Inviting all Professional Developers, Project Managers, Architects, IT Managers, IT Administrators and Implementers of Ahmedabad to be a part of Tech•Ed on the Road, on 11th June, 2011. We have put together the best sessions from Tech•Ed India 2011 for you in your city. Focal point will be technologies like Database and BI, Windows 7, ASP.NET.

REGISTER HERE!

Venue:
Venue: Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA)
Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Marg,
University Area,
Ahmedabad, Gujarat 380 015

Time: 9:30AM – 5:30PM

The biggest attraction of the event is session HTML5 – Future of the Web by Harish Vaidyanathan. He is Evangelist Lead in Microsoft and hands on developer himself. I strongly urge all of you to attend his session to understand direction of the web and Microsoft’s take on the subject.

I (Pinal Dave) will be presenting on the session of SQL Server Performance Tuning and Jacob Sebastian will be presenting on T-SQL Worst Practices. Do not miss this opportunity. Those who have attended in the past know that from last two years the venue is jam packed in first few minutes. Do come in early to get better seat and reserve your spot.

We will have QUIZ during the event and we will have various gifts – Watches, USB Drives, T-Shirts and many more interesting gifts.

Refer the agenda today and register right away. There will be no video recording so come and visit the event in person.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Windows Azure links

http://debugmode.net/category/azure/

If you are a .NET developers and want to start with SQL Azure, read below

http://debugmode.net/category/sql-azure/

When I asked him why he did not tell me that he has written so much on this subject – he answered it calmly with gentle smile – ‘Well, I am in the cloud!’

Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

SQLAuthority News – MVP Open Day South Asia – Jan 20, 2010 – Jan 23, 2010 – Review Part Fun

SQLAuthority News – MVP Open Day South Asia – Jan 20, 2010 – Jan 23, 2010 – Review Part Business

SQLAuthority News – Author Visit – South Asia MVP Open Day 2008 – Goa – Group Photo

This year again, I am going to visit MVP Open Day which is scheduled from 19th May to 22nd May. Every time I attend this event I make a point to maximize my time spend there. I was recently asked by my friend what are my tips to get maximum out of the event.

There is no one size which fits all. From technology to technology and from person to person these tips can vary. However, here is I used to do to maximize my time. You can read the list and decide for yourself.

DO:

• Do make a list of the people you MUST meet and send them email earlier requesting their time and attention.
• Do create list of the topics you want to discuss with product team, fellow MVPs and community leaders attending the event.
• Do express your feeling about product to product team without hesitation.
• Do attend all the technical sessions related to your technology.
• Do meet new people when there is no session related to your technology.
• Do share your business card when introducing yourself. (Excusing for not have your business card handy is usually lame excuse)
• Do understand that most of your sessions are usually NDA so no sharing of the information outside the group.
• Do attend all the community and network building parties – they are fun way to know people.
• Do take photos of emails, phone numbers, links shared by attendees, presenters as that is the most accurate way to capture data.
• Do make others aware what your current profession is as well what you do. You never know when you need each other.
• Do blog, tweet your experience it is fun way to document our learning.
• Do NETWORK, NETWORK and NETWORK – this is your chance!

DO NOT:

• Do not over solicit your business at this event. Usually people do not like it. They will reach out to you themselves in need. (Read Suprotim‘s comment below)
• Do not verbally abuse compete technologies in public. Try to balance your views with reasons and data points.
• Do not skip breakfast – it is not only most important meal of the day but there is great conversation at the breakfast table.
• Do not drink too much – no one likes to drag you to your room :)

This guideline is to just give my perspective and no way to constraint the experience at the event for anyone. The goal is to have fun and build relationship with your fellow MVP.

Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

After going back and forward and with lots of revision we come up with winning entry. Idera has also selected five more winner who will get surprise gift from Idera.

Here is the winning entry who will win Windows Phone 7 (limit USD 500).

MarlonFRC
WHAT? I told you, change your RDBMS to SQL Server 2008 and you can use Idera Tools for tunning.

Here are runners-up entries. Idera will send them surprise gift.

Jose
SELECT TOP 1 Name
FROM tools
WHERE Vendor = ‘Idera’
AND Type = ‘Performance’
ORDER BY Rating DESC

Wendell
Holy shish kabob Pinal, better purchase Idera and sign up for SQL Smarts Enewsletter!

Srinivas
Why fear when SQL Doctor from Idera is here? With SQL Doctor, we point, click, and cure. Problem solved!

Harlan
Even House isn’t doctor enough for this,… we need Idera’s SQL doctor. STAT!

Rob Rohr
My social life is running slowly, but at least there are tools to solve your problem.

Thank you all for participating in the cartoon challenge. We will have more such a quiz soon.

Before I end I would like to specially mention the entry of John Sansom. He does not qualify for winning entry or even runners-up as his entry was of 160 character, however, his entry is my personal favorite.

“Got no idea? You need Idera! We’ve got just the right tools for all you SQL fools.Performance tuning, monitoring, backups or development.We’ve got you covered.”

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)


TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 0
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 1
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 2
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 3
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day Next

Day 4 – March 26, 2011

I woke up again at 5.00 AM. I really had nothing to do. Everything was over the night before, but waking up at this time had become a habit after I did so for three days continuously. I tried to go back to sleep, but my efforts were in vain. Very soon, my little princess Shaivi (my daughter) was up and the day started. I was happy and relaxed as the event went very fine and that I did my best to participate at various levels of the event.

Twitter was very much the ‘in-thing’ during the event, and there were plenty of the tweets during the event. Here are some of the tweets from various people who really enjoyed the event. You can follow me at @pinaldave for my latest updates and can stay in touch with me.

@pinaldave 1st time I have attended ur sessions in this TechEd. The analogy you have used to explain waits and extended events are amazing. By: @rkassetty

@pinaldave u r too humble !!! No wonder the audiences love your style. By @vinodk_sql

@pinaldave With the amount of time, planning that went behind that session. It will be very satisfying. You did it really well. By @vinodk_sql

Great Database sessions by @pinaldave | @vinodk_sql .Enjoyed and learned a lot from the sessions. By @parveensapra

Attended @pinaldave ‘s session on Extended events in SQL server. His Heart attack example to explain extended events was fun! #techedin By @SuprotimAgrawal

Attended a highly technical session from @pinaldave. DMVs & SQL performance.. Lots of stuff I don’t know. By @AbhishekKant

Great session on extended events at #techedin by @pinaldave.Next session by @vinodk_sqlob backups. Like both the speakers and topics. By @skganguly

TechED stands for Technology Education, and I had enjoyed this event very much. Please visit the following related posts on the TechEd India. I am looking forward to the next edition of TechEd.

If you have attended my sessions and written about the same, do send me email with the link and I will link your blog post over here. Thanks

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 0
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 1
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 2
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 3
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day Next

Day 3 – March 25, 2011

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

My wife woke me up at 5.00 AM. Two hours of power sleep seemed inadequate as I had only less than 6 hours of sleep during the last 3 days. Today was a big day for me. I had to present two sessions. I got ready quickly, and headed towards the hotel. While I was traveling, I was continuously thinking about my sessions.

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

I reached the TechEd Venue at 7.00 AM and attended an-hour-long meeting with senior officers for the community. I was very happy as I strongly believed that throughout the year, I will be able to help community really well. I got the much-needed blessings from my senior officers for the same. I headed to Database Administrator Track with Vinod Kumar. As I said, it was a very important day for me.

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

I presented the following two topics during the sessions.

1. Understanding SQL Server Behavioral Pattern – SQL Server Extended Events
2. SQL Server Waits and Queues – Your Gateway to Performance Troubleshooting

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

You can read about them at the following links:

• Abstract of the session
• Scripts of the session
• My Video taken by my wife

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

My both sessions had more than 200 attendees. I was glad and motivated to see considerable interest of so many people on this advanced 400 level subject. My both sessions had excellent participation and also lots of questions. I enjoy presenting the sessions more when attendees are interested and they start asking questions on various subjects that I am presenting.

