The Bit Bucket

I was teaching a SQL 2014 class yesterday and the students were using the current SQL Server 2014 Enterprise (on Windows Server 2012 R2) template.

We were using the Table Memory Optimization Advisor (right-click a table in Object Explorer within SQL Server Management Studio). I had several people in the class that reported that when they got to the primary key migration screen, that they couldn’t interact with the screen because the checkboxes were not present in the displayed list of columns.

2014-11-06

Nice to see some updated connectors for Oracle and Teradata for SQL Server Integration Services developers/users.

Version 3.0 of the Attunity connectors have been released. Some of these have substantial improvements. For example, the list of enhanced features for the Teradata connector includes:

• Expose additional TPT Stream Attributes(TD_PACK and TD_PACKMAXIMUM) to provide maximum tuning flexibility.
• Support for loading table with columns using reserved words.
• Fix mapping for TIME(0) to DT_STR SSIS datatype.
• Can display table name more than 30 characters correctly.
• Support for block mode and set as default mode.
• Expose TD_SPOOLMODE for TPT Export for faster extracts.
• Support for Extended Object Names(EON), which allow UNICODE object names in the Data Dictionary tables.
• Adding new datatypes (TD_PERIOD_DATE, TD_PERIOD_TIME and TD_NUMBER)

2014-11-05

I got an email the other day from Sean and Jen at Midnight DBA ( www.midnightdba.com ) about their new tool Minion for managing index rebuilds and fragmentation:

With these tools, they have been a little more ambitious in some ways than the tools provided by Ola Hallengren ( https://ola.hallengren.com/ ) that have been our favourite tools for this work. I quite liked many of the concepts they have put into the tool. It still feels a bit version-1.0-ish to me but shows lots of promise. I liked the way that it’s all set up with a single script. I would, however, like to see more error handling, etc. in that script. For example, you should be able to run it twice without errors. With the script I looked at, that’s not possible.

2014-11-04

There was a question this morning on the SQL Down Under mailing list about how to determine the Windows groups for a given login.

That’s actually easy for a sysadmin login, as they have IMPERSONATE permission for other logins/users.

Here is an example procedure:

When I execute it on my system this way:

It returns the following:

Note that the Usage column could also return “DENY ONLY” or “AUTHENTICATOR”.

2014-10-31

Over the last year, I’ve delivered a number of partner enablement events for Microsoft. These events are low cost training sessions that run for three days. Days 1 and 2 cover SQL Server 2014 content, mostly regarding in-memory OLTP, clustered columnstore indexes, and Azure integration with hybrid systems. Day 3 covers the full Power BI stack.

We’re pleased to be running another set of these around the country:

Melbourne: November 5th to 7th

2014-10-30

As most websites do, we collect analytics on the people visiting our site https://sqldownunder.com

I thought it might be interesting to share the breakdown of visitors to our site. Keep in mind that we have a primarily Microsoft-oriented audience. Enjoy!

No surprise on the native languages:

Country breakdown reflects the amount of local traffic we have for instructor-led courses. Most others are podcast listeners:

We first noticed Chrome slightly outstripping IE a while back but recently, it’s changed a lot. I suspect that IE11 will have been as issue here:

2014-10-30

I had the pleasure of recording another SQL Down Under show today.

Show 64 features Microsoft Azure DocumentDB product group member discussing Azure DocumentDB and what SQL Server DBAs and developers need to know about it.

JSON-based storage has been one of the highest rated requests for enhancements to SQL Server. While we haven’t got those enhancements yet, DocumentDB nicely fills a gap between NoSQL databases (I use the term loosely ) and relational databases.

2014-10-30

It’s great to see that the Connect site leading to fixes in the product.

I was really pleased when SQL Server Data Tools for BI appeared for Visual Studio 2013. What I wasn’t pleased about where a number of UI issues that came with that version.

In particular, there was a problem with previewing Reporting Services reports. If I create a new report project, add a blank report, and drag on a text box:

2014-10-29

When I installed CU4 for SQL Server 2014, I started to receive an error in SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio) every time I connected to a database server:

It was interesting that it was a type that wasn’t being found in Microsoft.SqlServer.SqlEnum. I presumed it was a problem with a type being missing in that DLL and that I must have had an older one.

Turns out that the problem was with the Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo.dll.

2014-10-29

Over the last year, I’ve been delivering a number of partner enablement training sessions for Microsoft. They target the changes in SQL Server 2014 and also provide an introduction to Power BI.

During the sessions for day two, I have been getting the attendees to set up a high availability environment in Azure, with a Windows Server 2012 R2 domain controller and a couple of SQL Server 2014 Enterprise member servers. This process basically involves:

2014-10-13