Data-and-AI for Developers

AI Infused Apps- Access to Source Code & Demos

Tara Shankar Jana — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 16:12:13 GMT

Check this blog post I wrote on building intelligent applications of the future now (with relative source code and demos) here at- Microsoft ML Blogs. https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/machinelearning/2018/03/01/now-available-access-to-source-code-demos-of-ai-infused-apps/

PASS SUMMIT 2016 Pre-Con- "Immersion: Taking a Hands on Approach to Building Intelligence into Data Driven Applications"

Tara Shankar Jana — Sat, 17 Sep 2016 14:27:55 GMT

In this modern era; applications must recover from user errors efficiently, must be optimized for transactional performance, must provide real-time insights into app transactions, must be secure and complaint, and must support seamless integration to cloud, hybrid scenarios and other data types/ systems. These applications must also learn and adapt to deliver more powerful experiences using cloud based data services, applications and intelligence. Developer Immersion- “Data for Development” is a scenario based hands-on lab knowledge program; to get developers engaged with building hack-free, performant, scalable applications using; SQL Server, R, Machine Learning, Data warehouse, Big Data, developer tools, Azure data services (SQL Database, DocumentDB, Search), PowerBI embedded. The program also provides developers with a cohesive and consistent experience to build modern on-premises/cloud based applications with intelligence. Bring your device to this session and get access to a full day of hands-on-labs. The session will provide a rich experience to build business applications with the above mentioned needs of modern applications, using developer centric products and features. Also you get the opportunity to speak with Microsoft Product Engineering group during the course of the session. The “data for development” immersion program includes 15 development lab scenarios. Each of these different scenarios present a realistic development challenge and the solution to the challenge provided by different features, aligned to the scenario. The individual scenarios are divided into four experiences, which are thematic groups for all the features we’ll cover. Experience 1- “SQL Server 2016 for Developers- Everything Built-In” In this scenario based lab, we will build a business expense application named “myexpenses”. Scenarios covered-

Recover from user errors more easily using Temporal
Optimize transactional performance using memory-optimized tables and natively compiled SPs
Provide real-time insights into app transactions using columnstore
Develop secure and compliant database apps (Always encrypted, Dynamic Data Masking, and Row Level Security)
Stretch cold data to the cloud without losing query functionality
Explore the power of JSON in SQL Server

Experience 2- “Modernizing applications with intelligence” In this scenario based lab we will add intelligence to “myexpenses” application we built in Experience 1. Scenarios covered-

Build predictive and prescriptive analytics into your app using R
Re-architect your workload for cloud

Experience 3- “Evolving SQL workloads from software to SaaS model” In this scenario we will build an e-Commerce retail based SaaS (Software as a Service) application using Azure database services (Azure SQL Database). Scenarios covered-

Build multitenant cloud-based apps with customer isolation and efficiency
Leverage built-in service intelligence for greater performance and data security
Develop more secure and compliant apps with minimal custom code changes

Experience 4- “Modernizing cloud-based web apps “ In this scenario we will evolve and grow the e-Commerce web application by adding datalake, data warehouse, DocumentDB (NoSQL), Azure Search capabilities. Scenarios covered-

Accelerate development with NoSQL
Build first-class search experiences within your web apps
Process unstructured Big Data using U-SQL
Build SQL-based cloud Data Warehouse solutions to support Business intelligence.

Windows Azure VM- Error: The Remote Computer that you are trying to connect to requires Network Level Authentication (NLA)

Tara Shankar Jana — Sun, 06 Jul 2014 03:36:44 GMT

Alright, this was an interesting issue! so thought of sharing with you all. It might come in handy!

I built my private domain controller and forest in Windows Azure IaaS named CORP. I created Affinity groups and a private network which helped with assigning static DNS IP for the DC. I also installed two member servers (VMs in Azure) with Windows 2012 R2 and SQL 2014 image from the Azure gallery. Attached them to the CORP domain and assigned the static DNS IP of the DC to the member server as it’s DNS Entry, though I kept DHCP IP for the member servers to use their own IP’s.

