On the 20^th of March 2006, we will be running the one day course SQL Server Administration Essentials in Brisbane.  This course is designed to assist individuals develop the confidence and skills required to administer a SQL Server environment to meet the constant demands for reduced application downtime and tighter security controls.  This course is perfect for those who have recently started working with SQL Server or are looking to brush up their administration skills.  If you require any additional details regarding this course then do not hesitate to contact us or alternately, refer to the course outline http://www.wardyit.com/courses/MicrosoftSQLServerSystemAdministrationEssentials.pdf.

 

If you are in Adelaide on Thursday the 9^th of March, I will be presenting at the Adelaide SQL Server User Group on the SQL Server Management Object (SMO).  You can register your attendance for this event at http://www.sqlserver.org.au/Events/RegisterMeeting.aspx?EventId=145.

 

We have started to create Camtasia Studio (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp) movies to demonstrate some of the new features of SQL Server 2005 which we are making available as a free download.  Whenever we create a new one of these video’s it  will be announced on the WARDY IT Solutions SQL Server Blog http://www.wardyit.com/blog.  The first movie demonstrates how to use the SSIS For Each Loop and can be downloaded from http://www.wardyit.com/video/SSISForEachContainer.wmv.  If there is a particular feature that you would like to see illustrated like this then do not hesitate to contact us with your suggestions.

 

If anyone has downloaded the recent Cumulative Hotfix for SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 4 (Build 2162), two issues have been found that have caused Microsoft to remove the download for this build.  The first issue is that the Hotfix installer will not work correctly when installed on a cluster and the second issue is that you may receive an exception when performing a BULK INSERT.  You may want to think twice about installing this Hotfix if you have downloaded it and these two scenarios effect you.  For more information refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/904660/en-us.

 

 

Happy Reading

 

 

Peter Ward

WARDY IT Solutions Chief Technical Architect

Phone: +61 7 3856 5411     Mobile: +61 0 403 177 761

In this Issue:

Kalen Delaney in Australia

SQL Server Express Advanced Services Beta

SQL Server 2005 SSIS Whitepaper

Impact of Logging

SQL Server 2005 Masters Degree

Scripto

Access Upsize

SQL Server Error Handling

SMO of the Month

SQL Server Tip of the Month

Reporting Services Tip of the Month

Kalen Delaney in Australia

For those of you who missed Kalen Delaney when she was in Australia last year you have another opportunity to learn from one of the most authorative presenters and authors on SQL Server.  Kalen Delaney will be teaching her new 4 day SQL Server 2000/2005 internals course in Melbourne from the 6th to the 9th of March and also presenting two one day seminars in Sydney (February 28th to March 1st) and Canberra (March 2nd to March 3rd).  For more details on how you can attend one of Kalen’s session whilst she is in Australia, refer to http://www.solidqualitylearning.com.au/.

 

 

SQL Server Express Advanced Services Beta

A new update to SQL Server Express is on the horizon and now is your chance to be involved in testing the update by participating in the Beta program.  If you have experience working with MSDE or SQL Express and are interested in testing out the next update for SQL Express you can nominate yourself using the details on the SQL Express Blog http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlexpress/archive/2006/02/02/ExpressBeta.aspx.

 

 

SQL Server 2005 SSIS Whitepaper
Unisys and Microsoft have partnered to demonstrate the Extraction, Transformation and Loading (ETL) performance that can be achieved using SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS).  While doing this testing, some very impressive throughput was achieved showing just how scabale SSIS is.  The testing extracted transformed and loaded more than 1.2 billion sales and marketing order line items into a data warehouse in less than an hour. More details regarding this testing can be found in the Whitepaper at http://www.windowsitpro.com/sqlserver/sql2005/ETL_performance_Unisys_WP.pdf.

 

Impact of Logging
Kimberly Tripp from SQL Skills (www.sqlskills.com) has recently posted a great article on her blog which should help clear up some of the confusion related to SQL Server logging, log operation ‘types’ and what affects logging.  The article can be viewed using the following link
http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/kimberly/PermaLink.aspx?guid=ed29f26b-903e-4673-a5e5-5583571d27ad.

