Search Results

Search found 296 results on 12 pages for 'optimizer'.

Page 11/12 | < Previous Page | 7 8 9 10 11 12  | Next Page >

• Why is MySQL with InnoDB doing a table scan when key exists and choosing to examine 70 times more ro

  - by andysk

  Hello, I'm troubleshooting a query performance problem. Here's an expected query plan from explain: mysql> explain select * from table1 where tdcol between '2010-04-13:00:00' and '2010-04-14 03:16'; +----+-------------+--------------------+-------+---------------+--------------+---------+------+---------+-------------+ | id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | Extra | +----+-------------+--------------------+-------+---------------+--------------+---------+------+---------+-------------+ | 1 | SIMPLE | table1 | range | tdcol | tdcol | 8 | NULL | 5437848 | Using where | +----+-------------+--------------------+-------+---------------+--------------+---------+------+---------+-------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) That makes sense, since the index named tdcol (KEY tdcol (tdcol)) is used, and about 5M rows should be selected from this query. However, if I query for just one more minute of data, we get this query plan: mysql> explain select * from table1 where tdcol between '2010-04-13 00:00' and '2010-04-14 03:17'; +----+-------------+--------------------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+-----------+-------------+ | id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | Extra | +----+-------------+--------------------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+-----------+-------------+ | 1 | SIMPLE | table1 | ALL | tdcol | NULL | NULL | NULL | 381601300 | Using where | +----+-------------+--------------------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+-----------+-------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) The optimizer believes that the scan will be better, but it's over 70x more rows to examine, so I have a hard time believing that the table scan is better. Also, the 'USE KEY tdcol' syntax does not change the query plan. Thanks in advance for any help, and I'm more than happy to provide more info/answer questions.

  Read the article

• C# vs C - Big performance difference

  - by John

  I'm finding massive performance differences between similar code in C anc C#. The C code is: #include <stdio.h> #include <time.h> #include <math.h> main() { int i; double root; clock_t start = clock(); for (i = 0 ; i <= 100000000; i++){ root = sqrt(i); } printf("Time elapsed: %f\n", ((double)clock() - start) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC); } And the C# (console app) is: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Text; namespace ConsoleApplication2 { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { DateTime startTime = DateTime.Now; double root; for (int i = 0; i <= 100000000; i++) { root = Math.Sqrt(i); } TimeSpan runTime = DateTime.Now - startTime; Console.WriteLine("Time elapsed: " + Convert.ToString(runTime.TotalMilliseconds/1000)); } } } With the above code, the C# completes in 0.328125 seconds (release version) and the C takes 11.14 seconds to run. The c is being compiled to a windows executable using mingw. I've always been under the assumption that C/C++ were faster or at least comparable to C#.net. What exactly is causing the C to run over 30 times slower? EDIT: It does appear that the C# optimizer was removing the root as it wasn't being used. I changed the root assignment to root += and printed out the total at the end. I've also compiled the C using cl.exe with the /O2 flag set for max speed. The results are now: 3.75 seconds for the C 2.61 seconds for the C# The C is still taking longer, but this is acceptable

  Read the article

• Upload using python script takes very long on one laptop as compared to another

  - by Engr Am

  I have a python 2.7 code which uses STORBINARY function for uploading files to an ftp server and RETRBINARY for downloading from this server. However, the issue is the upload is taking a very long time on three laptops from different brands as compared to a Dell laptop. The strange part is when I manually upload any file, it takes the same time on all the systems. The manual upload rate and upload rate with the python script is the same on the Dell Laptop. However, on every other brand of laptop (I have tried with IBM, Toshiba, Fujitsu-Siemens) the python script has a very low upload rate than the manual attempt. Also, on all these other laptops, the upload rate using the python script is the same (1Mbit/s) while the manual upload rate is approx. 8 Mbit/s. I have tried to vary the filesize for the upload to no avail. TCP Optimizer improved the download rate on all the systems but had no effect on the upload rate. Download rate using this script on all the systems is fine and same as the manual download rate. I have checked the server and it has more than 90% free space. The network connection is the same for all the laptops, and I try uploading only with one laptop at a time. All the laptops have almost the same system configurations, same operating system and approximately the same free drive space. If anything the Dell laptop is a little less in terms of processing power and RAM than 2 of the others, but I suppose this has no effect as I have checked many times to see how much was the CPU usage and network usage during these uploads and downloads, and I am sure that no other virus or program has been eating up my bandwidth. Here is the code ('ftp' and 'file_path' are inputs to the function): path,filename=os.path.split(file_path) filesize=os.path.getsize(file_path) deffilesize=(filesize/1024)/1024 f = open(file_path, "rb") upstart = time.clock() print ftp.storbinary("STOR "+filename, f) upende = time.clock()-upstart outname="Upload " f.close() return upende, deffilesize, outname

  Read the article

• How can I update a record using a correlated subquery?

  - by froadie

  I have a function that accepts one parameter and returns a table/resultset. I want to set a field in a table to the first result of that recordset, passing in one of the table's other fields as the parameter. If that's too complicated in words, the query looks something like this: UPDATE myTable SET myField = (SELECT TOP 1 myFunctionField FROM fn_doSomething(myOtherField) WHERE someCondition = 'something') WHERE someOtherCondition = 'somethingElse' In this example, myField and myOtherField are fields in myTable, and myFunctionField is a field return by fn_doSomething. This seems logical to me, but I'm getting the following strange error: 'myOtherField' is not a recognized OPTIMIZER LOCK HINTS option. Any idea what I'm doing wrong, and how I can accomplish this? *UPDATE: * Based on Anil Soman's answer, I realized that the function is expecting a string parameter and the field being passed is an integer. I'm not sure if this should be a problem as an explicit call to the function using an integer value works - e.g. fn_doSomething(12345) seems to automatically cast the number to an string. However, I tried to do an explicit cast: UPDATE myTable SET myField = (SELECT TOP 1 myFunctionField FROM fn_doSomething(CAST(myOtherField AS varchar(1000))) WHERE someCondition = 'something') WHERE someOtherCondition = 'somethingElse' Now I'm getting the following error: Line 5: Incorrect syntax near '('.

  Read the article

• PHP -- automatic SQL injection protection?

  - by ashgromnies

  I took over maintenance of a PHP app recently and I'm not super familiar with PHP but some of the things I've been seeing on the site are making me nervous that it could be vulnerable to a SQL injection attack. For example, see how this code for logging into the administrative section works: $password = md5(HASH_SALT . $_POST['loginPass']); $query = "SELECT * FROM `administrators` WHERE `active`='1' AND `email`='{$_POST['loginEmail']}' AND `password`='{$password}'"; $userInfo = db_fetch_array(db_query($query)); if($userInfo['id']) { $_SESSION['adminLoggedIn'] = true; // user is logged in, other junk happens here, not important The creators of the site made a special db_query method and db_fetch_array method, shown here: function db_query($qstring,$print=0) { return @mysql(DB_NAME,$qstring); } function db_fetch_array($qhandle) { return @mysql_fetch_array($qhandle); } Now, this makes me think I should be able to do some sort of SQL injection attack with an email address like: ' OR 'x'='x' LIMIT 1; and some random password. When I use that on the command line, I get an administrative user back, but when I try it in the application, I get an invalid username/password error, like I should. Could there be some sort of global PHP configuration they have enabled to block these attacks? Where would that be configured? Here is the PHP --version information: # php --version PHP 5.2.12 (cli) (built: Feb 28 2010 15:59:21) Copyright (c) 1997-2009 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2009 Zend Technologies with the ionCube PHP Loader v3.3.14, Copyright (c) 2002-2010, by ionCube Ltd., and with Zend Optimizer v3.3.9, Copyright (c) 1998-2009, by Zend Technologies

  Read the article

• Algorithm for generating an array of non-equal costs for a transport problem optimization

  - by Carlos

  I have an optimizer that solves a transportation problem, using a cost matrix of all the possible paths. The optimiser works fine, but if two of the costs are equal, the solution contains one more path that the minimum number of paths. (Think of it as load balancing routers; if two routes are same cost, you'll use them both.) I would like the minimum number of routes, and to do that I need a cost matrix that doesn't have two costs that are equal within a certain tolerance. At the moment, I'm passing the cost matrix through a baking function which tests every entry for equality to each of the other entries, and moves it a fixed percentage if it matches. However, this approach seems to require N^2 comparisons, and if the starting values are all the same, the last cost will be r^N bigger. (r is the arbitrary fixed percentage). Also there is the problem that by multiplying by the percentage, you end up on top of another value. So the problem seems to have an element of recursion, or at least repeated checking, which bloats the code. The current implementation is basically not very good (I won't paste my GOTO-using code here for you all to mock), and I'd like to improve it. Is there a name for what I'm after, and is there a standard implementation? Example: {1,1,2,3,4,5} (tol = 0.05) becomes {1,1.05,2,3,4,5}

  Read the article

• In mysql, is "explain ..." always safe?

  - by tye

  If I allow a group of users to submit "explain $whatever" to mysql (via Perl's DBI using DBD::mysql), is there anything that a user could put into $whatever that would make any database changes, leak non-trivial information, or even cause significant database load? If so, how? I know that via "explain $whatever" one can figure out what tables / columns exist (you have to guess names, though) and roughly how many records are in a table or how many records have a particular value for an indexed field. I don't expect one to be able to get any information about the contents of unindexed fields. DBD::mysql should not allow multiple statements so I don't expect it to be possible to run any query (just explain one query). Even subqueries should not be executed, just explained. But I'm not a mysql expert and there are surely features of mysql that I'm not even aware of. In trying to come up with a query plan, might the optimizer actual execute an expression in order to come up with the value that an indexed field is going to be compared against? explain select * from atable where class = somefunction(...) where atable.class is indexed and not unique and class='unused' would find no records but class='common' would find a million records. Might 'explain' evaluate somefunction(...)? And then could somefunction(...) be written such that it modifies data?