I had this limitation of 20 Procs in my subscription and I was running few Oracle, SQL and Windows VM’s, result I could only create the new SQL 2014 VM’s with minimum processors, and hence had to be satisfied with the bare minimum CPU cores and memory (2 Cores and 3.5 GB RAM).

Lately, I was asked to deliver a session on SQL 2014 In-Memory, MOA, Resource Governor and Cardinality Estimator for which I had no choice other than uplifting the infrastructure for one of the SQL 2014 VM’s (16GB RAM and 8 Cores).

Indeed it was easy to change right. Just go to the VM configuration and change the Virtual Machine size (See Figure 1):

Figure 1

So, I made the changes and the server was rebooted once the infrastructure uplift was done, and after the server came up I couldn’t connect with my domain credentials CORP\useraccount

I kept getting the following error:

[Window Title]
Remote Desktop Connection

[Content]
The remote computer that you are trying to connect to requires Network Level Authentication (NLA), but your Windows domain controller cannot be contacted to perform NLA. If you are an administrator on the remote computer, you can disable NLA by using the options on the Remote tab of the System Properties dialog box.

[OK]

Here is how the error looks like pictorially:

So, what is the solution? You will see numerous posts in the public domain asking for updating your RDP Client etc. and indeed that may apply (please verify if the above conditions are true to apply this solution

Solution:

For Azure VMs, when you increase the size of the VM (adding CPU and Memory), the network configuration is reset. This means that if you have a static DNS defined inside the VM, it would be set to DHCP assigned which is the public DNS in Azure.

Use local admin account to log on to the virtual machine and set the DNS to point to your DC. Alternatively, assign the IP address of the DC/DNS under DNS servers of virtual network.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns around this.

Find the Size of Azure Databases using Powershell

Tara Shankar Jana — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 05:32:00 GMT

There is a T-SQL way of finding the size of the database and there are some public domain scripts to find the same, I also created one and that’s here (indeed with more clarity and structured output)

Code Snippet

CREATE TABLE #DatabaseInfo (

database_id varchar(30)

, name NVARCHAR(500)

, AlltablesizeinKB int

)

CREATE TABLE #DatabaseInfo1 (

dbname varchar(400),

dbsizeinKB int

)

DECLARE @dbname nvarchar(100)

DECLARE @command NVARCHAR(4000)

DECLARE @command1 NVARCHAR(4000)

DECLARE @testflag SMALLINT -- 0 execute. 1 Test

SET @testflag = 0

DECLARE dbcursor1 CURSOR FAST_FORWARD FOR

SELECT

name

FROM

sys.databases

WHERE

name NOT IN ('master')

OPEN dbcursor1

FETCH NEXT FROM dbcursor1 INTO @dbname;

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0

BEGIN

SET @command =

'select database_id, sys.objects.name, sum(reserved_page_count) * 8192 / 1024 from

sys.dm_db_partition_stats, sys.objects, sys.databases

where is_ms_shipped=0 and database_id>1 and sys.dm_db_partition_stats.object_id = sys.objects.object_id group by database_id, sys.objects.name

SET @command1= 'select [name], sum(reserved_page_count) * 8192 / 1024 as dbsizeinKB

from sys.dm_db_partition_stats, sys.databases where database_id>1 group by database_id, sys.databases.name'

-- select * from sys.objects

IF @testflag = 0

BEGIN

INSERT INTO #DatabaseInfo

EXEC sp_executesql @command

INSERT INTO #DatabaseInfo1

EXEC sp_executesql @command1

END

ELSE

SELECT @command

FETCH NEXT FROM dbcursor1 INTO @dbname;

END

SELECT

FROM

#DatabaseInfo

SELECT * from #databaseinfo1

DROP TABLE #DatabaseInfo

DROP TABLE #DatabaseInfo1

CLOSE dbcursor1

DEALLOCATE dbcursor1

Now the Problem

Now, if you try to get the size of all databases using the above query, it doesn’t work right, I know sad (sorry wrong emoticon)- Surprised! better word

Firstly, you cannot use “USE Database” in Azure, hence changing the context of the user database from within the query to another, doesn’t work. Secondly, I tried to run the query in one go for all databases and retrieve the results, but then I realized that sys.dm_db_partition_stats in Azure is USER DB scoped and hence we cannot run the query in the context of master either, ALRIGHT!!!

