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Ahmad Osama

SQL Server 2012 “Denali” Database Tuning Advisor (DTA): Tune a database using Plan cache.

2/20/2012 7:49:19 PM by Ahmad Osama  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [134]

Hi friends, Just came across DTAs new feature in SQL Server 2012. It can now tune the events from the plan cache directly. This is a very good option when tuning an inherited database or when one has to come up with quick optimization fixes for a slow performing database. It selects top 1000 events from plan cache to tune. This can be increased using –n option of dta command line utility. The code below clears up the plan cache and executes queries to generate plans to be tuned. USE Advent...

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Abhay Chaudhary

SQL Server Real-time Monitoring using WMI classes: Part -2

2/21/2012 2:31:15 AM by Abhay Chaudhary  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [154]

In the first part of this blog series, we discussed that starting with SQL Server 2005, we can use SQL Server agent to capture WMI based alerts.We can insert the alret data in to SQL Server tables and use it as needed .We took the example of Blocking and found how we can get all the information related to blocking without having the need to log on to the problematic SQL Server instance. In this part we will try to explore how to create more such alerts easily .We will only discuss about SQL Serv...

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Ritesh Medhe

SQL Server Monitoring - Automating SQL Server Health Checks (SQL Server 2005 & Above)

2/20/2012 4:20:23 PM by Ritesh Medhe  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [180]

It's a known fact that an ideal Production DBA is like a parent to 100's of children. By children I mean database servers, and yes, they are like babies to DBAs. No matter how unpleasant your child is you have to take care of each of them. As a DBA, it's your responsibility to keep an eye on each and every activity that is taking place on your database servers. It could be the creation of new tables, databases, logins, jobs, maintenance plans and so on. In this article I will be focusing on data...

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Abhay Chaudhary

SQL Server Real-time Monitoring using WMI classes: Part -1

2/18/2012 7:57:17 AM by Abhay Chaudhary  -  Comments: 13  -  Views: [16945]

We all know that that SQL Server had a great face lift from SQL Server 2000 to 2005 .Everything else was a history after that .It was a big leap and we can count the new features of SQL Server 2005 on fingers. However there is one feature that I feel should have been marketed but was not done. Starting from SQL Server 2005, we can use SQL Server agent to capture WMI alerts .While this is catching up fast in the SQL Server community, many still do not know what magic this functionality can do and...

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Abhay Chaudhary

SQL Server: Fine - Tuning Transactional Replication Performance : Part 3

2/20/2012 7:11:08 AM by Abhay Chaudhary  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [1880]

This is the last one in this series .While PART - 1 and PART – 2 were somehow correlated , this blog post is independent and has no dependency on the previous 2 parts .Nor does the previous 2 parts have any dependency on this post . In this post I will discuss about a coupel of settings that can help us improving replication performance .Be careful in selecting them for implementation in your environment and do thorough tests on staging /Dev servers first.By saying be carefule I did not me...

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Ritesh Medhe

SQL Server Monitoring - Important SQL Server Monitroing Counters

2/17/2012 9:34:54 AM by Ritesh Medhe  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [362]

Hello Guys, We all are aware that monitoring a database server for that matter any server is of prime importance in order to ensure business continuity. I will be talking only from database perspective and to be very precise SQL server. As any DBA I am also responsible to ensure uninterrupted availability of database servers. Monitoring is a vast topic. There are many parameters and enormous counter available in Performance monitor. Well all of the counters can be monitored however, it will prov...

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Admin Admin

SQLServerGeeks weekly webcast – 21st February 2012 at 3 p.m. IST

2/16/2012 8:59:18 AM by Admin Admin  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [114]

SQLServerGeeks weekly webcast – 21 st February 2012 at 3 p.m. IST Hi Friends, SQLServerGeeks.com is organizing one webcast a week, absolutely free for the SQL Server community. It is your opportunity to hear one expert every week. We will bring you sessions on SQL Server Database & Business Intelligence platform. It is your opportunity to learn from credible speakers from Microsoft, MVP community & SQL Server specialists. We sincerely hope, it’s a great source of learning for...

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SQLnews SQLnews

SQL Server 2012 Virtual Launch Event

2/14/2012 12:14:35 PM by SQLnews SQLnews  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [151]

SQL Server 2012 Virtual Launch Event Hi Friends, The SQL Server 2012 Virtual Launch Event Kicks off on March 7, 2012. To read more, click on this Link: http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2012/02/06/recommended-sql-server-2012-virtual-launch-event-sessions-for-dbas-and-it-professionals.aspx Contributed by Amit Bansal If you liked this post, do like us on FaceBook at http://www.FaceBook.com/SQLServerGeeks

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SQLnews SQLnews

SQL Server 2012 Datasheet

2/14/2012 11:39:43 AM by SQLnews SQLnews  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [113]

SQL Server 2012 Datasheet Hi Friends, Microsoft SQL Server 2012 is a cloud-ready information platform that will help organizations unlock breakthrough insights across the organization and quickly build solutions to extend data across on-premises and public cloud, backed by mission critical confidence. To read more, click on the Link: http://services.social.microsoft.com/feeds/FeedItem?feedId=9ad12ff4-34cc-4f25-b933-b349de6fca5c&itemId=f369d0ef-46fc-4cb1-a4d7-a95fc9191a4e&title=SQL+Server...

