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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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. ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Find out about several bad things you may not even realize you're doing to dates and times in your own databases.
See why you shouldn't use alias types in SQL Server.
See why you should avoid some of the GUI elements in Management Studio.
Let's talk about a few of the ways people abuse and misuse DML triggers in SQL Server.
Read about some of the pitfalls of choosing the wrong data type in SQL Server.
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...
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...
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....
See why your stored procedures should use OUTPUT and SELECT for data, and use RETURN only for error or status codes.
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....
Find out why you should always specify lengths for declarations of variable types like varchar.
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...
A little wisdom on using sensible and logical aliases for your tables, instead of a / b / c / d.
See a couple of reasons you should stop using old join syntax (FROM t1, t2
).
See a few alternatives to expensive loops for populating sample or sequential data.
See why you should always use alias or column names in your ORDER BY clauses, rather than ordinal position.
A little background on how I went from an economics major to a DBA.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...