All things SQL Server Related....

Top Tips for Effective Database Maintenance

2009-11-08T05:36:20Z

Many of you new SQL Server DBAs may be wondering what are the things to lookout for to effectively maintain a production SQL Server database.

Paul Randal has written an excellent article on this very topic, and it covers the following points:

Managing data and transaction log files
Eliminating index fragmentation
Ensuring accurate, up-to-date statistics
Detecting corrupted database pages
Establishing an effective backup strategy

Link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2008.08.database.aspx

SQL Pass Announcements - New SQL Server 2008 R2 Editions

2009-11-04T23:18:17Z

Two new premium editions in SQL Server 2008 R2

SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter

Built on SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter delivers a high-performing data platform that provides the highest levels of scalability for large application workloads, virtualization and consolidation, and management for an organization’s database infrastructure. Datacenter helps enable organizations to cost effectively scale their mission-critical environment.

Key features new to Datacenter:

Application and Multi-Server Management for enrolling, gain insights and managing greater than 25 instances
Highest virtualization support for maximum ROI on consolidation and virtualization.
High-scale complex event processing with SQL Server StreamInsight
Supports more than 8 processors and up to 256 logical processors for highest levels of scale
Supports memory limits up to OS maximum

SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse (Project “Madison”)

SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse is a highly scalable data warehouse appliance-based solution. Parallel Data Warehouse delivers performance at low cost through a massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture and integration with hardware partners – scale your data warehouse from the tens to hundreds terabyte up to a petabyte.

10s to 100s TBs to 1+ PB enabled by MPP architecture
Advanced data warehousing capabilities like Star Join Queries and Change Data Capture
Integration with SSIS, SSRS, and SSAS
Supports industry standard data warehousing hub and spoke architecture and grid copy

Investments in core SQL Server 2008 R2 editions

SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise delivers a comprehensive data platform that provides built-in security, availability, and scale coupled with robust business intelligence offerings—helping enable the highest service levels for mission-critical workloads.

The following capabilities are new to Enterprise:

Application and Multi-Server Management for enrolling, gain insights and managing up to 25 instances
Master Data Services for data consistency across heterogeneous systems
Data Compression now enabled with UCS-2 Unicode support

SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard

SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard delivers a complete data management and business intelligence platform for departments and small organizations to run their applications—helping enable effective database management with minimal IT resources.

The following capabilities are new to Standard:

Backup Compression to reduce data backup storage by up to 60% and reduce time spent on backups
Can be a managed instance for Application and Multi-Server Management

New Benchmarks for SQL Server 2008 R2

With the support for greater than 64 logical processors, SQL Server 2008 R2 is taking advantage of multi-core processors and enabling customers to run larger workloads with higher throughput. On Nov. 3, Microsoft will announce a new world record TPC-E(OLTP) performance on a 96-core server. For data warehousing, again taking advantage of our new support for greater than 64 logical processors, we are announcing the best ever Windows Server and SQL Server 3TB TPC-H(DW) performance benchmark.

Other key industry trends include solid state disks and virtualization. SQL Server is demonstrating its strength at both these trends by announcing record beating performance for our web based Dynamics CRM offering (xRM) using solid state discs and Hyper-v on commodity hardware.

Fast Track 2.0:

Fast Track 2.0 is the latest release of SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse that enables customers to accelerate their data warehouse projects at low cost. Fast Track 2.0 features IBM as a new Partner with 3 new Reference Architectures. In addition, Fast Track 2.0 also has updated Reference Architectures from existing Track Partners - HP, Dell, EMC and Bull.

Fast Track 2.0 offers customers:

More choice with up to 12 Reference Architectures from HP, Dell, Bull, IBM and EMC
More scale with configurations that that scale from 4 – 48 TB
Fast Track 2.0 configurations now use Intel’s Nehalem and Dunnington processors as well as AMD’s 6-core Opteron processors

Whitepaper: High Availability with SQL Server 2008

2009-10-29T06:01:47Z

This white paper describes the technologies available in SQL Server 2008 that can be used as part of a high-availability strategy to protect critical data. As well as describing the technologies in detail, the white paper also discusses the various causes of downtime and data loss, and how to evaluate and balance requirements and limitations when planning a high-availability strategy involving SQL Server 2008.

