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Day: February 26, 2016

DBCC Run Frequency

Published 2016-02-26 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling talks about DBCC CHECKDB frequency:

The shorter the period of time you keep backups, the more often you need to run DBCC CHECKDB. If you keep data for two weeks, weekly is a good starting point. If you take weekly fulls, you should consider running your DBCC checks before those happen. A corrupt backup doesn’t help you worth a lick. Garbage backup, garbage restore. If your data only goes back two weeks, and your corruption goes back a month, best of luck with your job search.

Erik provides some good guidelines on where to begin, but as always, your answer will depend upon your particular circumstances.

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Faking Reads And Writes

Published 2016-02-26 by Kevin Feasel

Kendra Little shows us how to how to fake reads and writes:

Trainers and speakers need the code they write to be predictable, re-runnable, and as fast as possible. Faking writes can be useful for speakers and teachers who want to be able to generate some statistics in SQL Server’s index dynamic management views or get some query execution plans into cache. The “faking” bit makes the code re-runnable, and usually a bit faster. For writes, it also reduces the risk of filling up your transaction log.

I didn’t invent either of the techniques used below. Both patterns are very common and generic, and so simple that no origin is known.

This isn’t applicable to everyone, but if you’re giving a presentation and want to simulate data access, these are good techniques.

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DBCC Scales Better In 2016

Published 2016-02-26 by Kevin Feasel

The CSS SQL Engineers have a new series called “It Just Runs Faster.”  In their first post, they discuss DBCC improvements:

Internally DBCC CHECK* uses a page scanning coordinator design (MultiObjectScanner.)  SQL Server 2016 changes the internal design to (CheckScanner), applying no lock semantics and a design similar to those used with In-Memory Optimized (Hekaton) objects, allowing DBCC operations to scale far better than previous releases.

Making DBCC checks significantly faster for large databases makes administration that much easier.  I’m looking forward to seeing this.  James Anderson, however, is concerned that things might be worse at the extreme low end.

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Blocked Process Report Viewer

Published 2016-02-26 by Kevin Feasel

Michael J Swart has updated the Blocked Process Report Viewer:

The viewer can consume blocked process report events captured by any extended events session as long as that session has a target of ring_buffer or event_file. For example, if you set up your extended events session the way Jeremiah Peschka did in Finding Blocked Processes and Deadlocks using SQL Server Extended Events. Then you would use the viewer like this:

Check out the report.

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Movie Analysis Using Power BI

Published 2016-02-26 by Kevin Feasel

Dan English compares Marvel versus DC movies using Power BI:

This is an interactive report comparing the results of Marvel versus DC movie information with regards to the number of movies, adjusted worldwide gross box office earnings, and includes IMDb ratings. You can get a feel for the shift from the 1960’s through the 1990’s as DC dominated the market and then Marvel stepped in and has dominated the box office since.

This is a fun data set and dashboard.

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