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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 – Find First Non-Numeric Character from String

  - by pinaldave

  It is fun when you have to deal with simple problems and there are no out of the box solution. I am sure there are many cases when we needed the first non-numeric character from the string but there is no function available to identify that right away. Here is the quick script I wrote down using PATINDEX. The function PATINDEX exists for quite a long time in SQL Server but I hardly see it being used. Well, at least I use it and I am comfortable using it. Here is a simple script which I use when I have to identify first non-numeric character. -- How to find first non numberic character USE tempdb GO CREATE TABLE MyTable (ID INT, Col1 VARCHAR(100)) GO INSERT INTO MyTable (ID, Col1) SELECT 1, '1one' UNION ALL SELECT 2, '11eleven' UNION ALL SELECT 3, '2two' UNION ALL SELECT 4, '22twentytwo' UNION ALL SELECT 5, '111oneeleven' GO -- Use of PATINDEX SELECT PATINDEX('%[^0-9]%',Col1) 'Position of NonNumeric Character', SUBSTRING(Col1,PATINDEX('%[^0-9]%',Col1),1) 'NonNumeric Character', Col1 'Original Character' FROM MyTable GO DROP TABLE MyTable GO Here is the resultset: Where do I use in the real world – well there are lots of examples. In one of the future blog posts I will cover that as well. Meanwhile, do you have any better way to achieve the same. Do share it here. I will write a follow up blog post with due credit to you. Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL String, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• ETPM/OUAF 2.3.1 Framework Overview - Session 1

  - by MHundal

  A number of sessions are planned to review the ETPM (OUAF) 2.3.1 Framework.  These sessions will include an overview of the Navigation, Portals, Zones, Business Objects, Business Services, Algorithms, Scripts, etc.. Session 1 includes an overview of the standards in ETPM 2.3.1 Navigation and changes in the configuration and options for Portals and Zones.  Session 1 starts to look at the configuration of Business Objects.  The next session will provide an in-depth explanation for the configuration of Business Objects.  Click on the link below for Session 1 (45 minutes) that provides an overview of the changes in Navigation, general standards, changes in Portals/Zones configuration and a high-level overview of Business Objects. To stream the recording:   https://oracletalk.webex.com/oracletalk/ldr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=70387157&rKey=f791a7285affeb25 To download the recording: https://oracletalk.webex.com/oracletalk/lsr.php?AT=dw&SP=MC&rID=70387157&rKey=0be61590fd72d20e For additional questions, please contact [email protected].

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• SQL Contest – Win 10 Amazon Gift Cards worth (USD 200) and 10 NuoDB T-Shirts

  - by Pinal Dave

  This month, we have yet not run any contest so we will be running a very interesting contest with the help of good guys at NuoDB. NuoDB has just released version 2.0 and You can download NuoDB from here. NuoDB’s NewSQL distributed database is designed to be a single database that works across multiple servers, which can scale easily, and scale on demand. That’s one system that gives high connectivity but no latency, complexity or maintenance issues. MySQL works in some circumstances, but a period of growth isn’t one of them. So as a company moves forward, the MySQL database can’t keep pace. Data storage and data replication errors creep in. Soon the diaspora of the offices becomes a problem. Your telephone system isn’t just distributed, it is literally all over the place. You can read my detailed article about how Why VoIP Service Providers Should Think About NuoDB’s Geo Distribution. Here is the contest: Contest Part 1: NuoDB R2.0 delivered a long list of improvements and new features. List three of the major features of NuoDB 2.0. Here is the hint1, hint2, hint3. Contest Part 2: Download NuoDB using this link. Once you download NuoDB, leave a comment over here with the name of the platform and installer size. (For example Windows Platform Size abc.dd MB) Here is the what you can win! Giveaways 10 Amazon Gift Card (Each of USD 20 – total USD 200) 10 Amazingly looking NuoDB T-Shirts (For the first 10 downloads) Rules Participate before Oct 28, 2013. All the valid answers will be published after Oct 28, 2013 and winners will receive an email on Nov 1st, 2013. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: NuoDB

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• IronRuby rocks at IronRuby-rocks.com

