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Category: Administration

Tips On Running SQL Server In RDS

Published 2018-12-13 by Kevin Feasel

Matthew McGiffen shares some tips on running SQL Server in Amazon RDS:

Or you can go with Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service).  This is more of a managed service where Amazon looks after some aspects of your database server for you. In return you give up some of the control you would have with your own server or VM. You can still pick the version of SQL Server you want installed, usually down to which cumulative update you want – though note that RDS normally lags behind the latest box version of SQL by 3 months or so. RDS is what’s known as a PaaS offering (Platform as a Service).
So, what do you give up and what do you gain? Here’s a quick summary of a few things I’ve noticed. This is not intended to be comprehensive and please bear in mind that AWS is a fast-moving beast – changes happen regularly.

There are some good tips here, so check them out.

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Disabling SQL Agent Jobs For Maintenance Periods

Published 2018-12-12 by Kevin Feasel

Jon Shaulis shows us a way to disable SQL Agent jobs with T-SQL:

A user had a unique issue where their system would have dynamically changing job names and schedules, but they need to disable and re-enable them during maintenance. Obviously, this is a huge headache.
I made a recommendation that they should ultimately create a list of currently enabled jobs that had a schedule using a system query.

SELECT *
FROM MSDB.dbo.sysschedules ss
     INNER JOIN msdb.dbo.sysjobschedules jss
ON jss.schedule_id = ss.schedule_id
WHERE ss.enabled = 1;
The code above returns all schedules that are paired to a job that are enabled. The enabled = 1 flag and the inner join to the sysjobschedules table are what dictate those filters.

Read on for more details about what’s going on and some caveats.

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Tips For Migrating SSISDB

Published 2018-12-11 by Kevin Feasel

Kenneth Fisher shares some thoughts on SSISDB:

We’ve been doing a lot of upgrading recently and at one point had to move an instance from one 2016 server to another. In the process, we found out (the hard way) that it’s not that easy to move SSISDB (the SSIS Catalog that may or may not be named SSISDB). I mean it’s not hard, but it’s definitely not a basic backup/restore. The full BOL instructions on how to do this are here. That said, here are the elements that are involved.

Read on for the list as well as an order of operations.

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Finding The SQL Server Port With T-SQL

Published 2018-12-07 by Kevin Feasel

Jack Vamvas shows us how to find the port SQL Server is listening on using T-SQL:


Question: Without going into the SQL Server Configuration manager via the GUI is there a command oriented method to extract the port number SQL Server is listening on?
 
Answer: There are a few different methods to extract the port number without going into the Configuration interface.
Method 1 – use xp_readererrorlog

Read on for an explanation of this technique as well as links to a couple other methods.  I hadn’t thought about using the error log as a source, but it works.

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Do You Have Trace Flag 4199 Enabled?

Published 2018-11-30 by Kevin Feasel

Andy Galbraith recommends that you enable trace flag 4199 in SQL Server:

The session was titled “Modernize Your SQL Server with Bob Ward, the Tiger Team, and CSS Escalation Engineers” and it…was…awesome!
One of the presenters was Pedro Lopes (blog/@SQLPedro), a Senior PM for the Relational Engine.  In his part of the day he talked about several features of the engine and the optimizer, but the “What…what did he say?” moment for me was when he talked about trace flag 4199…and how we should have it turned on pretty much everywhere.
Wait…what?

If you aren’t aware of trace flag 4199 and are running an edition of SQL Server prior to 2016, this is big.  One of our user group members called it out specifically at our last meeting.  As far as 2016+ instances go, Andy covers how that behavior is a little different, so check it out.

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Connection Failed With Error 772

Published 2018-11-29 by Kevin Feasel

Jack Vamvas investigates an error when trying to connect to SQL Server 2016 on Windows Server 2016:

Question: I’ve upgraded an application with a built – in Database API . When attempting to establish a SQL Server database connection this error appears – Connection failed – SQL Server Error 772 – TCPIP Socket

Upon investigation the application was using  the native drivers attempting to connect to a SQL Server 2016 \ Windows 2016

As part of the testing I downloaded the ODBC 13.1 SQL Server drivers – independent of the application and tested a DSN connection to the same SQL Server – and it connected OK. I then created a DSN with native drivers and the error reappeared.

What is going on ? How can I fix this issue?

Read on for the solution and keep those drivers up to date.

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Resumable Online Index Creation In SQL Server 2019

Published 2018-11-29 by Kevin Feasel

Monica Rathbun tries out resumable online index creation in SQL Server 2019:

SQL Server 2019 brings a very exciting new feature that, is long overdue. Resumable online index create is one of my favorite new things. This paired with the Resumable Index Rebuilds introduced with SQL Server 2017 really gives database administrators much more control over index processes.

Have you ever started to build a new index on very large table only to have users call and complain their process is hung, not completing, or system is slow? That’s when you realize you’re the cause because you tried to sneak in a new index. I have many times, because creating a new index can impact performance and can be a problematic process for users when you have no or little downtime windows available. When you kill the create process it rolls back requiring you to start from the beginning the next time. With resumable online index creation you now have the ability to pause and restart the build at the point it was paused.  You can see where this can be very handy.

Click through for a demo and discussion on what options are available.

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Reading Changes From The Transaction Log

Published 2018-11-28 by Kevin Feasel

Marek Masko shows us how to read through the transaction log to understand a data change operation:

Another solution that can be used to track changes executed against your database is to read Transaction Log file or Transaction Log Backups. Transaction log file (and backups) consists of every transaction executed against your database. The only requirement for this is to have a database in the Full recovery model. In the Simple recovery model, every committed transaction can be very quickly overwritten by another one.

Also, this is something that you get for free without the need to enable and configure any additional SQL Server functionality. Of course, besides the database backups, but you already do database backups, right?

To test this approach, you have to make some preparations. You need to set the database’s recovery model to Full. As a first step, check database properties to ensure that it is appropriately configured. As a second step, you need to create a full database backup. From this point, the database is in Full recovery model, and every transaction is fully logged. Thanks to this you are able to read logged transactions from Transaction Log file. The same applies to read from Transaction Log backup. To do this, you need to create such a backup after you execute database schema changes.

I think I’ve only done this once or twice, but it’s a good technique to know about.

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Using Query Store To Force Plans With Plan Guides On Them Already

Published 2018-11-27 by Kevin Feasel

Grant Fritchey creates a plan guide and then forces the plan in Query Store:

If I look at the plan that is stored in Query Store, I’ll see the identical plan up above, including the PlanGuideDB and PlanGuideName properties.

So, let’s force the plan using the values returned from the query above:

Now, when we run the query, we’ll see both the plan guide in use and that the plan is forced (see this earlier blog post explaining this behavior). This is all expected behavior.

Check it out to see how SQL Server behaves.

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Optimizing SQL Server Workloads On VMware

Published 2018-11-23 by Kevin Feasel

Jeff Mlakar shares a few tips on hosting SQL Server via VMware virtual machine:

Why is Over-Allocating a VM Bad?

Why is is so important to allocate just the right amount of resources for your guest VM running SQL Server? We all know the problem with an undersized system; however, what about an oversized system? What problem could that be? Here are a few common issues to consider:

  • Over-allocating CPU causes poor resource utilization across all the guest VMs

  • Over-allocating memory unnecessarily increases memory contention and overhead on other guest VMs

  • Having more vCPUs assigned to the VM can have an impact on licensing.

There are some good points in the post, so check it out.

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