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• SQLAuthority News – Tips for Traveling to Nepal

  - by pinaldave

  If you are a regular reader of this blog, you might know that I travel nearly 20+ days out of 30 days in a month. There are cases when I don’t have a chance to go home for an entire month and my family has to travel to different cities just to meet me. During my recent visit, one of my acquaintances suggested that I should blog about my travel experiences as well. This can be helpful to others who are traveling to the country or city. I have previously written about my experience about all the airlines in India. I would be writing about a few tips about traveling to the beautiful country Nepal today. Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal is very scenic. There are lots of historical places to see and visit. I was fortunate enough to stopover the Pashupatinath Temple, Bhaktapur, Vasantpur and the temple of Kumari Goddess. I also visited casinos there, but even if  I have stayed in Las Vegas for 3 and a half years before, I was not keen on them so I left the casinos just like what I did in Las Vegas . I also traveled to the famous Thamel area by car. Here are my quick tips for anyone who is planning to visit Nepal. They are not categorized but just written in the order that came to my mind. Please note that if you are an Indian, you will get a special privilege everywhere in Nepal, beginning right from the Indian airports. Use the expression “Nameste!” If you want to greet any Indian or Nepali. Indian Nationals do not need visa/passport to enter Nepal. In fact, Indian Nationals can just walk in to Nepal without any passport; but should have any valid Indian ID. There is no use of a passport since it will not be stamped at any immigration ports, whether in India or Nepal. Indian currency is widely accepted everywhere. However, please bring only Rs. 100 bills/notes as Rs. 500 or Rs. 1000 are not accepted. However, casinos there will accept larger bills. Indian National Language – Hindi is widely spoken and understood everywhere. I did not find a single person who had trouble speaking it. Nepali language uses the scripting language as Devnagari, which is similar to Hindi. Here, you will find food of almost every country.  The taste of Nepali food is authentic and very delicious. It is very safe to travel and move around in Kathmandu (despite what media suggests). However, it will really help if you have a friend who speaks Nepali. You can negotiate a few deals and cut off to almost 1/5 of the original quoted price of products sold here. If you are from Gujarat, India – you will find Nepali language sharing many common words. Temples are everywhere, so do not miss to visit a few of them. Pashupatinath is a must. Only followers of Hindu religion (from Nepal and India only) are allowed in most of the holy places. Camera is allowed everywhere except on the holy places. Now it is your turn to share your opinions or any suggestions. I think Nepal is a great country as there are lots of places to visit. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Wireless Router Security and Attached Devices – Complex Password

  - by pinaldave

  In the last four days (April 21-24), I have received calls from friends who told me that they have got strange emails from me. To my surprise, I did not send them any emails. I was not worried until my wife complained that she was not able to find one of the very important folders containing our daughter’s photo that is located in our shared drive. This was alarming in my par, so I started a search around my computer’s folders. Again, please note that I am by no means a security expert. I checked my entire computer with virus and spyware, and strangely, there I found nothing. I tried to think what can cause this happening. I suddenly realized that there was a power outage in my area for about two hours during the days I have mentioned. Back then, my wireless router needed to be reset, and so I did. I had set up my WPA-PSK [TKIP] + WPA2-PSK [AES] very well. My key was very simple ( ‘SQLAuthority1′), and I never thought of changing it. (It is now replaced with a very complex one). While checking the Attached Devices, I found out that there was another very strange computer name and IP attached to my network. And so as soon as I found out that there is strange device attached to my computer, I shutdown my local network. Afterwards, I reconfigured my wireless router with a more complex security key. Since I created the complex password, I noticed that the user is no more connecting to my machine. Subsequently, I figured out that I can also set up Access Control List. I added my networked computer to that list as well. When I tried to connect from an external laptop which was not in the list but with a valid security key, I was not able to access the network, neither able to connect to it. I wasn’t also able to connect using a remote desktop, so I think it was good. If you have received any nasty emails from me (from my gmail account) during the afore-mentioned days, I want to apologize. I am already paying for my negligence of not putting a complex password; by way of losing the important photos of my daughter. I have already checked with my client, whose password I saved in SSMS, so there was no issue at all. In fact, I have decided to never leave any saved password of production server in my SSMS. Here is the tip SQL SERVER – Clear Drop Down List of Recent Connection From SQL Server Management Studio to clean them. I think after doing all this, I am feeling safe right now. However, I believe that safety is an illusion of many times. I need your help and advice if there is anymore I can do to stop unauthorized access. I am seeking advice and help through your comments. Reference : Pinal Dave (http://www.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Security, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• Developer Training – Importance and Significance – Part 1

  - by pinaldave

  Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 Can anyone remember their final day of schooling?  This is probably a silly question because – of course you can!  Many people mark this as the most exciting, happiest day of their life.  It marks the end of testing, the end of following rules set by teachers, and the beginning of finally being able to earn money and work in your chosen field. Beginning in Real World However, many former-students will be disappointed to find out that once they become employees, learning is not over.  Many companies are discovering the importance and benefits to training their employees.  You can breathe a sigh of relief, though, because much for this kind of training there are not usually tests! We often think that we go to school for our younger years so that we do all our learning all at once, and then for the rest of our lives we use that knowledge.  But in so many cases, but especially for developers, the opposite is true.  It takes many years of schools to learn the basics of a field, and then our careers are spent learning to become experts. For this, and so many other reasons, training is very important.  Example one: developer training leads to better employees.  A company is only as good as the people it employs, and one way to ensure that you have employed the right candidate is through training.  Training can take a regular “stone” and polish it into a “diamond.”  Employees who have been well-trained will be better at their jobs and produce a better product. Most Expensive Resource Did you know that one of the most expensive operating costs for any company is not buying goods, or advertising, but its employees – especially having to hire new employees.  Bringing in new people, getting them up to speed, and providing them with perks to attract them to a company is a huge cost for companies.  So employee retention – keep the employees you already have, and keeping them happy – is incredibly important from a business aspect.  And research shows that a well-trained employee is a happy employee.  They feel more confident in their job, happier with their position, and more cared-about – and therefore less likely to leave in search of a better job.  Employee training leads to better retention. Good Moral On the subject of keeping employees happy in order to keep them at a company, the complement to that research shows that happier employees are more efficient and overall better at their jobs.  You don’t have to be a scientist to figure out why this is true.  An employee who feel that his company cares about him and his educational future will work harder for the company.  He or she will put in that extra hour during the busy season that makes all the difference in the end.  Good morale is good for the company. If good morale is better for the company, you know that it goes hand-in-hand with something even better – better efficiency.  An employee who is well trained obviously knows more about their job and all the technical aspects.  That means when a problem crops up – and they inevitably do – this employee will be well-equipped to deal with that problem with fewer problems, and no need to go searching for help from higher up.  When employees are well trained, companies run more smoothly. A Better Product Of course, all of these “pros” for employee training are leading up to the one thing that companies truly care about – a better product.  We have shown that employees who have been trained to be competitive in the market are happier at the company, they are more efficient, and their morale is better.  The overall result is that the company’s product – whether it is a database, piece of equipment, or even a physical good – is better.  And a better product will always be more competitive on the market. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Auto Complete and Format T-SQL Code – Devart SQL Complete

