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• SQL SERVER – BI Quiz Hint – Performance Tuning Cubes – Hints

  - by pinaldave

  I earlier wrote about SQL BI Quiz over here and here. The details of the quiz is here: Working with huge data is very common when it is about Data Warehousing. It is necessary to create Cubes on the data to make it meaningful and consumable. There are cases when retrieving the data from cube takes lots of the time. Let us assume that your cube is returning you data very quickly. Suddenly on one day it is returning the data very slowly. What are the three things will you to diagnose this. After diagnose what you will do to resolve performance issue. Participate in my question over here I required BI Expert Jason Thomas to help with few hints to blog readers. He is one of the leading SSAS expert and writes a complicated subject in simple words. If queries were executing properly before but now take a long time to return the data, it means that there has been a change in the environment in which it is running. Some possible changes are listed below:-  1) Data factors:- Compare the data size then and now. Increase in data can result in different execution times. Poorly written queries as well as poor design will not start showing issues till the data grows. How to find it out? (Ans : SQL Server profiler and Perfmon Counters can be used for identifying the issues and performance  tuning the MDX queries)  2) Internal Factors:- Is some slow MDX query / multiple mdx queries running at the same time, which was not running when you had tested it before? Is there any locking happening due to proactive caching or processing operations? Are the measure group caches being cleared by processing operations? (Ans : Again, profiler and perfmon counters will help in finding it out. Load testing can be done using AS Performance Workbench (http://asperfwb.codeplex.com/) by running multiple queries at once)  3) External factors:- Is some other application competing for the same resources?  HINT : Read “Identifying and Resolving MDX Query Performance Bottlenecks in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services” (http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2007/12/16/identifying-and-resolving-mdx-query-performance-bottlenecks-in-sql-server-2005-analysis-services.aspx) Well, these are great tips. Now win big prizes by participate in my question over here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Validating Spatial Object with IsValidDetailed Function

  - by pinaldave

  What do you prefer – error or warning indicating error may happen with the reason for the error. While writing the previous statement I remember the movie “Minory Report”. This blog post is not about minority report but I will still cover the concept in a single statement “Let us predict the future and prevent the crime which is about to happen in future”. (Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong about the movie concept, I really do not want to hurt your sentiment if you are dedicated fan). Let us switch to the SQL Server world. Spatial data types are interesting concepts. I love writing about spatial data types because it allows me to be creative with shapes (just like toddlers). When working with Spatial Datatypes it is all good when the spatial object works fine. However, when the spatial object has issue or it is created with invalid coordinates it used to give a simple error that there is an issue with the object but did not provide much information. This made it very difficult to debug. If this spatial object was used in the big procedure and while this big procedural error out because of the invalid spatial object, it is indeed very difficult to debug it. I always wished that the more information provided regarding what is the problem with spatial datatype. SQL Server 2012 has introduced the new function IsValidDetailed(). This function has made my life very easy. In simple words this function will check if the spatial object passed is valid or not. If it is valid it will give information that it is valid. If the spatial object is not valid it will return the answer that it is not valid and the reason for the same. This makes it very easy to debug the issue and make the necessary correction. DECLARE @p GEOMETRY = 'Polygon((2 2, 6 6, 4 2, 2 2))' SELECT @p.IsValidDetailed() GO DECLARE @p GEOMETRY = 'Polygon((2 2, 3 3, 4 4, 5 5, 6 6, 2 2))' SELECT @p.IsValidDetailed() GO DECLARE @p GEOMETRY = 'Polygon((2 2, 4 4, 4 2, 2 3, 2 2))' SELECT @p.IsValidDetailed() GO DECLARE @p GEOMETRY = 'CIRCULARSTRING(2 2, 4 4, 0 0)' SELECT @p.IsValidDetailed() GO DECLARE @p GEOMETRY = 'CIRCULARSTRING(2 2, 4 4, 0 0)' SELECT @p.IsValidDetailed() GO DECLARE @p GEOMETRY = 'LINESTRING(2 2, 4 4, 0 0)' SELECT @p.IsValidDetailed() GO Here is the resultset of the above query. You can see any valid query and some invalid query. If the query is invalid it also demonstrates the reason along with the error message. 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: Spatial Database, SQL Spatial

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• SQLAuthority News – Presenting at Great Indian Developer Summit 2012 – SQL Server Misconception and Resolutions

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier during TechEd 2012, I presented a session on SQL Server Misconception and Resolutions. It was a pleasure to present this session with Vinod Kumar during the event. Great Indian Developer Summit is around the corner and I will be presenting there once again with the same topic. We had an excellent response during the last event; the hall was so filled, but there were plenty who were not able to get into the session as there was no place for them to sit or stand inside. Well, here is another chance for all who missed the presentation. New Additions During the last session, we were a two-presenter tag team, and we presented the session in a sense that it would suit two speakers in one stage. But this time, I am the only presenter, so I decided to present this session in a much different way. I will still assume there are two presenters. One of the presenters will be me, of course, and the second person will be YOU! Yes, you read that right – you will be presenting this session with me. If you wonder how, well, you will have to attend the session to figure it out. Talking Points We will be talking about the following topics in the session which we will relate to SQL Server: Moon Landing Napoléon Bonaparte Wall of China Bollywood …and of course, SQL Server itself. I promise that this 45 minute- presentation will be the one of the highlights of the event for you. Goodies I can only promise 20 goodies as of the moment. I might bring more when you meet me there. Session Details Title: SQL Server Misconceptions and Resolution – A Practical Perspective (Add to Calendar) Abstract: “The earth is flat”! – An ancient common misconception, which has been proven incorrect as we progressed in modern times. In this session, we will see various database misconceptions prevailing and their resolutions with the aid of the demos. In this unique session, the audience will be a part of the conversation and resolution. Date and Time: April 17, 2012, 16:55 to 17:40 Location: J. N. Tata Auditorium, National Science Symposium Complex (NSSC), Bangalore, India Add to Calendar 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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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for July 3, 2013

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Industrial SOA Chapter 5: Enterprise Service Bus Enterprise Service Bus, the fifth and latest addition to the Industrial SOA article series, answers some of the most important questions surrounding the use of an ESB. Industrial SOA Chapter 4: SOA Maturity The fourth article in the Industrial SOA series, SOA Maturity offers "an exploration of the fundamentals of applying a factory approach to modern service-oriented software development." Using the Exalytics Summary Advisor and Oracle BI Apps 7.9.6.4 | Mark Rittman Oracle ACE Director Mark Rittman's post revisits "the use of the Summary Advisor, with my BI Apps installation bumped-up to version 7.9.6.4, and the Exalytics environment patched up to 11.1.1.6.9, the latest patch release we’ve applied to that environment." Part 1 - 12c Database and WLS - Overview | Steve Felts Steve Felts shares a handy table that "maps the Oracle 12c Database features supported with various combinations of currently available WLS releases, 11g and 12c Drivers, and 11g and 12c Databases." Developers WebCast: Deploy Highly-Available Custom Services on Your Data Grid Products - July 11 Oracle Coherence Sr. Architect Brian Oliver hosts this free July 11 webcast for developers to show you how to "create and deploy customized, highly-available services for your data grid, and how real-time data processing will allow you to provide unmatched end-user experiences." A checklist for OIM go live | Daniel Gralewski FMW A-Team solution architect Daniel Gralewski's list is intended to complement Oracle Identity Manager. His post "provides tips on a few topics that are not part of the documentation." How Many ODI Master Repositories Should We Have? | Christophe Dupupet FMW solution architect Christophe Dupupet provides a simple along with best practices for the architecture of ODI repositories in a corporate environment. Distinguish EA from enterprise wide solution architecture | John Wu My buddy Tony Meyer, who did a great presentation recently at the Cleveland-area Enterprise Architect / Solution Architect Meet-up, recommends this Toolbox article by John Wu. YouTube: Oracle Fusion Applications Developer Tips If you work with Fusion Applications you'll want to check out the tips and tricks for building extensions, customizations, and integrations now available on the new Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer Relations YouTube channel. The CX Factor: Wooing and wowing customers in the digital age "There was a time when 'customer experience' was limited to what happened to you when you walked into a store, restaurant, or other place of business or when you called a business on the telephone. But that was back when you could still smoke on airplanes." Thought for the Day "If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.' " — Dave Barry (Born July 3, 1947) Source: brainyquote.com