I have figured out a better way of doing this bit and have automated the output generation in excel. Here is what needs to be done. Thanks to Matt Lavery my friend, PFE at Microsoft Australia who gave a very good idea and logic behind getting this result using Powershell, I changed this further and made it look a little more enhanced and better.

This is how it works, try it and let me know, how you find it. Follow the steps as is

1. Download the Azure Powershell module directly from https://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9811175&clcid=0x409 (Save the exe- this will install Azure Powershell in your machine) and use the cmdlets that it provides. The only problem with this is that you have provide the credentials to the server either via a prompt or you can hard code these if you like (my example below uses a prompt).

2. Here is what I have put together for checking the database capacity and have also added MaxSize which will help you identify the Maxsize each database can grow in your subscription. Change the Azure DB server name accordingly in this script! Use Powershell_ISE for better visibility. Let me know if you have issues running the script or have any questions!

(Note: You can copy and paste the code below into a notepad, rename it to anything (DBsize) and then change the extension to .ps1 (DBSize.ps1))- I am sure you all know how to execute Powershell, but me being me- Open-> Windows Azure Powershell (Admin mode)-> Browse till the folder where you have saved the powershell script->.\DBSize.ps1

Code

#Make sure you have imported your PublishSettings file as per https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj554332%28v=azure.100%29.aspx#BKMK_Configure

#Import the Azure module

Import-Module "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Azure\PowerShell\Azure\Azure.psd1"

$cred = Get-Credential

#create a crediential to use

# NOTE: You will be prompted for Authentication to the server

$ctx = New-AzureSqlDatabaseServerContext -ServerName "ttgochqr7t-Change the Server name to yours only in the red zone and get rid of the yellow" –Credential $cred

#get all the dbs

$dbs = Get-AzureSqlDatabase $ctx

$excel = new-object -comobject excel.application

$excel.visible = $true

$chartType = "microsoft.office.interop.excel.xlChartType" -as [type]

$workbook = $excel.workbooks.add()

$workbook.WorkSheets.item(1).Name = "dbs"

$sheet = $workbook.WorkSheets.Item("dbs")

$x = 2

$sheet.cells.item(1,1) = "DB Name"

$sheet.cells.item(1,2) = "Current Size (MB)"

$sheet.cells.item(1,3) = "Max Size (GB)"

foreach ($db in $dbs)

{

$sheet.cells.item($x,1) = $db.Name

$sheet.cells.item($x,2) = $db.SizeMB

$sheet.cells.item($x,3) = $db.MaxSizeGB

$x++

}

$range = $sheet.usedRange

$range.EntireColumn.AutoFit()

$workbook.charts.add()

#$vFullPath = 'C:\DataProtector\Data\AzureDb.xls'

#$Excel.SaveAs($vFullPath)

#$Excel.Close()

There are plenty of properties available for each database. If you want to see how to hardcode the credentials check out https://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2013/02/07/windows-azure-sql-database-management-with-powershell.aspx, though I wouldn’t suggest this due to security reasons.

Final output looks like this

Have fun with Cloud and Powershell!!

[Connection manager "FTP Connection Manager"] Error: An error occurred in the requested FTP operation. Detailed error description: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect. .

Tara Shankar Jana — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 23:49:56 GMT

Few days back I got a question from one of the SQL DBA’s who was working on a SSIS project. The task was simple but the error was a little tricky to understand and so was the solution (easy one, but worth jotting)

Problem:

The user is trying to execute an SSIS package but it fails on the FTP task with the following error:

Error

[Connection manager "FTP Connection Manager"] Error: An error occurred in the requested FTP operation. Detailed error description: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect. .

Here is the detailed package flow and logic

The SSIS Package had the following logic flow:

1. The First Step: Data is copied into Source.csv file.

2. The file Content is then copied to source OLEDB data connection – SQL Server

3. The data is then further copied from the source to the destination

4. In destination there is a rename operation which is performed

5. Renamed file is then copied to FTP

Data Flow Diagram

1 Process data & dump into csv file

2 File operation:- Copy Template file from Source to destination

3. File operation :- Rename the destination file to required format.

4. FTP:- send operation in FTP

delete destination file.

