Category Archives: SQL Server - Page 2

Simple Index Usage Query

Yes, another index usage query. I adapted this a tiny bit to add a time element to it. DMVs will flush out any information when the services are restarted. I omitted system usage information to gear it more toward user created objects. Also, added the users statistics together to get a better Idea of total usage. It gives the user a good starting point to see utilization of current indexing. Conversely, Microsoft provides a “Missing indexes” DMV named sys.dm_db_missing_index_details. Don’t have blind faith in the suggestions. They are based on specific activity since last restart.
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Query to View Active Sessions

I want to start out by saying I am not sure about the origin of this query. I use it frequently to find activity on my servers. I left some of the code commented to show a few example items you can add and additional search criteria. I really encourage anyone to grab a query and alter it to show information useful to them.

It uses sys.dm_exec_query_plan() (via inline select forgive me) to grab the query plan when possible. Additional information to grab performance information and SQL code executing uses these DMVs sys.dm_exec_requests, sys.sysprocesses and CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(). Use the links to see the information being returned.

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T-SQL: Cursor Example

ARTICLE FROM ORIGINAL SITE – Young and Dumb!

Database Cursors have long been a favorite of mine. It allows you to take a subset of data and output the information in various ways. I use them for such things as building the body of an automated email with a cursor set within a stored proceedure. You can return output to build a cleaner report output, etc.Example

Select 'Case Created: '+convert(Varchar(20), @DATE ) + ' Case Number: '+ convert(varchar(10), @CaseNum)

We will start with the basic frame work and build from that:

We will use a two tables named SomeTable and Other Table
(The tables are actually from MySQL – I was lazy.)
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T-SQL: Select Case Example

ARTICLE FROM ORIGINAL SITE – Young and Dumb!

Select Case allows you to present data in various way. You can take numbers and return text values and express
certian conditions based on the value of a certain column.

Another example would be that you have a table Naughty_Nice in the Santa Database a data column Nice (INT Datatype) .
There are two distinct values in the column. The Value of 0 equals ‘No’ and the value 1 equals yes. You wanted to speed
stuff up and use less space by selecting a number and not use text Naughty/Nice.

Santa needs a list and he complains that 1 and 0 will not make sense to him at 30,000 feet. It’s so hard to
communicate to a guy that still thinks wooden toys are a big hit. He’s a bit too hands-on, and lacks the technical
skills to really understand that we want to optimize the database.
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SSRS Active Session Information

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) showed up to the party in SQL Server 2000.  A really awesome tool for data delivery.  Most SQL Server environments heavily leverage this powerful tool.  Microsoft has baked in some excellent views and tables for report rendering information (dbo.ExecutionLog, dbo.ExecutionLog2 and dbo.ExecutionLog3).  SSRS also supplies a text log with additional details for errors and warnings.  All are  useful when trouble shooting a failure or identifying report execution trends, but what happens if you want to know what is running, now?

Recently, I needed to  identify an active report that was creating a considerable amount of blocking.  We were able to identify a reporting login , verify the  blocking originated from SSRS. I could grab the query being executed, but needed to find the report and user or maybe subscription causing the blocking.  As I mentioned, for the most part the ReportServer database gives us historical information.  I always based most of my queries on the ReportServer database.  In a brief moment of clarity, I realized that maybe just maybe this ReportServerTempDB database might just store ‘temporary’ data about active sessions. Welcome back to the show, Jack!
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SQL Query to script DTUTIL.exe SSIS Export Commands

There are several reasons why DBAs will need to export/import SSIS packages for upgrades, development environments and backups.  Many use SSMS to do imports and exports of the dtsx packages. It isgreat unless you need to export several or even all the packages. Microsoft supplies a command line tool dtutil.exe to import, export, delete, update and verify SSIS packages.

I wrote the script below to query msdb and script out the dtutil commands. I save the output to text or file. It can be executed windows batch file(.cmd or .bat).  If your environment uses configuration files(.dtsconfig), make sure you grab a copy of those, too.

USE msdb
GO
SET NOCOUNT ON 
GO 
-- Scripts  DTUTIL commands 
-- Results to Text 
-- Script out commands to execute on target server
-- Output to be used as a windows batch file
-- Tested: SQL 2008 R2  and SQL 2012
-- REMOVE  " ---- " before saving as a .cmd or .bat file
-- JCD 01/29/2013

DECLARE @folderlocation VARCHAR(300)

-- Set location of folder to store 
SET @folderlocation = 'S:\SSISPackages' 

--------------------------
--- Do not alter below ---
--------------------------

-- Add Source Servername to folder structure (ex.C:\SSISExport\MyServer\)
SET @folderlocation = @folderlocation + '\'+CONVERT(VARCHAR(50),ServerProperty('SERVERNAME'))+'\'

--- Create Folder Structure
SELECT  'MKDIR "'+@folderlocation+'"'
UNION
SELECT 'MKDIR "'+ @folderlocation+RTRIM(foldername)+'"'
from [msdb].[dbo].[sysssispackagefolders]

-- Create DTUtil Commands
select 'DTUtil /SQL ' + 
'"\' + CASE WHEN DATALENGTH(RTRIM(F.foldername)) > 0 THEN RTRIM(F.foldername)+'\' ELSE '' END +
P.name + '"' +  ' /SourceS "'+CONVERT(VARCHAR(50),ServerProperty('SERVERNAME'))+'" /Encrypt  FILE;"'+@folderlocation+ 
CASE WHEN DATALENGTH(RTRIM(F.foldername)) > 0 THEN RTRIM(F.foldername)+'\' ELSE '' END + P.name + '.dtsx";0 /Q'
from [msdb].[dbo].[sysssispackages] P inner join [msdb].[dbo].[sysssispackagefolders] F 
on P.folderid = F.folderid
ORDER BY F.foldername

GO

SQLPerformance.com from SQLSentry

I was pretty excited to see the launch of a new website from SQLSentrySQLPerformance is going to be a great resource for the SQL Server community.  Congrats to SQL Server MVPs Aaron Bertrand and Kevin Kline on the launch of the site.

Read Aaron Bertrand’s announcement  here.

Check out the free tool SQL Sentry Plan Explorer v1.3 . We use it a lot to review queryplans.

Quick Server Info – sys.dm_os_sys_info and SERVERPROPERTY ()

I needed a quick query to get some server information using  sys.dm_os_sys_info and SERVERPROPERTY ( propertyname ) .  It is budget time so folks want to know some specifics about some of the current infrastructure. This is a nice way to provide a high level look at you infrastructure. Tested on SQL 2005 and SQL 2008 R2.

The SQLOS Team  has a neat article about changes in 2012 for the DMV.

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XQUERY – Examples and Scripts

There are tons of thing in this world that I really don’t understand. SQL Server XQuery is just one of those just out of reach.  Poking around trying to answer a question for a developer, I found the following XML script examples. Teh writer provides excellent explanations and examples. Immediately found the right path(pun intended) to go down.  I so wished my brain worked this way!

XQuery Labs – A Collection of XQuery Sample Scripts

Jun 26 2008 3:41PM by Jacob Sebastian

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SQL Script to Review Backup and Restore Processes

A coworker shared this awesome script to monitor backup and restore operation progress. I am not sure of the origin, but is definitely has become an essential member of my SQL scripts folder.

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