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Posts Tagged ‘Management’

Don’t get stuck in your career May 8th, 2012

Vinod Kumar

This topic has been on my mind for quite sometime and I wanted to pen it down today. I do know it is not a conventional easy topic too. With the March/April fever of performance reviews there is sense of accomplishment fore few and for some a sense of disappointment. This blog is not to outline how to outperform your reviews but it is to seed a thought to your short term excitements with the long term visions. I am a strong believer that everyone needs to have an answer to – “Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?”.

Often when I meet the new generation of kids with 2-4 years experience they come and tell me – “I am not going anywhere in my career”. Kids, don’t get me wrong here – “You are yet to have a career”.

It’s not what you achieve, it’s what you overcome. That’s what defines your career.

There are some things that will ensure you go no where in your career, and this is not possible without your consent. Let me call out some of the traits that will need to be changed if you want your career to go somewhere:

Passing the buck: Please don’t stuck to this thought and don’t get rigid in your communication. I understand it is not your job, but are your trying to be helpful and making an attempt? It is this positive attitude in life that will help. Don’t avoid work (any work) and your chances to take responsibilities.
We are not genius: I understand we don’t know everything that is put in front of us. It is fine to say – “I don’t know”. But that is not what you should be doing. If you make genuine efforts and add saying “yet let me find out for you”. Same as point 1, be helpful and get / give / find answers – not blank faces.
Blame game: Stop doing a blame game. You need to stand up and stand tall if you want to in front of your colleagues. You don’t impress anyone by putting down someone else in front of all. If you are a manager, well accept in public but blame in private 1:1 – be a leader not a mere manager.
Make time: If someone has come for help to you, acknowledge their existence and lend an helping hand. Don’t try to focus on the gossips but move on to help with the burning fire in front of someone. In a team everyone wins – not just the individual. Learning and sharing is a journey and make it memorable with people around you.
Come in early, don’t call in sick: Exceptions are there to this rule. But if you made a commitment – make it happen no matter what. I am off the school of thought that if committed it is done with no compromises. If you constantly try to evade off then don’t think no one is noticing. In an organization you don’t (mostly) get a choice to pick the tasks which you like to do, if you don’t do it – someone will step up or will eventually do it.
Improvise and innovate: I cant iterate on this very point. You don’t want to get step by step instruction on how to get things done. Innovate and don’t get stuck to the process boundaries that exist. It is always easier to think and do it our way rather than getting bogged down by our micro-manager to how it has to be done.
Communicate clearly: Clarity of thoughts and clarity in communication will lead you a long way and I love to iterate it here.

If you know where you are going, then you don’t need a GPS or compass. You will make your own new way.

If you want to make merry of where you will be in your career, well know where you want to go. Make positive strides and keep working on the learning hunger of your’s. I have advised many with a simple question – “Where do you want to go?”. So this blog is to again make that statement even more bold :). Do pass me your comments and what you think about it.

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Access Denied: Run SSMS as Administrator May 4th, 2012

Vinod Kumar

I recently upgraded my machine to Windows 8 and there are so many changes that are worth mentioning as part of security enhancements for SQL Server 2012 and Windows 8 combinations. We will discuss in various blogs in the future, but here is one of the question I got from one of my ASP.NET developer that after he upgraded he started getting this below error for attaching an existing database.

Textually the error is something like:

TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
——————————

Attach database failed for Server ‘xxxxxx’. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo)

——————————

Unable to open the physical file "C:\SQLSamples\AdventureWorks2008R2_Data.mdf". Operating system error 5: "5(Access is denied.)". (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 5120)

——————————

Worst was, the link for help from SSMS was also not getting him anywhere. Here are the sequence of things that I asked:

Which OS are you running Windows 7 or Windows 8? Ans: Windows 8
Has UAC been turned off or on? Ans: Off (asked why … but that is a different discussion)
Great, did you start SSMS in Administrator mode and try? Ans: Well, UAC is off right? Then why should I.
Me: Trust me :)
Ans: Woala, it is now working.

The solution is not specific to Windows 8 but can be on Windows 7 too, tough it will be interesting to see how we have made “Security by default” more restrictive on Windows 8. Simple solutions for simple tasks :)

Do tell me if you have encountered this. Hope this helps.