Details

FTP Task Editor=> IsLocalPathVarible:- True

Local Varible :- User::Final

Operation :Send Files

ISTransferASCII :- False

Remote Parameter

IsRemotePathVarible :-False

REmote Path :- \Location

OverwriteFileAtDest :- YES

Final:-D:\test20130724_230456_662000000.xls which has the following expression :

"D:\\test"+Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace((DT_WSTR,50)(getdate()),"-","")," ","_"),":",""),".","_")+".xls"

Resolution:

Fix the final and Rename Variables with correct values. Include the \ after C: to fix the problem. As you know that if you try to write C:ProgramFiles, you won’t be able to get to program files, so we need to fix the expression and evaluated expression for User::Final to get this working. Once that is fixed you will be able to get the package working.

See the User variable Destination, User::Destination – that has a correct value C:\Destination. But not the Final and Rename variables, you will have to fix them both and that should be really easy.

My Analysis

If you see the error: [Connection manager "FTP Connection Manager"] Error: An error occurred in the requested FTP operation. Detailed error description: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect. .

1. When I go to FTP Task and check for the File Transfer Task. I see that its using a User variable called Final: and if you see the Value for the Final is C:Destination, it is missing ‘\’

2. To confirm I went into the expression and I tried to evaluate it and found the following, see the screenshot. If you see the evaluated string says C:Destination\OneSource….., we are missing the ‘\’ after C:

This did solve some part of the issue, but not the complete problem. Further to it the error still popped up and this time I gave it a closer look.

I saw this further and if you see closely, somehow there is a space between the “ and C:\\, remove that space in the expression builder.

" C:\\Destination\\OnesourceReport"+(DT_WSTR, 20) (DT_DBDATE) GETDATE() +".csv"

Issue Resolved!!

Error: SQL Azure “Grantor does not have GRANT permission.”

Tara Shankar Jana — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 08:15:51 GMT

SQL Azure has few limitations when it comes to running T-SQL statements against the Azure User and Master databases. At times when you try to give minimal rights to the users in Azure or even try creating them, you may run into errors, sometimes they are easy to understand and at times absolutely unorthodox.

By now, I am sure you all know that you can’t always use the Azure Portal account to backup, drop, create databases and also it’s not appropriate to use the portal account and password in the connection string as that increases the risk of getting hacked and the whole Azure portal might have to be compromised.

Anyways, here is what I was trying to do, I wanted to grant the user (Normal user with minimal rights) VIEW DATABASE STATE permission and also add that user to some of the SERVER ROLES and map it to a login. Sounds easy right? Indeed it is;-

So I executed the following statements one after the other (see the context of the query, that’s master). Remember you can only assign LoginManager and DbManager roles to a Non-admin account in SQL Azure, which is enough to carry out quite a few operations.

Query:

CREATE LOGIN NONDef WITH PASSWORD = 'Abc$5671983'

CREATE USER NONDef FROM LOGIN NONDef;

EXEC sp_addrolemember 'loginmanager', 'NONDef';

EXEC sp_addrolemember 'dbmanager', 'NONDef'

Result:

Command(s) completed successfully.

All the queries executed fine and worked great, then as I wanted to grant the user SELECT, DELETE, UPDATE, VIEW DATABASE DEFINITION etc. for automating backups exports in SQL Azure and also for doing basic checks on the database, I landed up running the following query:

GRANT ALTER, CONTROL, DELETE, EXECUTE, INSERT, REFERENCES, SELECT, UPDATE, VIEW DEFINITION TO NONDef;

and then the error, alright I know I was silly to do this, but the error was more sillier than I was, probably we need to handle this better.

So what did I do wrong here? guesses? Yeah I didn’t change the context of the query to the User Database against which I should have executed this query. Now as you cannot use USE DATABASE in SQL Azure, you can highlight the database (UserDB) and click new query in SSMS

After that you can execute the same query and it should work JUST FINE.

This is an informational Blog on the error which can be misleading to make sure you do not waste a lot of time troubleshooting this for no odd reason.

