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• SQL SERVER – SQL Server High Availability Options – Notes from the Field #032

  - by Pinal Dave

  [Notes from Pinal]: When it is about High Availability or Disaster Recovery, I often see people getting confused. There are so many options available that when the user has to select what is the most optimal solution for their organization they are often confused. Most of the people even know the salient features of various options, but when they have to figure out one single option to use they are often not sure which option to use. I like to give ask my dear friend time all these kinds of complicated questions. He has a skill to make a complex subject very simple and easy to understand. Linchpin People are database coaches and wellness experts for a data driven world. In this 26th episode of the Notes from the Fields series database expert Tim Radney (partner at Linchpin People) explains in a very simple words the best High Availability Option for your SQL Server.  Working with SQL Server a common challenge we are faced with is providing the maximum uptime possible.  To meet these demands we have to design a solution to provide High Availability (HA). Microsoft SQL Server depending on your edition provides you with several options.  This could be database mirroring, log shipping, failover clusters, availability groups or replication. Each possible solution comes with pro’s and con’s.  Not anyone one solution fits all scenarios so understanding which solution meets which need is important.  As with anything IT related, you need to fully understand your requirements before trying to solution the problem.  When it comes to building an HA solution, you need to understand the risk your organization needs to mitigate the most. I have found that most are concerned about hardware failure and OS failures. Other common concerns are data corruption or storage issues.  For data corruption or storage issues you can mitigate those concerns by having a second copy of the databases. That can be accomplished with database mirroring, log shipping, replication or availability groups with a secondary replica.  Failover clustering and virtualization with shared storage do not provide redundancy of the data. I recently created a chart outlining some pros and cons of each of the technologies that I posted on my blog. I like to use this chart to help illustrate how each technology provides a certain number of benefits.  Each of these solutions carries with it some level of cost and complexity.  As a database professional we should all be familiar with these technologies so we can make the best possible choice for our organization. If you want me to take a look at your server and its settings, or if your server is facing any issue we can Fix Your SQL Server. Note: Tim has also written an excellent book on SQL Backup and Recovery, a must have for everyone. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Notes from the Field, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Shrinking Database

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• SQLAuthority News – Presented at Bangalore DevCon August 4, 2012

  - by pinaldave

  Bangalore Devcon 2012 was a great fun. Earlier this month I was fortunate to be invited to present at Dev Con. The event was very well planned and had excellent response. There were more than 140 attendees at any time in the sessions. There were two tracks and both tracks were running parallel to each other in the Microsoft Bangalore building. The venue is fantastic and the enthusiasm of the community is impeccable. We had a total of 12 sessions during the day. I had decided to attend each session if I can. We have so many fantastic speakers and I did not want to miss any of the sessions. As sessions were running parallel, I attended every session for 30 minutes and switched to another session. I had fun doing this experiment as tit gave me a good idea about every session. I presented personally on the session of SQL Tips and Tricks for Web Developer. DBA is a very common word and every time when we say SQL Server – lots of people think of DBA in their mind, however, SQL Server is used by many developers as well. In this session I tried to cover a few of the simple concepts where developers must pay special attention while writing T-SQL code. Sometimes a very small mistake can be very fatal on performance in the future. Here are few of the photos of the event. Btw, the two sessions which clearly stand out were Vinod Kumar‘s session on Leadership and Lohith‘s session on Visual Studio Tips and Tricks. Additional Read: Following are the blog posts by community on the Bangalore DevCon Experience. I encourage you to read them all and leave a comment which one you liked the most. http://abhishekbhat.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/devcon-2012-experience/ http://praveenprajapati.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/devcon-2012-part-2/ http://tomsblogsspot.blogspot.in/2012/08/devcon-2012.html?view=classic https://manasdash.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/devcon-2012-by-bdotnet-4th-august-2012/ http://www.jagan-bhathri.com/2012/08/bangalore-developer-conference-2012-by.html Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Select and Delete Duplicate Records – SQL in Sixty Seconds #036 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  Developers often face situations when they find their column have duplicate records and they want to delete it. A good developer will never delete any data without observing it and making sure that what is being deleted is the absolutely fine to delete. Before deleting duplicate data, one should select it and see if the data is really duplicate. In this video we are demonstrating two scripts – 1) selects duplicate records 2) deletes duplicate records. We are assuming that the table has a unique incremental id. Additionally, we are assuming that in the case of the duplicate records we would like to keep the latest record. If there is really a business need to keep unique records, one should consider to create a unique index on the column. Unique index will prevent users entering duplicate data into the table from the beginning. This should be the best solution. However, deleting duplicate data is also a very valid request. If user realizes that they need to keep only unique records in the column and if they are willing to create unique constraint, the very first requirement of creating a unique constraint is to delete the duplicate records. Let us see how to connect the values in Sixty Seconds: Here is the script which is used in the video. USE tempdb GO CREATE TABLE TestTable (ID INT, NameCol VARCHAR(100)) GO INSERT INTO TestTable (ID, NameCol) SELECT 1, 'First' UNION ALL SELECT 2, 'Second' UNION ALL SELECT 3, 'Second' UNION ALL SELECT 4, 'Second' UNION ALL SELECT 5, 'Second' UNION ALL SELECT 6, 'Third' GO -- Selecting Data SELECT * FROM TestTable GO -- Detecting Duplicate SELECT NameCol, COUNT(*) TotalCount FROM TestTable GROUP BY NameCol HAVING COUNT(*) > 1 ORDER BY COUNT(*) DESC GO -- Deleting Duplicate DELETE FROM TestTable WHERE ID NOT IN ( SELECT MAX(ID) FROM TestTable GROUP BY NameCol) GO -- Selecting Data SELECT * FROM TestTable GO DROP TABLE TestTable GO Related Tips in SQL in Sixty Seconds: SQL SERVER – Delete Duplicate Records – Rows SQL SERVER – Count Duplicate Records – Rows SQL SERVER – 2005 – 2008 – Delete Duplicate Rows Delete Duplicate Records – Rows – Readers Contribution Unique Nonclustered Index Creation with IGNORE_DUP_KEY = ON – A Transactional Behavior What would you like to see in the next SQL in Sixty Seconds video? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video Tagged: Excel

