Admin, MidnightDBA News, Minion by MidnightDBA, Time-savers

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This stat is one of the coolest things you’ll see in Minion Reindex.
FragStats

Gathering fragmentation stats in large databases can take a long time and you have no insight into what’s going on.

With Live Insight, Minion Reindex allows you to see what’s going on every step of the way, including how many indexes you have left to gather stats on.

And we even give you the name of the table and index that’s currently having its stats gathered.  (Our reindexing operations aren’t black boxes. I use this almost every day and I honestly don’t know what we ever did without it.)

NOTE: This feature is turned on by default. Just in case you’ve accidentally turned it off, just make sure that for the current database you have LogProgress = 1 in the Minion.IndexSettingsDB table.

Live Insight…by specific table

It gets even better. You may not be interested in Live Insight for every table.

In this case you can turn off Live Insight for certain tables, or turn it off for an entire database and then turn it on only for certain tables.

This is just one of the many useful features we have in our log.

And don’t forget: you can configure at the database level specifically or use the default DB settings by configuring the MinionDefault database in the Minion.IndexSettingsDB table.

I hope this helps you configure and use Minion Reindex better.

Admin, MidnightDBA News, Minion by MidnightDBA, Time-savers

Order by Index Usage in Minion Reindex

Last week, a user asked if he could order index maintenance operations at the table level, based off of index usage. And of course, the answer to that is definitely yes. We designed Minion Reindex to have flexibility to address custom preferences like this without a lot of hassle, and with no extra jobs.

Minion Reindex already allows table ordering: you can give individual tables a heavier ReindexGroupOrder “weight” (higher numbers are reindexed first). All you have to do is change the order based off of your criteria. We’ve written a script –  MinionReindex-OrderTablesByUsage – that updates the ordering for all tables in a database, based off of usage. You’re welcome to customize this script and change the criteria to whatever you like.

A couple notes on the script:

  • Read the introductory comments for instructions and notes. And of course, review the script well.
  • This might have been easier with a MERGE statement, but we wanted it to be compatible with all versions that Minion supports. The script does an insert or an update based on whether that table is already listed in the “Minion.IndexSettingsTable” table.
  • This script can clearly be modified to meet any number of needs, like ordering tables by row count, or even excluding tables that don’t have enough reads.
  • To use this script, you can either add a job step, or encapsulate it in a stored procedure and add it as a DBPreCode in the Minion.SettingsDB table. It’s that easy.

Feel free to use this script or alter it as you need. And if you make it do something really cool, send it back to us and we’ll add it to the community of scripts on the site. We’ve done some initial testing of this script, but nowhere near the level of testing we put the product through so if you find any bugs let us know. MinionReindex-OrderTablesByUsage

Download Minion Reindex at MidnightSQL.com/Minion

MidnightDBA News, Minion by MidnightDBA

Minion Reindex arrives this Friday!

The MidnightDBA team is announcing the release of a new, free index maintenance solution for SQL Server: Minion Reindex by MidnightDBA.  We designed Minion Reindex to solve all of the reindexing headaches we’ve experienced at dozens and dozens of client sites.

The Bottom Line

Your databases need index maintenance for optimal performance, and most shops don’t have a decent solution in place.  Minion Reindex is extremely simple to implement, and deeply configurable. Junior DBAs will love the ease of use, and expert data professionals will love the extensive settings and features available.

Read more on the Minion Reindex page:

  • Check out the full features list.
  • Get the download link there starting on Friday, October 24, 2014.
  • Join us for the Minion Reindex webinar Monday, October 27.
  • See documentation and tutorials as they come in!

You can ask questions and follow along with the discussion on Twitter using the #MinionReindex hashtag.

Stay tuned for the best thing index maintenance has ever seen…

 

Development

Priority vs. Weight

2 Comments

Ok, so this is actually Sean writing this time.
I thought I’d hit the ground running with a great topic that came up just this morning.

The issue is how do you prioritize tasks in code? So let’s say you’re going to process a list of DBs for processing, but you also want to do them in a specific order. You’ve got 2 choices really when deciding on how to do this: Priority and Weight.

Priority:
This one is probably the most common. This is say when you have a list of objects and you rank them from say 1-10. In this case 1 is the top priority with 10 being the least. This is how a priority system works. Items move up the list to the top position.