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

I was pretty exhausted after my both my sessions. However, I still managed to attend three more sessions myself on the same day.

1. Vinod Kumar presented on ”Database Recovery and Backup” – A simple but really interesting session.
2. Prem Mehra presented on “SQL Server Consolidation” – A real world scenario based session.
3. Balmukund Lakhani presented on ‘AlwaysOn – High Availability Solution’ – A session looking at the future version of the SQL Server.

Vinod Kumar

It was the third day, and I had not seen my daughter. I was really missing her this time. As from last few days, every day when I left home, she was sleeping, and when I reached home, she was sleeping as well. On the third day, I was missing my daughter immensely. I called up Nupur and Shaivi for lunch with me at Hotel. Nupur and Shaivi both visited me during the lunch time, and I played few games with Shaivi. Nupur also met few of her friends, and they returned back home.

Anil Kumble and Gaurav Kapoor

The third day was yet not over for me. After the five sessions, I went back to keynote area as we were about to have Anil Kumble as keynote speaker. He did an excellent job and discussed about team spirit and his experience as a cricketer. He was fun and inspiring. I really loved how he presented balanced views. One of the attendee in audience asked a very nasty question, and I loved the way he dodged it with a polite reply.

Pinal Shaivi Nupur

After the keynote, I rushed to party sponsored by sponsors. It was very good to unwind with community folks after a very successful event. I also rushed to another party right after this, where I met all the key people who had made this event successful. Finally, I decided to relax and mingle with friends – we were there till 1.00 AM. I left the venue at around 1.00 AM in the morning for home.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 0
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 1
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 2
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 3
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day Next

Day 2 – March 24, 2011

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

I woke up once again at 5.00 AM as I was planning to leave at 6.00 AM. While I was heading towards the venue, I was thinking about the remaining day ‑ a very eventful day indeed! There were many things lined up and I had not yet reached the venue. Anyway the day started on a good note. I met my MVP friends in the lobby and did not realize that I talked with them for more than 2 hours. I finally went to attend the keynote, but the hall was quite full. I was directed to another room, where live streaming was happening. Live streaming was equally exciting.

Vinod Kumar and Pinal Dave

I headed towards Database Business Intelligence Track. I enjoyed the new concepts of BI. I also attended Beauty of the Web track and enjoyed one HTML5 and IE9 track. Following are the sessions that I attended.

Rushabh Mehta

1. Rushabh Mehta presented on Semantic Model of SQL Server Denali – it is very new concept and the attendees surely had a great time.
2. Harish Vaidyanathan presented on “HTML5” – more than just HTML5 – what a fun session it was, I did not know that through HTML, one can have so much fun.

Harish Vaidyanathan

After attending the sessions, I headed right away to the keynote hall. There was going to be Demo Extravaganza, where I was about to present on “Spatial Database”. Spatial Database is interesting concept and I was encouraged immensely by the response and appreciation for the same concept. Though no one noticed, let me share one secret with you regarding this. Even the attendees did not notice this; I actually presented more tricks than what I had initially planned. It was fun that in front of 3000+ people I was able to  show new feature of SQL Server. I had two great Demo Extravaganza hosts – Harish V and Nahash – and it was really fun to be on stage with them. They were really fun to be with, very important, and excellent supporting hosts.

SQL Boys - Vinod, Rushabh, Pinal, Jacob

After the Demo Extravaganza, I attended community party. It was really gala time to meet friends like Sanjay Shetty, Abhishek Kant, Abhishek Baxi, and all the MVPs. Lots of people attended this event. I had fun time hanging around with fellow MVPs and Community Leaders. I think we should have this type of meetings quite often to keep the community spirit going.

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

I wanted to head home early as I had two sessions to present next day. Even though I was all ready with my presentation, I was slightly nervous. As you know Murphy’s law – if something can go wrong, it will go wrong – and this holds true for anybody at any moment. When I was returning, I noticed that it was already 11 PM. I had one more hour journey back to home. I reached home at midnight, and instead of sleeping, I went back to my sessions. I practiced all the demos and all the slide decks one more time and went to bed around 3.00 AM in the morning. A long day was already over, but about the next day was about to get started in the next 2 hours.

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

Moreover, an exciting World Cup quarterfinal match was taking place between India and Australia that. Despite this, I found that the event was house full! In case you are wondering of the results, India won in the exciting game. Indian bowlers and batsman indeed did a fantastic job on the ground.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 0

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 1

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 2

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 3

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day Next

Day 1 – March 23, 2011

After my 3 hours of power sleep, I was up before 5.00 AM. I got ready and headed to TechEd Venue. Even though it was pretty early and very dark, it took me around 45 minutes to reach the venue from my home. When I reached there, I met Vinod Kumar, who had reached there before me. We talked a bit; I had a chat with my manager, and then moved very quickly to location where database track was about to happen. Everything seemed alright at the location; so, I once again headed to the Hotel Lobby as I was expecting many other friends to be there.

I met so many people there and I almost lost count of them. I had great pleasure meeting Abhishek Kant (MVP Lead) once again. We shared a few words with each other. After couple of calls, I finally spotted Jacob Sebastian – SQL Server MVP and a very close friend. Jacob and I both worked together in the Ahmedabad community. We worked together in almost every event that happened in the Gujarat region. Jacob and I talked for about an hour and headed towards Keynote. We had excellent key note speakers and cheered at the new technology announcements.

When I returned from keynote, I met Rushabh Mehta (PASS Global President and Solid Quality India CEO). I talked for a while with him regarding SQL PASS community. It is always a pleasure to meet him as he has such an interesting vision for PASS for India. Along with few friends and SQL Professionals, I headed towards, Database Development Track. I am a database guy, and I am very interested to hear others who are talk about SQL Server.

I attended all the sessions in this track. However, there are two tracks which kept me on edge as I came across some new and useful information.

1. Jacob Sebastian presented on ‘T-SQL Worst Practices’ – I really enjoyed it as it talked about what not to do in reality.
2. Vinod Kumar presented on ‘Unexplained of SQL Server Security’ – I learned a few new things over here.

After these sessions, I also went and participated in Chalk Talk of ’100 TB Migration’ subject. It was fun to attend the questions and talk to people.

Well, the day ended with partying. It was a speaker party, and all the Microsoft biggies were attending the same. This great place brewed with some intelligent conversations ‑ in short, a wonderful party and a good place to meet great people.

Right after the party, I headed towards keynote area which could accommodate more than 3000 people. I went there and did a dry run of the my Demo-X for next day.

When I was returning home, I noticed that it was already 11.00 PM, and there was an hour of journey to reach home.

Nupur (my wife) and Shaivi (my daughter) were already asleep when I returned home. I had not talked to Shaivi the whole day – and I felt slightly guilty for the same.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 0
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 1
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 2
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 3
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day Next

TechEd India is the one of the best Technology Events in India. The event venue was at Hotel Lalit Ashok, Bangalore. This three-day event was from March 23 to March 25, 2011, and this was my third TechEd Event.

My First TechEd in 2009

I had presented on SQL Server Management Studio Tricks and Tips.

My Second TechEd in 2010

I had presented three topics: 1) MDS 2) Spatial Database, and 3) Database Myths and panel discussion on Blogging.

My Third TechEd in 2011

This time, I presented two level 400 sessions: 1) Extended Events 2) Wait Types and Queues

Instead of writing what happened at TechEd, I am going to write what I did at TechEd. I am sure you will enjoy reading the same.

