Musings of an IT Pro Evangelist : SQL Server 2008

Microsoft Surface combined with Business Intelligence

txsnow — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:40:00 GMT

The Microsoft BI team showcased a very cool application known as Falcon Eye at TechEd which takes data navigation to a new level. Falcon Eye integrates data with Virtual Earth so that you can investigate it hands on through a Microsoft Surface device. When I did this interview I was so surprised by the WOW factor I really didin't ask may questions. Have a look and see how you can take data navigation up a notch.

More on Hyper-V and SQL Server

txsnow — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:45:44 GMT

Last week I posted this video interview with Joe Yong talking about virtualization of SQL Server using Hyper-V. Today I follow that up with a link to a great white paper that details out things such as system resource overhead that is imposed by running SQL in a Hyper-V environment as well as describing out the various test configurations run by Microsoft. The best thing that this white paper brings are checklists and recommendations to ensure you are running in the best manner possible. The document also includes some great performance tuning and monitoring suggestions. I myself have taken the guidance and used it to build out my demo environment that I use when I present on SQL Server.

Direct from the PASS Summit

txsnow — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:17:36 GMT

I've made the trek across the bridge to downtown Seattle to the 2008 Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) Community Summit. For the next three days nearly 3,000 attendees will have their brains filled with the most up-to-date and comprehensive SQL Server content available. If you couldn't make it here in-person, it's okay. I'm here covering all the major announcements. This morning... A KILLER interview and demo straight from this mornings keynote. This just in... a special offer for you loyal Edge viewers has been added to the end of this post.
Dan Jones Program Manager in the Manageability team sat down with me and showed me a very powerful new set of centralized management technologies coming with the future release code named "Kilimanjaro" due in the first half of 2010.

There are three key ways this technology can be used:

1. Centralized management: Immediately discover and manage existing investments by placing instances and data-tier application components under central management. DBAs can begin to centrally set policies for those instances placed under management.

2. Seamless Collaboration: A new application model enables developers to define deployment and capacity policies for their application and bundle these with the database schema as a deployable package. This deployable package helps ensure information doesn’t get lost in translation from developer to DBA, reducing time-consuming deployment trial and errors for DBAs.

3. Manage Efficiently at Scale: Using Policy-Based Management, DBAs can manage applications and instances by policy. Centrally managing applications and instances by policy and dashboard viewpoints for greater insights into resource utilization will help organizations optimize their hardware investments and manage more efficiently at scale.

Head on over to EDGE to see this great video as well as get a special invitation to check out a private CTP for this new technology.

SQL Server Backup Compression

txsnow — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:11:49 GMT

If you’ve played in the IT Pro playground long enough, I’m sure that you have seen the database that is impossible to backup. This is that database in your organization that continues to grow and grow and your backups take longer and longer. Next thing you know, you are using two tapes, then three, and possibly more. Help has arrived! A new SQL Server 2008 Feature called:

SQL Server 2008 Database Backup Compression

Who’s it for? DBA’s and IT Pros who backup and restore databases in SQL Server 2008.

When does it ship? Backup Compression is part of SQL Server 2008 and will ship as part of the Enterprise Edition of the SQL Server 2008 product.

What does it do? It compresses backups. But how much? Well the simple answer is that “it depends”.

Compression Ratio Factors:

· Data Type: Random Data and GUID’s don’t compress nearly as well as character data.

· Encryption: Encrypted data compresses significantly less (if at all) than unencrypted data.

· Database compression: Just like encryption a database that is compressed may not compress for backups.

Based on those factors database compression ranges in the 50-70% range.

What is the performance impact? When database compression is enabled database backups are smaller, however, that compression does significantly increase CPU utilization. But don’t let that scare you off completely. Backup compression also has the effect of reducing the amount of time to backup. I have seen demonstrations where the CPU utilization increase is around 25-30% during the backup/compression operation, however the backup run time was reduced in the 45% to 50% range. Paul Randal over at SQL Skills has a great blog post that shows visually the impact of database compression on both backup and restore operations. (http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/2008/01/09/SQLServer2008BackupCompressionCPUCost.aspx) So even though you have higher CPU utilization, your backups run in a shorter time.

What do I need to be aware of before I start compressing my backups?

· Have I mentioned that the ability to compress a backup is a feature that is only available in the Enterprise Edition?

· Any edition of SQL Server 2008 can ‘decompress’ a compressed backup.

· You cannot mix compressed and uncompressed backups in a single media set. Make sure you are putting your compressed backups together and your uncompressed in another separate set of media.

· Make sure that the compression is worth the CPU performance hit.

How do I set compression on my backups?

· In SQL Server Management Studio, in the options pane of the backup database task wizard you can select encryption.

· In the Define Backup Database Task Window of the Maintenance Plan Wizard

· Using Integration Services define a package to backup databases.

What about encryption and Backup Compression? Backup Encryption can be accomplished by enabling Transparent Data Encryption and then taking a backup. However when you enable encryption you lose the ability to compress the backup. Unfortunately backup compression and Transparent Data Encryption are mutually exclusive. It is not recommended to enable database backup compression when using Transparent Data Encryption.

Get started

Backup Compression on Microsoft TechNet

SQL Server Books Online (CTP 6 Version)

Technorati Tags: SQL Server 2008,SQL Server,SQL,Microsoft SQL Server

SQL debut on Edge

txsnow — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:59:43 GMT

So my first video post on Edge is up and it is the start of a series of posts on various SQL Server 2008 topics. The first talks about the new backup compression and high availability features in SQL Server 2008. If you have suggestions about other features in SQL Server that you'd like to see discussed, leave me a comment. For more information on the new backup compression in SQL Server check out MSDN.

Catching up

txsnow — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 02:06:43 GMT

Okay I've been very bad at keeping this blog updated over the past three weeks, but it's been a bit hectic with the Windows Server Launch, an internal conference, and getting settled into the new home here in the pacific northwest. We've got a bunch of great content hitting Edge in the next week. The first of which is a great screencast from MVP Corey Hynes demonstrating the new Active Directory Database Mounting Tool that is up now. Check it out. Corey does some cool stuff in taking a snapshot of AD then mounting it up for read only use in ADUC.

In other news the Windows Server 2008 Security Guide I wrote about previously as in beta has now been released. If you played with the beta, time to swap it out for the fully released version. As I mentioned before, I am a huge fan of the guidance in this solution accelerator so give it a look.

My SQL friends need to take a look at a new series of podcasts that we are running on Edge. Buck Woody is doing a series of podcasts for the real world DBA. The first episode is about choosing the right SQL Server edition. The second issue posted just today is on choosing the right IDENTITY function. It's good stuff to drop onto your zune and take with you for a bit of a geek fix outside the office.

One last item that I have is from earlier in the week where the folks over at the Vista Springboard website hosted a panel of experts hosted by Mark Russinovich to chat about Vista and their deployment/adoption experiences. I suggest checking it out even if you are just starting to discuss Vista in your IT world. Some good things about UAC (User Account Control), application compatability as well as some image management stuff I found to be interesting. Well worth the hour or so of viewing.