Weight:
A weight system works just the opposite way. You give more weight to items by giving them a higher number. This extra weight makes them more important so they get processed first. So in the 1-10 list, 10 would be processed first because it has more weight.

So what’s the difference between these? Well a priority system I think is easier with fairly static priority code. You’re not going to be making any real changes to the priorities or the objects very often.

A weight system is better when your list and priorities are more dynamic.

Let’s take a look at an example:
You want to process some DBs for something. You pull in the list of DBs and you want them in a specific order. So you put them in #DBs with an Ordering col.
If there won’t be any new DBs in the list for a long time, and you’re not likely to change the order, then a priority system is good for you. However, if you’re going to be adding more DBs, and those DBs will possibly even be higher priority than the current ones, then a weight system is best. The reason is that if you’ve already got the number 1-10 populated, and something new pops up in the list that’s higher priority than anything else, you’d have to set that to 1 and then shift all the others down by 1. So what used to be 1 is now 2, what used to be 2 is now 3, etc. However, with a weight system, you can add as many new items as you like, and you just keep increasing the number. So in this case the new item would be assigned 11 because it’s more important than anything else and has more weight.

Of course if you have to arrange the weights of any of the lower ones it does become just a bit more tedious. In this case you’ll have possibly make another sub-group column. This way you can keep your major groups and then just change priorities or weights in the sub group. So let’s say you’ve got DBs grouped from 1-100 using either method, but we’ll say it’s by weight for now. If you have to make one DB a higher weight by one you’d have to shift everything else up one.
However, if you have that DB in a major group of say 10 DBs, and they all have weights within that group then you only have to change the weights within that one group. So whereas you would before have had to change the weights of 30 DBs, now you only have to change under 10.

I tend to use a weighted system more, but I have nothing against a priority system. And I prefer the 2 group system even more.

MidnightDBA News

Well Wasn’t that FUN!!!

2 Comments

Imagine my surprise this evening when Jen got a txt from Denny Cherry asking if we were ok after my latest blog post here. I said, what blog post?
Apparently my account has been hacked and someone thought they were being funny. However, looking at the wording in that post, it sounds like a bot to me.

So anyway, I’m fine, nothing has happened, except I about broke a rib running over here to change my password.

Admin, MidnightDBA News, Time-savers, Videos

Move DB Files with Regex

Hey guys, I just posted a new vid on how to use Regex to format DB files so you can easily move them.
The situation is this… you’ve got lots of DBs you want to move to a new drive or to a new server, and you need to write the ALTER DATABASE commands to move all the files, then you need to script the move statements at the cmdline like Powershell. The problem is to be effective, you need some code to parse the filename from the rest of the path.
Here I’m going to show you how to use Regex to parse that out so you can easily build the statements you need. I can write the script to move hundreds of DB files in under a minute. Come watch.
http://midnightdba.itbookworm.com/Video/Watch?VideoId=407

And here’s the demo code so you can follow along.
MoveDBFiles

Admin

SQL Saturday Oklahoma City, now with a Sean and Jen precon!

We’ll be at OKC next month for their SQL Saturday on August 23, and we’re presenting our precon “Becoming an Enterprise DBA” August 22!.  Get your early bird ticket by July 15, and save over 15%!

Precon: Becoming an Enterprise DBA

August 22, 2014, Norman Technology Center, Moore OK

There’s a real and quantifiable difference between a regular DBA and the leader of an enterprise.  Guiding the database effort of a huge enterprise takes business acumen, experience, problem solving, street-smarts, and above all… vision.  And quite often regular DBAs are thrown into big enterprises without knowing what it takes to get the job done.  In fact, most DBAs get thrown into this situation without even a hint that there’s a difference.  And while they do the best they can, they tend to do more harm than good which is why many companies have such a hard time managing their data.  What you need is to change your tactic when dealing with large numbers of servers.

The biggest piece of missing training in databases is enterprise training.  DBAs are often taught syntax and usage of features, but they’re never taught how to actually use them to plan an enterprise, run an enterprise, or cope with changing requirements, manage difficult users or groups, manage growth, manage vendors, etc.  There are so many more requirements to running an enterprise than just knowing how the individual features work.  There are disk and backup requirements, auditing requests, end-user reporting, paranoid VPs, and much more.  And there’s no way to gain this type of business sense on your own.  You have to learn from seasoned pros who have been there many times over.