4 Comments »

SQL Server: Identify UnUsed Databases April 30th, 2012

Vinod Kumar

As part of my day job, I solve lot of interesting customer problems and recently one of our customers had an interesting question to stump me. It got me really thinking hard and I wanted to share some of the solutions I shared with them. Though these solutions were given, want to also see if you have a better way to solve this question.

The Enterprise I was talking to was on more than 70+ SQL Server server installations and had close to 500+ databases running in their datacenters for various businesses. The CIO asked the datacenter administrator how many of these databases are actually used by the business and how many were stale and not used but just there because of legacy reasons. And as a database expert in the room the datacenter Administrator just turned to me and asked – “Why don’t you answer this Vinod?”

Simple solution

For every complex problems there always is a simple solution in hand. I just thought over and gave them a method almost that was convincing enough for the team. My suggestion was simple, just query the index_usage_stats DMV for some stats and then use the same to decide if the database was used or not. I just gave a simple script to the DBA like below:

Sp_msforeachdb

‘Select @@Servername As Servername, ”?” AS DBName,

IsSystemDatabase,

MAX(last_user_lookup) last_user_lookup,

MAX(last_user_scan) last_user_scan,

MAX(last_user_seek) last_user_seek,

MAX(last_user_update) last_user_update

from [?].sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats

INNER JOIN (

SELECT dtb.name,

CAST(case

when dtb.name in (”master”,”model”,”msdb”,”tempdb”)

then 1

else dtb.is_distributor end AS bit) IsSystemDatabase

FROM master.sys.databases AS dtb ) systemdatabases

ON systemdatabases.name = ”?”

GROUP BY IsSystemDatabase’

At least this is giving you a great starting point for discussion with the stakeholders that the database has not been accessed for the past 5+ months and if there is still business justification. The Administrator did call me back after a month that this script (simple yet powerful) was really useful. Thought to share with you all today.

PS: Remember, the statistics values can get reset if SQL Server is restarted hence this is not 100% foolproof implementation though.

What are the other options?

There are obviously other solutions that can be tried out:

Auditing is one of the most precise and obviously a deterministic solution.
Can even use Logon-triggers (but remember the user can switch context of the database hence will be difficult).
The above Usage_Stats is great for databases of version higher than SQL Server 2005+. BTW, are you still running SQL Server 2000 versions?

Tell me your story and options to answer such situations. Would love to learn from you too.

16 Comments »

SQL Server 2012: Offline Logs viewing April 23rd, 2012

Vinod Kumar

As part of WMI events in SQL Server 2012, I saw these two new additions for offline error log files:

SqlErrorLogFile: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff963576.aspx

SqlErrorLogEvent: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff963582.aspx

Suddenly this got my attention and this blog post gets inspired because of the above events. These WMI classes are used inside SSMS’s Log Viewer when SQL Server is offline or is not responding. If the Log Viewer determines that the connection to a SQL Server instance could not be established, it will fall back to using WMI to enumerate and read the SQL error logs.

Since WMI classes are used for log viewing, it requires the WMI Service be started and only privileged Windows users with access to SQL Server logs can view the log data. By default the privileges are given only to the Administrators group of the machine by the SQL Server setup. As a result, SSMS must be launched using the Run as administrator option.

Offline Log Viewer can read error logs from SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2012 versions.

How to use SSMS

With Microsoft SQL Server 2012, you can view SQL Server log files from a local or remote instance of SQL Server when the target instance is offline or cannot start. Steps to get this is:

Start by opening SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) as an Administrator.
Register a SQL Server 2012 instance from Registered Servers (more about Registered Server on MSDN)
Make sure the instance is stopped or offline.
Once the SQL Server instance is registered, right-clicking on a registered SQL Server instance displays the following context menu to “View SQL Server Log”
The SQL Server ErrorLog is displayed like it normally would with an online instance.

Some of the things to consider before using the offline viewing capability are:

The instance of SQL Server that you want to connect to should be registered in Registered Servers.
The account that you use to connect must have the required permissions.

Final words

I found this feature quite helpful and for DBA’s this will be a great addition. You can access the offline log files from Registered Servers in SSMS (as in example above) or programmatically through WMI with WQL (WMI Query Language) queries. PowerShell can also leverage these WMI components to programmatically read the error log files. The other methods for access will be for a different blog post.

Feel free to drop your comments.

