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• Clustering Basics and Challenges

  - by Karoly Vegh

  For upcoming posts it seemed to be a good idea to dedicate some time for cluster basic concepts and theory. This post misses a lot of details that would explode the articlesize, should you have questions, do not hesitate to ask them in the comments.  The goal here is to get some concepts straight. I can't promise to give you an overall complete definitions of cluster, cluster agent, quorum, voting, fencing, split brain condition, so the following is more of an explanation. Here we go. -------- Cluster, HA, failover, switchover, scalability -------- An attempted definition of a Cluster: A cluster is a set (2+) server nodes dedicated to keep application services alive, communicating through the cluster software/framework with eachother, test and probe health status of servernodes/services and with quorum based decisions and with switchover/failover techniques keep the application services running on them available. That is, should a node that runs a service unexpectedly lose functionality/connection, the other ones would take over the and run the services, so that availability is guaranteed. To provide availability while strictly sticking to a consistent clusterconfiguration is the main goal of a cluster.  At this point we have to add that this defines a HA-cluster, a High-Availability cluster, where the clusternodes are planned to run the services in an active-standby, or failover fashion. An example could be a single instance database. Some applications can be run in a distributed or scalable fashion. In the latter case instances of the application run actively on separate clusternodes serving servicerequests simultaneously. An example for this version could be a webserver that forwards connection requests to many backend servers in a round-robin way. Or a database running in active-active RAC setup.  -------- Cluster arhitecture, interconnect, topologies -------- Now, what is a cluster made of? Servers, right. These servers (the clusternodes) need to communicate. This of course happens over the network, usually over dedicated network interfaces interconnecting all the clusternodes. These connection are called interconnects.How many clusternodes are in a cluster? There are different cluster topologies. The most simple one is a clustered pair topology, involving only two clusternodes:  There are several more topologies, clicking the image above will take you to the relevant documentation. Also, to answer the question Solaris Cluster allows you to run up to 16 servers in a cluster. Where shall these clusternodes be placed? A very important question. The right answer is: It depends on what you plan to achieve with the cluster. Do you plan to avoid only a server outage? Then you can place them right next to eachother in the datacenter. Do you need to avoid DataCenter outage? In that case of course you should place them at least in different fire zones. Or in two geographically distant DataCenters to avoid disasters like floods, large-scale fires or power outages. We call this a stretched- or campus cluster, the clusternodes being several kilometers away from eachother. To cover really large distances, you probably need to move to a GeoCluster, which is a different kind of animal.  What is a geocluster? A Geographic Cluster in Solaris Cluster terms is actually a metacluster between two, separate (locally-HA) clusters.  -------- Cluster resource types, agents, resources, resource groups -------- So how does the cluster manage my applications? The cluster needs to start, stop and probe your applications. If you application runs, the cluster needs to check regularly if the application state is healthy, does it respond over the network, does it have all the processes running, etc. This is called probing. If the cluster deems the application is in a faulty state, then it can try to restart it locally or decide to switch (stop on node A, start on node B) the service. Starting, stopping and probing are the three actions that a cluster agent does. There are many different kinds of agents included in Solaris Cluster, but you can build your own too. Examples are an agent that manages (mounts, moves) ZFS filesystems, or the Oracle DB HA agent that cares about the database, or an agent that moves a floating IP address between nodes. There are lots of other agents included for Apache, Tomcat, MySQL, Oracle DB, Oracle Weblogic, Zones, LDoms, NFS, DNS, etc.We also need to clarify the difference between a cluster resource and the cluster resource group.A cluster resource is something that is managed by a cluster agent. Cluster resource types are included in Solaris cluster (see above, e.g. HAStoragePlus, HA-Oracle, LogicalHost). You can group cluster resources into cluster resourcegroups, and switch these groups together from one node to another. To stick to the example above, to move an Oracle DB service from one node to another, you have to switch the group between nodes, and the agents of the cluster resources in the group will do the following:  On node A Shut down the DB Unconfigure the LogicalHost IP the DB Listener listens on unmount the filesystem   Then, on node B: mount the FS configure the IP  startup the DB -------- Voting, Quorum, Split Brain Condition, Fencing, Amnesia -------- How do the clusternodes agree upon their action? How do they decide which node runs what services? Another important question. Running a cluster is a strictly democratic thing.Every node has votes, and you need the majority of votes to have the deciding power. Now, this is usually no problem, clusternodes think very much all alike. Still, every action needs to be governed upon in a productive system, and has to be agreed upon. Agreeing is easy as long as the clusternodes all behave and talk to eachother over the interconnect. But if the interconnect is gone/down, this all gets tricky and confusing. Clusternodes think like this: "My job is to run these services. The other node does not answer my interconnect communication, it must be down. I'd better take control and run the services!". The problem is, as I have already mentioned, clusternodes very much think alike. If the interconnect is gone, they all assume the other node is down, and they all want to mount the data backend, enable the IP and run the database. Double IPs, double mounts, double DB instances - now that is trouble. Also, in a 2-node cluster they both have only 50% of the votes, that is, they themselves alone are not allowed to run a cluster.  This is where you need a quorum device. According to Wikipedia, the "requirement for a quorum is protection against totally unrepresentative action in the name of the body by an unduly small number of persons.". They need additional votes to run the cluster. For this requirement a 2-node cluster needs a quorum device or a quorum server. If the interconnect is gone, (this is what we call a split brain condition) both nodes start to race and try to reserve the quorum device to themselves. They do this, because the quorum device bears an additional vote, that could ensure majority (50% +1). The one that manages to lock the quorum device (e.g. if it's an FC LUN, it SCSI reserves it) wins the right to build/run a cluster, the other one - realizing he was late - panics/reboots to ensure the cluster config stays consistent.  Losing the interconnect isn't only endangering the availability of services, but it also endangers the cluster configuration consistence. Just imagine node A being down and during that the cluster configuration changes. Now node B goes down, and node A comes up. It isn't uptodate about the cluster configuration's changes so it will refuse to start a cluster, since that would lead to cluster amnesia, that is the cluster had some changes, but now runs with an older cluster configuration repository state, that is it's like it forgot about the changes.  Also, to ensure application data consistence, the clusternode that wins the race makes sure that a server that isn't part of or can't currently join the cluster can access the devices. This procedure is called fencing. This usually happens to storage LUNs via SCSI reservation.  Now, another important question: Where do I place the quorum disk?  Imagine having two sites, two separate datacenters, one in the north of the city and the other one in the south part of it. You run a stretched cluster in the clustered pair topology. Where do you place the quorum disk/server? If you put it into the north DC, and that gets hit by a meteor, you lose one clusternode, which isn't a problem, but you also lose your quorum, and the south clusternode can't keep the cluster running lacking the votes. This problem can't be solved with two sites and a campus cluster. You will need a third site to either place the quorum server to, or a third clusternode. Otherwise, lacking majority, if you lose the site that had your quorum, you lose the cluster. Okay, we covered the very basics. We haven't talked about virtualization support, CCR, ClusterFilesystems, DID devices, affinities, storage-replication, management tools, upgrade procedures - should those be interesting for you, let me know in the comments, along with any other questions. Given enough demand I'd be glad to write a followup post too. Now I really want to move on to the second part in the series: ClusterInstallation.  Oh, as for additional source of information, I recommend the documentation: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23623_01/index.html, and the OTN Oracle Solaris Cluster site: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris-cluster/index.html

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• VLOOKUP in Excel, part 2: Using VLOOKUP without a database

