Are the posted questions getting worse?

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Are the posted questions getting worse?

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Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004363 More actions · Answer 1

Evil Kraig F (8/26/2011)
Stefan Krzywicki (8/26/2011)
Here's something everyone in IT should be aware of
Your decision making ability deteriorates as you make more decisions
Thanks for this Stefan, shared it around a bit myself this morning.

I read the first part of that and think everyone may have it backwards because I sure wouldn't make parole easy before my 17th cup of coffee! 😉

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Evil Kraig F SSC Guru Points: 100851 More actions · Answer 2

Jeff Moden (8/26/2011)
Evil Kraig F (8/26/2011)
Stefan Krzywicki (8/26/2011)
Here's something everyone in IT should be aware of
Your decision making ability deteriorates as you make more decisions
Thanks for this Stefan, shared it around a bit myself this morning.
I read the first part of that and think everyone may have it backwards because I sure wouldn't make parole easy before my 17th cup of coffee! 😉

Jeff, you have to remember, these are judges, not ornery old DBAs. They're used to getting up at 4AM for good tee times, not having been called at 2AM to fix someone's PEBKAC issues.

- Craig Farrell

Never stop learning, even if it hurts. Ego bruises are practically mandatory as you learn unless you've never risked enough to make a mistake.

For better assistance in answering your questions[/url] | Forum Netiquette
For index/tuning help, follow these directions.[/url] |Tally Tables[/url]
Twitter: @AnyWayDBA

WayneS SSC Guru Points: 95460 More actions · Answer 3

Grant Fritchey (8/26/2011)
Need the advice of the Thread.
Putting together an article on the most common backup errors (apart from not having one) and how to avoid them. I have four so far:
Backing up files instead of creating backups (.mdf, ldf, you know)
Running out of space on disk
Log Filling up
Only having differential backups available.
Are there any glaring ones I'm missing here?

Don't know if you want to use this. If some network dip-s*** starts using VSS, it can break a differential b/u process (had it happen to me*). It would probably also break a t/log b/u chain.

* Dev box, full b/u weekly, diff daily. half-way thru the week, every week, diffs would start failing. Finally tracked down to VSS stopping db activity, doing a b/u, restarting d/b activity. When the diff would run, the last sql full b/u wasn't what the LSN was based off of anymore, and diff b/u would fail. Had to turn off the SQL VSS service.

Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes

If you can't explain to another person how the code that you're copying from the internet works, then DON'T USE IT on a production system! After all, you will be the one supporting it!

Links:
For better assistance in answering your questions
Performance Problems
Common date/time routines
Understanding and Using APPLY Part 1 & Part 2

WayneS SSC Guru Points: 95460 More actions · Answer 4

Roy Ernest (8/26/2011)
I guess everyone has their own outlook of where the risk is when taking back ups. 🙂 I prefer going for network back up. I feel that it is bit more less risk.
I have seen lots of people arguing both way around. 🙂

I prefer b/u to local disk, then use RoboCopy to copy to network. Gives redundancy (multiple copies), speed (on local disk), allows b/u to succeed even if network connection down.

Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes

If you can't explain to another person how the code that you're copying from the internet works, then DON'T USE IT on a production system! After all, you will be the one supporting it!

Links:
For better assistance in answering your questions
Performance Problems
Common date/time routines
Understanding and Using APPLY Part 1 & Part 2

Grant Fritchey SSC Guru Points: 398890 More actions · Answer 5

WayneS (8/26/2011)
Grant Fritchey (8/26/2011)
Need the advice of the Thread.
Putting together an article on the most common backup errors (apart from not having one) and how to avoid them. I have four so far:
Backing up files instead of creating backups (.mdf, ldf, you know)
Running out of space on disk
Log Filling up
Only having differential backups available.
Are there any glaring ones I'm missing here?
Don't know if you want to use this. If some network dip-s*** starts using VSS, it can break a differential b/u process (had it happen to me*). It would probably also break a t/log b/u chain.
* Dev box, full b/u weekly, diff daily. half-way thru the week, every week, diffs would start failing. Finally tracked down to VSS stopping db activity, doing a b/u, restarting d/b activity. When the diff would run, the last sql full b/u wasn't what the LSN was based off of anymore, and diff b/u would fail. Had to turn off the SQL VSS service.

More grist for the mill. Thanks.

