La bodeguita de Nacho
SQL Server Troubleshooting Stories - "y una ración de bravas"
Never ever set up a Database Mirroring session across different SQL Server Editions (SKU)
Even though it might work, never attempt to do that. As the documentation clearly states: it is...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 11/09/2011
Launching Database Mirroring Monitor without having to go through SSMS
Yesterday, while co-delivering a seminar on Database Mirroring to a few customers, one of them asked...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 11/08/2011
What’s in Enterprise only? (Online Restore)
If you want to have the possibility to restore data on a database while it is already online (i.e....
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 11/04/2011
What happens to my orphan Profiler traces?
Last week I was delivering a performance workshop to 10 people from different customers and one of...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 10/31/2011
What’s in Enterprise only? (Database Tuning Advisor support for recommending Indexed Views)
If you want to leverage the ability provided by SQL Server Database Engine Tuning Advisor to...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 10/28/2011
What’s in Enterprise only? (SQL Server Audit)
Beginning with SQL Server 2008 you can set the database engine to automatically audit at several...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 10/21/2011
What’s in Enterprise only? (Fuzzy Grouping Transformation in Integration Services)
Fuzzy Grouping is a component which, when used as part of a data flow in an SSIS (SQL Server...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 10/14/2011
What’s in Enterprise only? (Resource Governor)
You may have faced situations where you’d have wished you could avoid a run-away query consuming...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 10/07/2011
What’s in Enterprise only? (Large Memory Pages)
SQL Server leverages Windows Memory Manager’s Large-Page support which is particularly beneficial in...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 09/30/2011
What’s in Enterprise only? (Soft-Numa configuration)
Much has been written about SQL Server’s support for Soft Numa since even before the first release...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 09/23/2011
Understanding the value of the Enterprise Edition, one feature at a time
This is something I planned to start a while ago and never found the time to do it properly. The...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 09/21/2011
Expressions associated to the connection manager used by ASExecuteDDLTask (Analysis Services Execute DDL Task) are not evaluated as one would expect
When using the Analysis Services Execute DDL Task within an SSIS package, any expressions defined...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 07/30/2010
SQL Server Profiler 2008 (or 2008 R2) not showing expected columns for given events while setting up the definition of a new trace
This week, while working in a customer, they showed to me a weird (an somehow inconsistent)...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 07/26/2010
Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.PartitionFunction.ScriptCreate generates syntactically invalid statements for non-numeric data types
A colleague of mine recently came across this one problem for which I have filed a code defect so...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 07/23/2010
Assumptions about SPIDs from where deadlock events will be produced
This is related to a discussion I’ve had with some colleagues during an XE session couple of...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 06/07/2010
How can you configure CLR Enabled setting from the UI?
Someone asked me that question some weeks ago. Back in 2005 you were able to enable/disable CLR...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 06/04/2010
Watch your CREATE CERTIFICATE *_DATE clauses syntax order!
I just noticed that given the way SQL Server parser parses the CREATE CERTIFICATE statement, the...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 06/02/2010
How and when are the pages pushed down to the sparse files of a Database Snapshot?
Somebody recently asked me the following: “I’ve been told that when a hashed page from...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 06/01/2010
Reason why the SLOTS XECustomizableAttribute of package0.synchronous_bucketizer & package0.asynchronous_bucketizer seem to be interpreted incorrectly?
Some friends of mine and I were trying to build some monitoring leveraging the XE bucketizer...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 05/28/2010
How to tell from ShowPlan output if (optimize for (unknown)) was used?
This one question someone asked me recently. In SQL Server 2005, 2008, and 2008 R2 there’s no...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 05/28/2010
Weird behavior of transaction log growth in SQL Server 2005, 2008, and R2
Guys, just so that you are aware. There is a bug in the in the code of the function that grows the...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 05/26/2010
Starting with SQL Server 2008 DBCC PAGE displays INVALID COLUMN VALUE where it used to display the quiet not a number string representation (-1.#QNANs) in previous versions
Until 2005 (included) the function used by DBCC PAGE to print a column’s content, converted the...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 05/25/2010
TMP/TEMP/USERPROFILE environment variables: the closer they point to, the better
One recent discovery I wanted to eventually share here. Many more programs than you would expect,...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 05/29/2008
Next week (Tue 26th/Wed 27th), you cannot miss it! See you at Microsoft TechDays {The Evolution Show} in Madrid
I'll be there, morning to evening, both days (26th and 27th) responsible for an area we have called...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 02/21/2008
What does it mean that BACKUP TABLE / RESTORE TABLE are not "yet" implemented?