SQL Azure is superb! I am loving each and every feature of it and extremely excited about the amount of development going on in this space, exciting times for Microsoft and being an employee of MS, I feel extremely valuable as I get to work on the product directly and see the product mature with time, and Azure’s growth is exponential, tremendous functionalities and great updates every month.

Happy times in Cloud!!!

SQL Azure: Automated Database Export (Archived Post)- Please use automated-backup built-into Azure SQL Database

Tara Shankar Jana — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 23:27:27 GMT

Great news for SQL Azure, looks like the feedback’s been heard. In July’s scheduled updates we released some great updates to Windows Azure. One of the enhancements for SQL Azure include:

Support for Automated SQL Export and a New Premium Tier SQL Database option

One commonly requested feature we’ve heard has been the ability for customers to perform recurring, fully automated, exports of a SQL Database to a Storage account and we always landed up delivering this using custom toolset and SSIS, SSMS. Starting today this is now a built-in feature of Windows Azure. You can now export transactional-consistent copies of your SQL Databases, in an automated recurring way, to a .bacpac file in a Storage account using any schedule you wish to define.

Here it is, and this is how it looks- “Spread the Word”

Also, along with the above option to export, we handed over a New Database Creation wizard as well from Exported DB’s- this is just insane, absolutely exciting-

Cost Impact

When an automated export is performed, Windows Azure will first do a full copy of your database to a temporary database prior to creating the .bacpac file. This is the only way to ensure that your export is transitionally consistent (this database copy is then automatically removed once the export has completed). As a result, you will be charged for this database copy on the day that you run the export. Since databases are charged by the day, if you were to export every day, you could in theory double your database costs. If you run every week then it would be much less.

If your storage account is in a different region from the SQL Database, you will be charged for network bandwidth. If your storage account is in the same region there are no bandwidth charges. You’ll then be charged the standard Windows Azure Storage rate (which is priced in GB saved) for any .bacpac files you retain in your storage account.

Conditions to set up Automated Export

Note that in order to set up automated export, Windows Azure has to be allowed to access your database (using the server login name/password you configured in the automated export rule in the screen-shot above) . To enable this, go to the “Configure” tab for your database server and make sure the switch is set to “Yes”:

SQL Databases: Announcing New Premium Tier for Windows Azure SQL Databases

Today, we’re excited to announce the preview of a new Premium Tier for Windows Azure SQL Databases that delivers more predictable performance for business-critical applications. The Premium Tier helps deliver more powerful and predictable performance for cloud applications by dedicating a fixed amount of reserved capacity for a database including its built-in secondary replicas. This capability will help you scale databases even better and with more isolation.

Reserved capacity is ideal for cloud-based applications with the following requirements:

High Peak Load – An application that requires a lot of CPU, Memory, or IO to complete its operations. For example, if a database operation is known to consume several CPU cores for an extended period of time, it is a candidate for using a Premium database.

Many Concurrent Requests – Some database applications service many concurrent requests. The normal Web and Business Editions in SQL Database have a limit of 180 concurrent requests. Applications requiring more connections should use a Premium database with an appropriate reservation size to handle the maximum number of needed requests.

Predictable Latency – Some applications need to guarantee a response from the database in minimal time. If a given stored procedure is called as part of a broader customer operation, there might be a requirement to return from that call in no more than 20 milliseconds 99% of the time. This kind of application will benefit from a Premium database to make sure that dedicated computing power is available.

To help you best assess the performance needs of your application and determine if your application might need reserved capacity, our Customer Advisory Team has put together detailed guidance. Read the Guidance for Windows Azure SQL Database premium whitepaper for tips on how to continually tune your application for optimal performance and how to know if your application might need reserved capacity. Additionally, our engineers have put together a whitepaper, Managing Premium Databases, on how to setup, use and manage your new premium database once you are accepted into the Premium preview and quota is approved.

Requesting an invitation to the reserved capacity preview requires two steps:

Visit the Preview Features page to request access to the Premium preview program. Initial acceptance requires customers with active, paid Windows Azure subscriptions and account administrator responsibility.
Once your subscription has been activated for the preview program, request a Premium database quota from either the server dashboard or server quickstart in the SQL Databases extension of the Windows Azure Management Portal.

