2020 on Andy M Mallon - AM²

FAQs about the dissolution of PASS

Mon, 28 Dec 2020 12:00:14 -0500

In my prior post, I talked about how all signs pointed to it being Closing Time for PASS. Since then, PASS has announced the organization will “cease its operations and pursue dissolution.”

TL;DR;

The short version is that on 15 January, 2021, PASS will shut down all operations, including various technology assets, such as the SQLSaturday site, User Group tools, etc.

Closing Time

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 10:59:37 -0500

This year, I’ve written a couple of critical posts targeted at PASS. If you followed me on Twitter, you know I’ve been critical there, too.

Last week, the PASS Board of Directors had their December meeting. Coming out of that meeting, Mindy Curnutt (blog) resigned from her position on the board citing “morally wrong” decisions and an experience that I will describe as being excluded from participation on the Board. We don’t know what those “morally wrong” decisions are, but I trust Mindy is not over-reacting and her concerns are legitimate.

Job management: How to get the next running date by querying MSDB

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 10:10:17 -0500

Question

Table sysjobschedules contains 2 columns next_run_date and next_run_time. With the help of sysschedules and column enable it should be easy to determine the next running date/time of a specific job.

However, when you change a schedule, sysjobschedules is only refreshed 20 minutes after alteration by the Sql Server Agent.

log send queue size and redo queue size in AG

Mon, 19 Oct 2020 22:44:00 -0400

Question

I am trying to figure out the way to monitor these 2 events

log send queue size - I can see this in perfmon
Redo queue size - I can see in dmv but not in perfmon counter

Is there any way of using perfmon so that I can calculate the redo queue size even thought the counter is not available in perfmon?

Is my VM hyperthreaded?

Sun, 18 Oct 2020 23:01:37 -0400

Question

I’ve been provided a VMware ESXi VM (running Windows Server 2016 SE) with 8 logical processors, but I can’t tell whether the VM is hyperthreaded. (This matters for SQL Server.)

C:\Users\XXXXXXX>wmic CPU Get DeviceID,NumberOfCores,NumberOfLogicalProcessors
DeviceID NumberOfCores NumberOfLogicalProcessors
CPU0 2 2
CPU1 2 2
CPU2 2 2
CPU3 2 2

wmic says there are four CPUs each with two cores. Does fact that there are two logical processors on each core mean that HT is disabled?

Always On Synchronous Commit Mode With Large Delays

Sun, 18 Oct 2020 11:37:09 -0400

Question

For SQL Server Enterprise's Always On availability groups in Synchronous Commit mode, is there some amount of latency that can't be exceeded? For example, can it work between very distant data centers, such as between the US and Europe?

Replication of only updates and inserts

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 16:01:08 -0400

Question

I have two sql servers, in the first I want to keep the data from the last three months and in the second I want to keep all the data with the purpose of getting historical reports. I know how to do a transactional replica but I don't know how to replicate only the inserts and updates, I don't want to replicate the deletions.

sp_update_schedule says @schedule_id does not exist

Tue, 06 Oct 2020 12:53:39 -0400

Question

I wrote a script that reads job schedules from msdb.dbo.sysschedules and runs sp_update_schedule to change the active_start_time for a given subset of jobs. In each case, sp_update_schedule fails with the message "The specified @schedule_id('xxx') does not exist". (MessageID 14262, Severity 16)

Multi-subnet availability group, with mixed MultiSubnetFailover support (Part 2)

Tue, 06 Oct 2020 08:00:55 -0400

In yesterday’s post, I showed how to configure an availability group (AG) to use the RegisterAllProvidersIP=0 when you can’t get clients to connect using the MultiSubnetFailover=true connection string attribute.

I mentioned that you have to make some trade-offs when you set RegisterAllProvidersIP=0, and included this comparison:

Multi-subnet availability group, without MultiSubnetFailover support (Part 1)

Mon, 05 Oct 2020 09:00:48 -0400

As a DBA, we have the opportunity & responsibility to build highly available database platforms for use by applications & users. Even if you are a DBA at a small company supporting databases for only internal applications, we are usually still responsible for providing databases as a service for application teams. Sometimes, in order for us to provide the best service, we need application teams to do some work to make use of the super awesome thing we built. And sometimes, getting application teams to make that change isn’t easy, or isn’t fast, or isn’t even possible.

