In the last chapter, we explained how to create a Microsoft Azure Account and how to have a Microsoft Azure Portal.
This time, we will show how to backup our SQL Server Databases to a Microsoft Azure. We are assuming that you already have an Azure account.
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The cloud is a buzzword in the IT world. Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft with Microsoft Azure are offering Cloud Services to the public. Most of the companies plan to have part of their environments in the cloud to reduce the maintenance and security effort.
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In past chats, we have had a look at a myriad of different Business Intelligence techniques that one can utilize to turn data into information. In today’s get together we are going to have a look at a technique dear to my heart and often overlooked. We are going to be looking at data mining with SQL Server, from soup to nuts.
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In the previous blog post : Deployment to several databases using SQL Server Data Tools and Team foundation Server I illustrated how it is possible to use TFS and a batch file to deploy a database to several SQL Server instances or to deploy several SQL Server databases to several instances. The main way to achieve that in the previous post was using a batch file. For more information about this technique please have a look at that blog post.
In this post on the other hand I will demonstrate how the same functionality can be achieved using a Windows Workflow Foundation file (xaml) deployment file and Team Foundation Server.
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Do you know that you can store system and user databases in a fileshare? Even for a clustered instance this is an option now. In this article we will check how to implement this solution.
On the latest versions of SQL Server new possibilities to assign storage to a clustered instance became available. In this article, we will talk about one of these options, which is also an option for standalone instances by the way: The network-attached storage – SMB Fileshare.
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In an earlier “get together”, we had a quick look at the DAX language and how to construct useful queries. In today’s conversation we shall be concentrating on utilizing the knowledge that we obtained from the earlier article and seeing how these queries may be utilized for “multiple value” query selection criteria (against a tabular database).
Enough said, let us get started!
A few years back, a client asked me to implement a quick and dirty “security mechanism” to control what data the myriad of users were able to view within their reports. There were numerous tables with multiple columns and all departments (within the enterprise) had their data within these tables.
SQLShack Industries has tasked us with creating a similar quick and dirty “security mechanism”. We shall attack this challenge by creating the necessary stored procedures (to extract the required data) and then utilize these stored procedures to render and consume the data within our reports.
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You already understand the benefits of the BPE and how to deal with the feature, now it’s time to better understand how it works.
Here we are, the last article of this Buffer Pool Extension series. We came from the explanation of what is the Buffer Pool, made an introduction of the new In-Memory technology and saw on what the Buffer Pool Extension can help in keep a stable environment, and finally, the part 3 showed how to implement the Buffer Pool Extension in your SQL Server 2014 system.
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Sometimes, it is necessary to move the database from one server to another. The problem is that usually the logins and the database users are mapped. If that is the case, when you backup a Database and restore a database in another server, the logins are lost. In this article, we will show different alternatives to solve this problem.
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This third part of the BPE series shows the basics of Buffer Pool Extension and know how to implement and troubleshoot it.
During all the Buffer Pool Extension (BPE) series we have been explaining base concepts related to this new technology, as well as its benefits. We understood how the Buffer Pool works and the main benefits of implement the Buffer Pool Extension together with In-Memory technology. I recommend you to read the previous articles, if you are not familiarized with those concepts, so everything into this article will make more sense 🙂
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In the previous article, we have examined the physical structure of the transaction log and discussed WAL algorithm. Now I will take you on a journey through the most common reasons for experiencing a log bottleneck in your systems.
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In the previous post : Continuous Integration with SSDT and TFS I have described some techniques to allow continuous integration / deployment using SQL Server Data Tools and Team Foundation Server. The solution described works great for deploying to a single instance of a database.
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Capacity management is one of the most important tasks you have to perform as a DBA. Usually we rely on threshold alarms for the disks volumes and the databases, however I find it very suitable for me to take actions in advance – this way I am sure the SQL Servers under my supervision will have the needed space to operate without issues. And yes, there is the auto-grow, however it’s a safety mechanism which role is to ensure that even in critical situations you can have your database operational, however this does come with a negative performance impact which I try to avoid for my key production systems.
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In this new article, we will talk about the system views/tables/functions and how to solve common questions using them.
The system views are views that contain internal information about a Database.
The master database for example contains information about the SQL Server itself, while the msdb database contain information about the SQL Server agent and each database has its own system views/tables.
In this article we will show how to get the list of tables, views, stored procedures, how to get a list of tables of all the databases, how to find a table in multiple datatabases, how to get the list of users, logins, mapped logins, how to detect a fragmentation in a table and more.