  - by Mark Virtue

  In a recent article, we introduced the Excel function called VLOOKUP and explained how it could be used to retrieve information from a database into a cell in a local worksheet.  In that article we mentioned that there were two uses for VLOOKUP, and only one of them dealt with querying databases.  In this article, the second and final in the VLOOKUP series, we examine this other, lesser known use for the VLOOKUP function. If you haven’t already done so, please read the first VLOOKUP article – this article will assume that many of the concepts explained in that article are already known to the reader. When working with databases, VLOOKUP is passed a “unique identifier” that serves to identify which data record we wish to find in the database (e.g. a product code or customer ID).  This unique identifier must exist in the database, otherwise VLOOKUP returns us an error.  In this article, we will examine a way of using VLOOKUP where the identifier doesn’t need to exist in the database at all.  It’s almost as if VLOOKUP can adopt a “near enough is good enough” approach to returning the data we’re looking for.  In certain circumstances, this is exactly what we need. We will illustrate this article with a real-world example – that of calculating the commissions that are generated on a set of sales figures.  We will start with a very simple scenario, and then progressively make it more complex, until the only rational solution to the problem is to use VLOOKUP.  The initial scenario in our fictitious company works like this:  If a salesperson creates more than $30,000 worth of sales in a given year, the commission they earn on those sales is 30%.  Otherwise their commission is only 20%.  So far this is a pretty simple worksheet: To use this worksheet, the salesperson enters their sales figures in cell B1, and the formula in cell B2 calculates the correct commission rate they are entitled to receive, which is used in cell B3 to calculate the total commission that the salesperson is owed (which is a simple multiplication of B1 and B2). The cell B2 contains the only interesting part of this worksheet – the formula for deciding which commission rate to use: the one below the threshold of $30,000, or the one above the threshold.  This formula makes use of the Excel function called IF.  For those readers that are not familiar with IF, it works like this: IF(condition,value if true,value if false) Where the condition is an expression that evaluates to either true or false.  In the example above, the condition is the expression B1<B5, which can be read as “Is B1 less than B5?”, or, put another way, “Are the total sales less than the threshold”.  If the answer to this question is “yes” (true), then we use the value if true parameter of the function, namely B6 in this case – the commission rate if the sales total was below the threshold.  If the answer to the question is “no” (false), then we use the value if false parameter of the function, namely B7 in this case – the commission rate if the sales total was above the threshold. As you can see, using a sales total of $20,000 gives us a commission rate of 20% in cell B2.  If we enter a value of $40,000, we get a different commission rate: So our spreadsheet is working. Let’s make it more complex.  Let’s introduce a second threshold:  If the salesperson earns more than $40,000, then their commission rate increases to 40%: Easy enough to understand in the real world, but in cell B2 our formula is getting more complex.  If you look closely at the formula, you’ll see that the third parameter of the original IF function (the value if false) is now an entire IF function in its own right.  This is called a nested function (a function within a function).  It’s perfectly valid in Excel (it even works!), but it’s harder to read and understand. We’re not going to go into the nuts and bolts of how and why this works, nor will we examine the nuances of nested functions.  This is a tutorial on VLOOKUP, not on Excel in general. Anyway, it gets worse!  What about when we decide that if they earn more than $50,000 then they’re entitled to 50% commission, and if they earn more than $60,000 then they’re entitled to 60% commission? Now the formula in cell B2, while correct, has become virtually unreadable.  No-one should have to write formulae where the functions are nested four levels deep!  Surely there must be a simpler way? There certainly is.  VLOOKUP to the rescue! Let’s redesign the worksheet a bit.  We’ll keep all the same figures, but organize it in a new way, a more tabular way: Take a moment and verify for yourself that the new Rate Table works exactly the same as the series of thresholds above. Conceptually, what we’re about to do is use VLOOKUP to look up the salesperson’s sales total (from B1) in the rate table and return to us the corresponding commission rate.  Note that the salesperson may have indeed created sales that are not one of the five values in the rate table ($0, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 or $60,000).  They may have created sales of $34,988.  It’s important to note that $34,988 does not appear in the rate table.  Let’s see if VLOOKUP can solve our problem anyway… We select cell B2 (the location we want to put our formula), and then insert the VLOOKUP function from the Formulas tab: The Function Arguments box for VLOOKUP appears.  We fill in the arguments (parameters) one by one, starting with the Lookup_value, which is, in this case, the sales total from cell B1.  We place the cursor in the Lookup_value field and then click once on cell B1: Next we need to specify to VLOOKUP what table to lookup this data in.  In this example, it’s the rate table, of course.  We place the cursor in the Table_array field, and then highlight the entire rate table – excluding the headings: Next we must specify which column in the table contains the information we want our formula to return to us.  In this case we want the commission rate, which is found in the second column in the table, so we therefore enter a 2 into the Col_index_num field: Finally we enter a value in the Range_lookup field. Important:  It is the use of this field that differentiates the two ways of using VLOOKUP.  To use VLOOKUP with a database, this final parameter, Range_lookup, must always be set to FALSE, but with this other use of VLOOKUP, we must either leave it blank or enter a value of TRUE.  When using VLOOKUP, it is vital that you make the correct choice for this final parameter. To be explicit, we will enter a value of true in the Range_lookup field.  It would also be fine to leave it blank, as this is the default value: We have completed all the parameters.  We now click the OK button, and Excel builds our VLOOKUP formula for us: If we experiment with a few different sales total amounts, we can satisfy ourselves that the formula is working. Conclusion In the “database” version of VLOOKUP, where the Range_lookup parameter is FALSE, the value passed in the first parameter (Lookup_value) must be present in the database.  In other words, we’re looking for an exact match. But in this other use of VLOOKUP, we are not necessarily looking for an exact match.  In this case, “near enough is good enough”.  But what do we mean by “near enough”?  Let’s use an example:  When searching for a commission rate on a sales total of $34,988, our VLOOKUP formula will return us a value of 30%, which is the correct answer.  Why did it choose the row in the table containing 30% ?  What, in fact, does “near enough” mean in this case?  Let’s be precise: When Range_lookup is set to TRUE (or omitted), VLOOKUP will look in column 1 and match the highest value that is not greater than the Lookup_value parameter. It’s also important to note that for this system to work, the table must be sorted in ascending order on column 1! If you would like to practice with VLOOKUP, the sample file illustrated in this article can be downloaded from here. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using VLOOKUP in ExcelImport Microsoft Access Data Into ExcelImport an Access Database into ExcelCopy a Group of Cells in Excel 2007 to the Clipboard as an ImageShare Access Data with Excel in Office 2010 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Quickly Schedule Meetings With NeedtoMeet Share Flickr Photos On Facebook Automatically Are You Blocked On Gtalk? Find out Discover Latest Android Apps On AppBrain The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers Will it Blend? iPad Edition

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• Raid-1 Western Digital Green AARS, cloning and WD Align Utility

  - by Jaguar

  Hello all, My current setup runs on top of 2x Western Digital 2500KS drives on Raid-1, using the motherboard's 780G raid controller, on WinXP. Everything is fine, but the drives are a bit noisy. I am considering buying 2x WD6400AARS disks which are the 640GB slower 'green' drives, but also feature the Advanced Formatting 4KB sectors. This means that for WinXP the partition will have to be aligned to work properly, else there is a performance penalty. There are 2 questions here: The Green drives from WD are all slower and are (according to WD) susceptible to drop-out's from the controller. Has anyone any experience in this matter? Is there a possibility the controller will drop a drive? If so, can i do anything about it? Secondly, western digital gives a utility to perform the alignment on the partition. The thing is, will the utility see the drives in question as the operating system only sees 1 logical disk? I will be making the transition using a cloning tool (most probably norton ghost) unless i don't find a solution or a clear answer, in which case i'll just buy a win 7 license and make a clean install... thx in advance

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• Why version of chrome does not matter much more then firefox and firefox does not matter much as IE

