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• SQLAuthority News – Download SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4

  - by pinaldave

  There are few trends I often see in the industry, for example i) running servers on n-1 version ii) wait till SP1 to released to adopt the product. Microsoft has recently released SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4. CTP stands for Community Technology Preview and it is not the final version yet. The SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP release is available for testing purposes and use on non-production environments. What’s new for SQL Server 2012 SP1: AlwaysOn Availability Group OS Upgrade: Selective XML Index FIX: DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS works with SELECT permission New dynamic function returns statistics properties SSMS Complete in Express SlipStream Full installation Business Intelligence Excel Update You can download SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4 from here. SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4 feature pack is available for download from here. Additionally, SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP Express is available to download as well from here. Note that SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP has SSMS as well. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)       Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Download PSSDIAG Data Collection Utility

  - by pinaldave

  During an early career of mine as a database consultant – when I was dealing with SQL Server 2000, I often needed to collect various data related to SQL Server. My favorite tool to collect the data is PSSDIAG tool. It is a general purpose diagnostic collection utility that Microsoft Product Support Services uses to collect various logs and data files. It collects Performance Monitor logs, SQL Profiler traces, SQL Server blocking script output, Windows Event Logs, and SQLDIAG output. The data collected can be used by SQL Nexus tool which help you troubleshoot SQL Server performance problems. PSSDIAG is a wrapper around other data collection APIs and utilities, the performance impact of running PSSDIAG is generally equal to the impact of the traces that PSSDIAG has been configured to capture. If you are using SQL Server 2000 – you need to seriously consider to upgrading it to SQL Server 2012. Here is a PSSDIAG Data Collection Utility updated in August 2012. My friend and SQL Server Expert Amit Benerjee have written an excellent article on this subject, I encourage all of you to read the same. Note: For SQL Server 2012 there is SQLDiag. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• IASA ITARC &ndash; Denver May 6th

  - by Jeff Certain

  The Denver chapter of the International Association of Software Architects (IASA) is holding an IT Architect Regional Conference (ITARC) in Denver on May 6th. The speaker list for this conference is amazing. Paul Rayner, Dave McComb, Randy Kahle, Peter Provost, Randy Stafford, George Fairbanks – all great speakers, and from Colorado. Brandon Satrom (who also happens to be the president of the IASA Austin chapter) will also be speaking, as will some other heavy hitters (for example, Ted Farrell, Chief Architect and Senior VP of Oracle). This is an amazing line-up, and the conference is quite reasonably priced ($150 for IASA members until April 10th, including a catered lunch). I also have the privilege of being a presenter at this conference. If you’ve ever heard any of the previously named speakers, you know that they set the bar quite high. Sounds like I’m going to have to step up my game. What I get to talk about is really cool stuff. The company I work for – Colorado CustomWare – brought me on board nearly two years ago. To say there was some technical debt is somewhat… understated. Equally understated would be that management is committed to doing the right thing. Over the past two years, we’ve done significant architectural refactoring – including an effort that took the entire team offline for most of a month. We’ve reduced the application size by 50% without losing functionality. As you can imagine, this has reduced the complexity of the application, making development faster and less prone to bugs. We’ve made many other changes – moving to an agile process, training developers, moving towards a more OO architecture. The changes we’ve made reveal, in some ways, just how far afield we were.. and there are still more changes to be made. Amazingly enough, our leadership team is eager for me to share these experiences with other architects. I’m really looking forward to being able to do so.

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• WPF Applications &ndash; Handling the Unhandled

  - by David Totzke

  Instead of just letting your application crash, you can attach a method to the DispatcherUnhandledExceptionEventHandler and one to the AppDomain.Current.UnhandledException.  You wire these up in the code behind of your application which by default is App.xaml.cs.  You can log these errors or throw up a message Don Box and tell the user what happened.  Then you shut down the app gracefully.  You shut it down because something bad happened that you weren’t expecting and at this point there is no guarantee as to the state of the stack or memory or anything really.  All bets are off. If, on the other hand, the method for the UnhandledException is empty and the method for the DispatcherUnhandledEventHandler ends up in a call to a method called LogError() and the LogError() method is FUCKING EMPTY, and you just swallow the exceptions and keep on running, then, not so much.  I spent nearly a day trying to track down a bug that would have been obvious had something been logged or if it just crashed.  It’s my own fault I suppose.  I knew these were hooked up.  I just never suspected that there wouldn’t be any implementation at all.  Live and learn. Customs Man at Heathrow: Anything to declare, Sir? Jekyll and Hyde: Man has not evolved an inch from the slime that spawned him. Customs Man at Heathrow: Very Good, Sir. I tend to agree. Dave Just because I can…