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt

Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

TomThomson SSC Guru Points: 104773 More actions · Answer 6

Stefan Krzywicki (8/26/2011)
SQLRNNR (8/26/2011)
Stefan Krzywicki (8/26/2011)
Here's something everyone in IT should be aware of
Your decision making ability deteriorates as you make more decisions
Interesting article for the first half. Lost my decision making ability after that. In fact - I think I am done for the day. :crazy:
Quick! eat a sandwich!
Of course, a good way to get some calories that change into glucose would be with a beer or two, but for some reason I don't think that'll help the decision making process...

You may be wrong on that. The first beer probably enhances your decision making 🙂 (makes you better able to get things right). Of course the second may put you back where you started :unsure:, and the third and subsequent may be real bad news :(.

Tom

TomThomson SSC Guru Points: 104773 More actions · Answer 7

SQLRNNR (8/26/2011)
IC. Yours behaves differently.
We had it configured to backup to network - took 4+hrs.
To reconfigure and backup local and then copy to network took <= 30 min total. Well worth it for us. Even if it took 3hrs after the reconfigure - we were much better off than the sql backup to network.

Did you ever do any diagnostics to discover why you were getting such a strange result? If I saw a result like that I would be raising hell with the network team and the storage team because those numbers are rather disturbing. Why should your network copy utility (be it MS E Explorer or something else) have so much less network overhead than Backup? You have the same network traffic, the same DB and logfile IO volumes, and three times the other IO volumes, and it goes faster????

I've done it much as Roy did, and found it vastly faster if I go remote straight away and don't make that local step.

Tom

TomThomson SSC Guru Points: 104773 More actions · Answer 8

Stefan Krzywicki (8/26/2011)
Well, if you're doing a local backup, you have a 33% smaller chance the DB server will go down before the backup is completed. Networked, it takes 45 min to complete the backup. Local it takes 30 min. The file transfer is a separate task taking 35 minutes, but the backup file is already completed. The only increase in risk there is if you can't recover the backup file as well as the database. If it goes down at the 40 minute mark, you've lost the backup and the database in a network backup. In a local backup with file transfer, you have a valid backup as long as you can recover the file.

But I don't care as much about the chance of losing one element of the chain, since if it is lost the next element will cover it anyway (I back up logs very frequently, of course) as I do about the risk of taking longer to get the backup somewhere remote from the DB server, since a flood, someone running a lorry through the computer room wall, a local fire, and all sorts of other things can render the local backup unavailable.

Tom

TomThomson SSC Guru Points: 104773 More actions · Answer 9

Ninja's_RGR'us (8/26/2011)
Roy Ernest (8/26/2011)
I guess everyone has their own outlook of where the risk is when taking back ups. 🙂 I prefer going for network back up. I feel that it is bit more less risk.
I have seen lots of people arguing both way around. 🙂
The info I have on this is that you can have a lost packet not reported (or something simlar). That backup will succeed but won't be restoreable.
So yes use network share all you want but just make sure you test the backup right away. That includes diffs and logs.

I assume that you test the backup right away whether it's remote or local. Doing it for one but not for the othet would be silly, since many "local" discs are connected over ordinary comms networks (fibre channel, sata, anything calling itself SAN). Problems only arise if a shared network with no useful QoS designations is used (even a network that doesn't support QoS can work well if it has good defence against nodes that go into over-send mode).

Tom

Ninja's_RGR'us SSC Guru Points: 294069 More actions · Answer 10

Tom.Thomson (8/26/2011)
Ninja's_RGR'us (8/26/2011)
Roy Ernest (8/26/2011)
I guess everyone has their own outlook of where the risk is when taking back ups. 🙂 I prefer going for network back up. I feel that it is bit more less risk.
I have seen lots of people arguing both way around. 🙂
The info I have on this is that you can have a lost packet not reported (or something simlar). That backup will succeed but won't be restoreable.
So yes use network share all you want but just make sure you test the backup right away. That includes diffs and logs.
I assume that you test the backup right away whether it's remote or local. Doing it for one but not for the othet would be silly, since many "local" discs are connected over ordinary comms networks (fibre channel, sata, anything calling itself SAN). Problems only arise if a shared network with no useful QoS designations is used (even a network that doesn't support QoS can work well if it has good defence against nodes that go into over-send mode).

I never really considered that.

Our "little" db is on a super-sized san. Whole backup / restore takes less than 10 minutes for 75 GB (25 bak + 50 restored).

