Stairway to AlwaysOn Level 2: Storage 101 (2020-12-09)

 SQLServerCentral Newsletter for December 9, 2020 Problems displaying this newsletter? [View online](. [SQL Server Central]( Featured Contents - [Stairway to AlwaysOn Level 2: Storage 101]( - [Take the 2021 State of Database DevOps survey]( - [DBA in training: Backups, SLAs, and restore strategies]( - [Free eBook: Inside the SQL Server Query Optimizer]( - [From the SQL Server Central Blogs - SQL Server login – default database and failed logins]( - [From the SQL Server Central Blogs - [PowerShell Newbie] Using Start-Transcript]( Question of the Day - [Python Lambda Expressions]( The Voice of the DBA  Daily Coping Tip Give kind comments to as many people as possible today I also have [a thread at SQLServerCentral]( dealing with coping mechanisms and resources. Feel free to participate. For many of you out there working in a new way, I'm including a thought of the day on how to cope in this challenging time from [The Action for Happiness Coping Calendar](. My items will be on [my blog](, feel free to share yours. Is there a Virtual Difference? I've been to many SQL Saturdays across the last decade. I know I'm close to having spoken at 100 events, and I've enjoyed going to different cities, meeting lots of new people, and enjoy the local atmosphere. I love exercising at University Lake in Baton Rouge before their event. I've enjoyed wandering around Memphis to see sites, the music in Nashville is wonderful after a day of speaking. Getting up early and visiting Central Park in NYC or jogging through the city in Oslo are great memories. Evenings in Madison, San Jose, and Sioux Falls have kept me entertained. Above all the hospitality of organizers and attendees has been wonderful. I still get plenty of hospitality from organizers of virtual events, but the local flavor is gone. In fact, I'm not sure that there is a difference between SQL Saturday Salt Lake City Virtual and SQL Saturday Slovenia. Organizers are still sending out gifts, and doing all the things that I've appreciated in the past, but it's not the same. In fact, as both a speaker and attendee, I don't see a difference. I wonder how many of you feel the same way. Are we just having events on different days of the week that blend together? Is there any event that stands apart from the others, or do you just appreciate having events occurring almost week and weekend and being able to fit them in your schedule. I'm torn as to whether there is value in these virtual events, other than scheduling. I certainly can see that having SQL Sat Slovenia and SQL Sat Minnesota on Dec 12 makes sense, as the time zones allow people to attend sessions when they are convenient. As a speaker, it would be neat to "speak" at a Slovenian event and a US event on the same day, but as an attendee, is there a season SQL Sat Plovdic occurs the same day? I'd rather it be a week separated from another EU time zone event. I do like the accessibility of these events. Many more people can attend at that might not be able to spare the time, or make the trip to a live event. The cost to add more attendees isn't something organizers worry about, and I could see there being a SQL Saturday on every Saturday throughout the year. It likely doesn't matter if we allow organizers to link an event to their city, or differentiate it from other events. To me, whether it's New Stars of Data, GroupBy, SQL Saturday wherever, or any other event, it's neat that I have lots of chances to watch a live talk and interact with a speaker. It's still lacking something that a live event has, but I do appreciate the opportunity to tune into a talk and try to learn something when I have the time. I do think we need technology improvements to better deliver sessions, speakers need to learn to present differently when the entire screen might not be available, and likely some type of mixed recorded/live/camera/chat evolution would make things better. I'm also thankful that we can continue to run events, and find plenty of people to speak, and even more that appreciate the chance to continue learning. Steve Jones - SSC Editor [Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums](   Featured Contents [Stairway to AlwaysOn]( [Stairway to AlwaysOn Level 2: Storage 101]( Perry Whittle from SQLServerCentral.com In this new level of the stairway, we examine the storage knowledge you need for an AlwaysOn configuration. [Take the 2021 State of Database DevOps survey]( Additional