  - by Eric Nelson

  My colleague Edd (who wrote two great guest posts for me on IronRuby) just pointed me at a new site ironruby-rocks.com. It is early days for the site but I felt it was worth some additional exposure even at this early stage. Posts are nice and varied right now – from working with Microsoft Office to working with SQL Server. I wish the site the very best of luck. Related Links: 5 Steps to getting started with IronRuby Mini Book Review of IronRuby Unleashed by Shay Friedman Guest Post: Using IronRuby and .NET to produce the ‘Hello World of WPF’ Getting PhP and Ruby working on Windows Azure and SQL Azure Guest Post: What's IronRuby, and how do I put it on Rails?

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• SQL SERVER – Question to You – When to use Function and When to use Stored Procedure

  - by pinaldave

  This week has been very interesting week. I have asked few questions to users and have received remarkable participation on the subject. Q1) SQL SERVER – Puzzle – SELECT * vs SELECT COUNT(*) Q2) SQL SERVER – Puzzle – Statistics are not Updated but are Created Once Keeping the same spirit up, I am asking the third question over here. Q3) When to use User Defined Function and when to use Stored Procedure in your development? Personally, I believe that they are both different things - they cannot be compared. I can say, it will be like comparing apples and oranges. Each has its own unique use. However, they can be used interchangeably at many times and in real life (i.e., production environment). I have personally seen both of these being used interchangeably many times. This is the precise reason for asking this question. When do you use Function and when do you use Stored Procedure? What are Pros and Cons of each of them when used instead of each other? If you are going to answer that ‘To avoid repeating code, you use Function’ - please think harder! Stored procedure can do the same. In SQL Server Denali, even the stored procedure can return the result just like Function in SELECT statement; so if you are going to answer with ‘Function can be used in SELECT, whereas Stored Procedure cannot be used’ - again think harder! (link). Now, what do you say? I will post the answers of all the three questions with due credit next week. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Stored Procedure, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #033

