SQL Server Plugin Capabilities

Is it possible to set metrics specific for individual databases within a single instance using the SQL Server plugin? I thought maybe using user defined metrics, but I dont see that supported either. Any help is appreciated.

Are you asking about adding metrics of your own to a particular instance?
Unfortunately, UDMs are only available for Oracle DB target instances and Host instances. You could create a Host UDM for a SQL Server instance residing on the same host, but you'd have to write a script of some sort to get at the information you want.

Similar Messages

SQL Server Plugin - Remote Connections to Monitor Targets

Hi,
We have OEM 10.2.0.4.0 on MS Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1. Trying to configure SQL Server Plugin Release 6 (microsoft_sqlserver_database version 3.2.3.1.0). No issues monitoring SQL Server 2005 SP2 installed on same box the Grid. Next test - monitoring SQL Server 2005 SP2 installed on a remote box H2UA62218F7.ad2.prod, tcpip port 4334. On "Add Microsoft SQL Server" screen:
Add Microsoft SQL Server
Properties
* Name
Type Microsoft SQL Server
Name Value
JDBC URL (Example : jdbc:sqlserver://<host>:<port>) jdbs:sqlserver://H2UA62218F7.ad2.prod:4334
JDBC Driver (Optional) com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver
Database Username sa
Password of Database User sa_password
System Username (Needed when SQLServer is at remote location) domain_user_with_admin_privs_to_sql_server_box
System Password (Needed when SQLServer is at remote location) domain_user_password
Role (Optional)
The following errors are returned when testing connection:
MSSQLInstance_TestMetric_DynamicProperty - Failed to connect, reason : No suitable driver
MSSQLExistence_TestMetric - Missing Properties : [STDINWBEM_HOST,servername_from_jdbc]
OSType_TargetHost_DynamicProperty - Missing Properties : [STDINWBEM_HOST] 
 
Event Viewer on remote box does not show any login attempts. I am confused why it can not find same jdbs driver it finds to monitor local SQL Server 2005 instance? It should look in same %Agent_Home%\sysman\config\classpath.lst and should see same entry C:\OracleHomes\agent10g\sysman\jdbcdriver\sqljdbc_1.2\enu\sqljdbc.jar. Any thoughts?
 
 
Thanks,
 
 
SY.

Metric "Space Available %" in Metric and Policy Setting page has default warning threshold of 20% and critical threshold of 10%. You can change this, as required.

SQL server plugin - cluster?

Ive previously installed a sql server plugin for 11g grid control. works great.
Is there a how-to or a suppoprt note on installing for 2008 SQL server cluster? cant seem to find. In the install guide on the download link for the plugin, the versions supported are listed a
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Cluster: Active/Active and Active/Passive

SQL Server 2008 R2 is certified on EM 11g, and will also be certified once the EM 12 version of the plug-in is released. We are working on version 2012 and should be certified soon.
Refer to MOS certify for more details.

SQL Server Plugin settings

I have been searching around and cant seem to find any information on how to define the jdbc url connection string for the SQL Server plugin with a named instance.
I have a SQL2000 server working no problem(no named instance) but I cant seem to get the SQL2005(with named instance) server working.
I have tried
jdbc:sqlserver://hostname:port\instance
jdbc:sqlserver://hostname\instance:port
jdbc:sqlserver://hostname\instance <-using default port
jdbc:sqlserver://hostname\instance:port;instance=instance
jdbc:sqlserver://hostname\instance;instancename=instance
Also should I be using the Microsoft driver or JTDS ?
I get various errors about missing properties[iscluster], its not a cluster. No matter what I think I have an issue with the url since I got the other server working.
Any help would be great
Thanks

Different Microsoft SQL Server instances communicate via different ports.
By default, the default instance communicates via default port 1433.
If your named SQL2005 instance communicates via port, for example, 1437,
the JDBC URL would be:
jdbc:sqlserver://hostname:1437
Do not enter the instance name.
To find the TCP/IP Port for a non-default SQLServer instance, access the registry editor, regedit:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\<Instance Name>\MSSQLServer\SuperSocketNetLib\Tcp
Use the default Microsoft driver.