  - by pinaldave

  Some people call it laziness, some will call it efficiency, some think it is the right thing to do. At any rate, tools are meant to make a job easier, and I like to use various tools. If we consider the history of the world, if we all wanted to keep traditional practices, we would have never invented the wheel.  But as time progressed, people wanted convenience and efficiency, which then led to laziness. Wanting a more efficient way to do something is not inherently lazy.  That’s how I see any efficiency tools. A few days ago I found Devart SQL Complete.  It took less than a minute to install, and after installation it just worked without needing any tweaking.  Once I started using it I was impressed with how fast it formats SQL code – you can write down any terms or even copy and paste.  You can start typing right away, and it will complete keywords, object names, and fragmentations. It completes statement expressions.  How many times do we write insert, update, delete?  Take this example: to alter a stored procedure name, we don’t remember the code written in it, you have to write it over again, or go back to SQL Server Studio Manager to create and alter which is very difficult.  With SQL Complete , you can write “alter stored procedure,” and it will finish it for you, and you can modify as needed. I love to write code, and I love well-written code.  When I am working with clients, and I find people whose code have not been written properly, I feel a little uncomfortable.  It is difficult to deal with code that is in the wrong case, with no line breaks, no white spaces, improper indents, and no text wrapping.  The worst thing to encounter is code that goes all the way to the right side, and you have to scroll a million times because there are no breaks or indents.  SQL Complete will take care of this for you – if a developer is too lazy for proper formatting, then Devart’s SQL formatter tool will make them better, not lazier. SQL Management Studio gives information about your code when you hover your mouse over it, however SQL Complete goes further in it, going into the work table, and the current rate idea, too. It gives you more information about the parameters; and last but not least, it will just take you to the help file of code navigation.  It will open object explorer in a document viewer.  You can start going through the various properties of your code – a very important thing to do. Here are are interesting Intellisense examples: 1) We are often very lazy to expand *however, when we are using SQL Complete we can just mouse over the * and it will give us all the the column names and we can select the appropriate columns. 2) We can put the cursor after * and it will give us option to expand it to all the column names by pressing the Tab key. 3) Here is one more Intellisense feature I really liked it. I always alias my tables and I always select the alias with special logic. When I was using SQL Complete I selected just a tablename (without schema name) and…(just like below image) … and it autocompleted the schema and alias name (the way I needed it). I believe using SQL Complete we can work faster.  It supports all versions of SQL Server, and works SQL formatting.  Many businesses perform code review and have code standards, so why not use an efficiency tool on everyone’s computer and make sure the code is written correctly from the first time?  If you’re interested in this tool, there are free editions available.  If you like it, you can buy it.  I bought it because it works.  I love it, and I want to hear all your opinions on it, too. You can get the product for FREE.  Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Merge Operations – Insert, Update, Delete in Single Execution

  - by pinaldave

  This blog post is written in response to T-SQL Tuesday hosted by Jorge Segarra (aka SQLChicken). I have been very active using these Merge operations in my development. However, I have found out from my consultancy work and friends that these amazing operations are not utilized by them most of the time. Here is my attempt to bring the necessity of using the Merge Operation to surface one more time. MERGE is a new feature that provides an efficient way to do multiple DML operations. In earlier versions of SQL Server, we had to write separate statements to INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE data based on certain conditions; however, at present, by using the MERGE statement, we can include the logic of such data changes in one statement that even checks when the data is matched and then just update it, and similarly, when the data is unmatched, it is inserted. One of the most important advantages of MERGE statement is that the entire data are read and processed only once. In earlier versions, three different statements had to be written to process three different activities (INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE); however, by using MERGE statement, all the update activities can be done in one pass of database table. I have written about these Merge Operations earlier in my blog post over here SQL SERVER – 2008 – Introduction to Merge Statement – One Statement for INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE. I was asked by one of the readers that how do we know that this operator was doing everything in single pass and was not calling this Merge Operator multiple times. Let us run the same example which I have used earlier; I am listing the same here again for convenience. --Let’s create Student Details and StudentTotalMarks and inserted some records. USE tempdb GO CREATE TABLE StudentDetails ( StudentID INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, StudentName VARCHAR(15) ) GO INSERT INTO StudentDetails VALUES(1,'SMITH') INSERT INTO StudentDetails VALUES(2,'ALLEN') INSERT INTO StudentDetails VALUES(3,'JONES') INSERT INTO StudentDetails VALUES(4,'MARTIN') INSERT INTO StudentDetails VALUES(5,'JAMES') GO CREATE TABLE StudentTotalMarks ( StudentID INTEGER REFERENCES StudentDetails, StudentMarks INTEGER ) GO INSERT INTO StudentTotalMarks VALUES(1,230) INSERT INTO StudentTotalMarks VALUES(2,255) INSERT INTO StudentTotalMarks VALUES(3,200) GO -- Select from Table SELECT * FROM StudentDetails GO SELECT * FROM StudentTotalMarks GO -- Merge Statement MERGE StudentTotalMarks AS stm USING (SELECT StudentID,StudentName FROM StudentDetails) AS sd ON stm.StudentID = sd.StudentID WHEN MATCHED AND stm.StudentMarks > 250 THEN DELETE WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE SET stm.StudentMarks = stm.StudentMarks + 25 WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN INSERT(StudentID,StudentMarks) VALUES(sd.StudentID,25); GO -- Select from Table SELECT * FROM StudentDetails GO SELECT * FROM StudentTotalMarks GO -- Clean up DROP TABLE StudentDetails GO DROP TABLE StudentTotalMarks GO The Merge Join performs very well and the following result is obtained. Let us check the execution plan for the merge operator. You can click on following image to enlarge it. Let us evaluate the execution plan for the Table Merge Operator only. We can clearly see that the Number of Executions property suggests value 1. Which is quite clear that in a single PASS, the Merge Operation completes the operations of Insert, Update and Delete. I strongly suggest you all to use this operation, if possible, in your development. I have seen this operation implemented in many data warehousing applications. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Joins, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Merge

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• SQL SERVER – SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD – Wait Type – Day 8 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  This is a very interesting wait type and quite often seen as one of the top wait types. Let us discuss this today. From Book On-Line: Occurs when a task voluntarily yields the scheduler for other tasks to execute. During this wait the task is waiting for its quantum to be renewed. SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD Explanation: SQL Server has multiple threads, and the basic working methodology for SQL Server is that SQL Server does not let any “runnable” thread to starve. Now let us assume SQL Server OS is very busy running threads on all the scheduler. There are always new threads coming up which are ready to run (in other words, runnable). Thread management of the SQL Server is decided by SQL Server and not the operating system. SQL Server runs on non-preemptive mode most of the time, meaning the threads are co-operative and can let other threads to run from time to time by yielding itself. When any thread yields itself for another thread, it creates this wait. If there are more threads, it clearly indicates that the CPU is under pressure. You can fun the following DMV to see how many runnable task counts there are in your system. SELECT scheduler_id, current_tasks_count, runnable_tasks_count, work_queue_count, pending_disk_io_count FROM sys.dm_os_schedulers WHERE scheduler_id < 255 GO If you notice a two-digit number in runnable_tasks_count continuously for long time (not once in a while), you will know that there is CPU pressure. The two-digit number is usually considered as a bad thing; you can read the description of the above DMV over here. Additionally, there are several other counters (%Processor Time and other processor related counters), through which you can refer to so you can validate CPU pressure along with the method explained above. Reducing SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD wait: This is the trickiest part of this procedure. As discussed, this particular wait type relates to CPU pressure. Increasing more CPU is the solution in simple terms; however, it is not easy to implement this solution. There are other things that you can consider when this wait type is very high. Here is the query where you can find the most expensive query related to CPU from the cache Note: The query that used lots of resources but is not cached will not be caught here. SELECT SUBSTRING(qt.TEXT, (qs.statement_start_offset/2)+1, ((CASE qs.statement_end_offset WHEN -1 THEN DATALENGTH(qt.TEXT) ELSE qs.statement_end_offset END - qs.statement_start_offset)/2)+1), qs.execution_count, qs.total_logical_reads, qs.last_logical_reads, qs.total_logical_writes, qs.last_logical_writes, qs.total_worker_time, qs.last_worker_time, qs.total_elapsed_time/1000000 total_elapsed_time_in_S, qs.last_elapsed_time/1000000 last_elapsed_time_in_S, qs.last_execution_time, qp.query_plan FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats qs CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(qs.sql_handle) qt CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan(qs.plan_handle) qp ORDER BY qs.total_worker_time DESC -- CPU time You can find the most expensive queries that are utilizing lots of CPU (from the cache) and you can tune them accordingly. Moreover, you can find the longest running query and attempt to tune them if there is any processor offending code. Additionally, pay attention to total_worker_time because if that is also consistently higher, then  the CPU under too much pressure. You can also check perfmon counters of compilations as they tend to use good amount of CPU. Index rebuild is also a CPU intensive process but we should consider that main cause for this query because that is indeed needed on high transactions OLTP system utilized to reduce fragmentations. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and there is no way that I claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading Book OnLine for further clarification. All of the discussions of Wait Stats in this blog is generic and varies from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on a development server before implementing it to a production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Transcript of Learning SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics – Interview of Vinod Kumar by Pinal Dave