Session Selections and Preparation

Every speaker knew the sessions they are going to present several months in advance. I had started to prepare for my sessions from then on. I will write a separate post on the how I prepared the sessions. Following were my major milestones in the preparation process:

Vinod Kumar and Pinal Dave

• Two long discussions about the two sessions I was going to present with the Database Technology Evangelist Vinod Kumar (he is currently the Technology Specialist at Microsoft Technology Center).
• Vinod and I had 3-4 revisions regarding the outline of the sessions.
• I studied Extended Event for more than a month to understand the entire technology.
• I wrote a month-long series on the wait types and queues and learned this subject in depth.
• I spent hours creating slides. Each slide deck had more than 40 slides – where 15 slides were meant for presentations and 25 slides were kept as backup reference.
• I did not rehearse my session speech as it is in prompt, but I tested my scripts almost 2-3 times a day till the last moment.
• Following people helped me at various levels to prepare the sessions.
  • Vinod Kumar – He helped me at every single level. From sessions review, flow review, additional resources, pre-session feedback, post-session feedback and much more.
  • Govind Kanshi – He helped me with some key input for presentations and gave me opportunity to work with a real client for additional insight.
  • Jacob Sebastian – He took my sessions and studied them diligently. In case, I was not there to present due to any unavoidable issue, he was ready as the backup speaker.

I created one more presentation on T-SQL Tricks and Tips in case of any emergency. So, I was ready with a total of three sessions.

Jacob Sebastian and Pinal Dave

Day 0 – March 22, 2011

I went to the hotel at 12.00 PM. I checked all the locations and stage where database track was going to happen. I joined Vinod Kumar and learned so many things about pre-day preparations. We tested all the audio and video as well stage locations. We were there till late evening. I ran all my demos one more time on Day 0. When I reached home, it was already 10.00 PM. I practiced my sessions demo one more time. By the time, I went to bed, it was like 2.00 AM. I set three alarms to wake up at 5 AM as I had to leave from home at 6.00 AM to reach to venue.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

On a personal note, I think Jonathan is extremely positive person. In every conversation with him I have found that he is always eager to help and encourage. Every time he finds something needs to be approved, he has contacted me without hesitation and guided me to improve, change and learn. During all the time, he has not lost his focus to help larger community. I am honored that he has accepted to provide his views on complex subject of Wait Types and Queues. Currently I am reading his series on Extended Events.

Here is the guest blog post by Jonathan:

SQL Server troubleshooting is all about correlating related pieces of information together to indentify where exactly the root cause of a problem lies. In my daily work as a DBA, I generally get phone calls like, “So and so application is slow, what’s wrong with the SQL Server.” One of the funny things about the letters DBA is that they go so well with Default Blame Acceptor, and I really wish that I knew exactly who the first person was that pointed that out to me, because it really fits at times. A lot of times when I get this call, the problem isn’t related to SQL Server at all, but every now and then in my initial quick checks, something pops up that makes me start looking at things further.

The SQL Server is slow, we see a number of tasks waiting on ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION, IO_COMPLETION, or PAGEIOLATCH_* waits in sys.dm_exec_requests and sys.dm_exec_waiting_tasks. These are also some of the highest wait types in sys.dm_os_wait_stats for the server, so it would appear that we have a disk I/O bottleneck on the machine. A quick check of sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats() and tempdb shows a high write stall rate, while our user databases show high read stall rates on the data files. A quick check of some performance counters and Page Life Expectancy on the server is bouncing up and down in the 50-150 range, the Free Page counter consistently hits zero, and the Free List Stalls/sec counter keeps jumping over 10, but Buffer Cache Hit Ratio is 98-99%. Where exactly is the problem?

In this case, which happens to be based on a real scenario I faced a few years back, the problem may not be a disk bottleneck at all; it may very well be a memory pressure issue on the server. A quick check of the system spec’s and it is a dual duo core server with 8GB RAM running SQL Server 2005 SP1 x64 on Windows Server 2003 R2 x64. Max Server memory is configured at 6GB and we think that this should be enough to handle the workload; or is it? This is a unique scenario because there are a couple of things happening inside of this system, and they all relate to what the root cause of the performance problem is on the system.

If we were to query sys.dm_exec_query_stats for the TOP 10 queries, by max_physical_reads, max_logical_reads, and max_worker_time, we may be able to find some queries that were using excessive I/O and possibly CPU against the system in their worst single execution. We can also CROSS APPLY to sys.dm_exec_sql_text() and see the statement text, and also CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan() to get the execution plan stored in cache. Ok, quick check, the plans are pretty big, I see some large index seeks, that estimate 2.8GB of data movement between operators, but everything looks like it is optimized the best it can be. Nothing really stands out in the code, and the indexing looks correct, and I should have enough memory to handle this in cache, so it must be a disk I/O problem right?

Not exactly!

If we were to look at how much memory the plan cache is taking by querying sys.dm_os_memory_clerks for the CACHESTORE_SQLCP and CACHESTORE_OBJCP clerks we might be surprised at what we find. In SQL Server 2005 RTM and SP1, the plan cache was allowed to take up to 75% of the memory under 8GB. I’ll give you a second to go back and read that again. Yes, you read it correctly, it says 75% of the memory under 8GB, but you don’t have to take my word for it, you can validate this by reading Changes in Caching Behavior between SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 RTM and SQL Server 2005 SP2. In this scenario the application uses an entirely adhoc workload against SQL Server and this leads to plan cache bloat, and up to 4.5GB of our 6GB of memory for SQL can be consumed by the plan cache in SQL Server 2005 SP1. This in turn reduces the size of the buffer cache to just 1.5GB, causing our 2.8GB of data movement in this expensive plan to cause complete flushing of the buffer cache, not just once initially, but then another time during the queries execution, resulting in excessive physical I/O from disk. Keep in mind that this is not the only query executing at the time this occurs. Remember the output of sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats() showed high read stalls on the data files for our user databases versus higher write stalls for tempdb? The memory pressure is also forcing heavier use of tempdb to handle sorting and hashing in the environment as well.

The real clue here is the Memory counters for the instance; Page Life Expectancy, Free List Pages, and Free List Stalls/sec. The fact that Page Life Expectancy is fluctuating between 50 and 150 constantly is a sign that the buffer cache is experiencing constant churn of data, once every minute to two and a half minutes. If you add to the Page Life Expectancy counter, the consistent bottoming out of Free List Pages along with Free List Stalls/sec consistently spiking over 10, and you have the perfect memory pressure scenario. All of sudden it may not be that our disk subsystem is the problem, but is instead an innocent bystander and victim.

Side Note: The Page Life Expectancy counter dropping briefly and then returning to normal operating values intermittently is not necessarily a sign that the server is under memory pressure. The Books Online and a number of other references will tell you that this counter should remain on average above 300 which is the time in seconds a page will remain in cache before being flushed or aged out. This number, which equates to just five minutes, is incredibly low for modern systems and most published documents pre-date the predominance of 64 bit computing and easy availability to larger amounts of memory in SQL Servers. As food for thought, consider that my personal laptop has more memory in it than most SQL Servers did at the time those numbers were posted. I would argue that today, a system churning the buffer cache every five minutes is in need of some serious tuning or a hardware upgrade.

Back to our problem and its investigation:

There are two things really wrong with this server; first the plan cache is excessively consuming memory and bloated in size and we need to look at that and second we need to evaluate upgrading the memory to accommodate the workload being performed. In the case of the server I was working on there were a lot of single use plans found in sys.dm_exec_cached_plans (where usecounts=1). Single use plans waste space in the plan cache, especially when they are adhoc plans for statements that had concatenated filter criteria that is not likely to reoccur with any frequency.  SQL Server 2005 doesn’t natively have a way to evict a single plan from cache like SQL Server 2008 does, but MVP Kalen Delaney, showed a hack to evict a single plan by creating a plan guide for the statement and then dropping that plan guide in her blog post Geek City: Clearing a Single Plan from Cache. We could put that hack in place in a job to automate cleaning out all the single use plans periodically, minimizing the size of the plan cache, but a better solution would be to fix the application so that it uses proper parameterized calls to the database. You didn’t write the app, and you can’t change its design? Ok, well you could try to force parameterization to occur by creating and keeping plan guides in place, or we can try forcing parameterization at the database level by using ALTER DATABASE <dbname> SET PARAMETERIZATION FORCED and that might help. If neither of these help, we could periodically dump the plan cache for that database, as discussed as being a problem in Kalen’s blog post referenced above; not an ideal scenario.