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• SQL SERVER – Rename Columnname or Tablename – SQL in Sixty Seconds #032 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  We all make mistakes at some point of time and we all change our opinion. There are quite a lot of people in the world who have changed their name after they have grown up. Some corrected their parent’s mistake and some create new mistake. Well, databases are not protected from such incidents. There are many reasons why developers may want to change the name of the column or table after it was initially created. The goal of this video is not to dwell on the reasons but to learn how we can rename the column and table. Earlier I have written the article on this subject over here: SQL SERVER – How to Rename a Column Name or Table Name. I have revised the same article over here and created this video. There is one very important point to remember that by changing the column name or table name one creates the possibility of errors in the application the columns and tables are used. When any column or table name is changed, the developer should go through every place in the code base, ad-hoc queries, stored procedures, views and any other place where there are possibility of their usage and change them to the new name. If this is one followed up religiously there are quite a lot of changes that application will stop working due to this name change.  One has to remember that changing column name does not change the name of the indexes, constraints etc and they will continue to reference the old name. Though this will not stop the show but will create visual un-comfort as well confusion in many cases. Here is my question back to you – have you changed ever column name or table name in production database (after project going live)? If yes, what was the scenario and need of doing it. After all it is just a name. Let me know what you think of this video. Here is the updated script. USE tempdb GO CREATE TABLE TestTable (ID INT, OldName VARCHAR(20)) GO INSERT INTO TestTable VALUES (1, 'First') GO -- Check the Tabledata SELECT * FROM TestTable GO -- Rename the ColumnName sp_RENAME 'TestTable.OldName', 'NewName', 'Column' GO -- Check the Tabledata SELECT * FROM TestTable GO -- Rename the TableName sp_RENAME 'TestTable', 'NewTable' GO -- Check the Tabledata - Error SELECT * FROM TestTable GO -- Check the Tabledata - New SELECT * FROM NewTable GO -- Cleanup DROP TABLE NewTable GO Related Tips in SQL in Sixty Seconds: SQL SERVER – How to Rename a Column Name or Table Name What would you like to see in the next SQL in Sixty Seconds video? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video Tagged: Excel

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• SQL SERVER – Online Index Rebuilding Index Improvement in SQL Server 2012