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• SQL SERVER – Technical Reference Guides for Designing Mission-Critical Solutions – A Must Read

  - by pinaldave

  Yesterday I was reading architecture reference material helping my friend who was looking for material in this respect. While working together we were searching twitter, facebook and search engines to find relevant material.While searching online we end up on very interactive reference point. Once I send the same to him, he replied he may not need anything more after referencing this material. The best part of this article was it gives access to various aspect of the technology of the image map. Here is the abstract of the original article from the site: The Technical Reference Guides for Designing Mission-Critical Solutions provide planning and architecture guidance for various mission-critical workloads deployed by users. These guides reflect the knowledge gained by Microsoft while working with customers on mission-critical deployments. Each guide provides not only the key technical concepts and information helpful for design, but also “lessons learned,” best practices, and references to customer case studies. Once you click on any of the desired topic, you will see further detailed image map of the selected topic. Personally once I ended up on this site, I was there for more than 2 hours clicking through various links. Click on image to see larger image Read more here: Technical Reference Guides for Designing Mission-Critical Solutions Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Finding Size of a Columnstore Index Using DMVs

  - by pinaldave

  Columnstore Index is one of my favorite enhancement in SQL Server 2012. A columnstore index stores each column in a separate set of disk pages, rather than storing multiple rows per page as data traditionally has been stored. In case of the row store indexes multiple pages will contain multiple rows of the columns spanning across multiple pages. Whereas in case of column store indexes multiple pages will contain (multiple) single columns.  Columnstore Indexes are compressed by default and occupies much lesser space than regular row store index by default. One of the very common question I often see is need of the list of columnstore index along with their size and corresponding table name. I quickly re-wrote a script using DMVs sys.indexes and sys.dm_db_partition_stats. This script gives the size of the columnstore index on disk only. I am sure there will be advanced script to retrieve details related to components associated with the columnstore index. However, I believe following script is sufficient to start getting an idea of columnstore index size.  SELECT OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(i.OBJECT_ID) SchemaName, OBJECT_NAME(i.OBJECT_ID ) TableName, i.name IndexName, SUM(s.used_page_count) / 128.0 IndexSizeinMB FROM sys.indexes AS i INNER JOIN sys.dm_db_partition_stats AS S ON i.OBJECT_ID = S.OBJECT_ID AND I.index_id = S.index_id WHERE  i.type_desc = 'NONCLUSTERED COLUMNSTORE' GROUP BY i.OBJECT_ID, i.name Here is my introductory article written on SQL Server Fundamentals of Columnstore Index. Create a sample columnstore index based on the script described in the earlier article. It will give the following results. Please feel free to suggest improvement to script so I can further modify it to accommodate enhancements. 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 Tagged: ColumnStore Index

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• SQL SERVER – New Look for CodePlexProject – Hosting for Open Source Software

