I have learned a lot. This year was year of experiments and new learning. 2007 Working as a full time DBA I often encoutered various errors and I started to learn how to avoid those error and document the same. ERROR Msg 5174 Each file size must be greater than or equal to 512 KB Whenever I see this error I wonder why someone is trying to attempt a database which is extremely small. Anyway, it does not matter what I think I keep on seeing this error often in industries. Anyway the solution of the error is equally interesting – just created larger database. Dilbert Humor This was very first encounter with database humor and I started to love it. It does not matter how many time we read this cartoon it does not get old. Generate Script with Data from Database – Database Publishing Wizard Generating schema script with data is one of the most frequently performed tasks among SQL Server Data Professionals. There are many ways to do the same. In the above article I demonstrated that how we can use the Database Publishing Wizard to accomplish the same. It was new to me at that time but I have not seen much of the adoption of the same still in the industry. Here is one of my videos where I demonstrate how we can generate data with schema. 2008 Delete Backup History – Cleanup Backup History Deleting backup history is important too but should be done carefully. If this is not carried out at regular interval there is good chance that MSDB will be filled up with all the old history. Every organization is different. Some would like to keep the history for 30 days and some for a year but there should be some limit. One should regularly archive the database backup history. South Asia MVP Open Days 2008 This was my very first year Microsoft MVP. I had Indeed big blast at the event and the fun was incredible. After this event I have attended many different MVP events but the fun and learning this particular event presented was amazing and just like me many others are not able to forget the same. Here are other links related to the event: South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 1 South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 2 South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Day 3 2009 Enable or Disable Constraint  This is very simple script but I personally keep on forgetting it so I had blogged it. Till today, I keep on referencing this again and again as sometime a very little thing is hard to remember. Policy Based Management – Create, Evaluate and Fix Policies This article will cover the most spectacular feature of SQL 2008 – Policy-based management and how the configuration of SQL Server with policy-based management architecture can make a powerful difference. Policy based management is loaded with several advantages. It can help you implement various policies for reliable configuration of the system. It also provides additional administrative assistance to DBAs and helps them effortlessly manage various tasks of SQL Server across the enterprise. SQLPASS 2009 – My Very First SQPASS Experience Just Brilliant! I never had an experience such a thing in my life. SQL SQL and SQL – all around SQL! I am listing my own reasons here in order of importance to me. Networking with SQL fellows and experts Putting face to the name or avatar Learning and improving my SQL skills Understanding the structure of the largest SQL Server Professional Association Attending my favorite training sessions Since last time I have never missed a single time this event. This event is my favorite event and something keeps me going. Here are additional post related SQLPASS 2009. SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 1 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 2 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 3 SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 4 2010 Get All the Information of Database using sys.databases Even though we believe that we know everything about our database, we do not know a lot of things about our database. This little script enables us to know so many details about databases which we may not be familiar with. Run this on your server today and see how much you know your database. Reducing CXPACKET Wait Stats for High Transactional Database While engaging in a performance tuning consultation for a client, a situation occurred where they were facing a lot of CXPACKET Waits Stats. The client asked me if I could help them reduce this huge number of wait stats. I usually receive this kind of request from other client as well, but the important thing to understand is whether this question has any merits or benefits, or not. I discusses the same in this article – a bit long but insightful for sure. Error related to Database in Use There are so many database management operations in SQL Server which requires exclusive access to the database and it is not always possible to get it. When any database is online in SQL Server it either applications or system thread often accesses them. This means database can’t have exclusive access and the operations which required this access throws an error. There is very easy method to overcome this minor issue – a single line script can give you exclusive access to the database. Difference between DATETIME and DATETIME2 Developers have found the root reason of the problem when dealing with Date Functions – when data time values are converted (implicit or explicit) between different data types, which would lose some precision, so the result cannot match each other as expected. In this blog post I go over very interesting details and difference between DATETIME and DATETIME2 History of SQL Server Database Encryption I recently met Michael Coles and Rodeney Landrum the author of one of the kind book Expert SQL Server 2008 Encryption at SQLPASS in Seattle. During the conversation we ended up how Microsoft is evolving encryption technology. The same discussion lead to talking about history of encryption tools in SQL Server. Michale pointed me to page 18 of his book of encryption. He explicitly gave me permission to re-produce relevant part of history from his book. 2011 Functions FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause and ORDER BY Some time an interesting feature and smart audience make a total difference in places. From last two days, I have been writing on SQL Server 2012 feature FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE. I created a puzzle which was very interesting and got many people attempt to resolve it. It was based on following two articles: Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE Introduction to FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause I even provided the hint about how one can solve this problem. The best part was many people solved the problem without using hints! Try your luck!  A Real Story of Book Getting ‘Out of Stock’ to A 25% Discount Story Available This is a great problem and everybody would love to have it. We had it and we loved it. Our book got out of stock in 48 hours of releasing and stocks were empty. We faced many issues and learned many valuable lessons. Some we were able to avoid in the future and some we are still facing it as those problems have no solutions. However, since that day – our books never gone out of stock. This inspiring learning story for us and I am confident that you will love to read it as well. Introduction to LEAD and LAG – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function LEAD() and LAG(). This function accesses data from a subsequent row (for lead) and previous row (for lag) in the same result set without the use of a self-join . It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I will attempt small example to explain you this function. I had a fantastic time writing this blog post and I am very confident when you read it, you will like the same. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Capturing Wait Types and Wait Stats Information at Interval – Wait Type – Day 5 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier, I have tried to cover some important points about wait stats in detail. Here are some points that we had covered earlier. DMV related to wait stats reset when we reset SQL Server services DMV related to wait stats reset when we manually reset the wait types However, at times, there is a need of making this data persistent so that we can take a look at them later on. Sometimes, performance tuning experts do some modifications to the server and try to measure the wait stats at that point of time and after some duration. I use the following method to measure the wait stats over the time. -- Create Table CREATE TABLE [MyWaitStatTable]( [wait_type] [nvarchar](60) NOT NULL, [waiting_tasks_count] [bigint] NOT NULL, [wait_time_ms] [bigint] NOT NULL, [max_wait_time_ms] [bigint] NOT NULL, [signal_wait_time_ms] [bigint] NOT NULL, [CurrentDateTime] DATETIME NOT NULL, [Flag] INT ) GO -- Populate Table at Time 1 INSERT INTO MyWaitStatTable ([wait_type],[waiting_tasks_count],[wait_time_ms],[max_wait_time_ms],[signal_wait_time_ms], [CurrentDateTime],[Flag]) SELECT [wait_type],[waiting_tasks_count],[wait_time_ms],[max_wait_time_ms],[signal_wait_time_ms], GETDATE(), 1 FROM sys.dm_os_wait_stats GO ----- Desired Delay (for one hour) WAITFOR DELAY '01:00:00' -- Populate Table at Time 2 INSERT INTO MyWaitStatTable ([wait_type],[waiting_tasks_count],[wait_time_ms],[max_wait_time_ms],[signal_wait_time_ms], [CurrentDateTime],[Flag]) SELECT [wait_type],[waiting_tasks_count],[wait_time_ms],[max_wait_time_ms],[signal_wait_time_ms], GETDATE(), 2 FROM sys.dm_os_wait_stats GO -- Check the difference between Time 1 and Time 2 SELECT T1.wait_type, T1.wait_time_ms Original_WaitTime, T2.wait_time_ms LaterWaitTime, (T2.wait_time_ms - T1.wait_time_ms) DiffenceWaitTime FROM MyWaitStatTable T1 INNER JOIN MyWaitStatTable T2 ON T1.wait_type = T2.wait_type WHERE T2.wait_time_ms > T1.wait_time_ms AND T1.Flag = 1 AND T2.Flag = 2 ORDER BY DiffenceWaitTime DESC GO -- Clean up DROP TABLE MyWaitStatTable GO If you notice the script, I have used an additional column called flag. I use it to find out when I have captured the wait stats and then use it in my SELECT query to SELECT wait stats related to that time group. Many times, I select more than 5 or 6 different set of wait stats and I find this method very convenient to find the difference between wait stats. In a future blog post, we will talk about specific wait stats. Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DMV, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL Authority News – Download SQL Server Data Type Conversion Chart