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• SQL SERVER – Introduction to Function SIGN

  - by pinaldave

  Yesterday I received an email from a friend asking how do SIGN function works. Well SIGN Function is very fundamental function. It will return the value 1, -1 or 0. If your value is negative it will return you negative -1 and if it is positive it will return you positive +1. Let us start with a simple small example. DECLARE @IntVal1 INT, @IntVal2 INT,@IntVal3 INT DECLARE @NumVal1 DECIMAL(4,2), @NumVal2 DECIMAL(4,2),@NumVal3 DECIMAL(4,2) SET @IntVal1 = 9; SET @IntVal2 = -9; SET @IntVal3 = 0; SET @NumVal1 = 9.0; SET @NumVal2 = -9.0; SET @NumVal3 = 0.0; SELECT SIGN(@IntVal1) IntVal1,SIGN(@IntVal2) IntVal2,SIGN(@IntVal3) IntVal3 SELECT SIGN(@NumVal1) NumVal1,SIGN(@NumVal2) NumVal2,SIGN(@NumVal2) NumVal3   The above function will give us following result set. You will notice that when there is positive value the function gives positive values and if the values are negative it will return you negative values. Also you will notice that if the data type is  INT the return value is INT and when the value passed to the function is Numeric the result also matches it. Not every datatype is compatible with this function.  Here is the quick look up of the return types. bigint -> bigint int/smallint/tinyint -> int money/smallmoney -> money numeric/decimal -> numeric/decimal everybody else -> float What will be the best example of the usage of this function that you will not have to use the CASE Statement. Here is example of CASE Statement usage and the same replaced with SIGN function. USE tempdb GO CREATE TABLE TestTable (Date1 SMALLDATETIME, Date2 SMALLDATETIME) INSERT INTO TestTable (Date1, Date2) SELECT '2012-06-22 16:15', '2012-06-20 16:15' UNION ALL SELECT '2012-06-24 16:15', '2012-06-22 16:15' UNION ALL SELECT '2012-06-22 16:15', '2012-06-22 16:15' GO -- Using Case Statement SELECT CASE WHEN DATEDIFF(d,Date1,Date2) > 0 THEN 1 WHEN DATEDIFF(d,Date1,Date2) < 0 THEN -1 ELSE 0 END AS Col FROM TestTable GO -- Using SIGN Function SELECT SIGN(DATEDIFF(d,Date1,Date2)) AS Col FROM TestTable GO DROP TABLE TestTable GO This was interesting blog post for me to write. Let me know your opinion. 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

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• SQL SERVER – Quiz and Video – Introduction to Discovering XML Data Type Methods

  - by pinaldave

  This blog post is inspired from SQL Interoperability Joes 2 Pros: A Guide to Integrating SQL Server with XML, C#, and PowerShell – SQL Exam Prep Series 70-433 – Volume 5. [Amazon] | [Flipkart] | [Kindle] | [IndiaPlaza] This is follow up blog post of my earlier blog post on the same subject - SQL SERVER – Introduction to Discovering XML Data Type Methods – A Primer. In the article we discussed various basics terminology of the XML. The article further covers following important concepts of XML. What are XML Data Type Methods The query() Method The value() Method The exist() Method The modify() Method Above five are the most important concepts related to XML 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.) Which method returns an XML fragment from the source XML? query( ) value( ) exist( ) modify( ) All of them Only query( ) and value( ) 2.) Which XML data type method returns a “1” if found and “0” if the specified XPath is not found in the source XML? query( ) value( ) exist( ) modify( ) All of them Only query( ) and value( ) 3.) Which XML data type method allows you to pick the data type of the value that is returned from the source XML? query( ) value( ) exist( ) modify( ) All of them Only query( ) and value( ) 4.) Which method will not work with a SQL SELECT statement? query( ) value( ) exist( ) modify( ) All of them Only query( ) and value( ) 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) 1 2) 3 3) 2 4) 4 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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• SQL SERVER – Reseting Identity Values for All Tables

  - by pinaldave

  Sometime email requesting help generates more questions than the motivation to answer them. Let us go over one of the such examples. I have converted the complete email conversation to chat format for easy consumption. I almost got a headache after around 20 email exchange. I am sure if you can read it and feel my pain. DBA: “I deleted all of the data from my database and now it contains table structure only. However, when I tried to insert new data in my tables I noticed that my identity values starts from the same number where they actually were before I deleted the data.” Pinal: “How did you delete the data?” DBA: “Running Delete in Loop?” Pinal: “What was the need of such need?” DBA: “It was my development server and I needed to repopulate the database.” Pinal: “Oh so why did not you use TRUNCATE which would have reset the identity of your table to the original value when the data got deleted? This will work only if you want your database to reset to the original value. If you want to set any other value this may not work.” DBA: (silence for 2 days) DBA: “I did not realize it. Meanwhile I regenerated every table’s schema and dropped the table and re-created it.” Pinal: “Oh no, that would be extremely long and incorrect way. Very bad solution.” DBA: “I understand, should I just take backup of the database before I insert the data and when I need, I can use the original backup to restore the database. This way I will have identity beginning with 1.” Pinal: “This going totally downhill. It is wrong to do so on multiple levels. Did you even read my earlier email about TRUNCATE.” DBA: “Yeah. I found it in spam folder.” Pinal: (I decided to stay silent) DBA: (After 2 days) “Can you provide me script to reseed identity for all of my tables to value 1 without asking further question.” Pinal: USE DATABASE; EXEC sp_MSForEachTable ' IF OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id(''?''), ''TableHasIdentity'') = 1 DBCC CHECKIDENT (''?'', RESEED, 1)' GO Our conversation ended here. If you have directly jumped to this statement, I encourage you to read the conversation one time. There is difference between reseeding identity value to 1 and reseeding it to original value – I will write an another blog post on this subject in future. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Featuring in Call Me Maybe The Developer Way – Pluralsight Video

