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• SQL Contest – Win USD 300 Worth Gift – Cartoon Contest is Back

  - by pinaldave

  There are two excellent contests and we have lots of winning to do this year end. 1) Win USD 25 Amazon Gift Cards (10 Units) This is very simple, you just have to download SQL Server DB Optimizer. That’s it! There are only two conditions: You must have a valid email address. As USD 25 Amazon Gift Card will be sent to the same address. Download DB Optimizer between today and Dec 8, 2012. Link to Download DB Optimizer. Every day one winner will be notified about their winning USD 25 Amazon Gift Cards for next 10 days. 2) Win Star Wars R2-D2 Inflatable R/C This the coolest thing to win. I personally want one but as I am running a contest, I can’t  participate. You get this cool Remote Controlled Device – you just have to answer following cartoon contest. Read the complete story and think what will be the answer provided by the smart employee. There are only two conditions: Leave your answer in the comment area of this blog post (every comment will be hidden till Dec 8, 2012). Please leave your answer in the comment area between today and Dec 8, 2012. Remember you can participate as many times as you want. Make sure that your answer is correct and creative. The most creative answer will be selected. The decision of contest owner will be final. We may have runner’s up prices but for the moment let us try to win R2-D2. Here is the cool video of R2D2. Now here is the cartoon story, please follow the story and complete the very last cartoon template. Your answer should be correct and should be creative. However, the ideal answer will not be longer than one or two sentences. Hint: (Hint) Well, Leave your answer in the comment area of this blog post. If you do not win R2D2, trust me there are chances you may win a surprise gift from me. Remember your answer should be correct and should be creative. However, the ideal answer will not be longer than one or two sentences. Last day to participate in both of the contest is Dec 8, 2012. We will announce the winner in the week of December 10. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Quiz and Video – Introduction to SQL Server Security

  - by pinaldave

  This blog post is inspired from Beginning SQL Joes 2 Pros: The SQL Hands-On Guide for Beginners – SQL Exam Prep Series 70-433 – Volume 1. [Amazon] | [Flipkart] | [Kindle] | [IndiaPlaza] This is follow up blog post of my earlier blog post on the same subject - SQL SERVER – Introduction to SQL Server Security – A Primer. In the article we discussed various basics terminology of the security. The article further covers following important concepts of security. Granting Permissions Denying Permissions Revoking Permissions Above three are the most important concepts related to security and SQL Server.  There are many more things one has to learn but without beginners fundamentals one can’t learn the advanced  concepts. Let us have small quiz and check how many of you get the fundamentals right. Quiz 1) If you granted Phil control to the server, but denied his ability to create databases, what would his effective permissions be? Phil can do everything. Phil can do nothing. Phil can do everything except create databases. 2) If you granted Phil control to the server and revoked his ability to create databases, what would his effective permissions be? Phil can do everything. Phil can do nothing. Phil can do everything except create databases. 3) You have a login named James who has Control Server permission. You want to elimintate his ability to create databases without affecting any other permissions. What SQL statement would you use? ALTER LOGIN James DISABLE DROP LOGIN James DENY CREATE DATABASE To James REVOKE CREATE DATABASE To James GRANT CREATE DATABASE To James Now make sure that you write down all the answers on the piece of paper. Watch following video and read earlier article over here. If you want to change the answer you still have chance. Solution 1) 3 2) 1 3) 3 Now compare let us check the answers and compare your answers to following answers. I am very confident you will get them correct. Available at USA: Amazon India: Flipkart | IndiaPlaza Volume: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Please leave your feedback in the comment area for the quiz and video. Did you know all the answers of the quiz? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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• SQL SERVER – Working with FileTables in SQL Server 2012 – Part 1 – Setting Up Environment