  - 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 Spatial Database Definition and Research Documents Here is the definition from Wikipedia about spatial database : A spatial database is a database that is optimized to store and query data related to objects in space, including points, lines and polygons. While typical databases can understand various numeric and character types of data, additional functionality needs to be added for databases to process spatial data types. Select Only Date Part From DateTime – Best Practice A very common question which I receive is how to only get Date or Time part from datetime value. In this blog post I explain the same in very simple words. T-SQL Paging Query Technique Comparison (OVER and ROW_NUMBER()) – CTE vs. Derived Table I have received few emails and comments about my post SQL SERVER – T-SQL Paging Query Technique Comparison – SQL 2000 vs SQL 2005. The main question was is this can be done using CTE? Absolutely! What about Performance? It is identical! Please refer above mentioned article for the history of paging. SQL SERVER – Cannot resolve collation conflict for equal to operation One of the very first error I ever encountered in my career was to resolve this conflict. I have blogged about it and I have realized that many others like me who are facing this error. LEN and DATALENGTH of NULL Simple Example Here is the question for you what is the LEN of NULL value? Well it is very easy – just read the blog. Recovery Models and Selection Very simple and easy explanation of the Database Backup Recovery Model and how to select the best option for you. Explanation SQL SERVER Hash Join Hash join gives best performance when two more join tables are joined and at-least one of them have no index or is not sorted. It is also expected that smaller of the either of table can be read in memory completely (though not necessary). Easy Sequence of SELECT FROM JOIN WHERE GROUP BY HAVING ORDER BY SELECT yourcolumns FROM tablenames JOIN tablenames WHERE condition GROUP BY yourcolumns HAVING aggregatecolumn condition ORDER BY yourcolumns NorthWind Database or AdventureWorks Database – Samples Databases In this blog post we learn how to install Northwind database. I also shared the source where one can download this database as that is used in many examples on MSDN help files. sp_HelpText for sp_HelpText – Puzzle A simple quick puzzle – do you know the answer of it? If not, go ahead and read the blog. 2008 SQL SERVER – 2008 – Step By Step Installation Guide With Images When SQL Server 2008 was newly introduced lots of people had no clue how to install SQL Server 2008 and the amount of the question which I used to receive were so much. I wrote this blog post with the spirit that this will help all the newbies to install SQL Server 2008 with the help of images. Still today this blog post has been bible for all of the people who are confused with SQL Server installation. Inline Variable Assignment I loved this feature. I have always wanted this feature to be present in SQL Server. The last time when I met developers from Microsoft SQL Server, I had talked about this feature. I think this feature saves some time but make the code more readable. Introduction to Policy Management – Enforcing Rules on SQL Server If our company policy is to create all the Stored Procedure with prefix ‘usp’ that developers should be just prevented to create Stored Procedure with any other prefix. Let us see a small tutorial how to create conditions and policy which will prevent any future SP to be created with any other prefix. 2009 Performance Counters from System Views – By Kevin Mckenna Many of you are not aware of this fact that access to performance information is readily available in SQL Server and that too without querying performance counters using a custom application or via perfmon. Till now, this fact has remained undisclosed but through this post I would like to explain you can easily access SQL Server performance counter information. Without putting much effort you will come across the system viewsys.dm_os_performance_counters. As the name suggests, this provides you easy access to the SQL Server performance counter information that is passed on to perfmon, but you can get at it via tsql. Customize Toolbar – Remove Debug Button from Toolbar I was fond of SQL Server Debugger feature in SQL Server 2000. To my utter disappointment, this feature was withdrawn from SQL Server 2005. The button of the debugger is similar to a play button and is used to run debugging commands of Visual Studio. Because of this reason, it gets very much infuriating for developers when they are developing on both – Visual Studio and SSMS. Let us now see how we can remove debugging button from SQL Server Management Studio. Effect of Normalization on Index and Performance A very interesting conversation which started from twitter. If you want to read one link this is the link I encourage you to read it. SSMS Feature – Multi-server Queries Using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) DBAs can now query multiple servers from one window. It is quite common for DBAs with large amount of servers to maintain and gather information from multiple SQL Servers and create report. This feature is a blessing for the DBAs, as they can now assemble all the information instantaneously without going anywhere. Query Optimizer Hint ROBUST PLAN – Question to You “ROBUST PLAN” is a kind of query hint which works quite differently than other hints. It does not improve join or force any indexes to use; it just makes sure that a query does not crash due to over the limit size of row. Let me elaborate upon it in the blog post. 2010 Do you really know the difference between various date functions available in SQL Server 2012? Here is a three part story where we explored the same with examples: Fastest Way to Restore the Database Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 – WITH GETDATE Shrinking NDF and MDF Files – Readers’ Opinion Shrinking Database always creates performance degradation and increases fragmentation in the database. I suggest that you keep that in mind before you start reading the following comment. If you are going to say Shrinking Database is bad and evil, here I am saying it first and loud. Now, the comment of Imran is written while keeping in mind only the process showing how the Shrinking Database Operation works. Imran has already explained his understanding and requests further explanation. I have removed the Best Practices section from Imran’s comments, as there are a few corrections. 2011 Solution – Puzzle – SELECT * vs SELECT COUNT(*) This is very interesting question and I am very confident that not every one knows the answer to this question. Let me ask you again – Which will be faster SELECT* or SELECT COUNT (*) or do you think this is apples and oranges comparison. 2012 Service Broker and CAP_CPU_PERCENT – Limiting SQL Server Instances to CPU Usage In SQL Server 2012 there are a few enhancements with regards to SQL Server Resource Governor. One of the enhancement is how the resources are allocated. Let me explain you with examples. Let us understand the entire discussion with the help of three different examples. Finding Size of a Columnstore Index Using DMVs One of the very common question I often see is need of the list of columnstore index along with their size and corresponding table name. I quickly re-wrote a script using DMVs sys.indexes and sys.dm_db_partition_stats. This script gives the size of the columnstore index on disk only. I am sure there will be advanced script to retrieve details related to components associated with the columnstore index. However, I believe following script is sufficient to start getting an idea of columnstore index size. Developer Training Resources and Summary Roundup Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 In this part we discussed the importance of training in the real world. The most important and valuable resource any company is its employee. Employees who have been well-trained will be better at their jobs and produce a better product.  An employee who is well trained obviously knows more about their job and all the technical aspects. I have a very high opinion about training employees and it is the most important task. Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 In this part we discussed the most crucial components of training. Often employees are expecting the company to pay for their training and the company expresses no interest in training the employee. Quite often training expenses are the real issue for both the employee and employer. Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 This part was the most difficult to write as I tried to address a few difficult questions and answers. Training is such a sensitive issue that many developers when not receiving chance for training think about leaving the organization. Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 In this part I tried to explore a few methods and options for training. The generic feedback I received on this blog post was short and I should have explored each of the subject of the training in details. I believe there are two big buckets of training 1) Instructor Lead Training and 2) Self Lead Training. Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 There is no better motivation than a personal desire to learn new technology. Honestly there is nothing more personal learning. That “change is the only constant” and “adapt & overcome” are the essential lessons of life. One cannot stop the learning and resist the change. In the IT industry “ego of knowing all” and the “resistance to change” are the most challenging issues. A Quick Look at Logging and Ideas around Logging Question: What is the first thing comes to your mind when you hear the word “Logging”? Strange enough I got a different answer every single time. Let me just list what answer I got from my friends. Let us go over them one by one. Beginning Performance Tuning with SQL Server Execution Plan Solution of Puzzle – Swap Value of Column Without Case Statement 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. 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

