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Category: Tools

SQL Shades for SSMS

Published 2023-09-11 by Kevin Feasel

Peter Schott prefers dark mode:

For those of us who’ve worked with SQL Server for some time, we’ve regularly used SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). In recent years, we’ve seen an increase in websites and applications offering a Dark Mode. Azure Data Studio has one built in as it’s based on the VS Code engine. SSMS is a form of the full Visual Studio IDE and offers some ability to skin, but attempts in the past to make a true dark mode have been only partially successful. Microsoft has not given us that option in SSMS as it’s been more work than they can commit to with a broad platform. So our options have been partial dark modes, which leave big portions of the interface a bright white, or just use the defaults with everything being light.

Click through to see how SQL Shades does in Peter’s estimation. As for me, I’ll stick with my light mode.

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Executing SQL Queries in Files against Postgres

Published 2023-08-11 by Kevin Feasel

Salman Ahmed automates query execution:

In PostgreSQL, there are several ways to execute queries, and one of them is by executing queries from SQL files. This approach allows users to manage and store their SQL queries separately and make debugging and development simpler. Using SQL files also helps in replication of database schemas. This blog discusses how to execute queries from SQL files in PostgreSQL.

Read on to see how you can use the psql command line tool to do just that.

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Blocking Trees in sp_HumanEventsBlockViewer

Published 2023-08-04 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling talks up a famous Canadian:

I know there’s been a lot of blog content about the creation of and updates to my stored procedures lately. I try to consolidate as much as possible, but this one comes from Valued Contributor©.

The one, the only, the Canadian: Michael J Swart (b|t) recently contributed a really cool piece of code that I’ve been dying to have since I created sp_HumanEventsBlockViewer: the entire blocking chain is visualized in the results.

Click through to see what it looks like, and next time you see Michael, give him a thumbs up.

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The Hunt for Red Logtober

Published 2023-08-02 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling has a new stored procedure and a fancy Scottish accent:

SQL Server has incredibly verbose error logs, and sifting through them for the highlight reel can be a pain. They’re often full of messages that you aren’t actionable.

  • Failed logins
  • Successful logins
  • Successful backups

Making matters worse is that when you open large log files, the response time for loading all those messages can be painful, and even time out.

But Erik has a nice stored procedure to filter out the chaff. Read on to learn more about it.

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Running Queries across SQL Server Databases

Published 2023-08-01 by Kevin Feasel

Ed Pollack has a query to run in many places:

A challenge that reappears periodically in the world of databases (especially database management) is the need to run code on a subset of databases and to do so in a nuanced manner. Some maintenance or metrics collection processes can be simply run against every database on a server with no ill-effect, but others may be app-specific, or need to omit specific sets of databases.

This article dives into how to create and customize your own solution, tackling everything from filtering databases to validating schema elements to error-handling.

It does surprise me a bit that there’s no officially supported built-in solution for this. I’ve used sp_foreachdb a lot because it’s readily available, free, and works better than sp_msforeachdb, though there are several available options for this task.

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Finding a Particular Query Plan in Query Store’s UI

Published 2023-08-01 by Kevin Feasel

Andrea Allred does a search:

I have this problem where I want to see how a newly released query is performing, but it may not be bad enough to make any of the canned reports that SQL Server provides in QueryStore. I was able to look up the plan handle, but always struggled to get to the query id for QueryStore, until now.

Click through for a query to retrieve the query ID and then how to find data on that particular query. I’d also recommend QDSToolbox for more detailed query analysis.

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Trying Fabric Data Wrangler

Published 2023-07-31 by Kevin Feasel

Reza Rad looks at a new tool:

There is a tool (or you can consider it as an editor) in Fabric for data scientists. As a data scientist, you must work with the data, clean it, group it, aggerate it, and do other data preparation work. This might be needed to understand the data or be part of the process you do to prepare the data and load it into a table for further analysis. Data Wrangler is a tool that gives you such ability. You can use it to transform data and prepare and even generate Python code to make this process part of a bigger data analytics project.

Data Wrangler has a simple-to-use graphical user interface that makes the job of a data scientist easier.

Read on for a video as well as a demo in written format.

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New Script: sp_HealthParser

Published 2023-07-25 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling has a new script for us:

I recently found myself in the midst of a client issue that lead me to need a bunch of corroborating data from the system health extended event session.

There’s hardly any good documentation on it, and even fewer well-written queries or resources for parsing data out of it.

So now I’m making it easy for you, because I care about you more that Microsoft does.

Click through for a link to the script and to get an idea of what it provides.

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sp_HumanEventsBlockViewer Updates

Published 2023-07-24 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling has another update:

In this post, I’m going to talk about a couple cool changes to sp_HumanEventsBlockViewer, a procedure I wrote to analyze the blocked process report via Extended Events, and wish I had given a snazzier name to.

You see, when I wrote it, I pictured it as a utility script for sp_HumanEvents, which will set up the blocked process report and an extended event. But it turns out I use it a lot more on its own.

Read on for Erik’s update, including a neat trick around using an aggregate within a window function to generate ordering.

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Updates to sp_QuickieStore and sp_PressureDetector

Published 2023-07-21 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling has been busy. FIrst, sp_QuickieStore:

The first thing on the list that I want to talk about is the ability to cycle through all databases that have Query Store enabled.

If you have a lot of databases with it turned on, it can be a real hassle to go through them all looking for doodads to diddle.

Now you can just do this:

Next, sp_PressureDetector:

I added  high-level disk metrics similar to what’s available in other popular scripts to mine. Why? Sometimes it’s worth looking at, to prove you should add more memory to a server so you’re less reliant on disk.

Especially in the cloud, where everything is an absolute hellscape of garbage performance that’s really expensive.

Click through for both sets of updates and thank Erik for his willingness to give so much to the community.

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