  - by pinaldave

  Recently I just wrote a blog post on about Learning SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics and I received lots of request that if we can share some insight into the course. Here is 200 seconds interview of Vinod Kumar I took right after completing the course. We have few free codes to watch the course, please your comment at http://facebook.com/SQLAuth and we will few of first ones, we will send the code. There are many people who said they would like to read the transcript of the video. Here I have generated the same. Pinal: Vinod, we recently released this course, SQL Server Indexing. It is about performance tuning. So tell me – how do indexes help performance? Vinod: I think what happens in the industry when it comes to performance is that developers and DBAs look at indexes first.  So that’s the first step for any performance tuning exercise, indexing is one of the most critical aspects and it is important to learn it the right way. Pinal: Correct. So what you mean to say is that if you know indexing you can pretty much tune any server and query. Vinod: So I might contradict my false statement now. Indexing is usually a stepping stone but it does not lead you to the end. But it’s good to start with indexing and there are lots of nuances to indexing that you need to understand, like how SQL uses indexing and how performance can improve because of the strategies that you have made. Pinal: But now I’m confused. First you said indexes are good, and then you said that indexes can degrade your performance.  So what is this course about?  I mean how does this course really make an impact? Vinod: Ok -so from the course perspective, what we are trying to do is give you a capsule which gives you a good start. Every journey needs a beginning, you need that first step.  This course is that first step in understanding. This is the most basic, fundamental course that we have tried to attack. This is the fundamentals of indexing, some of the key things that you must know about indexing.   Some of the basics of indexing are lesser known and so I think this course is geared towards each and every one of you out there who wants to understand little bit more about indexing. Pinal: So what I understand is that if I enrolled in this course I will have a minimum understanding about indexing when dealing with performance tuning.  Right? Vinod: Exactly. In this course is we have tried to give you a nice summary. We are talking about clustered indexing, non clustered indexing, too many indexes, too few indexes, over indexing, under indexing, duplicate indexing, columns tune indexing, with SQL Server 2012. There’s lot’s to learn. Pinal: You can see the URL [http://bit.ly/sql-index] of the course on the screen. Go ahead, attend, and let us know what you think about it. Thank you. Vinod: Thank you. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• SQL SERVER – A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words – A Collection of Inspiring and Funny Posts by Vinod Kumar

  - by pinaldave

  One of the most popular quotes is: A picture is worth a thousand words. Working on this concept I started a series over my blog called the “Picture Post”. Rather than rambling over tons of material over text, we are trying to give you a capsule mode of the blog in a quick glance. Some of the picture posts already available over my blog are: Correlation of Ego and Work: Ego and Pride most of the times become a hindrance when we work inside a team. Take this cue, the first ever Picture post was published. Simple and easy to understand concept. Would want to say, Ego is the biggest enemy to humans. Read Original Post. Success (Perception Vs Reality): Personally, have always thought success is not something the talented achieve with the opportunity presented to them, but success is developed using the opportunity in hand now. In this fast paced world where success is pre-defined and convoluted by metrics it is hard to understand how complex it can sometimes be. So I took a stab at this concept in a simple way. Read Original Post. Doing Vs Saying: As Einstein would describe, Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Given the amount of information we get, it is difficult to keep track, learn and implement the same. If you were ever reminded of your college days, there will always be 5-6 people doing different things and we naturally try to emulate what they are doing. This could be from competitive exams GMAT, GRE, CAT, Higher-Ed, B-School hunting etc. Rather than saying you are going to do, it is best to do and then say!!! Read Original Picture Post. Your View Vs Management View: Being in the corporate world can be really demanding and we keep asking this question – “Why me?” when the performance appraisal process ends. In this post I just want to ask you one frank opinion – “Are you really self-critical in your assessments?”. If that is the case there shouldn’t be any heartburns or surprises. If you had just one thing to take back, well forget what others are getting but invest time in making yourself better because that is going to take you longer and further in your career. Read Picture Post. Blogging lifecycle for majority: I am happy and fortunate to be in this blog post because this picture post surely doesn’t apply to SQLAuthority where consistency and persistence have been the hallmark of the blog. For the majority others, who have a tendency to start a blog, get into slumber for a while and write saying they want to get back to blogging, the picture post was specifically done for them. Paradox of being someone else: It is always a dream that we want to become somebody and in this process of doing so, we become nobody. In this constant tussle of lost identity we forget to enjoy the moment that is in front of us. I just depicted this using a simple analogy of our constant struggle to get to the other side, just to realize we missed the wonderful moments. Grass is not greener on the other side, but grass is greener where we water the surface. Read Picture Post. And on the lighter side… Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – The Best Quotes of “Who Wrote This?” Contest

  - by pinaldave

  I am a frequent reader of Brent Ozar PLF, it is one of my favorite blogs. A recent post announced a “Who Wrote This?” contest to see if readers could tell their three contributors apart based on some writing samples. Here are my favorite lines from the sample paragraphs, from each of the three “mystery authors.” Topic 1: Working with Bad Managers Mystery Author A – “Working with bad managers means working against my own happiness, and I’ve come to learn that there’s no changing bad managers.” I love this line because, as anyone who has had a bad manager knows, often a lot of self-doubt rises up. We all have to remember that sometimes the problem is out of our control. Mystery Author B – “Mentor your manager just like you would mentor a junior DBA.” Having a bad manager can be extremely depressing, and we often feel out of control. But we all need to remember that our work is a two-way street, and that sometimes we can subtly influence those above us. Mystery Author C – “The trick to working for all bad managers is to remember that they aren’t your parent. Take charge of your career.” We all also need to learn not to play the blame game. Would you rather stay in a place where you are unhappy, or would you rather take charge of your life? I hope most people would pick the latter. Topic 2: Working with Remote Teams Mystery Author A – “Like almost anything else the key is to make sure that everyone on the team has an understanding of how and when communication will occur.” Communication is so important. I cannot over emphasize how much. And this one line captures how I feel and even communicates the idea clearly! Mystery Author B – “The key to remote team success is verifiable trust: feeling confident that invisible team members are doing the right amount of the right thing at the right time.” I think this line not only captures the key aspects of remote work – verifiable work and trust – but there were so many lines that followed that I loved and could not fit here. The whole paragraph is a list for successful remote work. Everyone could benefit from reading it. Mystery Author C – “What seems clear, precise, and specific in one time zone comes across as vague, soupy, and just plain weird in another.” You know what? I just love this description. The author is right – sometimes vague e-mails really do seem soupy and weird! Topic 3: Working with Your Nemesis Mystery Author A – “Every job is temporary, but your reputation stays with you.” Everyone needs to remember this. The workplace is meant to be a professional arena, and many people have the opinion that work is temporary and disposable. No one wants to work with co-worker like that. Mystery Author B – “Unhealthy conflict is going to lead to leaving three week old tuna fish sandwiches in someone’s desk drawer.” Sometimes humor really is the best policy! Mystery Author C – “Oh no, it’s that guy.” This might seem like a weird phrase to choose as my favorite from an entire paragraph. But the whole piece was written in the form of a story of co-workers getting drunk and plotting against a nemesis. It was too funny to overlook, but too long to post here. A must read! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Data Pages in Buffer Pool – Data Stored in Memory Cache