Microsoft Azure hack for social justice

Sun, 04 Oct 2020 11:00:33 -0400

Microsoft is going to be running a virtual hackathon, running from October 12 through November 20. The theme of the hack will be to use Microsoft Azure to address some social justice issue. I’m thrilled to be joining the judging panel for this event, which is at the intersection of two of my greatest passions–social justice and technology.

Can we enable tls 1.0 on MSSQL Server 2019 on database level? if yes then how?

Fri, 25 Sep 2020 20:40:09 -0400

Question

i am running sql server 2019 on Linux box and trying to connect using a Windows server 2016 client, how can we enable TLS 1.0 for SQL Server 2019 on the Database/instance level.

TIA.

Asked2020-09-25byRafay Pervaiz

Answer

TLDR

You don't.

SQL Server 2019 Database stuck In Recovery state after restart

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 07:44:23 -0400

Question

SQL Server was restarted by mistake, when it came online, database came back in "In Recovery" mode.

Check from error it says "Recovery of database 'DB1' (5) is 8% complete (approximately 27146 seconds remain). Phase 2 of 3. This is an informational message only. No user action is required.

How to dig deeper into ASYNC_NETWORK_IO waits

Sat, 15 Aug 2020 00:48:17 -0400

Question

I've been handed a graph that comes from SolarWinds showing top wait events broken down by day. The last 2 days there's a part of the daily color coded bar representing a total of 3 hours for ASYNC_NETWORK_IO. Still trying to see if I can get access to Solar Winds panels to try and see if it offers a drill down into the graph or not.

What's important in a code of conduct?

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 11:14:10 -0400

Earlier this week, I published a post about a proposed Tech Community Equality Index, and used it to grade the largest organization in the data community, PASS.

One of the areas where I was critical of PASS is that their Anti-Harassment Policy (AHP) is not trans-inclusive, as it does not protect gender identity or expression. The PASS AHP is limited to “gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, religion, or any other protected classification,” and unfortunately that doesn’t include protections for trans folks. What this text implies is, “if the law doesn’t protect you, we don’t protect you.” I don’t think that is PASS’s intent, but rather a bug in their implementation. In the US, the Supreme Court recently ruled in Bostock v Clayton County, GA that employment discrimination based on sexual orientation (including transgender folks) is a protected class under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but this only applies to workplace discrimination in the United States, and doesn’t cover non-work events nor international events. Additionally, the PASS policy makes the AHP optional for SQLSaturday, and provides no guidance or mechanism for local user groups to adopt their AHP.

Tech Community Equality Index

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 05:00:19 -0400

Over the last weeks & months, I’ve had an increasing number of conversations with folks on the topics of diversity, inclusion, equality, and justice. These discussions we have with coworkers, members of the data community, family and friends are all valuable, and help us look at life in a different, more inclusive way.

Hi, I'm Andy. My pronouns are he/him.

Tue, 23 Jun 2020 05:01:47 -0400

Lots of folks want to be an ally to the LGBTQ community, but don’t know where to start. One great way to be an ally is relatively low-friction.

List your pronouns. Everywhere.

Put your pronouns in your social media profile & your email signature. Edit your LinkedIn profile. Put it on your business cards. Make your pronouns part of your introduction. “Hi, I’m Andy. My pronouns are he/him. Nice to meet you.”

Remove/suppress dashes from "Results to Text" output in SSMS?

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 06:58:39 -0400

Question

(This is just a "reproducer", not the real code, because that's long and complicated.)

The output of

SET NOCOUNT ON
select @@SERVICENAME
select @@version

is:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
MSSQLSERVER


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 (SP3-CU4) (KB4500181) - 12.0.6329.1 (X64) 
 Jul 20 2019 21:42:29 
 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation
 Enterprise Edition: Core-based Licensing (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.3 <X64> (Build 9600: ) (Hypervisor)

How can I get output which looks like this:

Racism is our problem to solve

Tue, 09 Jun 2020 01:00:59 -0400

This month's T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Kenneth Fisher (blog). Kenneth asked us to talk about any non-SQL tips and tricks we have. I'm going to take the moment to give some tips on how (and why) you can help fight bigotry, racism, and racial injustice.

