Search results matching tags 'Performance' and 'troubleshooting'

Learn More About SQL Server IO and Query Tuning in These Webcasts

KKline — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 18:50:00 GMT

I'm doing two new webcasts next week on Wednesday, December 19th, one in the morning and the other after lunch.

SSDs are a Game Changer for SQL Server Storage

No, session is not exclusively about SSDs. But this is my first session on IO and storage tuning that emphasizes SSDs over hard disks. As Bob Dylan said "Times, they are a'changin'". This session on Wednesday, December 19th at 11:30 AM EST, sponsored by Astute Networks, takes you through all of the basics of storage and IO tuning, regardless of the underlying storage technology. I'll show you how SQL Server handles storage structures, how to identify IO activity on Windows and SQL Server, and best practices for minimizing IO bottlenecks. Register now for: Storage IO Best Practices for SQL Server and a New Approach to Solving Application Performance Issues.

Write Better SQL Queries

The next webcast on Wednesday, December 19th at 2 PM EST, is with me, Aaron Bertrand (Twitter | Blog) and SQLCruise Impresario & Microsoft MVP Tim Ford (Twitter | Blog) as we take you through the query tuning process, discussing important DMVs to use during query tuning, as well as demonstrating several essential query tuning techniques that every SQL developer should know. Not only are we presenting an hour of top quality technical content, we’ll also be giving away some cool prizes, including the grand prize of a paid registration for the upcoming SQLCruise Miami, a $1,395 value! Register now for: SQL Server Query Tuning Best Practices, Hosted by Kevin Kline and Aaron Bertrand with special guest Tim Ford

I hope to see you at both of these sessions next week! Best regards,

-Kev

-Follow me on Twitter!

Two New Slide Decks. Plus, the Week in Colorado.

KKline — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:03:00 GMT

I had the honor of traveling the great state of Colorado last week, speaking at the PASS chapters in Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Denver. At all three events, we had a stellar attendance and, at least in Denver, broke all the records in recent memory both in terms of overall attendance and in first-timers. Denver, in fact, was standing room only and had nearly 30 first time attendees. Great news! I also want to give a special shout-out of thanks and appreciation to Chris Shaw (Twitter | Blog) whose hard work and tenacity ensured that all of Colorado got to see me speak. From left to right, Gabriel Villa (Twitter), me, Chris Shaw, and Rebecca Mitchell (Twitter). If it weren't for Chris, I wouldn't have been there. Thanks for putting in the time, amigo!

New Slide Decks!

During the 3-day jaunt, I presented two of my more popular sessions. These are updated slide decks, in case you want to download them here:

UG - End-to-End Troubleshooting

and

UG - Top 10 SQL Server Administration Mistakes

Be sure to check in the Slides area of the website, if you want to see the links for SpeakerRate, and in the case of several of my presentations, white papers, video recordings, etc. It's the People that Matter

A Blast from the SQLPASS Past!

I've always tried to maintain the relationships I built with the founding members of the PASS board of directors. After their time on the PASS board, almost all of them have moved on from SQL Server to other adventures. Pam Smith, the first president of the organization, is now a professor. Guy Brown, the second president, is now the director of IT at his same employer, rather than just SQL Server as when he was on the PASS board. A few, such as Kurt Windisch, a former VP of PASS, and my good friend Joe Webb (Twitter | Blog), are still active in the SQL Server space. One relationship that I've enjoyed over the years is with PASS' original Microsoft liaison and now a Denver-area software entrepreneur Steve Murchie (at right) running his own healthcare IT outfit. Steve has been a source of inspiration to me and also of great advice for all things startup-related. It was great to connect with Steve and catch up on his latest doings.

I also got to enjoy an evening out with the local attendees after the Denver user group meeting. It was great to hang out with folks there. I got to meet Kevin Cox (twitter), a member of Microsoft's incredibly talented SQLCAT group, and for whom I was a technical editor on a SQL Server v6.5 book back in the Neanderthal era. That shows just how old both Kevin and I actually are. Other cool folks that I got to meet included Steve Wake, Mike Fal, Marc Beacom, Jason Kassay, Jason Horner and my ol' buddy, Kelly the Greeley Geek.