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• SQL SERVER – Disk Space Monitoring – Detecting Low Disk Space on Server

  - by Pinal Dave

  A very common question I often receive is how to detect if the disk space is running low on SQL Server. There are two different ways to do the same. I personally prefer method 2 as that is very easy to use and I can use it creatively along with database name. Method 1: EXEC MASTER..xp_fixeddrives GO Above query will return us two columns, drive name and MB free. If we want to use this data in our query, we will have to create a temporary table and insert the data from this stored procedure into the temporary table and use it. Method 2: SELECT DISTINCT dovs.logical_volume_name AS LogicalName, dovs.volume_mount_point AS Drive, CONVERT(INT,dovs.available_bytes/1048576.0) AS FreeSpaceInMB FROM sys.master_files mf CROSS APPLY sys.dm_os_volume_stats(mf.database_id, mf.FILE_ID) dovs ORDER BY FreeSpaceInMB ASC GO The above query will give us three columns: drive logical name, drive letter and free space in MB. We can further modify above query to also include database name in the query as well. SELECT DISTINCT DB_NAME(dovs.database_id) DBName, dovs.logical_volume_name AS LogicalName, dovs.volume_mount_point AS Drive, CONVERT(INT,dovs.available_bytes/1048576.0) AS FreeSpaceInMB FROM sys.master_files mf CROSS APPLY sys.dm_os_volume_stats(mf.database_id, mf.FILE_ID) dovs ORDER BY FreeSpaceInMB ASC GO This will give us additional data about which database is placed on which drive. If you see a database name multiple times, it is because your database has multiple files and they are on different drives. You can modify above query one more time to even include the details of actual file location. SELECT DISTINCT DB_NAME(dovs.database_id) DBName, mf.physical_name PhysicalFileLocation, dovs.logical_volume_name AS LogicalName, dovs.volume_mount_point AS Drive, CONVERT(INT,dovs.available_bytes/1048576.0) AS FreeSpaceInMB FROM sys.master_files mf CROSS APPLY sys.dm_os_volume_stats(mf.database_id, mf.FILE_ID) dovs ORDER BY FreeSpaceInMB ASC GO The above query will now additionally include the physical file location as well. As I mentioned earlier, I prefer method 2 as I can creatively use it as per the business need. Let me know which method are you using in your production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Increase Security by Enabling Two-Factor Authentication on Your Google Account

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  You can easily increase the security of your Google account by enabling two-factor authentication; flip it on today for a free security boost. It’s not a new feature but it’s a feature worth giving a second look. Watch the above video for a quick overview of Google’s two-factor authentication system. Essentially your mobile phone becomes the second authentication tool–you use your password + a code sent to your phone to log into your account. It’s a great way to easily increase the security of your Google account, it’s free, and you can set it so that you only have to validate your home computer once every 30 days. Google Two-Step Verification [via Google+] HTG Explains: When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers? How to Make the Kindle Fire Silk Browser *Actually* Fast! Amazon’s New Kindle Fire Tablet: the How-To Geek Review