  - by pinaldave

  Filestream is a very interesting feature, and an enhancement of FileTable with Filestream is equally exciting. Today in this post, we will learn how to set up the FileTable Environment in SQL Server. The major advantage of FileTable is it has Windows API compatibility for file data stored within an SQL Server database. In simpler words, FileTables remove a barrier so that SQL Server can be used for the storage and management of unstructured data that are currently residing as files on file servers. Another advantage is that the Windows Application Compatibility for their existing Windows applications enables to see these data as files in the file system. This way, you can use SQL Server to access the data using T-SQL enhancements, and Windows can access the file using its applications. So for the first step, you will need to enable the Filestream feature at the database level in order to use the FileTable. -- Enable Filestream EXEC sp_configure filestream_access_level, 2 RECONFIGURE GO -- Create Database CREATE DATABASE FileTableDB ON PRIMARY (Name = FileTableDB, FILENAME = 'D:\FileTable\FTDB.mdf'), FILEGROUP FTFG CONTAINS FILESTREAM (NAME = FileTableFS, FILENAME='D:\FileTable\FS') LOG ON (Name = FileTableDBLog, FILENAME = 'D:\FileTable\FTDBLog.ldf') WITH FILESTREAM (NON_TRANSACTED_ACCESS = FULL, DIRECTORY_NAME = N'FileTableDB'); GO Now, you can run the following code and figure out if FileStream options are enabled at the database level. -- Check the Filestream Options SELECT DB_NAME(database_id), non_transacted_access, non_transacted_access_desc FROM sys.database_filestream_options; GO You can see the resultset of the above query which returns resultset as the following image shows. As you can see , the file level access is set to 2 (filestream enabled). Now let us create the filetable in the newly created database. -- Create FileTable Table USE FileTableDB GO CREATE TABLE FileTableTb AS FileTable WITH (FileTable_Directory = 'FileTableTb_Dir'); GO Now you can select data using a regular select table. SELECT * FROM FileTableTb GO It will return all the important columns which are related to the file. It will provide details like filesize, archived, file types etc. You can also see the FileTable in SQL Server Management Studio. Go to Databases >> Newly Created Database (FileTableDB) >> Expand Tables Here, you will see a new folder which says “FileTables”. When expanded, it gives the name of the newly created FileTableTb. You can right click on the newly created table and click on “Explore FileTable Directory”. This will open up the folder where the FileTable data will be stored. When you click on the option, it will open up the following folder in my local machine where the FileTable data will be stored: \\127.0.0.1\mssqlserver\FileTableDB\FileTableTb_Dir In tomorrow’s blog post as Part 2, we will go over two methods of inserting the data into this FileTable. Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Filestream

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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• SQL SERVER – A Puzzle – Fun with NULL – Fix Error 8117

  - by pinaldave

  During my 8 years of career, I have been involved in many interviews. Quite often, I act as the  interview. If I am the interviewer, I ask many questions – from easy questions to difficult ones. When I am the interviewee, I frequently get an opportunity to ask the interviewer some questions back. Regardless of the my capacity in attending the interview, I always make it a point to ask the interviewer at least one question. What is NULL? It’s always fun to ask this question during interviews, because in every interview, I get a different answer. NULL is often confused with false, absence of value or infinite value. Honestly, NULL is a very interesting subject as it bases its behavior in server settings. There are a few properties of NULL that are universal, but the knowledge about these properties is not known in a universal sense. Let us run this simple puzzle. Run the following T-SQL script: SELECT SUM(data) FROM (SELECT NULL AS data) t It will return the following error: Msg 8117, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Operand data type NULL is invalid for sum operator. Now the error makes it very clear that NULL is invalid for sum Operator. Frequently enough, I have showed this simple query to many folks whom I came across. I asked them if they could modify the subquery and return the result as NULL. Here is what I expected: Even though this is a very simple looking query, so far I’ve got the correct answer from only 10% of the people to whom I have asked this question. It was common for me to receive this kind of answer – convert the NULL to some data type. However, doing so usually returns the value as 0 or the integer they passed. SELECT SUM(data) FROM (SELECT ISNULL(NULL,0) AS data) t I usually see many people modifying the outer query to get desired NULL result, but that is not allowed in this simple puzzle. This small puzzle made me wonder how many people have a clear understanding about NULL. Well, here is the answer to my simple puzzle. Just CAST NULL AS INT and it will return the final result as NULL: SELECT SUM(data) FROM (SELECT CAST(NULL AS INT) AS data) t Now that you know the answer, don’t you think it was very simple indeed? This blog post is especially dedicated to my friend Madhivanan who has written an excellent blog post about NULL. I am confident that after reading the blog post from Madhivanan, you will have no confusion regarding NULL in the future. Read: NULL, NULL, NULL and nothing but NULL. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Various Leap Year Logics