  - by pinaldave

  Codeplex is my favorite site. CodePlex is Microsoft’s free open source project hosting site. You can create projects to share with the world, collaborate with others on their projects, and download open source software. It is great place to find so many open source project available to explore. All the softwares are free and open source. I often go there at intervals to check what is new in SQL Server field as well on other technologies. Yesterday when I visited it, I had nice surprise as it has total makeover and looks very decent as well elegant at the same time. I have noticed that when I talk about Codeplex is user community, not everybody knows about it. The quickest way I explain what is codeplex is that I start naming few of the projects which are available there and suddenly I start noticing a few hands going up knowing the projects. This is indirect way to prove that many of us know CodePlex usability but do not pay special attention to what it is actually. Let me name a few popular projects of the CodePlex here. SQL Server Sample Database [link] Image Resizer for Windows [link] Ajax Control Toolkit [link] Skype Voice Changer [link] Silverlight Toolkit [link] Windows 7 USB/DBD Download Tool [link] Orchard Project [link] There are very interesting SQL Server projects available on Codeplex as well. I am listing few of them here for reference in listed in no particular order. SQL Server Sample Database [link] SQL Server Compact ToolBox [link] Microsoft Drivers for PHP for SQL Server [link] Internals Viewer for SQL Server [link] SQL Server Spatial Tooks [link] SQL Monitor – managing sql server performance [link] SQL Server 2008 Extended Events SSMS Addin [link] How many of above mentioned project have you come across earlier? Leave a comment it will be interesting to know what our community is familiar with. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Answer – Value of Identity Column after TRUNCATE command

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier I had one conversation with reader where I almost got a headache. I suggest all of you to read it before continuing this blog post SQL SERVER – Reseting Identity Values for All Tables. I believed that he faced this situation because he did not understand the difference between SQL SERVER – DELETE, TRUNCATE and RESEED Identity. I wrote a follow up blog post explaining the difference between them. I asked a small question in the second blog post and I received many interesting comments. Let us go over the question and its answer here one more time. Here is the scenario to set up the puzzle. Create Table with Seed Identity = 11 Insert Value and Check Seed (it will be 11) Reseed it to 1 Insert Value and Check Seed (it will be 2) TRUNCATE Table Insert Value and Check Seed (it will be 11) Let us see the T-SQL Script for the same. USE [TempDB] GO -- Create Table CREATE TABLE [dbo].[TestTable]( [ID] [int] IDENTITY(11,1) NOT NULL, [var] [nchar](10) NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GO -- Build sample data INSERT INTO [TestTable] VALUES ('val') GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM [TestTable] GO -- Reseed to 1 DBCC CHECKIDENT ('TestTable', RESEED, 1) GO -- Build sample data INSERT INTO [TestTable] VALUES ('val') GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM [TestTable] GO -- Truncate table TRUNCATE TABLE [TestTable] GO -- Build sample data INSERT INTO [TestTable] VALUES ('val') GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM [TestTable] GO -- Question for you Here -- Clean up DROP TABLE [TestTable] GO Now let us see the output of three of the select statements. 1) First Select after create table 2) Second Select after reseed table 3) Third Select after truncate table The reason is simple: If the table contains an identity column, the counter for that column is reset to the seed value defined for the column. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)       Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – A Cool Trick – Restoring the Default SQL Server Management Studio – SSMS

  - by pinaldave

  “I do not know where my windows went!” “I just closed my object explorer and now I cannot find it.” “How do I get my original windows layout back in SQL Server Management Studio?” “How do I get the window which was there in left side back again?” Since last 2-3 years, every single day I receive more than 5 emails on SSMS and its layout. For the beginners it is very common to get confused when they attempt to change SQL Server Management Studio’s windows layout. They often change the layout and are not able to get the original layout back. Often people do not change the layout whole of their life, leading to uncomfortable feeling when they go to another’s computer where the windows are differently placed. Today’s blog post is dedicated all the beginners in SQL Server. It is extremely simple to reset the SSMS layout to default layout. The default layout involves 2 major things 1) Object Explorer on left side 2) Query Windows on right side (80% screen estate). Personally I am so used to this as well that if there is any other changes in the same, I do not enjoy working on the environment. Well, the solution to rest the SSMS layout is very simple. One can do it in split seconds.  To restore the default configuration, on the Window menu, click Reset Window Layout. Have you ever used this feature? Do you feel uncomfortable when SSMS layout is not in default state? How do you address this situation? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Whitepaper Download – Using Star Join and Few-Outer-Row Optimizations to Improve Data Warehousing Queries