  - by anirudha

  Everything not perfect. in software the software make and growth by user feedback like what user expected from the software and want in next version of software. In a chrome Event i hear about the Chromium. you can find some interesting things here Video 1 Video 2 come to the point. when i hear about some good website of india. many of them talking a little thing in common that. We are #1 because we not thing that we make a great application and deploy them and think that we finished own works preharps in a small days we make a small website deploy them and improve them always latter. what the point they all talking about:- the conclusion is that software make by user feedback. they tell that he not spent much time and wait for a long time when their project was finish and they launch their website. preharps they tell that they make a small website in a small time and launched them. make a research on them later and make them better later and website growth as they thing. if they are late then someone else can win even their project was much good them other. not more but a little story:-  before few month i hear about a great website who sold many of books daily i myself purchase some from them to track how they work and how they provided service. i not found any problem with their service. the service they provided is good but when i see their website i found that the mockup code was very badly designed. i am not know the matter how they growth because they used very other stuff who make their website slow. when i research something more i found that their is very hard to implement the website look like them. on their blog they writing about a mail they have. the clone of them make by many other but not goes good as well as they make. after few month later website is looking great. many thing they improved and make them better as  other thing. a another conclusion that same as another story that user feedback. well now come to the point. we talking about Chrome,firefox and IE. what thing is goes common that they all are browser. but something goes different that Chrome is a one of the best browser. from a month many of issue submitted to chrome that user found when they use them. so what is make this different the different is that when feedback goes to someone they take a action and think to make them better so improvement of chrome based on feedback user put using many things. secondly because it's goes open-source many of developer contribute them and make them real browser not real [tape] browser as like IE [a good example]. as you see in video they talking about silent update in chrome and futurecoming chromium. the thing they implement is too good. because by this thing user not worry about a new version. i myself never find a problem that you need to user new version as we found same problem in other application. Well think are great in chrome and now talking about Firefox. Firefox is a best option for development as well as chrome best for surfing the internet. in firefox many thing are great like plugin [ex: Firebug] , addons personas themes and many other thing and customization in firefox make them really a browser not like a joker [IE a good example]. well now come to IE. are IE really great no. someone from Microsoft can say that ha ha hi hi because they can't see the power of open-source. they thing that they make a software and they never need user feedback because they produced windows who really great for user because they used them. example :- before few month Microsoft shipped Windows live. when i use them that i found that their is no sense make for using this one software. suppose you need to write a post through Live writer. the old version are great i myself have no problem but in 2011 i found that they changed everything in user interface. so learn a new thing and spent sometime more to learn a new version whenever need are same and feature are same so why user spent a little time more to learn a lesson who they want to teach even their is no sense to learn them. the problem in 2011 Live not only of mine their are many other have same problem as mine and forget live 2011 after the see a badly design user interface. even they tell we maked in WPF yeah yeah WPF we make in .net. are you can say that what is the matter .net for user. the user have no problem to use WPF based application even you make them fool as we make them in WPF 2020 they are future technologies and we launch it 10 year before only for you yeah you dear customer of mine. yeah they thing WPF is best and thing to implement every software they make even they forget to make better user interface but they also remember to make them next version in WPF. the IE 9 Rc release on 10 febuary. but are they really cool. how much feedback they take and take action of them. their is no answer because they thing to launch a software they never thing what user want and off-course not care of user feedback. as we mention in Firefox and in chrome user feedback have a big matter because sound come from a public and user who use the software not only who make them software as IE 9 have. so feedback take a opportunities to make their software better and less hassel to use them in user hands not only in developer hands. so IE9 is not a good guys who still need of user if they really want a experience. well what Microsoft implemented in IE. i am not talking about that furthure more but i found in article last days[why not say reading a google blog]  yeah see them in http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/microsofts-bing-uses-google-search.html Well their is nothing good for developer in IE9. the blah blah blah they can always said on MSDN and many other site they have. many from public talking about them because they never can see a good software outside Microsoft. they never talking about Firebug even in books they never show you that. well i know competitor never show you a stuff of competitor i have same issue from Yahoo. on a days i hear from newsletter from them they write a subline on the bottom that USE IE or Firefox to exerience better Web. i am agree with Firefox and i am not know they really talking about IE or joking but i never believe they forget to put chrome. well i know their is corporate rule everyone should follow first. so no problem yahoo i know the matter. well IE:- so what is IE and Why We should use IE. well their is no sense to use IE. the thing we expect from IE but never found that:- first thing is that as a developer we thing the customization as well as other browser have like in chrome have it's own customization and firefox is also great in this matter. but IE really for Web development. are you joking:- the thing they mention in their blog is that IE9 have a new developer tool who have three new panel or tabs. are this joke whenever Firefox and chrome have everyday a new plugin or great upgrade of old plugin they tell we add three new panel first is network second is blah third is blah. well nice joke you make all MSDN blogger i like the way you talking about IE.  even we know what matter the browser have. i thing whenever they make IE 6 they talking about IE as same as they talking today. Secondly their is no other tool to use with IE deveoper tool like Firebug is avilable in IE but not make by IE. firebug team themselves make them for IE. because many of developer thing to use firebug but can't use because they still goes mad about IE because day and night they only hear about tools maked by Microsoft. so no plugin [even very small developer tool] no customized no personas on themse. no update yeah why forget these topic come with us and share a little thing more. IE launch IE 6 after 7 after 8 and now 9 [even in future] but what they do. they do nothing on user feedback they still thing WPF is great because colors make user cool and they forget to implement other things as other already provide. Chrome and Firefox are come after IE. Mozilla firefox come in 2004 and chrome is late in 2008. even they are late they still focus on Developer and thing they feel first is that customization like developer tool , themese and perfsonas and many other great things. are they can find in IE even next i means 10 yeah IE10 never because they thing only making a software or force user to use new version of OS. i am confused that why not wait and force user to purchase windows 8 instead of 7. so IE have no customization even small developer tool i thing that they make a customizable interface like in firefox who configure by about:config. so thing is discussed about really not a point we thing to goes but now it's clear what is making no matter for version in Firefox and chrome. because chrome and firefox not wait for  a long time and explode a bomb to make publicity. they still work and make upgrade possible to user as soon as possible. [chrome never tell about they goes old they himself update them].so update comes soon in Firefox and in chrome but in IE their is a long time to wait and they make them without feedback. so IE really not for human and not really for us. whenver you found a bug in chrome and in firefox you report them and found that they are work in progressed and can be see in next version of firefox. but what you see whenever you see IE. you found that what the bug can found in IE whenver they not implemented same feature in IE. well IE 9 is next IE6 for developer. conclusion:-  after reading a whole post you find that i hate all thing about IE. why are i write a big post on a small pity software IE. why i open the poll of IE. are their anything in IE break my heart. are their is something goes wrong with me and with my IE9. are their is anything i got with IE9. why i write a big post. well as a developer play a trick that give sometime to chrome to make them better and some other to make firefox better and feel something you contribute really have a matter as a contribute you find some other and their thought on same software. some are great maybe some of them blah blah. but are their is true that outside Microsoft their is no good sollution can make because it's outside Microsoft. their is not true. the thing developer make not have matter even using Microsoft technologies or outside technologies of MS. so stop this i not want to talking some other things just stop it. i means their is no more blah i want to talking with you for IE.i still hate them and believe it is next IE6 for Web. Answers: if you still need a answer in lines that the answer is that IE late update as long as they can and also make force user to upgrade IE9 because they want to promote windows first then thing about IE and chrome and firefox not do that as same as IE. so IE is late and user forced software. in firefox and chrome upgrade come soon as soon as they possible. Thanks to give me a great time and red my blah on Blah i means IE9 Thanks again Anirudha