  - by pinaldave

  This will drop all the clean buffers so we will be able to start again from there. Now, run the following script and check the execution plan of the query. Have you ever wondered what types of data are there in your cache? During SQL Server Trainings, I am usually asked if there is any way one can know how much data in a table is stored in the memory cache? The more detailed question I usually get is if there are multiple indexes on table (and used in a query), were the data of the single table stored multiple times in the memory cache or only for a single time? Here is a query you can run to figure out what kind of data is stored in the cache. USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT COUNT(*) AS cached_pages_count, name AS BaseTableName, IndexName, IndexTypeDesc FROM sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors AS bd INNER JOIN ( SELECT s_obj.name, s_obj.index_id, s_obj.allocation_unit_id, s_obj.OBJECT_ID, i.name IndexName, i.type_desc IndexTypeDesc FROM ( SELECT OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID) AS name, index_id ,allocation_unit_id, OBJECT_ID FROM sys.allocation_units AS au INNER JOIN sys.partitions AS p ON au.container_id = p.hobt_id AND (au.type = 1 OR au.type = 3) UNION ALL SELECT OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID) AS name, index_id, allocation_unit_id, OBJECT_ID FROM sys.allocation_units AS au INNER JOIN sys.partitions AS p ON au.container_id = p.partition_id AND au.type = 2 ) AS s_obj LEFT JOIN sys.indexes i ON i.index_id = s_obj.index_id AND i.OBJECT_ID = s_obj.OBJECT_ID ) AS obj ON bd.allocation_unit_id = obj.allocation_unit_id WHERE database_id = DB_ID() GROUP BY name, index_id, IndexName, IndexTypeDesc ORDER BY cached_pages_count DESC; GO Now let us run the query above and observe the output of the same. We can see in the above query that there are four columns. Cached_Pages_Count lists the pages cached in the memory. BaseTableName lists the original base table from which data pages are cached. IndexName lists the name of the index from which pages are cached. IndexTypeDesc lists the type of index. Now, let us do one more experience here. Please note that you should not run this test on a production server as it can extremely reduce the performance of the database. DBCC DROPCLEANBUFFERS This will drop all the clean buffers and we will be able to start again from there. Now run following script and check the execution plan for the same. USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT UnitPrice, ModifiedDate FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderDetailID BETWEEN 1 AND 100 GO The execution plans contain the usage of two different indexes. Now, let us run the script that checks the pages cached in SQL Server. It will give us the following output. 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. Let me know what you think of this article. I had a great pleasure while writing this article because I was able to write on this subject, which I like the most. In the next article, we will exactly see what data are cached and those that are not cached, using a few undocumented commands. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: DMV, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Optimization, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL DMV

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• Fusion CRM ISV program is gaining weight: Examples of certified add-on's

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  The Fusion CRM ISV program is gaining traction. Please find below few examples of the partners having certified their add-on's to seamlessly work on top of Oracle Fusion CRM. For more information, please contact [email protected] ·         Opportunity-to-Quote.  Big Machines now integrates seamlessly to Oracle Fusion CRM, enabling customers with complex products and services and multiple sales channels to streamline the entire opportunity-to-quote process, including product selection, configuration, pricing, quoting, and approval workflows.  Create a custom hyperlink in the Opportunity to invoke Big Machines CPQ application to create a quote and sync up with the Fusion CRM custom quote object using the CRUD operations. The quote can be updated using the custom button in the custom tab in the opportunity details. See: http://www.bigmachines.com/oracle.php  ·         SaaS Billing and Subscription Management.  Is your prospect/customer asking whether top billing partners support Fusion CRM?  Positioning an integrated CRM solution for billing usage and subscription based services?  Need to implement a billable solution on the Oracle Java Cloud Service?  Aria Systems and Zuora have recently engaged with Oracle to deepen their integrations to Fusion CRM and team with Oracle for joint opportunities.  ·         Google Apps, SharePoint, Email-CRM Integrations o   Do your prospects use Google Apps in their business operations?  A “Best of AppExchange” award winner recently completed their integration for Fusion CRM.  CirrusInsight plugs Fusion CRM web services directly into Gmail, allowing you to search existing opportunity or contact, provide account information, and create an interaction such as phone call, appointment, or email against a customer or contact in Fusion CRM directly from Gmail.  o   An EMEA / France based partner, Aryvart provides bi-directional synchronization of appointments and tasks between Google calendar and Oracle Fusion CRM. For customers, it means adopting Oracle Fusion CRM while continuing to use Google calendar for appointments. o   Looking to lower the barrier and expand in SharePoint accounts?  InFact Group (EMEA / France & Germany) provides Microsoft SharePoint Connector for Oracle Fusion CRM. With this solution, you can store documents attached to an opportunity, into Microsoft SharePoint repository. For customers, it means adopting Oracle Fusion CRM while continuing to collaborate across existing content management infrastructure. o   Need to connect to MacMail, GroupWise, or Outlook/Exchange?  Omni Technology is a partner whose Riva CRM Integration recently engaged for support Fusion CRM as a key platform. Migration Tools from competitive CRMs, to Oracle Fusion CRM.  Data Migration Tools from legacy CRMs, to Oracle Fusion CRM.  A partner with the tools and techniques to speed adoption, Conemis provides data integration tools to export data from legacy CRM, and import into Oracle Fusion CRM via WebServices APIs. For customers, it means reducing cost of data migration from legacy CRM system into Oracle Fusion CRM. 

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• SQLAuthority News – Public Training Classes In Hyderabad 12-14 May – Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008

  - by pinaldave

  After successfully delivering many corporate trainings as well as the private training Solid Quality Mentors, India is launching the Public Training in Hyderabad for SQL Server 2008 and SharePoint 2010. This is going to be one of the most unique and one-of-a-kind events in India where Solid Quality Mentors are offering public classes. I will be leading the training on Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008 Query Optimization & Performance Tuning. This intensive, 3-day course intends to give attendees an in-depth look at Query Optimization and Performance Tuning in SQL Server 2005 and 2008. Designed to prepare SQL Server developers and administrators for a transition into SQL Server 2005 or 2008, the course covers the best practices for a variety of essential tasks in order to maximize the performance. At the end of the course, there would be daily discussions about your real-world problems and find appropriate solutions. Note: Scroll down for course fees, discount, dates and location. Do not forget to take advantage of Discount code ‘SQLAuthority‘. The training premises are very well-equipped as they will be having 1:1 computers. Every participant will be provided with printed course materials. I will pick up your entire lunch tab and we will have lots of SQL talk together. The best participant will receive a special gift at the end of the course. Even though the quality of the material to be delivered together with the course will be of extremely high standard, the course fees are set at a very moderate rate. The fee for the course is INR 14,000/person for the whole 3-day convention. At the rate of 1 USD = 44 INR, this fee converts to less than USD 300. At this rate, it is totally possible to fly from anywhere from the world to India and take the training and still save handsome pocket money. It would be even better if you register using the discount code “SQLAuthority“, for you will instantly get an INR 3000 discount, reducing the total cost of the training to INR 11,000/person for whole 3 days course. This is a onetime offer and will not be available in the future. Please note that there will be a 10.3% service tax on course fees. To register, either send an email to [email protected] or call +91 95940 43399. Feel free to drop me an email at [email protected] for any additional information and clarification. Training Date and Time: May 12-14, 2010 10 AM- 6 PM. Training Venue: Abridge Solutions, #90/B/C/3/1, Ganesh GHR & MSY Plaza, Vittalrao Nagar, Near Image Hospital, Madhapur, Hyderabad – 500 081. The details of the course is as listed below. Day 1 : Strengthen the basics along with SQL Server 2005/2008 New Features Module 01: Subqueries, Ranking Functions, Joins and Set Operations Module 02: Table Expressions Module 03: TOP and APPLY Module 04: SQL Server 2008 Enhancements Day 2: Query Optimization & Performance Tuning 1 Module 05: Logical Query Processing Module 06: Query Tuning Module 07:  Introduction to the Query Processor Module 08:  Review of common query coding which causes poor performance Day 3: Query Optimization & Performance Tuning 2 Module 09:  SQL Server Indexing and index maintenance Module 10:  Plan Guides, query hints, UDFs, and Computed Columns Module 11:  Understanding SQL Server Execution Plans Module 12: Real World Index and Optimization Tips Download the complete PDF brochure. We are also going to have SharePoint 2010 training by Joy Rathnayake on 10-11 May. All the details for discount applies to the same as well. Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Vacation, Travel and Study – A New Concept

