Common Mistakes in SQL Server - Part 4

Last week we discussed advantages of recompilation in Common Mistakes in SQL Server – Part 3. This week I will discuss the Null Value and how it can cause an issue!! What is NULL?  Null is the value which indicates the value is unknown. Null is different than zero or an empty string, as a zero or empty string indicates that the value is known (refer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_%28SQL%29 for further reading.) Why should we avoid NULL values? In one of my previous projects I was asked to perform some tests and do analysis...

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Common Mistakes in SQL Server - Part 3

Last week in Common Mistakes in SQL Server - Part2 we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using Identity columns. In this article I would like to shed some light on the advantages of recompile , and in what cases you should attempt recompilation! Generally, we create views and stored procedures (“proc” here after) to avoid the re-write  T-SQL  which is called often by an application or on ad-hoc basis. And, there...

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Common Mistakes in SQL Server - Part 2

Last week we discussed about whether to choose variable or fixed length data type and when to use when to use a Unicode data type like nchar or nvarchar in Common Mistakes in SQL Server – Part 1. Let’s discuss about the 2nd common mistake I have observed - using Identity column as primary key. Identity is a property which can be defined on an integer, decimal, numeric, small integer, big integer or tiny integer data type,...

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Common mistakes in SQL Server - Part-1

Since last 10 years I’ve worked on many projects where in the significant amount of work comes for Performance and Tuning, the first approach is to identify the culprit and quick fix it and the next course of action would be to fix it permanently. In most of the cases what I’ve found is the size of the database grows beyond the expectation (estimation!!), sometimes 300%. Sometimes it has a problem with the data type or index etc. There are many things we should have consider when we design a database and when we develop an application...

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SQL Server Cluster Best Practices

What is the best practices for SQL Server Cluster? What are the steps to be followed when we install SP on SQL Server Cluster? How to quick review SQL Server Cluster? Where I can find SQL Server Cluster checklists!!!  These are the FAQ on SQL Server Cluster, and, here are some links you can refer for the same. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc785714(WS.10).aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/jorgepc/archive/2009/01/21/how-to-quickly-check-your-sql-server-cluster-configuration-on-windows-server-2003.aspx http://www.sql-server-performance.com/articles/clustering/clustering_best_practices_p1.aspx  ...

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Download SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP

Microsoft has releases the new CTP of the MS SQL Server 2008 R2, here is the download page to Download November CTP of the MS SQL Server 2008 R2 http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/R2Downloads.aspx Find the information on the System Requirement here >http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143506(SQL.105).aspx More information about the SQL Server 2008 November CTP >http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/R2.as...

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SQL Server High Availability Options Preview

As it is named, all the SQL Servers and databases should be highly available (HA) to cater the business requirement, and, the business application should be up and running all the time. To achieve this Microsoft has introduced SQL Server Cluster which is one of the highly recommended and used solutions for SQL Server high availability which is server specific that means that all the databases on the SQL Server Cluster are available in case of failover. Database Mirroring (DM) and Log Shipping (LS) along with the Replication (Repl.) are...

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How to recover from the Transaction Log (t-log) filling up

How to recover from the Transaction Log (t-log) filling up!!! This is the most frequently asked question in the forums or blogged. Hence, I thought let me write something on this so that this would be helpful to the DBA while they face this issue. What is Transaction Log (T-Log)? Why T-Log is full? Why my T-Log got filled up so fast? How do I get rid of T-Log filling up so quickly? What’s the issue all about? The problem here lies in the statement itself, that’s T-Log is getting filled up or is full!!!! To get better understanding...

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Surat User Group DNN Portal upgraded

Great News!!!! Surat User Group's website which was running on older version of DotNetNuke is just upgraded to newer version!!!Surat User Group is runing on DotNetNuke CMS v 5.0 since it has been launched officially, and I thought to upgrade it with the new release of DotNetNuke. Since this is the first time I am upgrading DNN Portal I was googling a good reference material for Upgrade Procedure, and I landed on a Mitchel Sellers Blog entry Upgrading from DotNetNuke 4.3.5 (and other 4.x versions) Although this is meant for old version...

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Register for SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP

Microsoft is planing to release R2 CTP for SQL Server 2008, get your self register so as you will get notified as it becomes available ...

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TechEd on the road, Surat - Great show

Microsoft has organized TechED India 2009 at Hyderabad in the month of May during 13th to 15th. This was a biggest community event for IT professionals and Developers from all over country, and was big success and User Group leads of various cities have been asked to organized similar events in their cities, Surat was among those 10 cities.Surat had its first TechEd event on 28th June 2009, and was organized by Surat User Group (IT Pro community) in association with DotNetChaps (Developer community). The event was organized at Umra Police...

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TechEd - TechEd on the Road, Surat - 28th June 2009

Microsoft has organized Tech-ED India 2009 at Hyderabad in the month of May during 13th to 15th. This was a biggest community event for IT professionals and Developers from all over country, this event was big success.To continue spreading knowledge and educate IT community, Microsoft in association with SQLPASS, Culminis and Ineta has asked User Group Leaders of various cities to organize mini version of Tech-ED “Tech.Ed on the Road”...

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Integration Services (SSIS) in SQL Server Cluster

Often the question being asked is "How can I install SSIS in SQL Cluster" or "How to run DTS/SSIS package in cluster when SSIS is not running"You can very much run DTS/SSIS package in SQL Server Cluster even when SSIS is not runing. So, what all you need to run DTS/SSIS package on SQL Server Cluster!! All you require is dtexec.exe or dtexecui.exe to execute the DTS/SSIS package. Apart from this, you may use SQL Agent to schedule a job to run DTS Package.The fact is SQL Server Integration Service(SSIS) is not cluster aware service, hence...

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