On top of that, long-time SQL Server MVP and all-around awesome guy Steve Jones (Twitter | Blog) visited. I kept him out way too late that night which, to be honest, isn't usually my style. But the good conversation propelled us on past midnight.

The Good Folks at SQL Server Professional and Windows IT Professional Magazines

I've written for SQL Server Professional (formerly the artist known as "SQLMag") in some form or another starting from my first cover article for them way back in the mid 1990's. My Tool Time column has been going strong there since, oh, around 2006 iirc. For most of the time I've known the folks at SQLMag, they were located in Loveland, CO but they were able to move to some incredibly nice digs just up the road in Fort Collins. In all the many years, I've written for them, I'd never been to their offices - until now. It was great to visit and break bread with Megan (to my right), Blair (across), and Jaylee (across and to my right)!

I've always supported SQLMag and encourage you to subscribe. On top of the goodness already in the digital magazine, there are some neat developments coming down the pipeline with SQLMag which I think we'll all enjoy. Be sure to subscribe today! (You can click the badge on the left or simply go to http://www.sqlmag.com).

What's Next?

My current travel schedule is pinned up on this blog post HERE. However, I also know of a couple on-line appearances and probably a trip between the long gap between now and my next in-person appearance at the Orlando SQL Saturday at the end of September, where I'll also be teaching a pre-conference seminar (register HERE for the seminar).

SSWUG

The first on-line event to note is my a presentation by SSWUG of my Leadership Skills for IT Professionals video series, starting on August 24th. Sign up using the hyperlink (note that a video plays immediately upon loading the webpage, in case you want to be ready to pause or stop it). You can also buy a DVD set of the 14 hours of leadership training content.

24HOP - The 24 Hours of PASS Event

I'll also be speaking on the topic of influence in the next 24 Hours of PASS coming up on September 20th and 21st. Registration for the twenty-four hours of around the clock presentations is completely free and well worth your time. Check the schedule for the event and register! Even if you can only watch one or two sessions (or even zero sessions), be sure to register so that you'll automatically be notified when the sessions become available as streaming media.

Enjoy!

-Kev

-Follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook

New White Paper: SQL Server Extended Events and Notifications

KKline — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:13:00 GMT

SQL Server comes with a wide array of tools for monitoring your environment. There are logs and traces that provide information when errors occur, but these are often used passively to react to events that have already occurred. There's PerfMon, and Profiler, and loads of Dynamic Management Views to check. But where to look?

As database administrators (DBA), we need to monitor our environments proactively and create solutions as issues arise. In this white paper, we will look at a couple technologies – event notifications and extended events – that can help you achieve these goals. With these two features, we’ll look at the error log and deadlocks, and demonstrate how you can get relevant information delivered as it occurs. We’ll also look at ways that run-time errors can be captured and used to help reduce the amount of time required to investigate issues.

This white paper, written by SQL Server MVP Jason Strate (blog | twitter), is a free download but requires a registration. Download the Extended Events white paper here.

And, as always, I enjoy your feedback. Thanks!

-Kev

Follow me on Twitter!

SQL Server Performance Tuning and Optimization in Jacksonville, FL on April 27th

KKline — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:15:00 GMT

One last reminder - If you're interested in learning more about troubleshooting and optimizing SQL Server performance, please consider coming to the full-day seminar I'll be giving this Friday. Full details are here: http://sqlperftuning.eventbrite.com/. We'll be working some exercises, so bring your laptop with an instance of SQL Server 2008 (or later) running on it. It'll be fun!

I also encourage you to come on down to SQL Saturday 130 the following day - whether there's an official registration for you or not. (But don't tell 'em I said that). :^)

Come by the booth for a visit. I'll be hanging out most of the day and have some nice swag to give away.