  - by pinaldave

  Is SQL boring? Not at all. SQL is fun – one has to know how to maximize the fun while working with SQL Server. Earlier I was invited to participate in the video Pluralsight. I am sure all of you know that I have authored 3 SQL Server Learning courses with Pluralsight – 1) SQL Server Q and A 2) SQL Server Performance Tuning and 3) SQL Server Indexing. Before I say anything I suggest all of you watch the following video. Make sure that you pay special attention after 0 minute and 36 seconds. What I can say about this. I am just fortunate to be part of the history in the making. There are more than 53 super cool celebrities in this video. In this just over 3 minute video there are so many story lines. I must congratulate director Megan and creative assistant Mari for excellent work. There are so many fun moments in this small video. Let me list my top five moments. @John_Papa ‘s dance at second 14 @julielerman playing with cute doggy The RACE between @josepheames and @bruthafish – the end is hilarious The black belt moment by @boedie @stwool relaxing on something strange! Well, this is indeed a great short film. This video demonstrates how cool is the culture of Pluralsight and how fun loving they are. A good organization provides an environment to its employees and partners to have maximum fun while they all become part of the success story. Hats off to Aaron Skonnard for producing this fun loving video. Well, after listening to this song for multiple times, I decided to give a call to Pluralsight. If you want, you can call them at +1 (801) 784-9032 or send an email to james-cole at pluralsight.com . What are your top five favorite moments? List it in comments and you may win Pluralsight subscription. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 11/17/2011

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Building an Infrastructure Cloud with Oracle VM for x86 + Enterprise Manager 12c | Richard Rotter Richard Rotter demonstrates "how easy it could be to build a cloud infrastructure with Oracle's solution for cloud computing." Article: Social + Lean = Agile | Dave Duggal In today’s increasingly dynamic business environment, organizations must continuously adapt to survive. Change management has become a major bottleneck. Organizations’ need a practical mechanism for managing controlled variance and change in-flight to break the logjam. This paper provides a foundation for applying lean and agile principles to achieve Enterprise Agility through social collaboration. Stress Testing Java EE 6 Applications - Free Article In Free Java Magazine : Adam Bien "It is strange," says Adam Bien, "everyone is obsessed about green bars and code coverage, but testing of multi threaded behavior is widely ignored - until the applications run into massive problems." Using Access Manager to Secure Applications Deployed on WebLogic | Rene van Wijk Another great how-to post from Oracle ACE Rene van Wijk, this time involving JBoss RichFaces, Facelets, Oracle Coherence, and Oracle WebLogic Server. DOAG 2011 vs. Devoxx - Value and Attraction | Markus Eisele Oracle ACE Director Markus Eisele compares and contrasts these popular conferences with the aim of helping others decide which to attend. SOA All the Time; Architects in AZ; Clearing Info Integration hurdles SOA all the Time; Architects in AZ; Clearing Info Integration Hurdles This week on the Architect Home Page on OTN. Webcast: Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile Event Date: Wednesday, December 7, 2011 Time: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET Featuring Manan Goel (Director BI Product Marketing, Oracle) and Shailesh Shedge (Director BI and Analytics Practice, Ascentt). Webcast: Maximum Availability on Private Clouds A discussion of Oracle’s Maximum Availability Architecture, Oracle Database 11g, Oracle Exadata Database Machine, and Oracle Database appliance, featuring Margaret Hamburger (Director, Product Marketing, Oracle) and Joe Meeks (Director, Product Management, Oracle). November 30, 2011 at 10:00am PT / 1:00pm ET. Oracle Technology Network Architect Day - Phoenix, AZ Wednesday December 14, 2011, 8:30am - 5:00pm. The Ritz-Carlton, Phoenix, 2401 East Camelback Road, Phoenix, AZ 85016. Registration is free, but seating is limited.

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• SQL SERVER – Fix: Error: 10920 Cannot drop user-defined function. It is being used as a resource governor classifier

  - by pinaldave

  If you have not read my SQL SERVER – Simple Example to Configure Resource Governor – Introduction to Resource Governor yesterday’s detailed primer on Resource Governor, I suggest you go ahead and read it before continuing this article. After reading the article the very first email I received was as follows: “Pinal, I configured resource governor on my development server and it worked fine with tests I ran. After doing some tests, I decided to remove the resource governor and as a first step I disabled it however, I was not able to drop the classification function during the process of the clean up. It was continuously giving me following error. Msg 10920, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Cannot drop user-defined function myudfname. It is being used as a resource governor classifier. Would you please give me solution?” The original email was really this short and there is no other information. I am glad he has done experiments on development server and not on the production server. Production server must not be the playground of the experiments. I think I have covered the answer of this error in an earlier blog post. If the user disables the Resource Governor it is still not possible to drop the function because it can be enabled again and when enabled it can still use the same function. Here is the simple resolution of the how one can drop the classifier function (do this only if you are not going to use the function). The reason the classifier function can’t be dropped because it is associated with resource governor. Create a new classified function for your resource governor or just assign NULL as described in the following T-SQL Script and you will be able to drop the function without error. ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR WITH (CLASSIFIER_FUNCTION = NULL) GO ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR DISABLE GO DROP FUNCTION dbo.UDFClassifier GO I am glad that user asked me question instead of doing something radically different, which can leave the server in the unusable state. I am aware of this only method to avoid this error. Is there any better way to achieve the same? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Error Messages, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – A Brief Note on SET TEXTSIZE

  - by pinaldave

  Here is a small conversation I received. I thought though an old topic, indeed a thought provoking for the moment. Question: Is there any difference between LEFT function and SET TEXTSIZE? I really like this small but interesting question. The question does not specify the difference between usage or performance. Anyway we will quickly take a look at how TEXTSIZE works. You can run the following script to see how LEFT and SET TEXTSIZE works. USE TempDB GO -- Create TestTable CREATE TABLE MyTable (ID INT, MyText VARCHAR(MAX)) GO INSERT MyTable (ID, MyText) VALUES(1, REPLICATE('1234567890', 100)) GO -- Select Data SELECT ID, MyText FROM MyTable GO -- Using Left SELECT ID, LEFT(MyText, 10) MyText FROM MyTable GO -- Set TextSize SET TEXTSIZE 10; SELECT ID, MyText FROM MyTable; SET TEXTSIZE 2147483647 GO -- Clean up DROP TABLE MyTable GO Now let us see the usage result which we receive from both of the example. If you are going to ask what you should do – I really do not know. I can tell you where I will use either of the same. LEFT seems to be easy to use but again if you like to do extra work related to SET TEXTSIZE go for it. Here is how I will use SET TEXTSIZE. If I am selecting data from in my SSMS for testing or any other non production related work from a large table which has lots of columns with varchar data, I will consider using this statement to reduce the amount of the data which is retrieved in the result set. In simple word, for testing purpose I will use it. On the production server, there should be a specific reason to use the same. Here is my candid opinion – I do not think they can be directly comparable even though both of them give the exact same result. LEFT is applicable only on the column of a single SELECT statement. where it is used but it SET TEXTSIZE applies to all the columns in the SELECT and follow up SELECT statements till the SET TEXTSIZE is not modified again in the session. Uncomparable! I hope this sample example gives you idea how to use SET TEXTSIZE in your daily use. I would like to know your opinion about how and when do you use this feature. Please leave a comment. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Use ROLL UP Clause instead of COMPUTE BY