List of Metrics after installing SQL Server Plugin and Sybase Plugin

Hello %,
can sb. provide a link or list which shows, which metrics I can use after applying this plugins.
Can You provide additional infos whether this metrics are sufficient for performance monitoring and consolidation decisions, e.g. space trend analysis
THX

System Monitoring Plug-in Metric Reference Manual for Non-Oracle Database Management:
* http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B16240_01/doc/em.102/b28748/toc.htm
All of the plugin related documentation:
* http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B16240_01/doc/nav/plugins.htm

Microsoft SQL Server Metric Collection Errors

Hi
I've installed the Microsoft SQL Server plugin.
I've added a SQL server for monitoring.
It only monitors / picks up Cache Hit Ratio.
Then i'm getting the following Metric Collection Errors:
Database Oct 31, 2006 2:35:45 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
[b]SQL Server Process Oct 31, 2006 2:35:45 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
[b]Processor Oct 31, 2006 2:35:45 PM Collection Failure /u/oracle10/OracleHomes/a...
Error Log Entry Oct 31, 2006 2:31:32 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
[b]MSSQL DatabaseFile Oct 31, 2006 2:31:32 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
[b]SQL Server Role Oct 31, 2006 2:31:32 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
[b]MSSQL Transaction Log Oct 31, 2006 2:31:32 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
[b]Database Parameter Oct 31, 2006 2:29:10 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
User Oct 31, 2006 2:29:10 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
[b]Integrated Security Setting Oct 31, 2006 2:29:10 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
[b]MSSQL FileGroup Oct 31, 2006 2:27:10 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
Login Oct 31, 2006 2:25:14 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
[b]Registry Setting Oct 31, 2006 2:24:21 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
[b]SQL Server Oct 31, 2006 2:24:21 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
[b]Database Setting Oct 31, 2006 2:24:21 PM Collection Failure Missing Properties : [pro...
Target <servername>.local
Type Microsoft SQL Server
Metric Database
Collection Timestamp Oct 31, 2006 2:35:45 PM
Error Type Collection Failure
Message [b]Missing Properties : [provided_host_os]
Thnx,
Kenneth

Not sure if you got the plug-in working. If not, read on...
The error is due to failure in internal computation of the SQL Server Host related information.
Ensure that
1. All pre-requisites (specified in SQL Server plug-in Installation Guide) are satisfied
2. Provided property values for discovery of the SQL Server target are correct
- JDBC URL has correct port number
- If you are using older version of SQL Server plug-in, the name of SQL Server
instance that you provided is correct

SQL Server = Oracle without access to SQL Server

I need to migrate a schema from SQL Server to Oracle but I will not be able to connect to SQL Server to do this. Can migration workbench handle this? What type of export do I need from SQL server and is there any other way to import into Oracle 10g. TIA.

Install the workbench (a zip file) and the appropriate sql server plugin (a jar)
Check out the scripts in Omwb\offline_capture\<plugin name for example SQLServer2K> for all the details in code.
The format is basically <database name>\<meta table name>.dat
columns separated by an end of column character (which is configurable) and rows separated by an end of row character (which is also configurable).
Turloch
Oracle Migration Workbench Team

SQL Server monitoring with 12c Grid control

Dear Gurus
I want to add my sql server databases in 12c Grid control. for this i have deployed the sql server plugin in 12c grid control but i am unable to add the sql server databases/ servers in 12c grid control.
Could you please help me in deploying the sql server servers in 12c grid control.
Thanks & Regards,
Satish Kumar Sadhu

Dear Jan,
Already I have added the plugin but while adding the target i am getting below error. Can u please give some idea on this
Test Connection failed: [_WinAuthDLLToLoadDynamicProp;em_error=DLL file 'D:\12c_agent\plugins\oracle.em.smss.agent.plugin_12.1.0.2.0\scripts\emx\microsoft_sqlserver_database..\..\..\..\dependencies\oracle.em.smss\jdbcdriver\sqljdbc_auth.dll' is found missing or not was never copied manually. Please copy amd64 version of sqljdbc_auth.dll at the above location and re-try, MSSQL_NumClusterNodes;Can't resolve a non-optional query descriptor property [dllFile] (dllFile), WbemRemote_Determination_DynamicProperty;Can't resolve a non-optional query descriptor property [dllFile] (dllFile), MSSQLInstance_TestMetric_DynamicProperty;Can't resolve a non-optional query descriptor property [dllFile] (dllFile), OSType_TargetHost_DynamicProperty;Can't resolve a non-optional query descriptor property [STDINWBEM_HOST] (ms_sqlserver_host), MSSQL_NumClusterNodes;Can't resolve a non-optional query descriptor property [dllFile] (dllFile)]

Converting Access application after migrating SQL Server database

I have used migration workbench to migrate an access database and application. I now have sql server databases with access applications that need to be migrated. How can I convert the access applications that currently use sql server as a database? I don't see that migration workbench considers this combination.