The other option is to increase the memory on the server to 16GB or 32GB, if the hardware allows it, which will increase the size of the plan cache as well as the buffer cache. In SQL Server 2005 SP1, on a system with 16GB of memory, if we set max server memory to 14GB the plan cache could use at most 9GB  [(8GB*.75)+(6GB*.5)=(6+3)=9GB], leaving 5GB for the buffer cache.  If we went to 32GB of memory and set max server memory to 28GB, the plan cache could use at most 16GB [(8*.75)+(20*.5)=(6+10)=16GB], leaving 12GB for the buffer cache. Thankfully we have SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2, 3, and 4 these days which include the changes in plan cache sizing discussed in the Changes to Caching Behavior between SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 RTM and SQL Server 2005 SP2 blog post. In real life, when I was troubleshooting this problem, I spent a week trying to chase down the cause of the disk I/O bottleneck with our Server Admin and SAN Admin, and there wasn’t much that could be done immediately there, so I finally asked if we could increase the memory on the server to 16GB, which did fix the problem. It wasn’t until I had this same problem occur on another system that I actually figured out how to really troubleshoot this down to the root cause.  I couldn’t believe the size of the plan cache on the server with 16GB of memory when I actually learned about this and went back to look at it.

SQL Server is constantly telling a story to anyone that will listen. As the DBA, you have to sit back and listen to all that it’s telling you and then evaluate the big picture and how all the data you can gather from SQL about performance relate to each other. One of the greatest tools out there is actually a free in the form of Diagnostic Scripts for SQL Server 2005 and 2008, created by MVP Glenn Alan Berry. Glenn’s scripts collect a majority of the information that SQL has to offer for rapid troubleshooting of problems, and he includes a lot of notes about what the outputs of each individual query might be telling you.

When I read Pinal’s blog post SQL SERVER – ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION – Wait Type – Day 11 of 28, I noticed that he referenced Checking Memory Related Performance Counters in his post, but there was no real explanation about why checking memory counters is so important when looking at an I/O related wait type. I thought I’d chat with him briefly on Google Talk/Twitter DM and point this out, and offer a couple of other points I noted, so that he could add the information to his blog post if he found it useful.  Instead he asked that I write a guest blog for this. I am honored to be a guest blogger, and to be able to share this kind of information with the community. The information contained in this blog post is a glimpse at how I do troubleshooting almost every day of the week in my own environment. SQL Server provides us with a lot of information about how it is running, and where it may be having problems, it is up to us to play detective and find out how all that information comes together to tell us what’s really the problem.

This blog post is written by Jonathan Kehayias (Blog | Twitter).

Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Technology evangelists are individuals who, professionally or in their spare time, spread the news about the latest new products.  Sounds like a salesperson, right?  No they are absolutely different. Salespeople also keep up to date with a large number of people, and like to convince others to buy their product – and some will go to any lengths to sell!  An evangelist, on the other hand, is brutally honest about the product, even if sometimes it means not making a sale.  An evangelist is out there to tell the TRUTH.  A salesperson needs to make sales.

An Evangelist offers a Solution independent of Technology used – a Salesperson offers Particular Technology.

With this definition in mind, you can probably think of a few technology evangelists you already know.  Maybe it’s a relative or a neighbor, someone who loves keeping up with the latest trends and is always willing to tell you about them if you ask even the simplest question.  And, in fact, they probably are evangelists and don’t even know it.  For a long time, the work of technology evangelism was in the hands of community and community technology leaders. Luckily now various organizations have understood the importance of the community and helping community to reach their goals. This has lead them to create role of “Technology Evangelists”.

Let me talk about one of the most famous Evangelist of the SQL Server technology. Technology Evangelist only belongs to technology and above any country, race, location or any other thing. They are dedicated to the technology.

Vinod Kumar is such a man, who have given a lot to community. For years he was a Technology Evangelist for Microsoft, and maintained a blog that was dedicated to spreading his enthusiasm for his favorite products.  He is one of the most respected Evangelists in the field, and has done a lot of work to define the job for other professionals. Vinod’s career has since progressed to the Microsoft Technology Center (read his post), but he is continuing to be a strong presence in the evangelism community.  I have a lot of respect for Vinod.  He has done a lot for the community and technology evangelism.  Everybody has dream to serve community the way he does, and he is a great role model for evangelists everywhere.

On his blog, Vinod created one of the best descriptions of a Technology Evangelist.  It defined the position and also made the distinction between evangelist and salesperson extremely clear.  I will include the highlights of that list here, because no one can say it better than Vinod:

• Bundle of energy – Passion is their middle name
• Wonderful Story tellers
• Empathy, Trust, Loyalty, Openness, Accessibility and Warmth
• Technology Enthusiast – Doers
• Love people, people and more people – Community oriented
• Unique Style and Leadership qualities !!!
• Self-Confident, Self-Motivated but a student

(To read the full list, see: Evangelism Beyond Borders with Evangelists)

His blog is a must-read for anyone interested in technology evangelism as a career or simply a hobby.  His advice about how to gain an audience and become a trusted advisor is the best in the business.

I think there is an evangelist in everyone. I, too, consider myself a technology evangelist.  Regular readers of this blog will recognize that I am dedicated to bringing information to the masses, and that I pride myself on being both brutally and honest and giving every product fair consideration.

I think there is no better way of saying following subject.

“Once an Evangelist – Always an Evangelist!”

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

On the day of the event, it seemed to be the coldest day in Ahmedabad but I was glad to see hundreds of people waiting for the doors to be opened some hours before. We started the day with hot coffee and cookies. Yes, food first; and it was right after my keynote. I could clearly see that the coffee did some magic right away; the hall was almost full after the coffee break.

Jacob Sebastian, an SQL Server MVP and a close friend of mine, had an unusual job of surprising everybody with an innovative topic accompanied with lots of question-and-answer portions. That’s definitely one thing to love Jacob, that is, the novelty of the subject. His presentation was entitled “Best Database Practices for the .Net”; it really created magic on the crowd.

Next to Jacob Sebastian, I presented “Best Database Practices for the SharePoint”. It was really fun to present Database with the perspective of the database itself. The main highlight of my presentation was when I talked about how one can speed up the database performance by 40% for SharePoint in just 40 seconds. It was fun because the most important thing was to convince people to use the recommendation as soon as they walk out of the session. It was really amusing and the response of the participants was remarkable.

My session was followed by the most-awaited session of the day: that of Rushabh Mehta. He is an international BI expert who traveled all the way from Florida to present “Self Service BI” session. This session was funny and truly interesting. In fact, no one knew BI could be this much entertaining and fascinating. Rushabh has an appealing style of presenting the session; he instantly got very much interaction from the audience.

We had a networking lunch break in-between, when we talked about many various topics. It is always interesting to get in touch with the Community and feel a part of it. I had a wonderful time during the break.

After lunch was apparently the most difficult session for the presenter as during this time, many people started to fall sleep and get dizzy. This spot was requested by Microsoft SQL Server Evangelist Vinod Kumar himself. During our discussion he suggested that if he gets this slot he would make sure people are up and more interactive than during the morning session. Just like always, this session was one of the best sessions ever. Vinod is true to his word as he presented the subject of “Time Management for Developer”. This session was the biggest hit in the event because the subject was instilled in the mind of every participant.

