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  • SQL Server Management Studio Express 2005 has no Configuration Manager

    - by brohjoe
    Where is the configuration manager for SQL Express 2005? I need to configure SQL Server for TCP/IP but there is no configuration manager with the package. I see SQL Server Database Publishing Wizard, I see SQL Server Migration Assistant for Access, but no Configuration Manager. According to the MSDN, there should be one. I've even looked online for a download of the Configuration Manager for SQL Server 2005, but could not find one. Did I miss something in the download or should I just scrap SQL Server Express and download the full-blown SQL Server for Developers?

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  • Announcing: Improvements to the Windows Azure Portal

    - by ScottGu
    Earlier today we released a number of enhancements to the new Windows Azure Management Portal.  These new capabilities include: Service Bus Management and Monitoring Support for Managing Co-administrators Import/Export support for SQL Databases Virtual Machine Experience Enhancements Improved Cloud Service Status Notifications Media Services Monitoring Support Storage Container Creation and Access Control Support All of these improvements are now live in production and available to start using immediately.  Below are more details on them: Service Bus Management and Monitoring The new Windows Azure Management Portal now supports Service Bus management and monitoring. Service Bus provides rich messaging infrastructure that can sit between applications (or between cloud and on-premise environments) and allow them to communicate in a loosely coupled way for improved scale and resiliency. With the new Service Bus experience, you can now create and manage Service Bus Namespaces, Queues, Topics, Relays and Subscriptions. You can also get rich monitoring for Service Bus Queues, Topics and Subscriptions. To create a Service Bus namespace, you can now select the “Service Bus” tab in the Windows Azure portal and then simply select the CREATE command: Doing so will bring up a new “Create a Namespace” dialog that allows you to name and create a new Service Bus Namespace: Once created, you can obtain security credentials associated with the Namespace via the ACCESS KEY command. This gives you the ability to obtain the connection string associated with the service namespace. You can copy and paste these values into any application that requires these credentials: It is also now easy to create Service Bus Queues and Topics via the NEW experience in the portal drawer.  Simply click the NEW command and navigate to the “App Services” category to create a new Service Bus entity: Once you provision a new Queue or Topic it can be managed in the portal.  Clicking on a namespace will display all queues and topics within it: Clicking on an item in the list will allow you to drill down into a dashboard view that allows you to monitor the activity and traffic within it, as well as perform operations on it. For example, below is a view of an “orders” queue – note how we now surface both the incoming and outgoing message flow rate, as well as the total queue length and queue size: To monitor pub/sub subscriptions you can use the ADD METRICS command within a topic and select a specific subscription to monitor. Support for Managing Co-Administrators You can now add co-administrators for your Windows Azure subscription using the new Windows Azure Portal. This allows you to share management of your Windows Azure services with other users. Subscription co-administrators share the same administrative rights and permissions that service administrator have - except a co-administrator cannot change or view billing details about the account, nor remove the service administrator from a subscription. In the SETTINGS section, click on the ADMINISTRATORS tab, and select the ADD button to add a co-administrator to your subscription: To add a co-administrator, you specify the email address for a Microsoft account (formerly Windows Live ID) or an organizational account, and choose the subscription you want to add them to: You can later update the subscriptions that the co-administrator has access to by clicking on the EDIT button, and then select or deselect the subscriptions to which they belong. Import/Export Support for SQL Databases The Windows Azure administration portal now supports importing and exporting SQL Databases to/from Blob Storage.  Databases can be imported/exported to blob storage using the same BACPAC file format that is supported with SQL Server 2012.  Among other benefits, this makes it easy to copy and migrate databases between on-premise and cloud environments. SQL Databases now have an EXPORT command in the bottom drawer that when pressed will prompt you to save your database to a Windows Azure storage container: The UI allows you to choose an existing storage account or create a new one, as well as the name of the BACPAC file to persist in blob storage: You can also now import and create a new SQL Database by using the NEW command.  This will prompt you to select the storage container and file to import the database from: The Windows Azure Portal enables you to monitor the progress of import and export operations. If you choose to log out of the portal, you can come back later and check on the status of all of the operations in the new history tab of the SQL Database server – this shows your entire import and export history and the status (success/fail) of each: Enhancements to the Virtual Machine Experience One of the common pain-points we have heard from customers using the preview of our new Virtual Machine support has been the inability to delete the associated VHDs when a VM instance (or VM drive) gets deleted. Prior to today’s release the VHDs would continue to be in your storage account and accumulate storage charges. You can now navigate to the Disks tab within the Virtual Machine extension, select a VM disk to delete, and click the DELETE DISK command: When you click the DELETE DISK button you have the option to delete the disk + associated .VHD file (completely clearing it from storage).  Alternatively you can delete the disk but still retain a .VHD copy of it in storage. Improved Cloud Service Status Notifications The Windows Azure portal now exposes more information of the health status of role instances.  If any of the instances are in a non-running state, the status at the top of the dashboard will summarize the status (and update automatically as the role health changes): Clicking the instance hyperlink within this status summary view will navigate you to a detailed role instance view, and allow you to get more detailed health status of each of the instances.  The portal has been updated to provide more specific status information within this detailed view – giving you better visibility into the health of your app: Monitoring Support for Media Services Windows Azure Media Services allows you to create media processing jobs (for example: encoding media files) in your Windows Azure Media Services account. In the Windows Azure Portal, you can now monitor the number of encoding jobs that are queued up for processing as well as active, failed and queued tasks for encoding jobs. On your media services account dashboard, you can visualize the monitoring data for last 6 hours, 24 hours or 7 days. Storage Container Creation and Access Control Support You can now create Windows Azure Storage storage containers from within the Windows Azure Portal.  After selecting a storage account, you can navigate to the CONTAINERS tab and click the ADD CONTAINER command: This will display a dialog that lets you name the new container and control access to it: You can also update the access setting as well as container metadata of existing containers by selecting one and then using the new EDIT CONTAINER command: This will then bring up the edit container dialog that allows you to change and save its settings: In addition to creating and editing containers, you can click on them within the portal to drill-in and view blobs within them.  Summary The above features are all now live in production and available to use immediately.  If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using them today.  Visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. We’ll have even more new features and enhancements coming later this month – including support for the recent Windows Server 2012 and .NET 4.5 releases (we will enable new web and worker role images with Windows Server 2012 and .NET 4.5, and support .NET 4.5 with Websites).  Keep an eye out on my blog for details as these new features become available. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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  • Indefinite hang when restoring SQL 2005 database on a SQL 2008 server in EC2

    - by erinloy
    I'm trying to restore a 25 GB database backup taken from a Windows 2003/SQL 2005 machine to a Windows 2008/SQL 2008 machine in the Amazon EC2 cloud, using a .bak file and the SQL Management Studio. SQL Management Studio reports the restore reaches 100% complete, and then just hangs indefinitely (24+ hours) using a lot of CPU, until I restart the SQL Server service. Upon restart, SQL again uses a lot of CPU activity for what seems to be an indefinite amount of time, but the DB never comes online. Here are some details: - I have created two EBS volumes, one for DATA and one for LOGS, and I have set the default directories in SQL Server to the \DATA and \LOG directory on these respective volumes. (I wonder if the issue could be related to this, but the DB is too big to restore on the root drive.) - I have given the SQL Server user group full access to these directories. - The server can create a new empty test DB in these directories just fine, and can backup and restore the test DB. - I have tried both restoring of a .bak file and attaching directly to copies of the original .mdf/.ldf files, and the result is the same in both cases. - Both the .bak restore and the .mdf/.ldf attach occur from/to the EBS volumes. - I've also tried the above via SQL script, and "WITH RECOVERY", with no difference in the result, just less UI. - The backup contains two full text indexes. - I have to use "WITH MOVE" for most of the files in the backup. - There's nothing wrong with the backup or .mdf/.ldf files, as this works just fine on a Windows 2003/SQL 2005 machine in the Amazon EC2, but not Windows 2008/SQL 2008. - The DB is NOT marked as "Restoring" in the SQL Management Studio - it is just listed as a normal database, but throws errors when I try to do anything with it (expand the object browser tree, view properties, etc.) Any ideas?

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  • SQL Server Denali - Serverless SQL Server

    - by simonsabin
    Who hates having to install SQL Express to get SQL Server. Anyone ever used those automatigally attached databases you can do with SQL Express. Yes! Wow you must be the only one. SQL express whilst its awesome to have a free version of SQL its a total pain to install. OK you could go with SQL Compact edition but then you lose half of your features. As part of the SQL Server Denali   feature announcements they have mentioned a new “serverless SQL Server” (Watch the video http://www.msteched.com...(read more)

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  • Database Mirroring of SQL server

    - by jbp117
    I have two databases that are mirrored to another server using database mirroring. The mirror server has to be down for some reason for few days. Now the production server is having principal databases in (PRINCIPAL/DISCONNECTED) State. Clients can access those databases. So what happens when they keep on adding data to these databases?? Will the data get committed or waits till the mirror comes up?