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

  - by Pinal Dave

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

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #039

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 FQL – Facebook Query Language Facebook list following advantages of FQL: Condensed XML reduces bandwidth and parsing costs. More complex requests can reduce the number of requests necessary. Provides a single consistent, unified interface for all of your data. It’s fun! UDF – Get the Day of the Week Function The day of the week can be retrieved in SQL Server by using the DatePart function. The value returned by the function is between 1 (Sunday) and 7 (Saturday). To convert this to a string representing the day of the week, use a CASE statement. UDF – Function to Get Previous And Next Work Day – Exclude Saturday and Sunday While reading ColdFusion blog of Ben Nadel Getting the Previous Day In ColdFusion, Excluding Saturday And Sunday, I realize that I use similar function on my SQL Server Database. This function excludes the Weekends (Saturday and Sunday), and it gets previous as well as next work day. Complete Series of SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers – Introduction Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers – Part 1 Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers – Part 2 Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers – Part 3 Data Warehousing Interview Questions and Answers Complete List Download 2008 Introduction to Log Viewer In SQL Server all the windows event logs can be seen along with SQL Server logs. Interface for all the logs is same and can be launched from the same place. This log can be exported and filtered as well. DBCC SHRINKFILE Takes Long Time to Run If you are DBA who are involved with Database Maintenance and file group maintenance, you must have experience that many times DBCC SHRINKFILE operations takes a long time but any other operations with Database are relatively quicker. mssqlsystemresource – Resource Database The purpose of resource database is to facilitates upgrading to the new version of SQL Server without any hassle. In previous versions whenever version of SQL Server was upgraded all the previous version system objects needs to be dropped and new version system objects to be created. 2009 Puzzle – Write Script to Generate Primary Key and Foreign Key In SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), there is no option to script all the keys. If one is required to script keys they will have to manually script each key one at a time. If database has many tables, generating one key at a time can be a very intricate task. I want to throw a question to all of you if any of you have scripts for the same purpose. Maximizing View of SQL Server Management Studio – Full Screen – New Screen I had explained the following two different methods: 1) Open Results in Separate Tab - This is a very interesting method as result pan shows up in a different tab instead of the splitting screen horizontally. 2) Open SSMS in Full Screen - This works always and to its best. Not many people are aware of this method; hence, very few people use it to enhance performance. 2010 Find Queries using Parallelism from Cached Plan T-SQL script gets all the queries and their execution plan where parallelism operations are kicked up. Pay attention there is TOP 10 is used, if you have lots of transactional operations, I suggest that you change TOP 10 to TOP 50 This is the list of the all the articles in the series of computed columns. SQL SERVER – Computed Column – PERSISTED and Storage This article talks about how computed columns are created and why they take more storage space than before. SQL SERVER – Computed Column – PERSISTED and Performance This article talks about how PERSISTED columns give better performance than non-persisted columns. SQL SERVER – Computed Column – PERSISTED and Performance – Part 2 This article talks about how non-persisted columns give better performance than PERSISTED columns. SQL SERVER – Computed Column and Performance – Part 3 This article talks about how Index improves the performance of Computed Columns. SQL SERVER – Computed Column – PERSISTED and Storage – Part 2 This article talks about how creating index on computed column does not grow the row length of table. SQL SERVER – Computed Columns – Index and Performance This article summarized all the articles related to computed columns. 2011 SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Data Warehousing Concepts – Day 21 of 31 What is Data Warehousing? What is Business Intelligence (BI)? What is a Dimension Table? What is Dimensional Modeling? What is a Fact Table? What are the Fundamental Stages of Data Warehousing? What are the Different Methods of Loading Dimension tables? Describes the Foreign Key Columns in Fact Table and Dimension Table? What is Data Mining? What is the Difference between a View and a Materialized View? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Data Warehousing Concepts – Day 22 of 31 What is OLTP? What is OLAP? What is the Difference between OLTP and OLAP? What is ODS? What is ER Diagram? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Data Warehousing Concepts – Day 23 of 31 What is ETL? What is VLDB? Is OLTP Database is Design Optimal for Data Warehouse? If denormalizing improves Data Warehouse Processes, then why is the Fact Table is in the Normal Form? What are Lookup Tables? What are Aggregate Tables? What is Real-Time Data-Warehousing? What are Conformed Dimensions? What is a Conformed Fact? How do you Load the Time Dimension? What is a Level of Granularity of a Fact Table? What are Non-Additive Facts? What is a Factless Facts Table? What are Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCD)? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Data Warehousing Concepts – Day 24 of 31 What is Hybrid Slowly Changing Dimension? What is BUS Schema? What is a Star Schema? What Snow Flake Schema? Differences between the Star and Snowflake Schema? What is Difference between ER Modeling and Dimensional Modeling? What is Degenerate Dimension Table? Why is Data Modeling Important? What is a Surrogate Key? What is Junk Dimension? What is a Data Mart? What is the Difference between OLAP and Data Warehouse? What is a Cube and Linked Cube with Reference to Data Warehouse? What is Snapshot with Reference to Data Warehouse? What is Active Data Warehousing? What is the Difference between Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence? What is MDS? Explain the Paradigm of Bill Inmon and Ralph Kimball. SQL SERVER – Azure Interview Questions and Answers – Guest Post by Paras Doshi – Day 25 of 31 Paras Doshi has submitted 21 interesting question and answers for SQL Azure. 1.What is SQL Azure? 2.What is cloud computing? 3.How is SQL Azure different than SQL server? 4.How many replicas are maintained for each SQL Azure database? 5.How can we migrate from SQL server to SQL Azure? 6.Which tools are available to manage SQL Azure databases and servers? 7.Tell me something about security and SQL Azure. 8.What is SQL Azure Firewall? 9.What is the difference between web edition and business edition? 10.How do we synchronize On Premise SQL server with SQL Azure? 11.How do we Backup SQL Azure Data? 12.What is the current pricing model of SQL Azure? 13.What is the current limitation of the size of SQL Azure DB? 14.How do you handle datasets larger than 50 GB? 15.What happens when the SQL Azure database reaches Max Size? 16.How many databases can we create in a single server? 17.How many servers can we create in a single subscription? 18.How do you improve the performance of a SQL Azure Database? 19.What is code near application topology? 20.What were the latest updates to SQL Azure service? 21.When does a workload on SQL Azure get throttled? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Guest Post by Malathi Mahadevan – Day 26 of 31 Malachi had asked a simple question which has several answers. Each answer makes you think and ponder about the reality of the IT world. Look at the simple question – ‘What is the toughest challenge you have faced in your present job and how did you handle it’? and its various answers. Each answer has its own story. SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Guest Post by Rick Morelan – Day 27 of 31 Rick Morelan of Joes2Pros has written an excellent blog post on the subject how to find top N values. Most people are fully aware of how the TOP keyword works with a SELECT statement. After years preparing so many students to pass the SQL Certification I noticed they were pretty well prepared for job interviews too. Yes, they would do well in the interview but not great. There seemed to be a few questions that would come up repeatedly for almost everyone. Rick addresses similar questions in his lucid writing skills. 2012 Observation of Top with Index and Order of Resultset SQL Server has lots of things to learn and share. It is amazing to see how people evaluate and understand different techniques and styles differently when implementing. The real reason may be absolutely different but we may blame something totally different for the incorrect results. Read the blog post to learn more. How do I Record Video and Webcast How to Convert Hex to Decimal or INT Earlier I asked regarding a question about how to convert Hex to Decimal. I promised that I will post an answer with Due Credit to the author but never got around to post a blog post around it. Read the original post over here SQL SERVER – Question – How to Convert Hex to Decimal. Query to Get Unique Distinct Data Based on Condition – Eliminate Duplicate Data from Resultset The natural reaction will be to suggest DISTINCT or GROUP BY. However, not all the questions can be solved by DISTINCT or GROUP BY. Let us see the following example, where a user wanted only latest records to be displayed. Let us see the example to understand further. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Is there any special way to force GoBack to work with Windows Vista and 7?

  - by dfree

  Norton/Roxio's GoBack doesn't work with Vista/7 for reasons unknown. I have tried several alternatives (Norton Ghost, RollbackRX, Norton Save and Restore), none of which offer the same functionality as GoBack. Not only does GoBack not eat up all your hard drive space while creating a legitimate fail safe for any pc problems, it also allows you to see ACTIVELY EXACTLY WHAT PROCESS ARE BEING EXECUTED ON YOUR COMPUTER. This feature (called Advanced Disk Drive Restore) also allows you to troubleshoot problems and determine causes for things in about half a second by seeing what is happening on your machine. It's how I learned everything I know about computers. GoBack also features something called Safe Try Mode where you can put it in SafeTry and then mess up the whole computer and when you come out of it, your computer will be exactly how it was before. Amazing for people who like to tinker without risking their machine stability. It also helps for that accidentally erased paper or whatever you may have erased. I believe GoBack installs a type44 partition around the drive, which loads prior to windows to allow this functionality. If you're going to recommend another program, please don't (unless it does all of the above). I've tried all the competition and nothing is as good. I just want my GoBack to work with 7 :) Any ideas of crazy ways to make this work?