In the US, Racism is a white people problem

The lack of diversity in Tech is a well-documented, well-known problem. Most companies have employee resource groups (ERGs) or other programs to help tackle the problem and build a more diverse workforce. However, companies cannot solve this problem without the engagement and help of employees.

Pride is a riot

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 08:30:10 -0400

Last year was the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which mark the start of the modern LGBTQ rights movement in the US. In the subsequent half century, the queer community has made significant strides in our march towards equality. Sodomy laws were struck down by the courts (but only as recently as 2003), same-sex couples can be married (state-by-state, starting in Massachusetts in 2004, and only with Federal recognition in 2015), and 21 states have enacted employment laws to fully protect employees from discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. (As of today, 29 states still don’t protect LGBTQ folks in the workplace: 12 states provide no protection, and 17 states provide only partial protection).

Why the instance name of SQL Server Express is changing?

Thu, 21 May 2020 08:12:15 -0400

Question

I'm working on a web app which is using

SQL Server Express (Microsoft SQL Server 2016 (SP1) (KB3182545) -
 13.0.4001.0 (X64) Oct 28 2016 18:17:30 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation Express Edition (64-bit) on Windows 10 Pro 6.3 
 (Build 18362: )).

The web app is using connection string to connect to DB. After searching for a few days for a proper connection string format I managed to find the format, using method described by Nik in this blog post and it is:

Recursive CTE in SQL Server to count blocking sessions

Mon, 18 May 2020 19:54:25 -0400

Question

I’m trying to make CTE to count blocking sessions on server. Currently I made a function to do so(returns blocking session amount). But still could not write this query with CTE.

 CREATE FUNCTION dbo.SESSIONS(@SESSION int)
 RETURNS INT
 AS 
 BEGIN
 DECLARE @returnValue int =0
 SET @returnValue = @returnValue + (			
 			SELECT isNULL((
 			SELECT (SELECT COUNT(session_id) FROM sys.dm_exec_requests R2 WHERE blocking_session_id =R1.blocking_session_id) AS [BLOCKING]
 			FROM sys.dm_exec_requests r1 
 WHERE blocking_session_id = R3.session_id
 			GROUP BY blocking_session_id), 0)
 			FROM sys.dm_exec_sessions R3 where session_id=@SESSION)
 
 	DECLARE @s int = (SELECT MAX(session_id) FROM sys.dm_exec_requests
 			 WHERE blocking_session_id = @SESSION)

 	IF @s IS NOT NULL
 	BEGIN
 		SET @returnValue = @returnValue + dbo.SESSIONS(@s)
 	END
 
 	RETURN @returnValue
 END

Asked2022-05-18bymortu

Find the SQL Server service account with sys.dm_server_services

Tue, 12 May 2020 09:00:56 -0400

SQL Server 2005 introduced Dynamic Management Views(DMVs). Technically, there are both views & functions–DMVs & DMFs, but colloquially they’re often simply referred to as just “DMVs”. DMVs simply return information about the state of the server or database and can be used for monitoring and troubleshooting of server/database health & performance.

Making non-SARGable queries seek, without changing the query

Wed, 06 May 2020 08:36:27 -0400

We’ve all been there. You’ve got a query where the JOIN or WHERE predicate is not SARGable. You’ve read about how this can be a problem, and how bad it is for performance.

Alas, you cannot change the query. Sometimes this reason is political, sometimes it’s because you’ve got a third-party app and simply don’t have access to the code. But you do have access to the database…

Replication latency when an Availability Group replica is offline

Mon, 04 May 2020 10:02:52 -0400

Assume you have configured a transactional replication publisher, which is part of an availability group (AG). Now, you have an asynchronous secondary AG (or mirroring) replica that is offline. Perhaps this is a DR node, and you are doing patching or other planned maintenance on that DR node, with it intentionally offline.

Thirsty Thursday - A five-bottle bar for eleven cocktails (and non-alcoholic alternatives)

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 16:52:41 -0400

In my last Thirsty Thursday post, I published my list of essential bar equipment for folks who are interested in making mixology their quarantine hobby. Hopefully these little detours from technology & career advice will help with your work-life harmony while we’re all working from home.