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• UPK Content State

  - by peter.maravelias

  State is an editable property for communicating the status of a document in the UPK library. This is particularly helpful when working with other authors in a development team. Authors can assign a state to any document using the values that are defined in the master list. The default master list of State values includes Not Started, Draft, In Review, and Final (in the language installed on the server). Administrators can customize the list by adding, deleting, or renaming the values as well as sequencing the values as they will appear on the assignment list from the Properties pane. Let us know if or how you are using UPK Content States in your development efforts!

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• Java EE 7 interview @ InfoQ

  - by alexismp

  Anil Gaur, the head of JavaEE and GlassFish at Oracle, was recently interviewed by InfoQ on the progress and scope of Java EE 7. Make sure you read this for an up-to-date status. It turns out that the final release of Java EE 7 in now slated for late Q1, early Q2, 2013 with most specs expected t be at the Public Review stage by this summer. In addition to the improvements to the JMS, JAX-RS, JPA and JSF specifications Anil also covers the new JSON and WebSockets JSRs and gives a complete overview of the Java EE platform at it is shaping up with PaaS as its main theme.

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• Oracle Database Appliance Setup Poster Updated

  - by Ravi.Sharma

  The newly updated Setup Poster for Oracle Database Appliance is now available at http://wd0338.oracle.com/archive/cd_ns/E22693_01/index.htm This updated poster is a comprehensive source of information for anyone planning to deploy Oracle Database Appliance. It includes two main sections (which are conveniently printed on the two sides of a single 11x17 page) 1. Preparing to Deploy Oracle Database Appliance2. Oracle Database Appliance Setup The Preparing to Deploy Oracle Database Appliance section provides a concise list of items to plan for and review before beginning deployment. This includes registering Support Identifiers, allocating IP addresses, downloading software and patches, choosing configuration options, as well as important links to useful information. The Oracle Database Appliance Setup section provides a step by step procedure for deploying and configuring Oracle Database Appliance. This includes initial powering up of Oracle Database Appliance, configuring initial network, downloading software and completing the configuration using Oracle Database Appliance Configurator (GUI)  

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• Don’t miss the Procurement AME New Features and Setup for Purchase Orders Webcast on December 6th and Follow up Live Chat

  - by MargaretW

  Webcast This one-hour session on December 6th is recommended for technical and functional users who are interested to know more about the new 12.1.3 features for Procurement with Approval Management Engine (AME). TOPICS WILL INCLUDE: Scope and limitations of AME functionality for purchase orders Setup and use of AME for purchase orders PO Review and PO E-Sign new features Demonstrations will be included See DocID 1456150.1 to sign up now! Live Chat There will be a live chat in the Procurement Community on December 13th for follow up questions and answers.  Join us to share and gain knowledge!

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• SQL SERVER – Take the Quiz for a chance to win a Quadcopter Drone – Brain Teasers

  - by Pinal Dave

  It has been a long time since we ran quiz. So let us get ready for a quiz. The quiz has two parts. You have to get both the parts correct to win Quadcopter with Camera (we will call it drone). We will be giving away a total of 2 Quadcopters. The quiz is extremely easy and I will ship the Drone anywhere in the world where Amazon will ship it. Let us jump directly to the quiz. Please complete all the three questions of the contest.  Contest Part 1: Brain Teasers There are two questions for you in this part of the contest. Question: There are two 7s. How will you write select statement with a single operator that returns single 7? Hint: SELECT 7(Answer)7 Question: Write down the shortest code that produces 1 without using any numbers in the select statement? Hint: SELECT (Answer) Contest Part 2: Download and Activate Rapid SQL Question: Download and Activate Rapid SQL. Hint: You have to download and activate Rapid SQL. If you do not activate Rapid SQL, you will be disqualified for the contest. Why take risk, let us start! That’s it! Just answer above questions in the following comments area, in following format. Remember: Use comments area right below the blog to take participation in the contest Answer before June 5, 2014 midnight GMT. The winner will be announced on June 8. The winner will be selected randomly from all the valid answers. All the valid answers will be kept hidden till June 5, 2014. There will be a total of two winners. The contest is open for any country of the world where Amazon ships products. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• SQL SERVER – Removing Leading Zeros From Column in Table

