28May 2008 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

XML Showplan in 2008

SQL Server, T-SQL
I just found my first fundamental difference between execution plans in SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. In 2005 when you run an query and have it display an XML execution plan by issuing the statement "SET STATISTICS XML ON" you get a second result set that includes a URL. The same thing happens in 2008. When you click on that URL in 2005 it opens the XML file in a new window. If you want to look at the graphical plan, you have to save the file with  a "*.SQLPLAN" exentension. In 2008 if you click on the URL, it opens a new window, but it shows the graphical plan. What happened to the XML? The developers at Microsoft are smart, that's what happened. If you then right click…
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27May 2008 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Be Afraid

PASS
I mean me, not you. I've been accepted to present at PASS. I'm jazzed and totally freaked at the same time. I put in two abstracts, one based on my book, "Dissecting SQL Server Execution Plans" and the other based on an article I wrote published at SQL Server Central, "Deploying with DBPro to Multiple Environments." Why then am I freaked? I've spent a year delving into execution plans. I won't say I'm an expert, but I'm comfortable. I've been using DBPro for two years now, but I'm hardly eating and breathing it on a daily basis. Well, I wasn't. From this point forward I'll be neck deep in it daily. Watch for posts on this topic.
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21May 2008 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Buggy Whips

nHibernate, Object Relational Mapping
I just spent two days learning about project management and the Feature Driven Development methodology from Jeff De Luca. He's a fascinating and informative guy. He's actually going to be running a project and mentoring a bunch of people where I work. It's going to be interesting times. I expect to learn a lot. Why buggy whips? What the heck do they have to do with FDD? Nothing, directly. A big part of FDD is the development of business models. These models can, and usually do, directly correlate to objects/classes in code. Because of this, object oriented methods are, not an inherent part of FDD, but certainly easily automated and used by those designing and developing systems in FDD. Buggy whips? I'm getting to it. Mr. De Luca has spent…
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15May 2008 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

FAST n Query Hint

SQL Server, T-SQL
Just because a doctor says take two aspirin, taking an entire case won't make you better. If one is good and two is better, 2 million might not be best.  What the heck am I talking about? We have an application that for one reason and another, has some overly complex procedures and queries. A lot of time and effort has been spent getting these queries to work well. Some of that time & effort came from one Microsoft consultant, Bill Sulcius. He's a great guy, very smart, very helpful and I learned a lot from him. On a few of the queries that Bill helped tune, he added some query hints, FAST 1 and KEEPFIXED PLAN. Where he added these hints, he could demonstrate, with good sets of data…
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07May 2008 by Grant Fritchey 5 Comments

SCOM Custom Performance Collection

Tools
I've spent five days struggling with this, but I finally have a custom performance collection up and running. The documentation available for Operations Manager 2007 (SCOM), especially for customization, especially for databases, is weak, and that's being kind. However, there are some guys working hard out there to make a difference. If you need help, the System Center Forum is the place to go. In particular, this little ditty on using property bag objects finally cracked the code for me. The good news, I'm going to write this up in an article for Steve over at SQL Server Central. The better news, I can finally report progress in my daily stand-ups. Sheesh!
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06May 2008 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

SCOM VBScript Testing: The Answer

Tools
It took a while, but I finally tracked down the information I needed. SCOM has an SDK. In the SDK is a nice little page showing how to test & debug scripts. One of the links on that page leads out here to a great article on the VBScript debugger. That's what I needed (along with the DLL's to register). Anyway, I've almost got my first monitoring script up & running. I'll post it on here once I do.
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