  Read the article

• Efficiently select top row for each category in the set

  - by VladV

  I need to select a top row for each category from a known set (somewhat similar to this question). The problem is, how to make this query efficient on the large number of rows. For example, let's create a table that stores temperature recording in several places. CREATE TABLE #t ( placeId int, ts datetime, temp int, PRIMARY KEY (ts, placeId) ) -- insert some sample data SET NOCOUNT ON DECLARE @n int, @ts datetime SELECT @n = 1000, @ts = '2000-01-01' WHILE (@n>0) BEGIN INSERT INTO #t VALUES (@n % 10, @ts, @n % 37) IF (@n % 10 = 0) SET @ts = DATEADD(hour, 1, @ts) SET @n = @n - 1 END Now I need to get the latest recording for each of the places 1, 2, 3. This way is efficient, but doesn't scale well (and looks dirty). SELECT * FROM ( SELECT TOP 1 placeId, temp FROM #t WHERE placeId = 1 ORDER BY ts DESC ) t1 UNION ALL SELECT * FROM ( SELECT TOP 1 placeId, temp FROM #t WHERE placeId = 2 ORDER BY ts DESC ) t2 UNION ALL SELECT * FROM ( SELECT TOP 1 placeId, temp FROM #t WHERE placeId = 3 ORDER BY ts DESC ) t3 The following looks better but works much less efficiently (30% vs 70% according to the optimizer). SELECT placeId, ts, temp FROM ( SELECT placeId, ts, temp, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY placeId ORDER BY ts DESC) rownum FROM #t WHERE placeId IN (1, 2, 3) ) t WHERE rownum = 1 The problem is, during the latter query execution plan a clustered index scan is performed on #t and 300 rows are retrieved, sorted, numbered, and then filtered, leaving only 3 rows. For the former query three times one row is fetched. Is there a way to perform the query efficiently without lots of unions?

  Read the article

• MSSQL 2008 - Bit Param Evaluation alters Execution Plan

  - by Nathanial Woolls

  I have been working on migrating some of our data from Microsoft SQL Server 2000 to 2008. Among the usual hiccups and whatnot, I’ve run across something strange. Linked below is a SQL query that returns very quickly under 2000, but takes 20 minutes under 2008. I have read quite a bit on upgrading SQL server and went down the usual paths of checking indexes, statistics, etc. before coming to the conclusion that the following statement, found in the WHERE clause, causes the execution plan for the steps that follow this statement to change dramatically: And ( @bOnlyUnmatched = 0 -- offending line Or Not Exists( The SQL statements and execution plans are linked below. A coworker was able to rewrite a portion of the WHERE clause using a CASE statement, which seems to “trick” the optimizer into using a better execution plan. The version with the CASE statement is also contained in the linked archive. I’d like to see if someone has an explanation as to why this is happening and if there may be a more elegant solution than using a CASE statement. While we can work around this specific issue, I’d like to have a broader understanding of what is happening to ensure the rest of the migration is as painless as possible. Zip file with SQL statements and XML execution plans Thanks in advance!

  Read the article

• Linq-to-sql join/where?

  - by Curtis White

  I've the following table structures Users id Types id isBool UsersTypes userid types I want to select all the UserTypes based on id and isBool. I tried this query var q = from usertype in usertypes from type in types where type.isBool == false where userstypes.user == id select usertype; But this did not work as expected. My questions are: Why? Is there any difference in using the join on syntax vs where, where vs where cond1 && cond2? My understanding is query optimizer will optimize. Is there any difference in using where cond1 == var1 && cond2 == var2 with and without the parenthesis? This seems peculiar that it is possible to build this without parenthesis What type of query do I need in this case? I can see that I could do a subquery or use a group but not 100% sure if it is required. An example might be helpful. I'm thinking a subquery may be required in this case.

  Read the article

• Oracle Query Optimization: Why is My Second Query Faster?

  - by Patrick Cuff

  I was having some performance issues with an Oracle query, so I downloaded a trial of the Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle, which made some changes that dramatically improved the query's performance. I'm not exactly sure why the recommended query had such an improvement; can anyone provide an explanation? Before: SELECT t1.version_id, t1.id, t2.field1, t3.person_id, t2.id FROM table1 t1, table2 t2, table3 t3 WHERE t1.id = t2.id AND t1.version_id = t2.version_id AND t2.id = 123 AND t1.version_id = t3.version_id AND t1.VERSION_NAME <> 'AA' order by t1.id Plan Cost: 831 Elapsed Time: 00:00:21.40 Number of Records: 40,717 After: SELECT /*+ USE_NL_WITH_INDEX(t1) */ t1.version_id, t1.id, t2.field1, t3.person_id, t2.id FROM table2 t2, table3 t3, table1 t1 WHERE t1.id = t2.id + 0 AND t1.version_id = t2.version_id + 0 AND t2.id = 123 AND t1.version_id = t3.version_id + 0 AND t1.VERSION_NAME || '' <> 'AA' AND t3.version_id = t2.version_id + 0 order by t1.id Plan Cost: 686 Elapsed Time: 00:00:00.95 Number of Records: 40,717 Questions: Why does re-arranging the order of the tables in the FROM clause help? Why does adding + 0 to the WHERE clause comparisons help? Why does || '' <> 'AA' in the WHERE clause VERSION_NAME comparison help? Is this a more efficient way of handling possible nulls on this column?

  Read the article

• PHP: gethostbyname() suddenly no longer resolves names to IPs when run in Apache

  - by hurikhan77

  One of our older legacy servers which gets no further updates or reconfigurations suddenly stopped resolving hostnames to IPs when PHP is executed within Apache. However, it still works fine when executed from the CLI. From the RSS caches last modification time, I deduce that it stopped working on around Mar, 28th. To reproduce the problem, I created a script using fsockopen() and it said "connection failed (errno 2)". I further reduced the problem to being related with a failed name resolution: <?php $addr = gethostbyname("twitter.com"); echo "ADDR($addr)"; ?> When I run this through Apache, the output is ADDR(twitter.com), which is wrong. When I run this from the CLI, the output is ADDR(aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd) with varying IP addresses, as expected. Nothing on the server setup has changed. CLI and Apache module share the same php.ini. PHP is version v4.4.9 with Zend Optimizer v2.5.10. Apache is v1.3.31. I know the versions are old. But since nothing has been changed, a solution like "try to upgrade versions first" is no solution as the server's feature set/versioning is frozen and will be replaced soon. Still we need a solution. If I run dig through the script, it works in both environments (mod_php and CLI) but this is more than an ugly hack as it would involve many edits and testing throughout the whole script base which is also undesired as the PHP application on the server is frozen, too, and only receives security updates. It will be replaced by a complete rewrite (on the new server). But as the rewrite will take some time and successive replace parts of the legacy application, we need a fix for the resolver problem. I already googled a bit and while the problem is known, many did not find a fix. The fix to raise memory limits did not work. Restarts did not work. The resolver in mod_php just did stop working for no apparent reason. :-(

  Read the article

• Interview with Tomas Ulin at the MySQL Innovation Day

  - by Monica Kumar

  MySQL Innovation Day held on June 5, 2012 was a great event for the MySQL engineers, users and customers to gather, share and network. I was able to get a few minutes with Tomas Ulin, Vice President of MySQL Engineering at Oracle, to ask him some questions. Here are the highlights of my interview with Tomas. Monica: This was the first MySQL Innovation Day, correct?  Why now, what was the strategy behind hosting this kind of event? Tomas: In the last year, we have rolled out an incredible number of MySQL events worldwide – some targeted at developers that are new to MySQL and others for the MySQL savvy. At the MySQL Innovation Day, our first event of this kind,, we had a number of our key engineers presenting lightning talks delivering previews of key new features as well as discussing roadmap. Our goal is to keep an open dialogue with the MySQL community. In fact, we are hosting a two-day conference, another first, for the MySQL community called MySQL Connect on Sept. 29-30 in San Francisco. If you attended the MySQL Innovation Day and liked what we did, you are going to love MySQL Connect. We’ll have a lot more of our engineers and many users and community members presenting hour long sessions and hands on labs. Our engineers will be presenting new MySQL features as well offer previews of upcoming enhancements. Monica: What's the big take-away from today's MySQL Innovation Day? Tomas: I hope the most important takeaway for attendees was to see that Oracle has been driving, and continues to drive MySQL innovation with a steady stream of new great GA and Development Milestone releases. Monica: What were attendees most interested in? What feedback did they have? Tomas: Feedback from attendees was incredibly positive and encouraging. In particular, they liked the interaction with the MySQL engineers and were also excited about the new early access features in MySQL 5.6 and MySQL Cluster 7.3. In addition, sessions delivered by MySQL users like Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter were very well received. For example, Pinterest talked about using MySQL to scale from 0 to billions of page views/month, Twitter talked about “Scaling twitter with MySQL” and Facebook discussed the many options to implement MySQL master failover solutions. The presentations are already available for download while some of the session videos will be made available on the MySQL Innovation Day web page shortly. Monica: How would you distinguish the use of MySQL vs. Oracle Database? What key factors should customers consider? Tomas: MySQL and Oracle Database complement each other. They are very different products, best suited to different use cases. Customers can choose world-class solutions from Oracle to fulfill a variety of needs. MySQL is a great choice for enterprise web-based, custom and embedded apps. Oracle Database is the leading choice for enterprise packaged applications such as ERP, CRM as well as high-end data warehousing and business intelligence applications. Monica: What are the highlights of the current MySQL 5.6 Development Milestone Release and early access features for MySQL Cluster 7.3? Tomas: MySQL 5.6 development milestone release builds on MySQL 5.5 by improving: Optimizer for better Performance, Scalability Performance Schema for better instrumentation InnoDB for better transactional throughput Replication for higher availability, data integrity NoSQL options for more flexibility We announced some new early access features in MySQL 5.6, including binary log group commit. We also announced early access features in MySQL Cluster 7.3 including support for foreign key constraints. Monica: How do people get these releases? Tomas: You can access development milestone releases by going to: http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysqlThen select the “Development Release” tab. The MySQL Cluster 7.3 and other early access features can be downloaded at: http://labs.mysql.com Monica: What's coming up next for MySQL? Tomas: Our development team is working in overdrive, cranking out new features with community feedback. Don’t miss the MySQL Connect conference being held in San Francisco on Sept. 29 and 30th. My team and I will be there. I hope you can join us! Monica: Thank you for your time, Tomas. I look forward to seeing you at the MySQL Connect conference. To our followers, I hope you found this interview informative. I welcome your comments. Please stay tuned here for more updates on MySQL. Note: Monica Kumar is Senior Director of product marketing for Linux, Virtualization and MySQL at Oracle.

