The No Custom Security Extensions rule failure stopped a SQL Server upgrade because Reporting Services had custom extensions configured. The fix that worked was to clear the extensions in RSReportServer.config, upgrade, and put them back afterward.
SQL Server emergency? Email pinal@sqlauthority.com with URGENT in the subject line.
Parallel Plans: Reading Gather Streams and Repartition Streams
Read Gather Streams and other parallel exchanges, inspect rows per thread and spill evidence, and relate exchange waits to actual work.
Does GROUP BY Sort Results? Only ORDER BY Guarantees It
Does GROUP BY sort the rows it returns? No: only ORDER BY guarantees an order. This post builds a small demo, shows one GROUP BY query returning two different orders, and reads the plans that explain why.
Setup Error 1060: The Specified Service Does Not Exist During Upgrade
Setup error 1060 stopped an in-place upgrade from SQL Server 2008 R2 to 2014 right after the product key. The setup log asked for a ReportServer service that no longer existed. Removing the leftover SSRS fixed it.
Error 21089: Log Shipping Jobs Need Sysadmin on the Monitor Server
Error 21089 failed the Copy and Restore jobs of a log shipping setup. A Profiler trace showed the jobs raising the error on the monitor server. The SQL Server Agent startup account was not a sysadmin there.
Retrieve TOP 10 Rows Without Using TOP or LIMIT? – Interview Question of the Week #247
Question: Retrieve TOP 10 Rows Without Using TOP or LIMIT? We do not want to use TOP or LIMIT as they are actually not an ANSI implementation.
Operator Costs in an Execution Plan: Read Them Without Being Fooled
Interpret operator costs as estimates, compare actual rows and runtime evidence, and find expensive work without trusting plan percentages.
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Who We Are
Pinal Dave is an SQL Server Performance Tuning Expert and independent consultant with over 24 years of hands-on experience. He holds a Masters of Science degree and numerous database certifications.
Pinal has authored 19 books and 125 Pluralsight courses. To freely share his knowledge and help others build their expertise, Pinal has also written more than 5,800 database tech articles on his blog at https://blog.sqlauthority.com.
Pinal is also a CrossFit Level 1 Trainer (CF-L1) and CrossFit Level 2 Trainer (CF-L2).
Nupur Dave is a social media enthusiast and an independent consultant. She primarily focuses on the database domain, helping clients build short and long-term multi-channel campaigns to drive leads for their sales pipeline.
Shaivi Pinalkumar Dave is a book author and a women’s artistic gymnast.

