The Multifunctioning DBA » MSSQL

Table Partitioning in MS SQL Server

Colin Smith — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:00:25 +0000

How to create a partitioned table in SQL Server. This example is based on weekly partitions by date but it could be anything you need.

1. Create the filegroup(s) that the partition table will reside on.
a. ALTER DATABASE databasename ADD filegroup [filegroupname]

2. Create the file(s) that the partitioned table will reside on on the filegroup(s)
a. ALTER DATABASE databasename ADD FILE (name = N’filename’, filename = N’Path to file.ndf’, SIZE = initiailsize, maxsize = maxsize, FILEGROWTH = autogrow size) TO filegroup filegroupname.

3. Create the Partition Function.
a. CREATE PARTITION FUNCTION
weekly52(DATETIME)
AS
RANGE RIGHT FOR VALUES
(’20120521′, –week 1
’20120528′, –week 2
’20120604′, –week 3
’20120611′, –week 4
’20120618′, –week 5 etc…
’20130610′ –week 52
)

4. Create the Partition Scheme
a. CREATE PARTITION SCHEME [weekly52_scheme]
AS PARTITION weekly52 TO
( [PRIMARY],
[parttable1],
[parttable1], –etc
[parttable1])

5. Create a heap table on the Primary Filegroup to load the initial data set into.
a. CREATE TABLE [dbo].[tablename](
[DATE] [smalldatetime] NOT NULL,
[SomeValue] [varchar](16) NOT NULL,
[SomeValue1] [varchar](16) NOT NULL,
[SomeValue2] [decimal](8, 2) NOT NULL,
[SomeValue3] [decimal](8, 2) NOT NULL,
[SomeValue4] [int] NOT NULL,
[SomeValue5] [decimal](8, 2) NOT NULL,
[SomeValue6] [int] NOT NULL)

6.    Load Data (This can be by any process. Verify that the date ranges are correct for the partition function. If not – then drop and recreate the partition function with the correct dates.)
7.    Create the clustered index on the heap table and put the clustered index on the new partition scheme that you created for the partitioned table.
a.    ALTER TABLE TableName
ADD CONSTRAINT Index_Constraint_Name
PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED(DATE] ASC)
On filegroupname

8. Verify that the data is in the correct partitions.
a. SELECT $partition.PartitionFunctionName(o.date) AS [PARTITION#],
MIN(o.date) AS [MIN DATE],
MAX(o.date) AS [MAX DATE],
COUNT(*) AS [ROWS IN Part]
FROM parttest AS o
GROUP BY $partition.PartitionFunctionName(o.date)
ORDER BY [PARTITION#]

9. If the data looks correct in the partitions then the table is set up and the data has been distributed to the correct partitions. You can double check in SSMS by right clicking on the TableName and going to the storage tab. You should see that table partitioned = true and you should see the number of partitions that the table spans.

Free Training Contest

Colin Smith — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 18:02:00 +0000

Who wants some free training? I know I do and that is why my last post was what it was. Here is a link to the competition. Get in and get your post done today for your chance to win some Awesome Training. http://www.sqlskills.com/BLOGS/PAUL/post/Master_Immersion_Event_Competition.aspx

I think all should enter but I really do hope that I win. Good luck though and thanks again to the SQLSkills group for doing this for the community.

