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Category: Tools

An Ode to the SQLCallstackResolver

Published 2019-12-05 by Kevin Feasel

Jonathan Kehayias really likes the SQLCallstackResolver project:

Lately, I have been doing a lot of work troubleshooting certain behaviors in SQL Server for workloads that are, to put it simply, designed horribly. As a part of this, I have found it necessary to collect callstacks with Extended Events and to materialize them using the debugger symbols for SQL Server to see where exactly certain types of issues are being encountered to better understand some of the internals of newer features in SQL Server 2017 and 2019. Years ago I blogged about how to use the package0.callstack action in Extended Events for this type of thing, and Paul also has a blog post that talks about how to download the PDB symbols for SQL Server as well as a post that also demonstrates using the package0.callstack action to determine what causes a particular wait type. Using the debugging tools to get the symbols is somewhat clunky and tedious, so when I happened on this amazingly simple method of getting symbol files I had to share it.

The SQLCallstackResolver on Github has to be one of the greatest things since sliced bread if you want to materialize callstacks from SQL Server. 

Arvind Shyamsundar deserves a lot of credit for putting it together; he did a great job with the project.

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SQL Undercover Inspector v2

Published 2019-12-04 by Kevin Feasel

Adrian Buckman announces version 2.0 of Undercover Inspector:

There is a new setting in the Settings table called ‘ReportDataDetailedSummary’ this setting is on or off (0 or 1) and will control the level of detail logged in the summary column. When set to a 1 you will get granular detail of Warning/Advisory counts per server per module, setting this setting to 0 will return it back to the original way of logging which was to summarize the entire report into Warning count and advisory count.

There are a lot of changes in here.

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When mssql-cli Installation Fails on Ubuntu

Published 2019-11-27 by Kevin Feasel

Kellyn Pot’vin-Gorman shares a slew of reasons why mssql-cli might fail to install:

The easiest scenario for many to deploy SQL Server 2019 on Linux to start working with it, is most likely an Ubuntu distribution, (flavor) of Linux.  With that, you may want to play with the newest tool for command line execution of SQL, which isn’t sqlcmd, but mssql-cli.  It’s got some awesome new features, which I won’t go into here, but focus on installation failures instead, which happens not because the installation is complicated but because of the demands still for Python 2.7 when 3+ versions are required for newer software.

mssql-cli requires Python 3, so I recommend checking the version before running the mssql-cli installation command, as this may save you a lot of work with dependencies.  I’ll still go through the steps to if you want to force it to work with Python 2.7, but seriously, just using the right version of Python will make it so much easier.

Read on for just shy of a dozen different failure modes.

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Power BI Premium Capacity Testing

Published 2019-11-25 by Kevin Feasel

Matthew Roche announces an interesting tool:

This new tool was included as part of the BRK2046  session on Power BI Premium at MBAS. The whole session is valuable, but the tool itself comes in around the the 32 minute mark. There’s a demo at the 37 minute mark. The tool is available today on github.

This tool will help Power BI Premium customers better plan for how their specific workloads (reports, dashboards, datasets, dataflows, and patterns of access) will perform on a given Premium capacity.

Click through for instructions and a description of how it works.

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SQL Server Trends Worth Watching

Published 2019-11-13 by Kevin Feasel

Grant Fritchey follows up on a Kevin Hill tweet:

There are a million things to learn about in our rapidly shifting technological landscape, but I think this assessment, especially the way it was put, “no longer justify ignoring” really nails some of the fundamentals.

Let’s talk about why you can no longer ignore Docker, Git and DBATools either.

If you’re a DBA and aren’t familiar with Docker, Git, or DBATools, that’s a pretty good trio of things to spend some time learning. You can survive without them, but you’re more likely to thrive if you know them.

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The State of SQL Server Tools

Published 2019-11-11 by Kevin Feasel

Vicky Harp provides us a general update on things related to SQL Server tooling:

This week we’re announcing the general availability of SQL Server 2019, a significant milestone for Azure Data and for SQL Server customers. This presents a good moment to give an update on the state of tooling for SQL Server.

Since SQL Server 2016, the tools for SQL Server have been released independently “out of box” from the server product. This allows us to be more agile to the needs of our users, get both features and bug fixes shipped more quickly, stay aligned with the more continuous release cycle of Azure SQL, and in general allows the tools team to innovate in exciting ways. However, one side effect is that it can be difficult to understand what’s happening across the tools landscape, as things change quickly in multiple products that are releasing as frequently as every month.

Azure Data Studio has gotten a lot better. SSMS has gotten a little better. We’ve also seen work around several other tools, including command-line options. It’s a good time to be in SQL Server.

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Visual Studio 2019 and SQL Server Extensions

Published 2019-11-04 by Kevin Feasel

Tomaz Kastrun shows how you can install support for SSIS, SSAS, and SSRS with Visual Studio 2019:

Visual Studio 2019 brings new installation of SQL Server Integration services and SQL Server Analysis Services and SQL Server Reporting Services.

There is no need to download SSDT (SQL Server Data Tools for Visual Studio) as used to do with Visual Studio 2017 or previous versions.

Installation is pretty easy once you know where to look.

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Management Studio’s Staying Power

Published 2019-08-15 by Kevin Feasel

Kendra Little explains why SQL Server Management Studio isn’t going away anytime soon:

After all, SSMS is no longer the cool new kid on the block: Microsoft has shown consistent effort to develop their new tool, Azure Data Studio (the artist formerly known as SQL Operations Studio), since November 2017. Azure Data Studio is built on the modern foundation of Microsoft’s VS Code, whereas SQL Server Managed Studio is related to the legacy Visual Studio Shell.

Based on this overview, it might seem like a new SQL Server DBA or developer should primarily learn Azure Data Studio, not SSMS. And it might similarly seem like vendors should focus on developing new tooling only for Azure Data Studio.

But when you look into the details of how Azure Data Studio is being developed, it becomes clear that SSMS is still just as relevant than ever:

User base inertia is another reason, one that Kendra doesn’t mention directly. I like where Azure Data Studio is going and try to use it at least half-time. But there are a lot of people with a specific workflow they’ve developed and don’t want to change. As long as that’s a large percentage of the SQL Server population, SSMS isn’t going anywhere.

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Power Bi Dataflows and the Right Tool for the Job

Published 2019-07-24 by Kevin Feasel

Matthew Roche answers a reader question and waxes philosophical at the same time:

– Power BI dataflows and CDM folders provide capabilities for bridging the low-code/no-code world of self-service BI with managed central corporate BI in Azure.
– Power BI dataflows enable Excel-like composition of ETL processes with linked and computed entities.
– Power BI dataflows can scale beyond the desktop and leverage the power of the cloud to become part of an end-to-end BI application.

But… This is just a list of features.

Read the whole thing.

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