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Deciding what method to use to collect audit information can be a task in and of itself. Depending on your needs there are a number of different ways to collect the information. There are settings such as Login Auditing and Common Criteria Compliance that are fairly simple to implement but only collect very specific sets of information. There are also coding solutions such as Triggers and Audit Columns that are very flexible but can be tricky to get right. Then there are Profiler Traces but those have been deprecated and will be removed in a future version of SQL Server. Their replacement, Extended Events, has become easier and easier to use in recent versions and can be used to collect a huge variety of information. However Extended Events does not include any Audit specific information. If you are setting up an auditing solution in SQL Server you are probably going to want to consider using SQL Server Audits. Audits are based on Extended Events and so have all of the benefits of Extended Events but also include the audit specific events. Audits have a different interface than Extended Events and a different set of T-SQL Commands. Fortunately they are very easy. Read more »
Over the past few months we have covered a lot of ground in our little “get togethers”. We have seen a few of my favorite tips and tricks. In today’s discussion we are going to have a look at a few gotcha’s upon which I have banged my head many times.
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In continuation of the previous post “Buffer Pool Extension (BPE) – Introduction to the Buffer Pool”, we will keep diving into the Buffer Pool Extension, this time, talking about another important factor behind this feature – the memory. No, we will not review how the memory works literally, we are talking about the great SQL Server 2014 new feature: The In-Memory OLTP, or the known HEKATON.
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In our SQLShack discussions over the past few weeks, we have dealt with a few of the more conventional SQL Server data manipulation techniques. Today we are going to be a bit more avant-garde and touch upon a subject dear to my heart.
With Power Bi becoming more and more important on the business side within major industries worldwide, it is not surprising that sooner or later every SQL programmer is going to have to learn and be able to ‘talk’ DAX.
In this article we are going to have a look at the a few of the more important ‘constructs’ and produce production grade queries for data extraction and for reports; enabling the reader to ‘hit the ground running’.
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SQL Server transaction log is one of the most critical and in the same time one of the most misinterpreted part. While being neglected, it can easily become a bottleneck to our SQL Server environment. We need to have this in mind and to take care of our transaction logs in order to streamline the performance of our queries and increase log’s throughput.
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When I configured my first Always-On Availability Group, I setup a Windows Cluster and started with SQL Server Management Studio’s New Availability Group Wizard, scripting out the steps along the way. This entire process took only a matter of minutes. The minimum required steps for configuring the cluster and getting a database into an Availability Group (AG) are very few. This process, however, is deceptively simple. What some don’t realize is that the majority of work required for setting up an AG needs to occur in the planning phase, before a server is even requisitioned. Let us examine the questions that you should ask before implementing an AG.
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As a person who has always enjoyed finding new and innovative ways to perform tasks more efficiently and effectively with SQL Server, I have endeavored to document some of the more ‘innovative’ ways and means of doing these things in our SQLShack ‘get-togethers’.
Today, we shall be looking at one of my favourites, the ‘Data Access Layer’, not to be confused with ‘Data Access Layers’ from the Visual Studio world.
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A few months back, I encountered an interesting challenge at a client site. For those of you whom have read my previous article entitled “Excel in loading multiple workbooks into SQL Server“, you will know that the challenge centered around loading the data from multiple spreadsheets into our SQLShack financial database.
Now, one of the enterprises business rules was that the loading of this data was NOT to occur before that last of the daily spreadsheets arrived in the common data repository.
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In my first article, we talked about how we can make our SQL Server installation include every single patch and hotfix we plan to install. That process is called slipstreaming and it’s a huge timesaver, so if you missed it, jump
here
and take a look at it. I seriously believe it could be a game changer for you and how you do some of your work.
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Far too often we encounter clients that are really too keen to establish all inclusive reports for decision making purposes. While this is super (in principle) oft times these folks will inform you that all the data that is within the tables should be present within the report, and this is not always feasible nor practical.
After much thought I came up with an alternative to permit these folks to have their ‘cake and eat it’ and yet not render a cluttered report.
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Introduced on SQL Server 2014, the Buffer Pool Extension came to build up a new layer of cache, helping to maintain the “hot” pages accessible with less effort. With the introduction of Hekaton, the BPE has also an important role. In this article we will explore all the aspects of this new feature as well as understand how it works.
With the release of SQL Server 2014, earlier this year, some new features were released, with a special remark to the In-memory OLTP (Hekaton). Together with that new feature, new challenges were brought. The available memory is, of course, one of the main challenges. More ahead, we will understand better why.
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