  - by pinaldave

  Datatypes are very important concepts of SQL Server and there are quite often need to convert them from one datatypes to another datatype. I have seen that deveoper often get confused when they have to convert the datatype. There are two important concept when it is about datatype conversion. Implicit Conversion: Implicit conversions are those conversions that occur without specifying either the CAST or CONVERT function. Explicit Conversions: Explicit conversions are those conversions that require the CAST or CONVERT function to be specified. What it means is that if you are trying to convert value from datetime2 to time or from tinyint to int, SQL Server will automatically convert (implicit conversation) for you. However, if you are attempting to convert timestamp to smalldatetime or datetime to int you will need to explicitely convert them using either CAST or CONVERT function as well appropriate parameters. Let us see a quick example of Implict Conversion and Explict Conversion. Implicit Conversion: Explicit Conversion: You can see from above example that how we need both of the types of conversion in different situation. There are so many different datatypes and it is humanly impossible to know which datatype require implicit and which require explicit conversion. Additionally there are cases when the conversion is not possible as well. Microsoft have published a chart where the grid displays various conversion possibilities as well a quick guide. Download SQL Server Data Type Conversion Chart 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 – Get File Statistics Using fn_virtualfilestats

  - by pinaldave

  Quite often when I am staring at my SSMS I wonder what is going on under the hood in my SQL Server. I often want to know which database is very busy and which database is bit slow because of IO issue. Sometime, I think at the file level as well. I want to know which MDF or NDF is busiest and doing most of the work. Following query gets the same results very quickly. SELECT DB_NAME(vfs.DbId) DatabaseName, mf.name, mf.physical_name, vfs.BytesRead, vfs.BytesWritten, vfs.IoStallMS, vfs.IoStallReadMS, vfs.IoStallWriteMS, vfs.NumberReads, vfs.NumberWrites, (Size*8)/1024 Size_MB FROM ::fn_virtualfilestats(NULL,NULL) vfs INNER JOIN sys.master_files mf ON mf.database_id = vfs.DbId AND mf.FILE_ID = vfs.FileId GO When you run above query you will get many valuable information like what is the size of the file as well how many times the reads and writes are done for each file. It also displays the read/write data in bytes. Due to IO if there has been any stall (delay) in read or write, you can know that as well. I keep this handy but have not shared on blog earlier. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL View, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Statistics

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• SQL SERVER – Winners – Contest Win Joes 2 Pros Combo (USD 198)

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier this week we had contest ran over the blog where we are giving away USD 198 worth books of Joes 2 Pros. We had over 500+ responses during the five days of the contest. After removing duplicate and incorrect responses we had a total of 416 valid responses combined total 5 days. We got maximum correct answer on day 2 and minimum correct answer on day 5. Well, enough of the statistics. Let us go over the winners’ names. The winners have been selected randomly by one of the book editors of Joes 2 Pros. SQL Server Joes 2 Pros Learning Kit 5 Books Day 1 Winner USA: Philip Dacosta India: Sandeep Mittal Day 2 Winner USA: Michael Evans India: Satyanarayana Raju Pakalapati Day 3 Winner USA: Ratna Pulapaka India: Sandip Pani Day 4 Winner USA: Ramlal Raghavan India: Dattatrey Sindol Day 5 Winner USA: David Hall India: Mohit Garg I congratulate all the winners for their participation. All of you will receive emails from us. You will have to reply the email with your physical address. Once you receive an email please reply within 3 days so we can ship the 5 book kits to you immediately. Bonus Winners Additionally, I had announced that every day I will select a winner from the readers who have left comments with their favorite blog post. Here are the winners with their favorite blog post. Day 1: Prasanna kumar.D [Favorite Post] Day 2: Ganesh narim [Favorite Post] Day 3: Sreelekha [Favorite Post] Day 4: P.Anish Shenoy [Favorite Post] Day 5: Rikhil [Favorite Post] All the bonus winners will receive my print book SQL Wait Stats if your shipping address is in India or Pluralsight Subscription if you are outside India. If you are not winner of the contest but still want to learn SQL Server you can get the book from here. Amazon | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Flipkart | Indiaplaza 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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• SQL SERVER – 2014 CTP1 Available for Download – SQL SERVER 2014 Community Technology Preview 1