DBA Roles

Colin Smith — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:46:05 +0000

I have a scenario that I would like to talk to you all about and get your take on what should be done. I am a Systems DBA. I am not a Developer. Lets say that in the not so distant past my team of System DBA’s got a phone call from a developer in a panic. They needed a restore and needed it now. Something happened to a production Database and a site that is mission critical was down. Of course nobody had any idea what happened or who did it. I looked into doing a restore and guess what. No backup had ever been done on this Database. All of the other Databases on the instance were being backed up but not this one. What could have been going on here?
Well let me give you a bit more of the back story. In my company the DBA group, my group, is responsible for Backups, Restores, Indexing, etc. We are also in charge of migrating any database object into production. This is meant to keep developers from developing in production. They all have test instances and they are all sysadmin role in those instances so that they can do what ever it is that they need in order to develop. Well, we have one group who has convinced the right people that they, the developers, need full access in production as well. They are too important to the business to be slowed down by process and that will cost us money.
Now that you know that, let me explain why the database was not backed up. The backup job was put in place before this database was created. Now, creating a database is usually up to my team, but since they all have sysadmin role they created it and did not tell us. They also did not set up backups to run against this database. They also were developing in production on the day that it all went down. Millions of rows were lost, database using simple recovery, and no backups. Then they blamed my team for not making sure that the database was backed up.
This brings me to my question. Since I am not a developer I would love to hear from System DBA’s as well as Development DBA’s on this. What should the seperation of roles be here? Am I crazy to think that the System DBA’s should not allow development and creation of databases and database objects in a production database by the developers?
I would like to tell them that either we lock it down and the System DBA’s will migrate all Database Objects and do all Database creation in the future and at that point we will be responsible for all that a Systems DBA should be responsible for. Or, We can give them all SysAdmin role and we will do nothing. If they want to muck around in it then they deal with the fallout and not us. Does that sound right to all of you? Please let me know what you think.

Health Check into SQL Server

Colin Smith — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:12:48 +0000

I have recently posted about my new job and how I am walking into the unknown. Like I have said in the past, I did get a list of Host Names that are running SQL Server. I have written a script to go out and look at each of those hosts and get me all instances. I have put together a list of about 150 SQL Servers that are running but I still no very little about. I have also posted about a Powershell script that I have written that goes out and gathers information about the SQL Server instances in question. I ran this and I was shocked. After glancing at the output I see things that just should not be. I see many DB’s that have logs larger than the Database. I see many that are running from the system drive, I see some that are far behind on patching, I even see one with only system databases on it. Like I said I have about 150 identified running instances and just over 1000 databases. You read that correctly over 1000. I just really do not even know where to start.

Because I have so many servers and so many databases, I thought that a simple Excel Spreadsheet is just not going to do it for me this time. I need more than just a simple report. I want to put all this data in a database so that I can slice and dice the data more easily, when I finally figure out how to prioritize what needs to be done. So here is what I have so far. I will use the same Powershell script to go get all the data that I am after and then I will have it insert the data into the database. This is just the beginning for this database as I have some bigger plans brewing in my head now. For now though, I just need something quick and basic to get the data into so I can prioritize and identify the largest problem areas.

I have two tables consisting of the following:

Instance Table	Database Table
ID PK	I_ID FK to I.ID
Host_Name	DB_Name
Instance_Name	Recovery_Model
SQL_Version	Data_Disk
SQL_SP	Log_Disk
OS_Version	Database _Size
	Log_Size
	Type (Test or Prod)
	Dbspace_Available
	Logspace_Available

I think that this will give me the ability to look at the basics and identify major problems. As I get things taken care of I will then start to add more to this Database so that I can do some more tunning, baselining, trending, and so forth.

Got any thoughts on what I should add to this initially. I am all ears.

Active, Active, Active

Colin Smith — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:30:39 +0000

Last week I got the chance to work on an Active, Active, Active SQL Server 2008 Cluster install. This was new to me and very fun. We have three physical hosts all using SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition. The Servers are also running Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition. I worked with one of our windows admins to do the install. First the windows admin set up the windows cluster and assigned all of the storage to the cluster but did not assign it to an application or service. Once that was done we had to set up the Distributed Transaction Coordinator and give it its storage. Now we started the install of SQL Server 2008. Since all of the storage was owned by one server we installed all three instances, one for each node, of SQL Server on that server and that created the different cluster applications for us. Then on each of the other servers we added a node three times, again once for each instance. Now that is complete we can fail over the resources for any instance to any of the physical nodes. Very cool.

