There's Something about SQL! : How To

Old MPS Reports Dismissed - New Version Ready!

beatrice — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:17:00 GMT

A new version of MPS Reports has been released late April, at the following link:

Microsoft Product Support Reports

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CEBF3C7C-7CA5-408F-88B7-F9C79B7306C0&displaylang=en

Amongst the main differences:

With the new MPS reports, there is only one download, based on your system architecture (x86 or x64).
The supported Operating Systems for the new tool are Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.
There are some prerequisites for running the new tool:

Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
Windows Powershell 1.0
Windows Installer 3.1
Microsoft Core XML Services (MSXML) 6.0

For specific information for running the new version, you can refer to this article form the

Ask The Performance Team:

Two Minute Drill: The New MPS Reports

http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2009/05/01/two-minute-drill-the-new-mps-reports.aspx

If instead you prefer the old school way, and still like to run the old versions, refer to Tristank blog:

Old MPSReports

http://blogs.technet.com/tristank/archive/2009/05/12/old-mpsreports.aspx

- Beatrice Nicolini -

Troubleshooting Performance Problems in SQL Server 2008

beatrice — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:50:00 GMT

A new great whitepaper to bookmark amongst your favourites:

Troubleshooting Performance Problems in SQL Server 2008

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd672789.aspx

This documentation provides step-by-step guidelines for diagnosing and troubleshooting common performance problems by using publicly available tools such as:

SQL Server Profiler
System Monitor (in the Windows Server 2003 operating system) or Performance Monitor (in the Windows Vista operating system and Windows Server 2008), also known as Perfmon
Dynamic management views (sometimes referred to as DMVs)
SQL Server Extended Events (Extended Events) and the data collector, which are new in SQL Server 2008.

- Beatrice Nicolini -

SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 is not successfully updated when you try to install or to uninstall a security update

beatrice — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:50:00 GMT

If you recently found yourself in installing latest SQL Server 2005 Security Update (you did installed it right?):

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-004 – Important

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS09-004.mspx

..and had a look to the known issues page...

You might have had a heart attack (as I did at first) in seeing the following:

SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 is not successfully updated when you try to install or to uninstall a security update

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957008

"When you try to install a security update for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is not successfully updated. This issue occurs because the rollback process for the security updates incorrectly removes the SQL Server 2005 service accounts from the respective local SQL Server service groups. "

You can guess my reaction when immediately I thought: "oh my, so not just this but all previous SQL Server 2005 SP2 Security Updates which I've applied were not successful" :-S!!!

Ok now, did I scare you off? :-)

You can just relax as the title and the description are a bit misleading. Nothing too bad out there (and in fact, title and description are in the process of being updated...)

This issue triggers if and only if for any reason the rollback process is started.

If the build was installed successfully without a rollback (which you can check by verifying the build number), then the security update was installed correctly.

If you check at the end of the process your instance build number (anyway, it is best practice to do so :)) and it matches the Security Update build number - then you are safe.

- Beatrice Nicolini -

DBCC DBREINDEX (aka INDEX REBUILD in 2005) and Statistics Update

beatrice — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:09:00 GMT

So - today I've been made this question.

"I have a DB, AUTO_UPDATE_STATISTICS option OFF (very bad idea, anyway :-)), I rebuild my indexes every week. I do not have major changes in my database. As update statistics with fullscan is a side effect of DBCC DBREINDEX (aka INDEX REBUILD in 2005), can I say all my statistics are fine and up to date?"

Well... No :-(

In fact, statistics created from DBCC DBREINDEX (aka INDEX REBUILD in 2005) are only statistics over indexed columns. Statistics over non-indexed column (the ones named something like _WA_sys) are not managed from these operations. Therefore, if you want these to be up to date you need to turn AUTO_UPDATE_SATTISTICS ON or to schedule their management in other way.

More info can be found at:

Is statistics over non-indexed columns updated by index rebuild?

http://sqlblog.com/blogs/tibor_karaszi/archive/2007/08/09/is-statistics-over-non-indexed-columns-updated-by-index-rebuild.aspx

- Beatrice Nicolini -

Best Practices for installing SQL Server service packs, hotfixes, cumulative updates

beatrice — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:15:00 GMT

There isn't much information around (other than the readme for service packs) on which are the best practices on installing Service Packs, Cumulative Updates, Hotfixes on SQL Server installation.

