Blog Post

Testing the Identity Column usage in SQL Server with PowerShell and dbatools

,

SQL Server uses identity columns to auto generate values, normally keys. When you create an identity column, it has a data type and that data type has a maximum number of values.

  • BigInt 9,223,372,036,854,775,808
  • Int 2,147,483,647
  • SmallInt 32,767
  • tinyint 255

What happens when you try to insert a value in an identity column that is greater than the maximum value? You get an error and a failed transaction. Lets do that

Using AdventureWorks, I know (I’ll show how in a minute) that the HumanResources.Shift column is a tinyint. So the highest value for the ShiftID column is 255.

If we run

USE AdventureWorks2014;
GO
INSERT INTO [HumanResources].[Shift]
([Name]
,[StartTime]
,[EndTime]
,[ModifiedDate])
VALUES
( 'Made Up SHift ' + CAST(NEWID() AS nvarchar(MAX))
,DATEADD(hour,-4, GetDate())
,'07:00:00.0000000'
,GetDate())
WAITFOR DELAY '00:00:00.050';
GO 252
Adding a number after GO says run this that many times, so we have added 252 rows to the existing 3 rows.
01 - maxx value.PNG

 

So what happens if we try to add another row?

USE AdventureWorks2014;
GO
INSERT INTO [HumanResources].[Shift]
([Name]
,[StartTime]
,[EndTime]
,[ModifiedDate])
VALUES
( 'Made Up SHift ' + CAST(NEWID() AS nvarchar(MAX))
,DATEADD(hour,-4, GetDate())
,'07:00:00.0000000'
,GetDate())
GO
02- error.PNG
We get an error
Msg 8115, Level 16, State 1, Line 4

Arithmetic overflow error converting IDENTITY to data type tinyint.

Arithmetic overflow occurred.

If that is a table that is important to your system, a logging table or worse, an order table then there is quickly going to be phone calls, visits to your desks, arm waving etc until you get it resolved. Lets clean up our mess
USE AdventureWorks2014
GO
DELETE FROM HumanResources.Shift
WHERE ShiftId > 3
GO
DBCC CHECKIDENT ('HumanResources.Shift', RESEED, 3)
GO
It would be very useful to be able to quickly see what the current values of the identity columns are and how close they are to being full so that we can plan for and be able to take action before we end up with shouty smart suits at our desk. If we could do it with just one line of code that would be even easier.
Step forward dbatools.  This PowerShell module is a community based project written by excellent, brilliant people in their own time and available to you free. To find out more and how to use and install it visit https://dbatools.io
There is a command called Test-DbaIdentityUsage This command was created by Brandon Abshire. You can find Brandon blogging at netnerds.net. Thank you Brandon
As always with a new PowerShell command you should always start with Get-Help
Get-Help Test-DbaIdentityUsage -ShowWindow
03 - get help.PNG

 

The command has a few parameters

  • SqlInstance – One or many Instances
  • SqlCredential – for SQL Authentication
  • Databases – to filter for databases ( This is a dynamic parameter and doesn’t show in the Help)
  • Threshold – define a minimum percentage for how full the identity column is
  • NoSystemDB – to ignore the system databases

So we can run the command against one instance

Test-DbaIdentityUsage -SqlInstance sql2014ser12r2

 

04 - one server.PNG

This returns an object for each identity column in each database on the instance. The object has the following properties

ComputerName   : SQL2014SER12R2

InstanceName   : MSSQLSERVER

SqlInstance    : SQL2014SER12R2

Database       : AdventureWorks2014

Schema         : HumanResources

Table          : Shift

Column         : ShiftID

SeedValue      : 1

IncrementValue : 1

LastValue      : 3

MaxNumberRows  : 254

NumberOfUses   : 3

PercentUsed    : 1.18

We can use the objects returned from this command in a number of ways, this is one of the beauties of PowerShell that we can interact with numerous systems. I have blogged about some simple ways of doing this here but your only limit is your imagination.

I love to use Out-GridView as it enables quick and easy sorting of the returned data

06 - ogv filter.gif

The databases parameter is dynamic so it will prefill the names of the databases on the instance. This is what it looks like in VS Code

07 vscode tab.gif

 

and in ISE

08 ise tab.gif

 

We can use the threshold parameter to only show results for the identity columns whose value is above a percent of the max value for the column. Lets fill the ShiftId column to above 90% and show this

USE AdventureWorks2014;
GO
INSERT INTO [HumanResources].[Shift]
([Name]
 ,[StartTime]
,[EndTime]
,[ModifiedDate])
VALUES
( 'Made Up SHift ' + CAST(NEWID() AS nvarchar(MAX))
,DATEADD(hour,-4, GetDate())
,'07:00:00.0000000'
,GetDAte())
WAITFOR DELAY '00:00:00.050';
GO 230

and now run

Test-DbaIdentityUsage -SqlInstance sql2014ser12r2  -Threshold 90

08 - threshold.PNG

Don’t forget to use the cleanup script. You can pass a whole array of SQL instances to the command. We can pass an array of SQL servers to this command as well and check multiple servers at the same time. In this example, I am querying my Hyper-V server for all VMs with SQL in the name,except for my broken SQL2008 box ,that are running. Just to get some results I will set the threshold to 1

$SQLServers = (Get-VM -ComputerName beardnuc | Where-Object {$_.Name -like '*SQL*' -and $_.Name -ne 'SQL2008Ser2008' -and $_.State -eq 'Running'}).Name
Test-DbaIdentityUsage -SqlInstance $SQLServers -Threshold 1 | Out-GridView
10 ogv thredshold.PNG
As you can see this function does not support SQL instances lower than SQL 2008 and you will get warnings for availability group databases
It’s quick too, finishing in less than 2 seconds in my lab of 10 SQL Servers and 125 databases. The WarningAction SilentlyContinue supresses the yellow warnings
11 - measure command.PNG
This is ideal for using Pester to test.
 Describe "Testing how full the Identity columns are" {
$SQLServers = (Get-VM -ComputerName beardnuc | Where-Object {$_.Name -like '*SQL*' -and $_.Name -ne 'SQL2008Ser2008' -and $_.State -eq 'Running'}).Name
$testCases= @()
$SQLServers.ForEach{$testCases += @{Name = $_}}
It "<Name> databases all have identity columns less than 90% full" -TestCases $testCases {
Param($Name)
(Test-DbaIdentityUsage -SqlInstance $Name -Threshold 90 -WarningAction SilentlyContinue).PercentUsed | Should Be
}
}
12 pester test.PNG
An excellent quick test but it doesn’t show us which databases have failed. We can iterate through our servers and databases like this
Describe "Testing how full the Identity columns are" {
    $SQLServers = (Get-VM -ComputerName beardnuc | Where-Object {$_.Name -like '*SQL*' -and $_.Name -ne 'SQL2008Ser2008' -and $_.State -eq 'Running'}).Name
    foreach($SQLServer in $SQLServers)
    {
        Context "Testing $SQLServer" {
            $dbs = (Connect-DbaSqlServer -SqlServer $SQLServer).Databases.Name
            foreach($db in $dbs)
            {
                It "$db on $SQLServer identity columns are less than 90% full" {
                    (Test-DbaIdentityUsage -SqlInstance $SQLServer -Databases $db -Threshold 90 -WarningAction SilentlyContinue).PercentUsed | Should Be
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
This is using the Connect-DbaSqlServer to create a SMO object and then gathering the databases on the server into a variable and iterating through them
It looks like this when it is running
13 - pester test.png
and at the end gives you a little overview of the number of tests that have failed
14 end of pester test.png
In a previous post I showed how you can output these results to XML or even make a HTML page showing the output
But perhaps that isn’t granular enough for you and you want a test for each column. This is how you could do that
$SQLServers = (Get-VM -ComputerName beardnuc | Where-Object {$_.Name -like '*SQL*' -and $_.Name -ne 'SQL2008Ser2008' -and $_.State -eq 'Running'}).Name
foreach($SQLServer in $SQLServers)
{
    Describe "$SQLServer - Testing how full the Identity columns are" {
            $dbs = (Connect-DbaSqlServer -SqlServer $SQLServer).Databases.Name
            foreach($db in $dbs)
            {
                Context "Testing $db" {
                $Tests = Test-DbaIdentityUsage -SqlInstance $SQLServer -Databases $db -WarningAction SilentlyContinue
                foreach($test in $tests)
                {
                    It "$($test.Column) identity column in $($Test.Table) is less than 90% full" {
                        $Test.PercentUsed | Should BeLessThan 90
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
Which looks like this, a test for each identity column in each database in each server in your environment
15 every pester teest.PNG

 

The other question that we have to answer these days is – Does it work with SQL on Linux? We will have to pass a SQL authentication credential and this time I will use Format-Table for the output

 Test-DbaIdentityUsage -SqlInstance LinuxvNextCTP14 -SqlCredential (Get-Credential) | Format-Table

16 - on Linux.PNG

Happy Automating!

NOTE – The major 1.0 release of dbatools due in the summer 2017 may have breaking changes which will stop the above code from working. There are also new commands coming which may replace this command. This blog post was written using dbatools version 0.8.942 You can check your version using

 Get-Module dbatools

and update it using an Administrator PowerShell session with

 Update-Module dbatools

You may find that you get no output from Update-Module as you have the latest version. If you have not installed the module from the PowerShell Gallery using

Install-Module dbatools

Then you can use

Update-dbatools

 

 

 

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