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier I wrote one article on Leap Year and created one video about Leap Year. My point of view was to demonstrate how we can use SQL Server 2012 features to identify Leap year. How ever during the conversation I had some really good conversation. Here are updates for those who have missed reading the excellent comments on the blog. Incorrect Logic There are so many people still think Leap Year is the event which is consistently happening at every four year and the way to find it is divide the year with 4 and if the remainder is 0. That year is leap year. Well, it is not correct. Comment by David Bridge Check out this excerpt from wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year “most years that are evenly divisible by 4 are leap years…” “…Some exceptions to this rule are required since the duration of a solar year is slightly less than 365.25 days. Years that are evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, unless they are also evenly divisible by 400, in which case they are leap years. For example, 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. Similarly, 2100, 2200, 2300, 2500, 2600, 2700, 2900 and 3000 will not be leap years, but 2400 and 2800 will be.” If you use logic of divide by 4 and remainder is 0 to find leap year, you will may end up with inaccurate result. The correct way to identify the year is to figure out the days of February and if the count is 29, the year is for sure leap year. Valid Alternate Solutions Comment by sainswor99insworth IIF((@Year%4=0 AND @Year%100 != 0) OR @Year%400=0, 1,0) Comment by Madhivanan Madhivanan has written a blog post about an year ago where he listed multiple ways to find leap year. Comment by Jayan DECLARE @year INT SET @year = 2012 IF (((@year % 4 = 0) AND (@year % 100 != 0)) OR (@year % 400 = 0)) PRINT ’1' ELSE print ’0' Comment by David DECLARE @Year INT = 2012 SELECT ISDATE('2/29/' + CAST(@Year AS CHAR(4))) Comment by David Bridge Incidentally – Another approach would be to take one day off March 1st and see if it is 29. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Find Referenced or Referencing Object in SQL Server using sys.sql_expression_dependencies

  - by pinaldave

  A very common question which I often receive are: How do I find all the tables used in a particular stored procedure? How do I know which stored procedures are using a particular table? Both are valid question but before we see the answer of this question – let us understand two small concepts – Referenced and Referencing. Here is the sample stored procedure. CREATE PROCEDURE mySP AS SELECT * FROM Sales.Customer GO Reference: The table Sales.Customer is the reference object as it is being referenced in the stored procedure mySP. Referencing: The stored procedure mySP is the referencing object as it is referencing Sales.Customer table. Now we know what is referencing and referenced object. Let us run following queries. I am using AdventureWorks2012 as a sample database. If you do not have SQL Server 2012 here is the way to get SQL Server 2012 AdventureWorks database. Find Referecing Objects of a particular object Here we are finding all the objects which are using table Customer in their object definitions (regardless of the schema). USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT referencing_schema_name = SCHEMA_NAME(o.SCHEMA_ID), referencing_object_name = o.name, referencing_object_type_desc = o.type_desc, referenced_schema_name, referenced_object_name = referenced_entity_name, referenced_object_type_desc = o1.type_desc, referenced_server_name, referenced_database_name --,sed.* -- Uncomment for all the columns FROM sys.sql_expression_dependencies sed INNER JOIN sys.objects o ON sed.referencing_id = o.[object_id] LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.objects o1 ON sed.referenced_id = o1.[object_id] WHERE referenced_entity_name = 'Customer' The above query will return all the objects which are referencing the table Customer. Find Referenced Objects of a particular object Here we are finding all the objects which are used in the view table vIndividualCustomer. USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT referencing_schema_name = SCHEMA_NAME(o.SCHEMA_ID), referencing_object_name = o.name, referencing_object_type_desc = o.type_desc, referenced_schema_name, referenced_object_name = referenced_entity_name, referenced_object_type_desc = o1.type_desc, referenced_server_name, referenced_database_name --,sed.* -- Uncomment for all the columns FROM sys.sql_expression_dependencies sed INNER JOIN sys.objects o ON sed.referencing_id = o.[object_id] LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.objects o1 ON sed.referenced_id = o1.[object_id] WHERE o.name = 'vIndividualCustomer' The above query will return all the objects which are referencing the table Customer. I am just glad to write above query. There are more to write to this subject. In future blog post I will write more in depth about other DMV which also aids in finding referenced data. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DMV, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Monday Morning Puzzle – Query Returns Results Sometimes but Not Always

