Performing a real-time replay with WorkloadTools
Posted on March 3, 2020
| 8 minutes
| spaghettidba
In a previous blog post, I showed you how to use WorkloadTools to replay a workload in two different scenarios. However, there is a third scenario that is worth exploring: the real-time replay.
Before we jump to how, I’d better spend some words on why a real-time replay is needed.
The main reason is the complexity involved in capturing and analyzing a workload for extended periods of time. Especially when performing migrations and upgrades, it is crucial to capture the entire business cycle, in order to cover all possible queries issued by the applications.
[Read More]Collecting Diagnostic data from multiple SQL Server instances with dbatools
Posted on November 24, 2019
| 5 minutes
| spaghettidba
Keeping their SQL Server instances under control is a crucial part of the job of a DBA. SQL Server offers a wide variety of DMVs to query in order to check the health of the instance and establish a performance baseline.
My favourite DMV queries are the ones crafted and maintained by Glenn Berry: the SQL Server Diagnostic Queries. These queries already pack the right amount of information and can be used to take a snapshot of the instance’s health and performance.
[Read More]How To Enlarge Your Columns With No Downtime
Posted on November 15, 2017
| 5 minutes
| spaghettidba
Let’s face it: column enlargement is a very sensitive topic. I get thousands of emails every month on this particular topic, although most of them end up in my spam folder. Go figure…
The inconvenient truth is that enlarging a fixed size column is a long and painful operation, that will make you wish there was a magic lotion or pill to use on your column to enlarge it on the spot.
[Read More]Installing SQL Server 2016 Language Reference Help from disk
Posted on October 17, 2016
| 2 minutes
| spaghettidba
A couple of years ago I blogged about Installing the SQL Server 2014 Language Reference Help from disk.
With SQL Server 2016 things changed significantly: we have the new Help Viewer 2.2, which is shipped with the Management Studio setup kit.
However, despite all the changes in the way help works and is shipped, I am still unable to download and install help content from the web, so I resorted to using the same trick that I used for SQL Server 2014.
[Read More]My Feedback on my PASS Abstracts Feedback
Posted on June 30, 2016
| 12 minutes
| spaghettidba
Brent Ozar recently published the feedback he got on his abstract submissions for PASS Summit 2016 and, as he often does, started a trend which some others followed. I think the feedback is interesting and useful for speakers that plan to improve their own submissions for the years to come, so I decided I will publish my feedback as well.
I did not get selected and, obviously, I would be happier if I got selected instead.
[Read More]Upcoming Speaking Engagements
Posted on April 14, 2016
| 2 minutes
| spaghettidba
The next few months will be crazy for me. I will be travelling a lot around Europe, speaking about SQL Server topics.
Here is where you will find me in the upcoming weeks:
May 4: SQLNexus SQLNexus is a new conference in Copenhagen and will be the official launch event in Denmark for SQL Server 2016. I will speak about "Responding to Extended Events in near Real-Time". May 5: SQLBits SQLBits doesn't need to be introduced.
[Read More]Weird Things Happen with Windows Users
Posted on March 18, 2016
| 12 minutes
| spaghettidba
This will be no surprise to those who have been working with SQL Server for a long time, but it can be puzzling at first and actually I was a bit confused myself when I stumbled upon this behavior for the first time.
SQL Server treats windows users in a special way, a way that could lead us to some interesting observations.
First of all, we need a test database and a couple of windows principals to perform our tests:
[Read More]An annoying Bug in the Restore Dialog
Posted on February 23, 2016
| 4 minutes
| spaghettidba
Today, thanks to a customer, I discovered one of those annoying little things that can really drive you nuts.
Basically, they were trying to restore a backup using the SSMS Restore Database window and they kept getting “No backupset selected to be restored” whenever a backup file was selected.
You just had to select a file for restore and click OK…
… to be met with an error message in the Restore Database window:
[Read More]Native Client Aliases don't like Trailing Spaces
Posted on May 26, 2015
| 2 minutes
| spaghettidba
I usually don’t post small things like this, but today I fought with this obnoxious problem long enough to convince me that it deserved a shout out to the community.
When you create an alias in the SQL Server Configuration Manager, make sure that the alias name contains no spaces, otherwise it won’t work as you expect.
In my case, I had a Reporting Services instance with many data sources pointing to a SQL Server instance (let’s call it MyServer) and I wanted to redirect connections to a different instance using an alias.
[Read More]Counting the number of rows in a table
Posted on May 18, 2015
| 5 minutes
| spaghettidba
Don’t be fooled by the title of this post: while counting the number of rows in a table is a trivial task for you, it is not trivial at all for SQL Server.
Every time you run your COUNT(*) query, SQL Server has to scan an index or a heap to calculate that seemingly innocuous number and send it to your application. This means a lot of unnecessary reads and unnecessary blocking.
[Read More]