Category: Administration

Peter Schott extends a script to clean up the SSIS catalog database:

I really appreciate what MS has done w/ the SSIS Catalog. We have built-in logging at a level that wasn’t possible in prior releases, but that comes at a cost. The default retention is pretty high (365 days) and MS chose to handle cleanup using cascading deletes. This sort of coding makes life easier for the developers, but almost always performs poorly. That’s especially the case when you have 1 parent row with 100’s of thousands or child rows related to it.  The problem is compounded because the first time people realize they need to lower the retention limit is about the same time that the database is starting to fill up or has filled up. At that point, it’s too late to lower the retention by a large number because the corresponding delete will still cause issues.

Click through for a script which helps extricate you from sticky situations.  The ideal scenario here would be to set your retention period correctly and not have to delete rows directly, but sometimes you’re stuck in a less-than-ideal situation.

Erin Stellato walks through capacity planning:

Capacity planning for a new solution is really tricky.  You have to come up with estimates about workload based on information you collect from the business.  This means you have to ask hard questions about how much data they will expect in the first month, the first six months, and the first year.  When a new solution is coming in, this is often the LAST thing the business is thinking about, so very often you’re going to get vague answers.  In the case of a new solution, you really have make a best guess effort.  Don’t pull your hair out trying to get exact numbers.

If the solution is from a vendor, you must ask the vendor for planning recommendations about both space needed and the resources needed.  I admit, they may not have that data, but you don’t get what you don’t ask for.  It never hurts to try.

Click through for Erin’s discussion points across hardware and storage requirements over time.

Daniel Hutmacher has released a new tool:

I designed my sp_ctrl3 procedure from the ground up to be a development tool that I can install on any dev environment that I use regularly. I wanted a detailed overview of a specific database object as well as copy-paste-friendly T-SQL code. For instance,

• No “length” column on an int column

• Proper scale/precision values on datatypes

• “NULL” or “NOT NULL” instead of “yes” or “no”

• Identity column syntax

• “nvarchar(50)” instead of “nvarchar”, “100”

• Column defaults

• Complete index definitions

• GRANT/DENY permission statements

• The object_id of the object in sys.objects

If you use sp_help a lot, this looks like a good supplement.