This white paper is targeted at architects, IT pros, and database administrators (DBAs) tasked with implementing a high-availability strategy. It assumes the reader is familiar with Windows and SQL Server and has at least a rudimentary knowledge of database concepts such as transactions.

Link:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee523927.aspx

Whitepaper: Consolidation Using SQL Server 2008

2009-10-29T05:48:52Z

Many companies are considering or have already implemented consolidation of computing resources, including Microsoft SQL Server instances and databases, in their organization. A consolidation effort is a complex task that requires information, a detailed plan and timeline for success, and a strategy for administering the consolidated environment. This white paper walks through the journey of gathering and analyzing the information to base all planning and implementation decisions on; how to plan, architect, and implement consolidation; and finally, the considerations for administering a consolidated SQL Server environment.

This white paper is based on the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF). MOF is an iterative approach to the IT lifecycle, and it is designed to bring together both the technical and nontechnical sides of implementation and administration.

Note: This white paper is written for resources within a company who are responsible for planning and executing SQL Server consolidation, as well as administering the consolidated solution. This list of people will vary from company to company, but at a minimum includes the database administrators (DBAs) and those responsible for storage, servers, networking, and applications. The white paper is not intended to be an overview of SQL Server consolidation. For a less technical, higher level paper on SQL Server consolidation, its drivers, and benefits, see the white paper Consolidation with SQL Server 2008.

Because this paper is very long (60 pages), reading it in an online format such as the Library becomes impractical, so we offer it as a downloadable Microsoft Word document.

- Download “Consolidation Using SQL Server 2008” from the Microsoft Download Center

Project Gemini has got an official name – PowerPivot for Excel 2010

2009-10-20T09:45:41Z

PowerPivot for Excel is a data analysis tool that delivers unmatched computational power directly within the application users already know and love—Microsoft Excel. Leveraging familiar Excel features, users can transform enormous quantities of data from virtually any source with incredible speed into meaningful information to get the answers they need in seconds.

Using SQL Server PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010 (delivered thru SQL Server 2008 R2 in SharePoint 2010), end users can effortlessly and securely share their finding with others and work seamlessly in the browser with the same performance and features as the Excel client. PowerPivot for SharePoint even helps IT departments improve their operational efficiencies through SharePoint-based management tool called PowerPivot Management Dashboard. IT administrators can track usage patterns over time, drill down to obtain more details, discover mission-critical solutions, and ensure performance by making sure users have the appropriate resources.

For more information visit:

Want to take control of your SQL Server Environment?

2009-10-06T06:39:00Z

Come and join me for a lunchtime session at tomorrows SQL Server user group meeting. Following are the details:

Date: 7th October 2009

Time: 12:00pm

Location: Westpac, 275 Kent St, Sydney NSW 2000

Session Details

Learn how to leverage Policy Based Management as a tool to better manage your SQL Server environment in your organisation. The Enterprise Policy Management Framework, freely available from Codeplex (www.codeplex.com) is based on the new policy based management feature in SQL Server 2008 that can help manage existing SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 environments. Policy-Based Management is an essential new feature to maintain configuration consistency across large distributed environments, enforce strict regulatory requirements, and manage the complexity of SQL Server instances throughout the enterprise. In this session you will learn how to centralize business and regulatory compliance reporting by extending Policy-Based Management to all SQL Server instances in your enterprise – including SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2005, and SQL Server 2000.

User group details: http://victorisakov.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!A65BE80360DF3915!397.entry

Application and Multi-Server Management features in SQL Server 2008 R2

2009-10-06T06:25:29Z

SQL Server 2008 R2 introduces new management tools to help improve IT efficiency and productivity. Investments in application and multi-server management will help organizations proactively manage database environments efficiently at scale through centralized visibility into resource utilization. Such investments can help streamline consolidation and upgrade initiatives across the application lifecycle—all with tools that make it fast and easy.

This paper introduces the new extensions in SQL Server Management Studio and the Control Point Explorer, and it walks through the simple process of setting up a SQL Server managed server group, including SQL Server Control Point installation, enrolling an instance into central management, extracting Data-tier Applications from existing deployments, and deploying Data-tier Applications to the new managed server group.