...well till today really :-)

This is nothing official from Microsoft but still the following are the best practices recommended from my PFE colleague Uttam (which has kindly agreed for me to copy in my blog without any copyright request :) - Txs Uttam) .

Best practices for installing service packs, cumulative updates and hotfixes for SQL Server

Test on a test/dev SQL Server first and only after you have confirmed that all applications are working as expected then install it on a production SQL Server.
Review the Readme for Service Pack/cumulative update/hotfix. Any concerns/recommendations will be found in the readme.
Run DBCC CHECKDB on ALL databases (user and system databases) and ensure that there were no errors reported.
Backup ALL databases (user and system databases) and full-text catalogs (if applicable). This is NOT required but highly recommended.
Stop Monitoring and Anti-virus services
Make sure you have the proper permissions to install (administrative privilege on server/cluster node)
The below points are for clustered SQL Server instance

Make sure ALL SQL resources come online on ALL cluster nodes
Make sure that ALL disk resources (even the ones that not being used by SQL Server) are online and not in failed state.
Verify that there are no dependencies other than those created by the SQL Server setup on any SQL Server cluster resources.
Run MPSRPT_SQL.exe on all cluster nodes (not required but recommended)
Make sure all remote desktop connections are closed. You can connect to the node (you are running the setup from) using remote desktop connections but you should disconnect any remote connections to other cluster nodes.

- Beatrice Nicolini & the real contributor :-) - Uttam Parui -

How To - Proactively Know Upcoming SQL Server CUs and SPs

beatrice — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:44:00 GMT

Umh, it has been a long time since my last post. I must admit, I've had brilliant holidays (relax and skiing) followed by a very bad flue, which summed up with all the XMas parties of 2008 makes 3 weeks without any post on my professional blog :-).

Well, if anybody out there had missed me, here I am back on track :-P

So - just a tip for today.

A RSS feed you should consider subscribing to if you want to be always up to date with the upcoming SQL Service Pack or Cumulative Updates.

All you have to do is go to

Microsoft SQL Server Release Services

and subscribe!

Enjoy!

- Beatrice Nicolini -

Resource Governor Demos

beatrice — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:53:00 GMT

If you are looking for some demos to play and learn about Resource Governor, you should have a look to the SQL Server SQLOS team blog, which has posted a couple of interesting ones.

1) Anatomy of SQL Server 2008 Resource Governor CPU Demo

http://blogs.technet.com/sqlos/archive/2007/12/14/part-1-anatomy-of-sql-server-2008-resource-governor-cpu-demo.aspx

This demo will use a single CPU to simplify the concepts described, and will create 2 Resource Pools, one used from a single Workload Group and one shared between two Workload Groups. Everything will be initially configured with default parameters, but will then be changed to demonstrate the effects of restricting CPU utilization and the meaning of the importance option in the Workload Groups.

2) Resource Governor CPU Demo on multiple CPUs

http://blogs.technet.com/sqlos/archive/2008/01/18/part-2-resource-governor-cpu-demo-on-multiple-cpus.aspx

This demo will use two CPU and will demonstrate the fact that Resource Governor CPU limitations are applied only when there is actual contention on the scheduler. It will show the effect of having restricted CPU utilization and Workload Groups landing on different schedulers.

- Beatrice Nicolini -

Data & Backup Compression (Part 3) - Tests, Numbers and Tuning Tips

beatrice — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:18:00 GMT

One of the most common question I've received regarding data and backup compression in SQL Server 2008 is related to achievable results in terms of performance and compressio-ratio on very large databases.

I've just found some interesting data published by Unisys which you can review at:

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Data and Backup Compression

http://www.unisys.com/eprise/main/admin/corporate/doc/41371394.pdf

This document presents the results achieved by tests performed on a 2TB database, representative of a modern OLTP financial environment, on a dual-core machine with 128 GB of RAM, installed on SQL Server 2008 64-bit.

Tests include:

Data compression (ROW and PAGE, with different granularity combinations)
Backup Compression (on data-uncompressed database, on ROW compressed database, on PAGE compressed database)

Very interesting are the results related to Backup Compression.

