Bookmark : SQL Server Denali Videos

Glenn Berry has found these videos about improvements in Denali (SQL Server 2011?)

SQL Server Videos on Channel 9 From Microsoft

Bookmark : Running 2 Skype Accounts

Create a shortcut to (or just use Start > Run  & type...)

"C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe" /secondary

Link : How can I run two Skype accounts on the same computer?

Bookmark : Role of the Infrastructure DBA

A great post from Gavin Payne explaining how the DBA role has evolved.
I can certainly relate to this having spent a lot of the last 2 years running sql server on Hyper-V and having configured my own Windows 2008 Active Directory domain too.

Link : The Role of the Infrastructure DBA

SSIS : The Lookup Component (bookmarks)

No point in reinventing the wheel, but some great reading on the Lookup component and some methods to adopt when using it.

SSIS 2008 lookup component
http://consultingblogs.emc.com/jamiethomson/archive/2007/11/16/Katmai_3A00_-SSIS_3A00_-Lookup-component-gets-a-makeover.aspx


Lookup Component Cache Modes
http://blogs.msdn.com/mattm/archive/2008/10/18/lookup-cache-modes.aspx

Using the SQL 2008 Lookup and Cache Transforms in a SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) Package
http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1511

SSIS : Incremental persistent cache updates
http://blogs.msdn.com/mattm/archive/2008/11/23/lookup-pattern-incremental-persistent-cache-updates.aspx

SSIS 2008 - Incrementally Updating the Lookup Cache File
http://agilebi.com/jwelch/2008/05/06/ssis-2008-incrementally-updating-the-lookup-cache-file/

Cascading Lookup
http://blogs.msdn.com/mattm/archive/2008/11/22/lookup-pattern-cascading.aspx

Lookup component - Ensure varchar columns are not padded
http://consultingblogs.emc.com/kristianwedberg/archive/2006/02/22/2955.aspx

Handling Early Arriving Facts in SQL Server Integration Services SSIS
http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1446

Bookmark : WhoIsActive 10.0 / WhoIsActiveUI

Adam Machanic’s FREE WhoIsActive script has reached version 10.0

Download : WhoIsActive 10.0

and SchemaSolutions have produced a FREE SSMS plugin for it, called WhoIsActiveUI .

Download : WhoIsActiveUI

r

Bookmark : Project Lucy

Quest Software have launched Project Lucy to analyse SQL Profiler trace (.trc) files.

Get their opinion on your servers for free at https://www.projectlucy.com/

Bookmark : Naming standardization scripts

Michael Søndergaard has written some excellent Naming standardization scripts that he has published on his site.

They cover the naming of Indexes , Check Constraints, Default Constraints and Foreign Keys and can potentially save you a lot of time.
This of course is only if you can agree a Naming convention with your colleagues...

r

dbautils.spFixIndexNaming
dbautils.spFixColumnCheckNaming
dbautils.spFixColumnDefaultNaming
dbautils.spFixForeignKeyNaming

Bookmark : CPU Pressure

Nagaraj Venkatesan has provided a great article on finding CPU Pressure from a DMV query.

Link : Finding CPU Pressure using waitstats

Bookmark : Check & Foreign Key constraint Improves Query Performance

Obvious after some background reading on the query optimiser, but today's SSC post does a great job of showing the effect of Foreign Key Constraints on Query Performance.

SSIS : Error Handling & Checkpoints

SSIS : Error Handling & Checkpoints

Handling Multiple Errors
http://agilebi.com/cs/blogs/jwelch/archive/2007/05/05/handling-multiple-errors-in-ssis.aspx
http://agilebi.com/cs/blogs/jwelch/archive/2008/01/15/handling-multiple-errors-in-ssis-revisited.aspx

Data Task Error Handler
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Integration+Services+%28SSIS%29/62662/

Package Level Error Handler
http://agilebi.com/cs/blogs/jwelch/archive/2007/05/05/handling-multiple-errors-in-ssis.aspx

Checkpoints and Package Restarting
http://community.altiusconsulting.com/blogs/altiustechblog/archive/2009/09/09/ssis-2008-package-restarting-and-checkpoints.aspx

How to serialize error logging in SSIS
http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1967

Implementing Logging in Packages
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms138020.aspx