  - by pinaldave

  Quite often when developers go to training sessions they either find it very boring because of study or great because they treat it as a vacation. There should be a perfect balance between study and extra activities. Studying is Boring Studying is very hard. Nobody likes to study, very few people are going to list “studying” as one of their favorite hobbies.  Already my young daughter knows she doesn’t want to study, and I don’t want to either.  If you read my blog regularly you know that I am always saying that we need to be students for life.  However, all philosophy aside, if you are put in a room with an instructor to study for eight hours a day, you are going to feel bored, uncomfortable, and unhappy.  I was a trainer myself, and I understand that all-day study sessions are no fun – even for the trainer.  I always tried to be entertaining, but even eight hours of jokes and laughter is tiresome.  Eight hours at a comedy club would be boring after a little while – and if we can’t even enjoy fun stuff for eight hours straight, how can we expect to study for eight hours straight? Studying for Career or Certification 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.  You can also choose your major and what you want to spend your time studying.  For certification you do not have this luxury.  You have to learn and memorize specific parts, and there is no option to change your major if you don’t like it.  Your option is to gain your certification, or fail.  Many people will find that last option unacceptable. Studying at Vacation We have established: eight hours of uninterrupted study is boring.  That is why I am so excited about what my very good friend is doing with Koenig Solutions.  His whole goal was to make classes that are intensive but not in a traditional format.  He adds in aspects of the vacation.  It is true that you will study and sit with instructors for six or eight hours a day, but in the mornings and evenings you can go out and see the sights in exotic locations.  He has chosen the locations for his training courses for their proximity to tourist attractions like the Himalayas, the Taj Mahal, and Goa, India’s most popular resort town.  Every location has access to great experiences like river rafting, safari tours, or meditation.  There are five locations to choose from: Dehli, Dehradun, Shimla (close to the Himalayas), Goa Beach, and Dubai.  After a day of classes and hours of sight-seeing, you will be more than ready to return to campus tired and ready to study.  This is the kind of study I can do! My friend’s point is that studying and fun can still go hand-in-hand.  How many times have we heard a professor say this?  But this time it is true.  There is great fun in learning in exotic locations.  If you want to travel in India and are interested in also taking the opportunity to learn something, let Koenig Solutions know. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – SQL Server Misconceptions and Resolution – A Practical Perspective – TechEd 2012 India

  - by pinaldave

  TechEd India 2012 is just around the corner and I will be presenting there in two different sessions. On the very first day of this event, my presentation will be all about SQL Server Misconceptions and Resolution – A Practical Perspective. The dictionary tells us that a “misconception” means a view or opinion that is incorrect and is based on faulty thinking or understanding. In SQL Server, there are so many misconceptions. In fact, when I hear some of these misconceptions, I feel like fainting at that very moment! Seriously, at one time, I came across the scenario where instead of using INSERT INTO…SELECT, the developer used CURSOR believing that cursor is faster (duh!). Here is the link the blog post related to this. Pinal and Vinod in 2009 I have been presenting in TechEd India for last three years. This is my fourth opportunity to present a technical session on SQL Server. Just like the previous years, I decided to present something different. Here is a novelty of this year: I will be presenting this session with Vinod Kumar. Vinod Kumar and I have a great synergy when we work together. So far, we have written one SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers book and 2 video courses: (1) SQL Server Questions and Answers (2) SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics. Pinal and Vinod in 2011 When we sat together and started building an outline for this course, we had many options in mind for this tango session. However, we have decided that we will make this session as lively as possible while keeping it natural at the same time. We know our flow and we know our conversation highlight, but we do not know what exactly each of us is going to present. We have decided to challenge each other on stage and push each other’s knowledge to the verge. We promise that the session will be entertaining with lots of SQL Server trivia, tips and tricks. Here are the challenges that I’ll take on: I will puzzle Vinod with my difficult questions I will present such misconception that Vinod will have no resolution for it. I need your help.  Will you help me stump Vinod? If yes, come and attend our session and join me to prove that together we are superior (a friendly brain clash, but we must win!). SQL Server enthusiasts and SQL Server fans are going to have gala time at #TechEdIn as we have a very solid lineup of the speaker and extremely interesting sessions at TechEdIn. Read the complete blog post of Vinod. Session Details Title: SQL Server Misconceptions and Resolution – A Practical Perspective (Add to Calendar) Abstract: “Earth is flat”! – An ancient common misconception, which has been proven incorrect as we progressed in modern times. In this session we will see various database misconceptions prevailing and their resolution with the aid of the demos. In this unique session audience will be part of the conversation and resolution. Date and Time: March 21, 2012, 15:15 to 16:15 Location: Hotel Lalit Ashok - Kumara Krupa High Grounds, Bengaluru – 560001, Karnataka, India. Add to Calendar Please submit your questions in the comments area and I will be for sure discussing them during my session. If I pick your question to discuss during my session, here is your gift I commit right now – SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers Book. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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• SQL SERVER – Top 10 “Ease of Use” Features of expressor Studio

  - by pinaldave

  expressor Studio is new data integration platform that is being marketed as the most easy to use tool of its kind.  But “easy to use” can be a relative term – an expert can find a very complex system easy, but a beginner might be stumped.  A recent article online discussed exactly what makes expressor Studio so easy use, and here is my view on this subject. Simple Installation There is one pop-up for one .exe file, and nothing more.  You can’t get much simpler than this.  It is also in the familiar Windows design, so there should be no surprises. No 3rd party software dependency Have you ever tried to download software, only to be slowed down by the need to download a compatible system to run the program, and another to read the user manual, and so on?  expressor Studio was designed specifically to avoid this problem. Microsoft Office Like Ribbon Bar and Menus As mentioned before, everything is in the familiar Windows design, from the pop up windows to the tool bars and menus.  There should be no learning curve for using this program, or even simply trying to navigate around a new system. General Development Design Interface This software has been designed to be simple and straightforward.  Projects can be arranged in a simple “tree” design, that is totally collapsible and can easy be added to or “trimmed” with a click of a button.  It was meant to be logical and easy to follow. Integrated Contextual Help This is a fancy way of saying that you can practically yell “help!” if you do get stuck on something.  Solving a problem is as simple as highlighting and hitting F1 for contextual help. Visual Indicators and Messages Wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly where something has gone wrong before trying to complete a project.  expressor Studio has a built in system to catch mistakes and highlight them in a bright color, flash a warning message, and even disable functions before you can continue – and possibly lose hours of work. Property Inputs and Selectors Every operator will have a list of requirements that need to be filled in.  But don’t worry; you won’t have to make stuff up to fill in the boxes.  Each one will have a drop-down menu with options to choose from – but not too many as to be confusing. Connection Wizards Configuring connections can be the hardest part of a project.  But not with the expressor Studioconnection wizard.  A familiar, Windows-style menu will walk you through connections so quickly you’ll forget what trouble it used to be. Templates With large, complex projects, a majority of your time is often spent simply setting up the files and inputting data.  But expressor Studio allows you to create one file and then save it as a template, saving you hours of boring data input. Extension Manager Let’s say that you need a little more functionality or some new features on your program. A lot of software requires you to download complex plug-ins that need to be decompressed and installed.  However, expressor Studio has extended its system to an Extension Manager, which allows for quick and easy installation of the functionality you need, without the need to download and decompress. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – DMV – sys.dm_os_wait_stats Explanation – Wait Type – Day 3 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  The key Dynamic Management View (DMV) that helps us to understand wait stats is sys.dm_os_wait_stats; this DMV gives us all the information that we need to know regarding wait stats. However, the interpretation is left to us. This is a challenge as understanding wait stats can often be quite tricky. Anyway, we will cover few wait stats in one of the future articles. Today we will go over the basic understanding of the DMV. The Official Book OnLine Reference for DMV is over here: sys.dm_os_wait_stats. I suggest you all to refer this for all the accuracy. Following is a statement from the online book: “Specific types of wait times during query execution can indicate bottlenecks or stall points within the query. Similarly, high wait times, or wait counts server wide can indicate bottlenecks or hot spots in interaction query interactions within the server instance.” This is the statement which has inspired me to write this series. Let us first run the following statement from DMV. SELECT * FROM sys.dm_os_wait_stats ORDER BY wait_time_ms DESC GO Above statement will show us few of the columns. Here it is quick explanation of each of the column. wait_type – this is the name of the wait type. There can be three different kinds of wait types – resource, queue and external. waiting_tasks_count – this incremental counter is a good indication of frequent the wait is happening. If this number is very high, it is good indication for us to investigate that particular wait type. It is quite possible that the wait time is considerably low, but the frequency of the wait is much high. wait_time_ms – this is total wait accumulated for any type of wait. This is the total wait time and includes singal_wait_time_ms. max_wait_time_ms – this indicates the maximum wait type ever occurred for that particular wait type. Using this, one can estimate the intensity of the wait type in past. Again, it is not necessary that this max wait time will occur every time; so do not over invest yourself here. signal_wait_time_ms – this is the wait time when thread is marked as runnable and it gets to the running state. If the runnable queue is very long, you will find that this wait time becomes high. Additionally, please note that this DMV does not show current wait type or wait stats. This is cumulative view of the all the wait stats since server (instance) restarted or wait stats have been cleared. In future blog post, we will also cover two more DMVs which can be helpful to identify wait-related issues. ?sys.dm_os_waiting_tasks sys.dm_exec_requests Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DMV, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Free Print Book on SQL Server Joes 2 Pros Kit