Say you are one of those users who have been using SQL Server since 6.x days. And say you remember...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 02/20/2008
I just had to re-publish a previous post because I had made an important mistake
In red I highlighted the changes I've introduced to explain what was wrong in the original version...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 02/20/2008
[A tale about solving "Cannot generate SSPI context" and later "DBNETLIB][ConnectionRead(recv()).] General network error. Check your network documentation" in a shot
I had a customer who was receiving the "Cannot generate SSPI context error" when one, and...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 02/19/2008
How an apparently innocent antivirus could kill your SSIS package performance?
Interesting story this one. I've been working with a customer who had a very simple package which...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 02/19/2008
SQL Server performance counters' library improvement
It seems Cumulative Update 6 (due in mid Feb 08) for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 will include a...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 02/07/2008
Good News!
I've just discovered that Cumulative Update 6 (due in mid Feb 08) for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 01/16/2008
Scared because SQL Server seems to be running a DBCC CHECKDB on some of your databases on every startup?
A colleague approached me yesterday because he was finding the following entry (marked in red below)...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 01/16/2008
What's special with the BULK provider when loading LOB character columns using OPENROWSET?
This is another problem I've been working on recently, whose resolution I felt could be interesting...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/26/2007
SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 failing to install due to an error in Do_sqlGroupMember custom action
One colleague reported to me that one of his customers was getting the following error message when...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/21/2007
Is there any way you can execute an SSIS package whose TransactionOption property is set to Required, without having the MSDTC service running?
That was the question one develepment consultant asked me. My initial answer, was what I typically...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/21/2007
Msg 1013: The object "%s" and "%s" in the FROM clause have the same exposed names. Use correlation names to distinguish them.
Have you ever experienced this error in SQL Server 2005 and under the same circumstances, but using...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/21/2007
Why my SQL Server performance counters are showing zeroes when current values are higher?
A colleague reported to me what she considered a weird behavior, she was experiencing while trying...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/20/2007
SQL Server Import and Export Wizard blowing up due to an unexpected error
Somebody was trying to run the SQL Server Import and Export Wizard (DTSWizard.exe) in one of...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/20/2007
Be careful with using RegEx on x64 bit boxes
I have been working on a case where a customer reported that, once he plugged in his custom assembly...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/19/2007
Would you like to be part of what is coming next with Connect?
Then go and participate in the Connect Beta program. Be among the pioneers to discover and enjoy...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/18/2007
SQL Server Agent failing to start because "The EventLog service has not been started" (Second Part)
First part of this post is available at SQL Server Agent failing to start because "The EventLog...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/17/2007
Raw device support and trying to move the data files of a database to a local disk in failover clustered environments
Even though the documentation doesn't explicitly explain the existence of this limitation, a...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/14/2007
"Query timeout expired" when trying to Preview the data from the OLE DB Source Editor in BIDS
If you have an OLE DB Source within a Data Flow in your SSIS package, and you click on the Preview...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/14/2007
Decreasing the size of a database file through the Management Studio GUI?
Somebody told me today that he was using SQL Server Management Studio Database Properties (Files...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/14/2007
SQL Server Agent failing to start because "The EventLog service has not been started";
(This post has been extended with SQL Server Agent failing to start because "The EventLog...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/13/2007
Is it possible to set MSDB's recovery model to Full?
The following topic in SQL Server 2000's documentation “Backing Up the model, msdb, and distribution...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/13/2007
Are these IO statistics correct?
After a long time, I had the opportunity to meet again my colleague and friend Eladio, who is a well...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/12/2007
Internationalization issue with the implementations of IErrorLookup::GetErrorDescription in SQLOLEDB and MSDASQL OLE/DB Providers
One customer reported that he was running SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition build 8.00.2187. His...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/12/2007
Were you aware of the existence of Microsoft Connect portal?
Have you ever wished you could get closer to Microsoft products' development teams? Would you like...
Author: Nacho Alonso Portillo Date: 12/12/2007