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Challenge of receiving feedbacks April 15th, 2012

Vinod Kumar

One of the biggest challenge in the corporate world is to receive feedbacks. And I have seen managers do this with less skill and faltering to balance confidence on one side and still offer constructive feedbacks. Any feedback system has two parts – one who gives the feedback and the other who receives feedbacks. The former cannot be changed or influenced and hence this post is about how we set out a positive perception to receiving the feedbacks. I truly understand that being on the receiving end of feedback is one of the most difficult things to accept. No one is perfect and it is a mere disillusionment of perception that we carry in our minds that we are perfect :) (if you disagree, well here is a classic example then :)).

As you start growing in the organizational ladder it is important to have the very best relationship with your peers, managers and leaders. This is very critical because in case you run into giving your boss a candid feedback, you shouldn’t get intimidated with the situation – just because he/she is your boss. Hence investing upfront time in building a rapport is crucial.

Receive feedbacks like a generous gift that you will richly benefit from. This is a foundation for your own future !!!

I know it is tough to accept everything that is thrown in front of you. But I just want to give you a different dimension / perspective to take it positively and introspect later based on the conversation. I know it is doable, just that we need to be prepared for this. Here are my Top 3 feedbacks accepting tactics:

Accept it

What ever be the feedback, it is critical that you accept it as it comes (unfiltered). Understand someone is making time to give you that feedback. People feel encouraged when they feel you appreciate them without any risk of taking them the wrong way – most importantly without any consequences. Keeping an open mind and receiving doesn’t really hurt.

Don’t jump to conclusions

The feedbacks are best absorbed without debate. There is no point in arguing and reasoning about what you are being told as it will be counter-productive. If required, ask for details and examples – this makes sure that you are indeed having a open mind and listening to them carefully. Make them feel that you truly and sincerely value their input and are making efforts to improve.

Make an environment where both the parties (giver/seeker) feel there is a value in the discussion.

Act on your feedbacks

As we called out before, receiving feedbacks doesn’t mean you jump onto every thing that is said to you. The art here is to understand, verify (with actions mentioned), internalize the feedback and make the right change where appropriate. You don’t change yourself completely just because you got a feedback.

Being yourself is an identity, don’t make a mess of that.

Final words

If you personally feel getting constructive feedbacks are adding value don’t miss the opportunity to thank the person. Accepting feedbacks and acknowledging encourages the relation you have with the other person. Best part is you are the beneficiary of having such people around.

Constructive feedback is one that enables you to feed-forward in life.

Don’t think I am painting only one side of the coin – remember how you receive and perceive the feedbacks is something within our control and hence the emphasis is on that. Do tell me your perspectives and experiences.

14 Comments »

Time Management–no fuss April 2nd, 2012

Vinod Kumar

The topic of time management is something I have talked a number of times over this blog. So we are not going to spend time rehashing the same. But I still was so motivated to write this blog because I thought of picking some of the tips and traits that everyone out there does and will be a great learning opportunity for me to share.

An effective time management revolves around understanding and implementing the right principles of personal management. As avid readers, workers, employers, parent, spouse, explorer etc – do we really understand the fundamental difference between being busy VS being productive?

I am a big fan of writing English quotes, but this time I couldn’t resist myself from sharing this Kabir’s Dhohe which I learnt when I was a kid at school. And this applies to our lives even today and so relevant too. Translating the above verse:

Tomorrows work do today, today’s work now
If the moment is lost, the work be done how?

Apply the 80/20 rule

This is a commonly used phenomenon, 20% of the tasks that you do bring 80% of the business. Hence it is imperative to go attack this in this way. So keep constantly asking – am I doing the right thing at work NOW? Will it affect the 80% of business we do? How productive am I.

Plan Ahead

Plan your day, week and if possible a roadmap on the month. I completely agree this is not possible 20% of the time (read the rule above :)). So given all variations in life, it is quite possible to plan, prepare and organize atleast 80% of the time you have at work. I understand a lot of you will say – “Well change is the ONLY constant and this is the very reason not to do too much on planning in this chaotic organization”

I hear you loud and clear – but remember if you don’t plan, you are forced to work in an adhoc way without any plan. So you choose it – hence don’t complain.

If this needs to be done NOW, there is no better time than to start NOW.

Make a note

I am a big believer of this. Generally I have a note that has a set of bullets that needs to be done. It is very easy to get sidelined by getting into too many chaotic work that eats away 80% of your time. Organize, plan and execute (rule #2 above).

