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Wednesday, February 24, 1999 NEXT SQL SERVER SIG MEETING ************************************************************ The next SQL Server SIG meeting will be held on Thursday, March 4, 1999 at 6:00 PM. This meeting will be hosted at the offices of Solutech, Inc. located in the Lighton Plaza at 7300 College BLVD, Suite 165, Overland Park, KS. See http://home.gvi.net/~spyder/img/solutech_map.gif for a map. Solutech's offices are on the first floor, and parking in the building lot is FREE. Chris Miller, co-author of the new book SQL Server System Administration (The Landmark Series), will be giving a presentation about SQL Server 7.0 Tips and Tricks. Please feel free to print out and distribute the flyer for this meeting; the flyer is located at http://home.gvi.net/~spyder/sqlflyer.html . BUSINESS OBJECTS FOLLOW-UP: ************************************************** Here are a couple of items relating back to last month's SQL Server SIG meeting which featured a presentation from Business Objects:  First, Grant Thornton LLP is now offering Business Objects training courses in Kansas City  You can contact Grant Thornton by calling 800.366.3202 or visit their web site at http://www.gt.com/services/training.  Second, check out the following link for a recent article in Information Week magazine about Business Objects: http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?IWK19990208S0081. SQL SERVER 7.0 ARTICLE ************************************************** See the following link for a recent article in Information Week magazine about SQL Server 7.0: http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printArticle? article=infoweek/719/prsql.htm&pub=iwk HOW MANY ROWS? ************************************************** Most DBAs and database developers know that executing SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "table_name" gives you an up-to-date and accurate count of the number of rows within a table.  However, running SELECT COUNT(*) can take a long time on larger tables and doing so is also likely to have an adverse affect on the performance of ongoing server activities. If a "good enough" row count is acceptable, try executing the following query:       SELECT rows FROM sysindexes WHERE name = "[table_name]" Keep in mind that the values you receive from this query are only approximations and you should not rely on these numbers as exact counts. You can force an update of the row counts contained in the sysindexes table by executing the following DBCC command (but please note executing DBCCs such as this one can consume a considerable amount of system resources):       DBCC UPDATEUSAGE ([database_name], [table_name]) WITH COUNT_ROWS [Thanks to Jim Hipp for pointing out the following clarification to the HOW MANY ROWS article: If you have a clustered index on a table, the tablename does not show up in sysindexes. Therefore, the following query will work better for finding the number of rows in a table: select i.rows from sysindexes i inner join sysobjects o on i.id = o.id where o.name = 'table name' and indid in (0, 1) (An indid of 0 means it's a table. An indid of 1 means it's a clustered index.) Thanks again, Jim!] SQL SERVER MEMORY & "tempdb in RAM" ************************************************** Did you know that the amount of memory you assign to "tempdb in RAM" comes from available physical memory that has not already been assigned to SQL Server?  For example, if your SQL Server has 512 MB of physical memory and you have configured SQL Server to use 230,000 2k pages of memory then you will only have about 40 MB of physical memory available for the NT kernel and tempdb in RAM. A common problem is that persons tuning SQL Server machines can accidentally allocate too much memory to SQL Server and tempdb in RAM, which results in a disk thrashing and the inability to start SQL Server and other NT services.  If you find yourself in this situation and cannot restart SQL Server, try the following: 1. Stop the MSSQLServer and SQLExecutive services and make sure SQL Enterprise Manager and any other client tools are not running. 2. Go to the \mssql\binn directory and issue the following command to start SQL in single-user mode with a minimum configuration:       sqlservr -c -f 3. Ignore the text messages that appear in this window but be sure to wait for them to finish appearing (in total, this should only take about 10-20 seconds until SQL Server is started). 4. Launch the isql/w program, connect to the server as sa, and issue the following commands: sp_configure tempdb, 0 go reconfigure go 5. Go back to the window that SQL is running in and issue the "shutdown" command; SQL Server will shut down (if it doesn't then hit ctrl-c to shut it down). 6. Now you should be able to start SQL normally. Your tempdb will revert back to the initial default size of 2 MB on the master device. Be sure to consult the SQL Server Books Online for guidelines about configuring memory for SQL Server and when (and when not) to use "tempdb in RAM".  