The Bleeding Edge Versus N Minus One

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Bleeding Edge Versus N Minus One

  • I agree with many of the sentiments described here.

    I'd add that we need to be clear IF we intend to upgrade to SQL2016 at ANY point.

    Someone has to go first otherwise there will never get to the luxury of choosing N-1. I'd be curious as to what approach the brave souls who went first took.

    If I was planning on early adoption I would be looking at full parallel running. I would also look to use it as a lever to getting or enhancing TDD/BDD practises, monitoring and test tools. I suspect that the test community would be naming their children after me!

    I'd be looking at stress testing at multiples of peak load and a full DR of my largest system.

  • There were two items in this article that I feel need to be clarified.

    The article stated that cumulative updates are not fully tested like service packs. While this was once true, it is not any longer. As of January 2016, Microsoft now states officially that you should apply CU updates as readily as service packs as they go through the same testing process.

    Also, as of about a month ago, Microsoft now gives out free copies of SQL Developer Edition. You no longer need Visual Studio with MSDN.

    https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlreleaseservices/announcing-updates-to-the-sql-server-incremental-servicing-model-ism

    https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/03/31/microsoft-sql-server-developer-edition-is-now-free

  • We're the brave souls going first 🙂 New applications are being tested and launched on SQL 2016, so there's not much data there to begin with. Our second and third applications using SQL 2016 on the back end are being launched this week.

    Developer Edition being free now with a Dev Essentials account (which is free as well) means no excuses not to play with it!

  • Don't forget to install the first CU (which is not CU1 :hehe:) which came out 2 days after launch if you're prompted for it. Fixes CDC and potentially crashes that don't generate error messages. Bob Dorr wrote about it @ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bobsql/2016/06/15/sql-2016install-msvc-patch-required/[/url]

    I'll be staying on 2014 for a while.

  • kmn334 (6/28/2016)


    Don't forget to install CU1 which came out 2 days after launch. Fixes CDC and potentially crashes that don't generate error messages. Bob Dorr wrote about it @ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bobsql/2016/06/15/sql-2016install-msvc-patch-required/[/url]

    I'll be staying on 2014 for a while.

    There is no CU1 out yet. This patch is a Visual C++ Runtime patch for some machines. Some don't need it, but setup for SQL 2016 will let you know if you do need this.

    This patch is a mismatch in timing of VC++ changes between products. Some machines have it, some don't.

  • Brain2000 (6/28/2016)


    There were two items in this article that I feel need to be clarified.

    The article stated that cumulative updates are not fully tested like service packs. While this was once true, it is not any longer. As of January 2016, Microsoft now states officially that you should apply CU updates as readily as service packs as they go through the same testing process.

    Also, as of about a month ago, Microsoft now gives out free copies of SQL Developer Edition. You no longer need Visual Studio with MSDN.

    https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlreleaseservices/announcing-updates-to-the-sql-server-incremental-servicing-model-ism

    https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/03/31/microsoft-sql-server-developer-edition-is-now-free

    Where does it state that CUs aren't tested? I didn't see that. While I think CUs now receive the same internal testing as SPs, they don't get the external testing. The recent SQL 2014 Sp2 was deployed to some customers and willing testers to apply in their environments for feedback.

    Article updated to note Dev edition is now free.

  • Oops you're definitely right, I got confused by the big text "How to obtain this cumulative update package" on the page.

  • Steve - thanks for putting in that update. -John.

  • SQLBlimp (6/28/2016)


    Steve - thanks for putting in that update. -John.

    Cheers

  • Where I'm working, we're still in the middle of our SQL Server 2014 rollout. Even on servers that are on 2014, I've had to turn off the new cardinality estimator/optimizer, because there are some queries that we have in our system that do not work well with it and the fix for them is still in the developer's backlog.

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