  - by Pinal Dave

  Microsoft announced that SQL Server 2014 CTP 1 available to download at TechEd Europe. You can download SQL Server 2014 CTP1 from here. Additionally, there is in depth documentation of the product in the Product Guide over here. In this blog post I have in depth discussed what are the salient features which I was looking forward in the new version. Always On supports now 8 secondaries instead of 4 Online Indexing at partition level – this is a good thing as now index rebuilding can be done at a partition level Statistics at the partition level – this will be a huge improvement in performance In-Memory OLTP works by providing in-application memory storage for the most often used tables in SQL Server. Columnstore Index can be updated – I just can’t wait for this feature (Columnstore Index) Resource Governor can control IO along with CPU and Memory Increase performance by extending SQL Server in-memory buffer pool to SSDs Backup to Azure Storage You can read about the new features of the SQL Server 2014 in the following links: What’s New (Database Engine) What’s New in Analysis Services and Business Intelligence What’s New (Integration Services) What’s New (Replication) What’s New (Reporting Services) Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Service Pack, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: CTP

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #038

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 CASE Statement in ORDER BY Clause – ORDER BY using Variable This article is as per request from the Application Development Team Leader of my company. His team encountered code where the application was preparing string for ORDER BY clause of the SELECT statement. Application was passing this string as variable to Stored Procedure (SP) and SP was using EXEC to execute the SQL string. This is not good for performance as Stored Procedure has to recompile every time due to EXEC. sp_executesql can do the same task but still not the best performance. SSMS – View/Send Query Results to Text/Grid/Files Results to Text – CTRL + T Results to Grid – CTRL + D Results to File – CTRL + SHIFT + F 2008 Introduction to SPARSE Columns Part 2 I wrote about Introduction to SPARSE Columns Part 1. Let us understand the concept of the SPARSE column in more detail. I suggest you read the first part before continuing reading this article. All SPARSE columns are stored as one XML column in the database. Let us see some of the advantage and disadvantage of SPARSE column. Deferred Name Resolution How come when table name is incorrect SP can be created successfully but when an incorrect column is used SP cannot be created? 2009 Backup Timeline and Understanding of Database Restore Process in Full Recovery Model In general, databases backup in full recovery mode is taken in three different kinds of database files. Full Database Backup Differential Database Backup Log Backup Restore Sequence and Understanding NORECOVERY and RECOVERY While doing RESTORE Operation if you restoring database files, always use NORECOVER option as that will keep the database in a state where more backup file are restored. This will also keep database offline also to prevent any changes, which can create itegrity issues. Once all backup file is restored run RESTORE command with a RECOVERY option to get database online and operational. Four Different Ways to Find Recovery Model for Database Perhaps, the best thing about technical domain is that most of the things can be executed in more than one ways. It is always useful to know about the various methods of performing a single task. Two Methods to Retrieve List of Primary Keys and Foreign Keys of Database When Information Schema is used, we will not be able to discern between primary key and foreign key; we will have both the keys together. In the case of sys schema, we can query the data in our preferred way and can join this table to another table, which can retrieve additional data from the same. Get Last Running Query Based on SPID PID is returns sessions ID of the current user process. The acronym SPID comes from the name of its earlier version, Server Process ID. 2010 SELECT * FROM dual – Dual Equivalent Dual is a table that is created by Oracle together with data dictionary. It consists of exactly one column named “dummy”, and one record. The value of that record is X. You can check the content of the DUAL table using the following syntax. SELECT * FROM dual Identifying Statistics Used by Query Someone asked this question in my training class of query optimization and performance tuning.  “Can I know which statistics were used by my query?” 2011 SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 14 of 31 What are the basic functions for master, msdb, model, tempdb and resource databases? What is the Maximum Number of Index per Table? Explain Few of the New Features of SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Explain IntelliSense for Query Editing Explain MultiServer Query Explain Query Editor Regions Explain Object Explorer Enhancements Explain Activity Monitors SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 15 of 31 What is Service Broker? Where are SQL server Usernames and Passwords Stored in the SQL server? What is Policy Management? What is Database Mirroring? What are Sparse Columns? What does TOP Operator Do? What is CTE? What is MERGE Statement? What is Filtered Index? Which are the New Data Types Introduced in SQL SERVER 2008? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 16 of 31 What are the Advantages of Using CTE? How can we Rewrite Sub-Queries into Simple Select Statements or with Joins? What is CLR? What are Synonyms? What is LINQ? What are Isolation Levels? What is Use of EXCEPT Clause? What is XPath? What is NOLOCK? What is the Difference between Update Lock and Exclusive Lock? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 17 of 31 How will you Handle Error in SQL SERVER 2008? What is RAISEERROR? What is RAISEERROR? How to Rebuild the Master Database? What is the XML Datatype? What is Data Compression? What is Use of DBCC Commands? How to Copy the Tables, Schema and Views from one SQL Server to Another? How to Find Tables without Indexes? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 18 of 31 How to Copy Data from One Table to Another Table? What is Catalog Views? What is PIVOT and UNPIVOT? What is a Filestream? What is SQLCMD? What do you mean by TABLESAMPLE? What is ROW_NUMBER()? What are Ranking Functions? What is Change Data Capture (CDC) in SQL Server 2008? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 19 of 31 How can I Track the Changes or Identify the Latest Insert-Update-Delete from a Table? What is the CPU Pressure? How can I Get Data from a Database on Another Server? What is the Bookmark Lookup and RID Lookup? What is Difference between ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE and WITH NO_WAIT during ALTER DATABASE? What is Difference between GETDATE and SYSDATETIME in SQL Server 2008? How can I Check that whether Automatic Statistic Update is Enabled or not? How to Find Index Size for Each Index on Table? What is the Difference between Seek Predicate and Predicate? What are Basics of Policy Management? What are the Advantages of Policy Management? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 20 of 31 What are Policy Management Terms? What is the ‘FILLFACTOR’? Where in MS SQL Server is ’100’ equal to ‘0’? What are Points to Remember while Using the FILLFACTOR Argument? What is a ROLLUP Clause? What are Various Limitations of the Views? What is a Covered index? When I Delete any Data from a Table, does the SQL Server reduce the size of that table? What are Wait Types? How to Stop Log File Growing too Big? If any Stored Procedure is Encrypted, then can we see its definition in Activity Monitor? 2012 Example of Width Sensitive and Width Insensitive Collation Width Sensitive Collation: A single-byte character (half-width) represented as single-byte and the same character represented as a double-byte character (full-width) are when compared are not equal the collation is width sensitive. In this example we have one table with two columns. One column has a collation of width sensitive and the second column has a collation of width insensitive. Find Column Used in Stored Procedure – Search Stored Procedure for Column Name Very interesting conversation about how to find column used in a stored procedure. There are two different characters in the story and both are having a conversation about how to find column in the stored procedure. Here are two part story Part 1 | Part 2 SQL SERVER – 2012 Functions – FORMAT() and CONCAT() – An Interesting Usage Generate Script for Schema and Data – SQL in Sixty Seconds #021 – Video In simple words, in many cases the database move from one place to another place. It is not always possible to back up and restore databases. There are possibilities when only part of the database (with schema and data) has to be moved. In this video we learn that we can easily generate script for schema for data and move from one server to another one. INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS and Value Character Maximum Length -1 I often see the value -1 in the CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH column of INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS table. I understand that the length of any column can be between 0 to large number but I do not get it when I see value in negative (i.e. -1). Any insight on this subject? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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

