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Question of the Day

Fun with Arrays

The Voice of the DBA

The K8s Overview

I've written some posts on Kubernetes as I think this will be an important technology in the next decade for database systems. Actually, it's not that I think Kubernetes is that important, but rather that the orchestration of containers that run database systems, along with the storage and networking, will be necessary. Kubernetes appears to be the most common and popular orchestrator, but that could change.

Part of the reason that some technology gets adopted is that managers read about it and push it. Certainly technical staff have input, but managers have influence, and ultimately spend money on projects. While every manager wants to succeed and make their mark, no one wants to be left behind and have made a poor technology choice. As popular as containers and Kubernetes are, a little advocacy from management might get you moving in that direction.

If your manager knows nothing about Kubernetes, can they still recommend the platform? Sure, but you can also help them to understand how it works and what the impact of this choice might be. I ran across A Manager's Guide to Kubernetes Adoption, which is a good read for a manager, perhaps tempering some of their enthusiasm to just install Kubernetes now. In fact, if you know nothing about containers and Kubernetes, you might give it a read as well.

I've changed my mind on database containers, and I do think Kubernetes has a future in the life of the data platform pro. It's not simple, and may not be easy to run for some time, but I think that will change. I also think we may not need a lot more Kubernetes knowledge than is in the post, but we certainly will want to know what configuration items might affect our workloads, and certainly we'll still need to think about, and set limits (high and low) for our database systems.

I don't think that our world will change quickly, and certainly the more legacy applications you run, the longer your transition will be, but I do like the concept of Kubernetes as a platform where I deploy applications and services. I haven't quite felt that way about Azure to date, nor OpenStack and other variants, but Kubernetes seems to be a better idea for what I'd want. It will take time to get there, and it's not trivial effort to move to it, but once there, you should have reduced some of your infrastructure headaches.

As to whether your application will run better, look to your developers. All the hardware and well built platforms in the world won't work well if you don't write good code. Spend some effort there, and then think about moving to containers and orchestrators.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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Featured Contents

Databases in Azure… Where to begin? Create a Database and log in!

michael.f.morin from SQLServerCentral.com

Ready to create your first Database in Azure. Here are the step by step instructions with plenty of definitions and terms.

Troubleshoot Slow RDS SQL Servers with Performance Insights

Additional Articles from MSSQLTips.com

In this article we look at using AWS Performance Insights to help monitor and troubleshoot SQL Server performance issues when running on RDS.

Free eBook: Fundamentals of SQL Server 2012 Replication

Press Release from Redgate

Fundamentals of SQL Server 2012 Replication provides a hands-on introduction to SQL Server replication. The book introduces you to the technologies that make up replication, and then walks you through setting up different replication scenarios. When you've finished reading, you should be able to implement your own multi-server replication setup while following the principle of least privilege.

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - #PowershellBasics: Multiple run spaces in ISE

Kenneth.Fisher from SQLStudies

As you know from the last few posts, I’m in a class on Powershell. One of the first things we ... Continue reading

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - MSDTC Best Practices with an Availability Group

Ryan Adams from Ryan Adams

In this article we are going to look at some guidelines and MSDTC best practices with an Availability Group. Please note that some of these recommendations change if you...

Question of the Day

Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):
	Fun with Arrays
I run this code to create a few arrays in my Python REPL. >>> a = [1,2,3] >>> b = [4,5,6] >>> a [1, 2, 3] >>> b [4, 5, 6] >>> c = [7,8,9] >>> d = [a,b,c] >>> d [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9]] Now I run this code: >>> d[0][2] = 10 >>> d [[1, 2, 10], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9]] When I now type "a" to see its value, what is returned?
Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor)

The Complex Computed Column

I want to add this column to my table. What happens when I run this?

ALTER TABLE dbo.Activities
ADD ProdOneCount AS CASE
                        WHEN ProductID = 1 THEN
                            CallCount
                        ELSE
                            0
                    END;
GO

Answer: The column is added successfully

Explanation: This works fine. A computed column is allowed to have any expression that returns a value. Ref: Alter Computed Column Definition - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/statements/alter-table-computed-column-definition-transact-sql?view=sql-server-2017

Discuss this question and answer on the forums

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.