Stop procrastination and eliminate one at a time. The sculpture is made by chipping the rock not by any explosion.

How to handle interruptions

Well, let me take a step back to solicit some feedbacks. So how do you handle interruptions. Drop me a line over comments. How do you differ or delegate the interruptions that come at work. I think there is loads to learn from each other.

Please share your experiences and thanks for reading this far !!!

10 Comments »

#TechEdIn 2012: Vinodk_SQL Recap March 30th, 2012

Vinod Kumar

With exactly one week gone past, I am yet to recover from the mega event TechEd India 2012. Same time last week, we were partying after a successful event and the very thought we pulled it off yet another year is so refreshing. My TechEd journey started in the Year 2003 and there has been no turning back since then. The fact remains, the way TechEd is run has changed quite a bit and the content selection process is also more stringent when compared to what we had 8 years back. Just the availability of the resources on the internet makes speakers run for the money. Personally, it is close to 2+ months for nailing the session content – not to forget the reviews, rehearsals and more.

These are my perspectives – For me Microsoft TechEd is such a premier event and privilege that I want to give my best and prepare something nice and interesting that is so difficult to get via any search engines. Doing so, we add value to the event and in the process learn a lot. This year has been no different and I think people who attended my session will vouch for the same.

SQL Server Misconceptions and Resolutions

Pinal Dave has been pushing me hard every year to have this kind of session and I have resisted personally. Any two-speaker session requires tons of preparation and that has to land perfectly. The content for this session went to-and-fro for close to 20 days between us. We add a demo and scrap it immediately. We had to balance out simple concepts with compelling demo’s to our Misconceptions sessions. I think it landed well finally. We still await the final verdict (via feedbacks) from the audience but were confident we pulled this off with all the preparations behind us.

I will not try to rehash the content here. But Dhananjay Kumar did a live blogging of this session here. That gives you a quick list of what we discussed.

Peeling SQL Server like an Onion: Internals Demystified

Personally, this was the toughest session for me to prepare – trust me. I wrote a teaser on what to expect from the session before. As the name suggests it is tough to talk about the internals (as theory) with almost no demo’s around the concepts. The audiences were surely in for a surprise and the hall started to fill in from 10:30AM while the keynote was still going on – and the session scheduled for 11:15. I talked about Advanced Disk formats, SQL Server 2012 Security changes, Memory changes, Indirect CheckPoint and more.

Again the community notes were awesome, atleast it is saving me time to write all of them :). Sahal did a great job on his blog in summary.

Again, I look forward for some serious feedbacks if you want these kinda session in the future TechEd’s too? Or you don’t want these internals session and more practical sessions? Based on your shout I will plan accordingly for next year. Each and every vote count :).

Tools to manage, troubleshoot and diagnose your Windows systems

This was an unconventional session for me. I generally have a tendency to play around with OS, Office, IIS, Azure and other tools and learn some of the fundamentals. So in this session my task was simple – show people how you can use SysInternals tools and learn Windows better. From usage of Memory, x86 architecture, x64, WOW mode, Page faults, Virtual Memory mapping, OOM scenario, Perf Tool, PAL tool, Logman and more. About 10 mins into the talk, realized the session had so much of theory that it is better to showcase the same via tools rather than talk in an abstract manner. This was my first time at TechEd to talk on a topic other than SQL Server.

If you have feedbacks to give me on this very session, I will be more than happy to get them. I would love to bring more of these maybe for next year too. Keep those comments flowing.

Apart from these, there were couple of other sessions in which I had my participation. But that was under the Architect Track. Will write on it separately some other time. The full roster of sessions we had in that track is available on my previous blog post.

There is also an event on April 7th in Bangalore which the Bangalore .NET Usergroup and the Bangalore ITPro Usergroup are hosting where I will talk two of the above sessions. Here is the Facebook page which you can use to come to the event.

If you did attend any of my sessions at TechEd, please take a moment to comment on your feedbacks.

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TechEd 2012: MTC India @ TechEd March 19th, 2012

Vinod Kumar

I have been posting like mad about TechEd India 2012 over my FB and twitter (@vinodk_sql) accounts – and this blog space has been no exception. With just 2 days to go – the excitement, anticipation and the feeling is really overwhelming. I joined MTC more than a year back and with that new start, I also got this new space for blogging. To know more about the type of work we do, do visit the global MTC homepage to know more about the work that we do.

