Are the posted questions getting worse?

  • WayneS (10/3/2013)


    Who is going to the Summit this year? (I need to figure out who to meet up with...)

    I'll be there. Precon on the Monday, regular session last thing Friday.

  • Jeff Moden (10/3/2013)


    WayneS (10/3/2013)


    Who is going to the Summit this year? (I need to figure out who to meet up with...)

    Not going. Prepping for the "great migration" from 2005 to 2012 and from old servers to new and consolidation of servers. We get to do the migration part again for 2014 later when 2014 hits SP1. We're not waiting because it'll be a a bit tougher to go from 2005 directly to 2014.

    When we migrated from 2005 to 2008, the only real thing that "got us" was when the developers used ORDER BY in the views. MS finally decided to enforce the rule and people had come to count on it not being enforced. We're not on 2012 yet, but I'm sure the per-core licensing model will keep us on 2008 for a while. I know we're going to have to migrate eventually because of 2008 end-of-life, but I don't think anyone's too anxious to spend a bunch of extra cash on it.

  • Ed Wagner (10/4/2013)


    Jeff Moden (10/3/2013)


    WayneS (10/3/2013)


    Who is going to the Summit this year? (I need to figure out who to meet up with...)

    Not going. Prepping for the "great migration" from 2005 to 2012 and from old servers to new and consolidation of servers. We get to do the migration part again for 2014 later when 2014 hits SP1. We're not waiting because it'll be a a bit tougher to go from 2005 directly to 2014.

    When we migrated from 2005 to 2008, the only real thing that "got us" was when the developers used ORDER BY in the views. MS finally decided to enforce the rule and people had come to count on it not being enforced. We're not on 2012 yet, but I'm sure the per-core licensing model will keep us on 2008 for a while. I know we're going to have to migrate eventually because of 2008 end-of-life, but I don't think anyone's too anxious to spend a bunch of extra cash on it.

    Licensing gets even uglier to sort through when you have multi year select agreements. That change to core from processor can lead to some surprises. And VM hosts are, well, confusing at best. And top that off with some grandfathering in for more than 4 core procs. Personally, I think they lost a lot of competivie advantage with the change.

    For us, because we used the whole stack (SSAS, SQL, SSRS, SSAS, and SharePoint) to expose our DataWarehouse, notching up 1 version at a time made more sense. 2012 does leave a couple surprises, especially the smoke and mirrors BI Project, behind the scenes using 2010.

    Some of the features, especially in memory usage, requires both hardware and development considerations. I remember playing with PowerPivot, and taking a server down in 3 mouse clicks as I drilled down. It didn't like the star schema very well, and had some serious memory challenges.

    I don't know if Jeff has a lot to do with the hardware, but I had to have them revamp my memory on the server they ordered. 2 proc machine, 6 cores, and some very specific ways to fill the slots to use memory most effectively. Especially when we were going to take out 1 proc for licensing at the time. The way the server guys had it configured, we would have only seen half the memory.

  • Paul White (10/3/2013)


    WayneS (10/3/2013)


    Who is going to the Summit this year? (I need to figure out who to meet up with...)

    I'll be there. Precon on the Monday, regular session last thing Friday.

    I'll be in your Precon session.

    Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
    _______________________________________________
    I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
    SQL RNNR
    Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
    Learn Extended Events

  • Lynn, re the count(*), there's about 5 different threads over the last couple months on that problem and much ignored advice.

    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
  • Greg Edwards-268690 (10/4/2013)


    Ed Wagner (10/4/2013)


    Jeff Moden (10/3/2013)


    WayneS (10/3/2013)


    Who is going to the Summit this year? (I need to figure out who to meet up with...)

    Not going. Prepping for the "great migration" from 2005 to 2012 and from old servers to new and consolidation of servers. We get to do the migration part again for 2014 later when 2014 hits SP1. We're not waiting because it'll be a a bit tougher to go from 2005 directly to 2014.