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  • SQL Server 2008 R2 and copy-only default value in SQL Server Management Studio

    - by user102718
    We are using Tivoli Storage Manager for taking backups of the database but sometimes our consultants need to take separate backup copies of the database using Management Studio. If they forget to mark the "copy-only" flag in Management Studio they will mess up the Tivoli's backups (we are running our databases in FULL-recovery mode). Is there a way to set the default value of the Copy-Only flag to true in the Management Studio's "Back Up Database"-window?

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  • Transformation of Client/Server application to Windows Azure

    - by Visual WebGui
    Overview The economics of IT is changing rapidly, and organizations are searching to widen and secure availability of their systems and at the same time lower costs. The cloud concept was introduced to allow an IT consumption model where there is always as much computing power as needed when needed ('on-demand') and without having to invest in connectivity, servers, database access, storage space, CPU power and other infrastructure needs, just as we consume electricity. Running your systems on Microsoft...(read more)

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  • At $20/month Windows Azure host my website with 99.97% uptime

    - by Gopinath
    Couple of years ago a reliable and decent performing Windows hosting was not affordable to many enthusiastic developers who want to try a startup idea or build a hobby site. I tried to start an ASP.NET website few years ago to provide services like – Mobile Tracing, Vehicle Tracing. But due to high cost of Windows hosting I developed those services using PHP (not an easy task for .NET developer) and hosted on them Linux servers.  But with recent evolution of Windows Azure, hosting ASP.NET websites on highly reliable servers is affordable. Today anyone can host a high responsive and available ASP.NET website for just $20/month using Windows Azure. My website coziie.com is running on Windows Azure and serves close to quarter millions visitors a month with 99.97% of uptime and most of the page load times are less than 3 seconds. All I spend to run this website is just around $20, if you translate it to India rupees its roughly Rs.1000. The web sever of coziie.com is powered by a single Extra Small Web role instance and the backend is powered by a SQL Azure instance. Azure is quite impressive to provide 99.97% of uptime. Response times during peak are around 3 seconds and on nomarl loads it is around 1.5 seconds. Here is the report of uptime provided by Royal Pingdom over last one year For just $20/month Windows Azure takes care of the following apart from hosting Patches up Windows OS to the latest version Upgrades ASP.NET to the latest version – coziie.com is running on ASP.NET MVC 3 and soon I’ll upgrade it to ASP.NET MVC 4 Hosts data on latest and best version Sql Server database SQL Azure maintains 3 copies of database and automatically recovers in case of server failures and disasters. I never worry about database backups/restore. Provides staging environment for deploying applications for testing purpose and move them to production – I upgrade  twice a month on average With Windows Azure I no longer focus on server maintenance or data backups. They are taken up by Microsoft team and I just focus on building my website. Wish there is a low cost Linux version of Windows Azure so that I can stop worrying about server maintenance of this blog!! If you are looking for a Windows hosting, look no further than Windows Azure. If you find $20/month is a bit expensive to start with you may explore Azure Website (sort of shared hosted environment) which is free to start with and as your traffic grows you can move to paid hosting.

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  • Windows Azure: Major Updates for Mobile Backend Development

    - by ScottGu
    This week we released some great updates to Windows Azure that make it significantly easier to develop mobile applications that use the cloud. These new capabilities include: Mobile Services: Custom API support Mobile Services: Git Source Control support Mobile Services: Node.js NPM Module support Mobile Services: A .NET API via NuGet Mobile Services and Web Sites: Free 20MB SQL Database Option for Mobile Services and Web Sites Mobile Notification Hubs: Android Broadcast Push Notification Support All of these improvements are now available to use immediately (note: some are still in preview).  Below are more details about them. Mobile Services: Custom APIs, Git Source Control, and NuGet Windows Azure Mobile Services provides the ability to easily stand up a mobile backend that can be used to support your Windows 8, Windows Phone, iOS, Android and HTML5 client applications.  Starting with the first preview we supported the ability to easily extend your data backend logic with server side scripting that executes as part of client-side CRUD operations against your cloud back data tables. With today’s update we are extending this support even further and introducing the ability for you to also create and expose Custom APIs from your Mobile Service backend, and easily publish them to your Mobile clients without having to associate them with a data table. This capability enables a whole set of new scenarios – including the ability to work with data sources other than SQL Databases (for example: Table Services or MongoDB), broker calls to 3rd party APIs, integrate with Windows Azure Queues or Service Bus, work with custom non-JSON payloads (e.g. Windows Periodic Notifications), route client requests to services back on-premises (e.g. with the new Windows Azure BizTalk Services), or simply implement functionality that doesn’t correspond to a database operation.  The custom APIs can be written in server-side JavaScript (using Node.js) and can use Node’s NPM packages.  We will also be adding support for custom APIs written using .NET in the future as well. Creating a Custom API Adding a custom API to an existing Mobile Service is super easy.  Using the Windows Azure Management Portal you can now simply click the new “API” tab with your Mobile Service, and then click the “Create a Custom API” button to create a new Custom API within it: Give the API whatever name you want to expose, and then choose the security permissions you’d like to apply to the HTTP methods you expose within it.  You can easily lock down the HTTP verbs to your Custom API to be available to anyone, only those who have a valid application key, only authenticated users, or administrators.  Mobile Services will then enforce these permissions without you having to write any code: When you click the ok button you’ll see the new API show up in the API list.  Selecting it will enable you to edit the default script that contains some placeholder functionality: Today’s release enables Custom APIs to be written using Node.js (we will support writing Custom APIs in .NET as well in a future release), and the Custom API programming model follows the Node.js convention for modules, which is to export functions to handle HTTP requests. The default script above exposes functionality for an HTTP POST request. To support a GET, simply change the export statement accordingly.  Below is an example of some code for reading and returning data from Windows Azure Table Storage using the Azure Node API: After saving the changes, you can now call this API from any Mobile Service client application (including Windows 8, Windows Phone, iOS, Android or HTML5 with CORS). Below is the code for how you could invoke the API asynchronously from a Windows Store application using .NET and the new InvokeApiAsync method, and data-bind the results to control within your XAML:     private async void RefreshTodoItems() {         var results = await App.MobileService.InvokeApiAsync<List<TodoItem>>("todos", HttpMethod.Get, parameters: null);         ListItems.ItemsSource = new ObservableCollection<TodoItem>(results);     }    Integrating authentication and authorization with Custom APIs is really easy with Mobile Services. Just like with data requests, custom API requests enjoy the same built-in authentication and authorization support of Mobile Services (including integration with Microsoft ID, Google, Facebook and Twitter authentication providers), and it also enables you to easily integrate your Custom API code with other Mobile Service capabilities like push notifications, logging, SQL, etc. Check out our new tutorials to learn more about to use new Custom API support, and starting adding them to your app today. Mobile Services: Git Source Control Support Today’s Mobile Services update also enables source control integration with Git.  The new source control support provides a Git repository as part your Mobile Service, and it includes all of your existing Mobile Service scripts and permissions. You can clone that git repository on your local machine, make changes to any of your scripts, and then easily deploy the mobile service to production using Git. This enables a really great developer workflow that works on any developer machine (Windows, Mac and Linux). To use the new support, navigate to the dashboard for your mobile service and select the Set up source control link: If this is your first time enabling Git within Windows Azure, you will be prompted to enter the credentials you want to use to access the repository: Once you configure this, you can switch to the configure tab of your Mobile Service and you will see a Git URL you can use to use your repository: You can use this URL to clone the repository locally from your favorite command line: > git clone https://scottgutodo.scm.azure-mobile.net/ScottGuToDo.git Below is the directory structure of the repository: As you can see, the repository contains a service folder with several subfolders. Custom API scripts and associated permissions appear under the api folder as .js and .json files respectively (the .json files persist a JSON representation of the security settings for your endpoints). Similarly, table scripts and table permissions appear as .js and .json files, but since table scripts are separate per CRUD operation, they follow the naming convention of <tablename>.<operationname>.js. Finally, scheduled job scripts appear in the scheduler folder, and the shared folder is provided as a convenient location for you to store code shared by multiple scripts and a few miscellaneous things such as the APNS feedback script. Lets modify the table script todos.js file so that we have slightly better error handling when an exception occurs when we query our Table service: todos.js tableService.queryEntities(query, function(error, todoItems){     if (error) {         console.error("Error querying table: " + error);         response.send(500);     } else {         response.send(200, todoItems);     }        }); Save these changes, and now back in the command line prompt commit the changes and push them to the Mobile Services: > git add . > git commit –m "better error handling in todos.js" > git push Once deployment of the changes is complete, they will take effect immediately, and you will also see the changes be reflected in the portal: With the new Source Control feature, we’re making it really easy for you to edit your mobile service locally and push changes in an atomic fashion without sacrificing ease of use in the Windows Azure Portal. Mobile Services: NPM Module Support The new Mobile Services source control support also allows you to add any Node.js module you need in the scripts beyond the fixed set provided by Mobile Services. For example, you can easily switch to use Mongo instead of Windows Azure table in our example above. Set up Mongo DB by either purchasing a MongoLab subscription (which provides MongoDB as a Service) via the Windows Azure Store or set it up yourself on a Virtual Machine (either Windows or Linux). Then go the service folder of your local git repository and run the following command: > npm install mongoose This will add the Mongoose module to your Mobile Service scripts.  After that you can use and reference the Mongoose module in your custom API scripts to access your Mongo database: var mongoose = require('mongoose'); var schema = mongoose.Schema({ text: String, completed: Boolean });   exports.get = function (request, response) {     mongoose.connect('<your Mongo connection string> ');     TodoItemModel = mongoose.model('todoitem', schema);     TodoItemModel.find(function (err, items) {         if (err) {             console.log('error:' + err);             return response.send(500);         }         response.send(200, items);     }); }; Don’t forget to push your changes to your mobile service once you are done > git add . > git commit –m "Switched to use Mongo Labs" > git push Now our Mobile Service app is using Mongo DB! Note, with today’s update usage of custom Node.js modules is limited to Custom API scripts only. We will enable it in all scripts (including data and custom CRON tasks) shortly. New Mobile Services NuGet package, including .NET 4.5 support A few months ago we announced a new pre-release version of the Mobile Services client SDK based on portable class libraries (PCL). Today, we are excited to announce that this new library is now a stable .NET client SDK for mobile services and is no longer a pre-release package. Today’s update includes full support for Windows Store, Windows Phone 7.x, and .NET 4.5, which allows developers to use Mobile Services from ASP.NET or WPF applications. You can install and use this package today via NuGet. Mobile Services and Web Sites: Free 20MB Database for Mobile Services and Web Sites Starting today, every customer of Windows Azure gets one Free 20MB database to use for 12 months free (for both dev/test and production) with Web Sites and Mobile Services. When creating a Mobile Service or a Web Site, simply chose the new “Create a new Free 20MB database” option to take advantage of it: You can use this free SQL Database together with the 10 free Web Sites and 10 free Mobile Services you get with your Windows Azure subscription, or from any other Windows Azure VM or Cloud Service. Notification Hubs: Android Broadcast Push Notification Support Earlier this year, we introduced a new capability in Windows Azure for sending broadcast push notifications at high scale: Notification Hubs. In the initial preview of Notification Hubs you could use this support with both iOS and Windows devices.  Today we’re excited to announce new Notification Hubs support for sending push notifications to Android devices as well. Push notifications are a vital component of mobile applications.  They are critical not only in consumer apps, where they are used to increase app engagement and usage, but also in enterprise apps where up-to-date information increases employee responsiveness to business events.  You can use Notification Hubs to send push notifications to devices from any type of app (a Mobile Service, Web Site, Cloud Service or Virtual Machine). Notification Hubs provide you with the following capabilities: Cross-platform Push Notifications Support. Notification Hubs provide a common API to send push notifications to iOS, Android, or Windows Store at once.  Your app can send notifications in platform specific formats or in a platform-independent way.  Efficient Multicast. Notification Hubs are optimized to enable push notification broadcast to thousands or millions of devices with low latency.  Your server back-end can fire one message into a Notification Hub, and millions of push notifications can automatically be delivered to your users.  Devices and apps can specify a number of per-user tags when registering with a Notification Hub. These tags do not need to be pre-provisioned or disposed, and provide a very easy way to send filtered notifications to an infinite number of users/devices with a single API call.   Extreme Scale. Notification Hubs enable you to reach millions of devices without you having to re-architect or shard your application.  The pub/sub routing mechanism allows you to broadcast notifications in a super-efficient way.  This makes it incredibly easy to route and deliver notification messages to millions of users without having to build your own routing infrastructure. Usable from any Backend App. Notification Hubs can be easily integrated into any back-end server app, whether it is a Mobile Service, a Web Site, a Cloud Service or an IAAS VM. It is easy to configure Notification Hubs to send push notifications to Android. Create a new Notification Hub within the Windows Azure Management Portal (New->App Services->Service Bus->Notification Hub): Then register for Google Cloud Messaging using https://code.google.com/apis/console and obtain your API key, then simply paste that key on the Configure tab of your Notification Hub management page under the Google Cloud Messaging Settings: Then just add code to the OnCreate method of your Android app’s MainActivity class to register the device with Notification Hubs: gcm = GoogleCloudMessaging.getInstance(this); String connectionString = "<your listen access connection string>"; hub = new NotificationHub("<your notification hub name>", connectionString, this); String regid = gcm.register(SENDER_ID); hub.register(regid, "myTag"); Now you can broadcast notification from your .NET backend (or Node, Java, or PHP) to any Windows Store, Android, or iOS device registered for “myTag” tag via a single API call (you can literally broadcast messages to millions of clients you have registered with just one API call): var hubClient = NotificationHubClient.CreateClientFromConnectionString(                   “<your connection string with full access>”,                   "<your notification hub name>"); hubClient.SendGcmNativeNotification("{ 'data' : {'msg' : 'Hello from Windows Azure!' } }", "myTag”); Notification Hubs provide an extremely scalable, cross-platform, push notification infrastructure that enables you to efficiently route push notification messages to millions of mobile users and devices.  It will make enabling your push notification logic significantly simpler and more scalable, and allow you to build even better apps with it. Learn more about Notification Hubs here on MSDN . Summary The above features are now live and available to start using immediately (note: some of the services are still in preview).  If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using them today.  Visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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  • An XEvent a Day (27 of 31) – The Future - Tracking Page Splits in SQL Server Denali CTP1