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SQLnews SQLnews

SQL Server: Entity Framework 4.3.0 released

2/20/2012 7:15:50 AM by SQLnews SQLnews  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [573]

Entity Framework 4.3.0 released Hi Friends, Entity Framework is Microsoft’s recommended data access technology for new applications. The first fully supported go-live release of the migrations work is available as part of EF 4.3. For further information, click on this Link: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2012/02/09/ef-4-3-released.aspx Contributed by Amit Bansal If you liked this post, do like us on FaceBook at http://www.FaceBook.com/SQLServerGeeks

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SQLnews SQLnews

Business Intelligence features of SQL Server 2012 RCO- Download Virtual Machine

2/14/2012 10:48:27 AM by SQLnews SQLnews  -  Comments: 2  -  Views: [229]

Business Intelligence features of SQL Server 2012 RC0- Download Virtual Machine Hi Friends, The Base ImageX Server is a virtual machine that allows a user to test out the latest Business Intelligence features of SQL Server 2012 – RC0; including PowerView reports and PowerPivot Excel Documents. For further information and Downloads, click on the Link: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28802&WT.mc_id=aff-n-in-loc--pd Contributed by Amit Bansal If you liked this post, d...

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Did You Know Did You Know

IDC WHITE PAPER - Microsoft SQL Server 2012: Potential Game Changer

2/14/2012 10:34:46 AM by Did You Know Did You Know  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [198]

IDC WHITE PAPER - Microsoft SQL Server 2012: Potential Game Changer Hi Friends, The launch of SQL Server 2012 has revealed a major new release with many feature enhancements as well as a new software licensing and pricing approach. For further information, click on this Link: http://services.social.microsoft.com/feeds/FeedItem?feedId=9ad12ff4-34cc-4f25-b933-b349de6fca5c&itemId=4b89b2a2-e00e-47d0-9485-050bd3a31a02&title=IDC+WHITE+PAPER+-+Microsoft+SQL+Server+2012%3a+Potential+Game+Changer...

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Amit Bansal

SQL Server - Stress Testing your database engine using RML utilities

2/14/2012 9:37:09 AM by Amit Bansal  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [10134]

SQL Server - Stress Testing your database engine using RML utilities Hi Friends, As a DBA, stress testing and performance benchmarking is one of the most important activities that you would perform. There are many techniques and choice of tools at your disposal. In many cases, I have used RML utilities. If you look into the description of RML utilities provided by Microsoft at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944837 , you will observe that they talk about the following benefits: •You can det...

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SQLnews SQLnews

SQL Server: SQL Release Services Cumulative Update #3 for SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 3

2/21/2012 5:49:53 AM by SQLnews SQLnews  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [142]

SQL Release Services Cumulative Update #3 for SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 3 Hi Friends, Cumulative Update #3 for SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 3 has been released. Read more on this here: http://t.co/ztqpF0mU Contributed by Amit Bansal If you liked this post, do like us on FaceBook at http://www.FaceBook.com/SQLServerGeeks

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SQLnews SQLnews

SQL Release Services Cumulative Update #8 for SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2

2/14/2012 5:45:33 AM by SQLnews SQLnews  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [102]

SQL Release Services Cumulative Update #8 for SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Hi Friends, SQL Server team release Services Cumulative Update #8 for SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2. Read more on this here: http://t.co/1p3vYe6h Contributed by Amit Bansal If you liked this post, do like us on FaceBook at http://www.FaceBook.com/SQLServerGeeks

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SQLnews SQLnews

SQL Server: SQL Release Services Cumulative Update #4 for SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1

14 hours, 21 minutes ago by SQLnews SQLnews  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [153]

SQL Release Services Cumulative Update #4 for SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Hi Friends, Microsoft SQL Server team releases Cumulative Update #4 for SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1. Read more on this here: http://t.co/TqBj84qI Contributed by Amit Bansal If you liked this post, do like us on FaceBook at http://www.FaceBook.com/SQLServerGeeks

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SQLnews SQLnews

SQL Release Services Cumulative Update #11 for SQL Server 2008 R2

2/14/2012 5:26:31 AM by SQLnews SQLnews  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [151]

SQL Release Services Cumulative Update #11 for SQL Server 2008 R2 Hi Friends, SQL Release Services Cumulative Update #11 for SQL Server 2008 R2 has been released. Read more on this here: http://t.co/vTSKuVum Contributed by Amit Bansal If you liked this post, do like us on FaceBook at http://www.FaceBook.com/SQLServerGeeks

