Grant Fritchey

19Mar 2020 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Missing #SQLFamily? Check This Out.

I am an introvert. Lots of people don't believe it, but it's true. However, I really do love getting to see my #SQLFamily all over the world in my travels with Redgate Software. Unfortunately, our current situation is such that almost no one is travelling and all the events are cancelled or postponed. Redgate Software is here to help. Redgate Streamed We've decided to pull together a virtual event with a bunch of great speakers, people you know and love, and put on an educational event that is absolutely community focused. Yeah, OK, it's virtual. However, we're going to do all we can to make it as much like an in-person event as possible. We're going to connect up a ton of different software to make it possible for the…

16Mar 2020 by Grant Fritchey 6 Comments

Extended Events: Live Data Explorer, Getting Started

SQL Server, You Can't Do That In Profiler

One reason a lot of people don't like Extended Events is because the output is in XML. Let's face it, XML is a pain in the bottom. However, there are a bunch of ways around dealing with the XML data. The first, and easiest, is to ignore it completely and use the Live Data window built into SQL Server Management Studio. I've written about the Live Data window before, and I've been using it throughout this series of posts on Extended Events. There's a lot more to this tool than is immediately apparent. Today, we're going to explore the basics around this tool Live Data There are two easy ways to get the Live Data window open. The first, for any Extended Event session that's running, you can right click…

09Mar 2020 by Grant Fritchey 5 Comments

Extended Events: system_health and a Long Running Query

SQL Server, You Can't Do That In Profiler

Wouldn't it be great to just quickly and easily take a look at your system to see if you had any queries that ran for a long time, but, without actually doing any work to capture query metrics? Oh, yeah, I can do that right now, and so can you. All we need is something that is built into every single server you currently have under management (sorry, not Azure SQL Database) that is SQL Server 2008 or better: system_health system_health Extended Event Session The system_health Extended Events session is very well documented by Microsoft here. I've talked about it before, in relation to Azure SQL Database, and, on the same topic we're going over today, long running queries and waits (cause if you have a long running query, you…

03Mar 2020 by Grant Fritchey 10 Comments

A Rose By Any Other Name

SQL Server

There is only one kind of execution plan within SQL Server. I've said this several times on this blog. Now, I'd like you to go and read this excellent blog post by Hugo Kornelis. Hugo, Erin Stellato and I are working with Microsoft to hopefully, at long last, make this issue clear. In the grand scheme of life, like Shakespeare's rose, the name we use for execution plans doesn't really matter. However, the fact is, language really does matter. Clarity is so important in communications, of any kind. When we try to teach execution plans, the confusion caused by the old naming standards is one of the first things we have to spend time getting people to un-learn. I fully support this newly proposed naming standard: Execution PlanExecution Plan Plus…

02Mar 2020 by Grant Fritchey 5 Comments

Query Store, Plan Forcing, and DROP/CREATE

SQL Server, T-SQL

I absolutely love Query Store and the ability it provides to force a plan is amazing. However, there are a lot of little gotchas in this functionality. I just recently found one that has quite a far reaching effect. Let's talk about what happens when you DROP and then CREATE a stored procedure. Query Store and Plan Forcing Let's quickly recap how Query Store works and how Plan Forcing works. First, Query Store is driven by query, not by procedure, not by batch, but by query. Second, plan forcing is also by query. However, there are queries and there are queries. Let's take this as an example: CREATE PROC dbo.AddressByCity @City NVARCHAR(30) AS BEGIN SELECT a.AddressID, a.AddressLine1, a.AddressLine2, a.City, sp.Name AS StateProvinceName, a.PostalCode FROM Person.Address AS a JOIN Person.StateProvince AS…

27Feb 2020 by Grant Fritchey 8 Comments

Are You Still Worried About Data in the Cloud?

Azure

There really are technology stacks and business use cases that should never be moved off of big iron. Then there's the rest of us. Chances are very high if you're not already starting to move your data storage to the cloud, it's being discussed right now in your business. I helped put together a new report on the current state of databases that are not under your direct control. It's free to download and available over at Dzone. If you haven't made the move yet, or are just getting started on becoming one of the millions of companies that will be hybrid, part cloud-based, part local, then I strongly recommend you check it out. The trends are clear. Smart people are taking advantage of what services like Azure, AWS and…

24Feb 2020 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

Redgate Software Needs You!

Redgate Software

I've been very blessed to be able to work for Redgate Software. We've done some amazing stuff over the years. We're going to be doing even more amazing stuff coming up. However, we need help. Specifically, we need help with sales. We've got a great team, but we need a bigger, great team. There are openings for sales development representatives and there's going to be a try-out in March, but you only have a couple of days to apply. Go here, right now. Deadline for this is the 26th of February, 2020. When you fill out the application, please, use my name "Grant Fritchey", to show where you heard about it and who referenced you. There are a whole slew of other openings in sales as well. Please, take a…

24Feb 2020 by Grant Fritchey 6 Comments

Extended Events: Database Auditing

SQL Server, You Can't Do That In Profiler

Extended Events can do things that simply are not possible with Profiler and another example comes from the stack of audit events that exist only in Extended Events. One of these is a set of expanded events for database auditing. Comparing the list of things exposed through Extended Events to those exposed through Trace/Profiler isn't entirely fair. All new functionality is only in Extended Events since Trace hasn't been updated since 2008. However, these events that you can use to audit your database, aren't new functionality, they're just new events for watching old functionality. The addition of new events is just one more reason why moving to use Extended Events is a must. Auditing Databases In this instance, when I say audit the database, what I mean is keep an…

17Feb 2020 by Grant Fritchey 10 Comments

Why I Support Code Automation Tools Like ORMs

DevOps

I know I'm a weirdo. I've always been a weirdo. When I was a DBA (now I only play one on TV), I was a weirdo too. Case in point, ORM tools. Whether we're talking nHibernate, Linq, or Entity Framework, the degree of loathing for these tools by most DBAs is really hard to measure. Yet, after an initial period of difficulty (here are some ancient blog posts documenting that pain), I've come to believe that code generation tools are a very important part of what we do. Further, that they are not evil, or wrong, or bad. Let's talk about this just a little. A Tale of Two Teams At my previous employer there was a degree of friction between the developers and the DBAs (shocking, right). Both sides…

11Feb 2020 by Grant Fritchey 11 Comments

Be Kind

Professional Development

Simply put, we are not always going to agree. Please, take this as someone who was nicknamed "The Scary DBA" for reasons comic and tragic. I've screwed up a bunch of stuff in my career. Yes, some of it was through ignorance of technology. However, most of it was through badly managed interpersonal relationships. I was not always kind. I was not always empathetic. I caused problems on teams sometimes that were just unnecessary. If I had just thought things through, a little, and practiced more kindness, I'd have had a much nicer time of it and influenced people in a more positive way. Now, I read this post by Jennifer Jones. I wanted to get angry at people for not treating her well. But all I could think about…