25Mar 2014 by Grant Fritchey 12 Comments

Save Money On Your Training Server

Azure, T-SQL
You can spend less money. Some of us are lucky. We work for very large corporations who can easily set aside a spare desktop or even space on a rack for a server on which we can train. Others of us are not as lucky. We work for smaller organizations that have to be more careful with their money. Not only do we not get the extra machine to train on, but our laptops could be weak things that can't run two or more VMs. In this case, how can you go about learning stuff? Spend your own money? Sure, it's an option. There are some very cheap servers available out there that won't cost you even $1000 dollars to set up. And for pretty cheap you can buy some…
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21Mar 2014 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS DBA Virtual Chapter Talk

Azure, PASS
I almost forgot to tell you about the Database Administration Virtual Chapter meeting next week, March 26th, 2014. I'll be doing a talk about query tuning in Windows Azure SQL Database. It's a talk I've given before (it was in the top 10 at the PASS Summit last year). Come find out why you'll need to tune queries in WASD, the tools you get, and the glorious fact that you'll actually be actively saving your business money by tuning queries! Click here now to register.
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19Mar 2014 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Query Tuning Near You

SQL Server, T-SQL
It really is so much easier to just throw hardware at badly performing databases. Just buy a bigger, faster server with more and faster disks and you can put off doing tuning work for another 6-9 months, easily. But, for most of us, sooner or later, our performance problems get so big or, we just don't have any more money to spend, and we're stuck. We have to tune the queries. And frankly, query tuning is a pain in the nether regions. But, after you've tuned queries 20 or 30 times, you start to recognize the patterns and it gets easier (never easy, just not as hard). But, if you haven't done it 20 or 30 times, what do you do? My suggestion, talk to someone who has done it…
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18Mar 2014 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

Finding Mistakes

SQL Server, T-SQL
Ever had that moment where you start getting errors from code that you've tested a million times? I had that one recently. I had this little bit of code for pulling information directly from query plans in cache: WITH XMLNAMESPACES(DEFAULT N'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2004/07/showplan'), QueryPlans AS ( SELECT RelOp.pln.value(N'@PhysicalOp', N'varchar(50)') AS OperatorName, RelOp.pln.value(N'@NodeId',N'integer') AS NodeId, RelOp.pln.value(N'@EstimateCPU', N'decimal(10,9)') AS CPUCost, RelOp.pln.value(N'@EstimateIO', N'decimal(10,9)') AS IOCost, dest.text FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats AS deqs CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(deqs.sql_handle) AS dest CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan(deqs.plan_handle) AS deqp CROSS APPLY deqp.query_plan.nodes(N'//RelOp') RelOp (pln) ) SELECT qp.OperatorName, qp.NodeId, qp.CPUCost, qp.IOCost, qp.CPUCost + qp.IOCost AS EstimatedCost FROM QueryPlans AS qp WHERE qp.text = 'some query or other in cache' ORDER BY EstimatedCost DESC; I've probably run this... I don't know how many times. But... I'm suddenly getting an error: Msg 8114, Level 16, State 5,…
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17Mar 2014 by Grant Fritchey 27 Comments

SQL Saturday: You can’t have it all.

PASS
SQL Saturday's are awesome! Let's get that clear up front. The organizers of SQL Saturday events are glorious individuals. Let's get that clear too. I want to be up front about those things because, well, I'm going to be critical. First though, I want to establish my bona fides for what I'm about to say. I helped organize two SQL Saturday events and two other local events before those. I also help Red Gate Software run half-day seminars all over the country. So, I have some idea what goes into the organizational side of these things. I've presented at eleven SQL Saturday events in just the last year. I'm on the schedule for, I think, 6 more between now and August. So, I think I have some idea what it's…
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11Mar 2014 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

sp_updatestats Is Not Smart

SQL Server, T-SQL
No, I don't mean the use of sp_updatestats is not smart. It's a fine, quick mechanism for getting statistics updated in your system. But the procedure itself is not smart. I keep seeing stuff like "sp_updatestats knows which statistics need to be updated" and similar statements. Nope. Not true. Wanna know how I know? It's tricky. Ready? I looked at the query. It's there, in full, at the bottom of the article (2014 CTP2 version, just in case yours is slightly different, like, for example, no Hekaton logic). Let's focus on just this bit: if ((@ind_rowmodctr <> 0) or ((@is_ver_current is not null) and (@is_ver_current = 0))) The most interesting part is right at the front, @ind_rowmodctr <> 0. That value is loaded with the cursor and comes from sys.sysindexes and the rowmodctr column…
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07Mar 2014 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Speaker of the Month, March 2014

Professional Development
This never gets easier. I was able to attend a bunch of sessions in the last month from a number of speakers that I'd never seen before. A lot of them were good, very good. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I think the general level of speakers within the SQL Server community is improving. Which means we'll all need to up our games. I also saw several that I've seen before because I always learn from them. In short, my cup runneth over. Anyway, the person I picked this month, well, I'd never seen him present before. But, I have hung out with him. He's got this incredible, fast, sharp wit and he'll protect you from dangerous objects in orange. I'm picking Mark Vaillancourt (b|t) and his…
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