  - by pinaldave

  Yesterday my friend Vinod Kumar wrote excellent blog post on SQL Server 2012: Using SEQUENCE. I personally enjoyed reading the content on this subject. While I was reading the blog post, I thought of very simple new puzzle. Let us see if we can try to solve it and learn a bit more about Sequence. Here is the script, which I executed. USE TempDB GO -- Create sequence CREATE SEQUENCE dbo.SequenceID AS BIGINT START WITH 3 INCREMENT BY 1 MINVALUE 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? Bonus question: If you use UNION between 2 SELECT statement which uses UNION, it also throws an error. What is the reason behind it? Can you 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. 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 – Installing Data Quality Services (DQS) on SQL Server 2012

  - by pinaldave

  Data Quality Services is very interesting enhancements in SQL Server 2012. My friend and SQL Server Expert Govind Kanshi have written an excellent article on this subject earlier on his blog. Yesterday I stumbled upon his blog one more time and decided to experiment myself with DQS. I have basic understanding of DQS and MDS so I knew I need to start with DQS Client. However, when I tried to find DQS Client I was not able to find it under SQL Server 2012 installation. I quickly realized that I needed to separately install the DQS client. You will find the DQS installer under SQL Server 2012 >> Data Quality Services directory. The pre-requisite of DQS is Master Data Services (MDS) and IIS. If you have not installed IIS, you can follow the simple steps and install IIS in your machine. Once the pre-requisites are installed, click on MDS installer once again and it will install DQS just fine. Be patient with the installer as it can take a bit longer time if your machine is low on configurations. Once the installation is over you will be able to expand SQL Server 2012 >> Data Quality Services directory and you will notice that it will have a new item called Data Quality Client.  Click on it and it will open the client. Well, in future blog post we will go over more details about DQS and detailed practical examples. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Data Quality Services

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• SQL SERVER – Removing Leading Zeros From Column in Table – Part 2

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier I wrote a blog post about Remvoing Leading Zeros from Column In Table. It was a great co-incident that my friend Madhivanan (no need of introduction for him) also post a similar article over on BeyondRelational.com. I strongly suggest to read his blog as well as he has suggested some cool solutions to the same problem. On original blog post asked two questions 1) if my sample for testing is correct and 2) If there is any better method to achieve the same. The response was amazing. I am proud on our SQL Community that we all keep on improving on each other’s contribution. There are some really good suggestions as a comment. Let us go over them right now. Improving the ResultSet I had missed including all zeros in my sample set which was an overlook. Here is the new sample which includes all zero values as well. 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' UNION ALL SELECT '0000' GO Now let us go over some of the fantastic solutions which we have received. Response from Rainmaker SELECT CASE PATINDEX('%[^0 ]%', Col1 + ' ‘') WHEN 0 THEN '' ELSE SUBSTRING(Col1, PATINDEX('%[^0 ]%', Col1 + ' '), LEN(Col1)) END FROM Table1 Response from Harsh Solution 1 SELECT SUBSTRING(Col1, PATINDEX('%[^0 ]%', Col1 + 'a'), LEN(Col1)) FROM Table1 Response from Harsh Solution 2 SELECT RIGHT(Col1, LEN(Col1)+1 -PATINDEX('%[^0 ]%', Col1 + 'a' )) FROM Table1 Response from lucazav SELECT T.Col1 , label = CAST( CAST(REPLACE(T.Col1, ' ', '') AS FLOAT) AS VARCHAR(10)) FROM Table1 AS T Response from iamAkashSingh SELECT REPLACE(LTRIM(REPLACE(col1,'0',' ')),' ','0') FROM table1 Here is the resultset of above scripts. It will remove any leading zero or space and will display the number accordingly. If you believe there is a better solution, please leave a comment. I am just glad to see so many various responses and all of them teach us something new. 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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• SQL SERVER – FIX: ERROR Msg 5169, Level 16: FILEGROWTH cannot be greater than MAXSIZE for file