Vinod’s session was followed by his own small session. Due to “insistent public demand”, he presented an interesting subject, “Tricks and Tips of SQL Server“. In 20 minutes he has done another awesome job and all attendees wanted more of the tricks. Just as usual he promised to do that next time for us. Vinod’s session was succeeded by Prabhjot Singh Bakshi’s session. He presented an appealing Silverlight concept. Just the same, he did a great job and people cheered him.

We had a special invited speaker, Dhananjay Kumar, traveling all the way from Pune. He always supports our cause to help the Community in empowering participants. He presented the topic about Win7 Mobile and SharePoint integration. This was something many did not even expect to be possible. Kudos to Dhananjay for doing a great job.

All in all, this event was one of the best in the Community Tech Days series in Ahmedabad. We were fortunate that legends from the all over the world were present here to present to the Community. I’d say never underestimate the power of the Community and its influence over the direction of the technology.

This event was a very special gathering to me personally because of your support to the vibrant Community. The following awards were won for last year’s performance:

Ahmedabad SQL Server User Group (President: Jacob Sebastian; Leader: Pinal Dave) – Best Tier 2 User Group

Best Development Community Individual Contributor – Pinal Dave

I was very glad to receive the award for our entire Community.

I want to say thanks to Rushabh Mehta, Vinod Kumar and Dhananjay Kumar for visiting the city and presenting various technology topics in Community Tech Days.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

The venue details are as following:

H K Hall, H K College Campus, Near Handloom House, Opp. Natraj Cinema, Ashram Road, Ahmedabad – 380009

Click here to Registration for the event.

Please read the announcement details here.

I will be speaking on following session.

Best Database Practice for SharePoint Server

This session will be very unique. I will be starting with a bit pessimistic talk about how one cannot many things in SQL Server when SharePoint Server is installed. I will go over in the details for the reasons for the same. Right after this 5 minutes I am going to show few things to attendees which they can apply right away to their database and instantly get the performance. I am going to share the easy scripts with them online right away and if they run the same on their SharePoint Database, they will get the performance right out of the box right away – I Promise!

This is the same session I presented at SharePoint Conference and I have received excellent feedback on the same subject.

Join us!

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

We are going to have SQL Server Legends present at the prestigious event of Community Tech Days in Ahmedabad.

The venue details are as following:

H K Hall, H K College Campus, Near Handloom House, Opp. Natraj Cinema, Ashram Road, Ahmedabad – 380009

Click here to Registration for the event.

Agenda of the event is as following.
10:15am – 10:30am     Welcome – Pinal Dave
10:30am – 11:15am     SQL Tips and Tricks for .NET Developers by Jacob Sebastian
11:15am – 11:30am     Tea Break
11:30am – 12:15pm     Best Database Practice for SharePoint Server by Pinal Dave
12:15pm – 01:00pm     Self Service Business Intelligence by Rushabh Mehta
01:00pm – 02:00pm     Lunch
02:00pm – 02:45pm     Managing your future, Managing your time by Vinod Kumar
02:45pm – 03:30pm     Windows Azure News and Introducing Storage Services by Mahesh Devjibhai Dhola
03:30pm – 03:45pm     Tea Break
03:45pm – 04:30pm     Improve Silverlight application with Threads and MEF by Prabhjot Singh Bakshi
04:30pm – 04:45pm     Thank you – Mahesh Devjibhai Dhola

Ahmedabad considers itself extremely fortunate when there are SQL Legends presenting on various subjects in front of community.

Here is brief introduction about them in my own words. (Their names are in order of the agenda).

1) Jacob Sebastian (SQL Server MVP) – This person needs no introduction. Every developer and programmer in Ahmedabad and India knows him. He is the one man who is founder of various community-related ideas like SQL Challenges, SQL Quiz and BeyondRelational. He works with me on all the community-related activities; we are extremely good friends.

2) Rushabh Mehta (SQL Server MVP) – If you use SQL Server – you know this man. He is the President of SQL Server of Professional Association (PASS) and one of the leading Business Intelligence (BI) Experts renowned in the world. He has blessed Ahmedabad once before and now doing once again this year.

3) Vinod Kumar (Microsoft Evangelist – SQL Server & BI) – Ahmedabad remembers him very well. During his last visit to Ahmedabad, a fight had almost broke outside the hall amidst the rush to listen him. There were more people standing and listening to him than those who were seated. This is one man Ahmedabad will never forget.

4) and Myself. I will not rate myself in the league of abovementioned experts, but I must say that I am fortunate to have friends like those above.

We also have two strong .NET presenters – Mahesh and Prabhjot.

During this event, there will be plenty of giveaways, lots of fun, demos and pure technical talk, specifically no marketing and promotion – just pure technical talk.

The most interesting part is that all the SQL Legends – Jacob, Rushabh and Vinod are for sure presenting on SQL Server but with a twist.

Jacob – He is going to talk about .NET and SQL – Optimization Techniques

Rushabh – He is going to talk about SQL and BI – Self Service BI

Vinod – He is going to talk about professional development of developers – Managing Time

Pinal – Best Practices for SharePoint Database Administrators – SharePoint DBA – I have presented this session earlier.

I promise this event is going to be one of the best events held ever. You can read about the earlier event over here.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

This exclusive online event will have 80 deep technical sessions across 3 days – and, attendance is completely FREE. There are dedicated tracks for Architects, Software Developers/Project Managers, Infrastructure Managers/Professionals and Enterprise Developers. So, REGISTER for this exclusive online event TODAY.

Statistics and Best Practices
Timing: 11:45am-12:45pm
Statistics are a key part of getting solid performance. In this session we will go over the basics of the statistics and various best practices related to Statistics. We will go over various frequently asked questions like a) when to update statistics, b) different between sync and async update of statistics c) best method to update statistics d) optimal interval of updating statistics. We will also discuss the pros and cons of the statistics update. This session is for all of you – whether you’re a DBA or developer!

You can register for this event over here.

If you have never attended my session on this subject I strongly suggest that you attend the event as this is going to be very interesting conversation between us. If you have attended this session earlier, this will contain few new information which will for sure interesting to share with all.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

Warm Welcome

The event was very much welcomed and I received a lot of good feedback. In this event, only few slides were presented – the rule of thumb I had was that I will show only one slide per hour and remaining time I will spend with attendees with real world scenarios and examples. During the two day sessions, we went through many examples, nearly 30 different performance tuning tricks, and tools and understood how performance is often misunderstood with scalability.

What really caught my attention is that many of the attendees thought creating Indexes is the way to improve performance. I had fun time to bust the myth of indexes, and later on, we learned the real trick of how we can improve the performance using indexes.

SQL Horoscope

As attendees were really interested in their current scenario, we did something very interesting during the training. I provided them a couple of queries on the very first day. On the second day, they brought the query results back to me. Based on these query results, we tried to play game where I told them what their server’s bottleneck is and what is it used as. The game went for nearly 10 minutes and we had fun time talking to attendees regarding their server.

 

Pinal presenting SQL Server Seminar

Real World Scenario

The real world is often quite different from the theoretical world. The issues which we learn in classroom are not the same when we deal with the live production server. I focused on real world scenario and asked attendees to bring their valuable queries and configurations. Together, we discussed about their server and tried to help them out with the next logical steps to improve their server. This was a learning experience for me as well. Every server is new and every server has its own tale to share.

Excellent Participants

No matter how good sessions are, without proper interactive conversations and questions, any session can become boring. As I said earlier, the attendees were very much interested in the subject itself and they really wanted to learn the tricks. Well, I wanted to share my tricks too. It was perfect match – which lead to overall great feedback of the event. I received many emails after the session, I would like to share one here.

Feedback

Here are some of the feedbacks received on my training in Sri Lanka.

“Many thanks for the email – your seminar was one of the best sessions I attended in my life. You made it so attractive and kept us at the edge of the seat every minute.”

