Every action in SQL Server - queries, updates, whatever - leaves a set of tiny footprints; SQL Server records all that valuable data and makes it visible through Dynamic Management Views, or DMVs. A DBA or developer can use this incredibly detailed information to significantly improve the performance of queries and better understand what's really going on inside a SQL Server system SQL Server DMVs in Action is a practical guide that shows how to obtain, interpret, and act on the information captured by DMVs to keep SQL Server in top shape. The 100+ samples provided in this book will help readers master DMVs and also give them a tested, working, and instantly reusable SQL code library. Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.

Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) are a significant and valuable addition to the DBA's troubleshooting armory, laying bare previously unavailable information regarding the under-the-covers activity of your database sessions and transactions. Why, then, aren't all DBAs using them? Why do many DBAs continue to ignore them in favour of "tried and trusted" tools such as sp_who2, DBCC OPENTRAN, and so on, or make do with the "ready made" reports built into SSMS? Why do even those that do use the DMVs speak wistfully about "good old sysprocesses"? There seem to be two main factors at work. Firstly, some DBAs are simply unaware of the depth and breadth of the information that is available from the DMvs, or how it might help them troubleshoot common issues. This book investigates all of the DMVs that are most frequently useful to the DBA in investigating query execution, index usage, session and transaction activity, disk IO, and how SQL Server is using or abusing the operating system. Secondly, the DMVs have a reputation of being difficult to use. In the process of exposing as much useful data as possible, sysprocesses has been de-normalized, and many new views and columns have been added. This fact, coupled with the initially-baffling choices of what columns will be exposed where, has lead to some DBAs to liken querying DMVs to "collecting mystic spells." In fact, however, once you start to write your own scripts, you'll see the same tricks, and similar join patterns, being used time and again. As such, a relatively small core set of scripts can be readily adapted to suit any requirement. This book is here to de-mystify the process of collecting the information you need to troubleshoot SQL Server problems. It will highlight the core techniques and "patterns" that you need to master, and will provide a core set of scripts that you can use and adapt for your own systems, including how to: * Root out the queries that are causing memory or CPU pressure on your system * Investigate caching, and query plan reuse * Identify index usage patterns * Track fragmentation in clustered indexes and heaps * Get full details on blocking and blocked transactions, including the exact commands being executed, and by whom. * Find out where SQL Server is spending time waiting for resources to be released, before proceeding * Monitor usage and growth of tempdb The DMVs don't make existing, built-in, performance tools obsolete. On the contrary, they complement these tools, and offer a flexibility, richness and granularity that are simply not available elsewhere. Furthermore, you don't need to master a new GUI, or a new language in order to use them; it's all done in a language all DBAs know and mostly love: T-SQL.

Conquer SQL Server 2017 administration—from the inside out Dive into SQL Server 2017 administration—and really put your SQL Server DBA expertise to work. This supremely organized reference packs hundreds of timesaving solutions, tips, and workarounds—all you need to plan, implement, manage, and secure SQL Server 2017 in any production environment: on-premises, cloud, or hybrid. Four SQL Server experts offer a complete tour of DBA capabilities available in SQL Server 2017 Database Engine, SQL Server Data Tools, SQL Server Management Studio, and via PowerShell. Discover how experts tackle today’s essential tasks—and challenge yourself to new levels of mastery. • Install, customize, and use SQL Server 2017’s key administration and development tools • Manage memory, storage, clustering, virtualization, and other components • Architect and implement database infrastructure, including IaaS, Azure SQL, and hybrid cloud configurations • Provision SQL Server and Azure SQL databases • Secure SQL Server via encryption, row-level security, and data masking • Safeguard Azure SQL databases using platform threat protection, firewalling, and auditing • Establish SQL Server IaaS network security groups and user-defined routes • Administer SQL Server user security and permissions • Efficiently design tables using keys, data types, columns, partitioning, and views • Utilize BLOBs and external, temporal, and memory-optimized tables • Master powerful optimization techniques involving concurrency, indexing, parallelism, and execution plans • Plan, deploy, and perform disaster recovery in traditional, cloud, and hybrid environments For Experienced SQL Server Administrators and Other Database Professionals • Your role: Intermediate-to-advanced level SQL Server database administrator, architect, developer, or performance tuning expert • Prerequisites: Basic understanding of database administration procedures