  Read the article

• Troubleshooting Application Timeouts in SQL Server

  - by Tara Kizer

  I recently received the following email from a blog reader: "We are having an OLTP database instance, using SQL Server 2005 with little to moderate traffic (10-20 requests/min). There are also bulk imports that occur at regular intervals in this DB and the import duration ranges between 10secs to 1 min, depending on the data size. Intermittently (2-3 times in a week), we face an issue, where queries get timed out (default of 30 secs set in application). On analyzing, we found two stored procedures, having queries with multiple table joins inside them of taking a long time (5-10 mins) in getting executed, when ideally the execution duration ranges between 5-10 secs. Execution plan of the same displayed Clustered Index Scan happening instead of Clustered Index Seek. All required Indexes are found to be present and Index fragmentation is also minimal as we Rebuild Indexes regularly alongwith Updating Statistics. With no other alternate options occuring to us, we restarted SQL server and thereafter the performance was back on track. But sometimes it was still giving timeout errors for some hits and so we also restarted IIS and that stopped the problem as of now." Rather than respond directly to the blog reader, I thought it would be more interesting to share my thoughts on this issue in a blog. There are a few things that I can think of that could cause abnormal timeouts: Blocking Bad plan in cache Outdated statistics Hardware bottleneck To determine if blocking is the issue, we can easily run sp_who/sp_who2 or a query directly on sysprocesses (select * from master..sysprocesses where blocking <> 0).  If blocking is present and consistent, then you'll need to determine whether or not to kill the parent blocking process.  Killing a process will cause the transaction to rollback, so you need to proceed with caution.  Killing the parent blocking process is only a temporary solution, so you'll need to do more thorough analysis to figure out why the blocking was present.  You should look into missing indexes and perhaps consider changing the database's isolation level to READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT. The blog reader mentions that the execution plan shows a clustered index scan when a clustered index seek is normal for the stored procedure.  A clustered index scan might have been chosen either because that is what is in cache already or because of out of date statistics.  The blog reader mentions that bulk imports occur at regular intervals, so outdated statistics is definitely something that could cause this issue.  The blog reader may need to update statistics after imports are done if the imports are changing a lot of data (greater than 10%).  If the statistics are good, then the query optimizer might have chosen to scan rather than seek in a previous execution because the scan was determined to be less costly due to the value of an input parameter.  If this parameter value is rare, then its execution plan in cache is what we call a bad plan.  You want the best plan in cache for the most frequent parameter values.  If a bad plan is a recurring problem on your system, then you should consider rewriting the stored procedure.  You might want to break up the code into multiple stored procedures so that each can have a different execution plan in cache. To remove a bad plan from cache, you can recompile the stored procedure.  An alternative method is to run DBCC FREEPROCACHE which drops the procedure cache.  It is better to recompile stored procedures rather than dropping the procedure cache as dropping the procedure cache affects all plans in cache rather than just the ones that were bad, so there will be a temporary performance penalty until the plans are loaded into cache again. To determine if there is a hardware bottleneck occurring such as slow I/O or high CPU utilization, you will need to run Performance Monitor on the database server.  Hopefully you already have a baseline of the server so you know what is normal and what is not.  Be on the lookout for I/O requests taking longer than 12 milliseconds and CPU utilization over 90%.  The servers that I support typically are under 30% CPU utilization, but your baseline could be higher and be within a normal range. If restarting the SQL Server service fixes the problem, then the problem was most likely due to blocking or a bad plan in the procedure cache.  Rather than restarting the SQL Server service, which causes downtime, the blog reader should instead analyze the above mentioned things.  Proceed with caution when restarting the SQL Server service as all transactions that have not completed will be rolled back at startup.  This crash recovery process could take longer than normal if there was a long-running transaction running when the service was stopped.  Until the crash recovery process is completed on the database, it is unavailable to your applications. If restarting IIS fixes the problem, then the problem might not have been inside SQL Server.  Prior to taking this step, you should do analysis of the above mentioned things. If you can think of other reasons why the blog reader is facing this issue a few times a week, I'd love to hear your thoughts via a blog comment.

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #005

  - by pinaldave

  Here is the list of curetted articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2006 SQL SERVER – Cursor to Kill All Process in Database I indeed wrote this cursor and when I often look back, I wonder how naive I was to write this. The reason for writing this cursor was to free up my database from any existing connection so I can do database operation. This worked fine but there can be a potentially big issue if there was any important transaction was killed by this process. There is another way to to achieve the same thing where we can use ALTER syntax to take database in single user mode. Read more about that over here and here. 2007 Rules of Third Normal Form and Normalization Advantage – 3NF The rules of 3NF are mentioned here Make a separate table for each set of related attributes, and give each table a primary key. If an attribute depends on only part of a multi-valued key, remove it to a separate table If attributes do not contribute to a description of the key, remove them to a separate table. Correct Syntax for Stored Procedure SP Sometime a simple question is the most important question. I often see in industry incorrectly written Stored Procedure. Few writes code after the most outer BEGIN…END and few writes code after the GO Statement. In this brief blog post, I have attempted to explain the same. 2008 Switch Between Result Pan and Query Pan – SQL Shortcut Many times when I am writing query I have to scroll the result displayed in the result set. Most of the developer uses the mouse to switch between and Query Pane and Result Pane. There are few developers who are crazy about Keyboard shortcuts. F6 is the keyword which can be used to switch between query pane and tabs of the result pane. Interesting Observation – Use of Index and Execution Plan Query Optimization is a complex game and it has its own rules. From the example in the article we have discovered that Query Optimizer does not use clustered index to retrieve data, sometime non clustered index provides optimal performance for retrieving Primary Key. When all the rows and columns are selected Primary Key should be used to select data as it provides optimal performance. 2009 Interesting Observation – TOP 100 PERCENT and ORDER BY If you pull up any application or system where there are more than 100 SQL Server Views are created – I am very confident that at one or two places you will notice the scenario wherein View the ORDER BY clause is used with TOP 100 PERCENT. SQL Server 2008 VIEW with ORDER BY clause does not throw an error; moreover, it does not acknowledge the presence of it as well. In this article we have taken three perfect examples and demonstrated which clause we should use when. Comma Separated Values (CSV) from Table Column A Very common question – How to create comma separated values from a table in the database? The answer is also very common if we use XML. Check out this article for quick learning on the same subject. Azure Start Guide – Step by Step Installation Guide Though Azure portal has changed a quite bit since I wrote this article, the concept used in this article are not old. They are still valid and many of the functions are still working as mentioned in the article. I believe this one article will put you on the track to use Azure! Size of Index Table for Each Index – Solution Earlier I have posted a small question on this blog and requested help from readers to participate here and provide a solution. The puzzle was to write a query that will return the size for each index that is on any particular table. We need a query that will return an additional column in the above listed query and it should contain the size of the index. This article presents two of the best solutions from the puzzle. 2010 Well, this week in 2010 was the week of puzzles as I posted three interesting puzzles. Till today I am noticing pretty good interesting in the puzzles. They are tricky but for sure brings a great value if you are a database developer for a long time. I suggest you go over this puzzles and their answers. Did you really know all of the answers? I am confident that reading following three blog post will for sure help you enhance the experience with T-SQL. SQL SERVER – Challenge – Puzzle – Usage of FAST Hint SQL SERVER – Puzzle – Challenge – Error While Converting Money to Decimal SQL SERVER – Challenge – Puzzle – Why does RIGHT JOIN Exists 2011 DVM sys.dm_os_sys_info Column Name Changed in SQL Server 2012 Have you ever faced a situation where something does not work? When you try to fix it - you enjoy fixing it and started to appreciate the breaking changes. Well, this was exactly I felt yesterday. Before I begin my story, I want to candidly state that I do not encourage anybody to use * in the SELECT statement. Now the disclaimer is over – I suggest you read the original story – you will love it! Get Directory Structure using Extended Stored Procedure xp_dirtree Here is the question to you – why would you do something in SQL Server where you can do the same task in command prompt much easily. Well, the answer is sometime there are real use cases when we have to do such thing. This is a similar example where I have demonstrated how in SQL Server 2012 we can use extended stored procedure to retrieve directory structure. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – SQL in Sixty Seconds – 5 Videos from Joes 2 Pros Series – SQL Exam Prep Series 70-433

  - by pinaldave

  Joes 2 Pros SQL Server Learning series is indeed fun. Joes 2 Pros series is written for beginners and who wants to build expertise for SQL Server programming and development from fundamental. In the beginning of the series author Rick Morelan is not shy to explain the simplest concept of how to open SQL Server Management Studio. Honestly the book starts with that much basic but as it progresses further Rick discussing about various advanced concepts from query tuning to Core Architecture. This five part series is written with keeping SQL Server Exam 70-433. Instead of just focusing on what will be there in exam, this series is focusing on learning the important concepts thoroughly. This book no way take short cut to explain any concepts and at times, will go beyond the topic at length. The best part is that all the books has many companion videos explaining the concepts and videos. Every Wednesday I like to post a video which explains something in quick few seconds. Today we will go over five videos which I posted in my earlier posts related to Joes 2 Pros series. Introduction to XML Data Type Methods – SQL in Sixty Seconds #015 The XML data type was first introduced with SQL Server 2005. This data type continues with SQL Server 2008 where expanded XML features are available, most notably is the power of the XQuery language to analyze and query the values contained in your XML instance. There are five XML data type methods available in SQL Server 2008: query() – Used to extract XML fragments from an XML data type. value() – Used to extract a single value from an XML document. exist() – Used to determine if a specified node exists. Returns 1 if yes and 0 if no. modify() – Updates XML data in an XML data type. node() – Shreds XML data into multiple rows (not covered in this blog post). [Detailed Blog Post] | [Quiz with Answer] Introduction to SQL Error Actions – SQL in Sixty Seconds #014 Most people believe that when SQL Server encounters an error severity level 11 or higher the remaining SQL statements will not get executed. In addition, people also believe that if any error severity level of 11 or higher is hit inside an explicit transaction, then the whole statement will fail as a unit. While both of these beliefs are true 99% of the time, they are not true in all cases. It is these outlying cases that frequently cause unexpected results in your SQL code. To understand how to achieve consistent results you need to know the four ways SQL Error Actions can react to error severity levels 11-16: Statement Termination – The statement with the procedure fails but the code keeps on running to the next statement. Transactions are not affected. Scope Abortion – The current procedure, function or batch is aborted and the next calling scope keeps running. That is, if Stored Procedure A calls B and C, and B fails, then nothing in B runs but A continues to call C. @@Error is set but the procedure does not have a return value. Batch Termination – The entire client call is terminated. XACT_ABORT – (ON = The entire client call is terminated.) or (OFF = SQL Server will choose how to handle all errors.) [Detailed Blog Post] | [Quiz with Answer] Introduction to Basics of a Query Hint – SQL in Sixty Seconds #013 Query hints specify that the indicated hints should be used throughout the query. Query hints affect all operators in the statement and are implemented using the OPTION clause. Cautionary Note: Because the SQL Server Query Optimizer typically selects the best execution plan for a query, it is highly recommended that hints be used as a last resort for experienced developers and database administrators to achieve the desired results. [Detailed Blog Post] | [Quiz with Answer] Introduction to Hierarchical Query – SQL in Sixty Seconds #012 A CTE can be thought of as a temporary result set and are similar to a derived table in that it is not stored as an object and lasts only for the duration of the query. A CTE is generally considered to be more readable than a derived table and does not require the extra effort of declaring a Temp Table while providing the same benefits to the user. However; a CTE is more powerful than a derived table as it can also be self-referencing, or even referenced multiple times in the same query. A recursive CTE requires four elements in order to work properly: Anchor query (runs once and the results ‘seed’ the Recursive query) Recursive query (runs multiple times and is the criteria for the remaining results) UNION ALL statement to bind the Anchor and Recursive queries together. INNER JOIN statement to bind the Recursive query to the results of the CTE. [Detailed Blog Post] | [Quiz with Answer] Introduction to SQL Server Security – SQL in Sixty Seconds #011 Let’s get some basic definitions down first. Take the workplace example where “Tom” needs “Read” access to the “Financial Folder”. What are the Securable, Principal, and Permissions from that last sentence? A Securable is a resource that someone might want to access (like the Financial Folder). A Principal is anything that might want to gain access to the securable (like Tom). A Permission is the level of access a principal has to a securable (like Read). [Detailed Blog Post] | [Quiz with Answer] Please leave a comment explain which one was your favorite video as that will help me understand what works and what needs improvement. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video