“A BIG THANKS to your training, we all are at office and just experienced the first great benefit of your training right now. There was a major issue for almost a month which we discussed with you yesterday where the Java program and the SP tried to access the same table and Java program get stuck. Based on your training we have done some changes to Index & where clause and the problem is sorted out now. Juts now, we have completed. No more table lock and the Java program works fine. Once again thank you very much.”

Well, what else I can say, I am overwhelmed with this interest.

Next Seminar

My next seminar will be conducted in Hyderabad on Nov 27 to Nov 28 (Saturday, Sunday). The location of the seminar is at Best Western Amrutha Castle, 5-9-16, Opp. Secretriat, Saifabad, Khairatabad, Hyderabad. The fee for attending the seminar is Rs. 5,000. If you specify the code ‘SQLAuthority.com,‘ you will quality for 20% discount. Send email to indiainfo@solidq.com and pinal ‘at’ sqlauthority.com to register for the seminar.

You can click here to read more details about seminar.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

• What is an MVP?
• How can I become an MVP?
• Are there any exams needed before becoming an MVP?
• Does an MVP get paid?
• Is it compulsory for MVPs to promote Microsoft Technology?

and many more…

To anyone who wants to know more about the above questions I suggest you read the official Frequently Asked Questions.

Today, I want to address the same issue in a different manner. I want to leave the official definition aside, and try to answer the crucial question: “What is really an MVP?”

For me, an MVP is a passionate guy who loves the Microsoft technology and understands it well enough. Well enough is a very broad phrase, but it is the reality for virtually all MVPs. Many MVPs have a great understanding of the technology so they help the Microsoft Product team with feedbacks of a certain product and help that product to be enhanced. Many MVPs are extremely good at the technology and work as individual contributors to help develop products. Many MVPs are heavily involved in the Community through helping spread the word. Many MVPs are book authors and blog owners as well, aiming to spread the technology. Lastly, there are a lot of MVPs who are pretty much aware of the technology’s pros and cons. As they understand the limitations of it, they help others to come up with solutions to compensate the boundaries of the technology.

There are many things I can write about, but if you notice there is one common word in all of the above statements. The common word is “Help“. Every MVP is helping someone else to learn, to grow and to create a better ecosystem for technology. The obvious question is that “What is in it for them?” The answer is also very simple:  they get what we call time satisfaction. But once in a while, people think that becoming an MVP is also a matter of ego. In the programming world, however, there should be no ego involved. You are here today but you may not be here tomorrow anymore. An MVP has a right to be proud of their knowledge and passion centered on technology, but arrogance is a different thing and must not be a trait of an MVP.

Reading this may make you think that you can be an MVP too, having the burning passion about technology and helping others in your organization at the same time. Great point! Honestly, being an MVP does not stop at only helping others or being passionate with technology. Being an MVP is a commitment to one’s self, promising to keep the standard up and continue the passion onwards. I can keep on writing about what makes a person an MVP, but I do not want to be redundant with what my MVP fellows has already said in their own blogs.

Here is an excellent post by Joanthan Kehayias (SQL Server MVP and Book Author). I suggest that you read his blog post entitled: “What is an MVP Anyway?” He has busted common myths about this program and explained well what I wish to write here in details. Our thoughts are very similar. I would like to point out one sentence in that post which appeals to me the most: “I was recognized as an MVP because I do these things; I don’t do these things because I am an MVP.“

Another great in-depth article is written by Vijay Raj (Application Setup/Deployment MVP and Great Human Being). He shares his idea on this blog post he called: “How to become an MVP?“, writing in his unique humorous style. I really like how he started the post: “First of all, Most Valuable Professional (MVP) is not a certification; it’s an AWARD! It’s a mode of recognition which Microsoft gives to individuals who are technology experts and most importantly, who play a role and are keen in sharing their expertise with the Community. So if your question is, “I have completed my MCTS or MCAD. What are the next steps towards being a MVP?” You must re-think on your question!”

I hope this blog post gives you a clear idea about what is an MVP.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

The quick schedule for registering here is listed below:

• Chennai, India: Sep 24-25, 2010
• Colombo, Sri Lanka: Oct 4-5, 2010
• TBD, USA: Nov 15-16, 2010
• TBD, USA: Nov 17-18, 2010
• Hyderabad, India: Nov 27-28, 2010
• Pune, India: Dec 4-5, 2010

The very first seminar will occur in Chennai. The detailed agenda of this event you can find over here.

The venue for the first training is as follows:

SAVERA HOTEL
146, Dr. Radhakrishnan Road,
Chennai – 600004, India
Phone: +91-44-2811-4700

Agenda of the event

This 2-day seminar will cover the best of the best concepts and practices from popular courses offered by Solid Quality Mentors. Instead of learning theory only, the seminar focuses on providing real world experience by using demos and scenarios derived from customer engagements. The seminar is uniquely structured and well-thought-out. Sessions are discussion- based and are designed to be an interactive gateway between the instructor and the participants for an optimal learning experience. The seminar is intended to be immersion-based where participants will have plenty of opportunities to get deeply involved in the concepts presented by the instructor. The best participants will receive special educational materials from the instructor, as well as further follow ups.

3 Free Registrations

Solid Quality India has announced three free give-away registrations for the first event. To win the free registrations, you have to write a blog post or comment on social media (facebook, twitter etc) as to why you should win the free registrations. If your entry is chosen to be the best one, you will win the free registrations. Once you write your blog post or spread the word in social networking, please leave a comment with the name of the city where you want to win free registrations.

To join the seminars, please drop me an email. My email address is pinal “at” SQLAuthority.com and IndiaInfo “at” SolidQ.com. If you specify SQLAuthority.com in the Title of your email, you will avail a special discount in overall rates on specified price. Yes, a more than 20%, I promise.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

I strongly suggest that you bookmark this post as this post can be used in future when you might want to write why SQL Server is better than any other RDBMS application.

Winner #1 HARSHU

SQL Server is like most RDMS systems, a database engine but what make it better than other RDMS systems (especially SQL 2008 onwards) are new features and other bells and whistles it comes with.
Here are the few:

1. Easy integration with Microsoft Operating systems.

2. East integration with world’s most common database: Spreadsheet, Microsoft excel in particular and power pivot has significantly enhanced its value.

3. User friendly interface

4. Easy to create maintenance plans.

5. Integrated Security (windows authentication): This definitely help streamline server access based on Active directory policies and groups.

6. Mixed Authentication: Not only it gives the option to use windows authentication, it allows other applications to authenticate based on username and password

7. Disaster recovery: SQL Server is very easy to restore after a disaster (proper backup and recovery strategy needs to be implemented) as compared to other RDMS. All you need is File system restore followed by system state and then restore databases from backup. I have been involved in DR for a lot systems and doing DR on a SQL Server is much easier than any other RDMS system. Other benefits include Failover Clustering and Transaction Replication

8. Licensing: The licensing structure of SQL Server is much better as compared to other RDMS systems. Other RDMS systems have a very complex licensing structure which comes out to be much costly than SQL Server.

9. SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS): As compare to other RDMS systems tools, SSMS is the best tool for a developer or a DBA.

10. SQL Server Business Intelligence: Business Intelligence in SQL Server has come a long way and has evolved so much. It is one of the best if not the best in the market at the moment.

Since SQL Server Integration Services, SQL Server Analysis Services and SQL Server Reporting Services comes with the SQL Server license, customer doesn’t need to spend extra money on these additional tools, instead that money can be spend on something else e.g. upgrade SAN, user training.

11. Visualization

12. Administering and Monitoring: SQL Server 2008 R2 has really scored high in its new administration and monitoring tools. It has made the life of a DBA (even accidental DBA) a lot easier.

13. Backup Compression: Even though it is a new feature in SQL Server 2008, it has really helped companies to upgrade to the new version and speeding a lot (if not all) of the backup operations.

