Jason N. Gaylord ~ SQL Server Advice

TECHbash 2007

TECHbash 2007 will be on Saturday, May 19th, 2007 from 8:30am until 2:30pm at Luzerne County Community College. More specific details about the event can be found at techbash.com.

What is TECHbash 2007?
Today's IT professionals and Developers are stuck with one of the most difficult tasks: "Keeping up with the Gateses." During TECHbash, IT professionals and developers will learn some of the latest tips and tricks of the trade as well as previewing cutting edge technology. The best part about TECHbash is that its FREE! So, you'll learn some great things and bring home some cool stuff by spending a Saturday morning with your peers.

Who Should Attend
TECHbash is a technical event for IT Professionals and Developers. The event is organized and delivered by .NET Valley, Northeastern Pennsylvania's only technical User Group.

What You Will Learn
At TECHbash 2007, you will have the chance to learn the latest technologies in the industry including:

• Microsoft Exchange 2007
• Microsoft Windows Code-Named "Longhorn"
• IP Telephony
• AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript)
• SharePoint

For a complete list of topics, click here.

Microsoft has released a SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence webcast list. You can view the list of webcasts and other events here: http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/sqlserverbi.mspx

In a recent interview at VS!Live, Tom Rizzo, the director of product management for Microsoft SQL Server, answered some questions about SQL Reporting Services and SQL Server 2005. You can read the transcript here: http://www.ftponline.com/channels/database/2005_03/rizzo/.

I finally got around to posting the pictures from the Greater PA MSDN Code Camp 2005 event in Philadelphia. They are posted on the .NET Valley User Group website at http://www.dotnetvalley.com/Photo+Gallery/default.aspx. Hopefully next time I can make it to both days!

If you plan on keeping your SQL Express data when you deploy an ASP.NET 2.0 application that you add the applicationName attribute to each of your providers under each special ASP.NET configuration section (ie: Membership). If you do not, ASP.NET 2.0 will look to see if the app was run under a different application or not. If it was, it will create a new application entry in the database and none of your users and profiles will be associated.

I posted a question to the ASPAdvice.com forums regarding the limitations of SqlExpress 2005. I already knew that there was no limitation on connections. However, Scott Forsyth was able to provide me with additional info. Here you go directly from the post: The database size limit is 4GB. There is also a memory limit of 1GB of RAM and a limit of 1 CPU. You can install it on machines with more than 1 CPU, but it only utilizes a max of one. There is a tool to manage SQL Express that can be downloaded from http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/sql/.

The .NET Valley User Group will participate with other User Groups in the Greater PA region in attending the Greater PA MSDN Code Camp in Philadelphia this Saturday and Sunday (April 23 and 24). We look forward to meeting the various attendees of this event. If you have not signed up as of yet, I believe there are still some spots available. Be sure to visit the .NET Valley website for more information.

This event will feature 15 SQL and Data Access talks from some of the top SQL professionals including some Microsoft MVPs. The event will also host many other talks including ASP.NET and Windows Forms presentations. It will be chilly this weekend so you might as well come on out!

A little while ago, I blogged about some issues with uninstalling SQL 2005. Finally, Microsoft has published an uninstallation "script." Find out more by visiting http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/uninstall/.

I must say that I'm very disappointed that SQL 2005 has limited the table information that you can view on a single screen. What I mean is that they have removed database diagrams from SQL 2005 and have also removed viewing the size of the columns from design view. So, if I need a screen shot of my database for a project, I need to use Visio or use Visual Studio 2005. I found it odd when I was looking for it today and found it missing. Some fellow ASPInsiders (Phil, Wally, and Paul) confirmed my findings. Its amazing how useful functionality is sometimes forgotten about while little things are never missed. ;)

Today I received an error message within one of our applications stating that "The log file for database 'tempdb' is full. Back up the transaction log for the database to free up some log space." I posted to the ASPAdvice.com lists and received more information than I bargained for. Mike Campbell and “Wonderful” Wally McClure provided some very valuable information regarding this issue. Here is Mike's post below:

Jason,

Let your log file grow a bit more in size and/or jump on query analyzer and run the following:

BACKUP LOG <database_name> WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY
GO

That will truncate your log (meaning recoverability won't allow point-in-time recovery... though I doubt you'll need it).

1 MB may not sound like much, and really isn't the issue. The issue is that SQL Server will only allow a certain amount of space for logging transactions/activity.. when that space is up it's game over (unless you allow the log file to grow -- and then if you allow it to grow, it can grow until there are only 5MB left on the disk, and when that fills up you'll get the same message). The best way to deal with this: make your log file 25% of the size of your .mdf and do nightly backups, which truncate the log after recording all of the changes to the backup. If you do LARGE transactional changes during the day you may run into this a bit.

Here's a quick overview of some other info (but the sql statement above will get your app working again... then you'll just need to solve the problem, not just the incident). http://blogs.sqladvice.com/aweiker/archive/2004/03/31/883.aspx

Turns out that the issue wasn't necessarily with the transaction log. In fact, the C: drive on the server dipped below 500 MB of free space. Once temp files were cleared out and the free space hit 2 GB, the web app started working again. Go figure!