If you have and Access/SQL Server combination. then download the SQL server plugin appropriate to your version of SQL server. Go ahead and migrate the SQL Server database to Oracle. Once this is done, then update your access application so your link tables point to your newly migrated Oracle database.
Donal

Does SQL Server agent/IIS plugin support User-Defined metrics?

Hi,
Does anyone know if there is a way to add a user-defined metric that connects to a SQL Server database?
Thanks

Recently, I released a full MySQL plug-in, for example - http://www.pythian.com/blogs/mysql-plug-in-for-oracle-grid-control
For me it's not very difficult but it takes some time to get used to.
I did presentations on creating Management plug-ins and couple articles in IOUG SELECT Magazine. The latest presentation and whitepaper is here - http://www.pythian.com/blogs/466/ioug-collaborate-07-oracle-10g-grid-control
Official extensibility guide has much more details and is priceless reference but, still, not everything is documented there.

Workarounds for searching a text field in SQL Server 2000

Hi,
I have a need to search within a text field in SQL Server 2000. In the
limitations section it notes that this is not possible. Is there a
recommended workaround for this in terms of performance? I have no way
of knowing the length of the text field in advance, and this could be
fairly large. Also, the number of objects that could contain the text
can be fairly large as well.
Thanks in advance,
Khamsouk

Note that some databases (or Oracle, at least) provide alternatives to
LIKE '%foo%' that are more efficient for large text blocks, given that
you have the appropriate indexing plugins etc. etc.
To use one of those types of search operators, you'd have to put
together a custom extension.
-Fred
Fred Lucas <[email protected]> wrote:
I'm assuming that when you say 'a text field', you're referring to a
SQLServer TEXT field, as opposed to just any old field that contains
text.
Like I said, I'm by no means a SQLServer pro, but I just ran:
SELECT CLOBSTRINGX
FROM LOCATORTESTOBJECTX
WHERE CLOBSTRINGX LIKE '%o%';
and got back my test row with 'foo' in the CLOBSTRINGX column.
CLOBSTRINGX is a TEXT column.
So, it is possible that our stringContains() extension will just work.
But then again, maybe not. I'm guessing it will.
Give it a try and, if you get an error, post the generated SQL (turn on
SQL output by setting the com.solarmetric.kodo.Logger property to
'stdout') and the error that you get. Also, try executing the generated
SQL directly against your data store to see if it works there.
-Fred
Khamsouk Souvanlasy <[email protected]> wrote:
Basically I just want to use kodo's extended stringContains syntax on a
text field. Is this possible?
Khamsouk
Fred Lucas wrote:
I'm not intimitely familiar with SQLServer's text searching
capabilities, but I'm confident that you could create a query extension
that would do what you need it to do.
What is the SQL that you are trying to generate?
-Fred
Khamsouk Souvanlasy <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
I have a need to search within a text field in SQL Server 2000. In the
limitations section it notes that this is not possible. Is there a
recommended workaround for this in terms of performance? I have no way
of knowing the length of the text field in advance, and this could be
fairly large. Also, the number of objects that could contain the text
can be fairly large as well.
Thanks in advance,
Khamsouk
Fred Lucas
SolarMetric Inc.
202-595-2064 x1122
http://www.solarmetric.com

Sql server grants access to specific login to database.

i have created website for intranet and hosted it on server. for that i needed to create login "IIS APPPOOL\hi" in sql server 2008 for my application
to access my "reportdb" database. "IIS APPPOOL\hi" has sysadmin and public server roles in sql server 2008. And i have default login"sa" same
as "IIS APPPOOL\hi". these are working correctly. Now I want these two logins to access"reportdb" for all
operations in database and remaining all logins should be denied to access"reportdb". My Sql Server 2008 is having mixed mode (windows authentication and Sql authentication). plz help me