  - by pinaldave

  I am writing this blog post right after I resolve this error for one of the system. Recently one of the my friend who is expert in infrastructure as well private cloud was working on SQL Server installation. Please note he is seriously expert in what he does but he has never worked SQL Server before and have absolutely no experience with its installation. He was modifying database file and keep on getting following error. As soon as he saw me he asked me where is the maxfile size setting so he can change. Let us quickly re-create the scenario he was facing. Error Message: Msg 5169, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 FILEGROWTH cannot be greater than MAXSIZE for file ‘NewDB’. Creating Scenario: CREATE DATABASE [NewDB] ON PRIMARY (NAME = N'NewDB', FILENAME = N'D:\NewDB.mdf' , SIZE = 4096KB, FILEGROWTH = 1024KB, MAXSIZE = 4096KB) LOG ON (NAME = N'NewDB_log', FILENAME = N'D:\NewDB_log.ldf', SIZE = 1024KB, FILEGROWTH = 10%) GO Now let us see what exact command was creating error for him. USE [master] GO ALTER DATABASE [NewDB] MODIFY FILE ( NAME = N'NewDB', FILEGROWTH = 1024MB ) GO Workaround / Fix / Solution: The reason for the error is very simple. He was trying to modify the filegrowth to much higher value than the maximum file size specified for the database. There are two way we can fix it. Method 1: Reduces the filegrowth to lower value than maxsize of file USE [master] GO ALTER DATABASE [NewDB] MODIFY FILE ( NAME = N'NewDB', FILEGROWTH = 1024KB ) GO Method 2: Increase maxsize of file so it is greater than new filegrowth USE [master] GO ALTER DATABASE [NewDB] MODIFY FILE ( NAME = N'NewDB', FILEGROWTH = 1024MB, MAXSIZE = 4096MB) GO I think this blog post will help everybody who is facing similar issues. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Error Messages, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics – SQL in Sixty Seconds #006 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  A DBA’s role is critical, because a production environment has to run 24×7, hence maintenance, trouble shooting, and quick resolutions are the need of the hour.  The first baby step into any performance tuning exercise in SQL Server involves creating, analyzing, and maintaining indexes. Though we have learnt indexing concepts from our college days, indexing implementation inside SQL Server can vary.  Understanding this behavior and designing our applications appropriately will make sure the application is performed to its highest potential. Vinod Kumar and myself we often thought about this and realized that practical understanding of the indexes is very important. One can not master every single aspects of the index. However there are some minimum expertise one should gain if performance is one of the concern. More on Indexes: SQL Index SQL Performance I encourage you to submit your ideas for SQL in Sixty Seconds. We will try to accommodate as many as we can. Here is the interview of Vinod Kumar by myself. 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 – DATEDIFF – Accuracy of Various Dateparts

  - by pinaldave

  I recently received the following question through email and I found it very interesting so I want to share it with you. “Hi Pinal, In SQL statement below the time difference between two given dates is 3 sec, but when checked in terms of Min it says 1 Min (whereas the actual min is 0.05Min) SELECT DATEDIFF(MI,'2011-10-14 02:18:58' , '2011-10-14 02:19:01') AS MIN_DIFF Is this is a BUG in SQL Server ?” Answer is NO. It is not a bug; it is a feature that works like that. Let us understand that in a bit more detail. When you instruct SQL Server to find the time difference in minutes, it just looks at the minute section only and completely ignores hour, second, millisecond, etc. So in terms of difference in minutes, it is indeed 1. The following will also clear how DATEDIFF works: SELECT DATEDIFF(YEAR,'2011-12-31 23:59:59' , '2012-01-01 00:00:00') AS YEAR_DIFF The difference between the above dates is just 1 second, but in terms of year difference it shows 1. If you want to have accuracy in seconds, you need to use a different approach. In the first example, the accurate method is to find the number of seconds first and then divide it by 60 to convert it to minutes. SELECT DATEDIFF(second,'2011-10-14 02:18:58' , '2011-10-14 02:19:01')/60.0 AS MIN_DIFF Even though the concept is very simple it is always a good idea to refresh it. Please share your related experience with me through your comments. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Determine if SSRS 2012 is Installed on your SQL Server

  - 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. Determine if SSRS 2012 is Installed on your SQL Server You may already have SSRS, or you may need to install it. Before doing any installation it makes sense to know where you are now. If you happened to install SQL Server with all features, you have the tools you need. There are two tools you need: SQL Server Data Tools and Reporting Services installed in Native Mode. To find out if SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) is installed, click the Start button, go to All Programs, and expand SQL Server 2012. Look for SQL Server Data Tools   Now, let’s check to see if SQL Server Reporting Services is installed. Click the Start > All Programs > SQL Server 2012 > Configuration Tools > SQL > Server Configuration Manager   Once Configuration Manager is running, select SQL Server Services. Look for SQL Server Reporting Services in the list of services installed. If you have both SQL Server Reporting Services service and SQL Server Developer tools installed, you will not have to install them again. You may have SQL Server installed, but are missing the Data Tools or the SSRS service or both. In tomorrow blog post we will go over how to install based on where you are now.   Tomorrow’s Post Tomorrow’s blog post will show how to install and configure SSRS. 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 – Migration Assistant Upgraded to Support SQL Server 2014