For a closer look at signing up for the Premium preview, please review the short tutorial page, Sign up for Premium preview for Windows Azure SQL Database. For more details on Premium for SQL Database pricing, please visit the Windows Azure SQL Database pricing page.

NOTE: There are some more changes to the Traffic manager which is now included in the Windows Azure Portal as well. Will write about it in next blog probably.

Happy times in the cloud !!!

Optimal SQL MaxServerMemory Setting TSQL- All Versions (SQL 2005/SQL 2008/R2/ SQL 2012/SQL 2014CTP1)

Tara Shankar Jana — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 22:07:00 GMT

I created a script sometime back for finding optimal MaxServerMemory setting using TSQL automation script, I have and some of you have used it for initial analysis. The script used to find the buffer distribution, followed by Lock Memory, SQL Cache memory, Optimizer memory etc. and based on that the MaxServermemory used to be calculated.

Now in SQL 2012 as ‘SQL Server Buffer’ is now a client of SQL Server Memory Manager, the whole calculation falls wrong as per what we achieved in the previous script. Thanks to Matt Lavery and John Balke for pointing this out and encouraging to re-write the whole logic flow again, especially as per best practices. As I got sometime this week I landed up writing the new OptimalMaxServerMemory TSQL based on the following logic:

The Script works for SQL 2014 CTP1 as well and as we move to more of T-Shirt sizing for memory distribution and management (mostly what SAP does), I believe sticking to the following 2 points would help in determining the memory configurations optimally.

MaxServerMemory Optimal (For Initial settings)=

Reserve 1 GB of RAM for the OS,
1 GB for each 4 GB of RAM installed from 4–16 GB,
1 GB for every 8 GB RAM installed above 16 GB RAM.
This has typically worked out well for servers that are dedicated to SQL Server.

Note: I am further working to evaluate the Logic flow as per the following (MaxServerMemory Optimal (Final)) and will incorporate that into the script soon

Though, at the mean time you all can use the following to fix the MaxServerMemory Setting. Use the first script to get going and then based on the calculation further in the Final settings, set the appropriate MaxServerMemory. Comments and feedback are welcome.

MaxServerMemory Optimal (Final)=

"((Total system memory) – (memory for thread stack) – (OS memory requirements ~ 2-4GB) – (memory for other applications) - (memory for multipage allocations; SQLCLR, linked servers, etc)),
Where the memory for thread stack = ((maxworker threads) *(stack size)) and the stack size is 512KB for x86 systems, 2MB for x64 systems and 4MB for IA64 systems.
The value for 'max worker threads' can be found in the max_worker_count column of sys.dm_os_sys_info "

Attached is the Optimization Script: PFA: "OptimalMaxServerMemory_New_Multi-Version.sql"

OptimalMaxServerMemory_New_Multi-Version.sql

Yellow Icon on the Plan Guides what does it mean?

Tara Shankar Jana — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 08:09:57 GMT

One of my friend asked me about the “Yellow exclamation icon” on the Plan Guides and was curious to know if this is something to be worried about.

As I wasn’t too sure of what it meant I thought of finding it myself and hence looked through the SQL CODE and figured out that; this is just a bad choice of icon or a point we want to make that you are using a plan guide (which explains the yellow warning sign). This is just an icon for plan guides and the yellow warning sign is nothing but part of the entire icon (“plan_guide_enabled.ico”)

Hence till the time sys.fn_validate_plan_guide does not report any error , there is nothing to worry about .

SSL Security error [DBNETLIB]ConnectionOpen (SECDoClientHandshake())

Tara Shankar Jana — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 23:00:44 GMT

This particular resolution is one of its own kind their could have been other possibilites for his error message to raise, generally it comes if you have Expired Certificates or invalid Certificates on the Server for the user account or the computer account, delete the unwanted Certificates on the server and then try to start SQL or Connect should work

Other times this message comes if you had encryption enabled for the Server sometime but no more now, but then internally we are still finding the certificate somehow, though you anyways dont need the SSL certificate, so go to the following Registry and check for the Certificate value it should be EMPTY, but if it has ThumbPrint value of the Certifcate it is a problem, go ahead and make the change for Certificate value set to 0

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\MSSQLServer\SuperSocketNetLib REG_SZ Certificate=0

Coming back to this unique problem:

Problem Description:
=================
Trying to enable SSL encryption for sql server connections on server
Went through the steps detailed in article 276553 (https://support.microsoft.com/?id=276553).