  - by pinaldave

  Have you ever faced situation when you see something working and you feel it should not be working? Well, I had similar moments few days ago. I know that SQL Server 2008 supports online indexing. However, I also know that I cannot rebuild index ONLINE if I have used VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX) or few other data types. While I held my belief very strongly I came across situation, where I had to go online and do little bit reading from Book Online. Here is the similar example. First of all – run following code in SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 R2. USE TempDB GO CREATE TABLE TestTable (ID INT, FirstCol NVARCHAR(10), SecondCol NVARCHAR(MAX)) GO CREATE CLUSTERED INDEX [IX_TestTable] ON TestTable (ID) GO CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX_TestTable_Cols] ON TestTable (FirstCol) INCLUDE (SecondCol) GO USE [tempdb] GO ALTER INDEX [IX_TestTable_Cols] ON [dbo].[TestTable] REBUILD WITH (ONLINE = ON) GO DROP TABLE TestTable GO Now run the same code in SQL Server 2012 version. Observe the difference between both of the execution. You will be get following resultset. In SQL Server 2008/R2 it will throw following error: Msg 2725, Level 16, State 2, Line 1 An online operation cannot be performed for index ‘IX_TestTable_Cols’ because the index contains column ‘SecondCol’ of data type text, ntext, image, varchar(max), nvarchar(max), varbinary(max), xml, or large CLR type. For a non-clustered index, the column could be an include column of the index. For a clustered index, the column could be any column of the table. If DROP_EXISTING is used, the column could be part of a new or old index. The operation must be performed offline. In SQL Server 2012 it will run successfully and will not throw any error. Command(s) completed successfully. I always thought it will throw an error if there is VARCHAR(MAX) or NVARCHAR(MAX) used in table schema definition. When I saw this result it was clear to me that it will be for sure not bug enhancement in SQL Server 2012. For matter for the fact, I always wanted this feature to be added in SQL Server Engine as this will enable ONLINE Index Rebuilding for mission critical tables which needs to be always online. I quickly searched online and landed on Jacob Sebastian’s blog where he has blogged about it as well. Well, is there any other new feature in SQL Server 2012 which gave you good surprise? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Big Data – Buzz Words: What is NoSQL – Day 5 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  In yesterday’s blog post we explored the basic architecture of Big Data . In this article we will take a quick look at one of the four most important buzz words which goes around Big Data – NoSQL. What is NoSQL? NoSQL stands for Not Relational SQL or Not Only SQL. Lots of people think that NoSQL means there is No SQL, which is not true – they both sound same but the meaning is totally different. NoSQL does use SQL but it uses more than SQL to achieve its goal. As per Wikipedia’s NoSQL Database Definition – “A NoSQL database provides a mechanism for storage and retrieval of data that uses looser consistency models than traditional relational databases.“ Why use NoSQL? A traditional relation database usually deals with predictable structured data. Whereas as the world has moved forward with unstructured data we often see the limitations of the traditional relational database in dealing with them. For example, nowadays we have data in format of SMS, wave files, photos and video format. It is a bit difficult to manage them by using a traditional relational database. I often see people using BLOB filed to store such a data. BLOB can store the data but when we have to retrieve them or even process them the same BLOB is extremely slow in processing the unstructured data. A NoSQL database is the type of database that can handle unstructured, unorganized and unpredictable data that our business needs it. Along with the support to unstructured data, the other advantage of NoSQL Database is high performance and high availability. Eventual Consistency Additionally to note that NoSQL Database may not provided 100% ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) compliance.  Though, NoSQL Database does not support ACID they provide eventual consistency. That means over the long period of time all updates can be expected to propagate eventually through the system and data will be consistent. Taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice of classification of things or concepts and the principles. The NoSQL taxonomy supports column store, document store, key-value stores, and graph databases. We will discuss the taxonomy in detail in later blog posts. Here are few of the examples of the each of the No SQL Category. Column: Hbase, Cassandra, Accumulo Document: MongoDB, Couchbase, Raven Key-value : Dynamo, Riak, Azure, Redis, Cache, GT.m Graph: Neo4J, Allegro, Virtuoso, Bigdata As of now there are over 150 NoSQL Database and you can read everything about them in this single link. Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will discuss Buzz Word – Hadoop. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• SQL SERVER – LOGBUFFER – Wait Type – Day 18 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  At first, I was not planning to write about this wait type. The reason was simple- I have faced this only once in my lifetime so far maybe because it is one of the top 5 wait types. I am not sure if it is a common wait type or not, but in the samples I had it really looks rare to me. From Book On-Line: LOGBUFFER Occurs when a task is waiting for space in the log buffer to store a log record. Consistently high values may indicate that the log devices cannot keep up with the amount of log being generated by the server. LOGBUFFER Explanation: The book online definition of the LOGBUFFER seems to be very accurate. On the system where I faced this wait type, the log file (LDF) was put on the local disk, and the data files (MDF, NDF) were put on SanDrives. My client then was not familiar about how the file distribution was supposed to be. Once we moved the LDF to a faster drive, this wait type disappeared. Reducing LOGBUFFER wait: There are several suggestions to reduce this wait stats: Move Transaction Log to Separate Disk from mdf and other files. (Make sure your drive where your LDF is has no IO bottleneck issues). Avoid cursor-like coding methodology and frequent commit statements. Find the most-active file based on IO stall time, as shown in the script written over here. You can also use fn_virtualfilestats to find IO-related issues using the script mentioned over here. Check the IO-related counters (PhysicalDisk:Avg.Disk Queue Length, PhysicalDisk:Disk Read Bytes/sec and PhysicalDisk :Disk Write Bytes/sec) for additional details. Read about them over here. If you have noticed, my suggestions for reducing the LOGBUFFER is very similar to WRITELOG. Although the procedures on reducing them are alike, I am not suggesting that LOGBUFFER and WRITELOG are same wait types. From the definition of the two, you will find their difference. However, they are both related to LOG and both of them can severely degrade the performance. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and there is no way that I claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading Book OnLine for further clarification. All the discussion of Wait Stats in this blog is generic and varies from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on a development server before implementing it to a production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)   Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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• SQL SERVER – Manage Help Settings – CTRL + ALT + F1

  - by pinaldave

  It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. ~ Albert Einstein I have 3 years old daughter and she never misses any chance to play with the system. I have multiple computers and I always make sure that if I am working with production server, I never leave it open but when I am doing some experiment I often leave my computer open. My daughter loves the part when I have left the computer open and I am not observing her. Recently I had the same scenario, I got urgent call and I moved away from my computer and when I returned she was playing with SSMS left open my computer. Here is the screen which was visible on the screen. For a moment, I could not figure out what was this screen and what was about to get updated. I tried to ask her what keys she pressed the reaction was “I wanted – eya eya o”. Well, what more I expect from 3 years old. She is no computer genius – she just learned to use notepad and paint on my machine. Finally, when I saw the above screen in detail, I realize that this screen was from the help screen and something got updated. I have been using SQL Server for a long time but I never updated help on the screen. When I need to search something if I remember that I have written it earlier I will go to http://search.sqlauthority.com and will search there or will search on Google. As this computer was already updated I fired up Virtual Machine and tried to look recreate how my daughter was reached to above screen. Here are the steps which I have to do to reach to above screen. Go to SSMS >> Toolbar >> Help >> Manage Help Settings (or type CTRL+ALT+F1) and click it. Above click brought up following screen. I clicked on Check for update online brought following screen up. When I clicked on Update it brought me back to original screen which my daughter was able to bring up earlier. I found it so interesting that what took me 2-3 minutes to figure out and the screen which I have never come across in my career I learned from my curiosity like my daughter. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide – A Comprehensive Whitepaper – (454 pages – 9 MB)