  - by pinaldave

  Some questions surprises me and make me write code which I have never explored before. Today was similar experience as well. I have always received the question regarding how to reserve leading zeroes in SQL Server while displaying them on the SSMS or another application. I have written articles on this subject over here. SQL SERVER – Pad Ride Side of Number with 0 – Fixed Width Number Display SQL SERVER – UDF – Pad Ride Side of Number with 0 – Fixed Width Number Display SQL SERVER – Preserve Leading Zero While Coping to Excel from SSMS Today I received a very different question where the user wanted to remove leading zero and white space. I am using the same sample sent by user in this example. USE tempdb GO -- Create sample table CREATE TABLE Table1 (Col1 VARCHAR(100)) INSERT INTO Table1 (Col1) SELECT '0001' UNION ALL SELECT '000100' UNION ALL SELECT '100100' UNION ALL SELECT '000 0001' UNION ALL SELECT '00.001' UNION ALL SELECT '01.001' GO -- Original data SELECT * FROM Table1 GO -- Remove leading zeros SELECT SUBSTRING(Col1, PATINDEX('%[^0 ]%', Col1 + ' '), LEN(Col1)) FROM Table1 GO -- Clean up DROP TABLE Table1 GO Here is the resultset of above script. It will remove any leading zero or space and will display the number accordingly. This problem is a very generic problem and I am confident there are alternate solutions to this problem as well. If you have an alternate solution or can suggest a sample data which does not satisfy the SUBSTRING solution proposed, I will be glad to include them in follow up blog post with due credit. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Oracle Supply Chain builds momentum in the Press

  - by [email protected]

  SCM coverage in early '10 was dominated by major product announcements. The release of Oracle Global Trade Management and Oracle Transportation Management 6.1 garnered ten unique articles. SearchOracle.com and Supply Chain Management Review primarily focused on the compliance aspect of the announcement while Managing Automation concentrated on the new trade management capabilities. Elsewhere, there was a lot of interest around the new 'Green Dashboard' as reported by Modern Materials Handling, Environmental Leader and TMCnet. Other SCM news included the announced integration of Oracle Hyperion Planning and Demantra S&OP as reported by Database Trends and Applications and Treasury & Risk.

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• SQL SERVER – Function: Is Function – SQL in Sixty Seconds #004 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  Today is February 29th. An unique date which we only get to observe once every four year. Year 2012 is leap year and SQL Server 2012 is also releasing this year. Yesterday I wrote an article where we have seen observed how using four different function we can create another function which can accurately validate if any year is leap year or not. We will use three functions newly introduced in SQL Server 2012 and demonstrate how we can find if any year is leap year or not. This function uses three of the SQL Server 2012 functions - IIF, EOMONTH and CONCAT. When I wrote this function, this is the sortest function I ever wrote to find out leap year. Please watch the video and let me know if any shorter function can be written to find leap year. More on Leap Yer: Detecting Leap Year in T-SQL using SQL Server 2012 – IIF, EOMONTH and CONCAT Function Date and Time Functions – EOMONTH() – A Quick Introduction Script/Function to Find Last Day of Month  I encourage you to submit your ideas for SQL in Sixty Seconds. We will try to accommodate as many as we can. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Video

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• Performance Gains using Indexed Views and Computed Columns

  - by NeilHambly

  Hello This is a quick follow-up blog to the Presention I gave last night @ the London UG Meeting ( 17th March 2010 ) It was a great evening and we had a big full house (over 120 Registered for this event), due to time constraints we had I was unable to spend enough time on this topic to really give it justice or any the myriad of questions that arose form the session, I will be gathering all my material and putting a comprehensive BLOG entry on this topic in the next couple of days.. In the meantime here is the slides from last night if you wanted to again review it or if you where not @ the meeting If you wish to contact me then please feel free to send me emails @ [email protected] Finally  - a quick thanks to Tony Rogerson for allowing me to be a Presenter last night (so we know who we can blame !)  and all the other presenters for thier support Watch this space Folks more to follow soon.. 