  - by pinaldave

  The amount of email I receive sometime it is impossible for me to answer every email. Nonetheless I try to answer pretty much every email I receive. However, quite often I receive such questions in email that I have no answer to them because either emails are not complete or they are out of my domain expertise. In recent times I received one email which had only one or two lines but indeed attracted my attention to it. The question was bit vague but it indeed made me think. The answer was not straightforward so I had to keep on writing the answer as I remember it. However, after writing the answer I do not feel satisfied. Let me put this question in front of you and see if we all can come up with a comprehensive answer. Question: 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. Well, if you read the question, it is indeed incomplete and it does not contain much of the information at all. I decided to help him and here is the answer, which I started to compose. Answer: As there are not much information in the original question, I am not confident what will solve your problem. However, here are the few things which you can try to look at and see if that solves your problem. Check parameter which is passed to the query. Is the parameter changing at various executions? Check connection string – is there some kind of logic around it? Do you have a non-deterministic component in your query logic? (In other words – does your result is based on current date time or any other time based function?) Are you facing time out while running your query? Is there any error in error log? What is the business logic in your query? Do you have all the valid permissions to all the objects used in the query? Are permissions changing or query accessing a different object in various executions? (Add your suggestions here) Meanwhile, have you ever faced this situation? If yes, do share your experience in the comment area. I will send a copy of my book SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers to one of the most interesting comment. The winner will be announced by next Monday.  Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Some of my favourite Visual Studio 2012 things&ndash;Teams

  - by Aaron Kowall

  Getting the balance right for when and how many team projects to create has always been a bit of a balance.  On large initiatives, there are often teams who work toward a common system.  These teams often have quite a bit of autonomy, but need to roll up to some higher level initiative.  In TFS 2010, people were often tempted to create separate Team Projects for each of the sub-teams and then do some magic with reporting and cross-team queries to get the consolidated view.  My recommendation was always to use Areas as a means of separating work across the team, but that always resulted in a large number of queries that need to be maintained and just seemed confusing.  When doing anything you had to remember to filter the query or view by Area in order to get correct results. Along with the awesome web access portal that comes in TFS 2012 (which I will cover details of in another post) the product group has introduced the concept of Teams.  A team is a sub-group within a TFS 2012 Team Project which allows us to more easily divide work along team boundaries. Technically, a Team is defined by an Area Path and a TFS Group, both of which could be done in TFS 2012.  However, by allowing for creation of a ‘Team’ in TFS 2012, the web portal is able to do a bunch of ‘magic’ for us.  We can view the project site (backlog, taskboard, etc) for the the team, we can assign items to the team and we can view the burndown for the team.  Basically, all the stuff that we had to prepare manually we now get created and managed for us with a nice UI. When you create a Team Project in TFS 2012, a ‘Default’ team is created with the same name as the Team Project.  So, if you only have 1 team working on the project, you are set.  If you want to divide the work into additional teams, you can create teams by using the Team Web Client. Teams are created using the ‘Administer Server’ icon in the top right of the web site.   You can select the team site by using the team chooser: Once you have selected a team, the Product Backlog, TaskBoard, Burndown Charts, etc. are all filtered to that team. NOTE: You always have the ability to choose the ‘Default’ team to see items for the entire project. PS: It’s been a long while since I shared on this blog.  To help with that I’m in a blogging challenge with some other developer and agilist friends.  Please check out their blogs as well: Steve Rogalsky: http://winnipegagilist.blogspot.ca Dylan Smith: http://www.geekswithblogs.net/optikal Tyler Doerkson: http://blog.tylerdoerksen.com David Alpert: http://www.spinthemoose.com Dave White: http://www.agileramblings.com   Technorati Tags: TFS 2012,Agile,Team