  - by pinaldave

  Microsoft has just released SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide. This guide is very comprehensive and covers the subject of upgrade in-depth. This is indeed a helpful detailed white paper. Even writing a summary of this white paper would take over 100 pages. This further proves that SQL Server 2012 is quite an important release from Microsoft. This white paper discusses how to upgrade from SQL Server 2008/R2 to SQL Server 2012. I love how it starts with the most interesting and basic discussion of upgrade strategies: 1) In-place upgrades, 2) Side by side upgrade, 3) One-server, and 4) Two-server. This whitepaper is not just pure theory but is also an excellent source for some tips and tricks. Here is an example of a good tip from the paper: “If you want to upgrade just one database from a legacy instance of SQL Server and not upgrade the other databases on the server, use the side-by-side upgrade method instead of the in-place method.” There are so many trivia, tips and tricks that make creating the list seems humanly impossible given a short period of time. My friend Vinod Kumar, an SQL Server expert, wrote a very interesting article on SQL Server 2012 Upgrade before. In that article, Vinod addressed the most interesting and practical questions related to upgrades. He started with the fundamentals of how to start backup before upgrade and ended with fail-safe strategies after the upgrade is over. He covered end-to-end concepts in his blog posts in simple words in extremely precise statements. A successful upgrade uses a cycle of: planning, document process, testing, refine process, testing, planning upgrade window, execution, verifying of upgrade and opening for business. If you are at Vinod’s blog post, I suggest you go all the way down and collect the gold mine of most important links. I have bookmarked the blog by blogging about it and I suggest that you bookmark it as well with the way you prefer. Vinod Kumar’s blog post on SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide is a detailed resource that’s also available online for free. Each chapter was carefully crafted and explained in detail. Here is a quick list of the chapters included in the whitepaper. Before downloading the guide, beware of its size of 9 MB and 454 pages. Here’s the list of chapters: Chapter 1: Upgrade Planning and Deployment Chapter 2: Management Tools Chapter 3: Relational Databases Chapter 4: High Availability Chapter 5: Database Security Chapter 6: Full-Text Search Chapter 7: Service Broker Chapter 8: SQL Server Express Chapter 9: SQL Server Data Tools Chapter 10: Transact-SQL Queries Chapter 11: Spatial Data Chapter 12: XML and XQuery Chapter 13: CLR Chapter 14: SQL Server Management Objects Chapter 15: Business Intelligence Tools Chapter 16: Analysis Services Chapter 17: Integration Services Chapter 18: Reporting Services Chapter 19: Data Mining Chapter 20: Other Microsoft Applications and Platforms Appendix 1: Version and Edition Upgrade Paths Appendix 2: SQL Server 2012: Upgrade Planning Checklist Download SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide [454 pages and 9 MB] Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, DBA, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Public Training and Private Training – Differences and Similarities

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier this year, I was on Road SQL Server Seminars. I did many SQL Server Performance Trainings and SQL Server Performance Consultations throughout the year but I feel the most rewarding exercise is always the one when instructor learns something from students, too. I was just talking to my wife, Nupur – she manages my logistics and administration related activities – and she pointed out that this year I have done 62% consultations and 38% trainings. I was bit surprised as I thought the numbers would be reversed. Every time I review the year, I think of training done at organizations. Well, I cannot argue with reality, I have done more consultations (some would call them projects) than training. I told my wife that I enjoy consultations more than training. She promptly asked me a question which was not directly related but made me think for long time, and in the end resulted in this blog post. Nupur asked me: what do I enjoy the most, public training or private training? I had a long conversation with her on this subject. I am not going to write long blog post which can change your life here. This is rather a small post condensing my one hour discussion into 200 words. Public Training is fun because… There are lots of different kinds of attendees There are always vivid questions Lots of questions on questions Less interest in theory and more interest in demos Good opportunity of future business Private Training is fun because… There is a focused interest One question is discussed deeply because of existing company issues More interest in “how it happened” concepts – under the hood operations Good connection with attendees This is also a good opportunity of future business Here I will stop my monologue and I want to open up this question to all of you: Question to Attendees - Which one do you enjoy the most – Public Training or Private Training? Question to Trainers - What do you enjoy the most – Public Training or Private Training? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Optimization, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• Big Data – Interacting with Hadoop – What is PIG? – What is PIG Latin? – Day 16 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  In yesterday’s blog post we learned the importance of the HIVE in Big Data Story. In this article we will understand what is PIG and PIG Latin in Big Data Story. Yahoo started working on Pig for their application deployment on Hadoop. The goal of Yahoo to manage their unstructured data. What is Pig and What is Pig Latin? Pig is a high level platform for creating MapReduce programs used with Hadoop and the language we use for this platform is called PIG Latin. The pig was designed to make Hadoop more user-friendly and approachable by power-users and nondevelopers. PIG is an interactive execution environment supporting Pig Latin language. The language Pig Latin has supported loading and processing of input data with series of transforming to produce desired results. PIG has two different execution environments 1) Local Mode – In this case all the scripts run on a single machine. 2) Hadoop – In this case all the scripts run on Hadoop Cluster. Pig Latin vs SQL Pig essentially creates set of map and reduce jobs under the hoods. Due to same users does not have to now write, compile and build solution for Big Data. The pig is very similar to SQL in many ways. The Ping Latin language provide an abstraction layer over the data. It focuses on the data and not the structure under the hood. Pig Latin is a very powerful language and it can do various operations like loading and storing data, streaming data, filtering data as well various data operations related to strings. The major difference between SQL and Pig Latin is that PIG is procedural and SQL is declarative. In simpler words, Pig Latin is very similar to SQ Lexecution plan and that makes it much easier for programmers to build various processes. Whereas SQL handles trees naturally, Pig Latin follows directed acyclic graph (DAG). DAGs is used to model several different kinds of structures in mathematics and computer science. DAG Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will discuss about very important components of the Big Data Ecosystem – Zookeeper. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• SQL SERVER – Inviting Ideas for SQL in Sixty Seconds – 12/12/12