  - by pinaldave

  Size of the database is growing every day. Many organizations now a days have more than TB of the Data in their system. Performance is always part of the issue. Microsoft is really paying attention to the same and also focusing on improving performance for Data Warehousing. Microsoft has recently released whitepaper on the performance tuning subject of Data Warehousing. Here is the abstract about the whitepaper from official site: In this white paper we discuss two of the new features introduced in SQL Server 2008, Star Join and Few-Outer-Row optimizations. These two features are in SQL Server 2008 R2 as well.  We test the performance of SQL Server 2008 on a set of complex data warehouse queries designed to highlight the effect of these two features and observed a significant performance gain over SQL Server 2005 (without these two features). The results observed also apply to SQL Server 2008 R2.  On average, about 75 percent of the query execution time has been reduced, compared to SQL Server 2005. We also include data that shows a reduction in the number of rows processed and improved balance in parallel queries, both of which highlight the important role the Star Join and Few Outer-Row features played. I encouraged all of those interested in Data Warehouse to read it and see if they can learn the tricks. Using Star Join and Few-Outer-Row Optimizations to Improve Data Warehousing Queries Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• WPF and Composite Application Library &ndash; Missing The Point

  - by David Totzke

  I have a headache and it’s not even 9AM yet.  Well, ok, it’s nearly ten here now in GMT –5 but it’s before nine somewhere still. Sometimes people will miss the point of something so utterly and completely that one is left wondering how such a person can even dress themselves. Writing an application using WPF and the Composite Application Library (Prism) means that one must learn the various programming idioms common to these frameworks.  The Windows Forms event driven model simply will not suffice.  You need to come to grips with the idea of a very loosely coupled application.  Concepts that must be absorbed and internalized include Data Binding, Control and Data Templates, Commands, Dependency Injection, and Inversion of Control, as well as the Supervising Controller, Presentation Model and Model-View-View-Model patterns. It is as simple as that.  Not to embrace these concepts is to invite pain.  It is to invite noodles; and not the holy kind. Someone actually said to me that “just because it’s not WPF, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”  And he’s right.  Unless, of course, you are writing a WPF application and especially if you are using the Composite Application Library. In simple terms then; YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!   Dave Just because I can…

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• SQLAuthority News – Download – Microsoft SQL Server Compact 4.0

  - by pinaldave

  Microsoft SQL Server Compact 4.0 is a free, embedded database that software developers can use for building ASP.NET websites and Windows desktop applications. SQL Server Compact 4.0 has a small footprint and supports private deployment of its binaries within the application folder, easy application development in Visual Studio and WebMatrix, and seamless migration of schema and data to SQL Server. You can download very small file of SQL Server CE from here. Books Online is the primary documentation for SQL Server Compact 4.0. Books Online includes the following types of information: Setup and upgrade instructions. Information about new features and backward compatibility. Conceptual descriptions of the technologies and features in SQL Server Compact 4.0. Procedural topics describing how to use the various features in SQL Server Compact 4.0. Tutorials that guide you through common tasks. Reference documentation for the graphical tools, programming languages, and application programming interfaces (APIs) that are supported by SQL Server Compact 4.0. You can download SQL Server CE Book Online here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Oracle Solaris 11 Summit Day at the LISA Conference 2011-Register Today!

  - by Terri Wischmann

  We have successfully launched and shipped Oracle Solaris 11!  Come to the LISA 2011 Conference in Boston, MA to learn about all the latest and greatest Oracle Solaris 11 technologies. On Tuesday, 12/6/11 we are hosting our 2nd annual Oracle Solaris 11 Summit Day! It's a Free full day of sessions covering the latest OS technologies, and a chance for you to meet key members of the Oracle Solaris engineering team as they conduct a deep-dive exploration of core Solaris features. See agenda below -Register Today!!  Time  Topic  Presenter  9:00 -9:30 am  Oracle Solaris 11 Strategy  Markus Flierl  9:30 - 11:00 am  Next Generation OS Lifecycle Management with Oracle Solaris 11  Dave Miner/Bart Smaalders  11:00 am  - 12:00 pm  Data Management with ZFS  Mark Maybee  12:00 - 1:00 pm  LUNCH  All  1:00 - 2:30 pm Oracle Solaris Virtualization and Oracle Solaris Networking  Mike Gerdts/Sebastian Roy 2:30 - 3:15 pm Security in your Oracle Solaris Cloud Environment  Glenn Faden  3:15 - 3:30 pm  BREAK  All  3:30 - 4:15 pm Oracle Solaris - The Best Platform to run your Oracle Applications David Brean  4:15 - 5:00 pm Oracle Solaris Cluster - HA in the Cloud Gia-Khahn Nguyen  5:00 - 6:30 pm  Reception  All