I think what Tauseef is requesting is to keep access for the 2 sysadmins & deny access to everyone else, correct?
As Uri mentioned, by being part of sysadmin role, “IIS APPPOOL\hi” & “sa” would have access to everything in the server, and nobody else should have access to the DB unless explicitly being granted access.
If you would really deny anyone else access to the database, you can potentially deny connect to public, and only sysadmins (who override permissions) would be able to connect; although I would strongly recommend against such practice.
Something else I would like to recommend against is the usage of sysadmin for what may not be a DBA role (IIS appPool). Following the least-privilege principle, I would recommend having a non-administrator user for applications that has enough capabilities
to perform the tasks needed.
The main risk is that a SQL injection (SQLi) bug in your application would lead to a complete compromise of your SQL server.
If there are app tasks that would require elevated permissions, I would recommend encapsulating the logic in a stored procedure and either use impersonation or digital signatures to accomplish a controlled elevation of privileges instead. If you have any
question on this topic I will be glad to assist.
I hope this information helps,
-Raul Garcia
SQL Server Security
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Increase Performance and ROI for SQL Server Environments

May 2015
Explore
The Buzz from Microsoft Ignite 2015
NetApp was in full force at the recent Microsoft Ignite show in Chicago, talking about solutions for hybrid cloud, and our proven solutions for Microsoft SQL Server and other Microsoft applications.
Hot topics at the NetApp booth included:
OnCommand® Shift. A revolutionary technology that lets you move virtual machines back and forth between VMware and Hyper-V environments in minutes.
Azure Site Recovery to NetApp Private Storage. Replicate on-premises SAN-based applications to NPS for disaster recovery in the Azure cloud.
These tools give you greater flexibility for managing and protecting important business applications.
Chris Lemmons
Director, EIS Technical Marketing, NetApp
If your organization runs databases such as Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle DB, you probably know that these vendors primarily license their products on a "per-core" basis. Microsoft recently switched to "per-core" rather than "per-socket" licensing for SQL Server 2012 and 2014. This change can have a big impact on the total cost of operating a database, especially as core counts on new servers continue to climb. It turns out that the right storage infrastructure can drive down database costs, increase productivity, and put your infrastructure back in balance.
In many customer environments, NetApp has noticed that server CPU utilization is low—often on the order of just 20%. This is usually the result of I/O bottlenecks. Server cores have to sit and wait for I/O from hard disk drives (HDDs). We've been closely studying the impact of all-flash storage on SQL Server environments that use HDD-based storage systems. NetApp® All Flash FAS platform delivers world-class performance for SQL Server plus the storage efficiency, application integration, nondisruptive operations, and data protection of clustered Data ONTAP®, making it ideal for SQL Server environments.
Tests show that All Flash FAS can drive up IOPS and database server CPU utilization by as much as 4x. And with a 95% reduction in latency, you can achieve this level of performance with half as many servers. This reduces the number of servers you need and the number of cores you have to license, driving down costs by 50% or more and paying back your investment in flash in as little as six months.
Figure 1) NetApp All Flash FAS increases CPU utilization on your SQL Server database servers, lowering costs.
Source: NetApp, 2015
Whether you're running one of the newer versions of SQL Server or facing an upgrade of an earlier version, you can't afford not to take a second look at your storage environment.
End of Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is Rapidly Approaching
Microsoft has set the end of extended support for SQL Server 2005 for April 2016—less than a year away. With support for Microsoft Windows 2003 ending in July 2015, time may already be running short.
If you're running Windows Server 2003, new server hardware is almost certainly needed when you upgrade SQL Server. Evaluate your server and storage options now to get costs under control.
Test Methodology
To test the impact of flash on SQL Server performance, we replaced a legacy HDD-based storage system with an All Flash FAS AFF8080 EX. The legacy system was configured with almost 150 HDDs, a typical configuration for HDD storage supporting SQL Server. The AFF8080 EX used just 48 SSDs.
Table 1) Components used in testing.
Test Configuration Components
Details
SQL Server 2014 servers
Fujitsu RX300
Server operating system
Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 Standard Edition
SQL Server database version
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Edition
Processors per server
2 6-core Xeon E5-2630 at 2.30 GHz
Fibre channel network
8Gb FC with multipathing
Storage controller
AFF8080 EX
Data ONTAP version
Clustered Data ONTAP® 8.3.1
Drive number and type
48 SSD
Source: NetApp, 2015