From one client we were unable to connect to the SQL Server 2000 using encrypted connections {forced encryption from the Client configuration, this client box where its working is a Windows 2003 SP1 box}. From our own desktop workstation {Windows XP sp2}, along with that of one of the other Clients box {Windows 2000} they are unable to connect to the SQL Server through encrypted connections.

Consistently receive the following error:

[DBNETLIB]SSL Security error[DBNETLIB]ConnectionOpen (SECDoClientHandshake()).

We have checked and re-checked and re-re-checked that his local workstation trusts the same root certificate authority (plus all intermediary issuing authorities) as does the SQL Server

The certificate chains are identical on both machines.

We Enabled odbc tracing and attempted to login again from his local box. The log of that attempt is enclosed. It contains the following information:

osql -Sact-dd01 2764-1a88 EXIT SQLDriverConnectW with return code -1

(SQL_ERROR) HDBC 009A1830 HWND 00000000 WCHAR * 0x74329A38 [ -3] "******\ 0" SWORD -3 WCHAR * 0x74329A38 SWORD 2 SWORD * 0x00000000 UWORD 0
DIAG [08001] [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][DBNETLIB]SSL Security error (18)
DIAG [01000] [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][DBNETLIB]ConnectionOpen (SECDoClientHandshake()). (271)

Operating System:Windows 2003 : where the Encrypted Client connections are working
Operating System: Windows XP Sp2 and Windows 2000 SP4 where the Client connections are not working using Encryption, though if the encryption is not enabled the connections will flow fine

Cause
=====
The cause is a DBNETLIB.DLL {Remember this is not a COM DLL}, the version compatibility of this DLL on the XP and Windows 2000 is the possible culprit, i dont think it is a BUG

Resolution
========

1) Check the for the following DLL's version on the Windows 2003 SP1 or SP2 Box

C:\WINDOWS\system32\DBNETLIB.DLL
Version: 2000.86.1830.0 {Windows 2003 SP1}

2) Now Check the Version for the same DLL on the Windows XP Sp2 and Windows 2000 Sp4 box . In My case the Windows XP SP2 had the following version of the DBNETLIB.DLL Version: 2000.85.1117.0

3) The Windows 2000 SP4 box had the follwoing DLL version in my case Version: 2000.85.1064.0

4) So what i did was, i copied the DLL Version: 2000.86.1830.0 from the Windows 2003 SP1 box to the Windows Xp SP2 box and also to the Windows 2000 SP4 Box

Went to the following location on the Windows XP Sp2 box:

C:\windows\system32 and renamed the existing DBNETLIB.DLL to DBNETLIB.DLL.OLD
After that pasted the copied DLL version 2000.86.1830.0 on the XP Sp2 box in the following location c:\windows\system32\DBNETLIB.DLL {2000.86.1830.0} after that did a refresh and saw that the Version got back to the older version that is 2000.85.1117.0. Made a check in the DLLCACHE {c:\windows\system32\DLLCACHE} and saw that the DBNETLIB.DLL was present there and was having the Version 2000.85.1117.0 {so whenever the connection was made, this DLL from the cache was picked}, hence First paste the DBNETLIB.DLL {with version 2000.86.1830.0} in the DLLCACHE and then replace the actual DLL inside the c:\windows\system32.

Do a refresh and see if the DLL version is Showing as 2000.86.1830.0 on the XP Sp2 Box.

After this again try to connect to the SQL Server from this Client box {Make sure that Force Encryption is Checked in the Client Configuration}

The above resolved the issue with the SSL encryption errors, and the Secured channel is established

5) Repeat the above Steps for a Windows 2000 SP4 box, and this should help in getting past through the problem

NOTE: Never try to Register this DLL, also it wont let you as well, as it is not a COM DLL, also replacing this DLL will never break anything as it is a System DLL and the version is upgraded through MDAC