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Did You Know Did You Know

SQL Server: Microsoft earns Leader ranking in two Gartner 2012 Magic Quadrants

2/21/2012 4:29:17 AM by Did You Know Did You Know  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [303]

Microsoft earns Leader ranking in two Gartner 2012 Magic Quadrants Hi Friends, Microsoft has earned the Leader ranking in two Gartner 2012 Magic Quadrants, they are: • Business Intelligence Platforms • Data Warehouse Database Management Systems For further information, refer to these Links: Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms (Gartner Research, February 6, 2012) Gartner has positioned Microsoft in the Leaders Quadrant in the 2012 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence ...

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Ahmad Osama

SQL Server 2012 “Denali”: Paging feature

2/13/2012 8:16:31 AM by Ahmad Osama  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [10374]

Paging is a process of splitting large result set into subset of pages. So, instead of displaying 5000 records resulting from a search, first 20 records are shown and then next 20 and so on. In SQL Server 2005, Common Table Expression (CTE) is generally used to implement paging. In SQL Server 2012, MS has come up with a modified ORDER BY clause to implement the same. This is done using two new keywords OFFSET and FETCH. Offset tells the number of rows to skip and Fetch tells number of rows to be...

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Abhay Chaudhary

SQL Server: Fine - Tuning Transactional Replication Performance : Part 2

2/21/2012 4:33:00 AM by Abhay Chaudhary  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [6993]

Hope you have liked the first part of fine tuning transactional replication. In case you have not been through it you can check it here . In this part we will talk about improving distribution agent throughput by modifying the profile parameters .it’s important to note that the changes that you make in the log reader agent might increase latency from distributor to subscriber if you leave the distribution agent unchanged .This is because if you increase the log reader throughput only, you ...

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Abhay Chaudhary

SQL Server: Fine - Tuning Transactional Replication Performance : Part 1

2/21/2012 4:36:04 AM by Abhay Chaudhary  -  Comments: 0  -  Views: [4832]

I remembered my childhood days when I use to get mechanical toys and how I use to experiment with them eventually ending up messing everything.This is true even when we grow old . Sometimes we commit bigger mistakes .Sometimes we do not take some good steps because we are scared in case something goes wrong. We DBAs are no saints and many a times try and experiment with the system without proper approach and in a haste to see the better results quickly (the intention is always good though). (SQL...

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Abhay Chaudhary

Recreating Builtin/administrator account in SQL Server ( 2000 and above)

2/11/2012 5:59:38 PM by Abhay Chaudhary  -  Comments: 2  -  Views: [1450]

Hi Guys , A few days ago someone at client's site removed the builtin administrator from SQL Server as it was one of the risks mentioned in the agreement .Everything was fine and no one realized what mistake has been done. Things were fine till the time it was needed to login to SQL Server .No one saved SA password either and een though the SA login was enabled , we were not able to use it ....awesome ... They were about to uninstall and reinstall SQL server when we finally could resolve the iss...

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Abhay Chaudhary

SQL Server: Address translation- How Virtual Memory is mapped to Physical Memory

2/21/2012 4:31:28 AM by Abhay Chaudhary  -  Comments: 5  -  Views: [13093]

Introduction We all know that data retrieval will be fast if the data pages are found in RAM .If the data pages are not in RAM, they are fetched into RAM from the disk. This causes a physical IO .The page remains in the RAM until it’s again kicked off to Disk. But the process and threads do not access the Physical memory (RAM) directly .Instead the RAM is accessed indirectly through Virtual Memory or Virtual address space (VAS) pointers. On a x86 operating system the number of such pointer...

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Amit Bansal

SQL Server - Upgrade vs Migration - simple yet confusing

2/9/2012 9:27:51 AM by Amit Bansal  -  Comments: 1  -  Views: [2459]

SQL Server - Upgrade vs Migration - simple yet confusing Hi Friends, I took some time to choose a right title for this blog post. Over the years I have seen people using these terms, “Upgrade” & “Migration” interchangeably. Yes, I know, many of you would think that it is so ‘simple’ as these two have distinct meanings but I am sure, there are other lots that would agree, that it is indeed a little ‘confusing’ or sometimes mean the same thing. T...

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Raunak Jhawar

SQL Server Integration Services – Missing Package Configuration Option

2/7/2012 7:01:57 AM by Raunak Jhawar  -  Comments: 1  -  Views: [5070]

SQL Server Integration Services – Missing Package Configuration Option Hi, Let’s dig more into SQL Server Integration Service and this time it is the package deployment model. With the plethora of changes that the SSIS team has come up with in the new release of SQL Server 2012, the package deployment is the one which is significant and requires more understanding. For the first time when you open the SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio, you will notice many changes i...

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