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #037

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 Convert Text to Numbers (Integer) – CAST and CONVERT If table column is VARCHAR and has all the numeric values in it, it can be retrieved as Integer using CAST or CONVERT function. List All Stored Procedure Modified in Last N Days If SQL Server suddenly start behaving in un-expectable behavior and if stored procedure were changed recently, following script can be used to check recently modified stored procedure. If a stored procedure was created but never modified afterwards modified date and create a date for that stored procedure are same. Count Duplicate Records – Rows Validate Field For DATE datatype using function ISDATE() We always checked DATETIME field for incorrect data type. One of the user input date as 30/2/2007. The date was sucessfully inserted in the temp table but while inserting from temp table to final table it crashed with error. We had now task to validate incorrect date value before we insert in final table. Jr. Developer asked me how can he do that? We check for incorrect data type (varchar, int, NULL) but this is incorrect date value. Regular expression works fine with them because of mm/dd/yyyy format. 2008 Find Space Used For Any Particular Table It is very simple to find out the space used by any table in the database. Two Convenient Features Inline Assignment – Inline Operations Here is the script which does both – Inline Assignment and Inline Operation DECLARE @idx INT = 0 SET @idx+=1 SELECT @idx Introduction to SPARSE Columns SPARSE column are better at managing NULL and ZERO values in SQL Server. It does not take any space in database at all. If column is created with SPARSE clause with it and it contains ZERO or NULL it will be take lesser space then regular column (without SPARSE clause). SP_CONFIGURE – Displays or Changes Global Configuration Settings If advanced settings are not enabled at configuration level SQL Server will not let user change the advanced features on server. Authorized user can turn on or turn off advance settings. 2009 Standby Servers and Types of Standby Servers Standby Server is a type of server that can be brought online in a situation when Primary Server goes offline and application needs continuous (high) availability of the server. There is always a need to set up a mechanism where data and objects from primary server are moved to secondary (standby) server. BLOB – Pointer to Image, Image in Database, FILESTREAM Storage When it comes to storing images in database there are two common methods. I had previously blogged about the same subject on my visit to Toronto. With SQL Server 2008, we have a new method of FILESTREAM storage. However, the answer on when to use FILESTREAM and when to use other methods is still vague in community. 2010 Upper Case Shortcut SQL Server Management Studio I select the word and hit CTRL+SHIFT+U and it SSMS immediately changes the case of the selected word. Similar way if one want to convert cases to lower case, another short cut CTRL+SHIFT+L is also available. The Self Join – Inner Join and Outer Join Self Join has always been a noteworthy case. It is interesting to ask questions about self join in a room full of developers. I often ask – if there are three kinds of joins, i.e.- Inner Join, Outer Join and Cross Join; what type of join is Self Join? The usual answer is that it is an Inner Join. However, the reality is very different. Parallelism – Row per Processor – Row per Thread – Thread 0  If you look carefully in the Properties window or XML Plan, there is “Thread 0?. What does this “Thread 0” indicate? Well find out from the blog post. How do I Learn and How do I Teach The blog post has raised three very interesting questions. How do you learn? How do you teach? What are you learning or teaching? Let me try to answer the same. 2011 SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 7 of 31 What are Different Types of Locks? What are Pessimistic Lock and Optimistic Lock? When is the use of UPDATE_STATISTICS command? What is the Difference between a HAVING clause and a WHERE clause? What is Connection Pooling and why it is Used? What are the Properties and Different Types of Sub-Queries? What are the Authentication Modes in SQL Server? How can it be Changed? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 8 of 31 Which Command using Query Analyzer will give you the Version of SQL Server and Operating System? What is an SQL Server Agent? Can a Stored Procedure call itself or a Recursive Stored Procedure? How many levels of SP nesting is possible? What is Log Shipping? Name 3 ways to get an Accurate Count of the Number of Records in a Table? What does it mean to have QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON? What are the Implications of having it OFF? What is the Difference between a Local and a Global Temporary Table? What is the STUFF Function and How Does it Differ from the REPLACE Function? What is PRIMARY KEY? What is UNIQUE KEY Constraint? What is FOREIGN KEY? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 9 of 31 What is CHECK Constraint? What is NOT NULL Constraint? What is the difference between UNION and UNION ALL? What is B-Tree? How to get @@ERROR and @@ROWCOUNT at the Same Time? What is a Scheduled Job or What is a Scheduled Task? What are the Advantages of Using Stored Procedures? What is a Table Called, if it has neither Cluster nor Non-cluster Index? What is it Used for? Can SQL Servers Linked to other Servers like Oracle? What is BCP? When is it Used? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 10 of 31 What Command do we Use to Rename a db, a Table and a Column? What are sp_configure Commands and SET Commands? How to Implement One-to-One, One-to-Many and Many-to-Many Relationships while Designing Tables? What is Difference between Commit and Rollback when Used in Transactions? What is an Execution Plan? When would you Use it? How would you View the Execution Plan? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 11 of 31 What is Difference between Table Aliases and Column Aliases? Do they Affect Performance? What is the difference between CHAR and VARCHAR Datatypes? What is the Difference between VARCHAR and VARCHAR(MAX) Datatypes? What is the Difference between VARCHAR and NVARCHAR datatypes? Which are the Important Points to Note when Multilanguage Data is Stored in a Table? How to Optimize Stored Procedure Optimization? What is SQL Injection? How to Protect Against SQL Injection Attack? How to Find Out the List Schema Name and Table Name for the Database? What is CHECKPOINT Process in the SQL Server? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 12 of 31 How does Using a Separate Hard Drive for Several Database Objects Improves Performance Right Away? How to Find the List of Fixed Hard Drive and Free Space on Server? Why can there be only one Clustered Index and not more than one? What is Difference between Line Feed (\n) and Carriage Return (\r)? Is It Possible to have Clustered Index on Separate Drive From Original Table Location? What is a Hint? How to Delete Duplicate Rows? Why the Trigger Fires Multiple Times in Single Login? 2012 CTRL+SHIFT+] Shortcut to Select Code Between Two Parenthesis Shortcut key is CTRL+SHIFT+]. This key can be very useful when dealing with multiple subqueries, CTE or query with multiple parentheses. When exercised this shortcut key it selects T-SQL code between two parentheses. Monday Morning Puzzle – Query Returns Results Sometimes but Not Always I am beginner with SQL Server. I have one query, it sometime returns a result and sometime it does not return me the result. Where should I start looking for a solution and what kind of information I should send to you so you can help me with solving. I have no clue, please guide me. Remove Debug Button in SSMS – SQL in Sixty Seconds #020 – Video Effect of Case Sensitive Collation on Resultset Collation is a very interesting concept but I quite often see it is heavily neglected. I have seen developer and DBA looking for a workaround to fix collation error rather than understanding if the side effect of the workaround. Switch Between Two Parenthesis using Shortcut CTRL+] Earlier this week I wrote a blog post about CTRL+SHIFT+] Shortcut to Select Code Between Two Parenthesis, I received quite a lot of positive feedback from readers. If you are a regular reader of the blog post, you must be aware that I appreciate the learning shared by readers. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #007

  - by pinaldave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2006 Find Stored Procedure Related to Table in Database – Search in All Stored Procedure In 2006 I wrote a small script which will help user  find all the Stored Procedures (SP) which are related to one or more specific tables. This was quite a popular script however, in SQL Server 2012 the same can be achieved using new DMV sys.sql-expression_dependencies. I recently blogged about it over Find Referenced or Referencing Object in SQL Server using sys.sql_expression_dependencies. 2007 SQL SERVER – Versions, CodeNames, Year of Release 1993 – SQL Server 4.21 for Windows NT 1995 – SQL Server 6.0, codenamed SQL95 1996 – SQL Server 6.5, codenamed Hydra 1999 – SQL Server 7.0, codenamed Sphinx 1999 – SQL Server 7.0 OLAP, codenamed Plato 2000 – SQL Server 2000 32-bit, codenamed Shiloh (version 8.0) 2003 – SQL Server 2000 64-bit, codenamed Liberty 2005 – SQL Server 2005, codenamed Yukon (version 9.0) 2008 – SQL Server 2008, codenamed Katmai (version 10.0) 2011 – SQL Server 2008, codenamed Denali (version 11.0) Search String in Stored Procedure Searching sting in the stored procedure is one of the most frequent task developer do. They might be searching for a table, view or any other details. I have written a script to do the same in SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. This is worth bookmarking blog post. There is an alternative way to do the same as well here is the example. 2008 SQL SERVER – Refresh Database Using T-SQL NO! Some of the questions have a single answer NO! You may want to read the question in the original blog post. I had a great time saying No! SQL SERVER – Delete Backup History – Cleanup Backup History SQL Server stores history of all the taken backup forever. History of all the backup is stored in the msdb database. Many times older history is no more required. Following Stored Procedure can be executed with a parameter which takes days of history to keep. In the following example 30 is passed to keep a history of month. 2009 Stored Procedure are Compiled on First Run – SP taking Longer to Run First Time Is stored procedure pre-compiled? Why the Stored Procedure takes a long time to run for the first time?  This is a very common questions often discussed by developers and DBAs. There is an absolutely definite answer but the question has been discussed forever. There is a misconception that stored procedures are pre-compiled. They are not pre-compiled, but compiled only during the first run. For every subsequent runs, it is for sure pre-compiled. Read the entire article for example and demonstration. Removing Key Lookup – Seek Predicate – Predicate – An Interesting Observation Related to Datatypes This is one of the most important performance tuning lesson on my blog. I suggest this weekend you spend time reading them and let me know what you think about the concepts which I have demonstrated in the four part series. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Seek Predicate is the operation that describes the b-tree portion of the Seek. Predicate is the operation that describes the additional filter using non-key columns. Based on the description, it is very clear that Seek Predicate is better than Predicate as it searches indexes whereas in Predicate, the search is on non-key columns – which implies that the search is on the data in page files itself. Policy Based Management – Create, Evaluate and Fix Policies This article will cover the most spectacular feature of SQL Server – Policy-based management and how the configuration of SQL Server with policy-based management architecture can make a powerful difference. Policy based management is loaded with several advantages. It can help you implement various policies for reliable configuration of the system. It also provides additional administration assistance to DBAs and helps them effortlessly manage various tasks of SQL Server across the enterprise. 2010 Recycle Error Log – Create New Log file without Server Restart Once I observed a DBA to restaring the SQL Server when he needed new error log file. This was funny and sad both at the same time. There is no need to restart the server to create a new log file or recycle the log file. You can run sp_cycle_errorlog and achieve the same result. Get Database Backup History for a Single Database Simple but effective script! Reducing CXPACKET Wait Stats for High Transactional Database The subject is very complex and I have done my best to simplify the concept. In simpler words, when a parallel operation is created for SQL Query, there are multiple threads for a single query. Each query deals with a different set of the data (or rows). Due to some reasons, one or more of the threads lag behind, creating the CXPACKET Wait Stat. Threads which came first have to wait for the slower thread to finish. The Wait by a specific completed thread is called CXPACKET Wait Stat. Information Related to DATETIME and DATETIME2 There are quite a lot of confusion with DATETIME and DATETIME2. DATETIME2 is also one of the underutilized datatype of SQL Server.  In this blog post I have written a follow up of the my earlier datetime series where I clarify a few of the concepts related to datetime. Difference Between GETDATE and SYSDATETIME Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 – WITH GETDATE Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 2011 Introduction to CUME_DIST – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function CUME_DIST(). This function provides cumulative distribution value. It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I will attempt small example to explain you this function. Instead of creating new table, I will be using AdventureWorks sample database as most of the developer uses that for experiment. Introduction to FIRST _VALUE and LAST_VALUE – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical functions FIRST_VALUE() and LAST_VALUE(). This function returns first and last value from the list. It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I’d like to attempt to explain its function through a brief example. Instead of creating a new table, I will be using the AdventureWorks sample database as most developers use that for experiment purposes. OVER clause with FIRST _VALUE and LAST_VALUE – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 – ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING “Don’t you think there is bug in your first example where FIRST_VALUE is remain same but the LAST_VALUE is changing every line. I think the LAST_VALUE should be the highest value in the windows or set of result.” Puzzle – Functions FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE with OVER clause and ORDER BY You can see that row number 2, 3, 4, and 5 has same SalesOrderID = 43667. The FIRST_VALUE is 78 and LAST_VALUE is 77. Now if these function was working on maximum and minimum value they should have given answer as 77 and 80 respectively instead of 78 and 77. Also the value of FIRST_VALUE is greater than LAST_VALUE 77. Why? Explain in detail. Introduction to LEAD and LAG – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function LEAD() and LAG(). This functions accesses data from a subsequent row (for lead) and previous row (for lag) in the same result set without the use of a self-join . It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I will attempt small example to explain you this function. Instead of creating new table, I will be using AdventureWorks sample database as most of the developer uses that for experiment. A Real Story of Book Getting ‘Out of Stock’ to A 25% Discount Story Available Our book was out of stock in 48 hours of it was arrived in stock! We got call from the online store with a request for more copies within 12 hours. But we had printed only as many as we had sent them. There were no extra copies. We finally talked to the printer to get more copies. However, due to festivals and holidays the copies could not be shipped to the online retailer for two days. We knew for sure that they were going to be out of the book for 48 hours. This is the story of how we overcame that situation! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Can I setup a test server and then transfer everything to a diff. production server?