  - by pinaldave

  Rick Morelan and I were discussing earlier this month that what we can give back to the community. We believe our books are very much successful and very well received by the community. The five books are a journey from novice to expert. The books have changed many lives and helped many get jobs as well pass the SQL Certifications. Rick is from Seattle, USA and I am from Bangalore, India. There are 12 hours difference between us. We try to do weekly meeting to catch up on various personal and SQL related topics. Here is one of our recent conversations. Rick and Pinal Pinal: Good Morning Rick! Rick: Good Morning…err… Good Evening to you – Pinal! Pinal: Hey Rick, did you read the recent email which I sent you – one of our reader is thanking us for writing Joes 2 Pros series. He wants to dedicate his success to us. Can you believe it? Rick: Yeah, he is very kind but did you tell him that it is all because of his hard work on learning subject and we have very little contribution in his success. Pinal: Absolutely, I told him the same – I said we just wrote the book but it is he who learned from it and proved himself in his job. It is all him! We were just igniters. Rick: Good response. Pinal: Hey Rick! Are we doing enough for the community? What can we do more? Rick: Hmmm… Let us do something more. Pinal: Remember once we discussed the idea of if anyone who buys our Joes 2 Pros Combo Kit in the next 2 weeks – we will send them SQL Wait Stats for free. What do you say? Rick: I agree! Great Idea! Let us do it. Free Giveaway Well Rick and I liked the idea of doing more. We have decided to give away free SQL Server Wait Stats books to everybody who will purchase Joes 2 Pros Combo Kit between today (Oct 15, 2012) and Oct 26, 2012. This is not a contest or a lucky winner opportunity. Everybody who participates will qualify for it. Combo Availability USA – Amazon India - Flipkart | Indiaplaza Note1: USA kit contains FREE 5 DVDs. India Kit does not contain 5 DVDs due to legal issues. Note2: Indian Kit is priced at special Indian Economic Price. Qualify for Free Giveaway You must have purchased our Joes 2 Pros Combo Kit of 5 books between Oct 15, 2012 and Oct 26, 2012. Purchase before Oct 15, 2012 and after Oct 26, 2012 will not qualify for this giveaway. Send your original receipt (email, order details) to following addresses: “[email protected];[email protected]” with the subject line “Joes 2 Pros Kit Promotion Free Offer”. Do not change the subject line or your email may be missed.  Clearly mention your shipping address with phone number and pin/zip code. Send your receipt before Oct 30, 2012. We will not entertain any conversation after Oct 30, 2012 cut off date. The Free books will be sent to USA and India address only. Availability USA - Amazon | India - Flipkart | Indiaplaza Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Book Review, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – MSQL_XP – Wait Type – Day 20 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  In this blog post, I am going to discuss something from my field experience. While consultation, I have seen various wait typed, but one of my customers who has been using SQL Server for all his operations had an interesting issue with a particular wait type. Our customer had more than 100+ SQL Server instances running and the whole server had MSSQL_XP wait type as the most number of wait types. While running sp_who2 and other diagnosis queries, I could not immediately figure out what the issue was because the query with that kind of wait type was nowhere to be found. After a day of research, I was relieved that the solution was very easy to figure out. Let us continue discussing this wait type. From Book On-Line: ?MSQL_XP occurs when a task is waiting for an extended stored procedure to end. SQL Server uses this wait state to detect potential MARS application deadlocks. The wait stops when the extended stored procedure call ends. MSQL_XP Explanation: This wait type is created because of the extended stored procedure. Extended Stored Procedures are executed within SQL Server; however, SQL Server has no control over them. Unless you know what the code for the extended stored procedure is and what it is doing, it is impossible to understand why this wait type is coming up. Reducing MSQL_XP wait: As discussed, it is hard to understand the Extended Stored Procedure if the code for it is not available. In the scenario described at the beginning of this post, our client was using third-party backup tool. The third-party backup tool was using Extended Stored Procedure. After we learned that this wait type was coming from the extended stored procedure of the backup tool they were using, we contacted the tech team of its vendor. The vendor admitted that the code was not optimal at some places, and within that day they had provided the patch. Once the updated version was installed, the issue on this wait type disappeared. As viewed in the wait statistics of all the 100+ SQL Server, there was no more MSSQL_XP wait type found. In simpler terms, you must first identify which Extended Stored Procedure is creating the wait type of MSSQL_XP and see if you can get in touch with the creator of the SP so you can help them optimize the code. If you have encountered this MSSQL_XP wait type, I encourage all of you to write how you managed it. Please do not mention the name of the vendor in your comment as I will not approve it. The focus of this blog post is to understand the wait types; not talk about others. Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and there is no way that I claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading Book OnLine for further clarification. All the discussion of Wait Stats in this blog is generic and varies from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on a development server before implementing it to a production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Understanding XML – Contest Win Joes 2 Pros Combo (USD 198) – Day 5 of 5