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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• SQL SERVER – Identify Numbers of Non Clustered Index on Tables for Entire Database

  - by pinaldave

  Here is the script which will give you numbers of non clustered indexes on any table in entire database. SELECT COUNT(i.TYPE) NoOfIndex, [schema_name] = s.name, table_name = o.name FROM sys.indexes i INNER JOIN sys.objects o ON i.[object_id] = o.[object_id] INNER JOIN sys.schemas s ON o.[schema_id] = s.[schema_id] WHERE o.TYPE IN ('U') AND i.TYPE = 2 GROUP BY s.name, o.name ORDER BY schema_name, table_name Here is the small story behind why this script was needed. I recently went to meet my friend in his office and he introduced me to his colleague in office as someone who is an expert in SQL Server Indexing. I politely said I am yet learning about Indexing and have a long way to go. My friend’s colleague right away said – he had a suggestion for me with related to Index. According to him he was looking for a script which will count all the non clustered on all the tables in the database and he was not able to find that on SQLAuthority.com. I was a bit surprised as I really do not remember all the details about what I have written so far. I quickly pull up my phone and tried to look for the script on my custom search engine and he was correct. I never wrote a script which will count all the non clustered indexes on tables in the whole database. Excessive indexing is not recommended in general. If you have too many indexes it will definitely negatively affect your performance. The above query will quickly give you details of numbers of indexes on tables on your entire database. You can quickly glance and use the numbers as reference. Please note that the number of the index is not a indication of bad indexes. There is a lot of wisdom I can write here but that is not the scope of this blog post. There are many different rules with Indexes and many different scenarios. For example – a table which is heap (no clustered index) is often not recommended on OLTP workload (here is the blog post to identify them), drop unused indexes with careful observation (here is the script for it), identify missing indexes and after careful testing add them (here is the script for it). Even though I have given few links here it is just the tip of the iceberg. If you follow only above four advices your ship may still sink. Those who wants to learn the subject in depth can watch the videos here after logging in. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Executable Resumes

  - by Liam McLennan

  Over the past twelve months I have been thinking a lot about executable specifications. Long considered the holy grail of agile software development, executable specifications means expressing a program’s functionality in a way that is both readable by the customer and computer verifiable in an automatic, repeatable way. With the current generation of BDD and ATDD tools executable specifications seem finally within the reach of a significant percentage of the development community. Lately, and partly as a result of my craftsmanship tour, I have decided that soon I am going to have to get a job (gasp!). As Dave Hoover describes in Apprenticeship Patters, “you … have mentors and kindred spirits that you meet with periodically, [but] when it comes to developing software, you work alone.” The time may have come where the only way for me to feel satisfied and enriched by my work is to seek out a work environment where I can work with people smarter and more knowledgeable than myself. Having been on both sides of the interview desk many times I know how difficult and unreliable the process can be. Therefore, I am proposing the idea of executable resumes. As a journeyman programmer looking for a fruitful work environment I plan to write an application that demonstrates my understanding of the state of the art. Potential employers can download, view and execute my executable resume and judge wether my aesthetic sensibility matches their own. The concept of the executable resume is based upon the following assertion: A line of code answers a thousand interview questions Asking people about their experiences and skills is not a direct way of assessing their value to your organisation. Often it simple assesses their ability to mislead an interviewer. An executable resume demonstrates: The highest quality code that the person is able to produce. That the person is sufficiently motivated to produce something of value in their own time. That the person loves their craft. The idea of publishing a program to demonstrate a developer’s skills comes from Rob Conery, who suggested that each developer should build their own blog engine since it is the public representation of their level of mastery. Rob said: Luke had to build his own lightsaber – geeks should have to build their own blogs. And that should be their resume. In honour of Rob’s inspiration I plan to build a blog engine as my executable resume. While it is true that the world does not need another blog engine it is as good a project as any, it is a well understood domain, and I have not found an existing blog engine that I like. Executable resumes fit well with the software craftsmanship metaphor. It is not difficult to imagine that under the guild system master craftsmen may have accepted journeymen based on the quality of the work they had produced in the past. We now understand that when it comes to the functionality of an application that code is the final arbiter. Why not apply the same rule to hiring?

