Author: Latheesh NK

SCRIPT GALLERY, SQL

How to identify table rows and size in a database in SQL Server

Problem Statement:

At times, we may need to understand the size of the tables in a database for various reasons. I often query these details to understand the growth of the data and clean up data for lower environments.

Code:
Here is a simple script to understand the rows, size of the table in a database.
You can further make changes to filter for any tables/group the results based on the indexes/partition etc.


SELECT  sc.name + '.' + t.NAME AS TableName,  
        SUM(p.[Rows]) NumerOfRecords,
        -- p.partition_number, i.index_id,i.name,
        ( SUM(a.total_pages) * 8 ) / 1024 AS TotalReservedSpaceMB, 
        ( SUM(a.used_pages) * 8 ) / 1024 AS UsedDataSpaceMB,  
        ( SUM(a.data_pages) * 8 ) / 1024 AS FreeUnusedSpaceMB  
FROM    sys.tables t  
        INNER JOIN sys.schemas sc ON sc.schema_id = t.schema_id  
        INNER JOIN sys.indexes i ON t.OBJECT_ID = i.object_id  
        INNER JOIN sys.partitions p ON i.object_id = p.OBJECT_ID  
                                            AND i.index_id = p.index_id  
        INNER JOIN sys.allocation_units a ON p.partition_id = a.container_id  
WHERE   t.type_desc = 'USER_TABLE'  
        -- Replace with valid table name if you want to filter for a table
        --AND t.NAME='YourTableName' 
GROUP BY sc.name + '.' + t.NAME,  
        i.[object_id]
        --,i.index_id, i.name, p.[Rows], p.partition_number
ORDER BY ( SUM(a.total_pages) * 8 ) / 1024 DESC
Date & Time, SQL

Find Max and Min value of dates in a row in SQL Server

Problem Statement:
How to identify the Max and Min date value in a row in SQL Server?

Code:
Here is a solution to identify Max and Min date value with the help of CROSS APPLY in SQL Server.


create Table FindMaxMindate
(
    ID int, 
    Firstdate datetime,
    Seconddate datetime, 
    ThirdDate datetime
)

Insert into FindMaxMindate 
Values
(1,'2018-01-26 19:14:07.587','2018-04-26 19:14:07.587','2018-12-26 19:14:07.587'),
(2,'2018-12-26 19:14:07.587','2018-01-26 19:14:07.587','2018-03-26 19:14:07.587')

Select ID,Min(Dates) MinDate,Max(Dates) MaxDate
From FindMaxMindate A
Cross apply (values (Firstdate),(SecondDate),(ThirdDate))B (Dates)
Group by ID

Drop Table FindMaxMinDate
SCRIPT GALLERY, SQL

How to identify Process Name of a Process Id in SQL Server

We had an immediate requirement to identify process names of process ids in SQL Server. The first reaction to the requirement was to refer the program name. However, program name is customized through application, it was not the expected result.

I tried multiple ways to identify a simple solution within SQL Server, but failed to identify a straight forward solution.(You can share if you have any simpler solution.)

With the help of Powershell script, developed a small script to get the process name as below. Hope, this will be helpful for you in the similar situation.

Code:

create Table #TblProcessName(ProcessName varchar(max))

Insert into #TblProcessName
Exec xp_cmdshell 'powershell.exe "Get-Process | Select ProcessName,Id | % {$_.ProcessName + " "- + $_.Id}"' 

;With cte as
(
Select Substring(Processname,0,charindex('-',Processname)) as ProcessName, Substring(Processname,charindex('-',Processname)+1 , Len(processname)) as ProcessID 
From #TblProcessName A
)
Select * From cte A
Inner join sys.sysprocesses B on A.ProcessID = B.hostprocess

DROP Table #TblProcessName

Output:

NO SQL, Python, SQL Server 2017

Python in SQL Server

Python is an interpreted programming language. Python is a very strong programming language for multi purposes like machine learning/complex computing/ scientific and theoretical based solutions etc. I do not want to cover the details as We have a “Stairway to Python” initiative by Kiran Reddy. I strongly recommend to read the series to know and learn more about Python. For now, Let us cover Python in SQL Server…

Prerequisites

Python support in SQL Server, is a great move from Microsoft to challenge other technologies.SQL Server 2017 by default has in-built Python libraries to support the requirements.

Let us quickly see the prerequisites for Python in SQL Server.

1. Install SQL Server 2017 Developer or above edition

As SQL Server 2017 has introduced support of Python script/code execution, Lets us download and install SQL Server 2017 Developer version as a first step.

2. Select the Machine learning features that includes Python and R while installing SQL Server 2017

It is important for us to understand we need to select Machine Learning Services(previously known as R Services(SQL 2016) in “Feature Selection” while installing SQL Server 2017.

3. Make sure the Launchpad Service is selected with Automatic start-up

Launchpad is an integral part of Machine Learning Services execution meaning to executing the Python or R code in SQL Server. The below diagram explains the usage of Launchpad service.

Note, This is important when you have multiple Launchpad services exists in the same environment and one of them have any issues that could not start, none of the Launchpad services may not start at all(manually). To be safer side, we can make this setting Automatic at initial stage.

4. Enable “External Scripts Enabled” in the configuration

To run Python code in SQL Server, we need to use sp_execute_external_script system stored procedure. To use this procedure, we need to enable the configuration option “external scripts enabled” as below.

sp_configure 'external scripts enabled',1
reconfigure with override

5. Restart the SQL Service

This is important as “External Scripts Enabled” option is not a dynamic configuration that needs an explicit restart of the service to affect the changes.

A quick Demo

Now, we have set up the environment Lets quickly do a script execution.


EXEC sp_execute_external_script @language = N'Python', 
@script = N'print("Python in SQL Server is a revolution!!!")'

Thats it for now, hope you enjoyed the post.

DBA Utilities, Errors and Exceptions, SQL

SQL Server Configuration Manager – The remote procedure call failed. [0x800706be]

Problem Statement:

Recently, I encountered an issue as below with SQL Server Configuration Manager which is a very common issue for most of us. Most of the time, this type of error is related to not having enough permission to see the SQL Server Configuration Manager. However, the case was different for me as I am the administrator for my system.

Observations:

In my laptop, I have multiple SQL versions like 2008 R2, 2014, 2016 and 2017.For some reason, SQL Server Configuration Manager (by default it was pointing to oldest one, nothing but 2008 R2 version) was not able to correctly get the information for all the installed versions. This was causing an issue.

To resolve the issue,

1. we can identify the file location as “C:\windows\syswow64\” OR “C:\Windows\System32\”.
The SQL Server Configuration manager file name should be similar to SQLServerManager**.msc where ** denotes the version of the SQL Server.

2. Open the latest version of SQL Server configuration manager file. This will work as expected.

However, the above is not a complete solution while we open the configuration manager from the start window. This is because, the default configuration manager will still be pointing to the older version of the SQL Server. To change this behavior, we need to do the following steps.

1. Open the “SQL Server Configuration” in start and right click on the icon.


2. Right Click on “SQL Server Configuration Manager” and change the Target file to the latest mmc file.(You should have administrator privilege to do so)


3. Close the Window

From then, you will be successfully able to see the SQL Server Configuration manager that fetch the data as expected.