  - by Justin

  Hello, I am going to be setting up a "real" server, but it's not being shipped for another week. I was planning on setting up most of the server's functionality using an extra workstation I have. I wanted to set-up Windows Server 2003 or 2008, IIS, Terminal Services, Firewall, and Antivirus on this regular machine. I'd also be installing software like Winzip and VMWare that'll be used on the server. I can't ghost the machine, as far as I've done in the past, because the motherboard/cpu/etc. will all be different. Is there any way to export all of the "server settings" or something like that so I can move everything from test to production? Is there any software out there that does something similar to this? Some things I'm going to have to wait on such as setting up the file server completely in its raid configuration, but I'd like to get the simple server stuff and network setup out of the way. Has anyone done this before? Do I need software, open-source or not, to do this? Or maybe there's a way to export all the server settings in some way? Thanks in advance! Justin

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• Log Blog

  - by PointsToShare

  © 2011 By: Dov Trietsch. All rights reserved Logging – A log blog In a another blog (Missing Fields and Defaults) I spoke about not doing a blog about log files, but then I looked at it again and realized that this is a nice opportunity to show a simple yet powerful tool and also deal with static variables and functions in C#. My log had to be able to answer a few simple logging rules:   To log or not to log? That is the question – Always log! That is the answer  Do we share a log? Even when a file is opened with a minimal lock, it does not share well and performance greatly suffers. So sharing a log is not a good idea. Also, when sharing, it is harder to find your particular entries and you have to establish rules about retention. My recommendation – Do Not Share!  How verbose? Your log can be very verbose – a good thing when testing, very terse – a good thing in day-to-day runs, or somewhere in between. You must be the judge. In my Blog, I elect to always report a run with start and end times, and always report errors. I normally use 5 levels of logging: 4 – write all, 3 – write more, 2 – write some, 1 – write errors and timing, 0 – write none. The code sample below is more general than that. It uses the config file to set the max log level and each call to the log assigns a level to the call itself. If the level is above the .config highest level, the line will not be written. Programmers decide which log belongs to which level and thus we can set the .config differently for production and testing.  Where do I keep the log? If your career is important to you, discuss this with the boss and with the system admin. We keep logs in the L: drive of our server and make sure that we have a directory for each app that needs a log. When adding a new app, add a new directory. The default location for the log is also found in the .config file Print One or Many? There are two options here:   1.     Print many, Open but once once – you start the stream and close it only when the program ends. This is what you can do when you perform in “batch” mode like in a console app or a stsadm extension.The advantage to this is that starting a closing a stream is expensive and time consuming and because we use a unique file, keeping it open for a long time does not cause contention problems. 2.     Print one entry at a time or Open many – every time you write a line, you start the stream, write to it and close it. This work for event receivers, feature receivers, and web parts. Here scalability requires us to create objects on the fly and get rid of them as soon as possible.  A default value of the onceOrMany resides in the .config.  All of the above applies to any windows or web application, not just SharePoint.  So as usual, here is a routine that does it all, and a few simple functions that call it for a variety of purposes.   So without further ado, here is app.config  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration>     <configSections>         <sectionGroup name="applicationSettings" type="System.Configuration.ApplicationSettingsGroup, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, ublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" >         <section name="statics.Properties.Settings" type="System.Configuration.ClientSettingsSection, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" requirePermission="false" />         </sectionGroup>     </configSections>     <applicationSettings>         <statics.Properties.Settings>             <setting name="oneOrMany" serializeAs="String">                 <value>False</value>             </setting>             <setting name="logURI" serializeAs="String">                 <value>C:\staticLog.txt</value>             </setting>             <setting name="highestLevel" serializeAs="String">                 <value>2</value>             </setting>         </statics.Properties.Settings>     </applicationSettings> </configuration>   And now the code:  In order to persist the variables between calls and also to be able to persist (or not to persist) the log file itself, I created an EventLog class with static variables and functions. Static functions do not need an instance of the class in order to work. If you ever wondered why our Main function is static, the answer is that something needs to run before instantiation so that other objects may be instantiated, and this is what the “static” Main does. The various logging functions and variables are created as static because they do not need instantiation and as a fringe benefit they remain un-destroyed between calls. The Main function here is just used for testing. Note that it does not instantiate anything, just uses the log functions. This is possible because the functions are static. Also note that the function calls are of the form: Class.Function.  using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.IO; namespace statics {       class Program     {         static void Main(string[] args)         {             //write a single line             EventLog.LogEvents("ha ha", 3, "C:\\hahafile.txt", 4, true, false);             //this single line will not be written because the msgLevel is too high             EventLog.LogEvents("baba", 3, "C:\\babafile.txt", 2, true, false);             //The next 4 lines will be written in succession - no closing             EventLog.LogLine("blah blah", 1);             EventLog.LogLine("da da", 1);             EventLog.LogLine("ma ma", 1);             EventLog.LogLine("lah lah", 1);             EventLog.CloseLog(); // log will close             //now with specific functions             EventLog.LogSingleLine("one line", 1);             //this is just a test, the log is already closed             EventLog.CloseLog();         }     }     public class EventLog     {         public static string logURI = Properties.Settings.Default.logURI;         public static bool isOneLine = Properties.Settings.Default.oneOrMany;         public static bool isOpen = false;         public static int highestLevel = Properties.Settings.Default.highestLevel;         public static StreamWriter sw;         /// <summary>         /// the program will "print" the msg into the log         /// unless msgLevel is > msgLimit         /// onceOrMany is true when once - the program will open the log         /// print the msg and close the log. False when many the program will         /// keep the log open until close = true         /// normally all the arguments will come from the app.config         /// called by many overloads of logLine         /// </summary>         /// <param name="msg"></param>         /// <param name="msgLevel"></param>         /// <param name="logFileName"></param>         /// <param name="msgLimit"></param>         /// <param name="onceOrMany"></param>         /// <param name="close"></param>         public static void LogEvents(string msg, int msgLevel, string logFileName, int msgLimit, bool oneOrMany, bool close)         {             //to print or not to print             if (msgLevel <= msgLimit)             {                 //open the file. from the argument (logFileName) or from the config (logURI)                 if (!isOpen)                 {                     string logFile = logFileName;                     if (logFileName == "")                     {                         logFile = logURI;                     }                     sw = new StreamWriter(logFile, true);                     sw.WriteLine("Started At: " + DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"));                     isOpen = true;                 }                 //print                 sw.WriteLine(msg);             }             //close when instructed             if (close || oneOrMany)             {                 if (isOpen)                 {                     sw.WriteLine("Ended At: " + DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"));                     sw.Close();                     isOpen = false;                 }             }         }           /// <summary>         /// The simplest, just msg and level         /// </summary>         /// <param name="msg"></param>         /// <param name="msgLevel"></param>         public static void LogLine(string msg, int msgLevel)         {             //use the given msg and msgLevel and all others are defaults             LogEvents(msg, msgLevel, "", highestLevel, isOneLine, false);         }                 /// <summary>         /// one line at a time - open print close         /// </summary>         /// <param name="msg"></param>         /// <param name="msgLevel"></param>         public static void LogSingleLine(string msg, int msgLevel)         {             LogEvents(msg, msgLevel, "", highestLevel, true, true);         }           /// <summary>         /// used to close. high level, low limit, once and close are set         /// </summary>         /// <param name="close"></param>         public static void CloseLog()         {             LogEvents("", 15, "", 1, true, true);         }           }     }   }   That’s all folks!

