10May 2011 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Summit 2011 Abstracts

PASS
I’ve put in several abstracts for the 2011 Summit. This year we’re voting for preferred sessions. If you’re interested in any of the ones I’ve listed below, please consider giving me a vote.I was very kindly invited to submit for a spotlight session (for which I am very grateful and humbled, again) so I put two in for that. I also put in for two regular sessions. This year, for the first time I put in not one, but two abstracts for all day pre/post-conference sessions. One of them was put together as a partnership between Gail Shaw (blog|twitter) and myself. I’m excited by that one. I love speaking and I really hope I make the cut. In the interest of sharing, these are the abstracts I’ve submitted: Spotlight: DMOs…
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09May 2011 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

SQL Azure Migration Wizard

Azure
There’s a project over on code plex to come up with a mechanism for validating databases and generating the necessary scripts to allow you to move those databases, and data, over to SQL Azure. It’s called the SQL Azure Migration Wizard. There’s no real install yet since it’s just a beta. You can download the executable and run it. It’s pretty straight forward stuff. It’s primarily focused on validating that there is a database, script or series of calls (from a trace event file) that will be properly compatible with SQL Azure, but it can also generate a deployment script from the database. Here’s the opening screen: Not much to it. I’ll walk you through the Analyze and Migrate path which covers most of the functionality of the app. Clearly,…
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04May 2011 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

SQL Rally

PASS
The Rally is next week. It’s not too late to register. This is going to be a very solid event with excellent opportunities for learning and networking. If you’re on the fence about going, don’t be. You should attend. I even have a few (somewhere near 10) slots open in my pre-conference seminar, Query Performance Tuning: Start to Finish. I’ve been working on hard on this presentation and showing pieces of it to various user groups around the country. The reception so far has been very good. If you want a seven hour brain dump on the ins and outs of performance tuning your queries, I strongly recommend it. Since there are still openings, you can get in, but I’d act quickly. Not because they’re all likely to fill, but…
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02May 2011 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

I’ve got 99 Problems, but a disk ain’t one

nHibernate, Object Relational Mapping, SQL Server, T-SQL, Tools
Tom LaRock has a new meme for Meme Monday. It’s all about the problems caused in your system other than disks. Thankfully, despite the title, I don’t have to list 99 separate things, only 9, but you know what, 99 is possible. I’m going to present the problems. You find the solutions on your own today. Let’s go. Recompiles I’ve seen queries so big that they take more than three minutes to compile. That’s the edge case, but as an edge case it is educational. The most important thing to remember about recompiles is that they are driven by data changes. Once a threshold is reached on any given set of statistics, all queries referencing that set of statistics gets marked for recompile. The key words and tricky phrase here…
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02May 2011 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

SQL Azure and the DAC Pac

Azure
When last we left our intrepid hero he had successfully deployed to SQL Azure using the Data-Tier Application Package, a DAC pac. It was easy and I had a database in place in nothing flat. There really weren’t any issues worth mentioning. I wasn’t crazy about the fact that unless I had Visual Studio 2010 I couldn’t edit the Data-Tier apps or get them into source control, but there you. So, assuming this is a real production application, I’ve just realized that I need to get a new procedure into my database. If I just got and run the script to create the procedure then I’ll be breaking the link between my database and the DAC pac (and yes, I still enjoy saying that knowing that blood pressure is rising…
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28Apr 2011 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

SQL University: SQL Azure & PowerShell

Azure, PowerShell
Welcome once more to the Miskatonic branch of SQL University. I see that most off you survived out last encounter… uh, class. Most of you even appear somewhat sane… somewhat. Today we’re going to talk about PowerShell and it’s use with SQL Azure. Which sounds a something like an eldritch horror breaking in from some outer dimension… hmmm… that could explain certain things… So, back to Powershell and SQL Azure. You can’t run Powershell from SQL Azure. Thank you for attending and enjoy your trip home. Still here? I did try. Let’s clarify. You can’t run PowerShell from SQL Azure, but I didn’t say that you couldn’t use SQL Azure as a target for PowerShell. It is possible to connect to your SQL Azure databases running PowerShell from a local…
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26Apr 2011 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

SQL Azure Diagnostic Tool

Azure
One of the CSS Engineers from Microsoft has released a diagnostic tool for SQL Azure. It's worth a look. It's just using standard DMO queries to pull back data, but they're put them together inside a nice UI to help out. If you're already a DMO super-star, this might not be useful, but if you're looking for an easy way to gather data from your SQL Azure instance, this is a good choice. Just remember, although it wasn't mentioned on the MS web site, I'm fairly certain you get charged for running these queries. It's always something to keep in mind when working with SQL Azure.
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25Apr 2011 by Grant Fritchey 8 Comments

SQL Azure Deployments

Azure
You’ve set up your access to a SQL Azure site so you’re ready to go. Now how do you get your database up there? Well, TSQL works just fine, so you can script it all out to a file or set of files and apply them. Because you can connect with SSMS, you could use the GUI to build out your database. You can also use the Azure development platform and it’s web based GUI to create your database structures. Personally, the scripting method doesn’t seem too bad to me because you can get your code into source control that way. But, Microsoft has something additional in mind. It’s called Data-tier Applications or DAC for short (and yes, there are other things called DAC in SQL Server, what can I…
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18Apr 2011 by Grant Fritchey 7 Comments

SQL Azure Cost

Azure
We’ve all heard the scary stories. A developer starts testing Azure and then suddenly gets a thousand dollar bill on their credit card. The whole idea behind Azure works of the premise that you are not paying for the infrastructure. Instead of buying servers and disks and racks and switches and routers, you just pay for access and storage. It’s a great model. That model is  especially applicable to small businesses that just can’t  afford the outlay, or to a larger company that wants to perform cheap experiments, or any number of other places where purchasing and maintaining hardware just doesn’t make sense. But what are the costs? That’s a little tricky to answer, truth be told. SQL Azure is charged a monthly fee based on the size and number…
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15Apr 2011 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

SQL Azure

Azure
If you’ve talked to anyone from Microsoft recently you had to have heard the phrase “all in.” It’s been made very clear. Microsoft is all in on the cloud. What’s that mean? My understanding of it means they are really, seriously committed to building a viable and large presence there. Part of that presence is SQL Azure. Say the word “cloud” and watch DBAs flinch, wince or moan, sometimes all three at once. I have been one of them. I looked at the list of restrictions on a cloud database, snickered, and moved on. But you know what? They’re wrong and I was too. The cloud is absolutely coming. Microsoft is not alone in believing this. Look at the offerings from Google and Amazon and others. It really is becoming…
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