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Category: Administration

Traces Can Be Expensive

Published 2016-05-09 by Kevin Feasel

Matt Slocum warns against having too many server-side traces running:

Before the client took the last ditch effort of just restarting SQL Server, I checked traces.  There were 9 user traces collecting a ton of trace events.

I manually killed them all and suddenly performance returned to normal.  Phew!  Crisis averted.

As a follow up from that issue, I created a script that stops and then deletes all user traces.  We are discussing setting up a job to run this script periodically to keep traces at bay and I am educating the group on proper trace discipline (and Extended Events).

Even Extended Events aren’t free, so the same advice applies.

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Remote Server Installation Using Powershell

Published 2016-05-05 by Kevin Feasel

Slava Murygin gives tips on using Powershell and task scheduler to schedule remote SQL Server installations:

Finally I’ve nailed down that topic and hopefully that will be my last post dedicated to SQL Server installations on Windows Core.

In this post I will show how it is easy to install SQL Server from a remote computer without remoting to a server, without any GUI, just by using simple command line.

I admit that setting up installation as a scheduled task on the remote machine is not something that ever came to mind before.

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Azure SQL Database Management With Powershell

Published 2016-05-05 by Kevin Feasel

Mike Fal shows a few administration steps with Azure SQL Database, including resetting an admin password:

Walking through this, we just need to create a secure string for our password and then use the Set-AzureRmSqlServer cmdlet and pass the secure string to -SqlAdministratorPassword argument. Easy as that and we don’t even need to know what the previous password was. With this in mind, I also want to call out that you can only change the password and not the admin login name. While this is not such a big deal, be aware that once you have an admin login name, you are stuck with it.

Mike promises that his next blog post won’t take a month to publish.  Here’s hoping he’s right.

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Installing Windows Core

Published 2016-05-03 by Kevin Feasel

Slava Murygin has a screenshot-heavy walkthrough of how to install Windows Server 2016 Core in Hyper-V:

You are supposed to have pre-downloaded Windows Server Installation ISO image.
You can download Evaluation Windows Server from here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-technical-preview
For this example I’ve chosen Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5.
Note: Do not try to use 64-bit installation on 32-bit workstation. It won’t work.
After you specify the file click “Next”.

Read the whole thing.

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Compatibility Level 130 With Legacy Cardinality

Published 2016-04-29 by Kevin Feasel

Jos de Bruijn notes that there is a way to use the legacy cardinality estimator even when you are in Compatibility Level 130 (new in SQL Server 2016):

In SQL Server 2016 there are a lot of goodies under Compatibility Level 130, such as performance improvements with Columnstore and In-Memory OLTP and all the Query Optimizer enhancements done over the years under Trace Flag 4199. So we are faced with a situation where there are workloads that can benefit from some enhancements that come with Compatibility Level 130, but that cannot use the new CE.

The solution is to use one of the new database-scoped configuration options, namely the Legacy Cardinality Estimation option. You can enable this using the following ALTER DATABASE command:

I’ve had a very positive experience with the new cardinality estimator, but I certainly appreciate the option being there just in case.

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Conditional Alerting

Published 2016-04-29 by Kevin Feasel

Dave Mason revs up SQL Server alerts using tokens and conditional responses:

There are three tokens within the T-SQL (highlighted in yellow above): A-MSG, DATE, and TIME. SQL server replaces these three tokens as follows:

 

  • A-MSG: Message text. If the job is run by an alert, the message text value automatically replaces this token in the job step.
  • DATE: Current date (in YYYYMMDD format).
  • TIME: Current time (in HHMMSS format).

See the MSDN documentation for a list of tokens and their descriptions.

 

This is a great way of being smarter with alerts.  Your SQL Server instance has a lot of information at the ready, so get familiar with what’s up for offer.

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How To Shrink A Database

Published 2016-04-29 by Kevin Feasel

If “shrink that database” makes you cringe, that’s a good sign.  Nevertheless, sometimes it has to happen.  On that rare occasion in which it needs to happen, Andy Mallon gives you a how-to guide:

Perhaps you just implemented data compression, and have 60% free space in your database.
Perhaps you just deleted a bunch of old data, and have significant free space in your database.
There are a handful of scenarios where you have free space in the database, you’ll never use it, and you need to shrink. Just don’t make a habit of it.

Shrink should not be part of your normal routine, but it does come in handy sometimes.  Auto-shrink, though?  Burn that to the ground.

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Windows Server Core And SQL Server

Published 2016-04-28 by Kevin Feasel

Slava Murygin walks through running SQL Server on Windows Server core.  First, the steps for installing SQL Server at the command line:

There are three reasons why Windows Server with Core is better than Server with a GUI:
1. Security: Core has less features. That means less surface for intruders to attack.
2. Management: No unnecessary updates and planned reboots.
3. Resource consumption: Less memory usage and less CPU overhead

Even if you aren’t using Windows Server Core, it’s a good idea to be able to script out your SQL Server installation so you can automate it later (or at least so you don’t forget options and have some servers look different than others).

Second, Slava notes that certain features are not compatible with Windows Server core:

The following error occurred:
You have selected a feature that is not supported on Windows Server Core.
The supported features on Windows Server Core are:
Database Engine Services,
SQL Server Replication,
Full-Text and Semantic Extractions for Search,
Analysis Services,
Client Tools Connectivity,
Integration Services,
and SQL Client Connectivity SDK.

That list is a bit more limiting than I’d like, to be honest.

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Powershell Remoting

Published 2016-04-25 by Kevin Feasel

Andrew Pruski demonstrates Powershell remoting:

Hey guys, differing from usual this is a quick post on setting up powershell remote sessions. I know you can remotely connect to powershell sessions using the Server Manager that comes with Windows Remote Administration Tools but it’s a bit of a clicky process and I like to eliminate using the mouse as much as possible.

Disclaimer! I’m not a scripter, there are probably much better ways of doing this but I’ll show you the way I set it up and how to fix any errors you may come across.

If you’re using Remote Desktop to connect to servers, especially for regular actions, you should definitely check out Powershell remoting.

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