MTC @ TechEd – Architecture Track

One of the primary motto around which MTC operates is to be a trusted advisors to our customers and partners. And we give them solution with choices in making the right direction in their organizations as far as technology. At TechEd we have not shied away from keeping the same mantra for our audience too.

Look at the Architecture Track, we have tried to bring the best and the right content from the right speakers in this whole track. I am highlighting them here for a quick reference, more about the speakers and the exact abstract can be got from the TechEd India 2012 site:

Windows 8 Application Design – With the trend and the emphasis on the Windows 8 platform it is critical for architects to understand why, how, options, choices and most importantly what not to do while designing Win8 is critical.
Beyond Scrum – The concept imported from Japan manufacturing, Kanban is an agile methodology and Stephen Forte (a great friend) comes all the way from Hong Kong to deliver this session for us.
Windows Azure – Architecture Patterns – Taking off from the various Architecture patterns, there are critical aspects around data management, migration, scaleout, storage principles etc that the session will unleash. I have seem Ramkumar’s many sessions at TechEd and this one will be something not to be missed.
Things that your Virtualization guys didn’t tell you – Coming from the house of MTC, Infra Architect MS Anand will be doing the honors here. I have had the opportunity to sit in many sessions of his with customers and end of the session, it will be such an information overload. And this session will be no less in that aspect with deep content.
Next Generation IT Portfolio – From the heart of MCS (Microsoft Consulting Services) team. Srini and Vikas plan to share some of the roadmaps as organizations plan for their IT infrastructure and what are some of the trends to watch out for.
On Day 2, it will be loaded with Data Centric content. This is my personal favorite and I spent quite sometime ironing out this with my team.
Big Data and Elastic Cloud – We are getting Ram back for this session from Day 1 to introduce what is Big Data, where is the Microsoft investments and how to prepare Big Data on Azure. Architecture, patterns and pitfalls.
Big Data Best practices applied to Market risk analysis usage – As much as the title makes one scary about the whole session, this is one session coming directly from the field. Session talks about Hadoop Map-Reduce architecture based best practices, Big Data patterns viz. Record Aggregation, Compact Object Serializations, Map-Sort-Reduce. Also Sunil and Abinasha plan to talk about configuration tuning of a typical Hadoop architecture such as Maximum Map Tasks, HDFS Block Size, Compression, Sort heap size, File system type, Disk mounting options, Disk Extent size.
Infuse agility into your ERP – The Microsoft Surround Story –This comes from the house of MTC, Architect Abhisek will talk about how Enterprises have the problem of heterogeneous systems and how these data can come under one roof when it comes to BI practices. In a typical scenario of consuming SAP data from the various Microsoft BI tools and what are some of the best practices around the same.
Performance, Scalability Patterns – Do we scale-out, scale-up or mix-match on Data Architecture? – This session comes from our two senior MTC Directors with vast amount of real world architecture design knowledge. I plan to quiz them around a number of scenario from – Distributed Cache, Scaleout Biz layers, When not to think Cloud, Network Optimizations, Passing data across layers, Designing for mobile, Database scaleout etc. So don’t miss this action packed session.
Designing secure enterprise application using on-premise SQL Server – Well, this session also comes from the MTC house from your’s truly :). What I plan to cover in this session is purely based on a practical Separation of duties understanding of SQL Server and various Security enhancements.
Day 3 –is much more of a free flow Architecture track with topics ranging from technical to soft skills.
Applying Concept Visual principles to designing mobile UX and aesthetics – For this session we are bringing exclusively Sanjay Vyas for the session to talk about the principle of visualization and how we can apply it to the UX and aesthetics of mobile apps such that user can interact with the application on the run.
Using JavaScript in today’s world – This is a different session of a kind where as architects we are seeing a trend of using Java scripts as front-end across many devices and form factors. This session will demystify the frameworks and alternatives of frontend programming with JS and reasons to use Nodes.js at the backend.
Architecting and Maintaining a Polyglot environment – We get the expert Dhananjay here to explain Polygot systems. Polyglotism also helps programmers better understand different paradigms and perspectives and be able to sometimes even simulate the idioms of another language when appropriate. Heterogeneous environments are not accident, but a choice enterprises make. This session explains the experiences and learnings from such systems.
Architecting your life –This is a softskills part, where we bring Ranganathan S again into the Architect track. Consistently the highest rated speaker at TechEd in the past, this topic was something different and unique for everyone. You need to be in person to experience the thoughts that this session will unleash.
Panel Discussion –There is so much to share and with just 60 mins, we don’t think we will be able to answer every single query. Hence we set aside some time for discussion on all the above topics and anything related to architecture.