14. Data Encryption: SQL Server 2008 provides a lot of encryption options to encrypt data and code. Transparent Data Encryption has really safe guarded some of the crucial data movement operations our company.

Winner #2 SAJID

First upon, thanks for bringing this questions. I had heard lots of arguments comparing one RDBMS with another and believe me the debate never ends.

What we can think is how one RDBMS better than other – one thing must be remember; what you think is good, could be bad per other opinion.

I like SQL Server because of its SIMPLICITY. I learned SQL commands over Oracle (ah! it was too long that I used oracle and never touched it again after being FRIENDLY with SQL :) ).

I like following attributes of SQL Server hence I loved this one… and as I am trying to deep dive into technology I am being passionate lover… :)

1. First thing I liked is as said its SIMPLICITY.

2. Easy Availability– one don’t have to pay huge bucks to make SQL Available.. he can use Express edition available free.

3. Uncomplicated installation process – follows the same standard as of other MS Product like MS-Office etc… that no one need special knowledge of installation process to get ready to use SQL.

4. Can be install on Average system – like few other RDMS, SQL do not have special hardware requirement. so one can be benefited without having his/her system upgraded.

5. User friendly UI. again abide to MS standard for all other application so anyone feel friendly on first visit.

6. Easy navigation through common shortcuts and tool box. I don’t have to remember multiple keys to navigate.. what works in MS-Office / VS etc.. almost works in SQL as well.

7. BOL – help documentation is easily available and more friendly to browse to get the correct help.

8. Perfect match for all level of organizations… small firms to big enterprise to data store.

9. Perfect suite of application – good clubbing and packaging of Database engine, Agent Service, Notification Service, Reporting Service, Analysis Service, Integration Service.

10. Support for Multi- Instance and side by side installation of multiple versions.

11. Enhanced Security

12. Enhanced Optimizer

13. availability for various technologies to support high availability like Log Shipping, Replication, Clustering, Mirroring etc..

14. Easy to tune up, one can easily tune up the performance with help of wizards and additional tool like Profiler etc litle knowledge.

15. Advancement in the technology.. like SQL Azure, CLR integration, DAC, Intellisense (though I didnt like current intellisense but it helps often).

16. Broader community – I like the SQL community, in Fact I have sharpened my skill through this community.. where you can easily catch up with SQL MVP or MS SQL Team. I love dedication you guys shown up in communities. I believe that if someone is in crisis, this community will never let him get down with SQL.

17. non ANSI functions in SQL are similar to other programming languages hence feels comfortable and don’t have to dig more to find the right function that is equivalent in something like in .net.

ah… I never thought I can praise SQL Server in these many ways, still there are lots of things that are poping up in my mind.. like Query Plan and its help and documentation to understand one… like files and file groups are utilized. I remember having problem when one dont know where does the RDBMS technology keeps the data file, but that never happen with SQL… how friendly are the extended procedures and DMO’s…Centralized Server management, Data collection, Resource Governor.. Oh No!!again I found myself in a state of praising each feature delivered by SQL.

Wrapping up as time to be with someone special – SQL Server.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

I have received more than 150 comments on this blog. This was great response. There are some genius replies and it was not possible for me to pick two of the winners from 150 total comments. I ran to my friends and they offered me their help. Before I announce the winner, I would like to announce the judges of this contest. They are listed in alphabetical order.

Jacob Sebastian – SQL Server MVP

Jacob Sebastian a Microsoft MVP (SQL Server) and works with Excellence Infonet as CTO. Excellence Infonet is the Indian unit of a NY based Software Company and builds mission critical applications in sectors such as Health Care, Warehouse Management, Business Intelligence etc. Jacob started his database career in the early nineties with Dbase and then moved to Clipper, Foxpro and finally to SQL Server. He has been working with SQL Server for over 11 years starting with SQL Server 6.5. Jacob is an Internationally acclaimed SQL Server Speaker, Author and Trainier. He maintains the site: http://beyondrelational.com/

Madhivanan – SQL Server MVP

Madhivanan is an MSc computer Science graduate from Chennai, India and working as a Lead Analyst-Project at Ellaar Infotek Solutions Private Limited. He is basically a developer started with Visual Basic 6.0, SQL Server 2000 and Crystal Report 8. As years go on he started working more on writing queries in SQL Server in most of the projects developed in his company. He has some good level of knowledge in ORACLE, MySQL and PostgreSQL as well. He is recently promoted to Assistant Manager in his organization. He maintains the site: http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/madhivanan/

Pinal Dave – SQL Server MVP and Solid Quality Mentors

Pinalkumar Dave is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP, Mentor for Solid Quality India and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT). He has written over 1400 articles on the subject on his blog at http://blog.sqlauthority.com. He is a dynamic and proficient Principal Database Architect, Corporate Trainer and Project Manager, who specializes in SQL Server Programming and has 7 years of hands-on experience. He holds a Masters of Science degree and a number of certifications, including MCTS, MCDBA and MCAD (.NET). He is also Regional Mentor for PASS Asia. He maintains the site: http://blog.sqlauthority.com

Without further ado here are the wining comments.

Winner #1 HARSHU

Winner #2 SAJID

Winners are requested to contact me by email for their winning MSDN subscription code.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

Filed under: MVP, Pinal Dave, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology ]]> http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2010/08/11/sqlauthority-news-msdn-subscription-giveaway-announced/feed/ 7 pinaldave http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2010/08/07/sqlauthority-news-community-tech-days-ahmedabad-july-24-2010/ http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2010/08/07/sqlauthority-news-community-tech-days-ahmedabad-july-24-2010/#comments Sat, 07 Aug 2010 01:30:05 +0000 pinaldave http://blog.sqlauthority.com/?p=9756 ]]> Community Tech Days is a series of events in my city. Ahmedabad Community is one of the best communities I have ever come across in this world. People are genius, very kind and very patient. They are not shy to ask any questions and I could see their keen desire to learn and absorb new technology. My special thanks to the Community because without them, this event series would not be possible.

It rained hard the day before and even on the very day of the event, which led me to think that there would not be much crowd.  But to everybody’s surprise, the strong Community of Ahmedabad showed up with around 300 people at the event. They all lined up in front of the registration and the room was already full. I saw nearly 100 people at the end of the room, standing without chair. I could not go on seeing my fellows standing because this is absolutely unfair. We started 30 minutes later than the planned start time. However, we managed to get extra chairs from the organizations. In the end, everybody was accommodated in the room.

I was the first speaker to give a keynote. After my keynote, I presented my session on Spatial Database. Before I continued discussing my session, I want to introduce one of my MVP friends and .NET genius Dhananjay Kumar. He traveled all the way from Trivendrum (Kerala) to Ahmedabad to present an excellent session on WCF and oData. We were fortunate to have a world class speaker travelling all way here.  I must express my gratitude to Jacob Sebastian as well, since he is my key support in every event that I go to. We always work together.

The following note is taken from the blog post of Dhananjay Kumar.

Key Note: 10.15 am to 10.30 am by Pinal Dave

“Welcome Remarks and Key Note by Pinal Dave.”

“’He is a great speaker and people want to listen to him.’  I have been hearing this for so long but for the first time, I got a chance to listen to him. He really gave a perfect opening to the perfect crowd. With his very unique style of speaking, he ignited the audience with excitement ahead in the day. The crowd was almost twice than the seating chairs in the room. But he easily managed everything with the event organizers to put more chairs so that everyone got a seat. He spoke about how Microsoft technology has been changing the day-to-day life of developers and the user as well. He spoke about how the Ahmedabad user group (SQL Server and .Net) is working to help the Community. Then, he introduced the agenda of the day and talked about the speakers. By his unique way of explaining things, the audience got very excited and the stage was set for the day.”