  - by Pinal Dave

  We all start somewhere when it is about database. There are different reasons, why we go for one database over another database. Usually the reason is cost and convenience. After a period of time when business is successful and traffic is growing, the same two reasons of cost and convenience start to become secondary goals. I have seen quite a lot of companies starting with free databases and after a while switching to another database as they want stability and service from the product company. Microsoft has an excellent product which lets you migrate your database from the alternate database to SQL Server. It is called SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) and earlier this week, it has been upgraded to support SQL Server 2014. Now you can migrate from your database to to all editions of SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2012 and SQL Server 2014. SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) is a free supported tool from Microsoft. Here is where you can download SSMA v5.3 for various databases. Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant v5.3 for Access Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for Access is a tool to automate migration from Microsoft Access database(s) to SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant v5.3 for Oracle Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for Oracle is a tool to automate migration from Oracle database to SQL Server. Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant v5.3 for Sybase Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for Sybase is a tool to automate migration from Sybase ASE database to SQL Server. Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant v5.3 for MySQL Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for MySQL is a tool to automate migration from MySQL database to SQL Server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: MySQL, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• SQL SERVER – Four Tutorial for SQL Server 2012 New Features

  - by pinaldave

  One of the very common question I receive on my facebook is that if there is any tutorial for SQL Server 2012 new enhanced features and solutions. I see this demand a bit increasing as the SQL Server 2012 is more and more being adopted. Here is the list of four tutorial which is specifically created for SQL Server 2012 by Microsoft. Multidimensional Modeling (Adventure Works Tutorial) This tutorial teaches you how to develop and deploy an Analysis Services project that enables the employees of Adventure Works Cycles to analyze various aspects of their business. Tabular Modeling (Adventure Works Tutorial) This tutorial teaches you how to create a SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services tabular model that enable sales and marketing teams to easily analyze internet sales data in the AdventureWorksDW2012 data warehouse. You will build the tabular model in SQL Server Data Tools. Tutorials and Demos for Power View Create Power View reports and explore Power View features. View demos, videos, and tutorials that help you get started quickly with Power View and successfully build reports with interactive filters and visualizations such as bubble charts, tiles, and cards. Tutorial: Using the hierarchyid Data Type This tutorial is intended for users who are experienced with Transact-SQL, but are new to the hierarchyid data type. In this tutorial, you convert an existing table to a hierarchical structure, and you also create a new table to store and manage hierarchical data efficiently. Note: The description of the course is taken from original course description. You will need to install SQL Server 2012 AdventureWorks for all this tutorial. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Standards Support, Protocol, Data Portability – 3 Important SQL Server Documentations for Downloads

  - by pinaldave

  I have been working with SQL Server for more than 8 years now continuously and I like to read a lot. Some time I read easy things and sometime I read stuff which are not so easy.  Here are few recently released article which I referred and read. They are not easy read but indeed very important read if you are the one who like to read things which are more advanced. SQL Server Standards Support Documentation The SQL Server standards support documentation provides detailed support information for certain standards that are implemented in Microsoft SQL Server. Microsoft SQL Server Protocol Documentation The Microsoft SQL Server protocol documentation provides technical specifications for Microsoft proprietary protocols that are implemented and used in Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Microsoft SQL Server Data Portability Documentation The SQL Server data portability documentation explains various mechanisms by which user-created data in SQL Server can be extracted for use in other software products. These mechanisms include import/export functionality, documented APIs, industry standard formats, or documented data structures/file formats. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Download SQL Server Product Documentation

  - by pinaldave

  Today I just returned from Bangalore User Group Meeting. Attending User Group meeting is indeed fun and really great experience. The best part of the User Group is meeting like minded people and have a great conversation with them. During the meeting I was asked why one has to go online to access SQL Server Product Documentation. I can clearly see there can be many reasons for why one wants the documentation to be available offline. The reasons can be anything but not limited to Company Firewall No Internet (power failure, on road or disaster) Internet Bandwidth Limitatoin Company Proxy Issues … and much more… In this kind of situation one needs documentation which is offline and easily available in local computer. The Microsoft SQL Server 2012 setup installs only the Help Viewer and related components for managing Help settings. Setup does not directly install any documentation. All of the SQL Server documentation is available online. Well, Microsoft has recently released Production Documentation available for offline users as well. You just have to download the executable file and follow all the instructions. Please follow the link below for download of the file. There is detailed instruction on how to download and install the documentation offline. Product Documentation for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Copy Column Headers from Resultset – SQL in Sixty Seconds #026 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server Management Studio returns results in Grid View, Text View and to the file. When we copy results from Grid View to Excel there is a common complaint that the column  header displayed in resultset is not copied to the Excel. I often spend time in performance tuning databases and I run many DMV’s in SSMS to get a quick view of the server. In my case it is almost certain that I need all the time column headers when I copy my data to excel or any other place. SQL Server Management Studio have two different ways to do this. Method 1: Ad-hoc When result is rendered you can right click on the resultset and click on Copy Header. This will copy the headers along with the resultset. Additionally, you can use the shortcut key CTRL+SHIFT+C for coping column headers along with the resultset. Method 2: Option Setting at SSMS level This is SSMS level settings and I kept this option always selected as I often need the column headers when I select the resultset. Go Tools >> Options >> Query Results >> SQL Server >> Results to Grid >> Check the Box “Include column header when copying or saving the results.” Both of the methods are discussed in following SQL in Sixty Seconds Video. Here is the code used in the video. Related Tips in SQL in Sixty Seconds: Copy Column Headers in Query Analyzers in Result Set Getting Columns Headers without Result Data – SET FMTONLY ON If we like your idea we promise to share with you educational material. 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 Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• SQL SERVER – A Funny Cartoon on Index

  - by pinaldave

  Performance Tuning has been my favorite subject and I have done it for many years now. Today I will list one of the most common conversation about Index I have heard in my life. Every single time, I am at consultation for performance tuning I hear following conversation among various team members. I want to ask you, does this kind of conversation happens in your organization? Any way, If you think Index solves all of your performance problem I think it is not true. There are many other reason one has to consider along with Indexes. For example I consider following various topic one need to understand for performance tuning. ?Logical Query Processing ?Efficient Join Techniques ?Query Tuning Considerations ?Avoiding Common Performance Tuning Issues Statistics and Best Practices ?TempDB Tuning ?Hardware Planning ?Understanding Query Processor ?Using SQL Server 2005 and 2008 Updated Feature Sets ?CPU, Memory, I/O Bottleneck Index Tuning (of course) ?Many more… Well, I have written this blog thinking I will keep this blog post a bit easy and not load up. I will in future discuss about other performance tuning concepts. Let me know what do you think about the cartoon I made. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Humor, SQL Index, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Solution – Generating Zero Without using Any Numbers in T-SQL