  Read the article

• Explaining Explain Plan Notes for Auto DOP

  - by jean-pierre.dijcks

  I've recently gotten some questions around "why do I not see a parallel plan" while Auto DOP is on (I think)...? It is probably worthwhile to quickly go over some of the ways to find out what Auto DOP was thinking. In general, there is no need to go tracing sessions and look under the hood. The thing to start with is to do an explain plan on your statement and to look at the parameter settings on the system. Parameter Settings to Look At First and foremost, make sure that parallel_degree_policy = AUTO. If you have that parameter set to LIMITED you will not have queuing and we will only do the auto magic if your objects are set to default parallel (so no degree specified). Next you want to look at the value of parallel_degree_limit. It is typically set to CPU, which in default settings equates to the Default DOP of the system. If you are testing Auto DOP itself and the impact it has on performance you may want to leave it at this CPU setting. If you are running concurrent statements you may want to give this some more thoughts. See here for more information. In general, do stick with either CPU or with a specific number. For now avoid the IO setting as I've seen some mixed results with that... In 11.2.0.2 you should also check that IO Calibrate has been run. Best to simply do a: SQL> select * from V$IO_CALIBRATION_STATUS; STATUS        CALIBRATION_TIME ------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------- READY         04-JAN-11 10.04.13.104 AM You should see that your IO Calibrate is READY and therefore Auto DOP is ready. In any case, if you did not run the IO Calibrate step you will get the following note in the explain plan: Note -----    - automatic DOP: skipped because of IO calibrate statistics are missing One more note on calibrate_io, if you do not have asynchronous IO enabled you will see:  ERROR at line 1: ORA-56708: Could not find any datafiles with asynchronous i/o capability ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_RMIN", line 463 ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_RESOURCE_MANAGER", line 1296 ORA-06512: at line 7 While this is changed in some fixes to the calibrate procedure, you should really consider switching asynchronous IO on for your data warehouse. Explain Plan Explanation To see the notes that are shown and explained here (and the above little snippet ) you can use a simple explain plan mechanism. There should  be no need to add +parallel etc. explain plan for <statement> SELECT PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT FROM TABLE(DBMS_XPLAN.DISPLAY()); Auto DOP The note structure displaying why Auto DOP did not work (with the exception noted above on IO Calibrate) is like this: Automatic degree of parallelism is disabled: <reason> These are the reason codes: Parameter -  parallel_degree_policy = manual which will not allow Auto DOP to kick in  Hint - One of the following hints are used NOPARALLEL, PARALLEL(1), PARALLEL(MANUAL) Outline - A SQL outline of an older version (before 11.2) is used SQL property restriction - The statement type does not allow for parallel processing Rule-based mode - Instead of the Cost Based Optimizer the system is using the RBO Recursive SQL statement - The statement type does not allow for parallel processing pq disabled/pdml disabled/pddl disabled - For some reason (alter session?) parallelism is disabled Limited mode but no parallel objects referenced - your parallel_degree_policy = LIMITED and no objects in the statement are decorated with the default PARALLEL degree. In most cases all objects have a specific degree in which case Auto DOP will honor that degree. Parallel Degree Limited When Auto DOP does it works you may see the cap you imposed with parallel_degree_limit showing up in the note section of the explain plan: Note -----    - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 16 because of degree limit This is an obvious indication that your are being capped for this statement. There is one quite interesting one that happens when you are being capped at DOP = 1. First of you get a serial plan and the note changes slightly in that it does not indicate it is being capped (we hope to update the note at some point in time to be more specific). It right now looks like this: Note -----    - automatic DOP: Computed Degree of Parallelism is 1 Dynamic Sampling With 11.2.0.2 you will start seeing another interesting change in parallel plans, and since we are talking about the note section here, I figured we throw this in for good measure. If we deem the parallel (!) statement complex enough, we will enact dynamic sampling on your query. This happens as long as you did not change the default for dynamic sampling on the system. The note looks like this: Note ----- - dynamic sampling used for this statement (level=5)

  Read the article

• Why is Oracle using a skip scan for this query?

  - by Jason Baker

  Here's the tkprof output for a query that's running extremely slowly (WARNING: it's long :-) ): SELECT mbr_comment_idn, mbr_crt_dt, mbr_data_source, mbr_dol_bl_rmo_ind, mbr_dxcg_ctl_member, mbr_employment_start_dt, mbr_employment_term_dt, mbr_entity_active, mbr_ethnicity_idn, mbr_general_health_status_code, mbr_hand_dominant_code, mbr_hgt_feet, mbr_hgt_inches, mbr_highest_edu_level, mbr_insd_addr_idn, mbr_insd_alt_id, mbr_insd_name, mbr_insd_ssn_tin, mbr_is_smoker, mbr_is_vip, mbr_lmbr_first_name, mbr_lmbr_last_name, mbr_marital_status_cd, mbr_mbr_birth_dt, mbr_mbr_death_dt, mbr_mbr_expired, mbr_mbr_first_name, mbr_mbr_gender_cd, mbr_mbr_idn, mbr_mbr_ins_type, mbr_mbr_isreadonly, mbr_mbr_last_name, mbr_mbr_middle_name, mbr_mbr_name, mbr_mbr_status_idn, mbr_mpi_id, mbr_preferred_am_pm, mbr_preferred_time, mbr_prv_innetwork, mbr_rep_addr_idn, mbr_rep_name, mbr_rp_mbr_id, mbr_same_mbr_ins, mbr_special_needs_cd, mbr_timezone, mbr_upd_dt, mbr_user_idn, mbr_wgt, mbr_work_status_idn FROM (SELECT /*+ FIRST_ROWS(1) */ mbr_comment_idn, mbr_crt_dt, mbr_data_source, mbr_dol_bl_rmo_ind, mbr_dxcg_ctl_member, mbr_employment_start_dt, mbr_employment_term_dt, mbr_entity_active, mbr_ethnicity_idn, mbr_general_health_status_code, mbr_hand_dominant_code, mbr_hgt_feet, mbr_hgt_inches, mbr_highest_edu_level, mbr_insd_addr_idn, mbr_insd_alt_id, mbr_insd_name, mbr_insd_ssn_tin, mbr_is_smoker, mbr_is_vip, mbr_lmbr_first_name, mbr_lmbr_last_name, mbr_marital_status_cd, mbr_mbr_birth_dt, mbr_mbr_death_dt, mbr_mbr_expired, mbr_mbr_first_name, mbr_mbr_gender_cd, mbr_mbr_idn, mbr_mbr_ins_type, mbr_mbr_isreadonly, mbr_mbr_last_name, mbr_mbr_middle_name, mbr_mbr_name, mbr_mbr_status_idn, mbr_mpi_id, mbr_preferred_am_pm, mbr_preferred_time, mbr_prv_innetwork, mbr_rep_addr_idn, mbr_rep_name, mbr_rp_mbr_id, mbr_same_mbr_ins, mbr_special_needs_cd, mbr_timezone, mbr_upd_dt, mbr_user_idn, mbr_wgt, mbr_work_status_idn, ROWNUM AS ora_rn FROM (SELECT mbr.comment_idn AS mbr_comment_idn, mbr.crt_dt AS mbr_crt_dt, mbr.data_source AS mbr_data_source, mbr.dol_bl_rmo_ind AS mbr_dol_bl_rmo_ind, mbr.dxcg_ctl_member AS mbr_dxcg_ctl_member, mbr.employment_start_dt AS mbr_employment_start_dt, mbr.employment_term_dt AS mbr_employment_term_dt, mbr.entity_active AS mbr_entity_active, mbr.ethnicity_idn AS mbr_ethnicity_idn, mbr.general_health_status_code AS mbr_general_health_status_code, mbr.hand_dominant_code AS mbr_hand_dominant_code, mbr.hgt_feet AS mbr_hgt_feet, mbr.hgt_inches AS mbr_hgt_inches, mbr.highest_edu_level AS mbr_highest_edu_level, mbr.insd_addr_idn AS mbr_insd_addr_idn, mbr.insd_alt_id AS mbr_insd_alt_id, mbr.insd_name AS mbr_insd_name, mbr.insd_ssn_tin AS mbr_insd_ssn_tin, mbr.is_smoker AS mbr_is_smoker, mbr.is_vip AS mbr_is_vip, mbr.lmbr_first_name AS mbr_lmbr_first_name, mbr.lmbr_last_name AS mbr_lmbr_last_name, mbr.marital_status_cd AS mbr_marital_status_cd, mbr.mbr_birth_dt AS mbr_mbr_birth_dt, mbr.mbr_death_dt AS mbr_mbr_death_dt, mbr.mbr_expired AS mbr_mbr_expired, mbr.mbr_first_name AS mbr_mbr_first_name, mbr.mbr_gender_cd AS mbr_mbr_gender_cd, mbr.mbr_idn AS mbr_mbr_idn, mbr.mbr_ins_type AS mbr_mbr_ins_type, mbr.mbr_isreadonly AS mbr_mbr_isreadonly, mbr.mbr_last_name AS mbr_mbr_last_name, mbr.mbr_middle_name AS mbr_mbr_middle_name, mbr.mbr_name AS mbr_mbr_name, mbr.mbr_status_idn AS mbr_mbr_status_idn, mbr.mpi_id AS mbr_mpi_id, mbr.preferred_am_pm AS mbr_preferred_am_pm, mbr.preferred_time AS mbr_preferred_time, mbr.prv_innetwork AS mbr_prv_innetwork, mbr.rep_addr_idn AS mbr_rep_addr_idn, mbr.rep_name AS mbr_rep_name, mbr.rp_mbr_id AS mbr_rp_mbr_id, mbr.same_mbr_ins AS mbr_same_mbr_ins, mbr.special_needs_cd AS mbr_special_needs_cd, mbr.timezone AS mbr_timezone, mbr.upd_dt AS mbr_upd_dt, mbr.user_idn AS mbr_user_idn, mbr.wgt AS mbr_wgt, mbr.work_status_idn AS mbr_work_status_idn FROM mbr JOIN mbr_identfn ON mbr.mbr_idn = mbr_identfn.mbr_idn WHERE mbr_identfn.mbr_idn = mbr.mbr_idn AND mbr_identfn.identfd_type = :identfd_type_1 AND mbr_identfn.identfd_number = :identfd_number_1 AND mbr_identfn.entity_active = :entity_active_1) WHERE ROWNUM <= :ROWNUM_1) WHERE ora_rn > :ora_rn_1 call count cpu elapsed disk query current rows ------- ------ -------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- Parse 9936 0.46 0.49 0 0 0 0 Execute 9936 0.60 0.59 0 0 0 0 Fetch 9936 329.87 404.00 0 136966922 0 0 ------- ------ -------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- total 29808 330.94 405.09 0 136966922 0 0 Misses in library cache during parse: 0 Optimizer mode: FIRST_ROWS Parsing user id: 36 (JIVA_DEV) Rows Row Source Operation ------- --------------------------------------------------- 0 VIEW (cr=102 pr=0 pw=0 time=2180 us) 0 COUNT STOPKEY (cr=102 pr=0 pw=0 time=2163 us) 0 NESTED LOOPS (cr=102 pr=0 pw=0 time=2152 us) 0 INDEX SKIP SCAN IDX_MBR_IDENTFN (cr=102 pr=0 pw=0 time=2140 us)(object id 341053) 0 TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID MBR (cr=0 pr=0 pw=0 time=0 us) 0 INDEX UNIQUE SCAN PK_CLAIMANT (cr=0 pr=0 pw=0 time=0 us)(object id 334044) Rows Execution Plan ------- --------------------------------------------------- 0 SELECT STATEMENT MODE: HINT: FIRST_ROWS 0 VIEW 0 COUNT (STOPKEY) 0 NESTED LOOPS 0 INDEX MODE: ANALYZED (SKIP SCAN) OF 'IDX_MBR_IDENTFN' (INDEX (UNIQUE)) 0 TABLE ACCESS MODE: ANALYZED (BY INDEX ROWID) OF 'MBR' (TABLE) 0 INDEX MODE: ANALYZED (UNIQUE SCAN) OF 'PK_CLAIMANT' (INDEX (UNIQUE)) ******************************************************************************** Based on my reading of Oracle's documentation of skip scans, a skip scan is most useful when the first column of an index has a low number of unique values. The thing is that the first index of this column is a unique primary key. So am I correct in assuming that a skip scan is the wrong thing to do here? Also, what kind of scan should it be doing? Should I do some more hinting for this query? EDIT: I should also point out that the query's where clause uses the columns in IDX_MBR_IDENTFN and no columns other than what's in that index. So as far as I can tell, I'm not skipping any columns.