Session #1 Spatial Data Base-The Indexing Story, 10.30 to 11.30 by Pinal Dave

In this session, Pinal Dave talked about Spatial Data Base. If I say that he is a great speaker, then that would not be something new to be spoken about. He was the first speaker of the day and as expected, he gave a great opening. The way he explained the pronunciation of SPATIAL to drawing Monalisa with spatial type was more than awesome. His way of connecting technology to real-time examples was very impressive and very effective, too. His humor between the sessions was really nice. He is a true speaker who can keep the audience awake for the rest of the session.

He explained about

• Spatial database
• Why do we need it?
• Polygons in Spatial type
• How to find the distance between two cities and many more

Thanks Dhananjay for the kind words. Right after my session, there came the session of Dhanajay Kumar. He jazzed up the Community with his unique affirmative style. He started very slowly on the subject, making sure that everybody understood this extremely advanced topic, but soon enough he picked up speed. One by one, he started to present very interesting demos. The people loved the session and would not let him go after the session was over.

Dhananjay Kumar Presenting

There were plenty of questions and this young man answered them all. The knowledge and maturity shown by Dhananjay were incomparable. He looks very young because he is indeed still young, but people could not believe that after his session. He got nearly 15 people asking his real age. This was very funny.

After Dhanajay’s session, Jacob Sebastian presented a very interesting session. Jacob is an international speaker and has presented in different countries and conferences. His session was on the subject FileStream. I have never seen any speaker talking about this subject in the Indian Subcontinent. He picked this new subject and I must say it was perfectly delivered. He even showed demos that only top experts could deliver. The demos were flawless and really appealing. Jacob is truly a master story teller. His session was remarkable; we did not realize that the time passed so fast.

There was a power-packed session on Silverlight by Prabhjot Singh Bakshi, wherein he clearly explained how Silverlight is different from Flash, and how one can code quickly using it. It was cheered by the crowd so much. This session was followed up by Mahesh Dola’s demo-oriented Azure presentation with MS Office. Mahesh also gave a Thank You note in the end.

All in all, this event was a major success. I hope we organize this kind of event more often. The Community participation was marvelous. With the support of Microsoft, we were able to celebrate this event. We gave away many T-Shirts, books and other merchandise. I want to express my special thanks to all the speakers, Microsoft and the community for their support.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

I must express my special thanks to event organizers Sugesh, Deepak and Vidyasagar for organizing such a wonderful event. Every participant who was attending the event had a great time and expressed their passion for SQL Server as well as the overall technology. I also enjoyed meeting SQL Server MVPs Madhivanan, Madhu and Venketasan.

The event was very well organized and the enthusiasm of the crowd was unmatched. After the event, I talked with nearly 30 different attendees on a one-to-one basis and was glad to know their desires to involve with the community activities and to learn advanced topics in SQL Server.

Spatial Database & Spatial Indexing

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. This session helps us to learn how to use spatial functionality in the next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session also outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, and use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it.

Good, Bad & Ugly – The other side of Index

Index is often considered as the sure shot tool of improving the performance of any query. You can learn the secrets of Indexing with examples and discover the good, bad and ugly sides of Index. This session will help you write queries efficiently in future and also make you go back and defector your earlier code.

We distributed T-Shirts to all the participants. The most active participant received Redgate books written by renowned industry experts and MVPs. Once again, many thanks to all the organizers and SQL Server MVPs for arranging such a wonderful event for the entire SQL Server Community!

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

I am going to clean up my personal servers as well and finish a few tests, as well as complete my benchmark projects. My personal data is also stored in one gigantic database. Because it is my personal server, no one pays me and thus I hardly maintain it.

Today I am going to do the following maintenance tasks on it:

1. Backup Master. I am going to have a backup of the database using script; however, the backup script has not been updated for a long time now. Last time, I noticed that I was not getting the master database’s backup. And no matter what one suggests, I still think it is very important to have a backup of the master database. I am going to alter the script to have a correct backup of the master database.
2. Online Indexing. I have upgraded my server from SQL Server 2005 Standard to SQL Server 2008 Enterprise. On the other hand, I never changed the index rebuilding script. One of the tables is very huge and when indexes are rebuilt in it, it often gets broken. I plan to change the index rebuild script to include the option of (ONLINE = ON). This will be good to avoid the time outs.
3. Restarting the Server. I have the server connected to UPS and even though we have lots of very short power outages, my server is not affected, fortunately. I almost forgot when I really restarted it. Although, it is not necessary to restart server at all, this procedure is intended for my windows box, which has many updates installed but I have not rebooted it in order for these updates to take effect. This may not be the best technique, but it works enough for me because my data is not that critical. If you are maintaining a high-availability solution, I suggest that you have fail over solution implemented before restarting the server.
4. Wait Stats. I recently learned about Wait stats. I am eager to know what Wait Statistics really are, and what they can do for my server. Due to the fact that I have not upgraded the hardware for many years now (although I have upgraded the OS, SQL Server version and huge data growth), I could find out which of my hardware needs an upgrade.
5. Fresh Air. I will make sure that after all of the above tasks are completed I am going to go out with my family and breathe some fresh air.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

Techinsights is a major technology conference to network with like-minded peers and also up-skill your knowledge on latest technologies. An event that offers opportunity to dabble in hardcore technologies with in-depth and hands-on demonstration by Microsoft MVPs and industry experts local and abroad. This three-day event will challenge what you think you already know. You’ll return to the office with cutting-edge insights and expertise that will make life easier for you (and everyone else) at work. This round, we have a special highlight on new technologies such as SharePoint 2010, Visual Studio 2010, SQL Server 2008 R2, Silverlight 4, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and many more. TechInsight is an event created by techies for techies. There is no marketing involved. It is indeed an experience to rediscover the uber-geek within you. Sign up today to secure your seat.

I presented two sessions there. Both of my sessions were in the TOP 5 sessions of Development track. Additionally, my session on Join got the highest ranking ever in Dev Track.

1) My Join, Your Join and Our Joins – The Story of Joins

Joins are very mysterious; there are many myths and confusions. This session will address all of them and also tell the story of how they act when it is about performance. Does the order of table in Join matter? Does the right or left join any different to each other? Does the Join increase IO? When is an outer join not an outer join and inner join? All these questions are answered and many more stories of Joins are included. Learn the simple tricks to get the maximum out of this tool.

Session Evaluations

Overall session rating 7.5
How valuable was the content presented 7.467741935
How effectively did the presenter communicate the content 7.596774194

2) Spatial Database – The Indexing Story

The world was believed to be flat but no more. Now SQL Server supports the spatial datatypes and many more functions. This session addresses the most vital part of Spatial datatypes and talks about how to improve the performance for the application, which is already blazing fast. We will look at how indexes are behaving with different spatial datatypes and how they can help to improve the performance and also learn the pitfalls to avoid them affecting performance.

Session Evaluations

Overall session rating 7.237288136
How valuable was the content presented 7.322033898
How effectively did the presenter communicate the content 7.457627119

I must express my special thanks to all the organizers of the event – Ervin, Walter, Raymond, and Patrick (in no particular order). They did an excellent job, and all the attendees of the event had great time as well. The food was awesome, and the response was excellent. After one month, when I am writing this review, I am still thinking of the wonderful experience I had from this event. This makes me want to not miss this event any year.

This one event is truly TechEd quality event in Malaysia. Kudos to the organizers and Microsoft.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

Today is the last day to participate in the content. However, as we have added one more subscription on very last day, we have decided to leave this contest open for one more day. If you have left comment earlier, you can still leave comments one more time. The content will be now open till 26th of July. We will also announce winner very soon.

I suggest that you join me thanking Madhivanan for excellent contribution to community. You can read his interview over SQLAuthority News – Interview with SQL Server MVP Madhivanan – A Real Problem Solver.

Participate in the content by clicking following link.

Win $ 11,899 worth Price

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)