Sometimes there is a need to see last run time information for a SQL Agent job. You may need to see when the job is scheduled to run next. The msdb system database contains a ton of information about SQL Agent jobs schedules, activity, job steps and etc..
I created the below query to get a bird’s eye view of job executions. The query is based off msdb.dbo.sysjobs and msdb.dbo.sysjobactivity. These objects have a lot more information that can be added. Tweak the results to meet your needs.
I like using Ola Hallengren’s maintenance scripts. Super configuratible, logging, SQl Agent job creation and etc. Sometimes I want to spot check on some of the statistics. Stale statistics can cause cardinality issues with SQL plans.
We learn how database statistics are used:
“The query optimizer uses statistics to create query plans that improve query performance. For most queries, the query optimizer already generates the necessary statistics for a high quality query plan; in a few cases, you need to create additional statistics or modify the query design for best results. This topic discusses statistics concepts and provides guidelines for using query optimization statistics effectively.”
The sample rate is set to full s or 100 percent of the rows will be scanned. A full scan will create overhead. Need to always look at the impact to your environment. You could have old statistics and not used or duplicate statistics. In some cases, the higher sample rate can actually cause the plan be less optimal.
Rule of thumb, your queries will perform better with fresh statistics.
I have two scripts to I use to find the health of statistics and update statistics based upon certain criteria.
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Many third-party tools have pretty lead blocking graphs and etc. You may not have access to something than grand. My friend and co-work JD Pellerin wrote this script. He used this as a basis for an SSRS report that can be executed by operations teams to identify potential batch issues. Play around with tweak it to fit your needs.
Sample Blocking Results
Like Part 1 and Part 2, I use a similar query to find latency in AlwaysOn Availability Groups. The queries will return one line for each DB in the group. Part 1 , we looked at a simple query to grab the current status of the replica. Part 2, we looked at populating a Global Temp table every minute to gain a historical perspective of our AG latency. This query will look into creating an email notification when certain criteria is met. It will send the current status to a specific set of email recipients.
The example will be around specific criteria set as a step used in a SQL Agent job. If you use something like this, you need to tweak it to you organization’s needs. I do suggest that you set the job to a frequency that will not overflow your inbox with notices.
Send an email from server when latency for a specfic database datbase is over x number of minutes.
The example is pretty simple and intended for demonstration purposes.
Sometimes there is a need to maintain some historical content on how current your Availability Group is performing. The following script builds off the original script in Part 1. It populates a global temp table with information every minute. I really got the idea from Brent Ozar’s sp_SQL Blitz. I took the road of least intrusive by creating the ##LatencyCheck_tbl global temp table. Sergey Gigoyan has a good post on global temp tables and good links at the end of the post, too.
The ##LatencyCheck_tbl temp table is populated after 1 minute and every minute until cancelled. Need to make sue the table gets dropped after you have done you analysis. It is a good idea to keep an eye on the size of the table, too (execute sp_spaceused ‘##LatencyCheck_tbl’). Like any temp table, service restart will drop the table the process cancelled. If this is something you would like always run. you can look into creating a SQL Agent job or even a procedure that auto starts. I don’t suggest doing that. If you do choose to do so, you should make sure you monitor of have a process in place to reduce the size of the temp table. Also, look into grabbing Perfmon counters and Extended Events. Everything has overhead and we do not want to succumb to the “Watcher Effect”..DAH! DAH! [Organ music].
AlwaysOn Availability Groups latency can be a real concern. Microsoft provides a AlwaysON Dashboard to monitor and some administration of Availability Groups in SQL Server Management Studio(SSMS). Ben Snaidero as an excellent posting about the dashboard and T-SQL monitoring of AG.
The query below uses sys.dm_hadr_database_replica_states to query the current state. It can be run on the primary or secondary server. We use a readable secondary and it is nice to see how close to real-time updates. As a roll-your-own solution, you could create a SQL Agent job to monitor and send an email when certain criteria is met.
Wanted to share this script. I pieced it together some time ago from various scripts. I think this might be the source for at least some of the query.
Removing the step_ID from the where clause will show run times by step_id and Total RunTime (step_id 0).
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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.
The script below is a quick way to create disable and enable SQL Agent job commands for existing jobs. It will script out the correct ‘EXEC msdb..sp_update_job’ statements. In this example, the where clause filters for “enabled = 1”, but you can use it create statements based of various job characteristics. We tend to use these when migrating to new servers and want to leave the old server in place.
/*
Script commands to disable/enable jobs
5/20/2014 JCD
Tested: 2005, 2008 R2 and 2012 SP1
You can further filter jobs with other sysjobs columns to specify
an even smaller subset of enabled jobs. Good examples for adding
filers are owner_sid, description and category_id.
*/
SET NOCOUNT ON
GO
USE msdb
GO
-- Script disable commands for enabled jobs
SELECT 'EXEC msdb..sp_update_job @job_name='''+REPLACE(name,'''','''''')+''',@enabled=0;'
FROM msdb..sysjobs
WHERE enabled = 1;
GO
-- Script enable commands to enabled jobs after disabling. Should be run when creating the disable script
SELECT 'EXEC msdb..sp_update_job @job_name='''+REPLACE(name,'''','''''')+''',@enabled=1;'
FROM msdb..sysjobs
WHERE enabled = 1;
GO
I am Only Here to Help – OBJECT_DEFINITION()
Many people are familiar the Windows Command Prompt. You can open one. type “HELP” and click enter. It will return descriptions of various OS commands. You can type “-?” after a command and get a list on all the switches that can be used with that command. Go ahead and try it (sqlcmd -?)The system is simply returning metadata.SQL has several commands that return metadata about system and user objects. We will look at the OBJECT_DEFINITION() command.
Windows Command Prompt and HELP command.
From the link we learn that it “Returns the Transact-SQL source text of the definition of a specified object.” We all know you can right click on an object in SSMS and script it out. Why use this? Output to SSMS has a limit on how much can be returned at a time. Large object like procedures can be thousands of lines long and will be truncated. AH!
Beside of the nerd cool factor of being able to return source code, it can be handy. One use is to search for the occurrences of specific objects or syntax within objects. Maybe you want to see what objects reference a certain table or maybe find objects that use a specific QUERY HINT.
OBJECT_DEFINITION applies to the following object types:
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