  - by pinaldave

  Today is 12/12/12 – I am not sure when will I write this kind of date again – maybe never. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime when we have the same date, month and year all have same digit. December 12th is one of the most fantastic day in my personal life. Four years ago, this day I got married to my wife – Nupur Dave.  Here are photos of our wedding (Dec 12, 2008). Here is a very interesting photo of myself earlier this year. It is not photoshoped or modified photo. The only modification I have done here is to add arrow and speech bubble. Every Wednesday I tried to put one SQL in Sixty Seconds Video. The journey has been fantastic and so far I have put a total of 35 SQL in Sixty Seconds Video. The goal of the video is to learn something in 1 minute. In our daily life we are all very busy and hardly have time for anything. No matter how much we are busy – we all have one minute of time. Sometime we wait for a minute in elevators, at the escalator, at a coffee shop, or just waiting for our phone reboot. Today is a fantastic day – 12/12/12. Let me invite all of you submits SQL in Sixty Seconds idea. If I like your idea and create a sixty second video over it – you will win surprise learning material from me. There are two very simple rules of the contest: - I should have not have already recorded the tip. The tip should be descriptive. Do not just suggest to cover “Performance Tuning” or “How to Create Index” or “More of reporting services”. The tip should have around 100 words of description explaining SQL Tip. The contest is open forever. The winner will be announced whenever I use the tip to convert to video. If I use your tip, I will for sure mention in the blog post that it is inspired from your suggestion. Meanwhile, do not forget to subscribe YouTube Channel. Here are my latest three videos from SQL in Sixty Seconds. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• SQL SERVER – Three Puzzling Questions – Need Your Answer

  - by pinaldave

  Last week I had asked three questions on my blog. I got very good response to the questions. I am planning to write summary post for each of three questions next week. Before I write summary post and give credit to all the valid answers. I was wondering if I can bring to notice of all of you this week. Why SELECT * throws an error but SELECT COUNT(*) does not This is indeed very interesting question as not quite many realize that this kind of behavior SQL Server demonstrates out of the box. Once you run both the code and read the explanation it totally makes sense why SQL Server is behaving how it is behaving. Also there is connect item is associated with it. Also read the very first comment by Rob Farley it also shares very interesting detail. Statistics are not Updated but are Created Once This puzzle has multiple right answer. I am glad to see many of the correct answer as a comment to this blog post. Statistics are very important and it really helps SQL Server Engine to come up with optimal execution plan. DBA quite often ignore statistics thinking it does not need to be updated, as they are automatically maintained if proper database setting is configured (auto update and auto create). Well, in this question, we have scenario even though auto create and auto update statistics are ON, statistics is not updated. There are multiple solutions but what will be your solution in this case? When to use Function and When to use Stored Procedure This question is rather open ended question – there is no right or wrong answer. Everybody developer has always used functions and stored procedures. Here is the chance to justify when to use Stored Procedure and when to use Functions. I want to acknowledge that they can be used interchangeably but there are few reasons when one should not do that. There are few reasons when one is better than other. Let us discuss this here. Your opinion matters. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – New Book Released – SQL Server Interview Questions And Answers

  - by pinaldave

  Two days ago, on birthday of my blog – I asked simple question – Guess! What is in this box? I have received lots of interesting comments on the blog about what is in it. Many of you got it absolutely incorrect and many got it close to the right answer but no one got it 100% correct. Well, no issue at all, I am going to give away the price to whoever has the closest answer first in personal email. Here is the answer to the question about what is in the box? Here it is – the box has my new book. In fact, I should say our new book as I co-authored this book with my very good friend Vinod Kumar. We had real blast writing this book together and had lots of interesting conversation when we were writing this book. This book has one simple goal – “master the basics.” This book is not only for people who are preparing for interview. This book is for every one who wants to revisit the basics and wants to prepare themselves to the technology. One always needs to have practical knowledge to do their duty efficiently. This book talks about more than basics. There are multiple ways to present learning – either we can create simple book or make it interesting. We have decided the learning should be interactive and have opted for Interview Questions and Answer format. Here is quick interview which we have done together. Details of the books are here The core concept of this book will continue to evolve over time. I am sure many of you will come along with us on this journey and submit your suggestions to us to make this book a key reference for anybody who wants to start with SQL server. Today we want to acknowledge the fact that you will help us keep this book alive forever with the latest updates. We want to thank everyone who participates in this journey with us. You can get the books from [Amazon] | [Flipkart]. Read Vinod‘s blog post. Do not forget to wish him happy birthday as today is his birthday and also book release day – two reason to wish him congratulations. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Best Practices, Data Warehousing, Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Book Review, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Move Database Files MDF and LDF to Another Location