  - by pinaldave

  Note: This upgrade was test performed on development server with using bits of SQL Server 2012 RC0 (which was available at in public) when this test was performed. However, SQL Server RTM (GA on April 1) is expected to behave similarly. I recently observed an upgrade from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2012 with compatibility keeping at SQL Server 2012 (110). After upgrading the system and testing the various modules of the application, we quickly observed that few of the reports were not working. They were throwing error. When looked at carefully I noticed that it was using COMPUTE BY clause, which is deprecated in SQL Server 2012. COMPUTE BY clause is replaced by ROLL UP clause in SQL Server 2012. However there is no direct replacement of the code, user have to re-write quite a few things when using ROLL UP instead of COMPUTE BY. The primary reason is that how each of them returns results. In original code COMPUTE BY was resulting lots of result set but ROLL UP. Here is the example of the similar code of ROLL UP and COMPUTE BY. I personally find the ROLL UP much easier than COMPUTE BY as it returns all the results in single resultset unlike the other one. Here is the quick code which I wrote to demonstrate the said behavior. CREATE TABLE tblPopulation ( Country VARCHAR(100), [State] VARCHAR(100), City VARCHAR(100), [Population (in Millions)] INT ) GO INSERT INTO tblPopulation VALUES('India', 'Delhi','East Delhi',9 ) INSERT INTO tblPopulation VALUES('India', 'Delhi','South Delhi',8 ) INSERT INTO tblPopulation VALUES('India', 'Delhi','North Delhi',5.5) INSERT INTO tblPopulation VALUES('India', 'Delhi','West Delhi',7.5) INSERT INTO tblPopulation VALUES('India', 'Karnataka','Bangalore',9.5) INSERT INTO tblPopulation VALUES('India', 'Karnataka','Belur',2.5) INSERT INTO tblPopulation VALUES('India', 'Karnataka','Manipal',1.5) INSERT INTO tblPopulation VALUES('India', 'Maharastra','Mumbai',30) INSERT INTO tblPopulation VALUES('India', 'Maharastra','Pune',20) INSERT INTO tblPopulation VALUES('India', 'Maharastra','Nagpur',11 ) INSERT INTO tblPopulation VALUES('India', 'Maharastra','Nashik',6.5) GO SELECT Country,[State],City, SUM ([Population (in Millions)]) AS [Population (in Millions)] FROM tblPopulation GROUP BY Country,[State],City WITH ROLLUP GO SELECT Country,[State],City, [Population (in Millions)] FROM tblPopulation ORDER BY Country,[State],City COMPUTE SUM([Population (in Millions)]) BY Country,[State]--,City GO After writing this blog post I continuously feel that there should be some better way to do the same task. Is there any easier way to replace COMPUTE BY? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Get 2 of My Books FREE at Koenig Tech Day – Where Technologies Converge!

  - by pinaldave

  As a regular reader of my blog – you must be aware of that I love to write books and talk about various subjects of my book. The founders of Koenig Solutions are my very old friends, I know them for many years. They have been my biggest supporter of my books. Coming weekend they have a technology event at their Bangalore Location. Every attendee of the technology event will get a set of two books worth Rs. 450 – ‘SQL Server Interview Questions And Answers‘ and ‘SQL Wait Stats Joes 2 Pros‘. I am going to cover a couple of topics of the books and present  as well. I am very confident that every attendee will be having a great time. I will be covering following subjects: SQL Server Tricks and Tips for Blazing Fast Performance Slow Running Queries (SQL) are the most common problem that developers face while working with SQL Server. While it is easy to blame the SQL Server for unsatisfactory performance, however the issue often persists with the way queries have been written, and how SQL Server has been set up. The session will focus on the ways of identifying problems that slow down SQL Servers, and tricks to fix them. Developers will walk out with scripts and knowledge that can be applied to their servers, immediately post the session. After the session is over – I will point to what exact location in the book where you can continue for the further learning. I am pretty excited, this is more like book reading but in entire different format. The one day event will cover four technologies in four separate interactive sessions on: Microsoft SQL Server Security VMware/Virtualization ASP.NET MVC Date of the event: Dec 15, 2012 9 AM to 6PM. Location of the event:  Koenig Solutions Ltd. # 47, 4th Block, 100 feet Road, 3rd Floor, Opp to Shanthi Sagar, Koramangala, Bangalore- 560034 Mobile : 09008096122 Office : 080- 41127140 Organizers have informed me that there are very limited seats for this event and technical session based on my book will start at Sharp 9 AM. If you show up late there are chances that you will not get any seats. Registration for the event is a MUST. Please visit this link for further information. 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 – Free eBook Download – EPUB, MOBI, PDF Format

  - by pinaldave

  Microsoft has released recently free eBooks on various Microsoft Technology. The best part is that all these books are available in ePub, Mobi and PDF. You can download them to your local machine or eBook reader and read them. This is a great start as many important subjects are now covered and converted into an eBook. I personally read through a few of the books and found they are very comprehensive and and detailed. The goal is not to cover complete technology in a single book but rather pick a single topic and discuss it in detail. The source of the book is white paper, Technet wiki as well book online and it is clearly listed right bellow the book title. Following are the books available for SQL Server Technology and I encourage all of you to have a look at them as they are great resources. Master Data Services Capacity Guidelines Microsoft SQL Server AlwaysOn Solutions Guide for High Availability and Disaster Recovery Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services Multidimensional Performance and Operations Guide QuickStart: Learn DAX Basics in 30 Minutes SQL Server 2012 Transact-SQL DML Reference You can download above eBooks from here. This is indeed a great attempt as each book talks about the a single subject in depth keeping author focus on the single and simple subject. I have previously written two books by focusing on the same subject and I had great pleasure writing it as well. Writing on focus subjects gives complete freedom to author to explore the a single subject without having burden to cover everything which is associated with that technology at large. Just like eBooks mentioned earlier my SQL Server Wait Stats was inspired from my article series on SQL Wait Stats. The latest book SQL Server Interview Question and Answers was derived from my article series on SQL Interview Q and A. Writing book is an absolutely different concept than writing blog posts. When I was converting my blog posts to books, I ended up writing 50% new material and end up removing many repetitive content which shows up in blog series. It was indeed fun to focused book at the same time it was a great learning experience as an individual. Reference: TechNet Wiki, Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Template Browser – A Very Important and Useful Feature of SSMS

  - by pinaldave

  Let me start today’s blog post with a direction question. How many of you have ever used Template Browser? Template Browser is a very important and useful feature of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). Every time when I am talking about SQL Server there is always someone comes up with the question, why there is no step by step procedure included in SSMS for features. Honestly every time I get this question, the question I ask back is How many of you have ever used Template Browser? I think the answer to this question is most of the time either no or we have not heard of the feature. One of the people asked me back – have you ever written about it on your blog? I have not yet written about it. Basically there is nothing much to write about it. It is pretty straight forward feature, like any other feature and it is indeed difficult to elaborate. However, I will try to give a quick introduction to this feature. Templates are like a quick cheat sheet or quick reference. Templates are available to create objects like databases, tables, views, indexes, stored procedures, triggers, statistics, and functions. Templates are also available for Analysis Services as well. The template scripts contain parameters to help you customize the code. You can Replace Template Parameters dialog box to insert values into the script. Additionally users can create new custom templates as well with folder structure. To open a template from Template Explorer Go to View menu >> Template Explorer or type CTRL+ALT+L. You will find a list of categories click on any category and expand the folder structure. For our sample example let us expand Index Folder. In this folder you will notice the various T-SQL Scripts. These scripts can be opened by double click or can be dragged to editor area and modified as needed. Sample template is now available in the query editor area with all the necessary parameter place folder. You can replace the same parameter by typing either CTRL+SHIFT+M or by going to Query Menu >> Specify Values for Template Parameters. In this screen it will show  Specify Values for Template Parameters dialog box, accept the value or replace it with a new value. This will now get your script ready to go. Check it one more time and change the script to fit your requirement. I personally use template explorer for two things. First one is obviously for templates but the hidden one and an important one is for learning new features and T-SQL commands. There is so much to learn and so little time. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Download Whitepaper – SQL Server Analysis Services to Hive