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• SQL SERVER – Load Generator – Free Tool From CodePlex

  - by pinaldave

  One of the most common questions I receive is if there any tool available to generate load on SQL Server. Absolutely there is a fabulous free tool available to generate load on SQL Server on Codeplex. This tool was released in 2008 but it is still extremely relevant to generate the load on SQL Server as well works fabulously. CodePlex is a project initiated by Microsoft for hosting open source softwares. The best part of this SQL Server Load Generator is that users can run multiple simultaneous queries again SQL Server using different login account and different application name. The interface of the tool is extremely easy to use and very intuitive as well. One of the things which I felt needed improvement was a default configuration. As every single time when I was adding a query the default settings were showing up and I had to manually change that. However, when I went to Menu >> Tools >>Options I was really happy as it has options to change every single default which is available. Here one can give default username, password, database name as well various settings related to configuration. Additionally application logging is also possible through the options. A couple of other important points I noticed was the button to reset counters as well status bar containing useful information of Total Threads, Completed Queries and Failed Queries. I use this frequently for my load testing. What tool do you use for SQL Server Load Generator? Download SQL Load Generator Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – NuoDB MeetUp on Nov 8, 2012 in Seattle

  - by pinaldave

  I am pleased to let you know that I will be attending again this year’s SQLPASS conference in Seattle and look forward to meeting all of you while at the conference. In the next two weeks, I will provide you with a full agenda of where I will be during PASS. During the week, I will also be stopping by at the NuoDB MeetUp, which will be held close by at the Edge Grill at 1522 6th Ave in Seattle on Thursday, November 8th. This will be an excellent opportunity for you to learn more about their brand new distributed, peer-to-peer database solution, which I believe will revolutionize SQL cloud database technology in the 21th century.  I have been personally following NuoDB for months now and am very excited about the architecture and capabilities of this innovative product. Wiqar Chaudry, NuoDB technology evangelist, will give a presentation and demonstration of their elastically scalable SQL cloud database in this Meetup event.  Prior to joining NuoDB, Wiqar was a Senior Architect at Epsilon, the data intelligence company with big brand name customers in insurance, consumer goods, etc.  He’s also going to discuss how NuoDB compares with Azure, the hometown favorite, and why cloud-based SQL deployment will pave the way for the future. I will be at the NuoDB MeetUp to briefly talk about my own experiences with NuoDB and will be giving away some signed copies of my latest book as well will have some interesting goodies. So please join me and the NuoDB team at their Meetup event. RSVP here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: NuoDB

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• SQL SERVER – ERROR – FIX – Msg 3702, Level 16, State 3, Line 1 Cannot drop database “MyDBName” because it is currently in use

  - by pinaldave

  I often go to do various seminars and presentations at various organizations. During presentations I often create and drop various databases for demonstrations purpose. Recently in one of the presentations, I tried to remove my recently created database, I got following error. Msg 3702, Level 16, State 3, Line 1 Cannot drop database “MyDBName” because it is currently in use. The reason was very simple as my database was in use by another session or window. I had option that I should go and find open session and close it right away; later followed by dropping the database. As I was in rush I quickly wrote down following code and I was able to successfully drop the database. USE MASTER GO ALTER DATABASE MyDBName SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE; DROP DATABASE MyDBName GO Please note that I am doing all this on my demonstrations, do not run above code on production without proper approvals and supervisions. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Error Messages, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Validating Unique Columnname Across Whole Database