MCTS Exam

Colin Smith — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:00:27 +0000

So Like I said before I did take the MCTS Exam and I did pass. I can not go into any detail about the test as you have to agree to an NDA before you take it. The test was, in my opinion, not as hard as the study material. I think that MS did a great job with the study material for this test. I was not sure if I was really ready for the test but it turns out I was more than ready.
I finished the test very early. I had about 40 minutes left when I completed the question portion and still over 1 hour left when I completed the simulation portion of the Exam. To study I purchased the following kit and I am about to start on the second book to prepare for the second of the three tests required for the MCITP:DBA certification. Think I will start hitting that hard when I return from Hawaii.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735623775

Read the book and spend time doing the practices and questions in the book and definitely take the practice tests. You will do well if you do all that.

Installing SQL Server 2008

Colin Smith — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:23:09 +0000

Yesterday I had to install SQL Server 2008 for the first time. I went through it on a development server first before installing on a production server. As I went through the setup process I noticed one thing that I think is long overdue. The Database Configuration step is a great addition to the install process. It is about time that MS allowed us to seperate out where all the Database and Log files will be before we actually do the install. This makes it easy to break out tempdb from the other databases and also to separate your data and log files. Make sure that you take advantage of this and plan out where you want all of the data files and log files to be on the file system. This will save some headache in the future when you have to move all of your databases as well as the system databases.

Migrating SQL 2005 Reporting Services

Colin Smith — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:18:46 +0000

I have been asked to help with Migrating a SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services server from one host to another. I set up a couple VM’s and away I went. I found that it is pretty straight forward though. I did run into a couple little hickups along the way but nothing to dificult. I did have a problem though, after I attached the database on the new server and brought up the reporting services configuration manager. I could not get the server to initialize. To resolve the issue I had t delete the encryption keys. Then I was able to initialize the server but I could not get any of my reports to run. Kept getting error about connection string not being initialized. I then changed the encryption keys in the configuration manager and all started working again. One other thing is to make sure that you have the RSExecRole setup. Here is a link on migrating a reporting services server.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms156421.aspx

New Job

Colin Smith — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:53:02 +0000

Last Thursday my company did some layoffs and re-orginization. I survived the layoffs but my job has changed. I am no longer a Database Administrator for a major media company in Phoenix Arizona, but now I am a Database Analyst for a nation wide media company. I am still based in the Phoenix area and still use my same desk, computer and all that. I will still be doing Database Administration for the company in Phoenix as well, but my role is expanding. This company is a big MS Shop and I will be essentailly the only Administrator for all instances that this large enterprise has. I am very excited about this opportunity and look forward to the challenges ahead of me. I know that this will put my learning on the fast track and I am hoping to have my first test done in a month or two at the most. Well wish me luck and I am sure that I will have many new stories and experiances to share as I move forward on this new adventure.

MSSQL Server Renaming Physical Host

Colin Smith — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:31:12 +0000

Recently I had a server that hosts a MSSQL 2005 SQL Server named instance and the Windows group decided that the name of the server had to be changed. I thought that this may cuase an issue since the MSSQL Server name is ‘hostname\instancename’. I did a bit of research and found that a solution is available for this problem. At first I thought that I may have to reinstall a new instance of SQL Server in order to get the name correct. I did not want to go thru all of that though.

I found that MS has a couple of Stored Procs that will help with this problem.

sp_dropserver ‘hostname\instancename’ –of the old server\instancename

sp_addserver ‘hostname\instancename’, ‘local’ –of the new server\instancename

I found that when I did a select @@servername I still got the old server name returned. I also found that when I did a sp_helpserver I got the new name. I decided I would restart the server to see if that would update the @@servername variable. I right clicked on the server and said restart. After it cam back up I got a ‘NULL’ from select @@servername. I did not understand why and really still do not. I was able to resolve the issue by going to the services.msc and restarting the SQL Server Service from there. Now I see the new server name from select @@servername as well as sp_helpserver.