In particular, you can easily notice how data-compression can influence backup-compression compressio-ratio, and how it impacts elapsed time and CPU utilization.

As you can see, backup compression on a data uncompressed database gives you a compressio-ratio of 2.95%, reduces by 36% backup runtime (from 6,937 secs to 2,358 secs) but increases CPU utilization by nearly the 55% (from 1.42 to 77.26).

How you can tune the performances of your backup compression.

1) We've already discussed how you can take advantage of Resource Governor to minimize the amount of CPU used (http://blogs.technet.com/beatrice/archive/2008/11/10/resource-governor-how-to-get-started.aspx).

2) Additionally Performance of backup operations may be increased by utilizing multiple backup devices and/or increasing BUFFERCOUNT.

This will have the effect of increasing the parallelism and overall CPU usage across all CPUs in the server, allowing to achieve an even more reduced backup time.

On the other hand, reducing the number of backup devices or BUFFERCOUNT may reduce the overall CPU used by the backup operation, leaving more CPU resources for other workloads.

More information can be found on the SQL CAT blog:

Tuning the Performance of Backup Compression in SQL Server 2008

http://sqlcat.com/technicalnotes/archive/2008/04/21/tuning-the-performance-of-backup-compression-in-sql-server-2008.aspx

Interesting would be to test resource governor together with increased buffercount, this should allow you to control the CPU utilization and on the same time to speedup the backup operation.

- Beatrice Nicolini -

How to: Troubleshoot SQL Server 2008 Features

beatrice — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:54:00 GMT

This is a nice section in 2008 Books On Line which I just found and wanted to blog about - mainly for my reference so that I can quickly find it when needed ;-)

I've found it whilst looking for recommendations to troubleshoot Resource Governor, but there are actually many other troubleshooting how-to's which I might need very soon whilst playing with the new features in SQL Server 2008 - and also it includes other general troubleshooting tips which you can easily adapt to 2000 and 2005.

For example you can find:

But also

..and so on.

You can find all this at

Troubleshooting Concepts (Database Engine)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb522471.aspx

- Beatrice Nicolini -

SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Technical Reference Guide

beatrice — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:59:00 GMT

The SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Technical Reference Guide is now Live and available to download.

It is a 490-page white paper (hold on, do not get scared, you don't need to read it all :-)) which covers the essential phases and steps to upgrade existing instances of SQL Server 2000 and 2005 to SQL Server 2008 by using best practices.

These include preparation tasks, upgrade tasks, and post-upgrade tasks. It is intended to be a supplement to SQL Server 2008 Books Online.

More info:

- Beatrice Nicolini -

X64, Lock Pages in Memory and AWE - Should I or Should I Not?

beatrice — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:28:00 GMT

I've heard this question thousands of times so I've thought to try to summarize some recommendation in this blog post.

For 32 bits, things are pretty straight-forward.

If they are not, I've posted some comments some time ago:

\3GB \PAE and AWE - Taking away (some) confusion

http://blogs.technet.com/beatrice/archive/2008/08/29/3gb-pae-and-awe-taking-away-some-confusion.aspx

For 64 bits, things are a bit more complicated.

First of all -simple things first - you don't need to enable AWE on a x64 machine, as the option is actually ignored.

What you can do, is to enable the Lock Pages in Memory Option.

This in the policy which determines which accounts can use a process to keep data in physical memory, preventing the system from paging the data to virtual memory on disk.

So - should you enable this option?

If you look on BOL (Books on Line) Microsoft recommendation seem a bit controversial:

- 2005 BOL: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190730(SQL.90).aspx

"Although not required, we recommend locking pages in memory when using 64-bit operating systems"

- 2008 BOL: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190730.aspx

"Locking pages in memory is not required on 64-bit operating systems"

What's the solution then?

Well, as in most cases, there are not simple and easy solutions.

You can hit serious issues with Lock Pages in Memory Option enabled as it can cause freezing, timeouts and application failures. Especially if your memory (Max and Min) is not sized properly.