  - by pinaldave

  The SQL Server Analysis Service is a very interesting subject and I always have enjoyed learning about it. You can read my earlier article over here. Big Data is my new interest and I have been exploring it recently. During this weekend this blog post caught my attention and I enjoyed reading it. Big Data is the next big thing. The growth is predicted to be 60% per year till 2016. There is no single solution to the growing need of the big data available in the market right now as well there is no one solution in the business intelligence eco-system available as well. However, the need of the solution is ever increasing. I am personally Klout user. You can see my Klout profile over. I do understand what Klout is trying to achieve – a single place to measure the influence of the person. However, it works a bit mysteriously. There are plenty of social media available currently in the internet world. The biggest problem all the social media faces is that everybody opens an account but hardly people logs back in. To overcome this issue and have returned visitors Klout has come up with the system where visitors can give 5/10 K+ to other users in a particular area. Looking at all the activities Klout is doing it is indeed big consumer of the Big Data as well it is early adopter of the big data and Hadoop based system.  Klout has to 1 trillion rows of data to be analyzed as well have nearly thousand terabyte warehouse. Hive the language used for Big Data supports Ad-Hoc Queries using HiveQL there are always better solutions. The alternate solution would be using SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) along with HiveQL. As there is no direct method to achieve there are few common workarounds already in place. A new ODBC driver from Klout has broken through the limitation and SQL Server Relation Engine can be used as an intermediate stage before SSAS. In this white paper the same solutions have been discussed in the depth. The white paper discusses following important concepts. The Klout Big Data solution Big Data Analytics based on Analysis Services Hadoop/Hive and Analysis Services integration Limitations of direct connectivity Pass-through queries to linked servers Best practices and lessons learned This white paper discussed all the important concepts which have enabled Klout to go go to the next level with all the offerings as well helped efficiency by offering a few out of the box solutions. I personally enjoy reading this white paper and I encourage all of you to do so. SQL Server Analysis Services to Hive Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – SSAS – Multidimensional Space Terms and Explanation

  - by pinaldave

  I was presenting on SQL Server session at one of the Tech Ed On Road event in India. I was asked very interesting question during ‘Stump the Speaker‘ session. I am sharing the same with all of you over here. Question: Can you tell me in simple words what is dimension, member and other terms of multidimensional space? There is no simple example for it. This is extreme fundamental question if you know Analysis Service. Those who have no exposure to the same and have not yet started on this subject, may find it a bit difficult. I really liked his question so I decided to answer him there as well blog about the same over here. Answer: Here are the most important terms of multidimensional space – dimension, member, value, attribute and size. Dimension – It describes the point of interests for analysis. Member – It is one of the point of interests in the dimension. Value – It uniquely describes the member. Attribute – It is collection of multiple members. Size – It is total numbers for any dimension. Let us understand this further detail taking example of any space. I am going to take example of distance as a space in our example. Dimension – Distance is a dimension for us. Member – Kilometer – We can measure distance in Kilometer. Value – 4 – We can measure distance in the kilometer unit and the value of the unit can be 4. Attribute – Kilometer, Miles, Meter – The complete set of members is called attribute. Size – 100 KM – The maximum size decided for the dimension is called size. The same example can be also defined by using time space. Here is the example using time space. Dimension – Time Member – Date Value – 25 Attribute – 1, 2, 3…31 Size – 31 I hope it is clear enough that what are various multidimensional space and its terms. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Business Intelligence, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – DELETE, TRUNCATE and RESEED Identity

  - by pinaldave

  Yesterday I had a headache answering questions to one of the DBA on the subject of Reseting Identity Values for All Tables. After talking to the DBA I realized that he has no clue about how the identity column behaves when there is DELETE, TRUNCATE or RESEED Identity is used. Let us run a small T-SQL Script. Create a temp table with Identity column beginning with value 11. The seed value is 11. USE [TempDB] GO -- Create Table CREATE TABLE [dbo].[TestTable]( [ID] [int] IDENTITY(11,1) NOT NULL, [var] [nchar](10) NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GO -- Build sample data INSERT INTO [TestTable] VALUES ('val') GO When seed value is 11 the next value which is inserted has the identity column value as 11. – Select Data SELECT * FROM [TestTable] GO Effect of DELETE statement -- Delete Data DELETE FROM [TestTable] GO When the DELETE statement is executed without WHERE clause it will delete all the rows. However, when a new record is inserted the identity value is increased from 11 to 12. It does not reset but keep on increasing. -- Build sample data INSERT INTO [TestTable] VALUES ('val') GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM [TestTable] Effect of TRUNCATE statement -- Truncate table TRUNCATE TABLE [TestTable] GO When the TRUNCATE statement is executed it will remove all the rows. However, when a new record is inserted the identity value is increased from 11 (which is original value). TRUNCATE resets the identity value to the original seed value of the table. -- Build sample data INSERT INTO [TestTable] VALUES ('val') GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM [TestTable] GO Effect of RESEED statement If you notice I am using the reseed value as 1. The original seed value when I created table is 11. However, I am reseeding it with value 1. -- Reseed DBCC CHECKIDENT ('TestTable', RESEED, 1) GO When we insert the one more value and check the value it will generate the new value as 2. This new value logic is Reseed Value + Interval Value – in this case it will be 1+1 = 2. -- Build sample data INSERT INTO [TestTable] VALUES ('val') GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM [TestTable] GO Here is the clean up act. -- Clean up DROP TABLE [TestTable] GO Question for you: If I reseed value with some random number followed by the truncate command on the table what will be the seed value of the table. (Example, if original seed value is 11 and I reseed the value to 1. If I follow up with truncate table what will be the seed value now? Here is the complete script together. You can modify it and find the answer to the above question. Please leave a comment with your answer. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – ERROR: FIX using Compatibility Level – Database diagram support objects cannot be installed because this database does not have a valid owner – Part 2

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier I wrote a blog post about how to resolve the error with database diagram. Today I faced the same error when I was dealing with a database which is upgraded from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008 R2. When I was searching for the solution online I ended up on my own earlier solution SQL SERVER – ERROR: FIX – Database diagram support objects cannot be installed because this database does not have a valid owner. I really found it interesting that I ended up on my own solution. However, the solution to the problem this time was a bit different. Let us see how we can resolve the same. Error: Database diagram support objects cannot be installed because this database does not have a valid owner. To continue, first use the Files page of the Database Properties dialog box or the ALTER AUTHORIZATION statement to set the database owner to a valid login, then add the database diagram support objects. Workaround / Fix / Solution : Follow the steps listed below and it should for sure solve your problem. (NOTE: Please try this for the databases upgraded from previous version. For everybody else you should just follow the steps mentioned here.) Select your database >> Right Click >> Select Properties Go to the Options In the Dropdown at right labeled “Compatibility Level” choose “SQL Server 2005(90)” Select FILE in left side of page In the OWNER box, select button which has three dots (…) in it Now select user ‘sa’ or NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM and click OK. This will solve your problem. However, there is one very important note you must consider. When you change any database owner, there are always security related implications. I suggest you check your security policies before changing authorization. I did this to quickly solve my problem on my development server. If you are on production server, you may open yourself to potential security compromise. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Error Messages, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• SQL SERVER – Fix: Error: 147 An aggregate may not appear in the WHERE clause unless it is in a subquery contained in a HAVING clause or a select list, and the column being aggregated is an outer reference

