There's Something about SQL! : SQL Server 2008

SQL Server Support, Failover Clustering and Virtualization

beatrice — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:47:00 GMT

On May 19th, Microsoft has updated the Support Policy for Microsoft SQL Server products that are running in a hardware virtualization environment, which you can find at the following link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956893/en-us

The main update is related to guest failover clustering, therefore when you create a SQL Server failover cluster inside a virtual machine where the nodes are running as a virtual machine.

In particular:

Guest Failover Clustering is supported for SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 in a virtual machine for Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, and SVVP certified configurations provided both of the following requirements are met:

The Operating System running in the virtual machine (the “Guest Operating System”) is Windows Server 2008 or higher

The virtualization environment meets the requirements of Windows 2008 Failover Clustering as documented at The Microsoft Support Policy for Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters, as documented in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
943984 The Microsoft Support Policy for Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters

- Beatrice Nicolini -

Whitepaper - Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server

beatrice — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:09:00 GMT

I've blogged some time ago about Microsoft recommendations for maximizing the performances of your disks subsystem for a SQL Server implementation:

SQL Server - Speed up your Disks!

http://blogs.technet.com/beatrice/archive/2008/06/09/sql-server-speed-up-your-disks.aspx

Collection of SQL Server Storage Best Practices

http://blogs.technet.com/beatrice/archive/2008/04/07/collection-of-sql-server-storage-best-practices.aspx

Finally there's available directly from the SQL CAT Team a new whitepaper stating which are the Microsoft guidelines concerning disk partition alignment.

"Disk partition alignment is a powerful tool for improving SQL Server performance. Configuring optimal disk performance is often viewed as much art as science. A best practice that is essential yet often overlooked is disk partition alignment. Windows Server 2008 attempts to align new partitions out-of-the-box, yet disk partition alignment remains a relevant technology for partitions created on prior versions of Windows.

This paper documents performance for aligned and nonaligned storage and why nonaligned partitions can negatively impact I/O performance; it explains disk partition alignment for storage configured on Windows Server 2003, including analysis, diagnosis, and remediation; and it describes how Windows Server 2008 attempts to remedy challenges related to partition alignment for new partitions yet does not correct the configuration of preexisting partitions.

The following topics are also included: background information, implementation, vendor considerations, two essential correlations, valid starting partition offsets, and the simple protocol to align partitions, define file allocation unit size, and assign drive letters. It includes results from tests that show how partition alignment can affect performance for SQL Server 2008"

You can find it here:

http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2009/05/11/disk-partition-alignment-best-practices-for-sql-server.aspx

- Beatrice Nicolini -

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 -

Download SQL Server 2008 SP1

beatrice — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 11:11:00 GMT

SQL Server 2008 SP1 final version has been released.

It contains all the announced great new features that we were all looking forward to, especially the slipstream and uninstall ones, which could save a lot of time (and headhackes) at installation time.

So just to recap, new features are:

Slipstream - You are now able to integrate the base installation with service packs (or Hotfixes) and install in a single step.
Service Pack Uninstall - You are now able to uninstall only the Service Pack (without removing the whole instance)
Report Builder 2.0 Click Once capability

A very good read to have before installing, is an article from CSS SQl Server Engineer which clears up a lot of questions which you might already have in your mind:

SQL Server 2008 SP1 and Cumulative Updates Explained.....

http://blogs.msdn.com/psssql/archive/2009/04/09/sql-server-2008-sp1-and-cumulative-updates-explained.aspx

SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available at the following URL : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=66ab3dbb-bf3e-4f46-9559-ccc6a4f9dc19

Enjoy!

- Beatrice Nicolini -

SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1) CTP

beatrice — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:16:00 GMT

Just woke up ready to celebrate my birthday (do not try to ask a woman how old she is :-P) and discovered the CTP version of SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available. Hum, well, I will check it out but definitely not today I am afraid as I have other plans in mind... :-)!

