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by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 6/13/2009 2:49:00 PM
Microsoft has just published 3 new SQL Server 2008 Whitepapers, two of which were authored by SQLBloggers, right here at SQLBlog.com. Ok, I'll admit .... one of the authors is ME. :-) SQL Server 2008 Management Data Warehouse http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd939169.aspx SQL Server 2008 Policy-Based Management http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd938891.aspx Understanding and Using PowerShell Support in SQL Server 2008 http://msdn.microsof ...
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by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 5/3/2009 12:51:00 PM
In all versions of SQL Server since 7.0, the engine could choose to lock rows, pages or the entire table. In addition, even if it starts out your query execution by obtaining row or page locks, if too many locks are acquired, SQL Server could escalate to a table lock. Each lock uses memory, so when escalation replaces the thousands of fine-grained locks with one table lock, there can be substantial resource savings. On the other hand, once a table is exclusively locked, no other processes ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 4/22/2009 6:31:00 PM
Maybe I should change the topic to "Do you know?". "Did you know" seems to imply that _I_ actually know the answer. It seems very tricky to know for sure if a bug has been fixed, unless you have an actual bug number from Microsoft. If you have a bug numnber, you can check the list of fixes in the KB article that contains the list of fixes. But even then, there are no guarantees. The list seems to only include bugs and fixes for which a KB article has been written. For example, http:/ ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 3/10/2009 5:46:00 PM
I am teaching the SQL 2008 version of my course for the first time this week. My life is still is disarray and spare time is practically non-existent. During the evenings after I class I am trying to get caught up on several projects that I fell way behind on over the last month when most of my time was spent in the hospital. Blogging has been put on the back burner, but I thought I could share some of the questions that came up in class on the first day. I usually try to track ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 2/18/2009 8:43:00 PM
I know it's been a while since my last post, and there is a specific reason for that, which I am going to tell you about. On February 5th, I emailed to my editor the LAST chapter of my new book, after the author reviews and all comments from the editors were answered. I was technically done, except for a bit of work on the Intro, etc. Less than an hour after I sent off that last chapter, I got a call from the Washington State Highway Patrol that my husband had been found at the side of the road; ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 2/4/2009 5:16:00 AM
It's official... and Peter Ward has already blogged about it: http://wardyit.com/blog/blog/archive/2009/01/29/kalen-delaney-in-australia-in-june.aspx Anyone registering by March 27th will get a free copy of my new book, SQL Server 2008 Internals: SQL Server 2008 Internals But as always, there will be giveaways for more copies of this book and other swag at the end of each seminar. ~Kalen Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it! ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 2/3/2009 1:45:00 AM
When I searched for "sql server 2008 books online update", the first non-advertising hit I got was labeled August 2008, and I already have a Books Online download for August. However, when I clicked on the link I was taken to a page to download a brand new January 2009 Update:: So here's the link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=765433F7-0983-4D7A-B628-0A98145BCB97&displaylang=en Have fun! ~Kalen Share this post: email it! | b ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 1/29/2009 7:15:00 PM
And this picture on the cover of the latest issue of SQL Server Magazine is awesome! The content of the interview isn't bad either. http://www.sqlmag.com/Articles/ArticleID/101093/101093.html This is very interesting timing, because I just wrote about Dave in my SQL Server Magazine UPDATE commentary a few weeks ago: http://www.sqlmag.com/Article/ArticleID/101185/sql_server_101185.html I know, I sound like a groupie, but so be it... I'm just waiting for the action figure now. ~ ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 1/23/2009 10:32:00 PM
Hopefully you're aware that there is no way using the ALTER TABLE statement to add a new column in a particular ordinal position within a table. I see people in the forums asking for this capability, and they may point out that it is possible to do this using the Table Designer in Management Studio. However, usually someone will point out to them that you're really not altering the table in that case, you're actually creating a whole new table. And if it's a BIG table, it can take a long ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 1/23/2009 5:44:00 PM