Articles from Redgate It's your last chance to take part in the 2021 State of Database DevOps survey! If you or your organization uses databases, we want to hear from you! Complete the survey for advance access to the final research report, and to be entered into a prize draw for a $500 Amazon voucher. Plus, for each submission we receive, we’ll donate $1 to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. Take the survey here. [DBA in training: Backups, SLAs, and restore strategies]( Additional Articles from SimpleTalk There are a handful of options when backing up SQL Server databases. A DBA must understand the differences and come up with a plan that protects the organisation’s data. In this article, Pamela Mooney explains service level agreements, recovery models, and some strategies to ensure that the data can be restored quickly. [Free eBook: Inside the SQL Server Query Optimizer]( Press Release from SQLServerCentral.com This free eBook from Redgate Software will take you from the fundamentals of Statistics, Cost Estimation, Index Selection, and the Execution Engine, and guide you through the inner workings of the Query Optimization process, and throws in a pragmatic look at Parameterization and Hints along the way. From the SQL Server Central Blogs - [SQL Server login – default database and failed logins]( david.fowler 42596 from SQL Undercover This is one of them little options that I see which quite often gets little consideration or gets set to a user database without consideration of what the consequences... From the SQL Server Central Blogs - [[PowerShell Newbie] Using Start-Transcript]( gbargsley from GarryBargsley This week we are going to launch a blog series geared towards folks that are new to PowerShell. The growing popularity of automation is seeing people getting started with...   Question of the Day Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):  Python Lambda Expressions I want to add a lambda expression in Python to my code. How many statements can I include inside the expression? 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 JSON Basic Query I have this document: DECLARE @json NVARCHAR(1000) = N' { "player": { "name" : "Sarah", "position" : "setter" }, "team":"varsity" } '; If I want to get the name of the player, what query is used? Answer: SELECT JSON_VALUE(@json, '$.player.name') AS PlayerName Explanation: The JSON_VALUE() function is used. The path is .player.name. Ref: JSON_VALUE - [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 [SQL Server Performance Counters]( - Here's a question that feels like I'm asking if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to see it, does it make a noise? With that - Performance Counters (SQL Server specific ones), do these run in the background the entire time? Or does starting up Perfmon and tracking them start them […] [SQL Server Mirroring - Principal cannot set endpoint to Mirror]( - I followed the below guide & I am stuck on the very last step where you set the endpoint to reference the mirror server. The result is the same even if I use SSMS. I am able to telnet successfully on port 5022 from principal to mirror. I am also able to telnet successfully on […] SQL Server 2016 - Administration [SQL Server Load]( - Hi, The application team is pushing more than 7 lakhs records per day to SQL Server. The SQL Server version is 2016 with ALWAYS ON. During one point of time the SQL Server hungs and I need to failover manually. How much load can SQL Server withstand How much connections can it take at a […] SQL Server 2016 - Development and T-SQL [How to aggregate Dimension values properly]( - Ahoi, im trying to deal with a user request to combine 2 values of a column based on values of a different attribut. I managed to make it work like this, creating 2 hidden memembers and combining those in my cube script. --Hidden 1 CREATE MEMBER CURRENTCUBE.[Order].[Ordertype].[Onlineshop Webshop] AS ([Order].[Ordertype].[All],[Order].[Belegart MDX Ohne Mandant].&[Webshop]), VISIBLE = […] SQL 2012 - General [questions about sys.sysprocesses/sys.dm_exec_sessions and sys.dm_exec_requests]( - I have some questions  about sys.sysprocesses/sys.dm_exec_sessions and sys.dm_exec_requests, please kindly give your guidance and comments, thanks! 