  - by pinaldave

  August 2011 we ran a contest where every day we give away one book for an entire month. The contest had extreme success. Lots of people participated and lots of give away. I have received lots of questions if we are doing something similar this month. Absolutely, instead of running a contest a month long we are doing something more interesting. We are giving away USD 198 worth gift every day for this week. We are giving away Joes 2 Pros 5 Volumes (BOOK) SQL 2008 Development Certification Training Kit every day. One copy in India and One in USA. Total 2 of the giveaway (worth USD 198). All the gifts are sponsored from the Koenig Training Solution and Joes 2 Pros. The books are available here Amazon | Flipkart | Indiaplaza How to Win: Read the Question Read the Hints Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India residents only) 2 Winners will be randomly selected announced on August 20th. Question of the Day: Is following XML a well formed XML Document? <?xml version=”1.0″?> <address> <firstname>Pinal</firstname> <lastname>Dave</lastname> <title>Founder</title> <company>SQLAuthority.com</company> </address> a) Yes b) No c) I do not know Query Hints: BIG HINT POST A common observation by people seeing an XML file for the first time is that it looks like just a bunch of data inside a text file. XML files are text-based documents, which makes them easy to read.  All of the data is literally spelled out in the document and relies on a just a few characters (<, >, =) to convey relationships and structure of the data.  XML files can be used by any commonly available text editor, like Notepad. Much like a book’s Table of Contents, your first glance at well-formed XML will tell you the subject matter of the data and its general structure. Hints appearing within the data help you to quickly identify the main theme (similar to book’s subject), its headers (similar to chapter titles or sections of a book), data elements (similar to a book’s characters or chief topics), and so forth. We’ll learn to recognize and use the structural “hints,” which are XML’s markup components (e.g., XML tags, root elements). The XML Raw and Auto modes are great for displaying data as all attributes or all elements – but not both at once. If you want your XML stream to have some of its data shown in attributes and some shown as elements, then you can use the XML Path mode. If you are using an XML Path stream, then by default all values will be shown as elements. However, it is possible to pick one or more elements to be shown with an attribute(s) as well. Additional Hints: I have previously discussed various concepts from SQL Server Joes 2 Pros Volume 5. SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – OpenXML Options SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Preparing XML in Memory SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Shredding XML SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Using Root With Auto XML Mode SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Using Root With Auto XML Mode SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – What is XML? SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – What is XML? – 2 Next Step: Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question - Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India) Bonus Winner Leave a comment with your favorite article from the “additional hints” section and you may be eligible for surprise gift. There is no country restriction for this Bonus Contest. Do mention why you liked it any particular blog post and I will announce the winner of the same along with the main contest. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – CXPACKET – Parallelism – Advanced Solution – Wait Type – Day 7 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier we discussed about the what is the common solution to solve the issue with CXPACKET wait time. Today I am going to talk about few of the other suggestions which can help to reduce the CXPACKET wait. If you are going to suggest that I should focus on MAXDOP and COST THRESHOLD – I totally agree. I have covered them in details in yesterday’s blog post. Today we are going to discuss few other way CXPACKET can be reduced. Potential Reasons: If data is heavily skewed, there are chances that query optimizer may estimate the correct amount of the data leading to assign fewer thread to query. This can easily lead to uneven workload on threads and may create CXPAKCET wait. While retrieving the data one of the thread face IO, Memory or CPU bottleneck and have to wait to get those resources to execute its tasks, may create CXPACKET wait as well. Data which is retrieved is on different speed IO Subsystem. (This is not common and hardly possible but there are chances). Higher fragmentations in some area of the table can lead less data per page. This may lead to CXPACKET wait. As I said the reasons here mentioned are not the major cause of the CXPACKET wait but any kind of scenario can create the probable wait time. Best Practices to Reduce CXPACKET wait: Refer earlier article regarding MAXDOP and Cost Threshold. De-fragmentation of Index can help as more data can be obtained per page. (Assuming close to 100 fill-factor) If data is on multiple files which are on multiple similar speed physical drive, the CXPACKET wait may reduce. Keep the statistics updated, as this will give better estimate to query optimizer when assigning threads and dividing the data among available threads. Updating statistics can significantly improve the strength of the query optimizer to render proper execution plan. This may overall affect the parallelism process in positive way. Bad Practice: In one of the recent consultancy project, when I was called in I noticed that one of the ‘experienced’ DBA noticed higher CXPACKET wait and to reduce them, he has increased the worker threads. The reality was increasing worker thread has lead to many other issues. With more number of the threads, more amount of memory was used leading memory pressure. As there were more threads CPU scheduler faced higher ‘Context Switching’ leading further degrading performance. When I explained all these to ‘experienced’ DBA he suggested that now we should reduce the number of threads. Not really! Lower number of the threads may create heavy stalling for parallel queries. I suggest NOT to touch the setting of number of the threads when dealing with CXPACKET wait. Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and I no way claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading book on-line for further clarification. All the discussion of Wait Stats over here is generic and it varies by system to system. You are recommended to test this on development server before implementing to production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: DMV, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Solution of Puzzle – Swap Value of Column Without Case Statement

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier this week I asked a question where I asked how to Swap Values of the column without using CASE Statement. Read here: SQL SERVER – A Puzzle – Swap Value of Column Without Case Statement. I have proposed 3 different solutions in the blog posts itself. I had requested the help of the community to come up with alternate solutions and honestly I am stunned and amazed by the qualified entries. I will be not able to cover every single solution which is posted as a comment, however, I would like to for sure cover few interesting entries. However, I am selecting 5 solutions which are different (not necessary they are most optimal or best – just different and interesting). Just for clarity I am involving the original problem statement here. USE tempdb GO CREATE TABLE SimpleTable (ID INT, Gender VARCHAR(10)) GO INSERT INTO SimpleTable (ID, Gender) SELECT 1, 'female' UNION ALL SELECT 2, 'male' UNION ALL SELECT 3, 'male' GO SELECT * FROM SimpleTable GO -- Insert Your Solutions here -- Swap value of Column Gender SELECT * FROM SimpleTable GO DROP TABLE SimpleTable GO Here are the five most interesting and different solutions I have received. Solution by Roji P Thomas UPDATE S SET S.Gender = D.Gender FROM SimpleTable S INNER JOIN SimpleTable D ON S.Gender != D.Gender I really loved the solutions as it is very simple and drives the point home – elegant and will work pretty much for any values (not necessarily restricted by the option in original question ‘male’ or ‘female’). Solution by Aneel CREATE TABLE #temp(id INT, datacolumn CHAR(4)) INSERT INTO #temp VALUES(1,'gent'),(2,'lady'),(3,'lady') DECLARE @value1 CHAR(4), @value2 CHAR(4) SET @value1 = 'lady' SET @value2 = 'gent' UPDATE #temp SET datacolumn = REPLACE(@value1 + @value2,datacolumn,'') Aneel has very interesting solution where he combined both the values and replace the original value. I personally liked this creativity of the solution. Solution by SIJIN KUMAR V P UPDATE SimpleTable SET Gender = RIGHT(('fe'+Gender), DIFFERENCE((Gender),SOUNDEX(Gender))*2) Sijin has amazed me with Difference and Soundex function. I have never visualized that above two functions can resolve the problem. Hats off to you Sijin. Solution by Nikhildas UPDATE St SET St.Gender = t.Gender FROM SimpleTable St CROSS Apply (SELECT DISTINCT gender FROM SimpleTable WHERE St.Gender != Gender) t I was expecting that someone will come up with this solution where they use CROSS APPLY. This is indeed very neat and for sure interesting exercise. If you do not know how CROSS APPLY works this is the time to learn. Solution by mistermagooo UPDATE SimpleTable SET Gender=X.NewGender FROM (VALUES('male','female'),('female','male')) AS X(OldGender,NewGender) WHERE SimpleTable.Gender=X.OldGender As per author this is a slow solution but I love how syntaxes are placed and used here. I love how he used syntax here. I will say this is the most beautifully written solution (not necessarily it is best). Bonus: Solution by Madhivanan Somehow I was confident Madhi – SQL Server MVP will come up with something which I will be compelled to read. He has written a complete blog post on this subject and I encourage all of you to go ahead and read it. Now personally I wanted to list every single comment here. There are some so good that I am just amazed with the creativity. I will write a part of this blog post in future. However, here is the challenge for you. Challenge: Go over 50+ various solutions listed to the simple problem here. Here are my two asks for you. 1) Pick your best solution and list here in the comment. This exercise will for sure teach us one or two things. 2) Write your own solution which is yet not covered already listed 50 solutions. I am confident that there is no end to creativity. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Follow up on – Replace a Column Name in Multiple Stored Procedure all together

  - by pinaldave

  Last month I had a fantastic time with lots of puzzles and brain teasers, the amount of participation which I have received on the blog is indeed inspiring to write more. One of the blog post was about how to replace a column name in all the stored procedures. The article had very interesting conversation as a follow up. Please read the original article Replace a Column Name in Multiple Stored Procedure all together before reading this blog further as they are connected. Let us start few of the interesting comments. SQL Server Expert Imran Mohammed had a wonderful first and excellent note. I suggest all of you to read it. Imran stresses on the Data Modelling and Logical as well as Physical Design. Developers must create a logical design and get approval on naming convention, data types, references, constraints, indexes etc. He further suggested that one should not cut steps but must follow all the industry standards and guidelines. Here extended my blog post with following note – “Extending Pinal’s answer, what you can do is go to database properties, all tasks, scripts objects, in scripting wizard select all the stored procedure for which you want to change column name, export the query to a new window and then do find and replace, all in once window and execute the script. But make sure you check what you are replacing, sometimes column names are also used in table names, for ex:Table Name: Product and Column Name: ProductId, ProductName”. Thanks Imran Great Points!  Gatej Alexandru suggested that it is not good idea to DROP or CREATE but rather use ALTER as quite possible there may be permissions issue as well. Very good point let me see if I can write blog post over it. Vinay Kumar and SQLStudent144 have proposed another method to achieve the same. I am combining their solution and writing them here. Step 1. Press Ctrl+T or change “Result to Text” mode. Step 2. Execute below commands.SELECT 'EXEC sp_helptext [' + referencing_schema_name + '.' + referencing_entity_name + ']' FROM sys.dm_sql_referencing_entities('schema.objectname','OBJECT') Where schema.objectname is the object or table you are searching for. Step 3. Now copy the result and paste in new window. Again Press Ctrl+T or change “Result to Text” mode. Step 4. Copy the result and paste in new window. Execute the query. Step 5. Copy the result and paste in new window. Step 6. Now find your searching text in the script, make necessary changes and execute this script. Do not forget to remove the code which is generated in resultset which are not relevant to the T-SQL Script. Digitqr suggest we can do this for other objects besides Stored Procedure as well. Iosif suggests to use tool SQL Search from RedGate. I guess this sums it well. We have an alternative perspective to our original issue of replacing the column name in multiple stored procedure. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – #TechEdIn – Presenting Tomorrow on SQL Server Misconception and Resolution with Vinod Kumar at TechEd India 2012