Enjoy,

-Kev

Follow me on Twitter!

Everybody Needs a Test Harness

KKline — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:17:00 GMT

When you're developing new Transact-SQL code or modifying some existing code, do you just launch directly into programming?

I know that I did just that, for years. It wasn't until I was trying to performance tune some existing code that I realized I hadn't actually taken caching of data and execution plans into account. So all those modified stored procedures that I was so proud of might not actually be faster than the first generation of procedures because I hadn't checked to ensure that I was testing cached programs against uncached programs (and, by extension, the data used by those programs). That's easy enough to fix with a test harness. Test harness were originally an actual, physical harness used by engineers to clamp down parts of an electrical or mechanical device they were prototyping. Ours is no different. It locks down all of the assumptions about our code (like my early, false assumption that I didn't need to clear the caches) and adds a metric or two for good measure - literally - so we can better measure what's happening in that code.

Here's what my test harness looks like:

/* Transact-SQL test harness by Kevin Kline, http://KevinEKline.com, Twitter at kekline */

/* Flush dirty pages from the buffer to the database files. */

CHECKPOINT;

/* Flush the data cache and procedure cache, respectively. For DEV environments only! */

DBCC DROPCLEANBUFFERS;

DBCC FREEPROCCACHE;

/* Enable statistics tracking for IO and timings. Remember, SET commands remain enabled during a session until disabled. */

SET STATISTICS IO ON;

SET STATISTICS TIME ON;

-- Whatever SQL code you'd like to process goes below.

SELECT SalesOrderID

FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader H

WHERE CustomerID = 344

GO

SET STATISTICS IO OFF;

SET STATISTICS TIME OFF;

/* Textual Execution Plans, if desired.

SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT ON;

SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT OFF;

*/

I also like to include the execution plans a lot of the time. You might wonder why I don't save the execution plans for the GUI in SSMS? Well, I'm a big advocate of scripting in general because I like to automate activities. By pulling the execution plans using scripts, I can use SQLCMD to schedule a large number of query executions during the evening and have the results ready for analysis when I come back into the office in the morning. Workin' smarter, not harder, Baby!

So how does this test harness work for you? Do you use other elements in yours? If so, share your experiences here!

Thanks,

-Kevin

-Follow me on Twitter

Troubleshooting Repeated Login Failures on SQL Server

KKline — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:05:00 GMT

I’d recently experienced a situation where I was getting repeated login failures to a SQL Server where I knew that I had the correct user name and password. Each time, I’d get error 18456 in response.

"Login failed for user '<user_name>'. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 18456)".

The challenge when troubleshooting this error message is that you may have a problem with SQL Server or you may have a problem with Active Directory or Kerberos, if you’re using one of those authentication technologies.

A False Trail

When times are good, and you’re able to make a connection, you can always query sys.dm_exec_connections, to see how you’re connecting, for example, using NTLM rather than Kerberos. But that doesn’t help us when we can’t connect to the server at all.

In other situations, your problem might be caused by duplicate SPMs in Active Directory. MVP Russell Fields documented a nice solution for ridding Active Directory of duplicate SPNs here. Microsoft Support also mentions some troubleshooting steps for authentication problems here. Ok, that helps. But it’s not my solution.

MVPs to the Rescue

Fortunately, my MVP buddies Edwin Sarmiento (blog | twitter) of Canada and Bitemo Erik Gergely (blog) of Hungaria had already discussed and solved the problem for me.

Something Erik pointed out, but hadn’t occurred to me at first, is that if you’re getting this SQL Server error message then you’ve actually reached the server and probably aren’t having a full disconnect error. The second thing that Erik pointed out is the importance of the state element of this error message. A lot of the time, you can simply ignore the state element of an error message. But not this time. As it turns out, state is the key to solving the problem. For example, a state of 18 indicates that the password must be changed.