Stop trying to shrink tempdb files

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 09:00:24 -0400

Stop shrinking your tempdb data files

I recently wrote about growing, shrinking, and removing tempdb files. In that article I explained that SQL Server won’t move a page that contains an internal worktable object, and thus trying to shrink tempdb files can be futile. Today, I’m going to explain how attempting to shrink tempdb files can actually be harmful.

Fixing tempdb: Growing, shrinking, and removing data files

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 09:00:37 -0400

I recently came across a server where tempdb was breaking all the rules.

Data files were all different sizes. I want all data files to be the same size so that proportional fill uses them evenly.
There were 10 tempdb files, with 8 files on a dedicated disk, and 2 on a slower disk shared with other data files. And free space was sky high, so the extra files aren't needed anymore! (They were probably added to fix a short-term emergency, and never cleaned up.)
The log file was tiny, and didn't have room to grow. For a 500GB tempdb, the log file was only 4GB!

Three fixes

There are three problems I’ve got to fix. I need to (1) remove those two extra files, (2) grow the tempdb log file, and (3) even out the size of the data files (and shrink them a little to make room for the larger log file. We’re going to tackle these in the reverse order than I listed them–partially out of necessity, and partially because it’s going to be easier.

Thirsty Thursday - Essential bar equipment

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 09:37:19 -0400

I’m writing this post during the Coronavirus pandemic. Billions of people across the globe are isolating in their homes. Folks have started exploring new hobbies and interests as a way to pass the time and to keep their mind sharp. Folks are depending heavily on virtual meetings, not just for work, but to stay in touch with friends. I’ve started having “virtual happy hour” with friends, where we share a drink and chat over video call. Cocktails & mixology are a bit of a hobby for me, so I thought I would share some of my hobby with you–even if it is a bit off-topic for a tech blog.

Should I install SSMS on a server running SQL Server?

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 09:00:27 -0400

There’s a lot of advice out there on the internet that suggests that you should not install SSMS on your database servers running SQL Server.

This came up at work recently, where I was asked “Should we install SSMS on our database servers?” and my answer is:

Redgate Streamed

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 14:22:05 -0400

Last week, I had the pleasure of participating in Redgate Streamed, a three-day virtual conference organized by my friends at Redgate. My session was Shortcuts from an impatient DBA–discussing a bunch of Management Studio tips & tricks for data professionals. The virtual conference was free for all, and was recorded and freely available to watch on demand. The recording of my session is available as part of the Day 2 recording, and you can also see some equally great sessions from Day 1 and Day 3.

Can changing database owner affect permissions or role memberships?

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 21:23:49 -0400

Question

A couple years ago we ran into a situation where we were changing the database owner from a DBA's login to sa, and immediately thereafter we received a complaint that the service login (which was NOT the DBA's login) no longer had access to the database. On checking, the service login had indeed lost it's role memberships.

When STRING_SPLIT() falls short

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 10:00:54 -0400

This morning, my friend Aaron Bertrand (blog) posted a plea for help with STRING_SPLIT() improvements. I’m very much in Aaron’s corner on this, having written about the olden days myself.

Why `STRING_SPLIT()` is supposed to be awesome

CLR was fast, but inaccessible to many DBAs. XML was almost as good, but ugh, XML. And multi-statement table valued functions are evil but prevalent.

STRING_SPLIT() promised to be both super fast, and lift the code maintenance problem for DBAs who don’t know .NET and struggle with the crazy XML syntax.

Joining the Friends of Redgate program 🎉

Wed, 04 Mar 2020 10:03:42 -0500

I’m super excited to announce that today I was notified that I will be joining the Friends of Redgate program! 🎉💃🎊

“What’s the Friends of Redgate?” you ask?

Well, the Friends of Redgate is a program for SQL Server Community members who blog/speak/etc within the community. Redgate helps their Friends by providing collaboration opportunities for community activities, and also some VIP insider access to development teams. As a former Product Manager, I know how important it is to allow development teams direct connection to users of the product, to help provide context and feedback to the way the software gets used in the real world–especially since real world use can be different from what the development team or Product Manager intended the product use to be.