With this release, there are significant investments to ease deployment and management of Service Packs:

Slipstream - You are now able to integrate the base installation with service packs (or Hotfixes) and install in a single step.
Service Pack Uninstall - You are now able to uninstall only the Service Pack (without removing the whole instance)
Report Builder 2.0 Click Once capability

To download please refer to: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6f26fc45-f0ca-49cf-a6ee-840c7e8bb8af&displaylang=en

Additional info: Microsoft SQL Server Release Services - http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlreleaseservices/archive/2009/02/23/sql-server-2008-service-pack-1-sp1-ctp.aspx

- Beatrice Nicolini -

FREE e-book: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008

beatrice — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:13:00 GMT

A great opportunity to download (for FREE :-))

Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008

by Peter DeBetta, Greg Low, and Mark Whitehorn

Learn about major new features in SQL Server 2008 including security, administration, and performance.

Chapter 1: Security and Administration

Chapter 2: Performance

Chapter 3: Type System

Chapter 4: Programmability

Chapter 5: Storage

Chapter 6: Enhancements for High Availability

Chapter 7: Business Intelligence Enhancements

All you need is to sign in with your passport account, download and enjoy!

Link is: http://csna01.libredigital.com/?urss1q2we6

- Beatrice Nicolini -

SQL Server 2005 SP3 is out!

beatrice — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:43:00 GMT

Service Pack 3 for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (build number 9.00.4035) is now available and ready to download at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ae7387c3-348c-4faa-8ae5-949fdfbe59c4&displaylang=en.

A complete List of the bugs that are fixed in SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=955706

Note: Service Pack 3 includes SP2 CU 1 to 9, therefore If you are upgrading from SQL Server 2005 SP2 Cumulative Update 10 or from SQL Server 2005 SP2Cumulative Update 11, you must apply a post-SP3 cumulative update after you upgrade to SP3 to obtain all the fixes.

- 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 -

Reading User Group Meeting - 20th Nov

beatrice — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:30:00 GMT

For those which live or work close to Reading - there will be a UserGroup on the 20th Evening held in TVP - Microsoft Offices.

Agenda:

6pm – 6:30 Registration and networking + Tea/Coffee with biscuits.

Meet and greet.

6:30pm – 7 Round Table discussion - ALL

Take stock and get the latest news in the SQL Server field. This is also a great opportunity to ask any burning questions you have, may be a problem at work.

7pm – 7:40 SQL Server 2008 - Data & Backup Compression

Beatrice Nicolini

Premier Field Engineer | SQL Server |Microsoft U.K.

Read my Blog.: http://blogs.technet.com/beatrice

With the 2008 release, SQL Server makes a major advance in scalability for data warehousing. With data and backup compression, SQL Server 2008 reduces the size of tables and indexes by storing fixed-length data types in variable length storage format and allows saving disk media space for your SQL backups. This session will guide you through the new data and backup features of SQL 2008, and will show which options are available for different data warehousing scenarios.

7:40pm – 7:55 BREAK: Sarnies

More time to network and ask questions...

7:55pm – 8.15pm Open Nuggest Session

The Audience - anyone

Bring your 5 minute hint/tip/demo and present it. This worked well at the London User Group.

Please let me know in advance via email to http://sqlserverfaq.com/events/138/tonyrogerson@torver.net.

It's a great way of getting your name know and developing your career! There will be prizes for each person who presents.

8:15pm – 8.45pm Table Expressions and the Optimiser and some SQL 2008 optimisations for Optional Parameters

Tony Rogerson, SQL Server MVP

http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tonyrogerson

We will look at the theory behind Table Expressions (Derived Tables, Views, Table Valued Functions and Common Table BLOCKED EXPRESSION, we will delve into some traps and suprise you at what the optimiser is doing under the covers. To finish off we will look at some SQL Server 2000 introduced optimiser improvements that certainly if you are using dynamic SQL because of optional parameters will mean you can move away from dynamic SQL back to simple straighforward SQL.

To register:

http://sqlserverfaq.com/events/138/UK-SQL-Server-User-Group-Evening-Meeting-Agenda-TBC.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 -