    - by Jonathan Kehayias
    Nearly two years ago Kalen Delaney blogged about Splitting a page into multiple pages , showing how page splits occur inside of SQL Server.  Following her blog post, Michael Zilberstein wrote a post, Monitoring Page Splits with Extended Events , that showed how to see the sqlserver.page_split Events using Extended Events.  Eladio Rincón also blogged about Using XEvents (Extended Events) in SQL Server 2008 to detect which queries are causing Page Splits , but not in relation to Kalen’s blog...(read more)

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  • Upload File to Windows Azure Blob in Chunks through ASP.NET MVC, JavaScript and HTML5

    - by Shaun
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/shaunxu/archive/2013/07/01/upload-file-to-windows-azure-blob-in-chunks-through-asp.net.aspxMany people are using Windows Azure Blob Storage to store their data in the cloud. Blob storage provides 99.9% availability with easy-to-use API through .NET SDK and HTTP REST. For example, we can store JavaScript files, images, documents in blob storage when we are building an ASP.NET web application on a Web Role in Windows Azure. Or we can store our VHD files in blob and mount it as a hard drive in our cloud service. If you are familiar with Windows Azure, you should know that there are two kinds of blob: page blob and block blob. The page blob is optimized for random read and write, which is very useful when you need to store VHD files. The block blob is optimized for sequential/chunk read and write, which has more common usage. Since we can upload block blob in blocks through BlockBlob.PutBlock, and them commit them as a whole blob with invoking the BlockBlob.PutBlockList, it is very powerful to upload large files, as we can upload blocks in parallel, and provide pause-resume feature. There are many documents, articles and blog posts described on how to upload a block blob. Most of them are focus on the server side, which means when you had received a big file, stream or binaries, how to upload them into blob storage in blocks through .NET SDK.  But the problem is, how can we upload these large files from client side, for example, a browser. This questioned to me when I was working with a Chinese customer to help them build a network disk production on top of azure. The end users upload their files from the web portal, and then the files will be stored in blob storage from the Web Role. My goal is to find the best way to transform the file from client (end user’s machine) to the server (Web Role) through browser. In this post I will demonstrate and describe what I had done, to upload large file in chunks with high speed, and save them as blocks into Windows Azure Blob Storage.   Traditional Upload, Works with Limitation The simplest way to implement this requirement is to create a web page with a form that contains a file input element and a submit button. 1: @using (Html.BeginForm("About", "Index", FormMethod.Post, new { enctype = "multipart/form-data" })) 2: { 3: <input type="file" name="file" /> 4: <input type="submit" value="upload" /> 5: } And then in the backend controller, we retrieve the whole content of this file and upload it in to the blob storage through .NET SDK. We can split the file in blocks and upload them in parallel and commit. The code had been well blogged in the community. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public ActionResult About(HttpPostedFileBase file) 3: { 4: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 5: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 6: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(file.FileName); 7: var blockDataList = new Dictionary<string, byte[]>(); 8: using (var stream = file.InputStream) 9: { 10: var blockSizeInKB = 1024; 11: var offset = 0; 12: var index = 0; 13: while (offset < stream.Length) 14: { 15: var readLength = Math.Min(1024 * blockSizeInKB, (int)stream.Length - offset); 16: var blockData = new byte[readLength]; 17: offset += stream.Read(blockData, 0, readLength); 18: blockDataList.Add(Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)), blockData); 19:  20: index++; 21: } 22: } 23:  24: Parallel.ForEach(blockDataList, (bi) => 25: { 26: blob.PutBlock(bi.Key, new MemoryStream(bi.Value), null); 27: }); 28: blob.PutBlockList(blockDataList.Select(b => b.Key).ToArray()); 29:  30: return RedirectToAction("About"); 31: } This works perfect if we selected an image, a music or a small video to upload. But if I selected a large file, let’s say a 6GB HD-movie, after upload for about few minutes the page will be shown as below and the upload will be terminated. In ASP.NET there is a limitation of request length and the maximized request length is defined in the web.config file. It’s a number which less than about 4GB. So if we want to upload a really big file, we cannot simply implement in this way. Also, in Windows Azure, a cloud service network load balancer will terminate the connection if exceed the timeout period. From my test the timeout looks like 2 - 3 minutes. Hence, when we need to upload a large file we cannot just use the basic HTML elements. Besides the limitation mentioned above, the simple HTML file upload cannot provide rich upload experience such as chunk upload, pause and pause-resume. So we need to find a better way to upload large file from the client to the server.   Upload in Chunks through HTML5 and JavaScript In order to break those limitation mentioned above we will try to upload the large file in chunks. This takes some benefit to us such as - No request size limitation: Since we upload in chunks, we can define the request size for each chunks regardless how big the entire file is. - No timeout problem: The size of chunks are controlled by us, which means we should be able to make sure request for each chunk upload will not exceed the timeout period of both ASP.NET and Windows Azure load balancer. It was a big challenge to upload big file in chunks until we have HTML5. There are some new features and improvements introduced in HTML5 and we will use them to implement our solution.   In HTML5, the File interface had been improved with a new method called “slice”. It can be used to read part of the file by specifying the start byte index and the end byte index. For example if the entire file was 1024 bytes, file.slice(512, 768) will read the part of this file from the 512nd byte to 768th byte, and return a new object of interface called "Blob”, which you can treat as an array of bytes. In fact,  a Blob object represents a file-like object of immutable, raw data. The File interface is based on Blob, inheriting blob functionality and expanding it to support files on the user's system. For more information about the Blob please refer here. File and Blob is very useful to implement the chunk upload. We will use File interface to represent the file the user selected from the browser and then use File.slice to read the file in chunks in the size we wanted. For example, if we wanted to upload a 10MB file with 512KB chunks, then we can read it in 512KB blobs by using File.slice in a loop.   Assuming we have a web page as below. User can select a file, an input box to specify the block size in KB and a button to start upload. 1: <div> 2: <input type="file" id="upload_files" name="files[]" /><br /> 3: Block Size: <input type="number" id="block_size" value="512" name="block_size" />KB<br /> 4: <input type="button" id="upload_button_blob" name="upload" value="upload (blob)" /> 5: </div> Then we can have the JavaScript function to upload the file in chunks when user clicked the button. 1: <script type="text/javascript"> 1: 2: $(function () { 3: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 4: }); 5: });</script> Firstly we need to ensure the client browser supports the interfaces we are going to use. Just try to invoke the File, Blob and FormData from the “window” object. If any of them is “undefined” the condition result will be “false” which means your browser doesn’t support these premium feature and it’s time for you to get your browser updated. FormData is another new feature we are going to use in the future. It could generate a temporary form for us. We will use this interface to create a form with chunk and associated metadata when invoked the service through ajax. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: if (window.File && window.Blob && window.FormData) { 4: alert("Your brwoser is awesome, let's rock!"); 5: } 6: else { 7: alert("Oh man plz update to a modern browser before try is cool stuff out."); 8: return; 9: } 10: }); Each browser supports these interfaces by their own implementation and currently the Blob, File and File.slice are supported by Chrome 21, FireFox 13, IE 10, Opera 12 and Safari 5.1 or higher. After that we worked on the files the user selected one by one since in HTML5, user can select multiple files in one file input box. 1: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 2: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 3: var file = files[i]; 4: var fileSize = file.size; 5: var fileName = file.name; 6: } Next, we calculated the start index and end index for each chunks based on the size the user specified from the browser. We put them into an array with the file name and the index, which will be used when we upload chunks into Windows Azure Blob Storage as blocks since we need to specify the target blob name and the block index. At the same time we will store the list of all indexes into another variant which will be used to commit blocks into blob in Azure Storage once all chunks had been uploaded successfully. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10:  11: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 12: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 13: var blockSizeInKB = $("#block_size").val(); 14: var blockSize = blockSizeInKB * 1024; 15: var blocks = []; 16: var offset = 0; 17: var index = 0; 18: var list = ""; 19: while (offset < fileSize) { 20: var start = offset; 21: var end = Math.min(offset + blockSize, fileSize); 22:  23: blocks.push({ 24: name: fileName, 25: index: index, 26: start: start, 27: end: end 28: }); 29: list += index + ","; 30:  31: offset = end; 32: index++; 33: } 34: } 35: }); Now we have all chunks’ information ready. The next step should be upload them one by one to the server side, and at the server side when received a chunk it will upload as a block into Blob Storage, and finally commit them with the index list through BlockBlobClient.PutBlockList. But since all these invokes are ajax calling, which means not synchronized call. So we need to introduce a new JavaScript library to help us coordinate the asynchronize operation, which named “async.js”. You can download this JavaScript library here, and you can find the document here. I will not explain this library too much in this post. We will put all procedures we want to execute as a function array, and pass into the proper function defined in async.js to let it help us to control the execution sequence, in series or in parallel. Hence we will define an array and put the function for chunk upload into this array. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4:  5: // start to upload each files in chunks 6: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 7: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 8: var file = files[i]; 9: var fileSize = file.size; 10: var fileName = file.name; 11: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 12: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 13: ... ... 14:  15: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 16: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 17: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 18: }); 19: }); 20: } 21: }); 22: }); As you can see, I used File.slice method to read each chunks based on the start and end byte index we calculated previously, and constructed a temporary HTML form with the file name, chunk index and chunk data through another new feature in HTML5 named FormData. Then post this form to the backend server through jQuery.ajax. This is the key part of our solution. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 15: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 16: // load blob based on the start and end index for each chunks 17: var blob = file.slice(block.start, block.end); 18: // put the file name, index and blob into a temporary from 19: var fd = new FormData(); 20: fd.append("name", block.name); 21: fd.append("index", block.index); 22: fd.append("file", blob); 23: // post the form to backend service (asp.net mvc controller action) 24: $.ajax({ 25: url: "/Home/UploadInFormData", 26: data: fd, 27: processData: false, 28: contentType: "multipart/form-data", 29: type: "POST", 30: success: function (result) { 31: if (!result.success) { 32: alert(result.error); 33: } 34: callback(null, block.index); 35: } 36: }); 37: }); 38: }); 39: } 40: }); Then we will invoke these functions one by one by using the async.js. And once all functions had been executed successfully I invoked another ajax call to the backend service to commit all these chunks (blocks) as the blob in Windows Azure Storage. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.series(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: }); That’s all in the client side. The outline of our logic would be - Calculate the start and end byte index for each chunks based on the block size. - Defined the functions of reading the chunk form file and upload the content to the backend service through ajax. - Execute the functions defined in previous step with “async.js”. - Commit the chunks by invoking the backend service in Windows Azure Storage finally.   Save Chunks as Blocks into Blob Storage In above we finished the client size JavaScript code. It uploaded the file in chunks to the backend service which we are going to implement in this step. We will use ASP.NET MVC as our backend service, and it will receive the chunks, upload into Windows Azure Bob Storage in blocks, then finally commit as one blob. As in the client side we uploaded chunks by invoking the ajax call to the URL "/Home/UploadInFormData", I created a new action under the Index controller and it only accepts HTTP POST request. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: } 8: catch (Exception e) 9: { 10: error = e.ToString(); 11: } 12:  13: return new JsonResult() 14: { 15: Data = new 16: { 17: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 18: error = error 19: } 20: }; 21: } Then I retrieved the file name, index and the chunk content from the Request.Form object, which was passed from our client side. And then, used the Windows Azure SDK to create a blob container (in this case we will use the container named “test”.) and create a blob reference with the blob name (same as the file name). Then uploaded the chunk as a block of this blob with the index, since in Blob Storage each block must have an index (ID) associated with so that finally we can put all blocks as one blob by specifying their block ID list. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 8: var index = int.Parse(Request.Form["index"]); 9: var file = Request.Files[0]; 10: var id = Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)); 11:  12: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 13: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 14: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 15: blob.PutBlock(id, file.InputStream, null); 16: } 17: catch (Exception e) 18: { 19: error = e.ToString(); 20: } 21:  22: return new JsonResult() 23: { 24: Data = new 25: { 26: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 27: error = error 28: } 29: }; 30: } Next, I created another action to commit the blocks into blob once all chunks had been uploaded. Similarly, I retrieved the blob name from the Request.Form. I also retrieved the chunks ID list, which is the block ID list from the Request.Form in a string format, split them as a list, then invoked the BlockBlob.PutBlockList method. After that our blob will be shown in the container and ready to be download. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult Commit() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 8: var list = Request.Form["list"]; 9: var ids = list 10: .Split(',') 11: .Where(id => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(id)) 12: .Select(id => Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(int.Parse(id)))) 13: .ToArray(); 14:  15: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 16: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 17: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 18: blob.PutBlockList(ids); 19: } 20: catch (Exception e) 21: { 22: error = e.ToString(); 23: } 24:  25: return new JsonResult() 26: { 27: Data = new 28: { 29: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 30: error = error 31: } 32: }; 33: } Now we finished all code we need. The whole process of uploading would be like this below. Below is the full client side JavaScript code. 1: <script type="text/javascript" src="~/Scripts/async.js"></script> 2: <script type="text/javascript"> 3: $(function () { 4: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 5: // assert the browser support html5 6: if (window.File && window.Blob && window.FormData) { 7: alert("Your brwoser is awesome, let's rock!"); 8: } 9: else { 10: alert("Oh man plz update to a modern browser before try is cool stuff out."); 11: return; 12: } 13:  14: // start to upload each files in chunks 15: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 16: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 17: var file = files[i]; 18: var fileSize = file.size; 19: var fileName = file.name; 20:  21: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 22: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 23: var blockSizeInKB = $("#block_size").val(); 24: var blockSize = blockSizeInKB * 1024; 25: var blocks = []; 26: var offset = 0; 27: var index = 0; 28: var list = ""; 29: while (offset < fileSize) { 30: var start = offset; 31: var end = Math.min(offset + blockSize, fileSize); 32:  33: blocks.push({ 34: name: fileName, 35: index: index, 36: start: start, 37: end: end 38: }); 39: list += index + ","; 40:  41: offset = end; 42: index++; 43: } 44:  45: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 46: var putBlocks = []; 47: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 48: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 49: // load blob based on the start and end index for each chunks 50: var blob = file.slice(block.start, block.end); 51: // put the file name, index and blob into a temporary from 52: var fd = new FormData(); 53: fd.append("name", block.name); 54: fd.append("index", block.index); 55: fd.append("file", blob); 56: // post the form to backend service (asp.net mvc controller action) 57: $.ajax({ 58: url: "/Home/UploadInFormData", 59: data: fd, 60: processData: false, 61: contentType: "multipart/form-data", 62: type: "POST", 63: success: function (result) { 64: if (!result.success) { 65: alert(result.error); 66: } 67: callback(null, block.index); 68: } 69: }); 70: }); 71: }); 72:  73: // invoke the functions one by one 74: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 75: async.series(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 76: var data = { 77: name: fileName, 78: list: list 79: }; 80: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 81: if (!result.success) { 82: alert(result.error); 83: } 84: else { 85: alert("done!"); 86: } 87: }); 88: }); 89: } 90: }); 91: }); 92: </script> And below is the full ASP.NET MVC controller code. 1: public class HomeController : Controller 2: { 3: private CloudStorageAccount _account; 4: private CloudBlobClient _client; 5:  6: public HomeController() 7: : base() 8: { 9: _account = CloudStorageAccount.Parse(CloudConfigurationManager.GetSetting("DataConnectionString")); 10: _client = _account.CreateCloudBlobClient(); 11: } 12:  13: public ActionResult Index() 14: { 15: ViewBag.Message = "Modify this template to jump-start your ASP.NET MVC application."; 16:  17: return View(); 18: } 19:  20: [HttpPost] 21: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 22: { 23: var error = string.Empty; 24: try 25: { 26: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 27: var index = int.Parse(Request.Form["index"]); 28: var file = Request.Files[0]; 29: var id = Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)); 30:  31: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 32: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 33: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 34: blob.PutBlock(id, file.InputStream, null); 35: } 36: catch (Exception e) 37: { 38: error = e.ToString(); 39: } 40:  41: return new JsonResult() 42: { 43: Data = new 44: { 45: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 46: error = error 47: } 48: }; 49: } 50:  51: [HttpPost] 52: public JsonResult Commit() 53: { 54: var error = string.Empty; 55: try 56: { 57: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 58: var list = Request.Form["list"]; 59: var ids = list 60: .Split(',') 61: .Where(id => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(id)) 62: .Select(id => Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(int.Parse(id)))) 63: .ToArray(); 64:  65: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 66: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 67: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 68: blob.PutBlockList(ids); 69: } 70: catch (Exception e) 71: { 72: error = e.ToString(); 73: } 74:  75: return new JsonResult() 76: { 77: Data = new 78: { 79: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 80: error = error 81: } 82: }; 83: } 84: } And if we selected a file from the browser we will see our application will upload chunks in the size we specified to the server through ajax call in background, and then commit all chunks in one blob. Then we can find the blob in our Windows Azure Blob Storage.   Optimized by Parallel Upload In previous example we just uploaded our file in chunks. This solved the problem that ASP.NET MVC request content size limitation as well as the Windows Azure load balancer timeout. But it might introduce the performance problem since we uploaded chunks in sequence. In order to improve the upload performance we could modify our client side code a bit to make the upload operation invoked in parallel. The good news is that, “async.js” library provides the parallel execution function. If you remembered the code we invoke the service to upload chunks, it utilized “async.series” which means all functions will be executed in sequence. Now we will change this code to “async.parallel”. This will invoke all functions in parallel. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.parallel(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: }); In this way all chunks will be uploaded to the server side at the same time to maximize the bandwidth usage. This should work if the file was not very large and the chunk size was not very small. But for large file this might introduce another problem that too many ajax calls are sent to the server at the same time. So the best solution should be, upload the chunks in parallel with maximum concurrency limitation. The code below specified the concurrency limitation to 4, which means at the most only 4 ajax calls could be invoked at the same time. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.parallelLimit(putBlocks, 4, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: });   Summary In this post we discussed how to upload files in chunks to the backend service and then upload them into Windows Azure Blob Storage in blocks. We focused on the frontend side and leverage three new feature introduced in HTML 5 which are - File.slice: Read part of the file by specifying the start and end byte index. - Blob: File-like interface which contains the part of the file content. - FormData: Temporary form element that we can pass the chunk alone with some metadata to the backend service. Then we discussed the performance consideration of chunk uploading. Sequence upload cannot provide maximized upload speed, but the unlimited parallel upload might crash the browser and server if too many chunks. So we finally came up with the solution to upload chunks in parallel with the concurrency limitation. We also demonstrated how to utilize “async.js” JavaScript library to help us control the asynchronize call and the parallel limitation.   Regarding the chunk size and the parallel limitation value there is no “best” value. You need to test vary composition and find out the best one for your particular scenario. It depends on the local bandwidth, client machine cores and the server side (Windows Azure Cloud Service Virtual Machine) cores, memory and bandwidth. Below is one of my performance test result. The client machine was Windows 8 IE 10 with 4 cores. I was using Microsoft Cooperation Network. The web site was hosted on Windows Azure China North data center (in Beijing) with one small web role (1.7GB 1 core CPU, 1.75GB memory with 100Mbps bandwidth). The test cases were - Chunk size: 512KB, 1MB, 2MB, 4MB. - Upload Mode: Sequence, parallel (unlimited), parallel with limit (4 threads, 8 threads). - Chunk Format: base64 string, binaries. - Target file: 100MB. - Each case was tested 3 times. Below is the test result chart. Some thoughts, but not guidance or best practice: - Parallel gets better performance than series. - No significant performance improvement between parallel 4 threads and 8 threads. - Transform with binaries provides better performance than base64. - In all cases, chunk size in 1MB - 2MB gets better performance.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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  • New version of SQL Server Data Tools is now available