Summary SQL Server MVP Deep Dives, Volume 2 is a unique book that lets you learn from the best in the business - 64 SQL Server MVPs offer completely new content in this second volume on topics ranging from testing and policy management to integration services, reporting, and performance optimization techniques...and more. About this Book To become an MVP requires deep knowledge and impressive skill. Together, the 64 MVPs who wrote this book bring about 1,000 years of experience in SQL Server administration, development, training, and design. This incredible book captures their expertise and passion in 60 concise, hand-picked chapters and offers valuable insights for readers of all levels. SQL Server MVP Deep Dives, Volume 2 picks up where the first volume leaves off, with completely new content on topics ranging from testing and policy management to integration services, reporting, and performance optimization. The chapters fall into five parts: Architecture and Design, Database Administration, Database Development, Performance Tuning and Optimization, and Business Intelligence. Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book. What's Inside Discovering servers with PowerShell Using regular expressions in SSMS Tuning the Transaction Log for OLTP Optimizing SSIS for dimensional data Real-time BI and much more Manning Publications and the authors of this book support the children of Operation Smile, an international children's medical charity that performs free reconstructive surgery for children suffering from facial deformities such as cleft lips and cleft palates by mobilizing medical volunteers who provide education and training programs to local doctors on the latest surgical techniques. ========================================​======= Table of Contents PART 1 ARCHITECTUREEdited by Louis Davidson Where are my keys? by Ami Levin "Yes, we are all individuals"A look at uniqueness in the world of SQL by Rob Farley Architectural growth pains by Chris Shaw Characteristics of a great relational database by Louis Davidson Storage design considerations by Denny Cherry Generalization: the key to a well-designed schema by Paul Nielsen PART 2 DATABASE ADMINISTRATION Edited by Paul Randal and Kimberly Tripp Increasing availability through testing by Allan Hirt Page restores by Gail Shaw Capacity planning by Greg Larsen Discovering your servers with PowerShell and SMO by Joe Webb Will the real Mr. Smith please stand up? by John Magnabosco Build your own SQL Server 2008 performance dashboard by Pawl Potasinski SQL Server cost recovery by Peter Ward Best practice compliance with Policy-Based Management by Rod Colledge Using SQL Server Management Studio to the fullest by Rodney Landrum Multiserver management and Utility Explorer - best tools for the DBA by Satya Shyam K. Jayanty Top 10 SQL Server admin student misconceptions by Tibor Karaszi High availability of SQL Server in the context of Service Level Agreements by Tobiasz Janusz Koprowski PART 3 DATABASE DEVELOPMENT Edited by Paul Nielsen T-SQL: bad habits to kick by Aaron Bertrand Death by UDF by Kevin Boles Using regular expressions in SSMS by John Paul Cook SQL Server Denali: what's coming next in T-SQL by Sergio Govoni Creating your own data type by Hugo Kornelis Extracting data with regular expressions by Matija Lah Relational division by Peter Larsson SQL FILESTREAM: to BLOB or not to BLOB by Ben Miller Writing unit tests for Transact-SQL by Luciano Moreira Getting asynchronous with Service Broker by Mladen Prajdic Effective use of HierarchyId by Denis Reznik Let Service Broker help you scale your application by Allen White PART 4 PERFORMANCE TUNING AND OPTIMIZATION Edited by Brad M. McGehee Hardware 201: selecting and sizing database server hardware by Glenn Berry Parameter sniffing: your best friend...except when it isn't by Grant Fritchey Investigating the plan cache by Jason Strate What are you waiting for? An introduction to waits and queues by Robert Pearl You see sets, and I see loops by Linchi Shea Performance-tuning the transaction log for OLTP workloads by Brad M. McGehee Strategies for unraveling tangled code by Jennifer McCown Using PAL to analyze SQL Server performance by Tim Chapman Tuning JDBC for SQL Server by Jungsun Kim PART 5 BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE Edited by Greg Low Creating a formal Reporting Services report part library by Jessica M. Moss Improving report layout and visualization by Greg Low Developing sharable managed code expressions in SSRS by William Vaughn Designing reports with custom MDX queries by Paul Turley Building a scale-out Reporting Services farm by Edwin Sarmiento Creating SSRS reports from SSAS by Robert Cain Optimizing SSIS for dimensional data loads by Michael Coles SSIS configurations management by Andy Leonard Exploring different types of enumerators in the SSIS Foreach Loop container by Abolfazl Radgoudarzi and Shahriar Nikkhah Late-arriving dimensions in SSIS by John Welch Why automate tasks with SSIS? by Ted Krueger Extending SSIS using the Script component by Tim Mitchell ETL design checklist by Rafael Salas Autogenerating SSAS cubes by Johan Ahlen Scripting SSAS databases - AMO and PowerShell, Better Together by Darren Gosbell Managing context in MDX by Boyan Penev Using time intelligence functions in PowerPivot by Thiago Zavaschi Easy BI with Silverlight PivotViewer by Gogula Aryalingam Excel as a BI frontend tool by Pedro Perfeito Real-time BI with StreamInsight by Allan Mitchell BI solution development design considerations by Siddharth Mehta

The tools and techniques investigators need to conduct crucial forensic investigations in SQL Server. The database is the part of a forensic investigation that companies are the most concerned about. This book provides data and tools needed to avoid under or over reporting. Teaches many about aspects about SQL server that are not widely known. A complete tutorial to conducting SQL Server investigations and using that knowledge to confirm, assess, and investigate a digital intrusion. Companies today are in a terrible bind: They must report all possible data security breaches, but they don't always know if, in a given breech, data has been compromised. As a result, most companies are releasing information to the public about every system breech or attempted system breech they know about. This reporting, in turn, whips up public hysteria and makes many companies look bad. Kevvie Fowler's 'SQL Server Forensic Analysis' is an attempt to calm everyone down and focuses on a key, under-documented component of today's forensics investigations. The book will help investigators determine if a breech was attempted, if information on the database server was compromised in any way, and if any rootkits have been installed that can compromise sensitive data in the future. Readers will learn how to prioritize, acquire, and analyze database evidence using forensically sound practices and free industry tools. The final chapter will include a case study that demonstrates all the techniques from the book applied in a walk-through of a real-world investigation.

SQL Server 2008 Administration isn't a standard SQL Server tutorial-thereare dozens of those to choose from. Instead, this book breaks down the role of"SQL Server Administrator" into its key focus areas and tasks and details thetechniques and best practices that make an administrator effective.In this book, a reader can quickly identify a task and find the best practiceassociated with it. For example, a reader looking for information about indexingwould find step-by-step procedures for identifying and dropping unusedindexes, creating missing indexes, selecting the appropriate clustered index,and so forth. Each technique is presented in a clear, straightforward style and in the order ofthe typical lifecycle of a SQL Server system. This allows a reader to easily openthe book at the appropriate page and focus on what you need to know for eachspecific situation. While most techniques will work for all versions of SQL Server, this book is currentfor the recent final release of SQL Server 2008. Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.