SSIS : Performance

SSIS : Performance

Faster Extraction Loading using SSIS
http://www.sqllion.com/2009/04/faster-extraction-loading-by-ssis/

Microsoft Whitepaper on SSIS 2005 Performance
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc966529.aspx

Performance
http://jenstirrup.blogspot.com/2009/05/improving-data-flow-performance-in-ssis.html

SSIS Package Performance
Part 1 : Data Flow Task http://www.ssisbi.com/optimizing-ssis-package-performance-part-1/
Part 2 : Data Flow Components http://www.ssisbi.com/optimizing-ssis-package-performance-part-2-the-data-flow/

SSIS : Best Practices

SSIS : Best Practices

Top 10 SSIS Best Practices
http://sqlcat.com/top10lists/archive/2008/10/01/top-10-sql-server-integration-services-best-practices.aspx

Best Practices
http://blogs.vertigo.com/personal/bellis/Blog/archive/2007/07/23/sql-server-integration-services-ssis-etls-and-best-practices.aspx

Best Practices & Naming Conventions
http://blogs.conchango.com/jamiethomson/archive/2006/01/05/SSIS_3A00_-Suggested-Best-Practices-and-naming-conventions.aspx

SSIS : Basics

Am finally getting round to tidying up my favourites and notes I've made during my recent SSIS projects. This is the first of 4 bookmark posts on SSIS reading material.

SSIS : Basics

MSDN
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/cc511477.aspx

Technet
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/cc510302.aspx

SSIS 2008 Cribsheet
http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/learn-sql-server/sql-server-2008-ssis-cribsheet/

SSIS Data Types mapping to SQL Data Types
http://pragmaticworks.com/community/blogs/brianknight/archive/2008/02/16/ssis-connection-manager-data-types-mapping-to-sql-server-data-types.aspx

SSIS Operators
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms137538.aspx

Integration services 2008 videos
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd299421.aspx

SSIS 101: Object Variables, ResultSets, and Foreach Loop Containers
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Integration+Services+%28SSIS%29/64014/#

Bookmark : Don't add that column ...

" The answer is simple, just add a column... "

or is it? A myriad or reasons to think twice....

Grumpy Old DBA : Don't add that column

Bookmark : How is fill factor impacting my indexes?

David Levy writes about Fill Factor for TSQL Tuesday and provides a useful script too...

http://adventuresinsql.com/2010/09/how-is-fill-factor-impacting-my-indexes/

Bookmark : SSMS Templates

Templates are an overlooked feature of Management Studio.
I must remember to use them rather than jumping for Help / Books Online / Google !

Can't remember the syntax? Use templates!


Write your own SSMS Templates

Blatent Plug : SQLWorkshops.com - Free Performance Monitoring/Tuning Webcasts

There is a lot of good training material and video blogs for people wishing to further their SQL skills.
Pragmatic Works (for BI) , Cuppa Corner from SQLServerFAQ are my favourites, as well as community webcasts from Quest and Redgate.

Most of  the free stuff simply gets you going. It isn't rocket science, it just saves you an hour or so reading (another manual). Ramesh Meyyappan's SQLWorkshops site is different. 
The videos are still FREE , But they are 'Level 400' (from attending conferences I know this to mean 'the clever stuff'! ) Anyway, if you're interested in performance monitoring and tuning you can download them from http://www.sqlworkshops.com/webcast.
 
Ramesh Meyyappan attended SQLBits V where I saw him present his 'Let's make SQL fly' talk.
After presenting 'Monitoring & Tuning Parallel Query Execution' at SQLBits VI he is back for more on October 2nd to present 'Monitoring & Tuning Parallel Query Execution - Part II at SQLBits VII

* (yes I was encouraged to write this post due to a potential freebie t-shirt, but I do genuinely rate the webcasts)

rich

Understanding SQL Server Collations

SQL Server Club have published an article I wrote on Understanding SQL Server Collations

Bookmark : Deriving a list of tables in dependency order

An excellent post from last year on Jamie Thomson's blog , entitled Deriving a list of tables in dependency order.

A must try script which is an excellent start for automating deployment scripts.

Backup all Filegroups

A short script I wrote to backup all filegroups has been featured on SQLServerCentral.com today.

SSC : Backup all Filegroups