SQL Server 2017 - Administration

Extended Events- how to log to an SQL table? - I want to enable an Extended events session. However, I don't want it to go to a file on the HDD, I 'd really like to send it all to an SQL table so I can do grouping, analysis, reporting, etc... How can I get that data into an SQL table for longer term storage […]

Error after migrating SSISDB to a newer version of SQL server. - I tried to move SSIS database catalog on SQL server 2014 to a new server SQL 2017. I created the catalog first on new server, and then restored the database SSISDB from old server to new server. And restored the master key. Then I run the following stored procedure and got an error: Use SSISDB […]

SQL Server 2017 - Development

getdate() to east time - hello someone aware how to convert getdate() to at time zone EASTERN TIME can you help me please

SQL Server 2016 - Administration

Very large t-log with backups - I have a database that's 125GB, but the t-log is 190GB. I do full backups each day and t-log backups every 15 minutes. I've verified the log backups have been successful for the past week. Generally when I see a large log like this it is because backups are failing. The log isn't growing out […]

Optimizer switching sql execution plans - Hi, I have noticed that Optimizer is switching to good and bad plans randomly after IndexRebuild and Update stats job. For example, for 1 week it is using good plan where procedure is taking 1 sec and after that it is switching to bad plan and procedure is taking 50 sec. Is this behavior related […]

Issues trying to restore a backup file from SQL Server 2016 to SQL Server 2012 - Hello, I'm attempting to use a specific backup file from a week ago that was taken from a SQL Server 2016 instance and restore it as a new database onto a different instance, which uses SQL Server 2008 R2. When I try to script this, I get the following error: "The media family on device […]

Always-On AG Cluster: Suspect database on secondary node, backup failing - Setup: Three node AO AG cluster, Node1 and Node2 synchrounous in DC1, and Node3 ansynchronous in DC2. Hi guys, we had an incident some time ago, the root cause seems to be that because of some disk issues, one db went offline/suspect on the Async node in DC2, this caused a t-log backup to fail, […]

SQL Server 2016 - Development and T-SQL

how to print NULL for datetime column - i have a variable called date @Date DATETIME = NULL, i want to capture this variable into error log information set @log = @Log + ' ,Date: ' + @Date but this is not capturing anything. i have tried convert(varchar(20),ISNULL(@Date,GETDATE()),110) it worked ; but i don't want to capture getdate. i want to print NULL.

Range of values not from a table - Hi, I want a range of values between a start number and end number say 10000 to 50000 using SQL, but these are not stored anywhere on a table. The idea is to then compare each value with the user-ID of a database table to see which ID is missing and which exists. e.g. In […]

Max window function with order by - Hello Everyone Thought I knew how Window functions worked in SQL Server but that was before I ran below script This script is part of a CTE which is then fed into other CTEs downstream - but I am having hard time understanding how the MAX function here is deriving maximum date for each row […]

empty sys.dm_exec_query_stats - Hello I am having an issue with the query stats dmv If I run a statement or execute an SP I would expect it to generate a row in sys.dm_exec_query_stats Sometimes it does but more often than not it doesn't I'm also finding that when it does, if I query sys.dm_exec_query_stats a couple of […]

SQL Query with CTE or other...! - Any one can help me please with this issue? I really appreciate this help. The number of Answer is dynamic.

SQL Server 2012 - T-SQL

Script multiple queries - Is it possible to script multiple queries? I need to transfer about 30 queries from one server to another w/o copying the entire database. I was hoping i wouldn't have to script out each query individually in SSMS.

Reporting Services

Failed Executions - Curious what everyone else is doing... I've always had a daily report showing me report subscriptions that failed. I've had a task to better monitor all report interactions (subscriptions, cache refresh and interactive) sitting in my queue, but I put it off because of other higher priority tasks. Right now I'm in the process of […]

Integration Services

SSIS task and transformation types in SSISDB - Hello Does SSISDB hold the type of task anywhere It would make querying for slow tasks or data transformations much easier Also, look at history to see if specific transformation timescales have changed etc. Thanks

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