Welcome to the October WARDY IT Solutions SQL Server Newsletter

The countdown to the next version of SQL Server, SQL Server 2008 has well and truly begun. With the launch being less than 6 months away there is a lot of excitement starting to build about some of the new features that have been announced. Although many of these features such as spatial data types and improvements in Database Mirroring are not available in the current July Community Technology Preview there is the old saying that sometimes it is the little things that are the best. In the case of SQL Server 2008, these little things are the enhancements that have been made to Transact-SQL. With each release of SQL Server the additional functionality that is available with TSQL continues to increase. One feature that is certainly generating a lot of hype is the creation of two new datatypes, DATE and TIME, that allow date and time values to be stored separately.

Although SQL Server 2008 is on the horizon, the release of a new version of anything is often met with a lot of scepticism. This may be because of the 'Service Pack 1' mentality but more often than not this scepticism is caused due to a lack of understanding of what is available and how it works in the new version of a product. Hence the reason many organisations have not made the progression from SQL Server 2000 to 2005. The perfect way to get up to speed with what is available in the latest version of SQL Server is through training. Hence the reason that I am proud to announce that Kalen Delaney will be presenting a 5 Day SQL Server Architecture, Internals and Optimisation course in Brisbane and Sydney next February.

Kalen Delaney is the author of Inside SQL Server 7, Inside SQL Server 2000 and the series editor for the four part Inside SQL Server 2005 series. She is also a monthly author for the SQL Server Magazine. Kalen's courses and seminars on SQL Server internals are considered to be the best available. Her courses are regularly delivered at internal Microsoft training events and as on-site courses for premier Microsoft partners around the world. Kalen has just celebrated her 20th anniversary working with SQL Server and is considered one of the world's leading trainers and mentors for SQL Server.

Happy Reading

Peter Ward

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November WARDY IT Community Dinner

The WARDY IT Community Dinner is a casual event for IT professionals in South East Queensland. It is a fun way to meet new people and find out how other IT professionals are dealing with the challenges that we face every day. The November WARDY IT Dinner is on Monday the 12th of November at Jade Budda. Add this event to your Outlook Calendar.

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November SQL Server User Groups

At the November QSSUG Mark Morton will be presenting a session titled Analysis Services 101 that will provide an introductory overview of where Analysis Services fits in the SQL Server product stack and how it can be used to perform the heavy lifting involved with Business Intelligence. For more details regarding this session refer to here .

For details of SQL Server User Group events in other Australian cities refer to the Australian SQL Server User Groups.

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Performance Point

Business Intelligence solutions are designed to assist the decision-making process of an organisation through three capabilities: monitoring, analytics and planning. Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 is a new performance management tool that is designed to assist with the delivery of data to all employees in an organisation. For more details regarding how Performance Point integrates with the existing BI features of SQL Server 2005, refer to here.

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Query Express

Query Express is a lightweight query tool that is a single executable requiring no installation at all. Not only is this a great tool for use with MSDE but it also has the ability to connect to Oracle and any OLE-DB compliant database. For more details and to download this tool refer to here.

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Brisbane BarCamp

WARDY IT Solutions are proud to be sponsoring the Inaugural Brisbane BarCamp. BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants. The Brisbane BarCamp is being held on Saturday the 24th of November at the East Brisbane Bowls Club. For more details and to register for this event refer to here.

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Optimizing SQL Server Query Performance

One of the most important aspects of SQL Server performance is ensuring the optimal performance of queries that are executed. Poorly performing queries have the ability to grind even the best hardware to its knees. The following guide provides an overview on generating, analysing, and tweaking execution plans. This tuning guide can be found here.

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Plan Caching Issues

One of the most misunderstood components of SQL Server is how batches are cached and reused. The following white paper explains how batches are cached and reused in SQL Server 2005 and suggests best practices on maximizing reuse of cached plans. It also explains scenarios in which batches are recompiled and gives best practices for reducing or eliminating unnecessary recompilations. The white paper can be downloaded from here.

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Query Tuning and Optimization

The fourth and final volume of the Inside SQL Server 2005 series has been completed and is now available from your book store of choice. This final volume focuses on Query Tuning and Optimization. Like all of the other books in the Inside SQL Server series, this book is for anyone that wants to 'pop the hood' and find out more about the internals of SQL Server. For more details on the Inside SQL Server 2005 series refer to here .

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Backup Success Messages

If you perform regular transaction log backups one of the issues can be the 'signal to noise' ratio in the SQL Server errorlogs due to all of the backup successful messages. There is actually a trace flag that can be enabled to that will suppress the success messages. For more details about this trace flag refer to here.

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SQL Server Virtual DBA

Virtual DBA was recently featured at the Microsoft Enterprise Product Roadmap Event. To find out about more about our participation in this event refer to here .

Something you may not know is that our Virtual DBA service can be utilised for phone and email support. So, if your organisation just needs someone that they can call on for advice then why not use a Virtual DBA?

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