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• SQL SERVER – Saturday Fun Puzzle with SQL Server DATETIME2 and CAST

  - by pinaldave

  Note: I have used SQL Server 2012 for this small fun experiment. Here is what we are going to do. We will run the script one at time instead of running them all together and try to guess the answer. I am confident that many will get it correct but if you do not get correct, you learn something new. Let us create database and sample table. CREATE DATABASE DB2012 GO USE DB2012 GO CREATE TABLE TableDT (DT1 VARCHAR(100), DT2 DATETIME2, DT1C AS DT1, DT2C AS DT2); INSERT INTO TableDT (DT1, DT2) SELECT GETDATE(), GETDATE() GO There are four columns in the table. The first column DT1 is regular VARCHAR and second DT2 is DATETIME2. Both of the column are been populated with the same data as I have used the function GETDATE(). Now let us do the SELECT statement and get the result from both the columns. Before running the query please guess the answer and write it down on the paper or notepad. Question 1: Guess the resultset SELECT DT1, DT2 FROM TableDT GO Now once again run the select statement on the same table but this time retrieve the computed columns only. Once again I suggest you write down the result on the notepad. Question 2: Guess the resultset SELECT DT1C, DT2C FROM TableDT GO Now here is the best part. Let us use the CAST function over the computed columns. Here I do want you to stop and guess the answer for sure. If you have not done it so far, stop do it, believe me you will like it. Question 3: Guess the resultset SELECT CAST(DT1C AS DATETIME2) CDT1C, CAST(DT2C AS DATETIME2) CDT1C FROM TableDT GO Now let us inspect all the answers together and see how many of you got it correct. Answer 1: Answer 2: Answer 3:  If you have not tried to run the script so far, you can execute all the three of the above script together over here and see the result together. SELECT CAST(DT1C AS DATETIME2) CDT1C, CAST(DT2C AS DATETIME2) CDT1C FROM TableDT GO Here is the Saturday Fun question to you – why do we get same result from both of the expressions in Question 3, where as in question 2 both the expression have different answer. I will publish the valid answer with explanation in future blog posts. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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• SQL SERVER – Order By Numeric Values Formatted as String