    When we migrated from 2005 to 2008, the only real thing that "got us" was when the developers used ORDER BY in the views. MS finally decided to enforce the rule and people had come to count on it not being enforced. We're not on 2012 yet, but I'm sure the per-core licensing model will keep us on 2008 for a while. I know we're going to have to migrate eventually because of 2008 end-of-life, but I don't think anyone's too anxious to spend a bunch of extra cash on it.

    Licensing gets even uglier to sort through when you have multi year select agreements. That change to core from processor can lead to some surprises. And VM hosts are, well, confusing at best. And top that off with some grandfathering in for more than 4 core procs. Personally, I think they lost a lot of competivie advantage with the change.

    For us, because we used the whole stack (SSAS, SQL, SSRS, SSAS, and SharePoint) to expose our DataWarehouse, notching up 1 version at a time made more sense. 2012 does leave a couple surprises, especially the smoke and mirrors BI Project, behind the scenes using 2010.

    Some of the features, especially in memory usage, requires both hardware and development considerations. I remember playing with PowerPivot, and taking a server down in 3 mouse clicks as I drilled down. It didn't like the star schema very well, and had some serious memory challenges.

    I don't know if Jeff has a lot to do with the hardware, but I had to have them revamp my memory on the server they ordered. 2 proc machine, 6 cores, and some very specific ways to fill the slots to use memory most effectively. Especially when we were going to take out 1 proc for licensing at the time. The way the server guys had it configured, we would have only seen half the memory.

    I did have some input on the hardware. It turns out it would have cost us the same amount to upgrade memory from 64GB to 256GB as it does to buy a new server with 512GB built in. Because I've been in this particular shop for coming up on 2 years, the code is a whole lot faster so instead of needing 16 core on our main box, we're dropping it to 8 core with an open slot for 8 more core should we ever get the proverbial "giant client". Because of the performance improvements we've made in the code across multiple servers, we're also able to consolidate some of our larger servers into one which will save us big bucks because we don't have to license the additional cores on the other boxes. We've basically dropped our Enterprise Edition licensing requirements from more than 32 core to just 8 just by fixing some crap code. 😛

    We're also moving some of our larger audit tables (the largest isn't huge so far as the industry is concerned but it's bigger than anyone has seen where I'm working at 260GB and growing by ~10-15GB per month) to low cost iSCSI drives and deploying partitioning to drastically decrease the nightly backup requirements not to mention the ability to very much more quickly "get back in business" should a DR restore be required ("Piece-meal" restores).

    I know I'm going to sound like a real wire-headed nerd when I say this, but this is turning out to be a whole lot of fun.

    --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)

  • GilaMonster (10/5/2013)


    Lynn, re the count(*), there's about 5 different threads over the last couple months on that problem and much ignored advice.

    Well, I will see what I may be able to do. I can always use the practice reworking code, especially since I won't have a job when I redeploy back to the States when my tour is over.

  • Lynn Pettis (10/5/2013)


    GilaMonster (10/5/2013)


    Lynn, re the count(*), there's about 5 different threads over the last couple months on that problem and much ignored advice.

    Well, I will see what I may be able to do. I can always use the practice reworking code, especially since I won't have a job when I redeploy back to the States when my tour is over.

    Fixing the catch-all query (which apparently some very expert senior DBAs wrote) should do a lot. On 2012 that's as easy as adding OPTION(RECOMPILE) to the outer query (the WITH RECOMPILE on the proc doesn't have the same effect). Then maybe some indexing, depending on what's already there.

    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
  • Grant Fritchey (10/3/2013)


    Brandie Tarvin (10/3/2013)


    Odd. I don't see your post yet, Grant. Does MSSQL moderate their comments?

    Weird. Still nothing. Jeremy must be very unhappy with me.

    I hate moderated forums. If you're going to write about something, then you also need to take the heat for it. Convenient censorship never did fly well with me.

    --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)

  • Jeff Moden (10/5/2013)


    Grant Fritchey (10/3/2013)


    Brandie Tarvin (10/3/2013)


    Odd. I don't see your post yet, Grant. Does MSSQL moderate their comments?

