Category: Tools

Meet Bhagdev has a couple MacOS-related announcements for SQL Server.  First, the SQL Server team has released command line tools:

We are delighted to share the production-ready release of the SQL Server Command Line Tools (sqlcmd and bcp) on macOS El Capitan and Sierra.

The sqlcmd utility is a command-line tool that lets you submit T-SQL statements or batches to local and remote instances of SQL Server. The utility is extremely useful for repetitive database tasks such as batch processing or unit testing.

The bulk copy program utility (bcp) bulk copies data between an instance of Microsoft SQL Server and a data file in a user-specified format. The bcp utility can be used to import large numbers of new rows into SQL Server tables or to export data out of tables into data files.

Second, there’s a new ODBC driver available:

• Azure AD support – You can now use Azure AD authentication (username/password) to centrally manage identities of database users and as an alternative to SQL Server authentication.

• Always Encrypted support – You can now use Always Encrypted. Always Encrypted lets you transparently encrypt the data in the application, so that SQL Server will only handle the encrypted data and not plaintext values. Even if the SQL instance or the host machine is compromised, an attacker gets ciphertext of the sensitive data.

• Table Valued Parameters (TVP) support – TVP support allows a client application to send parameterized data to the server more efficiently by sending multiple rows to the server with a single call. You can use the ODBC Driver 13.1 to encapsulate rows of data in a client application and send the data to the server in a single parameterized command.

Multi-platform is the catchword of the day.  If you’re a MacOS user, this might be a portent of things to come.

Angela Henry had a query which worked fine in Management Studio but not in Powershell:

After I dusted off my PowerShell 2.0 documentation, I got my script written and started testing.  I processed several folders and their files before I received the following error while running my PowerShell script:

Invoke-Sqlcmd : String or binary data would be truncated.
The statement has been terminated.
At line:127 char:36
+ … MyResults = Invoke-Sqlcmd -ServerInstance $ServerName `
+                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [Invoke-Sqlcmd], SqlPowerShellSqlExecutionException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : SqlError,Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.PowerShell.GetScriptCommand

Interesting.  I added some Write-Host statements for troubleshooting and found the offending entry.  Like any good programmer, I tested my stored procedure call in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to make sure it really was a SQL Server error and guess what?  It worked just fine!  No errors what so ever.  WTH?!  This is where my tunnel vision sets in.  If it works in SSMS but not in PowerShell, then PowerShell must be the problem, right?  Well, sort of.

Read on for the solution.

James Serra looks at putting together a VM for 2016:

With Windows Server 2016 just been released, now is the perfect time to build an Azure VM with SQL Server 2016 on Windows Server 2016.  In a matter of minutes you can be playing and learning both platforms.  Below I will document the steps I took to build the VM along with the additional software I installed.  This is a fully-loaded VM that I use for demo’s and to build small projects:

(Software updates as of 11/4/2016)

There’s a lot of good software here.  And Java.

Richard Douglas has a great post on things to think about when evaluating a monitoring tool:

A question that often comes up in meetings is, “What would success look like?” To me, it’s my favourite football team Spurs winning the English Premier League! This is never a popular answer to the person asking the question in the meeting, but generally raises a few smiles and lightens the mood. However, you’re more likely interested in monitoring software and what success means in that scenario. As I see it, success means finding an outcome that is beyond doubt. Now success could mean that the software you are evaluating is not as good as the current incumbent. That is a successful outcome. You have decided that you already own the best solution for you. Congratulations! It can also mean that a particular solution meets all of the criteria needed by your business in order for it to solve technical issues and to grow.

The advice is vendor-agnostic and is worth reading if you plan to evaluate monitoring tools anytime soon.

Brent Ozar announces that the sp_Blitz series of scripts is now open source:

Our prior copyright license said you couldn’t install this on servers you don’t own. We’d had a ton of problems with consultants and software vendors handing out outdated or broken versions of our scripts, and then coming to us for support.

Now, it’s a free-for-all! If you find the scripts useful, go ahead and use ’em. Include sp_Blitz, sp_BlitzCache, sp_BlitzIndex, etc as part of your deployments for easier troubleshooting.

This is very good news.