  Read the article

• Xcache - No different after using it

  - by Charles Yeung

  Hi I have installed Xcache in my site(using xampp), I have tested more then 10 times on several page and the result is same as default(no any cache installed), is it something wrong with the configure? Updated [xcache-common] ;; install as zend extension (recommended), normally "$extension_dir/xcache.so" zend_extension = /usr/local/lib/php/extensions/non-debug-non-zts-xxx/xcache.so zend_extension_ts = /usr/local/lib/php/extensions/non-debug-zts-xxx/xcache.so ;; For windows users, replace xcache.so with php_xcache.dll zend_extension_ts = C:\xampp\php\ext\php_xcache.dll ;; or install as extension, make sure your extension_dir setting is correct ; extension = xcache.so ;; or win32: ; extension = php_xcache.dll [xcache.admin] xcache.admin.enable_auth = On xcache.admin.user = "mOo" ; xcache.admin.pass = md5($your_password) xcache.admin.pass = "" [xcache] ; ini only settings, all the values here is default unless explained ; select low level shm/allocator scheme implemenation xcache.shm_scheme = "mmap" ; to disable: xcache.size=0 ; to enable : xcache.size=64M etc (any size > 0) and your system mmap allows xcache.size = 60M ; set to cpu count (cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep -c processor) xcache.count = 1 ; just a hash hints, you can always store count(items) > slots xcache.slots = 8K ; ttl of the cache item, 0=forever xcache.ttl = 0 ; interval of gc scanning expired items, 0=no scan, other values is in seconds xcache.gc_interval = 0 ; same as aboves but for variable cache xcache.var_size = 4M xcache.var_count = 1 xcache.var_slots = 8K ; default ttl xcache.var_ttl = 0 xcache.var_maxttl = 0 xcache.var_gc_interval = 300 xcache.test = Off ; N/A for /dev/zero xcache.readonly_protection = Off ; for *nix, xcache.mmap_path is a file path, not directory. ; Use something like "/tmp/xcache" if you want to turn on ReadonlyProtection ; 2 group of php won't share the same /tmp/xcache ; for win32, xcache.mmap_path=anonymous map name, not file path xcache.mmap_path = "/dev/zero" ; leave it blank(disabled) or "/tmp/phpcore/" ; make sure it's writable by php (without checking open_basedir) xcache.coredump_directory = "" ; per request settings xcache.cacher = On xcache.stat = On xcache.optimizer = Off [xcache.coverager] ; per request settings ; enable coverage data collecting for xcache.coveragedump_directory and xcache_coverager_start/stop/get/clean() functions (will hurt executing performance) xcache.coverager = Off ; ini only settings ; make sure it's readable (care open_basedir) by coverage viewer script ; requires xcache.coverager=On xcache.coveragedump_directory = "" Thanks you

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, February 22, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, February 22, 2010New ProjectsAVDB: System to keep track of orders and the inventory of televisions, DVDs, VCRs etcBooky: Booky is an online Bookmark Management Tool. Gear Up for Lord of the Rings Online (lotro): Windows utility for checking what your LOTRO character currently has equipped and figuring out gear you should get to improve your stats.GotSharp Extensions: GotSharp Extensions is a set of helpful classes and extension methods that can make your coding experience easier and cleaner. Halfwit: A minimalist WPF Twitter client.HOA Starter Kit: A community subdivision website starter kit. First draft.Lua For Irony: Project to define the Lua language using the Irony (http://irony.codeplex.com/) development kit. This work is based heavily on the work done for V...MimeCloud: Scalable .NET Digital Asset & Media Management: MimeCloud is a scalable digital asset library & media management toolset. Founded by Alex Norcliffe and Peter Miller Written by people who have b...Parallel Mandelbrot Set solver: Solving the Mandelbrot set using the Parallel class in .NET 4.0. Showing the resulting image in a WPF application. The solution file requires VS 2010.Pomogad - Pomodoro Windows Gadget: Você usa Pomodoro Technique? Não sabe o que é? Veja aqui http://www.pomodorotechnique.com Agora que você já sabe, que tal usar essa técnica? E p...PostCrap - flyweight .NET AOP post compiler: PostCrap is a flyweight attribute based aspect injection .NET post compiler It is written in C# and uses Mono.Cecil to modify assemblies and injec...Software + Service Reference Demo Kit: MS China Developer and Platform Evangelism team created an End-2-End demo for Software + Service. Yet Another SharePoint Tool: YEAST provides you with a simple to integrate approach to generating SharePoint solution packages as part of a Visual Studio project. Zen Coding Visual Studio Plugin: Zen Coding for Visual Studio is plugin for HTML and CSS hi-speed codingNew Releases.Net MSBuild Google Closure Compiler Task: .Net MSBuild Google Closure Compiler Task 1.1: - Corrected issue with regular expression source file and renamingdotNails: dotNails_0.5.9: NOTE - the latest source code has been moved to google code to take advantage of Mercurial source control - http://code.google.com/p/dotnails/sourc...EasyWFUnit: EasyWFUnit-2.2: Release 2.2 of EasyWFUnit, an extension library to support unit testing of Windows Workflow, includes a revised WinForm GUI Test Builder that utili...Fluent Ribbon Control Suite: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite BETA2 (for .NET 4.0RC): Includes Fluent.dll (with .pdb and .xml) and test application compiled with .NET 4.0 RC.FolderSize: FolderSize.Win32.1.0.3.0: FolderSize.Win32.1.0.3.0 A simple utility intended to be used to scan harddrives for the folders that take most place and display this to the user...Fusion Charts Free for SharePoint: 1.3: Fix release for issue #11833 : Feature Must Be Activated on Root of Web Application.GotSharp Extensions: 1.0: First release, containing only a few extension methods for the System.String and System.IO.Stream classes, and a Range utility class.Jeremy's Experimental Repository: FluentValidation with IoC Sample: Sample code for the blog post Using FluentValidation with an IoC containerMiniTwitter: 1.08: MiniTwitter 1.08 更新内容 修正 自動更新が CodePlex の変更で動いていなかった問題を修正 自動更新に失敗すると落ちるバグを修正 通知領域アイコン右クリックで表示されるメニューが消えないバグを修正 変更 ハッシュタグの抽出条件を変更 API のエンドポイ...MSTS Editors & Tools: Simis Editor v0.3: Simis Editor v0.3 Enabled Edit > Undo and Edit > Redo. Undoing/redoing back to last saved state is identified as saved (no prompt on exit, etc.)....Parallel Mandelbrot Set solver: Alpha 1: First releaseParallelTasks: ParallelTasks 2.0 beta1: ParallelTasks 2.0 is a total re-write of the original version. Featuring improved performance and stability and a more consistent API.Personal Expense Tracker: Personal Expense Tracker v0.1 beta: This is the first beta release. Please provide me with your feedback.PostCrap - flyweight .NET AOP post compiler: PostCrap 1.0 AOP source and binaries: PostCrap 1.0 source and binaries (the unit test project contains sample interceptor attributes for exception handling & logging)Protoforma | Tactica Adversa: Skilful 0.1.3.276: AlphaRawr: Rawr 2.3.10: - More improvements to the default filters - Further improvement on avoiding useless gem swaps from the Optimizer. - Normal/Heroic ICC items shou...Reusable Library: v1.0.2: A collection of reusable abstractions for enterprise application developer.Sem.Sync: 2010-02-21 - Synchronization Manager - Beta: This release is not tested very well, so you should use this version only to evaluate new features. - Changed way of handling source-ids in order ...Survey - web survey & form engine: Survey 1.1.0: Release Survey v. 1.1.0.0 Major changes: - layout & graphics completely overhauled - several technical changes & repairs (e.g. matrix question iss...Yet Another SharePoint Tool: Version 1: Version 1Zeta Resource Editor: Release 2010-02-21: New source code release.Most Popular ProjectsWBFS ManagerRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Image Resizer Powertoy Clone for WindowsASP.NETDotNetNuke® Community EditionMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesMost Active ProjectsDinnerNow.netRawrBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleSharpyjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesSharePoint ContribInfoServicepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryPHPExcel

  Read the article

• Interview with Lenz Grimmer about MySQL Connect

  - by Keith Larson

  Keith Larson: Thank you for allowing me to do this interview with you.  I have been talking with a few different Oracle ACEs   about the MySQL Connect Conference. I figured the MySQL community might be missing you as well. You have been very busy with Oracle Linux but I know you still have an eye on the MySQL Community. How have things been?Lenz Grimmer: Thanks for including me in this series of interviews, I feel honored! I've read the other interviews, and really liked them. I still try to follow what's going on over in the MySQL community and it's good to see that many of the familiar faces are still around. Over the course of the 9 years that I was involved with MySQL, many colleagues and contacts turned into good friends and we still maintain close relationships.It's been almost 1.5 years ago that I moved into my new role here in the Linux team at Oracle, and I really enjoy working on a Linux distribution again (I worked for SUSE before I joined MySQL AB in 2002). I'm still learning a lot - Linux in the data center has greatly evolved in so many ways and there are a lot of new and exciting technologies to explore. Keith Larson: What were your thoughts when you heard that Oracle was going to deliver the MySQL Connect conference to the MySQL Community?Lenz Grimmer: I think it's testament to the fact that Oracle deeply cares about MySQL, despite what many skeptics may say. What started as "MySQL Sunday" two years ago has now evolved into a full-blown sub-conference, with 80 sessions at one of the largest corporate IT events in the world. I find this quite telling, not many products at Oracle enjoy this level of exposure! So it certainly makes me feel proud to see how far MySQL has come. Keith Larson: Have you had a chance to look over the sessions? What are your thoughts on them?Lenz Grimmer: I did indeed look at the final schedule.The content committee did a great job with selecting these sessions. I'm glad to see that the content selection was influenced by involving well-known and respected members of the MySQL community. The sessions cover a broad range of topics and technologies, both covering established topics as well as recent developments. Keith Larson: When you get a chance, what sessions do you plan on attending?Lenz Grimmer: I will actually be manning the Oracle booth in the exhibition area on one of these days, so I'm not sure if I'll have a lot of time attending sessions. But if I do, I'd love to see the keynotes and catch some of the sessions that talk about recent developments and new features in MySQL, High Availability and Clustering . Quite a lot has happened and it's hard to keep up with this constant flow of new MySQL releases.In particular, the following sessions caught my attention: MySQL Connect Keynote: The State of the Dolphin Evaluating MySQL High-Availability Alternatives CERN’s MySQL “as a Service” Deployment with Oracle VM: Empowering Users MySQL 5.6 Replication: Taking Scalability and High Availability to the Next Level What’s New in MySQL Server 5.6? MySQL Security: Past and Present MySQL at Twitter: Development and Deployment MySQL Community BOF MySQL Connect Keynote: MySQL Perspectives Keith Larson: So I will ask you just like I have asked the others I have interviewed, any tips that you would give to people for handling the long hours at conferences?Lenz Grimmer: Wear comfortable shoes and make sure to drink a lot! Also prepare a plan of the sessions you would like to attend beforehand and familiarize yourself with the venue, so you can get to the next talk in time without scrambling to find the location. The good thing about piggybacking on such a large conference like Oracle OpenWorld is that you benefit from the whole infrastructure. For example, there is a nice schedule builder that helps you to keep track of your sessions of interest. Other than that, bring enough business cards and talk to people, build up your network among your peers and other MySQL professionals! Keith Larson: What features of the MySQL 5.6 release do you look forward to the most ?Lenz Grimmer: There has been solid progress in so many areas like the InnoDB Storage Engine, the Optimizer, Replication or Performance Schema, it's hard for me to really highlight anything in particular. All in all, MySQL 5.6 sounds like a very promising release. I'm confident it will follow the tradition that Oracle already established with MySQL 5.5, which received a lot of praise even from very critical members of the MySQL community. If I had to name a single feature, I'm particularly and personally happy that the precise GIS functions have finally made it into a GA release - that was long overdue. Keith Larson:  In your opinion what is the best reason for someone to attend this event?Lenz Grimmer: This conference is an excellent opportunity to get in touch with the key people in the MySQL community and ecosystem and to get facts and information from the domain experts and developers that work on MySQL. The broad range of topics should attract people from a variety of roles and relations to MySQL, beginning with Developers and DBAs, to CIOs considering MySQL as a viable solution for their requirements. Keith Larson: You will be attending MySQL Connect and have some Oracle Linux Demos, do you see a growing demand for MySQL on Oracle Linux ?Lenz Grimmer: Yes! Oracle Linux is our recommended Linux distribution and we have a good relationship to the MySQL engineering group. They use Oracle Linux as a base Linux platform for development and QA, so we make sure that MySQL and Oracle Linux are well tested together. Setting up a MySQL server on Oracle Linux can be done very quickly, and many customers recognize the benefits of using them both in combination.Because Oracle Linux is available for free (including free bug fixes and errata), it's an ideal choice for running MySQL in your data center. You can run the same Linux distribution on both your development/staging systems as well as on the production machines, you decide which of these should be covered by a support subscription and at which level of support. This gives you flexibility and provides some really attractive cost-saving opportunities. Keith Larson: Since I am a Linux user and fan, what is on the horizon for  Oracle Linux?Lenz Grimmer: We're working hard on broadening the ecosystem around Oracle Linux, building up partnerships with ISVs and IHVs to certify Oracle Linux as a fully supported platform for their products. We also continue to collaborate closely with the Linux kernel community on various projects, to make sure that Linux scales and performs well on large systems and meets the demands of today's data centers. These improvements and enhancements will then rolled into the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, which is the key ingredient that sets Oracle Linux apart from other distributions. We also have a number of ongoing projects which are making good progress, and I'm sure you'll hear more about this at the upcoming OpenWorld conference :) Keith Larson: What is something that more people should be aware of when it comes to Oracle Linux and MySQL ?Lenz Grimmer: Many people assume that Oracle Linux is just tuned for Oracle products, such as the Oracle Database or our Engineered Systems. While it's of course true that we do a lot of testing and optimization for these workloads, Oracle Linux is and will remain a general-purpose Linux distribution that is a very good foundation for setting up a LAMP-Stack, for example. We also provide MySQL RPM packages for Oracle Linux, so you can easily stay up to date if you need something newer than what's included in the stock distribution.One more thing that is really unique to Oracle Linux is Ksplice, which allows you to apply security patches to the running Linux kernel, without having to reboot. This ensures that your MySQL database server keeps up and running and is not affected by any downtime. Keith Larson: What else would you like to add ?Lenz Grimmer: Thanks again for getting in touch with me, I appreciated the opportunity. I'm looking forward to MySQL Connect and Oracle OpenWorld and to meet you and many other people from the MySQL community that I haven't seen for quite some time! Keith Larson:  Thank you Lenz!

  Read the article

• Is Berkeley DB a NoSQL solution?