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server MVP and my friend My friend Madhivanan has asked very interesting question on his blog regarding How to Generate Zero without using Any Numbers in T-SQL. He has demonstrated various methods how one can generate Zero. When I posted note regarding how one he has generated Zero without using number in my blog post for Free Online Training, blog readers have come up with few very interesting answers. I really found them very interesting and here I am listing them with due credit. Special mention to Andery.ca as the answer Andery provided is the one, I myself come up with after very first look and that is why I had left the same as hint in the original article. anil try this select count(cast(null as int)) or any false condition select count(*) where ‘a’=’b’ Varinder Sandhu It seems every currency symbol that SQL Server supports. Return the same value as zero i tried some as select € select ¥ select £ Andrey.ca select count(*)-count(*) Vinay Kumar Another way for generate zero. select Ascii(‘Y’)-Ascii(‘Y’) OR select LEN(”) I like Madhivanan’s answer. and it was awesome. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #049

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 Two Connections Related Global Variables Explained – @@CONNECTIONS and @@MAX_CONNECTIONS @@CONNECTIONS Returns the number of attempted connections, either successful or unsuccessful since SQL Server was last started. @@MAX_CONNECTIONS Returns the maximum number of simultaneous user connections allowed on an instance of SQL Server. The number returned is not necessarily the number currently configured. Query Editor – Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio This post may be very simple for most of the users of SQL Server 2005. Earlier this year, I have received one question many times – Where is Query Analyzer in SQL Server 2005? I wrote small post about it and pointed many users to that post – SQL SERVER – 2005 Query Analyzer – Microsoft SQL SERVER Management Studio. Recently I have been receiving similar question. OUTPUT Clause Example and Explanation with INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE SQL Server 2005 has a new OUTPUT clause, which is quite useful. OUTPUT clause has access to insert and deleted tables (virtual tables) just like triggers. OUTPUT clause can be used to return values to client clause. OUTPUT clause can be used with INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE to identify the actual rows affected by these statements. OUTPUT clause can generate a table variable, a permanent table, or temporary table. Even though, @@Identity will still work with SQL Server 2005, however I find the OUTPUT clause very easy and powerful to use. Let us understand the OUTPUT clause using an example. Find Name of The SQL Server Instance Based on database server stored procedures has to run different logic. We came up with two different solutions. 1) When database schema is very much changed, we wrote completely new stored procedure and deprecated older version once it was not needed. 2) When logic depended on Server Name we used global variable @@SERVERNAME. It was very convenient while writing migrating script which depended on the server name for the same database. Explanation of TRY…CATCH and ERROR Handling With RAISEERROR Function One of the developers at my company thought that we can not use the RAISEERROR function in new feature of SQL Server 2005 TRY… CATCH. When asked for an explanation he suggested SQL SERVER – 2005 Explanation of TRY… CATCH and ERROR Handling article as excuse suggesting that I did not give example of RAISEERROR with TRY…CATCH. We all thought it was funny. Just to keep records straight, TRY… CATCH can sure use RAISEERROR function. Different Types of Cache Objects Serveral kinds of objects can be stored in the procedure cache: Compiled Plans: When the query optimizer finishes compiling a query plan, the principal output is compiled plan. Execution contexts: While executing a compiled plan, SQL Server has to keep track of information about the state of execution. Cursors: Cursors track the execution state of server-side cursors, including the cursor’s current location within a resultset. Algebrizer trees: The Algebrizer’s job is to produce an algebrizer tree, which represents the logic structure of a query. Open SSMS From Command Prompt – sqlwb.exe Example This article is written by request and suggestion of Sr. Web Developer at my organization. Due to the nature of this article most of the content is referred from Book On-Line. sqlwbcommand prompt utility which opens SQL Server Management Studio. Squib command does not run queries from the command prompt. sqlcmd utility runs queries from command prompt, read for more information. 2008 Puzzle – Solution – Computed Columns Datatype Explanation Just a day before I wrote article SQL SERVER – Puzzle – Computed Columns Datatype Explanation which was inspired by SQL Server MVP Jacob Sebastian. I suggest that before continuing this article read the original puzzle question SQL SERVER – Puzzle – Computed Columns Datatype Explanation.The question was if the computed column was of datatype TINYINT how to create a Computed Column of datatype INT? 2008 – Find If Index is Being Used in Database It is very often I get a query that how to find if any index is being used in the database or not. If any database has many indexes and not all indexes are used it can adversely affect performance. If the number of indices are higher it reduces the INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE operation but increase the SELECT operation. It is recommended to drop any unused indexes from table to improve the performance. 2009 Interesting Observation – Execution Plan and Results of Aggregate Concatenation Queries If you want to see what’s going on here, I think you need to shift your point of view from an implementation-centric view to an ANSI point of view. ANSI does not guarantee processing the order. Figure 2 is interesting, but it will be potentially misleading if you don’t understand the ANSI rule-set SQL Server operates under in most cases. Implementation thinking can certainly be useful at times when you really need that multi-million row query to finish before the backup fire off, but in this case, it’s counterproductive to understanding what is going on. SQL Server Management Studio and Client Statistics Client Statistics are very important. Many a times, people relate queries execution plan to query cost. This is not a good comparison. Both parameters are different, and they are not always related. It is possible that the query cost of any statement is less, but the amount of the data returned is considerably larger, which is causing any query to run slow. How do we know if any query is retrieving a large amount data or very little data? 2010 I encourage all of you to go through complete series and write your own on the subject. If you write an article and send it to me, I will publish it on this blog with due credit to you. If you write on your own blog, I will update this blog post pointing to your blog post. SQL SERVER – ORDER BY Does Not Work – Limitation of the View 1 SQL SERVER – Adding Column is Expensive by Joining Table Outside View – Limitation of the View 2 SQL SERVER – Index Created on View not Used Often – Limitation of the View 3 SQL SERVER – SELECT * and Adding Column Issue in View – Limitation of the View 4 SQL SERVER – COUNT(*) Not Allowed but COUNT_BIG(*) Allowed – Limitation of the View 5 SQL SERVER – UNION Not Allowed but OR Allowed in Index View – Limitation of the View 6 SQL SERVER – Cross Database Queries Not Allowed in Indexed View – Limitation of the View 7 SQL SERVER – Outer Join Not Allowed in Indexed Views – Limitation of the View 8 SQL SERVER – SELF JOIN Not Allowed in Indexed View – Limitation of the View 9 SQL SERVER – Keywords View Definition Must Not Contain for Indexed View – Limitation of the View 10 SQL SERVER – View Over the View Not Possible with Index View – Limitations of the View 11 SQL SERVER – Get Query Running in Session I was recently looking for syntax where I needed a query running in any particular session. I always remembered the syntax and ha d actually written it down before, but somehow it was not coming to mind quickly this time. I searched online and I ended up on my own article written last year SQL SERVER – Get Last Running Query Based on SPID. I felt that I am getting old because I forgot this really simple syntax. Find Total Number of Transaction on Interval In one of my recent Performance Tuning assignments I was asked how do someone know how many transactions are happening on a server during certain interval. I had a handy script for the same. Following script displays transactions happened on the server at the interval of one minute. You can change the WAITFOR DELAY to any other interval and it should work. 2011 Here are two DMV’s which are newly introduced in SQL Server 2012 and provides vital information about SQL Server. DMV – sys.dm_os_volume_stats – Information about operating system volume DMV – sys.dm_os_windows_info – Information about Operating System SQL Backup and FTP – A Quick and Handy Tool I have used this tool extensively since 2009 at numerous occasion and found it to be very impressive. What separates it from the crowd the most – it is it’s apparent simplicity and speed. When I install SQLBackupAndFTP and configure backups – all in 1 or 2 minutes, my clients are always impressed. Quick Note about JOIN – Common Questions and Simple Answers In this blog post we are going to talk about join and lots of things related to the JOIN. I recently started office hours to answer questions and issues of the community. I receive so many questions that are related to JOIN. I will share a few of the same over here. Most of them are basic, but note that the basics are of great importance. 2012 Importance of User Without Login Question: “In recent version of SQL Server we can create user without login. What is the use of it?” Great question indeed. Let me first attempt to answer this question but after reading my answer I need your help. I want you to help him as well with adding more value to it. Preserve Leading Zero While Coping to Excel from SSMS Earlier I wrote two articles about how to efficiently copy data from SSMS to Excel. Since I wrote that post there are plenty of interest generated on this subject. There are a few questions I keep on getting over this subject. One of the question is how to get the leading zero preserved while copying the data from SSMS to Excel. Well it is almost the same way as my earlier post SQL SERVER – Excel Losing Decimal Values When Value Pasted from SSMS ResultSet. The key here is in EXCEL and not in SQL Server. Solution – 2 T-SQL Puzzles – Display Star and Shortest Code to Display 1 Earlier on this blog we had asked two puzzles. The response from all of you is nothing but Amazing. I have received 350+ responses. Many are valid and many were indeed something I had not thought about it. I strongly suggest you read all the puzzles and their answers here - trust me if you start reading the comments you will not stop till you read every single comment. Seriously trust me on it. Personally I have learned a lot from it. Identify Most Resource Intensive Queries – SQL in Sixty Seconds #028 – Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvlYy-TGaaA Importance of User Without Login – T-SQL Demo Script Earlier I wrote a blog post about SQL SERVER – Importance of User Without Login and my friend and SQL Expert Vinod Kumar has written excellent follow up blog post about Contained Databases inside SQL Server 2012. Now lots of people asked me if I can also explain the same concept again so here is the small demonstration for it. Let me show you how login without user can help. Before we continue on this subject I strongly recommend that you read my earlier blog post here. In following demo I am going to demonstrate following situation. Login using the System Admin account Create a user without login Checking Access Impersonate the user without login Checking Access Revert Impersonation Give Permission to user without login Impersonate the user without login Checking Access Revert Impersonation Clean up Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – DMV to Identify Incremental Statistics – Performance improvements in SQL Server 2014 – Part 3