    - by jamiet
    If you don’t follow the SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) blog then you may not know that two days ago an updated version of SSDT was released (and by SSDT I mean the database projects, not the SSIS/SSRS/SSAS stuff) along with a new version of the SSDT Power Tools. This release incorporates a an updated version of the SQL Server Data Tier Application Framework (aka DAC Framework, aka DacFX) which you can read about on Adam Mahood’s blog post SQL Server Data-Tier Application Framework (September 2012) Available. DacFX is essentially all the gubbins that you need to extract and publish .dacpacs and according to Adam’s post it incorporates a new feature that I think is very interesting indeed: Extract DACPAC with data – Creates a database snapshot file (.dacpac) from a live SQL Server or Windows Azure SQL Database that contains data from user tables in addition to the database schema. These packages can be published to a new or existing SQL Server or Windows Azure SQL Database using the SqlPackage.exe Publish action. Data contained in package replaces the existing data in the target database. In short, .dacpacs can now include data as well as schema. I’m very excited about this because one of my long-standing complaints about SSDT (and its many forebears) is that whilst it has great support for declarative development of schema it does not provide anything similar for data – if you want to deploy data from your SSDT projects then you have to write Post-Deployment MERGE scripts. This new feature for .dacpacs does not change that situation yet however it is a very important pre-requisite so I am hoping that a feature to provide declaration of data (in addition to declaration of schema which we have today) is going to light up in SSDT in the not too distant future. Read more about the latest SSDT, Power Tools & DacFX releases at: Now available: SQL Server Data Tools - September 2012 update! by Janet Yeilding New SSDT Power Tools! Now for both Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 2012 by Sarah McDevitt SQL Server Data-Tier Application Framework (September 2012) Available by Adam Mahood @Jamiet

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  • "Oracle", "Sybase", "SQL Server" vs just "SQL/JDBC" in the CV