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• Replication keeps popping up on SharePoint databases

  - by Ddono25

  My typical discovery scenario: We receive an alert that the transaction log is growing quickly. We are in Simple Recovery so I go to check it out. Log is already sized to 100GB and is at 80% capacity. I run the "Whats using my log files" script from SQL Server Central and see that Replication is enabled on the database. We do not set up replication, and I don't think Replication can be done on SharePoint content db's as Replication is not supported (requires PK on all tables). This has been occurring on random servers (about 5 so far, all within the past three weeks) and it only occurs on Content Databases. sp_removedbreplication does not always work in removing the Replication either. We have found that we need to run the sp_removedbreplication, change all db owners to SA and reset Recovery Mode to Simple to completely eradicate any vestiges of this bug. How would Replication be enabling itself? We have never set up Replication on these servers. There is no evidence of any type of Replication other than the 'log_reuse_wait_desc' from the DMV query and log growth. Any help on this ghost would be appreciated!

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• SSD Drive not being recongized in BIOS

  - by chobo2

  Well I bought my first drive Mushkin Chronos 180GB and got it installed in my computer and loaded up. I went to windows 7 and initialized the drive and then I installed "SSDlife Free" and loaded it up and my the SSD drive came up said it was "powered on 3 times"(thought it was odd but then thought maybe some testing???). I then restarted my computer and loaded into Acronis. Went to my SSD drive and make a partition called windows(made a basic logical partition). I then loaded up Norton ghost and wanted to copy my current windows onto the SSD drive on the partition I made found out I could not do it through the recovery disk so I made a backup of my windows drive and wanted to then restore it onto the SSD drive. Came back an hour later when the backup was done. I tried to restore the it on my SSD drive and could not find the partition so I loaded up Acronis again and it did not see it. I then went to the bios and saw only my other hard drive. What I tried Tried uplugging and replugging in both sata and power cables. Tried using the power and sata cable from the working drive and giving it the ones that SSD drive were using. Tried Sata AHCI Mode (Intel ICH9 Southbridge) Tried SATA PORT0-1 NATIVE MODE (Intel ICH9 Southbridge) Nothing worked. Software / hardware Windows 7 ultimate Gigabyte S-Series GA-P35-DS3L Mother board I hope someone has some ideas on why it is not being recognized.

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• Resize Win2003 system+boot partitions to bigger disks & different controller?

  - by ane

  Have an old Win2003 server with 1 SCSI hard drive partitioned as follows: D: boot (includes D:\ntldr, boot.ini, etc.) C: system (includes C:\WINDOWS) Want to move the whole system to new hardware with bigger drives and different controllers. Specifically, C: to a 300GB SAS drive, and D: to a 2TB SATA drive. Tried: VMWare Converter - VMWare Server - Diskpart Result: Diskpart refuses to resize system or boot disks VMWare Converter - VMWare Server - GParted Result: Will not boot (see http://serverfault.com/questions/219868/resize-ntfs-system-partitions-with-gparted ) Attach original VMWare disk to a duplicate VMWare install - Diskpart Result: Will not boot (goes to Directory Services Restore mode) Backup Exec System Recovery Server Edition 2010 with Restore Anywhere (tried restoring both to VMWare and to the bare system, without VMWare) Result: Windows Boot error: Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path. Supposedly this is a boot.ini problem, so I try bootcfg /rebuild from the recovery console. Says it can't find windows partition so it can't rebuild. Thought about Ghost but it's completely different hardware/controllers that we're restoring to, so I doubt it would boot. Reinstalling Windows from scratch is not an option due to critical custom software heavily embedded on the original machine. Has anyone been in a similar situation (with unusual boot/system partitions) before and figured out how to resize onto different disks?

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• How do I restore a Windows Server 2008 R2 bare metal backup to a Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V instance?

  - by Michael J. Gray

  I have been trying to find a simple way to migrate a physical Windows Server 2008 R2 installation over to a virtual machine hosted on Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter Edition /w Hyper-V. I came across the bare metal backup feature on Windows Server 2008 R2 and assumed I would be able to easily back it up and simply restore it into a new virtual machine by booting the installation media and getting into the Windows recovery process. When I attempted this, Hyper-V got into a network based restore process, but I do not have a PXE server or anything like that and I would rather not set it up. I tried mounting the VHD produced in the bare metal backup, just to see if it would somehow work, but it of course did not and failed with an error related to an incorrect boot device. I checked the virtual machine's BIOS settings and everything looked fine. I did not expect this to work anyway, so I stopped working through this method any further. Is there a way to take my bare metal backup and restore it into a virtual machine without a PXE server or SCVMM? I am opening to using proprietary tools but since the last time I did this I used Norton Ghost, which is no longer supported, I figured I would try doing it with what is readily available.

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• How to replicate a windows servers (IIS,Files,ConfigurationState)?

  - by Geo

  Maybe a better question is: What is the closest competitor for DoubleTake? I am looking to replicate a windows production server in case it fails have a immediate backup. Any idead? NOTE 1: I forget to add that this server is on the EC2 Amazon Cloud. NOTE 2: The main situation we have is recreating the configuration settings like IIS, FTP Server, SQL Server, SVN Server. NOTE 3: So far I have been giving three options as answers for my original question: AppAssurance -- After talking to their sales team they do not support Amazon as cloud provider. Basically there is a technical need to be able to reboot from a disk or similar media. So ESX Virtual machine environment will work, but not the EC2. Acronis -- which works as a backup in ghost style. This will work for other type of scenarios. Use the Amazon EC2 API -- This option is ideal, but only works if you are developing a cloud application rather than hosting a regular application in a cloud scenario. This means that I am still looking for the answer. Any other ideas.

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• Recommended drive encryption solution

  - by Chris Driver

  Hello, I will soon be purchasing a number of laptops running Windows 7 for our mobile staff. Due to the nature of our business I will need drive encryption. Windows BitLocker seems the obvious choice, but it looks like I need to purchase either Windows 7 Enterprise or Ultimate editions to get it. Can anyone offer suggestions on the best course of action: a) Use BitLocker, bite the bullet and pay to upgrade to Enterprise/Ultimate b) Pay for another 3rd party drive encryption product that is cheaper (suggestions appreciated) c) Use a free drive encryption product such as TrueCrypt Ideally I am also interested in 'real world' experience from people who are using drive encryption software and any pitfalls to look out for. Many thanks in advance... UPDATE Decided to go with TrueCrypt for the following reasons: a) The product has a good track record b) I am not managing a large quantity of laptops so integration with Active Directory, Management consoles etc is not a huge benefit c) Although eks did make a good point about Evil Maid (EM) attacks, our data is not that desirable to consider it a major factor d) The cost (free) is a big plus but not the primary motivator The next problem I face is imaging (Acronis/Ghost/..) encrypted drives will not work unless I perform sector-by-sector imaging. That means an 80Gb encrypted partition creates an 80Gb image file :(

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• Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 Error

  - by Jacob Schaer

  I just started with MDT2012 recently in hopes of eventually getting away with using Ghost to deploy all of our department computers. When I test deploy in VirtualBox, it deploys the OS properly, but stops because of a network driver failure (it gets the "could not allocate resources" issue). On physical hardware (Latitude E6500, Optiplex 980, and an older Latitude) it gets through the multicast and stops immediately after with: "Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition. See the Setup log files for more information" I've looked at the logs and never see anything really of note. Originally I was using DriverPacks from DriverPacks.net, but thinking it was a driver issue, I switched over to using Dell's cab driver packs. Still the same issue. I check and it did the HDD is all fine - it was properly partitioned, set to bootable, and was loaded with all the proper OS installer files. I'm using a flash drive to do the install - when I make changes to the deployment share I rebuild and copy the ISO to the drive, then use YUMI multiboot to start the ISO (probably irrelevant).

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• how do you view / access the contents of a mounted dmg drive through TERMINAL hdiutil diskmount

  - by A. O.