You can therefore wait to see paging messages logged on your system, as for example

"A significant part of sql server process memory has been paged out. This may result in a performance degradation"

and then opt to turn on Lock Pages in Memory Option,

You can set it up from the beginning, but make sure to size properly max and min memory setting by capturing a Performance Monitor log to determine the memory requirements of various applications and services that are installed on the system.

More information:

Do I have to assign the Lock Pages in Memory privilege for Local System?

http://blogs.msdn.com/psssql/archive/2007/10/18/do-i-have-to-assign-the-lock-privilege-for-local-system.aspx

How to reduce paging of buffer pool memory in the 64-bit version of SQL Server 2005

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918483

- Beatrice Nicolini -

Performance Monitor, SQL Counters and Tresholds

beatrice — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:04:00 GMT

Whilst surfing on the web last week, I've found this very nice blog from Vipul Shah, which happens to be a Microsoft colleague, which explains which are the key performance counters to monitor for your SQL Server instances and most importantly summarizes which are generally the thresholds you want these counters to fit within.

Understanding Perfmon Counters while troubleshooting SQL Server Performance Issues

http://blogs.technet.com/vipulshah/archive/2006/11/30/understanding-perfmon-counters-while-troubleshooting-sql-server-performance-issues.aspx

You should consider to use these counters to monitor and benchmark your SQL Server boxes, and then of course you can review results through Performance Monitor itself or through PAL:

Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) Tool

http://blogs.technet.com/beatrice/archive/2008/04/02/performance-analysis-of-logs-pal-tool.aspx

- Beatrice Nicolini -

PPT Plex add on for Power Point - Cool!

beatrice — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:30:00 GMT

PPT Plex is a new tool - or more precisely - a new add on for Microsoft Power Point - which will change the way you will deliver your presentations.

In short, what it allows is a different navigation experience trough your slide deck. Instead of having the classical navigation path - in which you follow your slides in a pre-definite order - you can group your slides based on topic, subtopic etc, and quickly drill out and drill down on the subject you want to cover.

I would generally not recommend it for whichever presentation.

For the standard presentations in which you really want to follow a specific path, then you don't really require this tool (or you can use it, if you just want to look cool :-)).

Though you really get the most out of it during interactive presentations - sessions in which you don't have a specific path to follow but you want to jump between different subjects - perhaps because you want to follow the public's questions or specific areas of interest.

Anyway, said that, it is definitely something to try out - and then you'll figure out why and how to use it - based on your tastes.

More info?:

Well, PPT Plex official site: http://www.officelabs.com/projects/pptPlex/

Eileen Brown's blog contains some useful information too: http://blogs.technet.com/eileen_brown/archive/2008/09/12/pptplex-changing-the-way-you-present.aspx

- Beatrice Nicolini -

Resource Governor - How to get started?

beatrice — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:30:00 GMT

Here we are, as promised, with some rumblings on SQL Server 2008 Resource Governor.

I've played a lot with the various options which this features provides, especially in preparation of my TechEd presentation last week! Did I ever mention how much I loved it :-)? Yeah, I guess too much already. Ok, so this is the last time. Maybe. Umh…

Moving on, so what if you want to start using Resource Governor, let's say… today? :-)

As usual, I don't like to repeat what others have already been posting, possibly in a better way that I would do really, so here are first some resources to check out to start learning about it:

First place, of course, Technet: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb933866.aspx

A bit more advanced, from PSS Engineers: http://blogs.msdn.com/psssql/archive/2008/01/10/sql-server-2008-resource-governor-questions.aspx

So what to add on that?

I guess the tricky bit would be to understand how to effectively implement Resource Governor on your specific scenarios.

Of course there are some typical scenarios in which you'll most likely use it. Amongst the ones I use to mention:

SQL Server 2008 Backup Compression - as I posted some time ago (http://blogs.technet.com/beatrice/archive/2008/06/11/data-backup-compression-in-sql-2008.aspx), backup compression is a brilliant new feature which comes with SQL Server 2008 (yep - always enterprise - though you can restore on whichever version). It saves you money (for third party products), storage space, and it allows you to reduce the run time required from your backups and restores. Yeah… and…??? And you pay all these benefits in terms of CPU. So. If CPU is a issue on your implementation, or better, if CPU is a resource which you want to govern on your implementation and you're not bothered on having your backup\restores taking a little bit longer, well Resource Governor is your friend. Set up a pool and specify a max memory, call it however you want (Backup Compression Pool I guess is a good idea :-)), and run your compressed backups with a specific user which you can isolate through your Classifier Function. Deal done.