Also I was always more concerned with testing the final resting place of the backup than all steps. That became totally moot once the backup were taken directly on the "local" disk which is actually on a different san in a different building. And then a 2nd copy of that is sent to a 3rd san (1st san is for the live db files).

And yes those are separate physical sans in different buildings, not 3 "locations" on the same san.

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004363 More actions · Answer 11

Gosh... outright theft of articles just keeps getting worse and even more blatant. Take a look at the following and then click on the Feb/Mar 2009 magazine release to see what I'm talking about.

http://www.richplum.co.uk/magazine/

Steve Jones... they even used the SQLServerCentral logo on one of the articles. Did you give this group permission to copy my CrossTab articles?

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

WayneS SSC Guru Points: 95460 More actions · Answer 12

Jeff Moden (8/27/2011)
Gosh... outright theft of articles just keeps getting worse and even more blatant. Take a look at the following and then click on the Feb/Mar 2009 magazine release to see what I'm talking about.
http://www.richplum.co.uk/magazine/
Steve Jones... they even used the SQLServerCentral logo on one of the articles. Did you give this group permission to copy my CrossTab articles?

For those looking, I think Jeff is talking about the Apr/May 2009 issue.

Well Jeff, at least they did give you (and SSC) full attribution for the articles - it's not like they tried to pass them off as their own work. Still, it would be nice if permission had been obtained.

Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes

If you can't explain to another person how the code that you're copying from the internet works, then DON'T USE IT on a production system! After all, you will be the one supporting it!

Links:
For better assistance in answering your questions
Performance Problems
Common date/time routines
Understanding and Using APPLY Part 1 & Part 2

Gail Shaw SSC Guru Points: 1004504 More actions · Answer 13

WayneS (8/28/2011)
Jeff Moden (8/27/2011)
Gosh... outright theft of articles just keeps getting worse and even more blatant. Take a look at the following and then click on the Feb/Mar 2009 magazine release to see what I'm talking about.
http://www.richplum.co.uk/magazine/
Steve Jones... they even used the SQLServerCentral logo on one of the articles. Did you give this group permission to copy my CrossTab articles?
For those looking, I think Jeff is talking about the Apr/May 2009 issue.
Well Jeff, at least they did give you (and SSC) full attribution for the articles - it's not like they tried to pass them off as their own work. Still, it would be nice if permission had been obtained.

It's still copyright violation, no matter if it's attributed or not (it's not plagiarism though). Unless they had permission from Jeff and from either Steve or RedGate, they have absolutely no right to republish his work, especially seeing as that site has paid membership.

Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

We walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004363 More actions · Answer 14

GilaMonster (8/28/2011)
WayneS (8/28/2011)
Jeff Moden (8/27/2011)
Gosh... outright theft of articles just keeps getting worse and even more blatant. Take a look at the following and then click on the Feb/Mar 2009 magazine release to see what I'm talking about.
http://www.richplum.co.uk/magazine/
Steve Jones... they even used the SQLServerCentral logo on one of the articles. Did you give this group permission to copy my CrossTab articles?
For those looking, I think Jeff is talking about the Apr/May 2009 issue.
Well Jeff, at least they did give you (and SSC) full attribution for the articles - it's not like they tried to pass them off as their own work. Still, it would be nice if permission had been obtained.
It's still copyright violation, no matter if it's attributed or not (it's not plagiarism though). Unless they had permission from Jeff and from either Steve or RedGate, they have absolutely no right to republish his work, especially seeing as that site has paid membership.

Exactly correct. Something else I've found out is that most people just ignore you because they think that once it's on the internet, it's public domain even if there is a copyright notice like what SSC has. If you try to get Google to black ball them, you have to jump through some really high hoops to get it done.

These people make me sick. They're supposed to be "professionals" and they're nothing but a bunch of thieves.

I have to go through the rest of their "magazines" and see what else they're copied.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Gail Shaw SSC Guru Points: 1004504 More actions · Answer 15

Jeff Moden (8/28/2011)
Something else I've found out is that most people just ignore you because they think that once it's on the internet, it's public domain even if there is a copyright notice like what SSC has. If you try to get Google to black ball them, you have to jump through some really high hoops to get it done.
These people make me sick. They're supposed to be "professionals" and they're nothing but a bunch of thieves.
I have to go through the rest of their "magazines" and see what else they're copied.

Google does remove search results after a DMCA takedown request, they're usually pretty quick too. Same for copied stuff in blogger (which is owned by google). You as the owner have to make the request and assert it's your properly, but that's not hard.

Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

We walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass