23Sep 2020 by Grant Fritchey 7 Comments

Review: Stellar Repair for SQL Server

SQL Server
I was contacted by Stellar Info quite a while ago. They asked me to try out their software. I said yes, but I was really bad about getting it done. Well, I finally got off my bottom and did the job. So, let's talk about Stellar Repair for SQL Server. Stellar Repair Let's start with the most important piece of information you need: it works. The software itself is really simple to use and just does what you need, repairs your corrupted SQL Server instance. On that alone, I can recommend the tool. However, there are a few gotchas I ran into along the way. Mostly, little stuff. It's things a little polish in the UI and some clean up around language could help out. Don't get me wrong, I'm…
Read More
24Aug 2020 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

Extended Events: Filter on Stored Procedure Name

SQL Server, You Can't Do That In Profiler
I just received a question about Extended Events: What about filtering on the stored procedure name. You know I love writing and talking about Extended Events. The answer is, well, sure, we can do that. However, as with all things, there may be wrinkles worth being aware of. Let's examine this. Filter on Stored Procedure Name Let's create an Extended Event session that captures rpc_starting and rpc_completed: CREATE EVENT SESSION StoredProcedureName ON SERVER ADD EVENT sqlserver.rpc_completed (ACTION ( sqlserver.database_name ) WHERE (object_name = N'AddressByCity') ), ADD EVENT sqlserver.rpc_starting (SET collect_statement = (1) ACTION ( sqlserver.database_name ) WHERE (object_name = N'AddressByCity') ); I've added a WHERE clause to the Extended Event to capture only those procedures that have an object_name equal to 'AddressByCity'. If we look at the output from these…
Read More
06Jul 2020 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Extended Events Capturing the T-SQL of Prepared Statements

SQL Server, T-SQL, Tools
I asked this question myself: Is there a way to use Extended Events to capture the T-SQL of a prepared statement? Why would I be concerned with prepared statements? Wouldn't sql_batch_completed and rpc_completed cover us? Well, no. What happens when you use sp_prepare? What happens when you're using an ORM tool that's using prepared statements? You may see queries that look like this: EXEC sp_execute 5, 48766; What the heck code is that executing? Let's find out. sp_statement_completed Here's a set of sample code that I swiped from Microsoft (they don't mind, but, full attribution like a good citizen, you'll find it here): DECLARE @P1 int; EXEC sp_prepare @P1 output, N'@Param int', N'SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail AS sod INNER JOIN Production.Product AS p ON sod.ProductID = p.ProductID WHERE SalesOrderID =…
Read More
26May 2020 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Database Fundamentals #25: Referential Integrity

Database Fundamentals, SQL Server
If you have been reading through all my fundamentals posts and following along, you have built a small sample database, loaded it with data, and learned how to retrieve the data from it. You’ve also learned how to relate one table to another through T-SQL JOIN statements. But that relationship is very temporary. It will last only as long as it takes for that query to run. To create a database that enforces the relationships between the tables, you need to work with declarative referential integrity (DRI), frequently shortened to referential integrity(RI). DRI is the foundation on which the relational part of the relational storage engine is built. It’s not just a nice thing to do for your database. It’s actually a fundamental piece of how SQL Server works. DRI…
Read More
18May 2020 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

Can We Get Row Counts After Execution?

SQL Server, T-SQL
The general idea for this question came from dba.stackexchange.com: could we, and if we can, how, get row counts after execution. I was intrigued with the idea, so I ran some tests and did a little digging. I boiled it all down in the answer at the link, but I figured I could share a little here as well. Properly Retrieve Row Counts After Execution The right way to do this is obvious and simple. Before you need it, set up an Extended Events session. Done. The only question is what goes into the Session. First blush, sql_batch_completed and/or rpc_completed. Both will return a rows affected value. Although, interestingly, the row_count value is documented as rows returned. However, it's both. But, if you really want to get picky, batches and…
Read More
11May 2020 by Grant Fritchey 7 Comments

Find Indexes Used In Query Store

SQL Server
One of the most frequent questions you'll hear online is how to determine if a particular index is in use. There is no perfect answer to this question. You can look at the sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats to get a pretty good picture of whether or not an index is in use. However, this DMV has a few holes through which you could be mislead. I thought of another way to get an idea of how and where an index is being used. This is also a flawed solution, but, still, an interesting one. What if we queried the information in Query Store? Indexes Used in Query Store Now Query Store itself doesn't store index usage statistics. It stores queries, wait statistics and runtime metrics on individual queries. All useful stuff. Oh, and,…
Read More
04May 2020 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Database Fundamentals #24: More Filtering Data

Database Fundamentals, SQL Server
In this Database Fundamentals post we continue discussing the functionality of the WHERE clause. We started with the basics of the logic using things like AND, OR and LIKE or '='. Now, we'll expand into some other areas. Functions in the WHERE clause SQL Server provides you with all sorts of functions that can be used to manipulate strings, modify dates or times or perform arcane mathematical equations. The problem with these is that if you do them on columns in tables it can lead to performance issues. The trick then, is to not perform functions on the columns in the tables. We’ll cover this in more detail when we get to indexing, variables, and parameters. Just don’t get into the habit of putting functions on the columns in your…
Read More
27Apr 2020 by Grant Fritchey 7 Comments

How Does The CHOOSE Command Affect Performance?

SQL Server, T-SQL
Questions absolutely drive my blog content and I really liked this one: how does the T-SQL CHOOSE command affect performance. On the face of it, I honestly don't think it will affect performance at all, depending on where and how you use it. However, the answer is always best supplied by testing. T-SQL CHOOSE Command The CHOOSE command was added in SQL Server 2012. It's fairly straight forward. You supply an array and a numbered index for that array and CHOOSE will pull the matching value for that index. It works like this. We'll start with a simple proc and execute it: CREATE OR ALTER PROC dbo.CarrierAndFlag ( @SalesOrderID INT, @Flag INT ) AS BEGIN SELECT sod.CarrierTrackingNumber, CHOOSE(@Flag, 'A', 'B', 'C') AS Flag FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail AS sod WHERE sod.SalesOrderID =…
Read More
20Apr 2020 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

The Very Best of Extended Events

SQL Server
Over the next couple of months, I'll be putting on a number of different sessions teaching about the tools supplied by Microsoft, for free, that can help you when tuning your queries. One of the most important of these tools is Extended Events. A couple of my sessions in the Redgate Community Circle livestream "Built-in Tools Make Query Performance Tuning Easier" will be on Extended Events. My livestreaming starts tomorrow, April 21, at 2pm Eastern. It will be recorded and made available for free. Follow the link for all the details, or, just subscribe to Redgate's YouTube account. I'm also going to be hosting a fundamentals introduction to Extended Events, "The Easy Way to Extended Events." Heck, I'm even going to be hosting a session showing how to use Extended…
Read More
30Mar 2020 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

Extended Events: Queries and Waits

SQL Server, You Can't Do That In Profiler
Wouldn't it be great to be able to put together queries and waits at the same time? You all capture query metrics using some method. Most of us query sys.dm_os_wait_stats or sys.dm_db_wait_stats. Combining them is hard. You could query the wait stats. Store the results in a table variable. Run the query in question. Then query the wait stats again into a different table variable. Join the two table variables together to find the differences. Ta-da, you have query waits. Well. Probably. If you're the only one running queries on the system. Also, you're not seeing system waits or other noise caused by activity on the system. Or, we could put Extended Events to work. Queries and Waits Just like Profiler/Trace, you can capture stored procedures, batches, and individual statements…
Read More