Saturday, 13 September 2008

SQL Statman ??? (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)

Statman sounds a bit too much like Scatman for my liking and reminds me of a cheesey 90s dance song.

On a serious note, just what are all these Statman() entries in my sql trace?

for example >

SELECT StatMan([SC0]) FROM (SELECT TOP 100 PERCENT [dbname] AS [SC0] FROM [dbo].[#tmp_sp_db_vardecimal_storage_format ....

The short answer is that they are nothing to worry about.
They show an automatic statistics update occuring i.e. are the effect of having AUTO_UPDATE_STATISTICS set to ON.

Thursday, 11 September 2008

TempDb Optimization for Multiple Processors

"The current recommendation from Microsoft is that you have a file per logical CPU for tempdb so as to balance load not only for object creation but for extent allocation and performance."

Ref : SQL Server write behaviour with multiple files in a file group

So, split TempDB by the number of processors.
Using current size of TempDB as a guide (2GB) and 2 Processors, split to 2x 1GB files.

My previous blog entry on how to do > Moving / Adding files to TempDB

Wednesday, 10 September 2008

SQL Messages Window : Get Messages straight away!

If you use PRINT to pass status messages back when running a TSQL script, you typically dont get to see them until the script completes (or errors) and then, they appear all at once (not great for debugging...)
DECLARE @StatusMessage varchar (100)
SET @StatusMessage = 'Insert Finished, Update Starting : ' + CONVERT (CHAR (20), GETDATE (), 8)
RAISERROR (@StatusMessage , 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT 


http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/leopasta/archive/2007/07/03/instant-gratification.aspx

Wednesday, 3 September 2008

Hyper-V : SQL Support

SQL Server 2005 is not fully supported on a virtual machine in a Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V environment. Microsoft is considering whether to provide support for SQL Server 2005 on Hyper-V virtual machines in future updates of SQL Server 2005 >

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956893

( SQL Server 2008 is supported )

Decision time it is then, as currently building Hyper-V images...

Tuesday, 2 September 2008

Remote Desktops Tool for Vista

I'm a big fan of 'Remote Desktops', the MMC snap-in that combines a pane listing servers with RDP functionality.
For XP, this was provided by 'AdminPak'.

For Vista this is now known as RSAT. (Remote Server Administration Tools).

AdminPak for XP >
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c16ae515-c8f4-47ef-a1e4-a8dcbacff8e3&displaylang=en

RSAT for Vista >
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9FF6E897-23CE-4A36-B7FC-D52065DE9960&displaylang=en

New Browser : Google Chrome

Google Chrome is launched in Beta today.

Having played with it briefly, it is FAST and does initialy look worth the effort.

http://www.google.com/chrome/


oh, and this ZDNet report agrees with me about it's speed.

Random Password Generator

For when you cannot install Chaos Generator (local pc locked down!), there are multiple online password generators now >

http://www.pctools.com/guides/password/


This Leet translator is also good for passwords >

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/leet


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