    - by bobah
    How would you define a testable measure of the expertise that, if you're honest with yourself, lets you write in your CV words "Oracle", "Sybase", or "SQL Server" and not just "Relational Databases, SQL, JDBC" in your software developer's CV? What every XXX-developer (XXX - a vendor name) should know? The question is similar to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2119859/questions-every-good-database-sql-developer-should-be-able-to-answer but is vendor-specific. Below is a start of the list as an example, demonstrate what kind of answers I am hoping to get. If you are expert in X then you know that Y (X - Y below): Sybase/SQL Server - they are very similar, Sybase is much more expensive Sybase/SQL Server - for Java you can use either native Sybase/JSQLDB driver or jTDS that is using TDS protocol and can connect to SQL Server as well, TDS traffic can be dumped and analyzed with hexdump command Sybase/SQL Server - for C++ you can use FreeTDS to connect to any, for Perl - same Sybase/SQL Server - a query can return multiple result sets and return codes, all need to be processes otherwise errors can happen Sybase/SQL Server - sp_help, sp_helptext Sybase/SQL Server - your tables/views/procedures are under DBName/dbo/... Sybase - for C++ on Linux you can use Sybase client API to connect (at least until recently) SQL Server - JDBC driver has a configurable transparent failover capability Oracle - for C++ Linux one can use OTLv4 that is a very powerful yet lightweight wrapper around Oracle client API Oracle compilation (contributors: ammoQ) PLSQL Java Stored Procedures '' is null Hierarchical Query Analytic Functions Oracle Text

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  • Replication: SQL Server 2008 Publisher with SQL Server Express 2005 Subscriber

    - by Jeremy
    Here is the setup: SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Server with a Merge Publication. SQL Server 2005 Express with pull subscription. There is no web or ftp setup. This is direct merge replication. Using the RMO objects from C#, I get a "class cannot be found." COM Error when accessing the MergePullSubscription.SynchronizationAgent property. I've tried with both the 2008 RMO dll's (version 10 dll's) and the 2005 RMO dll's (version 9 dll's). When trying to use replmerge.exe, I get the following: 2010-04-10 04:12:05.263 Microsoft SQL Server Merge Agent 9.00.1399.06 2010-04-10 04:12:05.294 Copyright (c) 2000 Microsoft Corporation 2010-04-10 04:12:05.294 2010-04-10 04:12:05.294 The timestamps prepended to the output lines are express ed in terms of UTC time. 2010-04-10 04:12:05.294 User-specified agent parameter values: -Publisher SUN -PublisherDB PRIMROSE -PublisherSecurityMode 1 -Publication PRIMROSE -Distributor SUN -DistributorSecurityMode 1 -Subscriber PVILLE\SQLEXPRESS -SubscriberSecurityMode 1 -SubscriberDB PRIMROSE -SubscriptionType 1 -DistributorLogin sa -DistributorPassword ********** -DistributorSecurityMode 0 -PublisherLogin sa -PublisherPassword ********** -PublisherSecurityMode 0 -SubscriberLogin sa -SubscriberPassword ********** -SubscriberSecurityMode 0 2010-04-10 04:12:05.325 Connecting to Subscriber 'PVILLE\SQLEXPRESS' 2010-04-10 04:12:05.481 Connecting to Distributor 'SUN' 2010-04-10 04:12:05.513 The version of SQL Server running at the Distributor(10. 0.2531.??????????????????) is not compatible with the version of SQL Server runn ing at the Subscriber(9.00.1399.???????L?L?LHL?L?L?L?,?). 2010-04-10 04:12:05.513 Category:NULL Source: Merge Process Number: -2147200979 Message: The version of SQL Server running at the Distributor(10.0.2531.???????? ??????????) is not compatible with the version of SQL Server running at the Subs criber(9.00.1399.???????L?L?LHL?L?L?L?,?). Any ideas?

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  • Controlling azure worker roles concurrency in multiple instance

    - by NER1808
    I have a simple work role in azure that does some data processing on an SQL azure database. The worker basically adds data from a 3rd party datasource to my database every 2 minutes. When I have two instances of the role, this obviously doubles up unnecessarily. I would like to have 2 instances for redundancy and the 99.95 uptime, but do not want them both processing at the same time as they will just duplicate the same job. Is there a standard pattern for this that I am missing? I know I could set flags in the database, but am hoping there is another easier or better way to manage this. Thanks

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  • Oracle SQL Developer is for Oracle Database

    - by thatjeffsmith
    What is Oracle SQL Developer? Well, according to this document on OTN… What is SQL Developer? Date: May 2014 Oracle SQL Developer is the Oracle Database IDE. A free graphical user interface, Oracle SQL Developer allows database users and administrators to do their database tasks in fewer clicks and keystrokes. A productivity tool, SQL Developer’s main objective is to help the end user save time and maximize the return on investment in the Oracle Database technology stack. Ok, sounds pretty straightforward. Where does the confusion lie then? Some People Use SQL Developer to Connect to 3rd Party Databases SQL Developer allows you to register 3rd party database JDBC drivers. The 3rd party being a company OTHER than Oracle that makes a database product. You know who they are (SAP, MSFT, IBM, etc.) Registering 3rd party JDBC drivers in SQL Developer But maybe you don’t understand why we support these types of connections? It’s for one driving reason. To Help You Migrate to Oracle Database Yes, you get a worksheet and a tree to query and browse those systems. But, the real meat and bones there are around our migration projects and our translation scratch editor. At the end of the day, it’s there so you can move your data from say Sybase ASE to Oracle Database. On a side note, the migration technology was previously available in a separate application, the Migration Workbench. The technology and the awesome people behind it were folded into SQL Developer. So when asked what SQL Developer is, I say it’s the Database IDE and the official 3rd party database migration to Oracle platform. So anyways, when you ask for better support for another 3rd party provider, we deliver that support based on that business driver. If another 3rd party database jdbc driver is introduced, it’s because we have a lot of customers migrating from that platform. We’re not adding it to make it easier for you to work with SQL Server on your Mac. But, if you find that useful – that is cool. It’s just not why we’ve got the support for SQL Server connections in SQL Developer.

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  • T-SQL Dynamic SQL and Temp Tables

    - by George
    It looks like #temptables created using dynamic SQL via the EXECUTE string method have a different scope and can't be referenced by "fixed" SQLs in the same stored procedure. However, I can reference a temp table created by a dynamic SQL statement in a subsequence dynamic SQL but it seems that a stored procedure does not return a query result to a calling client unless the SQL is fixed. A simple 2 table scenario: I have 2 tables. Let's call them Orders and Items. Order has a Primary key of OrderId and Items has a Primary Key of ItemId. Items.OrderId is the foreign key to identify the parent Order. An Order can have 1 to n Items. I want to be able to provide a very flexible "query builder" type interface to the user to allow the user to select what Items he want to see. The filter criteria can be based on fields from the Items table and/or from the parent Order table. If an Item meets the filter condition including and condition on the parent Order if one exists, the Item should be return in the query as well as the parent Order. Usually, I suppose, most people would construct a join between the Item table and the parent Order tables. I would like to perform 2 separate queries instead. One to return all of the qualifying Items and the other to return all of the distinct parent Orders. The reason is two fold and you may or may not agree. The first reason is that I need to query all of the columns in the parent Order table and if I did a single query to join the Orders table to the Items table, I would be repoeating the Order information multiple times. Since there are typically a large number of items per Order, I'd like to avoid this because it would result in much more data being transfered to a fat client. Instead, as mentioned, I would like to return the two tables individually in a dataset and use the two tables within to populate a custom Order and child Items client objects. (I don't know enough about LINQ or Entity Framework yet. I build my objects by hand). The second reason I would like to return two tables instead of one is because I already have another procedure that returns all of the Items for a given OrderId along with the parent Order and I would like to use the same 2-table approach so that I could reuse the client code to populate my custom Order and Client objects from the 2 datatables returned. What I was hoping to do was this: Construct a dynamic SQL string on the Client which joins the orders table to the Items table and filters appropriate on each table as specified by the custom filter created on the Winform fat-client app. The SQL build on the client would have looked something like this: TempSQL = " INSERT INTO #ItemsToQuery OrderId, ItemsId FROM Orders, Items WHERE Orders.OrderID = Items.OrderId AND /* Some unpredictable Order filters go here */ AND /* Some unpredictable Items filters go here */ " Then, I would call a stored procedure, CREATE PROCEDURE GetItemsAndOrders(@tempSql as text) Execute (@tempSQL) --to create the #ItemsToQuery table SELECT * FROM Items WHERE Items.ItemId IN (SELECT ItemId FROM #ItemsToQuery) SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE Orders.OrderId IN (SELECT DISTINCT OrderId FROM #ItemsToQuery) The problem with this approach is that #ItemsToQuery table, since it was created by dynamic SQL, is inaccessible from the following 2 static SQLs and if I change the static SQLs to dynamic, no results are passed back to the fat client. 3 around come to mind but I'm look for a better one: 1) The first SQL could be performed by executing the dynamically constructed SQL from the client. The results could then be passed as a table to a modified version of the above stored procedure. I am familiar with passing table data as XML. If I did this, the stored proc could then insert the data into a temporary table using a static SQL that, because it was created by dynamic SQL, could then be queried without issue. (I could also investigate into passing the new Table type param instead of XML.) However, I would like to avoid passing up potentially large lists to a stored procedure. 2) I could perform all the queries from the client. The first would be something like this: SELECT Items.* FROM Orders, Items WHERE Order.OrderId = Items.OrderId AND (dynamic filter) SELECT Orders.* FROM Orders, Items WHERE Order.OrderId = Items.OrderId AND (dynamic filter) This still provides me with the ability to reuse my client sided object-population code because the Orders and Items continue to be returned in two different tables. I have a feeling to, that I might have some options using a Table data type within my stored proc, but that is also new to me and I would appreciate a little bit of spoon feeding on that one. If you even scanned this far in what I wrote, I am surprised, but if so, I woul dappreciate any of your thoughts on how to accomplish this best.