MS SQL Express 2016 on Amazon AWS: I Can Take Database Offline but Can't Bring It Online

Sun, 01 Mar 2020 10:59:06 -0500

Question

I can take databases offline (via GUI) but can't bring them back online. The server details are as follow:

RDBMS: MS SQL 2016 Express Host: Amazon AWS/RDS Free Tier

Details/History of the Problem A few months ago, I created a db instance on Amazon AWS and at the time of creation, the 'master/admin' account was setup via the AWS/RDS web page. With this 'admin' account, I have created several databases on that instance without any problems.

How to store real-time data to database

Sun, 23 Feb 2020 18:38:30 -0500

Question

Here is my situation:

I have a WebSocket connection that feeds me data real-time
I have an async callback function that gets the data and inserts into a queue
I have another thread that reads from the queue and stores it into the Postgres database, one row at a time (using python's psycopg2 library)

The problem is the real-time data comes in faster than the time it takes to insert into the database, and in a couple of hours, the server runs out of memory. (Is this because psycopg2 library is slow?)

Is it possible for master, tempdb, model and msdb to have a database_id other than 1,2,3,4 respectively?

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 12:25:11 -0500

Question

SQL Server System Databases, as far as I know, always have those same IDs and I have seen lots of maintenance scripts on the internet relying on the predicate WHERE database_id > 4 to exclude them from the actions of the script.

Fastest way to shrink LOB data in SQL Server

Thu, 16 Jan 2020 07:00:12 -0500

Question

We have a database of total size of 3886 GB. Out of which 778 GB is free. So total 3108 GB worth of data is present.

Out of which 2458 GB is "LOB Data" and 400 GB is worth "Regular".

Job waiting on CXCONSUMER

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 12:09:54 -0500

Question

We have got a procedure on SQL Server agent jobs and this job started to hang on transaction for many hours with wait stats CXCONSUMER and never complete. The problem is after we noticed that it was hanging we kill the job and started manually during and the job was working fine and completing. But right now neither starting manually or on sql agent job seems never completing and hanging on waits with CXCONSUMER.

2020 on Andy M Mallon - AM²

FAQs about the dissolution of PASS

TL;DR;

Closing Time

Job management: How to get the next running date by querying MSDB

Question

log send queue size and redo queue size in AG

Question

Is my VM hyperthreaded?

Question

Always On Synchronous Commit Mode With Large Delays

Question

Replication of only updates and inserts

Question

sp_update_schedule says @schedule_id does not exist

Question

Multi-subnet availability group, with mixed MultiSubnetFailover support (Part 2)

Multi-subnet availability group, without MultiSubnetFailover support (Part 1)

Microsoft Azure hack for social justice

Can we enable tls 1.0 on MSSQL Server 2019 on database level? if yes then how?

Question

Answer

TLDR

SQL Server 2019 Database stuck In Recovery state after restart

Question

How to dig deeper into ASYNC_NETWORK_IO waits

Question

What's important in a code of conduct?

Tech Community Equality Index

Hi, I'm Andy. My pronouns are he/him.

Remove/suppress dashes from "Results to Text" output in SSMS?

Question

Racism is our problem to solve

In the US, Racism is a white people problem

Pride is a riot

Why the instance name of SQL Server Express is changing?

Question

Recursive CTE in SQL Server to count blocking sessions

Question

Find the SQL Server service account with sys.dm_server_services

Making non-SARGable queries seek, without changing the query

Replication latency when an Availability Group replica is offline

Thirsty Thursday - A five-bottle bar for eleven cocktails (and non-alcoholic alternatives)

Stop trying to shrink tempdb files

Stop shrinking your tempdb data files

Fixing tempdb: Growing, shrinking, and removing data files

Three fixes

Thirsty Thursday - Essential bar equipment

Should I install SSMS on a server running SQL Server?

Redgate Streamed

Can changing database owner affect permissions or role memberships?

Question

When STRING_SPLIT() falls short

Why STRING_SPLIT() is supposed to be awesome

Joining the Friends of Redgate program 🎉

“What’s the Friends of Redgate?” you ask?

MS SQL Express 2016 on Amazon AWS: I Can Take Database Offline but Can't Bring It Online

Question

How to store real-time data to database

Question

Is it possible for master, tempdb, model and msdb to have a database_id other than 1,2,3,4 respectively?

Question

Fastest way to shrink LOB data in SQL Server

Question

Job waiting on CXCONSUMER

Question

Why `STRING_SPLIT()` is supposed to be awesome