  - by Gregory Burd

  Berkeley DB is a library. To use it to store data you must link the library into your application. You can use most programming languages to access the API, the calls across these APIs generally mimic the Berkeley DB C-API which makes perfect sense because Berkeley DB is written in C. The inspiration for Berkeley DB was the DBM library, a part of the earliest versions of UNIX written by AT&T's Ken Thompson in 1979. DBM was a simple key/value hashtable-based storage library. In the early 1990s as BSD UNIX was transitioning from version 4.3 to 4.4 and retrofitting commercial code owned by AT&T with unencumbered code, it was the future founders of Sleepycat Software who wrote libdb (aka Berkeley DB) as the replacement for DBM. The problem it addressed was fast, reliable local key/value storage. At that time databases almost always lived on a single node, even the most sophisticated databases only had simple fail-over two node solutions. If you had a lot of data to store you would choose between the few commercial RDBMS solutions or to write your own custom solution. Berkeley DB took the headache out of the custom approach. These basic market forces inspired other DBM implementations. There was the "New DBM" (ndbm) and the "GNU DBM" (GDBM) and a few others, but the theme was the same. Even today TokyoCabinet calls itself "a modern implementation of DBM" mimicking, and improving on, something first created over thirty years ago. In the mid-1990s, DBM was the name for what you needed if you were looking for fast, reliable local storage. Fast forward to today. What's changed? Systems are connected over fast, very reliable networks. Disks are cheep, fast, and capable of storing huge amounts of data. CPUs continued to follow Moore's Law, processing power that filled a room in 1990 now fits in your pocket. PCs, servers, and other computers proliferated both in business and the personal markets. In addition to the new hardware entire markets, social systems, and new modes of interpersonal communication moved onto the web and started evolving rapidly. These changes cause a massive explosion of data and a need to analyze and understand that data. Taken together this resulted in an entirely different landscape for database storage, new solutions were needed. A number of novel solutions stepped up and eventually a category called NoSQL emerged. The new market forces inspired the CAP theorem and the heated debate of BASE vs. ACID. But in essence this was simply the market looking at what to trade off to meet these new demands. These new database systems shared many qualities in common. There were designed to address massive amounts of data, millions of requests per second, and scale out across multiple systems. The first large-scale and successful solution was Dynamo, Amazon's distributed key/value database. Dynamo essentially took the next logical step and added a twist. Dynamo was to be the database of record, it would be distributed, data would be partitioned across many nodes, and it would tolerate failure by avoiding single points of failure. Amazon did this because they recognized that the majority of the dynamic content they provided to customers visiting their web store front didn't require the services of an RDBMS. The queries were simple, key/value look-ups or simple range queries with only a few queries that required more complex joins. They set about to use relational technology only in places where it was the best solution for the task, places like accounting and order fulfillment, but not in the myriad of other situations. The success of Dynamo, and it's design, inspired the next generation of Non-SQL, distributed database solutions including Cassandra, Riak and Voldemort. The problem their designers set out to solve was, "reliability at massive scale" so the first focal point was distributed database algorithms. Underneath Dynamo there is a local transactional database; either Berkeley DB, Berkeley DB Java Edition, MySQL or an in-memory key/value data structure. Dynamo was an evolution of local key/value storage onto networks. Cassandra, Riak, and Voldemort all faced similar design decisions and one, Voldemort, choose Berkeley DB Java Edition for it's node-local storage. Riak at first was entirely in-memory, but has recently added write-once, append-only log-based on-disk storage similar type of storage as Berkeley DB except that it is based on a hash table which must reside entirely in-memory rather than a btree which can live in-memory or on disk. Berkeley DB evolved too, we added high availability (HA) and a replication manager that makes it easy to setup replica groups. Berkeley DB's replication doesn't partitioned the data, every node keeps an entire copy of the database. For consistency, there is a single node where writes are committed first - a master - then those changes are delivered to the replica nodes as log records. Applications can choose to wait until all nodes are consistent, or fire and forget allowing Berkeley DB to eventually become consistent. Berkeley DB's HA scales-out quite well for read-intensive applications and also effectively eliminates the central point of failure by allowing replica nodes to be elected (using a PAXOS algorithm) to mastership if the master should fail. This implementation covers a wide variety of use cases. MemcacheDB is a server that implements the Memcache network protocol but uses Berkeley DB for storage and HA to replicate the cache state across all the nodes in the cache group. Google Accounts, the user authentication layer for all Google properties, was until recently running Berkeley DB HA. That scaled to a globally distributed system. That said, most NoSQL solutions try to partition (shard) data across nodes in the replication group and some allow writes as well as reads at any node, Berkeley DB HA does not. So, is Berkeley DB a "NoSQL" solution? Not really, but it certainly is a component of many of the existing NoSQL solutions out there. Forgetting all the noise about how NoSQL solutions are complex distributed databases when you boil them down to a single node you still have to store the data to some form of stable local storage. DBMs solved that problem a long time ago. NoSQL has more to do with the layers on top of the DBM; the distributed, sometimes-consistent, partitioned, scale-out storage that manage key/value or document sets and generally have some form of simple HTTP/REST-style network API. Does Berkeley DB do that? Not really. Is Berkeley DB a "NoSQL" solution today? Nope, but it's the most robust solution on which to build such a system. Re-inventing the node-local data storage isn't easy. A lot of people are starting to come to appreciate the sophisticated features found in Berkeley DB, even mimic them in some cases. Could Berkeley DB grow into a NoSQL solution? Absolutely. Our key/value API could be extended over the net using any of a number of existing network protocols such as memcache or HTTP/REST. We could adapt our node-local data partitioning out over replicated nodes. We even have a nice query language and cost-based query optimizer in our BDB XML product that we could reuse were we to build out a document-based NoSQL-style product. XML and JSON are not so different that we couldn't adapt one to work with the other interchangeably. Without too much effort we could add what's missing, we could jump into this No SQL market withing a single product development cycle. Why isn't Berkeley DB already a NoSQL solution? Why aren't we working on it? Why indeed...

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #052

  - by Pinal Dave

  Let us continue with the final episode of the Memory Lane Series. Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 Set Server Level FILLFACTOR Using T-SQL Script Specifies a percentage that indicates how full the Database Engine should make the leaf level of each index page during index creation or alteration. fillfactor must be an integer value from 1 to 100. The default is 0. Limitation of Online Index Rebuld Operation Online operation means when online operations are happening in the database are in normal operational condition, the processes which are participating in online operations does not require exclusive access to the database. Get Permissions of My Username / Userlogin on Server / Database A few days ago, I was invited to one of the largest database company. I was asked to review database schema and propose changes to it. There was special username or user logic was created for me, so I can review their database. I was very much interested to know what kind of permissions I was assigned per server level and database level. I did not feel like asking Sr. DBA the question about permissions. Simple Example of WHILE Loop With CONTINUE and BREAK Keywords This question is one of those questions which is very simple and most of the users get it correct, however few users find it confusing for the first time. I have tried to explain the usage of simple WHILE loop in the first example. BREAK keyword will exit the stop the while loop and control is moved to the next statement after the while loop. CONTINUE keyword skips all the statement after its execution and control is sent to the first statement of while loop. Forced Parameterization and Simple Parameterization – T-SQL and SSMS When the PARAMETERIZATION option is set to FORCED, any literal value that appears in a SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE statement is converted to a parameter during query compilation. When the PARAMETERIZATION database option is SET to SIMPLE, the SQL Server query optimizer may choose to parameterize the queries. 2008 Transaction and Local Variables – Swap Variables – Update All At Once Concept Summary : Transaction have no effect over memory variables. When UPDATE statement is applied over any table (physical or memory) all the updates are applied at one time together when the statement is committed. First of all I suggest that you read the article listed above about the effect of transaction on local variant. As seen there local variables are independent of any transaction effect. Simulate INNER JOIN using LEFT JOIN statement – Performance Analysis Just a day ago, while I was working with JOINs I find one interesting observation, which has prompted me to create following example. Before we continue further let me make very clear that INNER JOIN should be used where it cannot be used and simulating INNER JOIN using any other JOINs will degrade the performance. If there are scopes to convert any OUTER JOIN to INNER JOIN it should be done with priority. 2009 Introduction to Business Intelligence – Important Terms & Definitions Business intelligence (BI) is a broad category of application programs and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data from various data sources, thus providing enterprise users with reliable and timely information and analysis for improved decision making. Difference Between Candidate Keys and Primary Key Candidate Key – A Candidate Key can be any column or a combination of columns that can qualify as unique key in database. There can be multiple Candidate Keys in one table. Each Candidate Key can qualify as Primary Key. Primary Key – A Primary Key is a column or a combination of columns that uniquely identify a record. Only one Candidate Key can be Primary Key. 2010 Taking Multiple Backup of Database in Single Command – Mirrored Database Backup I recently had a very interesting experience. In one of my recent consultancy works, I was told by our client that they are going to take the backup of the database and will also a copy of it at the same time. I expressed that it was surely possible if they were going to use a mirror command. In addition, they told me that whenever they take two copies of the database, the size of the database, is always reduced. Now this was something not clear to me, I said it was not possible and so I asked them to show me the script. Corrupted Backup File and Unsuccessful Restore The CTO, who was also present at the location, got very upset with this situation. He then asked when the last successful restore test was done. As expected, the answer was NEVER.There were no successful restore tests done before. During that time, I was present and I could clearly see the stress, confusion, carelessness and anger around me. I did not appreciate the feeling and I was pretty sure that no one in there wanted the atmosphere like me. 2011 TRACEWRITE – Wait Type – Wait Related to Buffer and Resolution SQL Trace is a SQL Server database engine technology which monitors specific events generated when various actions occur in the database engine. When any event is fired it goes through various stages as well various routes. One of the routes is Trace I/O Provider, which sends data to its final destination either as a file or rowset. DATEDIFF – Accuracy of Various Dateparts If you want to have accuracy in seconds, you need to use a different approach. In the first example, the accurate method is to find the number of seconds first and then divide it by 60 to convert it in minutes. Dedicated Access Control for SQL Server Express Edition http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k00z82u4OI Book Signing at SQLPASS 2012 Who I Am And How I Got Here – True Story as Blog Post If there was a shortcut to success – I want to know. I learnt SQL Server hard way and I am still learning. There are so many things, I have to learn. There is not enough time to learn everything which we want to learn. I am constantly working on it every day. I welcome you to join my journey as well. Please join me in my journey to learn SQL Server – more the merrier. Vacation, Travel and Study – A New Concept Even those who have advanced degrees and went to college for years, or even decades, find studying hard.  There is a difference between studying for a career and studying for a certification.  At least to get a degree there is a variety of subjects, with labs, exams, and practice problems to make things more interesting. Order By Numeric Values Formatted as String We have a table which has a column containing alphanumeric data. The data always has first as an integer and later part as a string. The business need is to order the data based on the first part of the alphanumeric data which is an integer. Now the problem is that no matter how we use ORDER BY the result is not produced as expected. Let us understand this with an example. Resolving SQL Server Connection Errors – SQL in Sixty Seconds #030 – Video One of the most famous errors related to SQL Server is about connecting to SQL Server itself. Here is how it goes, most of the time developers have worked with SQL Server and knows pretty much every error which they face during development language. However, hardly they install fresh SQL Server. As the installation of the SQL Server is a rare occasion unless you are a DBA who is responsible for such an instance – the error faced during installations are pretty rare as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k00z82u4OI Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• Massive Silverlight Giveaway! DevExpress , Syncfusion, Crypto Obfuscator and SL Spy!