  - by pinaldave

  I am excited AND nervous at the same time. I am going to present a very interesting topic tomorrow at an SQL Server track in India. This will be my fourth time presenting at TechEd India. So far, I have received so much feedback about this one session. It seems like every single person out there has their own wishes and requests. I am sure that it is going to very challenging experience to satisfy everyone who attends the event through my presentation. Surprise Element Here is the good news: I am going to co-present this session with Vinod Kumar, my long time friend and co-worker. We have known each other for almost four years now, but this is the very first time that we are going to present together on the big stage of TechEd.  When there are more than two presenters, the usual trick is to practice the session multiple times and know exactly what each other is going to present and talk about. However, there’s a catch – we decided to make it different this time and have shared nothing to each other regarding what exactly we are going to present. This makes everything extremely interesting as each of us will be as clueless as the audience when other person is going to talk. Action Item Here are a few of the action items for all of those who are going to attend this session. Vinod and I will be present at the venue 15 minutes before the session. Do come in early and talk with us. We would be glad to talk with you and see if either of us can accommodate your suggestion in our session. If we do, we will give a surprise gift for you. As discussed, this session is going to be a unique two-presenter session. You will have chance to take a side with one speaker and stump the other speaker. Come early to decide which speaker you want to cheer during the session. Quiz and Goodies By now, you must have figured out that this session is going to be an extremely interactive session. We need your support through your active participation. We will have some really brain-twisting quiz line up just for you. You will have to take part and win surprises from us! Trust me. If you get it right, we will give you something which can help you learn more! We will have a quiz on Twitter as well. We will ask a question in person and you will be able to participate on Twitter. 10 – Demos As I said, both of us do not know what each other is going to present, but there are few things which we know very well. We have 10 demos and 6 slides. I think this is going to be an exciting demo marathon. Trust me, you will love it and the taste of this session will be in your mouth till the next TechEd. Session Details Title: SQL Server Misconceptions and Resolution – A Practical Perspective (Add to Calendar) Abstract: “The earth is flat”! – An ancient common misconception, which has been proven incorrect as we progressed in modern times. In this session, we will see various database misconceptions prevailing and their resolutions with the aid of the demos. In this unique session, the audience will be a part of the conversation and resolution. Date and Time: March 21, 2012, 15:15 to 16:15 Location: Hotel Lalit Ashok - Kumara Krupa High Grounds, Bengaluru – 560001, Karnataka, India. Add to Calendar Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Fix: Error : 402 The data types ntext and varchar are incompatible in the equal to operator

  - by pinaldave

  Some errors are very simple to understand but the solution of the same is not easy to figure out. Here is one of the similar errors where it clearly suggests where the problem is but does not tell what is the solution. Additionally, there are multiple solutions so developers often get confused with which one is correct and which one is not correct. Let us first recreate scenario and understand where the problem is. Let us run following USE Tempdb GO CREATE TABLE TestTable (ID INT, MyText NTEXT) GO SELECT ID, MyText FROM TestTable WHERE MyText = 'AnyText' GO DROP TABLE TestTable GO When you run above script it will give you following error. Msg 402, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 The data types ntext and varchar are incompatible in the equal to operator. One of the questions I often receive is that voucher is for sure compatible to equal to operator, then why does this error show up. Well, the answer is much simpler I think we have not understood the error message properly. Please see the image below. The next and varchar are not compatible when compared with each other using equal sign. Now let us change the data type on the right side of the string to nvarchar from varchar. To do that we will put N’ before the string. USE Tempdb GO CREATE TABLE TestTable (ID INT, MyText NTEXT) GO SELECT ID, MyText FROM TestTable WHERE MyText = N'AnyText' GO DROP TABLE TestTable GO When you run above script it will give following error. Msg 402, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 The data types ntext and nvarchar are incompatible in the equal to operator. You can see that error message also suggests that now we are comparing next to nvarchar. Now as we have understood the error properly, let us see various solutions to the above problem. Solution 1: Convert the data types to match with each other using CONVERT function. Change the datatype of the MyText to nvarchar. SELECT ID, MyText FROM TestTable WHERE CONVERT(NVARCHAR(MAX), MyText) = N'AnyText' GO Solution 2: Convert the data type of columns from NTEXT to NVARCHAR(MAX) (TEXT to VARCHAR(MAX) ALTER TABLE TestTable ALTER COLUMN MyText NVARCHAR(MAX) GO Now you can run the original query again and it will work fine. Solution 3: Using LIKE command instead of Equal to command. SELECT ID, MyText FROM TestTable WHERE MyText LIKE 'AnyText' GO Well, any of the three of the solutions will work. Here is my suggestion if you can change the column data type from ntext or text to nvarchar or varchar, you should follow that path as text and ntext datatypes are marked as deprecated. All developers any way to change the deprecated data types in future, it will be a good idea to change them right early. If due to any reason you can not convert the original column use Solution 1 for temporary fix. Solution 3 is the not the best solution and use it as a last option. Did I miss any other method? If yes, please let me know and I will add the solution to original blog post with due credit. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Error Messages, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Guest Post – Glenn Berry – Wait Type – Day 26 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  Glenn Berry works as a Database Architect at NewsGator Technologies in Denver, CO. He is a SQL Server MVP, and has a whole collection of Microsoft certifications, including MCITP, MCDBA, MCSE, MCSD, MCAD, and MCTS. He is also an Adjunct Faculty member at University College – University of Denver, where he has been teaching since 2000. He is one wonderful blogger and often blogs at here. I am big fan of the Dynamic Management Views (DMV) scripts of Glenn. His script are extremely popular and the reality is that he has inspired me to start this series with his famous DMV which I have mentioned in very first  wait stats blog post (I had forgot to request his permission to re-use the script but when asked later on his whole hearty approved it). Here is is his excellent blog post on this subject of wait stats: Analyzing cumulative wait stats in SQL Server 2005 and above has become a popular and effective technique for diagnosing performance issues and further focusing your troubleshooting and diagnostic  efforts.  Rather than just guessing about what resource(s) that SQL Server is waiting on, you can actually find out by running a relatively simple DMV query. Once you know what resources that SQL Server is spending the most time waiting on, you can run more specific queries that focus on that resource to get a better idea what is causing the problem. I do want to throw out a few caveats about using wait stats as a diagnostic tool. First, they are most useful when your SQL Server instance is experiencing performance problems. If your instance is running well, with no indication of any resource pressure from other sources, then you should not worry that much about what the top wait types are. SQL Server will always be waiting on some resource, but many wait types are quite benign, and can be safely ignored. In spite of this, I quite often see experienced DBAs obsessing over the top wait type, even when their SQL Server instance is running extremely well. Second, I often see DBAs jump to the wrong conclusion based on seeing a particular well-known wait type. A good example is CXPACKET waits. People typically jump to the conclusion that high CXPACKET waits means that they should immediately change their instance-level MADOP setting to 1. This is not always the best solution. You need to consider your workload type, and look carefully for any important “missing” indexes that might be causing the query optimizer to use a parallel plan to compensate for the missing index. In this case, correcting the index problem is usually a better solution than changing MAXDOP, since you are curing the disease rather than just treating the symptom. Finally, you should get in the habit of clearing out your cumulative wait stats with the  DBCC SQLPERF(‘sys.dm_os_wait_stats’, CLEAR); command. This is especially important if you have made an configuration or index changes, or if your workload has changed recently. Otherwise, your cumulative wait stats will be polluted with the old stats from weeks or months ago (since the last time SQL Server was started or the stats were cleared).  If you make a change to your SQL Server instance, or add an index, you should clear out your wait stats, and then wait a while to see what your new top wait stats are. At any rate, enjoy Pinal Dave’s series on Wait Stats. This blog post has been written by Glenn Berry (Twitter | Blog) Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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