  - by pinaldave

  When a novice DBA or Developer create a database they use SQL Server Management Studio to create new database. Additionally, the T-SQL script to create a database is very easy as well. You can just write CREATE DATABASE DatabaseName and it will create new database for you. The point to remember here is that it will create the database at the default location specified for SQL Server Instance (this default instance can be changed and we will see that in future blog posts). Now, once the database goes in production it will start to grow. It is not common to keep the Database on the same location where OS is installed. Usually Database files are on SAN, Separate Disk Array or on SSDs. This is done usually for performance reason and manageability perspective. Now the challenges comes up when database which was installed at not preferred default location and needs to move to a different location. Here is the quick tutorial how you can do it. Let us assume we have two folders loc1 and loc2. We want to move database files from loc1 to loc2. USE MASTER; GO -- Take database in single user mode -- if you are facing errors -- This may terminate your active transactions for database ALTER DATABASE TestDB SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE; GO -- Detach DB EXEC MASTER.dbo.sp_detach_db @dbname = N'TestDB' GO Now move the files from loc1 to loc2. You can now reattach the files with new locations. -- Move MDF File from Loc1 to Loc 2 -- Re-Attached DB CREATE DATABASE [TestDB] ON ( FILENAME = N'F:\loc2\TestDB.mdf' ), ( FILENAME = N'F:\loc2\TestDB_log.ldf' ) FOR ATTACH GO Well, we are done. There is little warning here for you: If you do ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE you may terminate your active transactions so do not use it randomly. Do it if you are confident that they are not needed or due to any reason there is a connection to the database which you are not able to kill manually after review. Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Backup and Restore, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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• SQLAuthority News – I am Presenting 2 Sessions at TechEd India

  - by pinaldave

  TechED is the event which I am always excited about. It is one of the largest technology in India. Microsoft Tech Ed India 2011 is the premier technical education and networking event for tech professionals interested in learning, connecting and exploring a broad set of current and soon-to-be released Microsoft technologies, tools, platforms and services. I am going to speak at the TechED on two very interesting and advanced subjects. Venue: The LaLiT Ashok Kumara Krupa High Grounds Bangalore – 560001, Karnataka, India Sessions Date: March 25, 2011 Understanding SQL Server Behavioral Pattern – SQL Server Extended Events Date and Time: March 25, 2011 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM History repeats itself! SQL Server 2008 has introduced a very powerful, yet very minimal reoccurring feature called Extended Events. This advanced session will teach experienced administrators’ capabilities that were not possible before. From T-SQL error to CPU bottleneck, error login to deadlocks –Extended Event can detect it for you. Understanding the pattern of events can prevent future mistakes. SQL Server Waits and Queues – Your Gateway to Perf. Troubleshooting Date and Time: March 25, 2011 04:15 PM to 05:15 PM Just like a horoscope, SQL Server Waits and Queues can reveal your past, explain your present and predict your future. SQL Server Performance Tuning uses the Waits and Queues as a proven method to identify the best opportunities to improve performance. A glance at Wait Types can tell where there is a bottleneck. Learn how to identify bottlenecks and potential resolutions in this fast paced, advanced performance tuning session. My session will be on the third day of the event and I am very sure that everybody will be in groove to learn new interesting subjects. I will have few give-away during and at the end of the session. I will not tell you what I will have but it will be for sure something you will love to have. Please make a point and reserve above time slots to attend my session. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL Extended Events

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• SQL SERVER – Solution – 2 T-SQL Puzzles – Display Star and Shortest Code to Display 1

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier on this blog we had asked two puzzles. The response from all of you is nothing but Amazing. I have received 350+ responses. Many are valid and many were indeed something I had not thought about it. I strongly suggest you read all the puzzles and their answers here - trust me if you start reading the comments you will not stop till you read every single comment. Seriously trust me on it. Personally I have learned a lot from it. Let us recap the puzzles here quickly. Puzzle 1: Why following code when executed in SSMS displays result as a * (Star)? SELECT CAST(634 AS VARCHAR(2)) Puzzle 2: Write the shortest code that produces results as 1 without using any numbers in the select statement. Bonus Q: How many different Operating System (OS) NuoDB support? As I mentioned earlier the participation was nothing but Amazing. I will write about the winners and the best answers in short time. Meanwhile I will give to the point answers to above puzzles. Solution 1: When you convert character or binary expressions (char, nchar, nvarchar, varchar,binary, or varbinary) to an expression of a different data type, data can be truncated, only partially displayed, or an error is returned because the result is too short to display. Conversions to char, varchar, nchar, nvarchar, binary, and varbinary are truncated, except for the conversions shown in the following table. Reference of the text and table from MSDN. Solution 2: The shortest code to produce answer 1 : SELECT EXP($) or SELECT COS($) or SELECT DAY($) When SELECT $ it gives us the result as 0.00 and the EXP of the same is 1. I believe it is pretty neat. There were plenty other answers but this was the shortest. Another shorter answer would be PRINT EXP($) but no one has proposed that as in original Question I have explicitly mentioned SELECT in the original question. Bonus Answer: 5 OS: Windows, MacOS, Linux, Solaris, Joyent SmartOS Reference Please do read every single comment here. Do leave a comment which one do you think is the best comment out of all the comments. Meanwhile if there is a better solution and I have missed it do let me know as we still have time to correct it. I will be selecting the winner before the weekend as I am going through each and every of 350 comment. I will be selecting the best comments along with the winning comment. If our selection matches – one of you may still win something cool.  Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: NuoDB

