Rick Heiges

Ever since I went to the Yukon Technical Preview back in Feb 2003, I have loved the idea of DB Mirroring.  With the anticipated release of SP1 for SQL Server 2005 right around the corner (we think), it is a good bet that DB Mirroring will be part of the package.  Last year, I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in leading discussions at the Get Ready for SQL Server 2005 Road Shows at a good number of cities.  My favorite session was on High Availability.  Since RTM, I have largely ignored DB Mirroring until a colleague of mine pointed out a discrepancy between BOL and the behavior found in the CTPs.  Last week, I was able to get this question answered by an inside source.  There has been a behavior change from the earlier CTPs to RTM in High Protection Mode for DB Mirroring.

High Protection Mode means "Synchronous" behavior without a Witness.  Another way to describe this is SAFETY=FULL without a witness.  As the case described in the earlier CTPs, if the Mirror Server fails, the Principal would stop processing since it could not guarantee that the transaction could be written in two places.  Now, in RTM, the Principal will keep processing if the Mirror fails.  Either behavior could be argued to be the desird behavior depending upon your point of view.  I just wanted to state it clearly for those of you who are interested in this feature but have not delved into the details yet.  There is no change in Behavior if the Principal fails.  If this happens, the DBA must force service manually to the Mirror server to make it the new Principal.

I am writing this post on my way home from Barcelona where PASS held its European Conference this week.  There were attendees from more than 25 countries all excited about the latest content for SQL Server.  Ken Henderson, Bob Ward, and Bart Duncan did a full day pre-con that comprised a PSS Boot Camp.  I was not able to make this session, but I was able to spend some time with Ken and Bob on Thursday.  I spent most of Thursdya and Friday attending sessions mainly in the BI track.  It was great to get to attend sessions for a change.  I spent some time with the main developer for Report Builder; he told me how the product came about and how busy he was getting this neat tool ready for RTM.

The best part was being able to meet other SQL Server Professionals from Europe.  I renewed friendships with some folks from the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands as well as making some new friends such as Davide and Allesandro (spelling?) from Italy.  Although we all come from different parts of the world, we end up helping and educating each other.  Overall, it was a great event and everyone that I spoke to were very happy with the content delivered.

Yesterday, I went to one of my favorite sites, Channel 9.  The featured video of the day was a 17 minute interview with Bill Gates.  Although he really doesn't talk directly about SQL Server, he does mention it.  Did you ever wonder how Bill spends his time or what his favorite websites are?  Check it out at http://channel9.msdn.com.

No - not the TV show, or hours in a day...

I attended my son's math competition yesterday.  It is based on a game called "24".  I never heard of it until about a week ago.  There are 4 numbers on a wheel on a card (usually single or double digit).  When the card is revealed, a student taps the card and then goes through the process of how the four numbers may be added, subtracted, mulitplied, or divided to reach "24".  Some of these students have been practicing and get most of them figured out in 3-5 seconds.  This is very impressive.  For example, a card may have the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4.  The student could then solve it in any way to get 24.  The student could say 1+3 is 4, and 2+4 is 6, 6 times 4 is 24.

How does this relate to SQL Server?  Well, I wish there was a "24" game for normalization or joining tables together, but there isn't.  If someone wants to undetake that task, great!  One of the things that I like about this game is that there is usually more than one way to get to 24.  This could be utilized more in our work.  How many ways are there to get a certain subset of data?  Can you take several steps and combine them to make it easier?  The goal is problem solving which is what we are supposed to be good at. 

My son won his school grade to get in to the competition, but did not move on from there.  I believe the grade ranges are from 4 to 8 for this competition.

The SQL Server 2005 Advisor is a free download available at www.microsoft.com/sql and is also available on the install media.  The purpose of this utility is to let the user know about issues that will need to be addressed when upgrading from 2000 or 7.0.  I always tell people to go to the website to get the "freshest" version of this tool.  The latest one is dated Jan14, 2006.  From my experience with customers, it does a gret job finding all of the issues.  Everyone gets the "Disclaimer" message when viewing the Upgrade Advisor report.  This message basically says that MSFT has tried to find every issue for you, but there is no guarantee that all issues will be found using this tool.  Lawyers get into everything. 

Antoher tool that has been around for a while and is still a good thing to do is to download the SQL Server Best Practices Analyzer.  Run this tool against your 2000 databases to see where you can improve your environment before upgrading.  Perhaps there is a practice that is employed in your environment which is really a "worst practice".  I recently had a customer who prefixed all of their stored procedures with "sp_".  This is definitely a "worst practice" and would be identified for BPA as such.  This customer thought it was a "Best Practice".  Download and check it out to see how your environment compares.  You can even add your own rules like naming conventions.