Category: Administration

Perry Skountrianos introduces a new Docker image:

We are excited to announce the public availability of the sql server 2014 express Docker image for Windows Server Core based Containers! The public repo is hosted on Docker Hub and contains the latest docker image as well as pointers to the Dockerfile and the start PS script(hosted on Github). We hope you will find this image useful and leverage it for your container based applications!

Containerization is a huge part of modern administrative world and it’s good to see Microsoft (belatedly) jumping onto the bandwagon.

Shaun J. Stuart notes that database mail apparently still requires .NET Framework 3.5:

However, I did run into one issue later on regarding database mail. I was able to configure it correctly and was even able to send a test email through SSMS without any errors. Unfortunately, the email was never delivered. Additionally, the database mail logs did not show database mail starting or attempting to send the message. I checked with my Exchange administrator and he said he never saw the SQL Server connecting to the mail server.

A check of the database mail table in msdb (sysmail_allitems) showed my messages sitting there with a status of Unsent.

After troubleshooting for a couple of hours and getting nowhere, we installed in the .Net Framework 3.5 and suddenly database mail started working.

This, hopefully, is a bug.  But not getting e-mail alerts you’re expecting to receive can be a scary scenario.

Slava Murygin has updated his script to include memory-optimized and temporal tables:

There is also new column called “Temporal”. It indicates if a table is System Versioned or it is Historical repository. Row_Count number for Historical repository indicates number of changes done to the main table. That option is applicable only for SQL Server 2016.

I’ve updated only “Ctrl-F1” button, which returns list of tables within a database. Here is the link to the full script archive:https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5yWoyX1eEWqZ3FJUnNHZm80bzQ

Check out his script.

Robert Davis describes how he recovered from accidentally deleting a production-necessary LUN:

That’s right, I did it. I was deleting unused LUNs and the focus somehow jumped from the LUNs for the one database onto a LUN for another database. I blame an errant mouse-click. As soon as I deleted the LUN, I realized the name was wrong. The LUN held the log file for a production database.

Fortunately for me, the database was in an Availability Group so after recreating the LUN and attaching it, I restored the database from the read-only secondary.

The biggest disservice you can do to yourself in a situation like this is to panic.  Stop, think it through, and act once you have a plan.  Even better, plan ahead:  try one of these disasters in a non-production environment and see how the team reacts, what you need to do to bring it back up, and how you can improve next time (which might be in prod).

Matt Smith thinks about Docker and SQL Server:

At one of my local user groups, Suffolk Devs, back in Sept 2015, Richard Vickerstaff done a talk on Docker. One of the things I took away was this was very dev friendly, Richard was honest in the fact he has yet to deploy to production in this manner and the general feedback from the room at the time was no one else had – this doesn’t mean no-one has since of course, but you start to get the feeling the DBAs back home wouldn’t be happy. The other thing was the dev nature of it, for example, when your developing, you don’t want to be held back by “rules” that protect data, it is after all, development, your not going to have production data in your dev environment, right? So, if you don’t “pin” your storage to a persistent path, it’ll get purge when you stop your docker image. Can you image if you forgot to set the production config correctly and come a reboot all your data disappears? I can already here my friendly DBA screaming.

I think that within a few years, non-Dockerized SQL Server will be considered quaint.  “You mean you had to install and configure it each time?”

Andrea Allred shows how to cycle error logs to prevent them from growing out of hand:

What is a good size?  I usually try to get it to roll over around 10 MB.  I use a monitoring tool and when the large error log alert is triggered, I have it run sp_cycle_errorlog for me so mine always stay a healthy size.  You don’t need fancy tools to do this though.  If you know about how fast your logs grow, you can set up a SQL Agent job to run it on a schedule to keep your logs healthy.

How many logs should I keep? This is completely up to you, but since I keep my logs so small, I try to keep 15 of them.  Why so many? I do it so I can go back and see issues further back if needed. You can adjust the amount you keep by right clicking on SQL Server Logs in SSMS and selecting “Configure”

I’d personally prefer to keep more logs—at least 32-45 days worth—but that’s going to depend upon the environment.

Brent Ozar shows a way to see high-priority sp_Blitz items across an environment:

Step 3: run sp_Blitz @IgnorePrioritiesAbove = 50, @CheckUserDatabaseObjects = 0. This gets you the fast headline news, especially when used with the improved priorities in the latest version in our SQL Server download kit

It’s important to have one or two high-level systems you can glance at to see top-level health of a system.  This could be one of those systems.