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• SQLAuthority News – A Quick Note on @Pluralsight Video – Call Me Maybe Developer Way

  - by pinaldave

  I write a lot about how important learning and training is.  Any of my readers will know that I think the key to success is staying current with your education and taking very opportunity to increase your “tool kit” of skills.  I hope that I have not made the impression that it is all in the employees hands to make sure they are happy and satisfied at their jobs. I also firmly believe that a good boss will make good employees.  A boss who is good at communicating,  and leading, who knows how to nip problem in the bud and allocate resources wisely will have a well-oiled machine.  This means happy employees and a great work environment. It is important to have a healthy work environment because you will not succeed without one.  Successful business will always have the type of environment that fosters creativity and has efficient employees.  A healthy environment doesn’t force employees to produce results, but allows them to progress and create the results themselves. The result of a healthy work environment is that employees will enjoy their work and then work harder.  This can bring the company more revenue, and hopefully the employees will see the result of their hard work in bonuses and raises.  However, money is important but it is certainly secondary – the important part is the dedication of the employees to their work and to their company.  This is the true key to success. Any employee who recognizes this description as their working environment should consider themselves fortunate.  They are allowed to grow and do better, and employees being treated fairly can be a rarity in this world.  One company that I believe adheres to this principle is Pluralsight – as evidenced by this fun video. I have blogged about it earlier. (check out my cameo at 0:37). It was great fun to work with the employees at Pluralsight while making this video.  They are a great bunch and clearly have a great work environment – we wouldn’t have had this much fun if not!  I have to tell you a little bit about making this video.  My wife shot it with her mobile phone, which was certainly a different but exciting experience!  It was hard to get the look of the video right, since I was trying to portray a body builder – this was a little outside of my own personal experience.  I have what I like to call a “healthy” body type, so trying to look extremely fit like some of the other “actors” in this video was a challenge – but I do hope that you all think I succeeded.  All in all, it was great fun to participate in this video and I hope to see my friends at Pluralsight again soon. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• SQL SERVER – NTFS File System Performance for SQL Server

  - by pinaldave

  Note: Before practicing any of the suggestion of this article, consult your IT Infrastructural Admin, applying the suggestion without proper testing can only damage your system. Question: “Pinal, we have 80 GB of data including all the database files, we have our data in NTFS file system. We have proper backups are set up. Any suggestion for our NTFS file system performance improvement. Our SQL Server box is running only SQL Server and nothing else. Please advise.” When I receive questions which I have just listed above, it often sends me deep thought. Honestly, I know a lot but there are plenty of things, I believe can be built with community knowledge base. Today I need you to help me to complete this list. I will start the list and you help me complete it. NTFS File System Performance Best Practices for SQL Server Disable Indexing on disk volumes Disable generation of 8.3 names (command: FSUTIL BEHAVIOR SET DISABLE8DOT3 1) Disable last file access time tracking (command: FSUTIL BEHAVIOR SET DISABLELASTACCESS 1) Keep some space empty (let us say 15% for reference) on drive is possible (Only on Filestream Data storage volume) Defragement the volume Add your suggestions here… The one which I often get a pretty big debate is NTFS allocation size. I have seen that on the disk volume which stores filestream data, when increased allocation to 64K from 4K, it reduces the fragmentation. Again, I suggest you attempt this after proper testing on your server. Every system is different and the file stored is different. Here is when I would like to request you to share your experience with related to NTFS allocation size. If you do not agree with any of the above suggestions, leave a comment with reference and I will modify it. Please note that above list prepared assuming the SQL Server application is only running on the computer system. The next question does all these still relevant for SSD – I personally have no experience with SSD with large database so I will refrain from comment. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Transaction Log Full – Transaction Log Larger than Data File – Notes from Fields #001