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  • SyncToBlog #10 Lots of Azure and Cloud Links including MIX10 videos

    - by Eric Nelson
    Just getting a few interesting cloud links “down on paper”. I last did one of these on Azure in Feb 20010. Cloud Links: Article on Debugging in the Cloud http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/azurescale  A sample app that demonstrates monitoring and automatically scaling an Azure application in response to dropping performance etc. Basically a console app that checks perf stats and then uses the Service Management API to spin up new instances when needed. Azure In Action book is imminent :) Running Memcached in Windows Azure from the MS UK team Using Microsoft Codename Dallas as a data source for Drupal also from the MS UK team I often mention them – but this post is the biz! Metodi on fault and upgrade domains Detailed blog post on comparing Azure AppFabric Service Bus REST support to the free Faye Ruby+JavaScript gem that implements the JSON publish/subscribe protocol Bayeux. AppFabric LABS allow you to test out and play with experimental AppFabric technologies. Details of the upcoming VM support in Windows Azure Nice series of posts from J D Meier in the Patterns and Practice team How To Use ASP.NET Forms Auth with Azure Tables  How To Use ASP.NET Forms Auth with Roles in Azure Tables How To Use ASP.NET Forms Auth with SQL Server on Windows Azure And sessions from MIX10 held March 15th to 17th: Lap around the Windows Azure Platform – Steve Marx Building and Deploying Windows Azure Based Applications with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 – Jim Nakashima Building PHP Applications using the Windows Azure Platform – Craig Kitterman, Sumit Chawla Using Ruby on Rails to Build Windows Azure Applications – Sriram Krishnan Microsoft Project Code Name “Dallas": Data for your apps – Moe Khosravy Using Storage in the Windows Azure Platform – Chris Auld Building Web Applications with Windows Azure Storage – Brad Calder Building Web Application with Microsoft SQL Azure – David Robinson Connecting Your Applications in the Cloud with Windows Azure AppFabric – Clemens Vasters Microsoft Silverlight and Windows Azure: A Match Made for the Web – Matt Kerner Something for everyone :)

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  • Free Windows Azure event next Monday in London (29th March)

    - by Eric Nelson
    I just heard that we still have spaces for this event happening next week (29th March 2010). Whilst the event is designed for start-ups, I’m sure nobody would notice if you snuck in :-) Just keep it to yourself ;-) Register using invitation code: 79F2AB. Hope to see you there. The agenda is looking pretty swish: 09:00 – 09:30 Registration 09:30 - 10:15 Keynote  ‘I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now....’– John Taysom, Active Seed Investor 10:15 - 10:45   The Microsoft Vision for Cloud Computing – Steve Clayton, Director Software + Services, EMEA 10:45 - 11:00   Break 11:00 - 12:30 “Windows Azure in Real World” – hear from startups that have built their business around the Azure platform, moderated by Alistair Beagley, Azure UK Developer and Platform Lead 12:30 - 13:15 Lunch and networking  13:15 - 14:15  Breakout Tracks, moderated by our Azure Experts 1. Windows Azure Technical Overview - David Gristwood, Application Architect, Microsoft 2. SQL Azure Technical Overview – Eric Nelson, Application Architect, Microsoft 3. Commercial insight into Windows Azure and what this means for BizSpark Start-ups - Simon Karn, Commercial Lead, UK Windows Azure Incubation Team, Microsoft 14:15 - 14:30 Session change over 14:30 - 15:30   Breakout Tracks, moderated by our Azure Experts 1. SQL Azure Technical Overview (repeat) - Eric Nelson, Application Architect, Microsoft 2. Deep dive into Windows Azure – Neil Kidd, Architect, Microsoft Technology Centre 3. Lessons Learnt - Windows Azure in the Real World interactive session – Two customers hosted by Matt Deacon, Enterprise Architect, Microsoft 15:30 - 16:00 Break & Session change over 16:00 - 17:00 Breakout Tracks, moderated by our Azure Experts 1. PHP / Ruby on Azure Simon Davies, Architect, UK Windows Azure Incubation Team, Microsoft 2. Commercial insight into Windows Azure and what this means for BizSpark Start-ups (repeat) - Simon Karn, Commercial Lead, UK Windows Azure Incubation Team, Microsoft 3. Lessons Learnt - Windows Azure in the Real World interactive session #2 Two customers hosted by Matt Deacon, Enterprise Architect, Microsoft 17:00 - 18:00 Pitches and Judging 18:15 Wrap-up and close 18:15 - 20:00 Drinks & Networking

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  • The Low Down Dirty Azure Blues

    - by SGWellens
    Remember the SETI screen savers that used to be on everyone's computer? As far I as know, it was the first bona-fide use of "Cloud" computing…albeit an ad hoc cloud. I still think it was a brilliant leveraging of computing power. My interest in clouds was re-piqued when I went to a technical seminar at the local .Net User Group. The speaker was Mike Benkovitch and he expounded magnificently on the virtues of the Azure platform. Mike always does a good job. One killer reason he gave for cloud computing is instant scalability. Not applicable for most applications, but it is there if needed. I have a bunch of files stored on Microsoft's SkyDrive platform which is cloud storage. It is painfully slow. Accessing a file means going through layers and layers of software, redirections and security. Am I complaining? Hell no! It's free! So my opinions of Cloud Computing are both skeptical and appreciative. What intrigued me at the seminar, in addition to its other features, is that Azure can serve as a web hosting platform. I have a client with an Asp.Net web site I developed who is not happy with the performance of their current hosting service. I checked the cost of Azure and since the site has low bandwidth/space requirements the cost would be competitive with the existing host provider: Azure Pricing Calculator. And, Azure has a three month free trial. Perfect! I could try moving the website and see how it works for free. I went through the signup process. Everything was proceeding fine until I went to the MS SQL database management screen. A popup window informed me that I needed to install Silverlight on my machine. Silverlight? No thanks. Buh-Bye. I half-heartedly found the Azure support button and logged a ticket telling them I didn't want Silverlight on my machine. Within 4 to 6 hours (and a myriad (5) of automated support emails) they sent me a link to a database management page that did not require Silverlight. Thanks! I was able to create a database immediately. One really nice feature was that after creating the database, I was given a list of connection strings. I went to the current host provider, made a backup of the database and saved it to my machine. I attached to the remote database using SQL Server Studio 2012 and looked for the Restore menu item. It was missing. So I tried using the SQL command: RESTORE DATABASE MyDatabase FROM DISK ='C:\temp\MyBackup.bak' Msg 40510, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Statement 'RESTORE DATABASE' is not supported in this version of SQL Server. Are you kidding me? Why on earth…? This can't be happening! I opened both the source database and destination database in SQL Management Studio. I right clicked the source database, selected "Tasks" and noticed a menu selection called "Deploy Database to SQL Azure" Are you kidding me? Could it be? Oh yes, it be! There was a small problem because the database already existed on the Azure machine, I deployed to a new name, deleted the existing database and renamed the deployed database to what I needed. It was ridiculously easy. Being able to attach SQL Management Studio to remote databases is an awesome but scary feature. You can limit the IP addresses that can access the database which enhances security but when you give people, any people, me included, that much power, one errant mouse click could bring a live system down. My Advice: Tread softly and carry a large backup thumb-drive. Then I created a web site, the URL it returned look something like this: http://MyWebSite.azurewebsites.net/ Azure supports FTP, but I couldn't figure out the settings until I downloaded the publishing profile. It was an XML file that contained the needed information. I still couldn't connect with my FTP client (FileZilla). After about an hour of messing around, I deleted the port number from the FileZilla setup page….and voila, I was in like Flynn.   There are other options of deploying directly from Visual Studio, TFS, etc. but I do not like integrated tools that do things without my asking: It's usually hard to figure out what they did and how to undo it. I uploaded the aspx , cs , webconfig, etc. files. Bu it didn't run. The site I ported was in .NET 3.5. The Azure website configuration page gave me a choice between .NET 2.0 and 4.0. So, I switched to Visual Studio 2010, chose .NET 4.0 and upgraded the site. Of course I have the original version completely backed up and stored in a granite cave beneath the Nevada desert. And I have a backup CD under my pillow. The site uses ReportViewer to generate PDF documents. Of course it was the wrong version. I removed the old references to version 9 and added new references to version 10 (*see note below). Since the DLLs were not on the Azure Server, I uploaded them to the bin directory, crossed my fingers, burned some incense and gave it a try. After some fiddling around it ran. I don't know if I did anything particular to make it work or it just needed time to sort things out. However, one critical feature didn't work: ReportViewer could not programmatically generate PDF documents. I was getting this exception: "An error occurred during local report processing. Parameter is not valid." Rats. I did some searching and found other people were having the same problem, so I added a post saying I was having the same problem: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsazurewebsitespreview/thread/b4a6eb43-0013-435f-9d11-00ee26a8d017 Currently they are looking into this problem and I am waiting for the results. Hence I had the time to write this BLOG entry. How lucky you are. This was the last message I got from the Microsoft person: Hi Steve, Windows Azure Web Sites is a multi-tenant environment. For security issue, we limited some API calls. Unfortunately, some GDI APIS required by the PDF converting function are in this list. We have noticed this issue, and still investigation the best way to go. At this moment, there is no news to share. Sorry about this. Will keep you posted. If I had to guess, I would say they are concerned with people uploading images and doing intensive graphics programming which would hog CPU time.  But that is just a guess. Another problem. While trying to resolve the ReportViewer problem, I tried to write a file to the PDF directory to see if there was a permissions problem with some test code: String MyPath = MapPath(@"~\PDFs\Test.txt"); File.WriteAllText(MyPath, "Hello Azure");     I got this message: Access to the path <my path> is denied. After some research, I understood that since Azure is a cloud based platform, it can't allow web applications to save files to local directories. The application could be moved or replicated as scaling occurs and trying to manage local files would be problematic to say the least. There are other options: Use the Azure APIs to get a path. That way the location of the storage is separated from the application. However, the web site is then tied Azure and can't be moved to another hosting platform. Use the ApplicationData folder (not recommended). Write to BLOB storage. Or, I could try and stream the PDF output directly to the email and not save a file. I'm not going to work on a final solution until the ReportViewer is fixed. I am just sharing some of the things you need to be aware of if you decide to use Azure. I got this information from here. (Note the author of the BLOG added a comment saying he has updated his entry). Is my memory faulty? While getting this BLOG ready, I tried to write the test file again. And it worked. My memory is incorrect, or much more likely, something changed on the server…perhaps while they are trying to get ReportViewer to work. (Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it). *Note: Since Visual Studio 2010 Express doesn't include a Report Editor, I downloaded and installed SQL Server Report Builder 2.0. It is a standalone Report Editor to replace the one not in Visual Studio 2010 Express. I hope someone finds this useful. Steve Wellens CodeProject