  - by pinaldave

  When I was writing this blog post I had a hard time to come up with the title of the blog post so I did my best to come up with one. Here is the reason why? I wrote a blog post earlier SQL SERVER – Find First Non-Numeric Character from String. One of the questions was that how that blog can be useful in real life scenario. This blog post is the answer to that question. Let us first see a problem. We have a table which has a column containing alphanumeric data. The data always has first as an integer and later part as a string. The business need is to order the data based on the first part of the alphanumeric data which is an integer. Now the problem is that no matter how we use ORDER BY the result is not produced as expected. Let us understand this with example. Prepare a sample data: -- How to find first non numberic character USE tempdb GO CREATE TABLE MyTable (ID INT, Col1 VARCHAR(100)) GO INSERT INTO MyTable (ID, Col1) SELECT 1, '1one' UNION ALL SELECT 2, '11eleven' UNION ALL SELECT 3, '2two' UNION ALL SELECT 4, '22twentytwo' UNION ALL SELECT 5, '111oneeleven' GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM MyTable GO The above query will give following result set. Now let us use ORDER BY COL1 and observe the result along with Original SELECT. -- Select Data SELECT * FROM MyTable GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM MyTable ORDER BY Col1 GO The result of the table is not as per expected. We need the result in following format. Here is the good example of how we can use PATINDEX. -- Use of PATINDEX SELECT ID, LEFT(Col1,PATINDEX('%[^0-9]%',Col1)-1) 'Numeric Character', Col1 'Original Character' FROM MyTable ORDER BY LEFT(Col1,PATINDEX('%[^0-9]%',Col1)-1) GO We can use PATINDEX to identify the length of the digit part in the alphanumeric string (Remember: Our string has a first part as an int always. It will not work in any other scenario). Now you can use the LEFT function to extract the INT portion from the alphanumeric string and order the data according to it. You can easily clean up the script by dropping following table. DROP TABLE MyTable GO Here is the complete script so you can easily refer it. -- How to find first non numberic character USE tempdb GO CREATE TABLE MyTable (ID INT, Col1 VARCHAR(100)) GO INSERT INTO MyTable (ID, Col1) SELECT 1, '1one' UNION ALL SELECT 2, '11eleven' UNION ALL SELECT 3, '2two' UNION ALL SELECT 4, '22twentytwo' UNION ALL SELECT 5, '111oneeleven' GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM MyTable GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM MyTable ORDER BY Col1 GO -- Use of PATINDEX SELECT ID, Col1 'Original Character' FROM MyTable ORDER BY LEFT(Col1,PATINDEX('%[^0-9]%',Col1)-1) GO DROP TABLE MyTable GO Well, isn’t it an interesting solution. Any suggestion for better solution? Additionally any suggestion for changing the title of this blog post? Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL String, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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• SQL SERVER – NTFS File System Performance for SQL Server

  - by pinaldave

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

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• Summit Old, Summit New, Summit Borrowed...

  - by Rob Farley

  PASS Summit is coming up, and I thought I’d post a few things. Summit Old... At the PASS Summit, you will get the chance to hear presentations by the SQL Server establishment. Just about every big name in the SQL Server world is a regular at the PASS Summit, so you will get to hear and meet people like Kalen Delaney (@sqlqueen) (who just recently got awarded MVP status for the 20th year running), and from all around the world such as the UK’s Chris Webb (@technitrain) or Pinal Dave (@pinaldave) from India. Almost all the household names in SQL Server will be there, including a large contingent from Microsoft. The PASS Summit is by far the best place to meet the legends of SQL Server. And they’re not all old. Some are, but most of them are younger than you might think. ...Summit New... The hottest topics are often about the newest technologies (such as SQL Server 2012). But you will almost certainly learn new stuff about older versions too. But that’s not what I wanted to pick on for this point. There are many new speakers at every PASS Summit, and content that has not been covered in other places. This year, for example, LobsterPot’s Roger Noble (@roger_noble) is giving a presentation for the first time. He’s a regular around the Australian circuit, but this is his first time presenting to a US audience. New Zealand’s Paul White (@sql_kiwi) is attending his first PASS Summit, and will be giving over four hours of incredibly deep stuff that has never been presented anywhere in the US before (I can’t say the world, because he did present similar material in Adelaide earlier in the year). ...Summit Borrowed... No, I’m not talking about plagiarism – the talks you’ll hear are all their own work. But you will get a lot of stuff you’ll be able to take back and apply at work. The PASS Summit sessions are not full of sales-pitches, telling you about how great things could be if only you’d buy some third-party vendor product. It’s simply not that kind of conference, and PASS doesn’t allow that kind of talk to take place. Instead, you’ll be taught techniques, and be able to download scripts and slides to let you perform that magic back at work when you get home. You will definitely find plenty of ideas to borrow at the PASS Summit. ...Summit Blue Yeah – and there’s karaoke. Blue - Jason - SQL Karaoke - YouTube

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

  - by pinaldave

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

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