Last May, I blogged about free troubleshooting tools for SQL Server and today I received a comment that one of the tools listed seemed to no longer be available. So I thought I would publish a refresh. There are dozens of great tools available, and I'm not even pretending that I am going to list them all. This post is really just an update to the tools I listed previously. So here is the list from my May post, with additional comments. ---------------------------------- ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 1/18/2009 8:37:00 PM
I wrote about "Too Many Columns" last September, and along with changes in SQL Server 2008 that allow lots of columns, there is also the ability to create more than the old maximum of 249 nonclustered indexes on a table. I knew this fact, but somehow I overlooked it when updating the chapter on table structures in my new book. My omission also got past all the editors, and I just realized my mistake when reviewing the Indexes chapter, which was being updated for SQL 2008 by Kimberly Tripp. ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 12/16/2008 12:08:00 AM
I've finished my last chapter of SQL Server 2008 Internals, and now I am doing author reviews. The editors are complaining about the way I use the term "SQL Server". Sometimes I say "Your SQL Server should be configured ...." or refer to SQL Server using this or that resource. The copyeditors keep trying to change my wording and rewrite it as "Your computer running SQL Server..." or they want me say that the SQL Server computer is using this or that resource. I wrote to my main editor that SQL S ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 12/3/2008 3:20:00 AM
Most of you are probably aware that having a clustered index on the column(s) in an ORDER BY clause means that SQL Server can avoid having to sort your data, because it is already logically stored in order of the clustered index, and SQL Server can just access the data in order to get the sorted data . For example, consider the SalesOrderHeader table in the AdventureWorks database. The clustered index is on SalesOrderID, so this query doesn't need to do a sort, just a clustered index scan: SELEC ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 11/30/2008 11:30:00 PM
You may think that having a database set to FULL Recovery Model means that your database can be fully recovered. The key word in that previous sentence is 'can'. It is possible to fully recovery a database in FULL recovery, or to restore it to an arbitrary point in time, or up to the point of a system failure, IF you have been a good DBA and you have been taking your regular backups. FULL Recovery means that all your changes to the database are fully logged, and you might think that also means t ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 11/26/2008 5:08:00 PM
Today, a reader asked me the following: "How can I find the amount of space occupied by a worktable?. Using SET STATISTICS IO ON, I can only see the number of reads using the worktable, not the amount of space taken." What is a worktable? I always like to think of it as a temp table that SQL Server builds without being asked. While preparing to write this post, I decided to see if I could find a formal definition. Books Online for SQL Server 2005 gives the following definition in the topic "Wo ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 11/24/2008 7:15:00 AM
This quiz is not really a generic question about changing an index key column to be an included column; it's about a behavior noticed by a reader in one particular query. Dejan Nakarada-Kordic from New Zealand sent me a very interesting puzzle. He had a reproducible query for which he thought an existing nonclustered index should be used, and it only ended up being used if the column was defined as an INCLUDED column instead of a key column. Here is the script Dejan sent me: -- First, crea ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 11/12/2008 1:22:00 AM
You might be aware (from other bloggers on this site) that there is a new web-only Books Online for SQL Server 2008 available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd239407.aspx. Like Tibor, I prefer a downloadable BOL, partly because I do a lot of research and writing while traveling and I don't always have an internet connection, like at 42,000 ft (~14000m) above the Atlantic Ocean. However, I need the latest documentation while I am finishing up my book, so I decided to start usi ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 10/31/2008 11:43:00 PM
I just today found out about something that was in plain sight in the Books Online... but the documentation is so vast, I haven't discovered everything yet. I blogged about clearing a single plan from cache in SQL Server 2005 a while back, and mentioned a rumor that there would be a new way to do this in SQL Server 2008. And then just today, someone posted a comment on that blog post, asking about the new 2008 method. One of my contacts on the SQL Server team at Microsoft just sent me a ...
by Kalen Delaney via Kalen Delaney on 10/29/2008 11:43:00 PM
I've been running some tests with the new SQL Server 2008 configuration option 'optimize for ad hoc workloads' which is intended to reduce cache bloat due to holding onto plans for single use ad hoc queries. This option will allow a new type of cached object to be stored, which isn't the only plan, but merely a stub. There will be a corresponding new cacheobjtype value called "Compiled Plan Stub". There are several ways of looking at the contents of cache. In SQL 2000, we had a pseudo table cal ...
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