Reporting Scenarios. Does this ring a bell? Correct - Resource Governor governs only the Database Engine, not SQL Server Integration Services, Analysis Services, Reporting Services. OK. BUT. Your Reporting Services or Reporting Application (oh no - are you NOT using Reporting Services yet? - we'll have a word about this maybe in another post) well you'll have to retrieve data from the Database Engine at some time. Correct. And what if that reporting application is very critical to your business or especially - what if you want a quiet day without your customers phoning you to complain that the application is slow? Nearly the same as before. This time though your pool will have a minimum CPU and Memory, and again the deal is done by isolating the user name or the application name in the classifier function.

DBAs. Ohhhhhh yeah. DBAs have LOADs of work to do during the day (of course, I am nearly a DBA so I better save my job :-)). So, what do they have to do? Troubleshoot and monitor, so they really need a minimum amount of CPU and Memory to play around but also we still want our business users to be happy with our implementation, so we do not want DBAs to take up all the resources on our server. So this time we'll be using MAX and MIN values for our CPU and Memory.

LOL - I love this - and what if you have a "crap application"? I've been asked this question at TechEd. I'm afraid a crap application will still remain a crap application. FIX IT! But yeah, whilst fixing it, if your application is so crap to fill up all you resources, TEMPORARLY you can assign max values for it in the Pool, or if for example you have to deal with locking, you can grant MINIMUM values to have your applications queries to run as fast as they can, to leave other workload free to run asap. Again, this is not the way Resource Governor is meant to be used and especially, I am talking generally, so TEST before doing anything in production.

So what if you have anything else? I mean most of your SQL Server implementations will not just be about Backups, Reporting and DBAs (I'm not even considering crap apps :-)). How can you understand how to benefit from Resource Governor in your specific scenario?

It's always very difficult to talk generally, but I would personally approach the problem in the following way:

As I will generally know my implementation and the users and apps which are connecting to it, I will set up pools (remember max 18 user-defined) and workload groups (1:1 relationship) with default parameters, plus classifier function to assign each workload to a specific pool.
In this way - with default parameters - I will obtain SQL 2005 behavior BUT I will be able to monitor pools usage (and therefore CPU and Memory Usage per Pool) with the new events available in PerfMon and the new DMVs dedicated to Resource Governor
I can then start changing my default parameters based on monitoring, benchmark and monitor once again till I will achieve the desired results.

I will soon post about some other questions I've been asked during TechEd! Stay tuned!

- Beatrice Nicolini -

SQL Server and Virtualization - can we help?

beatrice — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:07:00 GMT

Just discovered whilst at TechEd that Microsoft policies for SQL Server products that are running in a hardware virtualization environment are not much known as yet to the majority of the public.

Therefore the PFE in me :-) wants to be sure that when you opt for virtualization you are in a safe position to receive support from myself, my PFE colleagues or from GTSCs when things go wrong.

So, here's the deal:

Microsoft provides technical support for SQL Server 2005 and for SQL Server 2008 that are running in the following hardware virtualization environments:

•	Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V
•	Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008
•	Configurations that are certified through the Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP).

KB article http://support.microsoft.com/?id=956893 has been updated as the single resource to obtain information on support policies for SQL Server running in a hardware virtualization environment.

If you are looking to take advantage of virtualization, here are some must read articles you should look at:

WHITEPAPER: Running SQL Server 2008 in a Hyper-V Environment - Best Practices and Performance Recommendations

http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2008/10/03/running-sql-server-2008-in-a-hyper-v-environment-best-practices-and-performance-recommendations.aspx

By the way, this is the blog from the SQL Cat team. One of my favorite RSS feeds on SQL ever!

Licencing - Virtualization and Multi-Instancing

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2005/en/us/special-considerations.aspx#Virtualization

Migrating a virtual machine from Virtual PC to Hyper-V

http://blogs.technet.com/andrew/archive/2008/06/30/migrating-a-virtual-machine-from-virtual-pc-to-hyper-v.aspx

- Beatrice Nicolini -