  - by pinaldave

  I sometimes come across very strange requirements and often I do not receive a proper explanation of the same. Here is the one of those examples. Asker: “Our business requirement is when we add new column we want it unique across current database.” Pinal: “Why do you have such requirement?” Asker: “Do you know the solution?” Pinal: “Sure I can come up with the answer but it will help me to come up with an optimal answer if I know the business need.” Asker: “Thanks – what will be the answer in that case.” Pinal: “Honestly I am just curious about the reason why you need your column name to be unique across database.” (Silence) Pinal: “Alright – here is the answer – I guess you do not want to tell me reason.” Option 1: Check if Column Exists in Current Database IF EXISTS (  SELECT * FROM sys.columns WHERE Name = N'NameofColumn') BEGIN SELECT 'Column Exists' -- add other logic END ELSE BEGIN SELECT 'Column Does NOT Exists' -- add other logic END Option 2: Check if Column Exists in Current Database in Specific Table IF EXISTS (  SELECT * FROM sys.columns WHERE Name = N'NameofColumn' AND OBJECT_ID = OBJECT_ID(N'tableName')) BEGIN SELECT 'Column Exists' -- add other logic END ELSE BEGIN SELECT 'Column Does NOT Exists' -- add other logic END I guess user did not want to share the reason why he had a unique requirement of having column name unique across databases. Here is my question back to you – have you faced a similar situation ever where you needed unique column name across a database. If not, can you guess what could be the reason for this kind of requirement?  Additional Reference: SQL SERVER – Query to Find Column From All Tables of Database Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL System Table, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – 6th Anniversary and 50 Million Views and Over 2300 Blog Posts – Thank You Thank You

  - by pinaldave

  Six years ago, I started this SQLAuthority.com blog. There are so many things I want to say today – it is very very emotional. Instead of writing long I am including few images and cartoons. Last month we have also reached 50 Million Total Views on this blog. Here is the screen captured at that time. Click Image to Enlarge In 6 years there are total 2192 days (including 2 leap year day) and my total blog post count is 2300. That means I have been blogging more than 1 blog post every day. Here is the quick glance to all the numbers. Here you can find the list of all the 2300 blog posts. I am very glad to see my many of the friends stay in USA, India, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia in that order. You can see the geographic distribution of the support I receive on the blog from worldwide. On this day I would like to call out one 2 individuals who contribute equally or more in my success. When I started this blog 6 years ago, I was walking alone. After 2 years my wife Nupur joined my journey and 3 years later my daughter Shaivi joined the journey. Here is the example of the common conversation among us almost every day - Shaivi: Daddy, play catch-catch. Nupur: Shaivi, daddy will play with you once he finishes tomorrow’s blog. Shaivi: Daddy, Finish Blog. Okey. I play catch-catch (alone). SQLAuthority Family Well, thank you very much! We all love you! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Fix: Error: 8117: Operand data type bit is invalid for sum operator

  - by pinaldave

  Here is the very interesting error I received from a reader. He has very interesting question. He attempted to use BIT filed in the SUM aggregation function and he got following error. He went ahead with various different datatype (i.e. INT, TINYINT etc) and he was able to do the SUM but with BIT he faced the problem. Error Received: Msg 8117, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Operand data type bit is invalid for sum operator. Reproduction of the error: Set up the environment USE tempdb GO -- Preparing Sample Data CREATE TABLE TestTable (ID INT, Flag BIT) GO INSERT INTO TestTable (ID, Flag) SELECT 1, 0 UNION ALL SELECT 2, 1 UNION ALL SELECT 3, 0 UNION ALL SELECT 4, 1 GO SELECT * FROM TestTable GO Following script will work fine: -- This will work fine SELECT SUM(ID) FROM TestTable GO However following generate error: -- This will generate error SELECT SUM(Flag) FROM TestTable GO The workaround is to convert or cast the BIT to INT: -- Workaround of error SELECT SUM(CONVERT(INT, Flag)) FROM TestTable GO Clean up the setup -- Clean up DROP TABLE TestTable GO Workaround: As mentioned in above script the workaround is to covert the bit datatype to another friendly data types like INT, TINYINT etc. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Download Whitepaper – Choosing a Tabular or Multidimensional Modeling Experience in SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services

