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Category: Administration

Purging the SSIS Catalog

Published 2020-10-30 by Kevin Feasel

Peter Schott extends Tim Mitchell’s work:

I wrote about cleaning up the SSIS Catalog a while back, but needed to revisit this recently for a different use and needed something that can run in an ongoing manner. My earlier post still works, but I recently adapted some code from Tim Mitchell to create a stored procedure that can do that cleanup. Tim wrote the majority of this. I adapted it to wrap it in a stored procedure to handle varying batch sizes for the deletes as well as to ensure all of the tables are deleted in smaller sets of rows.

Here is the code to create the stored procedure. If your SSIS Catalog is not named SSISDB, adjust accordingly.

Click through for the script. It’s interesting to note how frequently cleanup processes for functionality in SQL Server is inadequate for the task at scale. I’ve regularly seen people write these sorts of things for SSISDB, Query Store, replication, ML Services (though that, at least, was changed), etc.

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SSAS Performance Counters to Monitor

Published 2020-10-30 by Kevin Feasel

Steven Wright takes us through a set of SQL Server Analysis Services performance counters we should track:

That said, I wanted to provide some updates with more of a focus on Tabular mode, as it has clearly become the new standard for how most organizations deploy SSAS. I recommend referring to that original series for a focus on Multidimensional mode, but much of the information provided in this blog post will be applicable to both modes. I recommend referencing Allen White’s blog post on SQL Server counters to learn more about many of the Windows-level counters that apply across the board, as I won’t speak to them here.

Let’s dive into the 15 SSAS performance counters you should be monitoring.

Click through for the set, as well as explanations for why.

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Recommendations for Hosting SQL Server on VMware

Published 2020-10-30 by Kevin Feasel

Michelle Gutzait walks us through recommendations on hosting SQL Server in Windows on VMware:

VMware has created a very detailed best-practice document for us, specifically for SQL Server. You may find the latest one here.

In case the link doesn’t work for you, or you have a different version of VMware, you can search for the proper SQL Server best practices on the VMware site.

Here are the main best practices VMware recommends, and the most important based on Pythian’s experience (SQL Server on Windows):

Click through for a detailed checklist.

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Installing an Always On Availability Group in SQL Server 2019

Published 2020-10-30 by Kevin Feasel

Ginger Daniel takes us through the process of setting up an Always On Availability Group in SQL Server 2019:

With SQL Server 2012 Microsoft introduced the AlwaysOn Availability Group feature, and since then many changes and improvements have been made.  This article is an update to our previous article https://www.sqlrx.com/steps-for-installing-sql-server-alwayson-availability-groups/ , and will cover the prerequisites and steps for installing AlwaysOn in your SQL Server 2019 environment.

Click through for a checklist of pre-requisites and installation + configuration steps.

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Detecting Spinlock Contention in SQL Server

Published 2020-10-29 by Kevin Feasel

Michael J. Swart walks us through spinlock contention:

When that occurred, the number of batch requests that the server could handle dropped significantly. So we saw more CPU use, but less work was getting done.

The high demand kept the CPU at 100% with no relief until the demand decreased. When that happened, the database seemed to recover. Throughput was restored and the database’s metrics became healthy again. During this trouble we looked at everything including the number of spins reported in the sys.dm_os_spinlock_stats dmv.

The spins and backoffs reported seemed extremely high, especially for the category “XVB_LIST”, but we didn’t really have a baseline to tell whether those numbers were problematic. Even after capturing the numbers and visualizing them we saw larger than linear increases as demand increased, but were those increases excessive?

Read on for the answer.

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Testing a Linked Server via T-SQL

Published 2020-10-28 by Kevin Feasel

Kenneth Fisher has evil afoot:

Unfortunately, if there is a problem with the server / server name the sp_addlinkedserver doesn’t seem to throw an error and sp_addlinkedsrvlogin throws an error that breaks me out of the try block. So after my Google-fu failed me I did what I frequently do and asked on #sqlhelp. And I was given an answer that led me to the solution.

Click through for the solution. But not for the answer as to why he’s growing batches of monsters linked servers.

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Creating Schema-Only Database Copies

Published 2020-10-23 by Kevin Feasel

Garry Bargsley shows us three methods for creating schema-only clones of databases:

Have you ever been asked to make a schema only copy of a database? What is your preferred method to complete this request? Below we will discuss how to create a schema only database copy.

Here are three approaches that are easy to understand and perform. One approach will use PowerShell and the dbatools module. The second method will use built-in SQL Server functionality, depending on your SQL Server version. The third way will use a third-party (paid) tool from Red-Gate software.

Click through for the three options.

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Importing Perfmon Data Into SQL Server

Published 2020-10-22 by Kevin Feasel

David Klee continues a video series:

If you followed the last video, I showed you how to set up windows perfmon for ongoing performance metric collection on all of your critical SQL Server machines. However, having this raw data in a portable format doesn’t mean you have an easy means to access that data. In this training video, I show you a PowerShell script that we released that helps you export this data into a SQL Server database table so that you have access to the raw data to perform ongoing performance analysis with whatever favorite tool you prefer.

David walks through the process in a video, so check it out.

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