Also, keep in mind that the "tempdb in RAM" option is no longer available starting with version 7.0 of SQL Server. GONE WITH THE WIND ************************************************** Please note that the following configuration options from SQL Server 6.x are no longer available in SQL Server version 7.0: *     tempdb in RAM *     backup buffer size *     backup threads *     free buffers *     hash buckets *     max lazywrite i/o *     sort pages THE GUI REVEALED ************************************************** If you are using Microsoft SQL Server 6.5's Enterprise Manager and want to see what commands the GUI is executing "behind the scenes", try changing the command line for the shortcut that launches SQL Enterprise Manager to include the " -ow" switch.  This will generate a new window called SQL Spew which will display the SQL commands for processes that get executed by the Enterprise Manager GUI. UPCOMING SQL SERVER EVENTS ***************************************************************** All Heartland Users Groups meetings are open to the general public. Anyone may attend any of the various monthly SIG meetings and the HUG general meeting. If you are not already a member of the Heartland Users Groups, please consider joining -- an individual membership is only $25.00. Just ask the SIG leader or any Heartland Users Groups officer for a membership form. Your membership entitles you to receive the monthly newsletter and makes you eligible to receive door prizes at Heartland Users Groups events. Thursday, March 4, 1999 at 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM Maximizing SQL Server 7.0: What's New? At Solutech Inc. 7300 College BLVD, Suite 165 Overland Park, KS Register via the web at http://www.solutechinc.com or call 913.451.8703 Thursday, March 4, 1999 at 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM Monthly SQL Server SIG Meeting Chris Miller, author of the new book SQL Server System Administration (The Landmark Series) presentation about SQL Server 7.0 Tips and Tricks At Solutech Inc. 7300 College BLVD, Suite 165 Overland Park, KS See http://home.gvi.net/~spyder/sqlserver.html for details Thursday, March 18, 1999 at 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM Maximizing SQL Server 7.0: Data Warehouse Solutions At Solutech Inc. 7300 College BLVD, Suite 165 Overland Park, KS Register via the web at http://www.solutechinc.com or call 913.451.8703 Thursday, April 1, 1999 at 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM Maximizing SQL Server 7.0: Distributed and Enterprise Solutions At Solutech Inc. 7300 College BLVD, Suite 165 Overland Park, KS Register via the web at http://www.solutechinc.com or call 913.451.8703 Thursday, April 1, 1999 at 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM Monthly SQL Server SIG Meeting Topic and speaker TBA At Solutech Inc. 7300 College BLVD, Suite 165 Overland Park, KS See http://home.gvi.net/~spyder/sqlserver.html for details Thursday, April 15, 1999 at 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM Maximizing SQL Server 7.0: Performance and Tuning At Solutech Inc. 7300 College BLVD, Suite 165 Overland Park, KS Register via the web at http://www.solutechinc.com or call 913.451.8703 Thursday, May 6, 1999 at 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM Monthly SQL Server SIG Meeting Topic and speaker TBA At Solutech Inc. 7300 College BLVD, Suite 165 Overland Park, KS See http://home.gvi.net/~spyder/sqlserver.html for details MICROSOFT NEWS ************************************************************ See http://www.microsoft.com/mcp/certstep/mcdba.htm for details about Microsoft's new Database Administrator certification program. Exams and courseware for this new track are expected to be available by the first quarter of 1999. Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Overview: This is the one-day course that Microsoft is offering for $99. See http://www.microsoft.com/train_cert/sql7/oneday/ for details (this offer expires March 15, 1999). Get a voucher worth $500 towards the 5-day System Administration for Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 course (course #832). See http://www.microsoft.com/train_cert/sql7/offer for details (this offer expires March 31, 1999 and the training must be completed by April 30, 1999). Order your free* Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 trial CD today at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/go/imdb.htm *Shipping and handling charge of $9.95 will apply to all CD orders. Trial CD is only available in the U.S.  The trial period is limited to 120 days. MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS ************************************************************ The SQL Server SIG board is looking volunteers to be presenters for future SQL Server SIG meetings. If you or someone you know is interested in presenting a topic of interest to SQL Server professionals, please contact me or any other SQL Server SIG officer. In particular, we are actively looking for a presenter and topic for our April 1, 1999 meeting. The regular meeting time for monthly SQL Server SIG meetings is 6:00 PM on the first Thursday of each month at Solutech, Inc., 7300 College BLVD, Suite 165, Overland Park, KS. The SQL Server SIG's home page is at: http://home.gvi.net/~spyder/sqlserver.html . Please feel free to offer any ideas for improving the SQL Server SIG's page or for adding any links. The Heartland Users Groups' home page is at: http://www.hugkc.org . Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, criticisms, and/or referrals of persons who may be potentially interested in the SQL Server SIG.