Link to whitepaper: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee364757.aspx

Achieving High Availability with SQL Server 2008

2009-09-24T01:11:13Z

I highly recommend that you read the following whitepaper on achieving high availability with SQL Server 2008 if you are planning or currently designing a high availability solution for your SQL Server environment.

This whitepaper goes through the architecture one of our reference customers utilised to achieve 99.99% uptime of their SQL infrastructure.

High Availability and Disaster Recovery at ServiceU: A SQL Server 2008 Technical Case Study

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee355221.aspx

Cumulative Update #7 for SQL Server 2008 RTM

2009-09-22T02:35:00Z

Keep your system up to date with the most recent cumulative update package for SQL Server 2008 RTM. This package contains all of the SQL Server 2008 hotfixes that have been released since the initial release of SQL Server 2008 RTM.

o Understanding Incremental Servicing Model for SQL Server

o CU#7 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973601/en-us

o SQL Server Support Information: http://support.microsoft.com/sql2005

Previous CU KB Articles:

CU#6 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971490/en-us
CU#5 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969531/en-us
CU#4 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/963036/en-us
CU#3 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960484/en-us
CU#2 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958186/en-us
CU#1 KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956717/en-us

Samantha Smith
Release Program Manager
SQL Server Sustained Engineering

Looking to save money $$$ Want to Consolidate your SQL Server environment?

2009-09-16T06:26:08Z

If the answer to those questions is YES!! Then you don’t want to miss my talk about SQL Server consolidation/virtualisation. And the best part is you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your office. This is a virtual conference that can be accessed over the web using Live Meeting.

I look forward to seeing you their virtually ;)

Start Date:

Friday, 25 September 2009 1:00 PM Australia (East)

Duration:
90 Minutes

Registration Link: Line of Business/Applications Specialist Session: SQL Server Consolidation/Virtualisation

Microsoft SQL Server supports multiple options for server consolidation, providing organizations with the flexibility to choose the consolidation approach that best meets their requirements in order to centralize data services management and reduce hardware and maintenance costs. By providing centralized management, auditing, and monitoring capabilities, SQL Server makes it easy for you to manage multiple databases and data services, significantly reducing administrative overheads in large enterprises. SQL Server can provide you with the reassurance of industry-leading performance and scalability, and unprecedented control over server resource utilization to maximize the performance of your consolidated data services. Join this session to find out more about the various options for server consolidation with SQL Server, and best practices to get the most out of your environment.

Teched Australia 2009

2009-09-12T18:02:00Z

Just got back from sunny Gold Coast, with what I can say was a very successful Teched, at least from my perspective and the many attendees I talked to.

I think the biggest thing this year at Teched were the HP mini Netbooks. They were widely used by all attendees, during sessions, breaks, just about everywhere.

First of all I would like to thank every one that attended by SQL 302 talk about SQL Server Security and Compliance. If you were not able to get hold of the decks/scripts or the whitepapers I referenced during my talk, you can get to it at the following link as well - http://cid-895a9e8d1c0f1cd0.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/Teched%202009

Meanwhile in the exhibition hall I had some great conversations with people around SQL Server query tuning, designing including use of partitioning, high availability and use of replication. One common question that was on the mind of many is about the advantages with SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition.

As this was a common question, my colleague Ron Dunn and I put together a TechTalk. This can be accessed at - http://www.msteched.com/online/view.aspx?tid=c451b2c4-2dff-403d-8959-d4b44e6d5a9d.

One of my other colleagues Geoff Clarke come up with an easy way to remember the above benefits/features and more of SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition:

CAPE VORB

This stands for the following:

Compression
Auditing
Parallelism
Encryption

Virtualisation
Online Features
Resource Governor
Business Intelligence

The next hot topic that was on the tongues of many was the upcoming Project Gemini feature in SQL Server 2008 R2 and Excel 2010. Kamal Hathi’s session was a super hit. To see demos of Project Gemini see the following video, else contact me.

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I was truly exhausted by the end of the three days, but had a great time meeting you there. Now back to real world, and will be following up with some of you shortly

Happy SQLing.