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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 – Introduction to PERCENTILE_CONT() – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function PERCENTILE_CONT(). The book online gives following definition of this function: Computes a specific percentile for sorted values in an entire rowset or within distinct partitions of a rowset in Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate 0 (RC 0). For a given percentile value P, PERCENTILE_DISC sorts the values of the expression in the ORDER BY clause and returns the value with the smallest CUME_DIST value (with respect to the same sort specification) that is greater than or equal to P. If you are clear with understanding of the function – no need to read further. If you got lost here is the same in simple words – it is lot like finding median with percentile value. Now let’s have fun following query: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, PERCENTILE_CONT(0.5) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY ProductID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS MedianCont FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY SalesOrderID DESC GO The above query will give us the following result: You can see that I have used PERCENTILE_COUNT(0.5) in query, which is similar to finding median. Let me explain above diagram with little more explanation. The defination of median is as following: In case of Even Number of elements = In ordered list add the two digits from the middle and devide by 2 In case of Odd Numbers of elements = In ordered list select the digits from the middle I hope this example gives clear idea how PERCENTILE_CONT() works. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Copy Statistics from One Server to Another Server

  - by pinaldave

  I was recently working on a performance tuning project in Dubai (yeah I was able to see the tallest tower from the window of my work place). I had a very interesting learning experience there. There was a situation where we wanted to receive the schema of original database from a certain client. However, the client was not able to provide us any data due to privacy issues. The schema was very important because without having an access to underlying data, it was a bit difficult to judge the queries etc. For example, without any primary data, all the queries are running in 0 (zero) milliseconds and all were using nested loop as there were no data to be returned. Even though we had CPU offending queries, they were not doing anything without the data in the tables. This was really a challenge as I did not have access to production server data and I could not recreate the scenarios as production without data. Well, I was confused but Ruben from Solid Quality Mentors, Spain taught me new tricks. He suggested that when table schema is generated, we can create the statistics consequently. Here is how we had done that: Once statistics is created along with the schema, without data in the table, all the queries will work as how they will work on production server. This way, without access to the data, we were able to recreate the same scenario as production server on development server. When observed at the script, you will find that the statistics were also generated along with the query. You will find statistics included in WITH STATS_STREAM clause. What a very simple and effective script. 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, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL Statistics, Statistics

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• Unit testing is… well, flawed.