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  • How do I secure Sql Server 2008 R2

    - by Mark Tait
    I have both a dedicated and a VPS (from Fasthosts) virtual server - the web sites/applications I run on these, access Sql Server stored on the same web server. Until now, I have logged onto Sql Server on both the deidicated and VPS server, from Sql Server Management Studio - until I noticed in my server application logs, multiple attempts to logon to Sql Server using the 'sa' username, but failed password. So someone/bot is trying hard (repeatedly every couple of hours, for approx 20 attempts during each instance) to log on... so obviously I have to lock down access to Sql Sever remotely. What I have done is gone into Configuration Manager, and in Sql Server Network Configuration - Protocols for Sql2008 and also in Sql Native Client 10.0 Configuration - Client Protocols - I have diabled Named Pipes, TCP/IP (and VIA by default). I have left Shared Memory enabled. I also disabled in Sql Server Services, the Sql Server Browser. Now the only way I can manage the databases on these servers, is by logging on to them via Remote Desktop. Can anyone confirm if this is the correct way of stopping anyone maliciously logging on to Sql Server? (I'm not a DBA or security expert - and there are hundreds of articles advising all different ways - but I was hoping for the experts here to confirm, or otherwise, if what I've done is correct) Thank you, Mark

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  • Problem with importing an mdf created with SQL Server Express 2008 into SQL Server 2005

    - by user252160
    The question is probably extremely easy to resolve, but I need to resolve it because I need to carry on with my project. I am using SQL Server Express 2008 at home, and I've been working on an ASP.NET MVC app that stores my DB in an mdf file in the project's folder. The problem is that the SQL Server in the Uni labs is SQL Server 2005, and when I try to open the mdf file with the VS Server Explorer,It says that the version of the mdf file is more than the server can accept. The only option that comes to my mind is exporting the DB as an sql file, just like I've done it thousand times with phpmyadmin. the thing is that the SQL Management Studio Express is not the most usable tool in the world, and for some strange reason all the articles I could find in Google were irrelevant. Please, help.

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  • AdventureWorks2012 now available for all on SQL Azure

    - by jamiet
    Three days ago I tweeted this: Idea. MSFT could host read-only copies of all the [AdventureWorks] DBs up on #sqlazure for the SQL community to use. RT if agree #sqlfamily — Jamie Thomson (@jamiet) March 24, 2012 Evidently I wasn't the only one that thought this was a good idea because as you can see from the screenshot that tweet has, so far, been retweeted more than fifty times. Clearly there is a desire to see the AdventureWorks databases made available for the community to noodle around on so I am pleased to announce that as of today you can do just that - [AdventureWorks2012] now resides on SQL Azure and is available for anyone, absolutely anyone, to connect to and use* for their own means. *By use I mean "issue some SELECT statements". You don't have permission to issue INSERTs, UPDATEs, DELETEs or EXECUTEs I'm afraid - if you want to do that then you can get the bits and host it yourself. This database is free for you to use but SQL Azure is of course not free so before I give you the credentials please lend me your ears eyes for a short while longer. AdventureWorks on Azure is being provided for the SQL Server community to use and so I am hoping that that same community will rally around to support this effort by making a voluntary donation to support the upkeep which, going on current pricing, is going to be $119.88 per year. If you would like to contribute to keep AdventureWorks on Azure up and running for that full year please donate via PayPal to [email protected]: Any amount, no matter how small, will help. If those 50+ people that retweeted me beforehand all contributed $2 then that would just about be enough to keep this up for a year. If the community contributes more that we need then there are a number of additional things that could be done: Host additional databases (Northwind anyone??) Host in more datacentres (this first one is in Western Europe) Make a charitable donation That last one, a charitable donation, is something I would really like to do. The SQL Community have proved before that they can make a significant contribution to charitable orgnisations through purchasing the SQL Server MVP Deep Dives book and I harbour hopes that AdventureWorks on Azure can continue in that vein. So please, if you think AdventureWorks on Azure is something that is worth supporting please make a contribution. OK, with the prickly subject of begging for cash out of the way let me share the details that you need to connect to [AdventureWorks2012] on SQL Azure: Server mhknbn2kdz.database.windows.net  Database AdventureWorks2012 User sqlfamily Password sqlf@m1ly That user sqlfamily has all the permissions required to enable you to query away to your heart's content. Here is the code that I used to set it up: CREATE USER sqlfamily FOR LOGIN sqlfamily;CREATE ROLE sqlfamilyrole;EXEC sp_addrolemember 'sqlfamilyrole','sqlfamily';GRANT VIEW DEFINITION ON Database::AdventureWorks2012 TO sqlfamilyrole;GRANT VIEW DATABASE STATE ON Database::AdventureWorks2012 TO sqlfamilyrole;GRANT SHOWPLAN TO sqlfamilyrole;EXEC sp_addrolemember 'db_datareader','sqlfamilyrole'; You can connect to the database using SQL Server Management Studio (instructions to do that are provided at Walkthrough: Connecting to SQL Azure via the SSMS) or you can use the web interface at https://mhknbn2kdz.database.windows.net: Lastly, just for a bit of fun I created a table up there called [dbo].[SqlFamily] into which you can leave a small calling card. Simply execute the following SQL statement (changing the values of course): INSERT [dbo].[SqlFamily]([Name],[Message],[TwitterHandle],[BlogURI])VALUES ('Your name here','Some Message','your twitter handle (optional)','Blog URI (optional)'); [Id] is an IDENTITY field and there is a default constraint on [DT] hence there is no need to supply a value for those. Note that you only have INSERT permissions, not UPDATE or DELETE so make sure you get it right first time! Any offensive or distasteful remarks will of course be deleted :) Thank you for reading this far and have fun using AdventureWorks on Azure. I hope it proves to be useful for some of you. @jamiet AdventureWorks on Azure - Provided by the SQL Server community, for the SQL Server community!

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  • Azure Table Storage rejects an entity with a Property whose value is an Interface

    - by Andrew B Schultz
    I have a type called "Comment" that I'm saving to Azure Table Storage. Since a comment can be about any number of other types, I created an interface which all of these types implement, and then put a property of type ICommentable on the comment. So Comment has a property called About of type ICommentable. When I try to save a Comment to Azure Table Storage, if the Comment.About property has a value, I get the worthless invalid input error. However, if there is no value for Comment.About, I have no problem. Why would this be? Comment.About is not the only property that is a reference type. For example, Comment.From is a reference type, but the Comment.About is the only property of a type that is an interface. Fails: var comment = new Comment(); comment.CommentText = "It fails!"; comment.PartitionKey = "TEST"; comment.RowKey = "TEST123"; comment.About = sow1; comment.From = person1; Works: var comment = new Comment(); comment.CommentText = "It works!"; comment.PartitionKey = "TEST"; comment.RowKey = "TEST123"; //comment.About = sow1; comment.From = person1; Thanks!

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  • Cumulative Updates for SQL Server 2005 SP3 and 2008 R2 are available

    - by AaronBertrand
    After releasing SQL Server 2005 SP4 on Friday (you can read more about it here ), the release services team did not hang up their hats for the Christmas holiday, but continued working on other releases. KB #2438344 : Cumulative update package 13 for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 This brings your SQL Server 2005 SP3 build number to 9.00.4315 KB #2438347 : Cumulative Update package 5 for SQL Server 2008 R2 This brings your SQL Server 2008 R2 build number to 10.5.1753 NOTES: You will not be able to...(read more)

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