  - by Pinal Dave

  I am very excited to announce a new series on this blog – Notes from Fields. I have been blogging for almost 7 years on this blog and it has been a wonderful experience. Though, I have extensive experience with SQL and Databases, it is always a good idea that we consult experts for their advice and opinion. Following the same thought process, I have started this new series of Notes from Fields. In this series we will have notes from various experts in the database world. My friends at Linchpin People have graciously decided to support me in my new initiation.  Linchpin People are database coaches and wellness experts for a data driven world. In this very first episode of the Notes from Fields series database expert Tim Radney (partner at Linchpin People) explains a very common issue DBA and Developer faces in their career, when database logs fills up your hard-drive or your database log is larger than your data file. Read the experience of Tim in his own words. As a consultant, I encounter a number of common issues with clients.  One of the more common things I encounter is finding a user database in the FULL recovery model that does not make a regular transaction log backups or ever had a transaction log backup. When I find this, usually the transaction log is several times larger than the data file. Finding this issue is very significant to me in that it allows to me to discuss service level agreements with the client. I get to ask questions such as, are nightly full backups sufficient or do they need point in time recovery.  This conversation has now signed with the customer and gets them to thinking about their disaster recovery and high availability solutions. This issue is also very prominent on SQL Server forums and usually has the title of “Help, my transaction log has filled up my disk” or “Help, my transaction log is many times the size of my database”. In cases where the client only needs the previous full nights backup, I am able to change the recovery model to SIMPLE and shrink the transaction log using DBCC SHRINKFILE (2,1) or by specifying the transaction log file name by using DBCC SHRINKFILE (file_name, target_size). When the client needs point in time recovery then in most cases I will still end up switching the client to the SIMPLE recovery model to truncate the transaction log followed by a full backup. I will then schedule a SQL Agent job to make the regular transaction log backups with an interval determined by the client to meet their service level agreements. It should also be noted that typically when I find an overgrown transaction log the virtual log file count is also out of control. I clean up will always take that into account as well.  That is a subject for a future blog post. If your SQL Server is facing any issue we can Fix Your SQL Server. Additional reading: Monitoring SQL Server Database Transaction Log Space Growth – DBCC SQLPERF(logspace)  SQL SERVER – How to Stop Growing Log File Too Big Shrinking Truncate Log File – Log Full Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Backup and Restore, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• SQL SERVER – CSVExpress and Quick Data Load

  - by pinaldave

  One of the newest ETL tools is CSVexpress.com.  This is a program that can quickly load any CSV file into ODBC compliant databases uses data integration.  For those of you familiar with databases and how they operate, the question that comes to mind might be what use this program will have in your life. I have written earlier article on this subject over here SQL SERVER – Import CSV into Database – Transferring File Content into a Database Table using CSVexpress. You might know that RDBMS have automatic support for loading CSV files into tables – but it is not quite as easy as one click of a button.  First of all, most databases have a command line interface and you need the file and configuration script in order to load up.  You also need to know enough to write the script – which for novices can be extremely daunting.  On top of all this, if you work with more than one type of RDBMS, you need to know the ins and outs of uploading and writing script for more than one program. So you might begin to see how useful CSVexpress.com might be!  There are many other tools that enable uploading files to a database.  They can be very fancy – some can generate configuration files automatically, others load the data directly.  Again, novices will be able to tell you why these aren’t the most useful programs in the world.  You see, these programs were created with SQL in mind, not for uploading data.  If you don’t have large amounts of data to upload, getting the configurations right can be a long process and you will have to check the code that is generated yourself.  Not exactly “easy to use” for novices. That makes CSVexpress.com one of the best new tools available for everyone – but especially people who don’t want to learn a lot of new material all at once.  CSVexpress has an easy to navigate graphical user interface and no scripting or coding is required.  There are built-in constraints and data validations, and you can configure transforms and reject records right there on the screen.  But the best thing of all – it’s free! That’s right, you can download CSVexpress for free from www.csvexpress.com and start easily uploading and configuring riles almost immediately.  If you’re currently happy with your method of data configuration, keep up with the good work.  For the rest of us, there’s CSVexpress.com. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Preserve Leading Zero While Coping to Excel from SSMS

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier I wrote two articles about how to efficiently copy data from SSMS to Excel. Since I wrote that post there are plenty of interest generated on this subject. There are a few questions I keep on getting over this subject. One of the question is how to get the leading zero preserved while copying the data from SSMS to Excel. Well it is almost the same way as my earlier post SQL SERVER – Excel Losing Decimal Values When Value Pasted from SSMS ResultSet. The key here is in EXCEL and not in SQL Server. The step here is to change the format of Excel Cell to Text from Numbers and that will preserve the value of the with leading or trailing Zeros in Excel. However, I assume this is done for display purpose only because once you convert column to Text you may find it difficult to do numeric operations over the column for example Aggregation, Average etc. If you need to do the same you should either convert the columns back to Numeric in Excel or do the process in Database and export the same value as along with it as well. However, I have seen in requirement in the real world where the user has to have a numeric value with leading Zero values in it for display purpose. Here is my suggestion, instead of manipulating numeric value in the database and converting it to character value the ideal thing to do is to store it as a numeric value only in the database. Whatever changes you want to do for display purpose should be handled at the time of the display using the format function of SQL or Application Language. Honestly, database is data layer and presentation is presentation layer – they are two different things and if possible they should not be mixed. If due to any reason you cannot follow above advise and you need is to have append leading zeros in the database only here are two of my previous articles I suggest you to refer them. I am open to learn new tricks as these articles are almost three years old. Please share your opinion and suggestions in the comments area. SQL SERVER – Pad Ride Side of Number with 0 – Fixed Width Number Display SQL SERVER – UDF – Pad Ride Side of Number with 0 – Fixed Width Number Display Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Excel

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