  - by pinaldave

  Data modeling is the most important task for any BI professional. Matter of the fact, the biggest challenge is to organizing disparate data into an analytic model that effectively and efficiently supports the reporting and analysis. SQL Server 2012 introduces BI Semantic Model (BISM), a single model that can support a broad range of reporting and analysis while blending two Analysis Services modeling experiences behind the scenes. Multidimensional modeling – enables BI professionals to create sophisticated multidimensional cubes using traditional online analytical processing (OLAP). Tabular modeling – provides self-service data modeling capabilities to business and data analysts. As data modeling is evolving and business needs are growing new technologies and tools are emerging to help end users to make the necessary adjustment to the reporting and analysis needs. This white paper is will provide practical guidance to help you decide which SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services modeling experience – tabular or multidimensional. Do let me know what do is your opinion as a comment. In simple word – I would like to know when will you use Tabular modeling and when Multidimensional modeling? Download Choosing a Tabular or Multidimensional Modeling Experience in SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Business Intelligence, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Follow up – Usage of $rowguid and $IDENTITY

  - by pinaldave

  The most common question I often receive is why do I blog? The answer is even simpler – I blog because I get an extremely constructive comment and conversation from people like DHall and Kumar Harsh. Earlier this week, I shared a conversation between Madhivanan and myself regarding how to find out if a table uses ROWGUID or not? I encourage all of you to read the conversation here: SQL SERVER – Identifying Column Data Type of uniqueidentifier without Querying System Tables. In simple words the conversation between Madhivanan and myself brought out a simple query which returns the values of the UNIQUEIDENTIFIER  without knowing the name of the column. David Hall wrote few excellent comments as a follow up and every SQL Enthusiast must read them first, second and third. David is always with positive energy, he first of all shows the limitation of my solution here and here which he follows up with his own solution here. As he said his solution is also not perfect but it indeed leaves learning bites for all of us – worth reading if you are interested in unorthodox solutions. Kumar Harsh suggested that one can also find Identity Column used in the table very similar way using $IDENTITY. Here is how one can do the same. DECLARE @t TABLE ( GuidCol UNIQUEIDENTIFIER DEFAULT newsequentialid() ROWGUIDCOL, IDENTITYCL INT IDENTITY(1,1), data VARCHAR(60) ) INSERT INTO @t (data) SELECT 'test' INSERT INTO @t (data) SELECT 'test1' SELECT $rowguid,$IDENTITY FROM @t There are alternate ways also to find an identity column in the database as well. Following query will give a list of all column names with their corresponding tablename. SELECT SCHEMA_NAME(so.schema_id) SchemaName, so.name TableName, sc.name ColumnName FROM sys.objects so INNER JOIN sys.columns sc ON so.OBJECT_ID = sc.OBJECT_ID AND sc.is_identity = 1 Let me know if you use any alternate method related to identity, I would like to know what you do and how you do when you have to deal with Identity Column. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – BI Quiz Question – How to Optimize Cube? – Hints

  - by pinaldave

  I earlier wrote about SQL BI Quiz over here. The details of the quiz is as following: Working with huge data is very common when it is about Data Warehousing. It is necessary to create Cubes on the data to make it meaningful and consumable. There are cases when retrieving the data from cube takes lots of the time. Let us assume that your cube is returning you data very quickly. Suddenly on one day it is returning the data very slowly. What are the three things will you to diagnose this. After diagnose what you will do to resolve performance issue. Participate in my question over here Here is a couple of hints what I am looking for in answer: How to reach to root of slow performance? Is hardware causing the problem or something else? Is slowness is due to how cube is build and its granularity? Is underlying tables require maintenance? Is there is chance to refractor the process? Are there any tool which can help diagnosis the slowness of the cube? It is not necessary to answer all the question – but something to start with. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Microsoft Whitepaper – AlwaysOn Solution Guide: Offloading Read-Only Workloads to Secondary Replicas