  - by mbcrump

  Oh my, have we grown! Maybe I should change the name to Multiple Silverlight Giveaways. So far, my Silverlight giveaways have been such a success that I’m going to be able to give away more than one Silverlight product every month. Last month, we gave away 3 great products. 1) ComponentOne Silverlight Controls 2)  ComponentOne XAP Optimizer (with obfuscation) and 3) Silverlight Spy. This month, we will give away 4 great Silverlight products and have 4 different winners. This way the Silverlight community can grow with more than just one person winning all the prizes. This month we will be giving away: DevExpress Silverlight Controls – Over 50+ Silverlight Controls Syncfusion User Interface Edition - Create stunning line of business silverlight applications with a wide range of components including a high performance grid, docking manager, chart, gauge, scheduler and much more. Crypto Obfuscator – Works for all .NET including Silverlight/Windows Phone 7. Silverlight Spy – provides a license EVERY month for this giveaway. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Win a FREE developer’s license of one of the products listed above! 4 winners will be announced on April 1st, 2011! To be entered into the contest do the following things: Subscribe to my feed. – Use Google Reader, email or whatever is best for you.  Leave a comment below with a valid email account (I WILL NOT share this info with anyone.) Retweet the following : I just entered to win free #Silverlight controls from @mbcrump . Register here: http://mcrump.me/fTSmB8 ! Don’t change the URL because this will allow me to track the users that Tweet this page. Don’t forget to visit each of the vendors sites because they made this possible. MichaelCrump.Net provides Silverlight Giveaways every month. You can also see the latest giveaway by bookmarking http://giveaways.michaelcrump.net . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DevExpress Silverlight Controls Let’s take a quick look at some of the software that is provided in this giveaway. Before we get started with the Silverlight Controls, here is a couple of links to bookmark for the DevExpress Silverlight Controls: The Live Demos of the Silverlight Controls is located here. Great Video Tutorials of the Silverlight Controls are here. One thing that I liked about the DevExpress is how easy it was to find demos of each control. After you install the controls the following Program Group appears complete with “demos” that include full-source.   So, the first question that you may ask is, “What is included?” Here is the official list below. I wanted to show several of the controls that I think developers will use the most. The Book – Very rich animation between switching pages. Very easy to add your own images and custom text. The Menu – This is another control that just looked great. You can easily add images to the menu items with a few lines of XAML. The Window / Dialog Box – You can use this control to make a very beautiful “Wizard” to help your users navigate between pages. This is useful in setup or installation. Calculator – This would be useful for any type of Banking app. Also a first that I’ve seen from a 3rd party Control company. DatePicker – This controls feels a lot smoother than the one provided by Microsoft. It also provides the ability to “Clear” the selection. Overall the DevExpress Silverlight Controls feature a lot of quality controls that you should check out. You can go ahead and download a trial version of it right now by clicking here. If you win the contest you can simply enter your registration key and continue using the product without reinstalling. Syncfusion User Interface Edition Before we get started with the Syncfusion User Interface Edition, here is a couple of links to bookmark. The Live Demos can be found here. You can download a demo of it now at http://www.syncfusion.com/downloads/evalstart. After you install the Syncfusion, you can view the dashboard to run locally installed samples. You may also download the documentation to your local machine if needed. Since the name of the package is “User Interface Edition”, I decided to share several samples that struck me as “awesome”. Dashboard Gauges – I was very impressed with the various gauges they have included. The digital clock also looks very impressive. Diagram – The diagrams are also very easy to build. In the sample project below you can drag/drop the shapes onto the content pane. More complex lines like the Bezier lines are also easy to create using Syncfusion. Scheduling – Another strong component was the Scheduling with built-in support for Themes. Tools – If all of that wasn’t enough, it also comes with a nice pack of essential tools. Syncfusion has a nice variety of Silverlight Controls that you should check out. You can go ahead and download a trial version of it right now by clicking here. Crypto Obfuscator The following feature set is what is important to me in an Obfuscator since I am a Silverlight/WP7 Developer: And thankfully this is what you get in Crypto Obfuscator. You can download a trial version right now if you want to go ahead and play with it. Let’s spend a few moments taking a look at the application. After you have installed Crypto Obfuscator you will see the following screen: After you click on Assemblies you have the option to add your .XAP file in: I went ahead and loaded my .xap file from a Silverlight Application. At this point, you can simply save your project and hit “Obfuscate” and your done. You don’t have to mess with any of the other settings if you don’t want too. Of course, you can change the settings and add obfuscation rules, watermarks and signing if you wish.  After Obfuscation, it looks like this in .NET Reflector: I was trying to browse through methods and it actually crashed Reflector. This confirms the level of protection the obfuscator is providing. If this were a commercial application that my team built, I would have a huge smile on my face right now. Crypto Obfuscator is a great product and I hope you will spend the time learning more about it. Silverlight Spy Silverlight Spy is a runtime inspector tool that will tell you pretty much everything that is going on with the application. Basically, you give it a URL that contains a Silverlight application and you can explore the element tree, events, xaml and so much more. This has already been reviewed on MichaelCrump.net. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Thanks for reading and don’t forget to leave a comment below in order to win one of the four prizes available! Subscribe to my feed

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #034

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 UDF – User Defined Function to Strip HTML – Parse HTML – No Regular Expression The UDF used in the blog does fantastic task – it scans entire HTML text and removes all the HTML tags. It keeps only valid text data without HTML task. This is one of the quite commonly requested tasks many developers have to face everyday. De-fragmentation of Database at Operating System to Improve Performance Operating system skips MDF file while defragging the entire filesystem of the operating system. It is absolutely fine and there is no impact of the same on performance. Read the entire blog post for my conversation with our network engineers. Delay Function – WAITFOR clause – Delay Execution of Commands How do you delay execution of the commands in SQL Server – ofcourse by using WAITFOR keyword. In this blog post, I explain the same with the help of T-SQL script. Find Length of Text Field To measure the length of TEXT fields the function is DATALENGTH(textfield). Len will not work for text field. As of SQL Server 2005, developers should migrate all the text fields to VARCHAR(MAX) as that is the way forward. Retrieve Current Date Time in SQL Server CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, GETDATE(), {fn NOW()} There are three ways to retrieve the current datetime in SQL SERVER. CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, GETDATE(), {fn NOW()} Explanation and Comparison of NULLIF and ISNULL An interesting observation is NULLIF returns null if it comparison is successful, whereas ISNULL returns not null if its comparison is successful. In one way they are opposite to each other. Here is my question to you - How to create infinite loop using NULLIF and ISNULL? If this is even possible? 2008 Introduction to SERVERPROPERTY and example SERVERPROPERTY is a very interesting system function. It returns many of the system values. I use it very frequently to get different server values like Server Collation, Server Name etc. SQL Server Start Time We can use DMV to find out what is the start time of SQL Server in 2008 and later version. In this blog you can see how you can do the same. Find Current Identity of Table Many times we need to know what is the current identity of the column. I have found one of my developers using aggregated function MAX () to find the current identity. However, I prefer following DBCC command to figure out current identity. Create Check Constraint on Column Some time we just need to create a simple constraint over the table but I have noticed that developers do many different things to make table column follow rules than just creating constraint. I suggest constraint is a very useful concept and every SQL Developer should pay good attention to this subject. 2009 List Schema Name and Table Name for Database This is one of the blog post where I straight forward display script. One of the kind of blog posts, which I still love to read and write. Clustered Index on Separate Drive From Table Location A table devoid of primary key index is called heap, and here data is not arranged in a particular order, which gives rise to issues that adversely affect performance. Data must be stored in some kind of order. If we put clustered index on it then the order will be forced by that index and the data will be stored in that particular order. Understanding Table Hints with Examples Hints are options and strong suggestions specified for enforcement by the SQL Server query processor on DML statements. The hints override any execution plan the query optimizer might select for a query. 2010 Data Pages in Buffer Pool – Data Stored in Memory Cache One of my earlier year article, which I still read it many times and point developers to read it again. It is clear from the Resultset that when more than one index is used, datapages related to both or all of the indexes are stored in Memory Cache separately. TRANSACTION, DML and Schema Locks Can you create a situation where you can see Schema Lock? Well, this is a very simple question, however during the interview I notice over 50 candidates failed to come up with the scenario. In this blog post, I have demonstrated the situation where we can see the schema lock in database. 2011 Solution – Puzzle – Statistics are not updated but are Created Once In this example I have created following situation: Create Table Insert 1000 Records Check the Statistics Now insert 10 times more 10,000 indexes Check the Statistics – it will be NOT updated Auto Update Statistics and Auto Create Statistics for database is TRUE Now I have requested two things in the example 1) Why this is happening? 2) How to fix this issue? Selecting Domain from Email Address This is a straight to script blog post where I explain how to select only domain name from entire email address. Solution – Generating Zero Without using Any Numbers in T-SQL How to get zero digit without using any digit? This is indeed a very interesting question and the answer is even interesting. Try to come up with answer in next 10 minutes and if you can’t come up with the answer the blog post read this post for solution. 2012 Simple Explanation and Puzzle with SOUNDEX Function and DIFFERENCE Function In simple words - SOUNDEX converts an alphanumeric string to a four-character code to find similar-sounding words or names. DIFFERENCE function returns an integer value. The  integer returned is the number of characters in the SOUNDEX values that are the same. Read Only Files and SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) I have come across a very interesting feature in SSMS related to “Read Only” files. I believe it is a little unknown feature as well so decided to write a blog about the same. Identifying Column Data Type of uniqueidentifier without Querying System Tables How do I know if any table has a uniqueidentifier column and what is its value without using any DMV or System Catalogues? Only information you know is the table name and you are allowed to return any kind of error if the table does not have uniqueidentifier column. Read the blog post to find the answer. Solution – User Not Able to See Any User Created Object in Tables – Security and Permissions Issue Interesting question – “When I try to connect to SQL Server, it lets me connect just fine as well let me open and explore the database. I noticed that I do not see any user created instances but when my colleague attempts to connect to the server, he is able to explore the database as well see all the user created tables and other objects. Can you help me fix it?” Importing CSV File Into Database – SQL in Sixty Seconds #018 – Video Here is interesting small 60 second video on how to import CSV file into Database. ColumnStore Index – Batch Mode vs Row Mode Here is the logic behind when Columnstore Index uses Batch Mode and when it uses Row Mode. A batch typically represents about 1000 rows of data. Batch mode processing also uses algorithms that are optimized for the multicore CPUs and increased memory throughput. Follow up – Usage of $rowguid and $IDENTITY This is an excellent follow up blog post of my earlier blog post where I explain where to use $rowguid and $identity.  If you do not know the difference between them, this is a blog with a script example. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 7 8 9 10 11 12  | Next Page >