  - by Dewald Galjaard

  Hey someone had to say it. I clearly recall my first IT job. I was appointed Systems Co-coordinator for a leading South African retailer at store level. Don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with an honest day’s labor and in fact I highly recommend it, however I’m obliged to refer to the designation cautiously; in reality all I had to do was monitor in-store prices and two UNIX front line controllers. If anything went wrong – I only had to phone it in… Luckily that wasn’t all I did. My duties extended to some other interesting annual occurrence – stock take. Despite a bit more curious affair, it was still a tedious process that took weeks of preparation and several nights to complete.  Then also I remember that no matter how elaborate our planning was, the entire exercise would be rendered useless if we couldn’t get the basics right – that being the act of counting. Sounds simple right? We’ll with a store which could potentially carry over tens of thousands of different items… we’ll let’s just say I believe that’s when I first became a coffee addict. In those days the act of counting stock was a very humble process. Nothing like we have today. A staff member would be assigned a bin or shelve filled with items he or she had to sort then count. Thereafter they had to record their findings on a complementary piece of paper. Every night I would manage several teams. Each team was divided into two groups - counters and auditors. Both groups had the same task, only auditors followed shortly on the heels of the counters, recounting stock levels, making sure the original count correspond to their findings. It was a simple yet hugely responsible orchestration of people and thankfully there was one fundamental and golden rule I could always abide by to ensure things run smoothly – No-one was allowed to audit their own work. Nope, not even on nights when I didn’t have enough staff available. This meant I too at times had to get up there and get counting, or have the audit stand over until the next evening. The reason for this was obvious - late at night and with so much to do we were prone to make some mistakes, then on the recount, without a fresh set of eyes, you were likely to repeat the offence. Now years later this rule or guideline still holds true as we develop software (as far removed as software development from counting stock may be). For some reason it is a fundamental guideline we’re simply ignorant of. We write our code, we write our tests and thus commit the same horrendous offence. Yes, the procedure of writing unit tests as practiced in most development houses today – is flawed. Most if not all of the tests we write today exercise application logic – our logic. They are based on the way we believe an application or method should/may/will behave or function. As we write our tests, our unit tests mirror our best understanding of the inner workings of our application code. Unfortunately these tests will therefore also include (or be unaware of) any imperfections and errors on our part. If your logic is flawed as you write your initial code, chances are, without a fresh set of eyes, you will commit the same error second time around too. Not even experience seems to be a suitable solution. It certainly helps to have deeper insight, but is that really the answer we should be looking for? Is that really failsafe? What about code review? Code review is certainly an answer. You could have one developer coding away and another (or team) making sure the logic is sound. The practice however has its obvious drawbacks. Firstly and mainly it is resource intensive and from what I’ve seen in most development houses, given heavy deadlines, this guideline is seldom adhered to. Hardly ever do we have the resources, money or time readily available. So what other options are out there? A quest to find some solution revealed a project by Microsoft Research called PEX. PEX is a framework which creates several test scenarios for each method or class you write, automatically. Think of it as your own personal auditor. Within a few clicks the framework will auto generate several unit tests for a given class or method and save them to a single project. PEX help to audit your work. It lends a fresh set of eyes to any project you’re working on and best of all; it is cost effective and fast. Check them out at http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/pex/ In upcoming posts we’ll dive deeper into how it works and how it can help you.   Certainly there are more similar frameworks out there and I would love to hear from you. Please share your experiences and insights.

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• Don’t miss the Procurement Webcast for AME on October 30th, 2012

  - by user793553

  Procurement support is pleased to announce a new webcast covering the topic ‘Approval Management Engine (AME) Setup, Use and Troubleshooting’.  This one hour session will include the topics: · Basic Setup: Setup and how the default approval list is built in AME · Diagnostic Steps: Running the Test Workbench and accessing and review of Log Files, approval workflow and debug ·  Example of an AME setup to include defining attributes, conditions, action types and rules A short, live demonstration and question and answer period will be included. October 30, 2012 at 3:00 pm Cario / 1:00 pm London / 06:00 am Pacific / 7:00 am Mountain / 9:00 am Eastern From MyOracleSupport see Doc ID  1456150.1 for further details and sign up.

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• Microsoft Townhall, An Example for Azure and MVC

  - by Shaun

  Microsoft just released an example named Microsoft Townhall which was built and deployed on Azure. It uses ASP.NET MVC as its webiste framework and the SQL Azure plus LinqToSQL as its the database and the ORM framework. You can download the source code at the MSDN Code Gallery. Basides the Azure it might be more useful to us to learn how they utilized ASP.NET MVC. Just a very quickly review I found it utilized the Enterprise Library Unity as the main IoC container for controllers, services and repositories and customized a lot of ModelBinders, Filters, etc.   Hope this helps, Shaun   All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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• Congratulations to Gavin Payne–Microsoft Certified Architect

  - by Christian

  Huge congratulations to Gavin who became the 6th person in the WORLD outside Microsoft to qualify as a Microsoft Certified Architect in SQL Server today. Gavin’s worked so hard for this since the start of the year and all that work culminated in a grilling 4 hour review board during the PASS summit in Seattle less than 2 weeks ago -- he received his official results last night. To put things into perspective, there are only 25 people on the planet that are qualified to this level in SQL Server; only 6 of those don’t work for Microsoft; and 2 of those work for Coeo. Coeo is the only partner in the UK to have an MCA in SQL Server, and now we have 2! Well done Gavin, we’re all very proud of what you’ve achieved!   Christian Bolton - MCA, MCM, MVP Technical Director http://coeo.com - SQL Server Consulting & Managed Services You can read more about the Certified Architect program on Microsoft’s website here: http://bit.ly/4ar5QP

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