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Creating a Reporting Services Histogram Chart for Statistical Distribution Analysis

Typically transactional data is quite detailed and analyzing an entire dataset on a graph is not feasible. Generally such data is analyzed using some form of aggregation or frequency distribution. One of the specialized charts generally used in Reporting Services for statistical distribution is Histogram Charts. In this tip we look at how Histogram Charts can be used for statistical distribution analysis and how to create and configure this type of chart in SSRS.

2011-06-13

4,532 reads

Technical Article

3 SQL Join Concepts to Help You Choose the Right Join

What do SQL joins and the "teach a man to fish" Chinese proverb have in common? SQL joins, like regular expressions, are one of those commonplace programming tasks in which true success is entirely dependent upon your ability to conceptualize the outcome. Fail to do so and you'll likely wind up spending a few hours in a frustrating round of trial and error. Like regular expressions, the proliferation of online examples has actually contributed to the frustration, providing the equivalent of a day's worth of fish rather than the proverbial fishing pool.

2011-06-10

8,288 reads

Technical Article

Support for 15,000 Partitions in SQL Server 2008 SP2 and SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1

In SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2, the number of partitions on tables and indexes is limited to 1,000. This paper discusses how SQL Server 2008 SP2 and SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 address this limitation by providing an option to increase the limit to 15,000 partitions. It describes how support for 15,000 partitions can be enabled and disabled on a database. It also talks about performance characteristics, certain limitations associated with this support, known issues, and their workarounds. This support is targeted to enterprise customers and ISVs with large-scale decision support or data warehouse requirements.

2011-06-09

2,755 reads

External Article

REAL PRACTICES: Performance Scaling Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services at Microsoft adCenter

This white paper explains how Microsoft® adCenter implemented a Microsoft SQL Server® 2008 Analysis Services Scalable Shared Database on EMC® Symmetrix VMAX™ storage. Leveraging TimeFinder® clones and Enterprise Flash Drives with the read-only feature of SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services allowed adCenter to dramatically scale out OLAP while maintaining SLAs and decreasing system outages.

2011-06-08

2,675 reads

External Article

Using PowerShell to Manage SQL Server

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate a custom scripting framework which enables the management of SQLServer databases from a Windows PowerShell session and also to extend Powershell’s flexibility by creating a set of commands customized to our needs. I will call this framework comprised of a library of modules and functions specialized to manage SQLServer the DBA profile.

2011-06-06

3,307 reads

External Article

SQL Server Agent Jobs without an Operator

I work in a fairly large and unwieldy SQL Server shop. Our environment is the wild west. I have DBAs and Developers on my team that create SQL Server Agent Jobs all of the time and there is never an operator setup to email anyone based on a failure condition. I know the right solution here is to "tame the wild west" by locking down the environment and setting up a change management process, but I think that is a topic for another day. Can you give me some idea of how to identify the new recently created SQL Server Agent Jobs and Jobs without an operator setup to email us for a failure condition? I would like to receive emails when either of these conditions occur. Check out the solution to this tip to learn how.

2011-06-03

4,386 reads

External Article

Determine SQL Server memory use by database and object

For many people, the way that SQL Server uses memory can be a bit of an enigma. A large percentage of the memory your SQL Server instance utilizes is consumed by buffer pool (essentially, data). Without a lot of digging, it can be hard to tell which of your databases consume the most buffer pool memory, and even more so, which objects within those databases. This information can be quite useful, for example, if you are considering an application change to split your database across multiple servers, or trying to identify databases that are candidates for consolidation.

2011-06-01

4,834 reads

External Article

Using Extended Events to troubleshoot SQL Server issues

As a DBA, you'll encounter elusive performance, connectivity and locking problems that you'll need to troubleshoot. There are many tools that you can use such as Profiler. In addition to these tools, SQL Server 2008 offers extended events ("XEvents"), which you can use as a powerful tracing system. By default, the "system_health" extended events session is always on, and can provide you help to locate the source of trouble much faster.

2011-05-31

3,337 reads

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Question of the Day

Upgrading Admin Queries

I have a query from a former DBA that we run on SQL Server 2025 to check on database metadata. This query references sys.sysaltfiles. I want to refactor this code to be more modern. Which DMV should I reference instead?  

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