I’ve built many successful DBA teams in a few companies that were resistant to the change.  And I can show you how to do it too.  Take your daily tasks down to almost nothing while you increase your visibility in your company (in a positive way).

What you will learn:

  1. How to properly manage a large environment.
  2. Managing disk space and growth requirements across hundreds of servers.
  3. Manage end user expectations.
  4. Build a self-service reporting model to keep DBAs from having to field every day requests.
  5. Reduce security management issues by up to 90%.
  6. How to assess your biggest DBA resource hogs to make the most impact in your environment.
  7. Strategies for dealing with vendors and vendor security issues.
  8. How to hire a competent DBA.
  9. How to staff your company appropriately.  Do you know how many DBAs you need?
  10. How to get a bigger raise and make your company pay for training.

And much much more.  If you manage an enterprise or would like to then you can’t afford to miss this seminar.  No other training exists to take you from being a regular DBA to running and leading an enterprise database effort.  And don’t fool yourself; There is a real difference.  Get ready to take your skills and your career to the next level.

 

MidnightDBA News

SQL Saturday Oklahoma City precon: Becoming an Enterprise DBA

1 Comment
Spork instructional module not included. Probably.

We’ll be at OKC this summer for their SQL Saturday on August 23, and we’re presenting our precon “Becoming an Enterprise DBA” August 22!. Get your early bird ticket by July 15, and save over 15%!

Precon: Becoming an Enterprise DBA

August 22, 2014, Norman Technology Center, Moore OK

There’s a real and quantifiable difference between a regular DBA and the leader of an enterprise. Guiding the database effort of a huge enterprise takes business acumen, experience, problem solving, street-smarts, and above all… vision. And quite often regular DBAs are thrown into big enterprises without knowing what it takes to get the job done. In fact, most DBAs get thrown into this situation without even a hint that there’s a difference. And while they do the best they can, they tend to do more harm than good which is why many companies have such a hard time managing their data. What you need is to change your tactic when dealing with large numbers of servers.

The biggest piece of missing training in databases is enterprise training. DBAs are often taught syntax and usage of features, but they’re never taught how to actually use them to plan an enterprise, run an enterprise, or cope with changing requirements, manage difficult users or groups, manage growth, manage vendors, etc. There are so many more requirements to running an enterprise than just knowing how the individual features work. There are disk and backup requirements, auditing requests, end-user reporting, paranoid VPs, and much more. And there’s no way to gain this type of business sense on your own. You have to learn from seasoned pros who have been there many times over.

I’ve built many successful DBA teams in a few companies that were resistant to the change. And I can show you how to do it too. Take your daily tasks down to almost nothing while you increase your visibility in your company (in a positive way).

What you will learn:

  1. How to properly manage a large environment.
  2. Managing disk space and growth requirements across hundreds of servers.
  3. Manage end user expectations.
  4. Build a self-service reporting model to keep DBAs from having to field every day requests.
  5. Reduce security management issues by up to 90%.
  6. How to assess your biggest DBA resource hogs to make the most impact in your environment.
  7. Strategies for dealing with vendors and vendor security issues.
  8. How to hire a competent DBA.
  9. How to staff your company appropriately. Do you know how many DBAs you need?
  10. How to get a bigger raise and make your company pay for training.

And much much more. If you manage an enterprise or would like to then you can’t afford to miss this seminar. No other training exists to take you from being a regular DBA to running and leading an enterprise database effort. And don’t fool yourself; There is a real difference. Get ready to take your skills and your career to the next level.

 

Admin, Development, Powershell

Powershell to Excel

1 Comment

I got this question on twitter recently so I decided to blog it real quick. The question is, how do you output data to excel from powershell?

Well, there’s a free function that I’ve used and I’ve been quite happy with it. I’m not going to give a lot of explanation here except to say that when using it on a large dataset I’ve found it to be painfully slow. And by painfully slow I mean several hours. However, using it with a small amount of data isn’t too bad. I like it because it does all the lifting for me. I just output to the function and I’m done. So anyway, here’s the link to the site. The dev does a good job of giving examples.

http://www.lucd.info/2010/05/29/beyond-export-csv-export-xls/

Instead of working, I blog.