 

 

SQL Server 2005 Masters Degree

Microsoft has partnered with Charles Sturt University through IT Masters to develop a Masters Degree that incorporates SQL Server 2005 certifications.  Upon completing the degree you will not only receive a Masters Degree but also certification as either a MCITP: Database Developer or a MCITP: Database Administrator.  Over the next three weeks starting in Brisbane on the 27th of February information session are being held for this unique degree.  For more information and to register refer to http://www.itmasters.com.au/infosession_selectstream.aspx

 

 

Scripto

One of the annoyances that I have found in SQL Server 2005 is the inability to generate a SQL script using the Script Wizard that contains a DROP and a CREATE in the same script.  Instead a script is generated for a DROP or a CREATE individually.  Admittedly, the script can be generated to a query or the clipboard and copy and pasted but you are no longer able to generate a DROP and a CREATE to a file in one step. Bill Graziano obviously had the same gripe as he has written Scripto as a ClickOnce application that can script a DROP and a CREATE in the same script.  The application is available from http://www.sqlteam.com/publish/scriptio/.

 

 

Access Upsize

Microsoft has recently released a new solutions portal to assist with the migration of Microsoft Access databases to SQL Server.  For additional information on how to successfully ‘upsize’ Access refer to the following link http://www.microsoft.com/sql/solutions/ssm/access/accessmigration.mspx.

 

 

SQL Server Error Handling

Recently I was having a discussion with some database developers regarding error handling in stored procedures and their attitude was ‘we don’t bother as it is far from being an exact science’.  Erland Sommarskog (http://www.sommarskog.se/) has written two excellent articles on SQL Server error handling that every SQL Server developer should read.  The first article Error Handling in SQL Server can be found at http://www.sommarskog.se/error-handling-I.html.

 

 

 

SMO of the Month:

 

SQL SMO (Server Management Object) is the object model that has been introduced in SQL Server 2005 which extends and supersedes the Distributed Management Objects (SQL-DMO) for programmatic management of Microsoft SQL Server.  This month we are illistarting the difference between using the DMO object and the SMO object model to identify the SQL Server Version sting of the default local SQL Server instance.

 

Using SMO:

 

Dim SMOServer

 

Set SMOServer = CreateObject("Microsoft.SQLServer.Management.SMO.Server")

 

Msgbox SMOServer.Information.VersionString

 

Set SMOServer = Nothing

 

 

Using DMO:

 

Dim DMOServer

 

Set DMOServer = CreateObject("SQLDMO.SQLServer")

 

DMOServer.LoginSecure = True

DMOServer.Connect "(local)"

 

Msgbox DMOServer.VersionString

 

DMOServer.DisConnect

Set SMOServer = Nothing

 

 

SQL Server Tip of the Month

 

SQL Server 2005 has introduced two new Dynamic Management objects which can be used to provide details regarding the space being by a table and its indexes.

 

sys.allocation_units - Returns a row for each allocation unit in the database.

 

sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats - Returns size and fragmentation information for the data and indexes of the specified table or view.

 

 

Reporting Services Tip of the Month

 

If you need to identify which Reporting Services reports are being emailed to a specific user then you can execute the following query in the SQL Server 2000 ReportServer database:

 

SELECT     [name]

FROM       reportserver.dbo.catalog

WHERE      itemid IN

            (SELECT    report_oid

             FROM      reportserver.dbo.subscriptions

             WHERE     extensionsettings LIKE '%peter@wardyit.com%')

ORDER BY [name]

 

You need to use wildcards in the LIKE statement as the email address is embedded in an XML format in the ExtensionSettings column.

If you are unable to view this document it can be downloaded from http://www.wardyit.com/newsletters/feb2006.htm

WARDY IT Solutions is a highly regarded IT Solutions provider specialising in Microsoft SQL Server.  You may not be aware though that WARDY IT Solutions is also a registered Microsoft Partner and has an established relationship with numerous hardware and software vendors, enabling us to provide competitive pricing on your next hardware or software acquisition.  For more information on how WARDY IT Solutions can assist with your next acquisition email: contact@wardyit.com.  WARDY IT Solutions has also recently partnered with Web Central in order to add web hosting and DSL plans backed by guaranteed Service Levels to the extensive list of services that we already provide.

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