  My external USB drive failed. I made a .dmg image file of the drive using disk utility. Later I was not able to mount the .dmg image. I used terminal hdiutil attach -noverify -nomount name.dmg diskutil list diskutil mountDisk /dev/disk4 then received the following message: Volume(s) mounted successfully However, I cant see the drive or access its contents through Finder. DUtility shows the drive as ghost but I still cant mount it using diskutility. Terminal tells me that the drive is mounted and constantly shows it in the diskutil list. pwd is not the mounted .dmg image. I dont know how to enter into the mounted image drive to see its contents. So in case what I said sounds like I see the files in the mounted image no this is not the case. I do not know how to access or even change the pwd within Terminal. I was hoping to see the mounted drive tru finder but I do not see that. So I need help as to how to find a way to access the mounted image drive if it was really mounted. Terminal says that it was and it shows it under diskutil list as a /dev/disk4. Can someone please help me access the files on this drive?

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• Cloning a failing disk (Win 7)

  - by daveh551

  I have a Windows 7 machine with several partitions on a 1.5T drive. Windows has been complaining about disk errors and imminent failure, so I have purchased a new 2TB drive. The failing disk has not completely failed, and, in fact, I was able to boot Windows from it (after a couple tries) and examine the SMART logs - the only RED item was 1 sector being reallocated. But when I try to Clone it to the new Drive using Acronis True Image Home (2010), True Image can see the drive, the partitions, and the contents, but when it goes to actually do the clone, it says "Failed to move. Make sure the destination disk is not smaller than the source disk, and that there are not errors on the disk" (or something like that). What are some other options for simply cloning the failing drive. I'd like to clone the entire disk, but am willing to do it partition by partition if necessary. Was this a known failing of the 2010 edition of ATI, or is it really something hosed in my system. Would upgrading to the 2012 edition be likely to work any better? (I'd download the trial and try it out, but if I remember right, the cloning operation is disabled in the trial version), and I don't have enough free disk space to make an entire image.) What are some other cloning software packages if ATI won't work? Note that I'm only looking to clone the disk, not make an image as a back up - I use Ghost for that, and can fall back to that if I have to. It looks to me like CloneZilla would do the job. Any recommendations? Thanks, and if this duplicates other questions, I apologize.

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• Can I clone my hard drive to an external and boot from the clone?

  - by willbuntu

  First thing: I am not asking what software I'm supposed to use. I already know the answer: Ghost (proprietary), Clonezilla, and dd (if I'm careful). What I really want to know is if it is possible to (essentially) bit-for-bit clone my entire installation (OS, installed software, activation(s), etc.) to an external USB hard-drive, and then boot off of that (if I need to, I know how to edit BIOS settings and use Plop boot manager), and work with it day-to-day as if there was virtually no difference from using my internal HDD now. Again, I'm not asking how to install Windows to an external (because I know I'd need to do some special workaround), I'm asking if I can clone everything and boot off of it. In case you're wondering why I'm going to this trouble: I'm using a Lenovo Essentials laptop that has an unmodifiable partition table (due to recovery crap), and has all 4 of its partitions spoken for (3 primary, one extended, cannot change the extended). Anyway, my thought is that if I can clone everything and boot off of it when I need to, and just have a Linux distro on the internal HDD, then that could work.

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• Stop Windows 7 from accessing or writing to hard drive unless "told" to by me? (More info inside...)

  - by Jeff

  A confusing question, perhaps, but bear with me. I have two internal HDDs set up in a RAID0 array which I use as mass storage. I access the drive very infrequently (once a day at most) and so I have set up Windows 7's power options to turn off idle disks after only 1 minute. This is fine, and the disks are turned off most of the time. However, I notice that Windows sometimes spins up the drives when I really, really don't want or need it to. This causes a 30 second delay as both drives spin up and lock up my system. Some examples of when this happens: 1) When I'm installing something using Windows Installer or Installshield; it seems to me as if they're using the drive with most available free space as the installer cache location... so my big RAID drive has to spin up! Most annoying. 2) Apparently, when I open a Java-based program which resides on my system drive and has nothing to do with my RAID drive! 3) At boot-up and shut-down time. At shutdown the drive spin up only for the computer to immediately shut down! Incredibly frustrating! I've already tried changing the letter of the drive, and at some points have removed the drive letter entirely, which solves the first two issues above. So my question (FINALLY!) is this: is there any way I can mark this drive as being for "storage only", so Windows basically does not see it at all until I actually invoke it somehow? Or is there any way I could set it up so that only specific programs have write access to it? For example, download managers, TeraCopy, etc. etc.? Basically I want it to be a "ghost drive" until I'm ready to use it and to stop Windows from spinning it up all the damn time! Thank you. :)

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• Windows mounted network drives slow after upgrading switch

  - by Kver

  On our small business network our old 10/100 consumer grade switch gave up the ghost, and we replaced it with a proper business-grade gigabyte switch. After wiring it in our Linux and Mac users immediately got back to working off of network drives; But 2 of our 3 Windows 7 PCs have suddenly experienced a tremendous slowdown with mapped network drives; Windows will become stuck "discovering" a folder causing applications to freeze when trying to open files. It will instantly display and browse files, but the moment you try to open one the bug hits. To remedy this we have our users copying files to the desktop, but it can take a few minutes while windows is stuck "calculating" the time it will take to copy. These aren't big files, mostly excel sheets less than 500KB - these operations are instant on Linux and Mac. (The third Windows machine is having no issues) I've tried remapping the drives, mapping to different drive letters, rebooting, etc. I'm at a loss, because switches are mostly transparent, and it's only after the switch was replaced that the Windows PCs started acting up. What black-magic voodoo am I missing to make Windows work? Thank you.

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• Unable to mount iso as dvd drive in VMware Fusion 6

  - by John O

  I have a newer iMac without an optical drive and some DVDs that I needed to run software off of. This software will have you juggle discs to read data off of them, and the data can't simply be copied to the machine's drive. I used a windows machine to make ISOs of these DVDs. And the first disc, the installer, it will mount in VMware and let you install the software. It then asks for the other discs, and these won't mount as ISOs. If I mount them as drive images, they'll show up on the iMac's and I have access to all the files. But if I try to mount them as the dvd drive through Fusion, nothing happens. For that matter, I'm unable to attempt it a second time, as Fusion believes that the there is already an iso mounted as the dvd, while nothing has happened as far as the guest OS is concerned. drutil eject will allow me to eject the ghost/non-existent dvd, at which point I can make a second (equally futile) attempt. Does anyone have an explanation for this behavior? How can the ISO be valid enough to mount as a drive image, but not valid enough for Fusion to mount it as if it were a dvd?

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• SQLAuthority News – SQL Server Technology Evangelists and Evangelism

  - by pinaldave

  This is the exact conversation that I had with three people during the recent SQL Server Public Training. Person 1: “Are you an SQL Server Evangelist?” Pinal : “No, but Vinod Kumar is.” Person 1: “Who are you?” Person 2: “He is Pinal, haha!” Person 1: “I know that, but don’t you evangelize SQL Server Technology?” Pinal : “Hmm… I do that…” Person 1: “In that case, why don’t you call yourself an Evangelist?” Pinal : “…! …” Person 2: “Good Question! Who are you Pinal?” Pinal : “I think you are asking my title, is that correct?” Person 1: “Maybe.” Pinal : “I am a Mentor, and I work for Solid Quality Mentors.” Person 2: “I have seen you listing yourself as the Founder of SQLAuthority.com… so…” Pinal : “Yeah that’s true.” Person 3: “Let me summarize what these people are asking. What they are asking is that you can have multiple titles, so is being an evangelist one of your titles or not?” Pinal : “Well, I am an SQL Server MVP and lots of people say that we are also evangelists of technology. In fact,  we are all evangelists of technology, aren’t we?” Person 1: “So let me come back to my original topic: If you are an SQL Server Evangelist, then what is this evangelism?” Person 2: “And who is Vinod Kumar – I have heard about him a lot.” Pinal : “Oh okay. Now I got it. Let me explain …” The answer was quite long but since this conversation, I have been thinking about the words “evangelist” and “evangelism.” I think being an evangelist is one of the most respected jobs in the world and to do this job one must bear lots of responsibilities. There were two questions asked to me, so let me answer both one by one. Who is Vinod Kumar? Vinod Kumar is a Technology Evangelist for Microsoft and one of the most respected persons in the SQL Server Community in India. Let me copy-paste my note from the previous TechEd India 2010 article. “I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller so there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod was the best speaker in the event. He did not have a single time that disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL.” Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar What is Technology Evangelism? Here I am listing three posts written by Vinod Kumar, wherein he talks about Technology Evangelism and Technology Evangelist in an in-depth manner. They are highly-regarded articles in the Community. Evangelism beyond boundaries with an Evangelists !!! Technology Evangelism Demystified New face of Online Technology Evangelism I strongly recommend reading them all. These are wonderful blog posts. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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