  - by pinaldave

  Everybody was beginner once and I always like to get involved in the questions from beginners. There is a big difference between the question from beginner and question from advanced user. I have noticed that if an advanced user gets an error, they usually need just a small hint to resolve the problem. However, when a beginner gets error he sometimes sits on the error for a long time as he/she has no idea about how to solve the problem as well have no idea regarding what is the capability of the product. I recently received a very novice level question. When I received the problem I quickly see how the user was stuck. When I replied him with the solution, he wrote a long email explaining how he was not able to solve the problem. He thanked multiple times in the email. This whole thing inspired me to write this quick blog post. I have modified the user’s question to match the code with AdventureWorks as well simplified so it contains the core content which I wanted to discuss. Problem Statement: Find all the details of SalesOrderHeaders for the latest ShipDate. He comes up with following T-SQL Query: SELECT * FROM [Sales].[SalesOrderHeader] WHERE ShipDate = MAX(ShipDate) GO When he executed above script it gave him following error: Msg 147, Level 15, State 1, Line 3 An aggregate may not appear in the WHERE clause unless it is in a subquery contained in a HAVING clause or a select list, and the column being aggregated is an outer reference. He was not able to resolve this problem, even though the solution was given in the query description itself. Due to lack of experience he came up with another version of above query based on the error message. SELECT * FROM [Sales].[SalesOrderHeader] HAVING ShipDate = MAX(ShipDate) GO When he ran above query it produced another error. Msg 8121, Level 16, State 1, Line 3 Column ‘Sales.SalesOrderHeader.ShipDate’ is invalid in the HAVING clause because it is not contained in either an aggregate function or the GROUP BY clause. What he wanted actually was the SalesOrderHeader all the Sales shipped on the last day. Based on the problem statement what the right solution is as following, which does not generate error. SELECT * FROM [Sales].[SalesOrderHeader] WHERE ShipDate = (SELECT MAX(ShipDate) FROM [Sales].[SalesOrderHeader]) Well, that’s it! Very simple. With SQL Server there are always multiple solution to a single problem. Is there any other solution available to the problem stated? Please share in the comment. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Error Messages, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• How do we, as a community, help encourage programming in public schools? (Or state Schools for the U

  - by NoMoreZealots

  PRIMARY MOTIVATION My office gets involved with the "First Robotics" competitions and one thing that lingers year to year is the students typically have no preparation for doing even simple programming as part of the public schools system. While the science classes provide some basic grasp of mechanical and electrical concepts, by in large computer programming gets no coverage from the curriculum. (This my be different in other areas of the country/world.) What makes it worse is there is only a short period of time you have to prepare the student's and help them design the robot. Talking to some professors from local colleges, it's a problem because you can't assume even the most basic understanding for freshman CS majors. Languages like Python, Lua and BASIC are simple enough for at least high school level students, if not younger. SCOPE So how do you get public schools to support a programming, at least to the level of "Try it in BASIC" examples that used to be at the end of a chapter in my Algebra book? At least enough to prepare them for event's such as the FIRST Robotic competitions. Which the primary objectives are to teach problem solving and team work, and to possible foster an interest in Math, Science and Engineering in general. (Not force feed to them, as some people her seem to be implying.) Edit: Why teach kids: (Since 2000 CS enrollment in US colleges has decreased by 70% while college enrollment has increased, this is a PROBLEM.) Saying there is no value in teaching someone programming in Jr./High school because they might think "they know programming." Is like saying there's no value in teaching High school science and physics, because they might decide they "know physics." Leading to abuse like: "I passed a high school physics class, I'm going to develop a Unified Quantum Gravitational Theory." Better Prepared students are better students. Instead it would allows college programs to raise the bar on the entry level courses, allowing students to be weeded out based on their understanding of more advanced material. Plus people who did poorly in that in topic in High school aren't as likely to say "I think there's money in computer's so I'll computer science." Plus if people take it in high school and decide THEN that it's not for them, it's better than them wasting their money to PAY a college to figure that out. The result is that people who take the degree are more likely to succeed and be there for the RIGHT reasons. (i.e. It's what they REALLY want to do. And that's REALLY the key to being good at anything.) Programming is like anything else, the more practice and genuine interest you have the better you get. If you start them later, they get less practice. The earlier give them the opportunity to start, the more practice they will get. All other things equal, the more practice the better the programmer.

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• What free space thresholds/limits are advisable for 640 GB and 2 TB hard disk drives with ZEVO ZFS on OS X?

  - by Graham Perrin

  Assuming that free space advice for ZEVO will not differ from advice for other modern implementations of ZFS … Question Please, what percentages or amounts of free space are advisable for hard disk drives of the following sizes? 640 GB 2 TB Thoughts A standard answer for modern implementations of ZFS might be "no more than 96 percent full". However if apply that to (say) a single-disk 640 GB dataset where some of the files most commonly used (by VirtualBox) are larger than 15 GB each, then I guess that blocks for those files will become sub optimally spread across the platters with around 26 GB free. I read that in most cases, fragmentation and defragmentation should not be a concern with ZFS. Sill, I like the mental picture of most fragments of a large .vdi in reasonably close proximity to each other. (Do features of ZFS make that wish for proximity too old-fashioned?) Side note: there might arise the question of how to optimise performance after a threshold is 'broken'. If it arises, I'll keep it separate. Background On a 640 GB StoreJet Transcend (product ID 0x2329) in the past I probably went beyond an advisable threshold. Currently the largest file is around 17 GB –  – and I doubt that any .vdi or other file on this disk will grow beyond 40 GB. (Ignore the purple masses, those are bundles of 8 MB band files.) Without HFS Plus: the thresholds of twenty, ten and five percent that I associate with Mobile Time Machine file system need not apply. I currently use ZEVO Community Edition 1.1.1 with Mountain Lion, OS X 10.8.2, but I'd like answers to be not too version-specific. References, chronological order ZFS Block Allocation (Jeff Bonwick's Blog) (2006-11-04) Space Maps (Jeff Bonwick's Blog) (2007-09-13) Doubling Exchange Performance (Bizarre ! Vous avez dit Bizarre ?) (2010-03-11) … So to solve this problem, what went in 2010/Q1 software release is multifold. The most important thing is: we increased the threshold at which we switched from 'first fit' (go fast) to 'best fit' (pack tight) from 70% full to 96% full. With TB drives, each slab is at least 5GB and 4% is still 200MB plenty of space and no need to do anything radical before that. This gave us the biggest bang. Second, instead of trying to reuse the same primary slabs until it failed an allocation we decided to stop giving the primary slab this preferential threatment as soon as the biggest allocation that could be satisfied by a slab was down to 128K (metaslab_df_alloc_threshold). At that point we were ready to switch to another slab that had more free space. We also decided to reduce the SMO bonus. Before, a slab that was 50% empty was preferred over slabs that had never been used. In order to foster more write aggregation, we reduced the threshold to 33% empty. This means that a random write workload now spread to more slabs where each one will have larger amount of free space leading to more write aggregation. Finally we also saw that slab loading was contributing to lower performance and implemented a slab prefetch mechanism to reduce down time associated with that operation. The conjunction of all these changes lead to 50% improved OLTP and 70% reduced variability from run to run … OLTP Improvements in Sun Storage 7000 2010.Q1 (Performance Profiles) (2010-03-11) Alasdair on Everything » ZFS runs really slowly when free disk usage goes above 80% (2010-07-18) where commentary includes: … OpenSolaris has changed this in onnv revision 11146 … [CFT] Improved ZFS metaslab code (faster write speed) (2010-08-22)

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• Solaris 11 Launch Blog Carnival Roundup