From the Ground to the Sky – SQL Azure Migration Wizard

2009-09-11T00:15:49Z

Many of you maybe playing around with your CTP invitations for SQL Azure and wondering how to get your current on premises databases into the cloud. Some options you have probably used:

Script out the database and modify these scripts quite a lot to recreate the objects in the cloud
Once you have got the structure, you have probably used SSIS or bcp to get the data into the cloud.

Now with the SQL Azure Migration Wizard, it helps you migrate your local SQL Server 2005 / 2008 databases into SQL Azure.

The wizard walks you through the selection of your SQL objects, creates SQL scripts suitable for SQL Azure, and allows you to edit / deploy to SQL Azure.

This wizard can be downloaded from - http://sqlazuremw.codeplex.com/

Happy Flying to the Cloud :)

Report Builder 3.0: Getting Aussie Maps in the Reports

2009-08-26T15:24:34Z

With SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP 2 being available, I have been playing around with one of the new features – Report Builder 3.0. One of the new features in this reporting services version is the ability to create Map based reports. Out of the box we will only ship with the map of USA and each of its states. The reasons for this are not at all technical, however to do with potential legal issues – which I wont be going to depth in this post.

However it is very easy to get past this and bring in your countries map inside of RB 3.0. Following are the steps I used to bring in a map of Australia:

1) Download an freely available ESRI shape file for your country or region you want to map. A great resource for this is on the Dundas site itself, located at - http://www.dundas.com/Products/Map/RS/Resources/index.aspx

Click on the region you need a map for, in this case for Australia select Asia and Oceania and then select Australia. This takes you to another page - http://www.vdstech.com/map_data.htm. On this page are freely available shape files, the Australia shape file is at the bottom of the page. Select the australia.zip file.

2) Extract the zip and in it will be australia.shp file

3) Open Report Builder 3.0, and select the Map Wizard on the design surface

4) On the Choose a source of spatial data screen, select the ESRI shapefile radio button, and click on Browse. Navigate to the location of the australia.shp file extracted in Step 2, and click Open.

A preview of the Australia map will appear after clicking Open, then click Next.

5) Configure the zoom and pan of the map as per your requirement and click Next

6) Select Color Analytical Map, click Next

7) Select or add a new data source to your data using the Wizard, click Next (this step is the same as previous versions of Report Builder so I will not be showing it here).

In this case I am connecting to a simple table that contains some sales data for Australia by states:

8) Design the query either using the designer or writing some TSQL. In this case I used the designer as follows:

Click Next

9) Select the mapping fields between the data in the Map and from the database table. In this case the ADMIN_NAME is the names of the state which are represented in the Name column.

Note: A trick to find out which spatial dataset is useful, select an arbitrary one and map to an field in your table, select next. In the next screen you have the capability of placing the labels for each of these fields on the map and you can scroll through these to find out what the values are.

Click Next

10) Select a Theme, in this case I changed mine from Ocean to Mahogany, just to bring some brighter colours. Next select the field to visualise, in this case I am interested in the Sales Amount so I selected this field. Select the colour scheme and option choose to display fields, and here you can toggle between the different spatial data fields.

Click Finish

11) Click Run to preview the report

Now with such rich visualisation of data, we can quickly note that our highest sales were in Victoria and Tasmania in this particular case.

Have fun visualising your data in similar ways and empowering your users to make quick decisions. Also with map objects you can enable drill through to other map based reports or other standard reports as well to get down to the granular data.

Running SQL Server 2008 on Windows 7 and Windows 2008 Server R2

2009-08-17T13:20:57Z

The following knowledge base article describes the known issues when you install Microsoft SQL Server on a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 .

List of known issues when you install SQL Server on Windows 7 or on Windows Server 2008 R2

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;955725

For all editions except express edition of SQL Server 2008 running on Windows 7 and on Windows Server 2008 R2, you must have at least SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1) installed. Express edition already includes Service Pack 1.

For all editions of SQL Server 2005 running on Windows 7 and on Windows Server 2008 R2 , you must have at least SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 (SP3) installed.

Teched Australia 2009 – Less than a month away

2009-08-09T15:31:45Z

Wow can’t believe it, Teched Australia 2009 is SOLD OUT!!! It must have something to do with those Netbooks with Windows 7 being given away:).

I look forward to attending and meeting you there. Please ensure to attend a session I am presenting on SQL Server Security and give me great feedback scores :).