Connect digest : 2009-12-31
Like Hugo's immensely popular item pushing for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3, Steve Jones has created suggestions prompting new service packs for both 2005 and 2008: #522122 : Service Pack 4 for SQL...
Yearly Archive: 2009
Mixing OLTP and reporting using indexed views
I'm not a big fan of denormalizing, nor of repeating redundant redundant information in a database when those facts can already be derived from other information. A classic example of the latter is when...
Playing with page compression – for real
During maintenance windows and against test databases, I have been applying page compression to some largish tables (~200+ million rows, ~50GB). These tables are heavy write and medium read, but all writes are inserts...
Cumulative Updates for SQL Server 2005 are available
Last week Microsoft snuck in some updates for the SQL Server 2005 product line. Cumulative Update #7 for Service Pack 3 brings you to build # 9.00.4273, while Cumulative Update #17 for Service Pack...
On software bloat…
This morning I decided to install Visual Studio 2010 on one of my development VMs. I have several processes in our production environment where, for convenience, I have SQL Server Agent calling batch files...
Connect Digest : 2009-12-12
Sorry I have been quiet recently; been working very hard for the past two weeks on a migration of an old, tried SQL Server 2005 database to a brand new 2008 cluster with faster...
Giving Thanks
My career While I am no Kalen or Paul or Itzik or Erland (or… the list could go on and on), I am very thankful that I have been able to shape a moderately...
Connect Digest : 2009-11-25
Can we improve on CHECKSUM()? Mike C# is not happy with the reliability of CHECKSUM() and asks for a better function that has less (or no) chance of collisions. #513376 : A Better Collision-Free...
Connect Digest : 2009-11-20
SSMS needs to support today's (and tomorrow's) number of cores Apparently when you try to get to the server properties page where CPUs are displayed, the UI is not equipped to handle 96 cores. ...
Installing Service Packs / Cumulative Updates on a SQL 2005 cluster
In our environment, we run the task scheduler as a cluster resource, so that scheduled tasks always run on the active node. (In ancient history, we would have scheduled tasks that weren't cluster aware...
What is so bad about EAV, anyway?
I see a lot of people trash-talking the EAV (entity-attribute-value) model. If you want the full story on EAV, I recommend you read the Wikipedia entry. Basically this is the situation where instead of...
New SQL Server 2008 Cumulative Updates are available
For those of you watching over the past couple of weeks, you may have noticed an out-of-band, mid-CU-cycle update to SQL Server 2008 SP1. The fix to a cluster issue was available only for...
For Analysis Services users, you should be aware of this fix
If you are using SQL Server 2005 or 2008 Analysis Services, and have been keeping up to date with hotfixes cumulative updates, you may have been adversely affected by a previous round (and your...
Connect digest : 2009-11-13
Cart before the horse Last week, a fix for SQL Server 2008 SP1 CU #4 was quietly slipped into the CU4 download page. CU4 was build 10.0.2734, but you could have easily grabbed 10.0.2740...
Some tips on SSMS Express Edition setup
I posted earlier that the Express Edition of Management Studio for SQL Server 2008 R2 (November CTP) is now available for download. During the first few pages in the setup wizard, I was certain...
November CTP of SQL Server 2008 R2 : Download now
For those of you that have been wanting to try out SQL Server 2008 R2, you can download the November CTP of Express here (posted yesterday) and the full version of the November CTP...
Finding stored procedures containing %string%
Having just returned from PASS, I needed to play catch up on a few things in a stored procedure that was being developed before I left. Being a little frazzled still, I could not...
Some updates to SQL Server 2008 SP1 CU4 you may not have noticed
Back on September 21/22, Microsoft released its most recent cumulative updates for SQL Server 2008. For RTM, this was Cumulative Update #7 (10.00.1818), and for SP1, this was Cumulative Update #4 (10.00.2734). However, if...
Another PASS has come and gone
Wow, what a week! I am just settling in back home after a week away, most of which I spent at the PASS summit in Seattle. Whether you were there or not, you might...
Connect Digest : 2009-11-06
This week I've been at PASS, so haven't spent a whole lot of time digging into new Connect issues. There was one raised today where the new += syntax in SQL Server 2008 can...
Blogging from the PASS Keynote : 2009-11-05
Bill Graziano took the stage and promised us the shortest keynote yet. He started by giving thanks to outgoing board members Greg Low, Pat Wright and Kevin Kline. Wayne Snyder took over and gave...
Blogging from the PASS Keynote : 2009-11-04
Rushabh Mehta, PASS President of Finance What makes PASS run? He mentioned CA and Microsoft as founding members. But the overwhelming response from the crowd: we're more interested in free drinks. Stressed financial transparency...
Blogging from the PASS Keynote : 2009-11-03
Highlights We were told that there is going to be a November CTP of SQL Server 2008 R2. There are two new editions planned for the RTM release: DataCenter Edition (256 logical processors, unlimited...
Connect Digest : 2009-10-30
Light helping this week. I am busy closing out a few projects (or at least chapters within projects) in preparation for PASS next week. ======================================== #506453 : Lock escalation no longer kicks in for...
Connect digest : 2009-10-25
Here is your weekly helping of Connect goodness. I added two items from the Connect connection, and an item from the Visual Studio connection. ================================================= #500228 : Default Data Location Not Being Written To...
Run into me at PASS, and you could win a prize!
If you're planning on attending PASS, you should consider playing Twitter Bingo (put on by Quest). Basically, you will get a randomized card with names and avatars of 25 Twitter users who post about...
New Cumulative Updates for SQL Server 2005 SP2 / SP3
Some new updates just posted by SQL Server Release Services: For SQL Server 2005 SP2, build 9.0.3355: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974647 For SQL Server 2005 SP3, build 9.00.4266: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974648 On first glance, it does not appear that...
Connect digest : 2009-10-17
I've been fairly distracted this past week with my "Bad habits to kick" series, so apologies for being so late with the Connect digest. I stumbled upon a few pretty interesting items from the...
Bad Habits to Kick : Mis-handling date / range queries
Find out about several bad things you may not even realize you're doing to dates and times in your own databases.
Bad Habits to Kick : Using alias types
See why you shouldn't use alias types in SQL Server.
Bad Habits to Kick : Using the visual designers
See why you should avoid some of the GUI elements in Management Studio.
Bad Habits to Kick : Abusing triggers
Let's talk about a few of the ways people abuse and misuse DML triggers in SQL Server.
Bad Habits to Kick : Choosing the wrong data type
Read about some of the pitfalls of choosing the wrong data type in SQL Server.
Bad Habits to Kick : Making assumptions about IDENTITY
In my last post in this series, I talked about inconsistent naming conventions. This time I want to talk about a few of the assumptions people make when using IDENTITY columns, and what kind...
Bad Habits to Kick : Inconsistent naming conventions
In my last post in this series, I talked about using the schema prefix, with particular focus on dbo-only systems. In this post, I want to treat the use of inconsistent naming conventions. Stored...
Bad Habits to Kick : Using SELECT * / omitting the column list
In my last post in this series, I talked about inappropriately using SELECT, OUTPUT and RETURN in stored procedures. Today I wanted to talk about using SELECT * or omitting the column list entirely....
Bad Habits to Kick : Using SELECT or RETURN instead of OUTPUT
See why your stored procedures should use OUTPUT and SELECT for data, and use RETURN only for error or status codes.
Bad Habits to Kick : Using dashes and spaces in entity names
In my last post in this series, I talked about defining varchar columns, parameters, or variables without length. Next I want to talk about using "bad" characters, like spaces or dashes, in entity names....
Bad Habits to Kick : Declaring VARCHAR without (length)
Find out why you should always specify lengths for declarations of variable types like varchar.
Connect Digest : 2009-10-09
This past week I was reviewing a few bugs surrounding the new DATE, TIME, DATETIME2 and DATETIMEOFFSET data types, introduced in SQL Server 2008. While they are much more like first-class citizens than the...
Bad Habits to Kick : Using table aliases like (a, b, c) or (t1, t2, t3)
A little wisdom on using sensible and logical aliases for your tables, instead of a / b / c / d.
Bad Habits to Kick : Using old-style JOINs
See a couple of reasons you should stop using old join syntax (FROM t1, t2).
Bad Habits to Kick : Using loops to populate large tables
See a few alternatives to expensive loops for populating sample or sequential data.
Bad Habits to Kick : ORDER BY ordinal
See why you should always use alias or column names in your ORDER BY clauses, rather than ordinal position.
[Tagged] : How I became a dork
A little background on how I went from an economics major to a DBA.
More testing of Unicode Compression in SQL Server 2008 R2
Background Several weeks ago, I ran some tests on the new implementation of Unicode Compression in SQL Server 2008 R2 – both space-related and performance-related. Of course it was pointed out that my performance...
Connect Digest : 2009-10-02
Welcome to October! This week I have five SQL Server items to point out to you, and two Connect-specific issues. /*——————————————————*/ SQL Server /*——————————————————*/ #331220 : Backup / Restore without index data Greg...
SQL Server MVP Deep Dives Redux
Manning has now released several chapters of the SQL Server MVP Deep Dives book on its web site. I blogged about this on the 16th, but they pulled the page for some edits, so...
Connect News
I am skipping the weekly digest this week for two reasons : (1) I had a crazy busy week, and (2) Connect is embarking on a major upgrade this morning. I thought I would...
Cumulative updates available for SQL Server 2008
Yesterday, Microsoft released cumulative updates for SQL Server 2008 RTM and SQL Server 2008 SP1. Cumulative update package 4 for SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973602Build #: 10.00.2734 Cumulative Update 7 package for SQL...