Microsoft provides a pretty good description of the states of error 18456 here, but it leaves out a few things. (You’ll get more useful info if you read all of the comments too). But again, Erik comes to the rescue by providing a complete and concise list of error 18456 states here.

Microsoft Improves the Documentation

Even better for all troubleshooting situation involving state information, Microsoft has now added state descriptions for errors in Books Online, including error 18456. When you look in your SQL Server error log, you see the state of the error and be able to make an accurate deduction about the nature of the error!

Hope this helps,

-Kev

-Follow me on Twitter

-More content on my blog

Microsoft Windows Platforms Blog Watch

KKline — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:44:00 GMT

Remote Desktop Services Component Architecture Poster

Grab your own poster! A visual guide to key Remote Desktop Services technologies in Windows Server 2008R2

Virtually Free

Get the latest update rollup package for the Hyper-V role in Windows Server 2008 R2 and be sure to bookmark the Windows Virtualization Team Blog. Be sure to check out blog World Simplified is a Virtual World. And doncha evah neglect application virtualization, such as the goodness at the App-V Product Team Blog.

Let's Optimize Some Desktops (Assuming You Have Gone Full Cloud Yet)

Check out The Official Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) Blog where you can get cool tools like the Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DART), currently in its v7 beta release.

We Can Always Perform a Little Better

Have you checked out the Ask the Performance Team blog yet. You should! Then there's the Microsoft Enterprise Networking Team blog. And if you're looking for help with the Windows Server Core, be sure to check out the Ask the Core Team blog. Excellent stuff! As the Tool Time columnist at SQL Server Magazine, I'm always on the lookout for great free tools that get on-going support from their creators. One common experience is finding a nice debugging tool, only to discover that there's no information on how to interpret the debugger result sets! (SQLIOSim anyone?) That's why I love the Microsoft Advanced Windows Debugging and Troubleshooting blog. Another must-have on your Favorites list.

Enjoy!

-Kev

Follow me on Twitter

Pain of the Week/Expert's Perspective: Performance Tuning for Backups and Restores

KKline — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:39:00 GMT

First off - the Pain of the Week webcast series has been renamed. It's now known as The Expert's Perspective. Please join us for future webcasts and, if you're interested in speaking, drop me a note to see if we can get you on the roster!

The bigger your databases get, the longer backups take. That doesn't really seem like a huge problem — until disaster strikes and you need to restore your databases as fast as possible.

Join my buddy Brent Ozar (blog | twitter), a Microsoft Certified Master of SQL Server and good friend, as he reveals ways to make these critically important maintenance tasks run faster.

You'll discover:

Why Instant File Initialization is so important for restores
How to use DMVs to check restore progress
How to find the bottleneck while you're backing up or restoring data

Watch the recorded presentation at http://www.quest.com/events/ListDetails.aspx?ContentID=13358!

Enjoy!

-Kev

Follow me on Twitter at kekline

Available Online - SQL Server Training Videos

KKline — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 03:37:00 GMT

Interested in my various performance tuning and troubleshooting videos about SQL Server? These videos feature my good buddies (and uber-SQL Server experts) Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) and Buck Woody (blog | twitter). View these insight-packed training videos from our SQL Server training events originally presented on March 3 and July 21 of 2010:HERE.

You can watch the videos now at the URL above or order a DVD, shipped free of charge in the USA and Canada, HERE.

Enjoy!

-Kev

~~~

Twitter at kekline

New on SQLMag.Com: Update to SP_WHOISACTIVE

KKline — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:12:00 GMT

I profiled Adam Machanic's (blog | twitter) excellent stored procedure, SP_WHOISACTIVE, back in August of 2010 in my monthly SQLMag column, Tool Time. Adam has been diligent about maintaining the tool and adding new features. Read the details on my SQLMag Tool Time column (here - http://www.sqlmag.com/blogs/tool-time/entryid/76341/new-release-of-sp_whoisactive).

Enjoy!

-Kev

Twitter at kekline