  - by constant

  Solaris 11 is here! And together with the official launch activities, a lot of Oracle and non-Oracle bloggers contributed helpful and informative blog articles to help your datacenter go to eleven. Here are some notable blog postings, sorted by category for your Solaris 11 blog-reading pleasure: Getting Started/Overview A lot of people speculated that the official launch of Solaris 11 would be on 11/11 (whatever way you want to turn it), but it actually happened two days earlier. Larry Wake himself offers 11 Reasons Why Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 Isn't Being Released on 11/11/11. Then, Larry goes on with a summary: Oracle Solaris 11: The First Cloud OS gives you a short and sweet rundown of what the major new features of Solaris 11 are. Jeff Victor has his own list of What's New in Oracle Solaris 11. A popular Solaris 11 meme is to write a blog post about 11 favourite features: Jim Laurent's 11 Reasons to Love Solaris 11, Darren Moffat's 11 Favourite Solaris 11 Features, Mike Gerdt's 11 of My Favourite Things! are just three examples of "11 Favourite Things..." type blog posts, I'm sure many more will follow... More official overview content for Solaris 11 is available from the Oracle Tech Network Solaris 11 Portal. Also, check out Rick Ramsey's blog post Solaris 11 Resources for System Administrators on the OTN Blog and his secret 5 Commands That Make Solaris Administration Easier post from the OTN Garage. (Automatic) Installation and the Image Packaging System (IPS) The brand new Image Packaging System (IPS) and the Automatic Installer (IPS), together with numerous other install/packaging/boot/patching features are among the most significant improvements in Solaris 11. But before installing, you may wonder whether Solaris 11 will support your particular set of hardware devices. Again, the OTN Garage comes to the rescue with Rick Ramsey's post How to Find Out Which Devices Are Supported By Solaris 11. Included is a useful guide to all the first steps to get your Solaris 11 system up and running. Tim Foster had a whole handful of blog posts lined up for the launch, teaching you everything you need to know about IPS but didn't dare to ask: The IPS System Repository, IPS Self-assembly - Part 1: Overlays and Part 2: Multiple Packages Delivering Configuration. Watch out for more IPS posts from Tim! If installing packages or upgrading your system from the net makes you uneasy, then you're not alone: Jim Laurent will tech you how Building a Solaris 11 Repository Without Network Connection will make your life easier. Many of you have already peeked into the future by installing Solaris 11 Express. If you're now wondering whether you can upgrade or whether a fresh install is necessary, then check out Alan Hargreaves's post Upgrading Solaris 11 Express b151a with support to Solaris 11. The trick is in upgrading your pkg(1M) first. Networking One of the first things to do after installing Solaris 11 (or any operating system for that matter), is to set it up for networking. Solaris 11 comes with the brand new "Network Auto-Magic" feature which can figure out everything by itself. For those cases where you want to exercise a little more control, Solaris 11 left a few people scratching their heads. Fortunately, Tschokko wrote up this cool blog post: Solaris 11 manual IPv4 & IPv6 configuration right after the launch ceremony. Thanks, Tschokko! And Milek points out a long awaited networking feature in Solaris 11 called Solaris 11 - hostmodel, which I know for a fact that many customers have looked forward to: How to "bind" a Solaris 11 system to a specific gateway for specific IP address it is using. Steffen Weiberle teaches us how to tune the Solaris 11 networking stack the proper way: ipadm(1M). No more fiddling with ndd(1M)! Check out his tutorial on Solaris 11 Network Tunables. And if you want to get even deeper into the networking stack, there's nothing better than DTrace. Alan Maguire teaches you in: DTracing TCP Congestion Control how to probe deeply into the Solaris 11 TCP/IP stack, the TCP congestion control part in particular. Don't miss his other DTrace and TCP related blog posts! DTrace And there we are: DTrace, the king of all observability tools. Long time DTrace veteran and co-author of The DTrace book*, Brendan Gregg blogged about Solaris 11 DTrace syscall provider changes. BTW, after you install Solaris 11, check out the DTrace toolkit which is installed by default in /usr/dtrace/DTT. It is chock full of handy DTrace scripts, many of which contributed by Brendan himself! Security Another big theme in Solaris 11, and one that is crucial for the success of any operating system in the Cloud is Security. Here are some notable posts in this category: Darren Moffat starts by showing us how to completely get rid of root: Completely Disabling Root Logins on Solaris 11. With no root user, there's one major entry point less to worry about. But that's only the start. In Immutable Zones on Encrypted ZFS, Darren shows us how to double the security of your services: First by locking them into the new Immutable Zones feature, then by encrypting their data using the new ZFS encryption feature. And if you're still missing sudo from your Linux days, Darren again has a solution: Password (PAM) caching for Solaris su - "a la sudo". If you're wondering how much compute power all this encryption will cost you, you're in luck: The Solaris X86 AESNI OpenSSL Engine will make sure you'll use your Intel's embedded crypto support to its fullest. And if you own a brand new SPARC T4 machine you're even luckier: It comes with its own SPARC T4 OpenSSL Engine. Dan Anderson's posts show how there really is now excuse not to encrypt any more... Developers Solaris 11 has a lot to offer to developers as well. Ali Bahrami has a series of blog posts that cover diverse developer topics: elffile: ELF Specific File Identification Utility, Using Stub Objects and The Stub Proto: Not Just For Stub Objects Anymore to name a few. BTW, if you're a developer and want to shape the future of Solaris 11, then Vijay Tatkar has a hint for you: Oracle (Sun Systems Group) is hiring! Desktop and Graphics Yes, Solaris 11 is a 100% server OS, but it can also offer a decent desktop environment, especially if you are a developer. Alan Coopersmith starts by discussing S11 X11: ye olde window system in today's new operating system, then Calum Benson shows us around What's new on the Solaris 11 Desktop. Even accessibility is a first-class citizen in the Solaris 11 user interface. Peter Korn celebrates: Accessible Oracle Solaris 11 - released! Performance Gone are the days of "Slowaris", when Solaris was among the few OSes that "did the right thing" while others cut corners just to win benchmarks. Today, Solaris continues doing the right thing, and it delivers the right performance at the same time. Need proof? Check out Brian's BestPerf blog with continuous updates from the benchmarking lab, including Recent Benchmarks Using Oracle Solaris 11! Send Me More Solaris 11 Launch Articles! These are just a few of the more interesting blog articles that came out around the Solaris 11 launch, I'm sure there are many more! Feel free to post a comment below if you find a particularly interesting blog post that hasn't been listed so far and share your enthusiasm for Solaris 11! *Affiliate link: Buy cool stuff and support this blog at no extra cost. We both win! var flattr_uid = '26528'; var flattr_tle = 'Solaris 11 Launch Blog Carnival Roundup'; var flattr_dsc = '<strong>Solaris 11 is here!</strong>And together with the official launch activities, a lot of Oracle and non-Oracle bloggers contributed helpful and informative blog articles to help your datacenter <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_to_eleven">go to eleven</a>.Here are some notable blog postings, sorted by category for your Solaris 11 blog-reading pleasure:'; var flattr_tag = 'blogging,digest,Oracle,Solaris,solaris,solaris 11'; var flattr_cat = 'text'; var flattr_url = 'http://constantin.glez.de/blog/2011/11/solaris-11-launch-blog-carnival-roundup'; var flattr_lng = 'en_GB'

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• Probation is Over: PASS Board Year 1, Q2

  - by Denise McInerney

  Though it's not always official every job begins with a probation period. You start out with lots of questions and every day you find out how much more you have to learn. Usually after a few months you discover that you can actually answer some questions and have at least an idea of what you are supposed to be doing. Now at the end of my second quarter on the "job" of serving on the PASS Board I have reached that point. My probation period is over. The last three months were busy for the entire Board with the budget process, an in-person meeting and moving forward with PASS Global Growth plans. I had also set a specific goal for myself for my 2nd quarter: to see the Board to adopt a Code of Conduct for the PASS Summit. Code of Conduct When I ran for the Board I included my desire to see PASS establish a code of conduct in my campaign platform.  I was motivated to do this for a few reasons. Other technical conferences have had incidents of harassment. Most of these did not have a policy in place prior to having a problem, though several conference organizers have since adopted anti-harassment policies or codes of conduct. I felt it would be in PASS' interest to establish a policy so we would be prepared should there be an incident.   "This is Community" Adopting a code of conduct would reinforce our community orientation and send a message about the positive character of the Summit. PASS is a leader among technical organizations for its promotion and support of women. Adopting a code of conduct would further demonstrate our leadership in this area. After researching similar polices from other organizations I published a first draft in April. I solicited feedback from the Board, HQ staff and some PASS members. Incorporating that feedback I presented version 4 at the May Board meeting, where we had a good discussion. You can read the meeting minutes for details. I incorporated points from  the Board discussion as well as feedback from a legal review to produce a final version which has been submitted to the Board. It will be discussed at the Board meeting July 12. You can read the full text at the end of this post. Virtual Chapters In the first quarter we started ramping up marketing support for the Virtual Chapters. Since then each edition of the Connector has highlighted a different VC to help get out the message about the variety of eductional opporutnities that are offered. These VC profiles will continue in the coming months. I was very pleased to welcome the new DBA Fundamentals VC which is geared toward new DBAs, people who are considering entering the field and those transitioning from a different IT role. Thanks to the contributions of Erin Stellato, Michelle Nalliah and Karla Landrum we published a "Virtual Chapter Guidebook". This document includes great advice on how to build and promote a VC. It's also a reference for how things work, from budgets to webinar hosting. I think this document will be extremely valuable to all our VC leaders and am grateful to those who put it together. Board Meeting/SQL Rally The Board met in May in Dallas. Among the items discussed were Global Growth, the budget, future events and the upcoming elections. We covered a lot of ground in two days and I will again refer you to the meeting minutes for details. The meeting schedule allowed us to participate in the SQL Rally networking events and one full day of the conference. I enjoyed having the opportunity to meet and talk with many PASS members. And my hat is off to the SQL Rally organizers who put on an outstanding event. Global Growth PASS has undertaken a major intitiative to reach and engage SQL Server professionals around the world. This Global Growth plan is ambitious and will have a significant impact on the strategic direction of the organization. We have been reaching out to the community for feedback, including hosting Twitter chats and live Town Hall meetings. I co-hosted two of these events and appreciated hearing the different perspectives of the people who participated If you have not done so I encourage you to read about the Global Growth vision and proposed governance changes  and submit your feedback. FY13 Budget July 1 is the beginning of PASS' fiscal year, which makes the end of June the deadline for approving a budget. Each director submits a budget for his or her portfolio. For the Virtual Chapter portfolio I focused on how we can allocate resources to grow the VCs. Budgeting is a give-and-take process, and while I didn't get everything I asked for I'm pleased the FY13 budget includes a significant increase in financial support for the Virtual Chapters. Many people put a lot of work into the budget, but no two people deserve credit more than VP of Finance Douglas McDowell and Accounting Manager Sandy Cherry. Thanks to both of them for getting us across the goal line on time. SQL Saturday I attended SQL Saturdays in Orange Co. CA and Phoenix. It's always inspiring to see the enthusiasm in the community for learning and networking. These events are successful due to the hard work of many volunteers. Thanks to the organizers in both cities for all your efforts. Next Up This quarter we'll be gearing up plans for the VCs at the Summit and exploring ways the VCs can best support PASS' Global Growth work. I'll also be wrapping up work on the Code of Conduct and attending a Board meeting in September. And I will be at SQL Saturday #144 in Sacramento later this month. Here is the language of the Code of Conduct I have submitted to the Board for consideration: PASS Code of Conduct The PASS Summit provides database professionals from a variety of backgrounds with an opportunity to connect, share and learn.  We value the strong sense of community that characterizes this event and we seek to foster an inclusive, professional atmosphere. We are dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, religion or any other protected classification.  Everyone at the Summit is expected to follow the Code of Conduct. This includes but is not limited to: PASS Staff, Exhibitors, Speakers, Attendees and anyone affiliated with the event. Participants are expected to follow the Code of Conduct at all Summit events, including PASS-sponsored social events. Participant behavior Harassment includes, but is not limited to, offensive verbal comments related to gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, religion, or any other protected classification.  Intimidation, threats, stalking, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact and unwelcome attention will also be considered harassment. Similarly, sexual, racist, derogatory, threatening or other inappropriate language and imagery are not appropriate for any conference venue, including sessions.  Recourse If a participant engages in any conduct that is prohibited under this Code of Conduct, the conference organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expelling the offender from the conference. No refunds will be granted to attendees expelled from the Summit due to violations of the Code of Conduct. If you are being harassed, witness harassment, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of conference staff immediately. Conference staff can be identified by their “Headquarters/Staff” shirts and are trained to handle the situation appropriately. A Code of Conduct Committee (CCC) made up of the Executive Manager and three members of the Board of Directors designated by the President will be authorized to take action in response to an incident or behavior that violates the Code of Conduct.

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• How to generate customized sudoers files in puppet depending on the environment they're deployed to?

  - by gozu

  the sysadmins are present in the sudoers files of all environments, but other sudoers are not. Different environments all have slightly different sudoers. Most of the time, 90% of users are the same, and 10% vary so we cannot have only one sudoers file for everything. Right now, we are using puppet with 10 different files with names like sudoers.production1, sudoers.production2, sudoers.production3, sudoers.testing1, sudoers.staging1 and so forth. Puppet then picks the file to deploy based on the server's $domain (ex: dbserver.staging1.acme.com) or $hardwaremodel. It works fine but it's a nightmare to maintain so many files. I'd like to autogenerate sudoers files based on the server's domain and have only one big file with all the sudoers permissions for all users and all environments. Something that looks like: User_Alias ADMINS = abe, bob, carol, dave case $domain { "staging1.acme.com" { #add dev1,dev2,tester1,tester2 to sudoers file } "testing2.acme.com" { #add tester1, tester3, tester4 to sudoers file } What's the best way to go about this? Suggestions for alternatives are welcome. I'd appreciate any tips. Update 1: For security reasons, we'd rather not concatenate a bunch of files from a folder located on a puppet client in case someone puts a file in there (maliciously or not) and either breaks the combined file or inserts something in it. Most importantly, for usability, we'd like to keep the number of sudoers related files (fragment or complete) on puppet server to either 3 (prod/stage/test) or preferably 1 file. this file would (somehow) generate sudoers files on the puppet server and send one customized file to each puppet client. The purpose of this would be only searching for a username in a single file and removing it quicker than doing it on 11 files. When adding a user to a bunch of environments, it won't be as quick, but only one file would need to be opened and looked at, greatly reducing the chances of an omission. our Sudo version is 1.6.9p8 so we can't use /sudoers.d folder, only a sudoers file.

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