Phew – that is quite a lineup of content to expect at TechEd Architecture Track. I know we missed some of the area’s but we have made the best attempt to give the best from the best people in the industry.

MTC – Architects @ TechEd

Apart from this, you will find MTC Architects doing other sessions too.

Choosing non-relational data stores – We get Govind Kanshi our MTC – Technology Director doing this talk on Day 3. I had the opportunity to see the content and it is like – “NoSQL for the SQL guys”. Search store, Key store, Distributed store etc etc, the content is loaded with tons of best practices and simple yet compelling demo’s.
Tools to manage, troubleshoot and diagnose your Windows systems – Under the Windows Client track, I will be doing this session. The session takes simple 3 tasks around monitoring CPU, Memory, Storage and Network on Windows systems. I will talk also about using some of the SysInternals tools to understand the concept.
Peeling SQL Server like an Onion: Internals Demystified – I will be doing this session on Day 3 under the SQL Server Administration Track. Since I wrote a blog post around this before,I will refrain from rehashing the content again here.

Exclusive MTC @ TechEd Lounge (Get Solutions)

If you get to the Events Tab –> Other Events category, we have a tab called as MTC @ TechEd. This is an exclusive MTC area that we plan to have and you will have the MTC Architects hanging around to answer your critical architectural doubts. There will be a pattern to who will be around at what timings.

Keep track of activities from #TechEdIn (hashtag) or follow me on @vinodk_sql handle.

This is invite ONLY engagement / time you get with the concerned MTC Architects.
Your architecture problems can be around

Front end systems design
Business layer or Service layering
Performance tuning or Scalability
Data Architecture
Network or Infrastructure Architecture

You will need to block our Architect’s time and meet them.

Write your current architecture and the problem statement (1 pg max) and send it to mtcbang [at] microsoft.com

You will be intimated of the appropriate time slot. Also send us your twitter handle so that we can keep you updated.

One of the important premise of MTC Architects will be to help you with your architectural problems when you are at the TechEd India 2012 Venue in the quickest possible way. This is your best time to block some exclusive time with the architects and get the best out of the event. We are here to help and solve real world problems.

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TechEd India 2012: SQL Content Extravaganza March 16th, 2012

Vinod Kumar

With the TechEd India 2012 fever getting hotter day by day, we are just T-5 days away from the event. We thought we will talk about some of the content that is getting lined up from a SQL Server perspective. There are 2 main tracks on SQL Server on Day 1 and Day 2 where you will also get a chance to meet me too. My co-author Pinal Dave is taking the battalion of driving content for these tracks this year.

We also have a Data Track under the Architecture track and we will talk about it little later blog post. A teaser about the Architecture track session from MTC is available here.

What to expect?

In this post, let me walk you through some of the sessions lined up around SQL Server as the content is getting rehearsed and frozen the speakers are doing really a great job. Don’t miss the opportunity.