    Weird. Still nothing. Jeremy must be very unhappy with me.

    I hate moderated forums. If you're going to write about something, then you also need to take the heat for it. Convenient censorship never did fly well with me.

    I'm in two minds about it; at least on moderated forums I don't see phishing posts, get rich quick scams, and adverts for penis enlargment pills and/or breast enlargement lotions, in fact I don't even see much in the way of ordinary (but still annoying) spam advertising legitimate businesses; on the other hand, the moderators can if they wish suppress points of view they disagree with and/or information that might embarrass them, particularly criticism of themselves. So both moderated and unmoderated are bad. Maybe the best compromise is a members only unmoderated forum, where the vetting for membership is strong enough that the list owners know who the members are, not just an email address, so that expulsion can be effective, or maybe not, for several reasons, one of which is that the moderators can expel people they don't want to allow a voice to, so it's still not ideal. One of my ISPs is happy to supply me with an apparently unlimited supply of disposable email addresses, and there are plenty of outfits like jetable.org, who are very well-intentioned, that will provide temporary email addresses, and although it is generally possible to obtain identifying information from such an ISP or other organisation in case of abuse that is an after the event approach, it may discourage abuse but it won't stop it. Besides, "generally possible" doesn't mean "always possible": sometimes identifying information will only be provided in response to a court order, and that will be given in many jurisdictions only if a criminal offence can be demonstrated or, in some other jurisdictions, only if you know which official to bribe. So identification beyond showing you can see messages addressed to a particular email address and reply to them from that address is definitely needed - which introduces another snag: in some countries it is highly desirable to be able to make political comments anonymously. There just isn't a decent solution. Some might think that radical anti-spam laws with 100 year jail sentences for convicted spammers would work? Well, the death penalty never abolished murder, and those hundred year sentences would be at best a palliative. Besides, getting every country to adopt such a law would be well-nigh impossible, and getting them all to enforce it would be a task on a par with taking a bite out of the moon while keeping one's feet on the earth. Really the best option would be to convince moderators that they shouldn't use their powers of censorship to grind their personal axes - and of course also we should allow for the idea that it might sometimes be several days before a moderator sees a message, due to circumstances beyond the moderator's control, so that delayed appearance of a message may not actually be censorship.

    Tom

  • I love the penis enlargement ads... they're written proof that I don't have anything to worry about. 🙂

    I agree, Tom. Both moderated and unmoderated have problems. It think the best of both worlds are the unmoderated forums that ask you to interpret a graphic key to submit a post. At least that keeps the 'bots from posting SPAM.

    --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)

  • A lot of the gaming forums are starting to moderate heavily. Don't think they have much choice anymore, the amount of vile, abusive, hate type comments was just getting too much.

    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 (10/5/2013)


    I love the penis enlargement ads... they're written proof that I don't have anything to worry about. 🙂

    .

    Sorry Jeff - the best one I ever got was :-

    Dear Mr Davies,

    Do you want bigger breasts?. . . . .

    -------------------------------Posting Data Etiquette - Jeff Moden [/url]Smart way to ask a question
    There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand (the world). There is no such thing as a dumb question. ― Carl Sagan
    I would never join a club that would allow me as a member - Groucho Marx

  • Stuart Davies (10/5/2013)


    Jeff Moden (10/5/2013)


    I love the penis enlargement ads... they're written proof that I don't have anything to worry about. 🙂

    .

    Sorry Jeff - the best one I ever got was :-

    Dear Mr Davies,

    Do you want bigger breasts?. . . . .

    Nah... I've already got those. Gettin' old... 😀

    --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)

  • GilaMonster (10/5/2013)


    A lot of the gaming forums are starting to moderate heavily. Don't think they have much choice anymore, the amount of vile, abusive, hate type comments was just getting too much.

    Heh... another good reason for me to avoid such diversions. It's amazing what people will say to each other when a little anonymity is allowed. Same goes with some of the responses to articles on Yahoo, etc. There's some pretty nasty stuff out there.

    --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)

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