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server 2012 has many interesting features but the most talked feature is AlwaysOn. Performance tuning is always a hot topic. I see lots of need of the same and lots of business around it. However, many times when people talk about performance tuning they think of it as a either query tuning, performance tuning, or server tuning. All are valid points, but performance tuning expert usually understands the business workload and business logic before making suggestions. For example, if performance tuning expert analysis workload and realize that there are plenty of reports as well read only queries on the server they can for sure consider alternate options for the same. If read only data is not required real time or it can accept the data which is delayed a bit it makes sense to divide the workload. A secondary replica of the original data which can serve all the read only queries and report is a good idea in most of the cases where there is plenty of workload which is not dependent on the real time data. SQL Server 2012 has introduced the feature of AlwaysOn which can very well fit in this scenario and provide a solution in Read-Only Workloads. Microsoft has recently announced a white paper which is based on absolutely the same subject. I recommend it to read for every SQL Enthusiast who is are going to implement a solution to offload read-only workloads to secondary replicas. Download white paper AlwaysOn Solution Guide: Offloading Read-Only Workloads to Secondary Replicas 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 Tagged: AlwaysOn

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• SQLAuthority News – #SQLPASS 2012 Schedule – Where can You Find Me

  - by pinaldave

  Yesterday I wrote about my memory lane with SQLPASS. It has been a fantastic experience and I am very confident that this year the same excellent experience is going to be repeated. Before I start for #SQLPASS every year, I plan where I want to be and what I will be doing. As I travel from India to attend this event (22+ hours flying time and door to door travel time around 36 hours), it is very crucial that I plan things in advance. This year here is my quick note where I will be during the SQLPASS event. If you can stop with me, I would like to meet you, shake your hand and will archive memories as a photograph. Tuesday, November 6, 2012 6:30pm-8:00pm PASS Summit 2012 Welcome Reception Wednesday, November 7, 2012 12pm-1pm – Book Signing at Exhibit Hall Joes Pros booth#117 (FREE BOOK) 5:30pm-6:30pm – Idera Reception at Fox Sports Grill 7pm-8pm - Embarcadero Booth Book Signing (FREE BOOK) 8pm onwards – Exhibitor Reception Thursday, November 8, 2012 12pm-1pm - Embarcadero Booth Book Signing (FREE BOOK) 7pm-10pm - Community Appreciation Party Friday, November 9, 2012 12pm-1pm - Joes 2 Pros Book Signing at Exhibit Hall Joes Pros booth#117 11:30pm-1pm - Birds of a Feather Luncheon Rest of the Time! Exhibition Hall Joes 2 Pros Booth #117. Stop by for the goodies! Lots of people have already sent me email asking if we can meet for a cup of coffee to discuss SQL. Absolutely! I like cafe mocha with skim milk and whip cream and I do not get tired of it. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL PASS, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Grouping by Multiple Columns to Single Column as A String

  - by pinaldave

  One of the most common questions I receive in email is how to group multiple column data in comma separate values in a single row grouping by another column. I have previously blogged about it in following two blog posts. However, both aren’t addressing the following exact problem. Comma Separated Values (CSV) from Table Column Comma Separated Values (CSV) from Table Column – Part 2 The question comes in many different formats but in following image I am demonstrating the same question in simple words. This is the most popular question on my Facebook page as well. (Example) Here is the sample script to build the sample dataset. CREATE TABLE TestTable (ID INT, Col VARCHAR(4)) GO INSERT INTO TestTable (ID, Col) SELECT 1, 'A' UNION ALL SELECT 1, 'B' UNION ALL SELECT 1, 'C' UNION ALL SELECT 2, 'A' UNION ALL SELECT 2, 'B' UNION ALL SELECT 2, 'C' UNION ALL SELECT 2, 'D' UNION ALL SELECT 2, 'E' GO SELECT * FROM TestTable GO Here is the solution which will build an answer to the above question. -- Get CSV values SELECT t.ID, STUFF( (SELECT ',' + s.Col FROM TestTable s WHERE s.ID = t.ID FOR XML PATH('')),1,1,'') AS CSV FROM TestTable AS t GROUP BY t.ID GO I hope this is an easy solution. I am going to point to this blog post in the future for all the similar questions. Final Clean Up Act -- Clean up DROP TABLE TestTable GO Here is the question back to you - Is there any better way to write above script? Please leave a comment and I will write a separate blog post with due credit. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL XML

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