T-SQL Rediscovered with SQL Server 2012 – This session is going to bring some of the lesser known enhancements that were brought with SQL Server 2012. Can tell you with confidence that the session is loaded with tons of interesting Demo’s.
Catapult your data with SQL Server 2012 Integration Services – Some of the content covered will be as per the Books-Online, but knowing Praveen for close to a decade, he is surely going to mesmerize you with some interesting insights on SSIS performance too.
Processing Big Data with SQL Server 2012 and Hadoop – Stephen known for his mind blowing demo’s and on a content that is lesser known, this is going to be bring out the nuances of why “big-data” and show you some practical usages of these concepts. I wrote about Big Data and MS story in a blog post.
SQL Server Misconceptions and Resolutions – This is a session I am truly looking forward to meet you folks in-person. We plan to show close to 10+ misconceptions and showcase with demo in this session with Pinal Dave. If time permits, we are going to show you more content. I will be the time keeper to make sure none of the misconception takes more than 5 mins – we are setting aggressive deadlines to keep the content crisp, interesting and interactive.
Securing with ContainedDB in SQL Server 2012 – Contained databasesare an interesting addition to SQL Server 2012 and it opens up some interesting scenario’s for application deployment administrators need to know while developing applications. We will show how to move databases and the related artifacts across servers and Contained Databases enable this option.Now to look at what is lined up under the SQL Server – Administration track lined up on Day 3. This lineup is going to be fun and power-packed in my opinion.
Peeling SQL Server like an Onion: Internals Demystified – I have writing about this extensively on my other blog post and will not try to repeat it here. But I am super excited about this session content where I talk about some Memory Internals at length.
Speed Up – Parallel Processes and unparalleled Performance – This session is done by Pinal Dave and I just got a chance to review the content to see an amazed 40+ slides and 7 rocking demo about parallelism. Pinal has blogged about a teaser for this session over his blog.
Keep your database available – AlwaysOn – Balmukund will be doing this session and will show this new addition to SQL Server 2012 arsenal. You can see some really solid content from the CSS team on their blog too. Availability groups, Listener, Clustering, Failover, Read-Only replica etc all will be demo’ed in this session. This is really heavy content not to be missed.
Lesser known facts about SQL Server Backup and restore – This session will be done none other than Amit Banerjee. He has already blogged about this and this topic is going to be interesting. A successful restore strategy for applications is as good as their last good known backup. Amit will demystify some of the common myths and demonstrate some interesting demo.
Top 5 reasons why you want SQL Server 2012 BI – Business Insights with SQL Server is a critical building block and this version of SQL Server is no exception. Praveen plans to take a tour of some of the BI enhancements introduced in the new version. A truck load of content to get compressed inside a 60 minutes window.

Also to get to know from the SQL Server Track Owner Pinal Dave – Also visit his blog where he talks about the Misconceptions session.

Also TechEd India 2012 has a Live streaming of some content and this can be watched here. The TechEd Team is planning to have some really good exclusive content in this channel as well.

5 Comments »

TechEd India 2012: Online Indexing Enhancements March 12th, 2012

Vinod Kumar

Indexing is a core concept inside SQL Server and with the next version of SQL Server 2012, this only enhances to the next level. Let me take a moment here to talk about one of those enhancements inside SQL Server 2012 from an Online Indexing implementation.

Also worth mentioning is one of our latest video based course for your reference. There are tons of basic concepts that we made it happen into that course and drop me a note via comments if you want to watch the same. All feedbacks and mutual learning helps us get better.

Now with TechEd India 2012 count down started, we have a session lined up around “SQL Server Misconceptions and resolutions”. And this session has tons of interesting demo around Indexing concepts. So don’t miss to attend, if you are at TechEd India 2012.

SQL Server 2012 Online Indexing

Online re-indexing operation was introduced in SQL Server 2005 as a way to improve the re-indexing functionality for those environments which cannot afford downtimes on regular intervals for maintenance activities. But there were certain limitations of this feature, significant one being that it could not be used against indexes that included columns of LOB data types (including Varchar(max), NVarchar(max)). This restricted the usage of online re-indexing for some scenarios, such as clustered indexes when tables included LOB data types.

Msg 2725, Level 16, State 2, Line 1

Online index operation cannot be performed for index ‘<Index name>’ because the index contains column ‘<LOB column name>’ of data type text, ntext, image, varchar(max), nvarchar(max), varbinary(max) or xml. For non-clustered index the column could be an include column of the index, for clustered index it could be any column of the table. In case of drop_existing the column could be part of new or old index. The operation must be performed offline.

The Error message is quite self-explanatory and at this moment want to point you to this BOL reference – Guidelines for Performing Online Index Operations.

What changed?

With introduction of this feature with SQL Server 2012, you can now rebuild indexes online for tables, which uses varchar(max), nvarchar(max), XML or varbinary(max) LOB data types for its columns.

Restrictions continue to exist for tables, which include columns of TEXT, NTEXT, FILESTREAM and IMAGE data type. You will receive following modified error message to indicate the limitation:

Msg 2725, Level 16, State 2, Line 1

An online operation cannot be performed for index ‘<Index name>’ because the index contains column ‘<Column name>’ of data type text, ntext, image or FILESTREAM. For a non-clustered index, the column could be an include column of the index. For a clustered index, the column could be any column of the table. If DROP_EXISTING is used, the column could be part of a new or old index. The operation must be performed offline.

This is an interesting improvement with SQL Server 2012 and feel free to use the same if you are an Administrator.

Vinod Kumar (Blog home)

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