  - by Pinal Dave

  This is the third part of the series Incremental Statistics. Here is the index of the complete series. What is Incremental Statistics? – Performance improvements in SQL Server 2014 – Part 1 Simple Example of Incremental Statistics – Performance improvements in SQL Server 2014 – Part 2 DMV to Identify Incremental Statistics – Performance improvements in SQL Server 2014 – Part 3 In earlier two parts we have seen what is incremental statistics and its simple example. In this blog post we will be discussing about DMV, which will list all the statistics which are enabled for Incremental Updates. SELECT  OBJECT_NAME(sys.stats.OBJECT_ID) AS TableName, sys.columns.name AS ColumnName, sys.stats.name AS StatisticsName FROM   sys.stats INNER JOIN sys.stats_columns ON sys.stats.OBJECT_ID = sys.stats_columns.OBJECT_ID AND sys.stats.stats_id = sys.stats_columns.stats_id INNER JOIN sys.columns ON sys.stats.OBJECT_ID = sys.columns.OBJECT_ID AND sys.stats_columns.column_id = sys.columns.column_id WHERE   sys.stats.is_incremental = 1 If you run above script in the example displayed, in part 1 and part 2 you will get resultset as following. When you execute the above script, it will list all the statistics in your database which are enabled for Incremental Update. The script is very simple and effective. If you have any further improved script, I request you to post in the comment section and I will post that on blog with due credit. 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 Tagged: SQL Statistics, Statistics

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