1. under Microsoft SQL server Management Studio, when I execute select * from sys.dm_exec_sessions and select * from sys.sysprocesses, they have same pieces of records, so spid of sys.sysprocesses is the same thing with the session_id of sys.dm_exec_sessions, is […] SQL Server 2012 - T-SQL [Converting minutes to hh:mm:ss]( - I'm trying to develop a formula to convert minutes (my raw data) to hh:mm:ss format. E.g.: 526.30 minutes = 31,578 seconds which should read 08 hrs. 47 minutes and 8 seconds or 08:46:08 ~ I think (?) SQL Server 2019 - Administration [How to mantain index in SQL and size of Database]( - Hi everyone, I'm trying to figure out how to manage the maintenance of the indexes I just created in some tables of my database. Once I run the Rebuild, the size of the database increases and by shrink, the indexes are fragmented again. Is there a way to clean up the indexes without affecting the […] [Interpreting Index Usage Stats on an Availability Group]( - I've been querying sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats on the nodes of an availability group, and I've noticed an exponential difference between the number of user_seeks on the primary node versus either of the secondary nodes. On the table I'm analyzing, the primary node has many indexes with user_seeks greater than 100,000, whereas on the secondary nodes not one […] [Virtual SQL - Standard vs Enterprise, per-core]( - Hi, I understand that licensing all the Cores in a physical host with Standard Edition and SA give almost the same benefits as Enterprise Edition with SA, but what does the one that isn't included in Standard - Unlimited Virtualization - actually mean? I'm working on a 2-site design that involves SQL versions 2012 through […] SQL Server 2019 - Development [All month/yr when no data across different column combinations.]( - was hoping to get some help as it appears I'm not close. Trying to get all year/mo combinations even when there's no data...based on year/mo, Site, Dept and Cat. Appreciate any help!  create table #Date_Dim (Date date ) Insert into #Date_Dim values ('2020-01-01') ,('2020-01-02') ,('2020-01-03') ,('2020-01-04') ,('2020-02-01') ,('2020-02-02') ,('2020-02-03') ,('2020-02-04') create table #Data (Date […] [Ideas for Auditing]( - I'm currently looking to design some auditing on my SQL application and am wondering what would be the best way. Basically when a user Inserts or Updates I would like to capture what the previous value was and what the new value is. This would be across about most of my tables and could be […] [Can I download Shapefiles for all countries from somewhere?]( - I'm trying to get my head around the Geography/Geometry methods in SQL Server... are the shapefiles for all the countries downloadable from somewhere? So far I haven't found them. Azure Data Factory [Set Variable to lookup first row value with white space in property name]( - Hi, How can I set the value of a variable from a Lookup activity when thw property name hase a white space? I'm trying to do it this way but fails: "value": "@activity('LookupMaxRecordId').output.firstrow.Record ID#", Find the complete code below: Thanks! ************* { "name": "pipeline8", "properties": { "activities": [ { "name": "LookupMaxRecordId", "type": "Lookup", "dependsOn": [], "policy": { "timeout": "7.00:00:00", "retry": 0, "retryIntervalInSeconds": 30, "secureOutput": false, "secureInput": false […] Reporting Services [Query in SSRS report, double hop to linked server]( - I have 3 (old) existing SSRS reports that were developed and deployed on Server A. They each use the same 2 shared Data Sources (RD and DR). 1 of the Data Sources(DR) is a linked server, Server B. The reports have queries against the same datasets. 2  of the datasets  use the shared […] Data Transformation Services (DTS) [vbs failing]( - This vbscript for Excel that opens a pipe delimited file is failing srccsvfile = Wscript.Arguments(0) destxlsfile = Wscript.Arguments(1) Set objExcel = GetObject(,"Excel.Application") objExcel.Visible = false objExcel.displayalerts=false Set objWorkbook = Workbooks.OpenText (srccsvfile, Origin:=xlMSDOS, StartRow:=1, DataType:=xlDelimited, TextQualifier:=xlDoubleQuote, ConsecutiveDelimiter:=False, Tab:=False, Semicolon:=False, Comma:=False, Space:=False, Other:=True, OtherChar:="|") Set wkbTemp = ActiveWorkbook Set objWorksheet1 = objWorkbook.Worksheets(1) It's failing on the OpenText […]   [RSS Feed]([Twitter]( This email has been sent to {EMAIL}. To be removed from this list, please click [here](. If you have any problems leaving the list, please contact the webmaster@sqlservercentral.com. 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