The test configuration consisted of 10 database servers connected through fibre channel to both the legacy storage system and the AFF8080 EX. Each of the 10 servers ran SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Edition.
The publicly available HammerDB workload generator was used to drive an OLTP-like workload simultaneously from each of the 10 database servers to storage. We first directed the workload to the legacy storage array to establish a baseline, increasing the load to the point where read latency consistently exceeded 20ms.
That workload was then directed at the AFF8080 EX. The change in storage resulted in an overall 20x reduction in read latency, a greater than 4x improvement in IOPS, and a greater than 4x improvement in database server CPU utilization.
Figure 2) NetApp All Flash FAS increases IOPS and server CPU utilization and lowers latency.
Source: NetApp, 2015
In other words, the database servers are able to process four times as many IOPS with dramatically lower latency. CPU utilization goes up accordingly because the servers are processing 4x the work per unit time.
The All Flash FAS system still had additional headroom under this load.
Calculating the Savings
Let's look at what this performance improvement means for the total cost of running SQL Server 2014 over a 3-year period. To do the analysis we used NetApp Realize, a storage modeling and financial analysis tool designed to help quantify the value of NetApp solutions and products. NetApp sales teams and partners use this tool to assist with return on investment (ROI) calculations.
The calculation includes the cost of the AFF8080 EX, eliminates the costs associated with the existing storage system, and cuts the total number of database servers from 10 to five. This reduces SQL Server licensing costs by 50%. The same workload was run with five servers and achieved the same results. ROI analysis is summarized in Table 2.
Table 2) ROI from replacing an HDD-based storage system with All Flash FAS, thereby cutting server and licensing costs in half.
Value
Analysis Results
ROI
65%
Net present value (NPV)
$950,000
Payback period
six months
Total cost reduction
More than $1 million saved over a 3-year analysis period compared to the legacy storage system
Savings on power, space, and administration
$40,000
Additional savings due to nondisruptive operations benefits (not included in ROI)
$90,000
Source: NetApp, 2015
The takeaway here is that you can replace your existing storage with All Flash FAS and get a big performance bump while substantially reducing your costs, with the majority of the savings derived from the reduction in SQL Server licensing costs.
Replace your existing storage with All Flash FAS and get a big performance bump while substantially reducing your costs.
Maximum SQL Server 2014 Performance
In addition to the ROI analysis, we also measured the maximum performance of the AFF8080 EX with SQL Server 2014. A load-generation tool was used to simulate an industry-standard TPC-E OLTP workload against an SQL Server 2014 test configuration.
A two-node AFF8080 EX achieved a maximum throughput of 322K IOPS at just over 1ms latency. For all points other than the maximum load point, latency was consistently under 1ms and remained under 0.8ms up to 180K IOPS.
Data Reduction and Storage Efficiency
In addition to performance testing, we looked at the overall storage efficiency savings of our SQL Server database implementation. The degree of compression that can be achieved is dependent on the actual data that is written and stored in the database. For this environment, inline compression was effective. Deduplication, as is often the case in database environments, provided little additional storage savings and was not enabled.
For the test data used in the maximum performance test, we measured a compression ratio of 1.5:1. We also tested inline compression on a production SQL Server 2014 data set to further validate these results and saw a 1.8:1 compression ratio.
Space-efficient NetApp Snapshot® copies provide additional storage efficiency benefits for database environments. Unlike snapshot methods that use copy-on-write, there is no performance penalty; unlike full mirror copies, NetApp Snapshot copies use storage space sparingly. Snapshot copies only consume a small amount of storage space for metadata and additional incremental space is consumed as block-level changes occur. In a typical real-world SQL Server deployment on NetApp storage, database volume Snapshot copies are made every two hours.
First introduced more than 10 years ago, NetApp FlexClone® technology also plays an important role in SQL Server environments. Clones are fully writable, and, similar to Snapshot copies, only consume incremental storage capacity. With FlexClone, you can create as many copies of production data as you need for development and test, reporting, and so on. Cloning is a great way to support the development and test work needed when upgrading from an earlier version of SQL Server. You'll sometimes see these types of capabilities referred to as "copy data management."
A Better Way to Run Enterprise Applications
The performance benefits that all-flash storage can deliver for database environments are significant: more IOPS, lower latency, and an end to near-constant performance tuning.
If you think the performance acceleration that comes with all-flash storage is cost prohibitive, think again. All Flash FAS doesn't just deliver a performance boost, it changes the economics of your operations, paying for itself with thousands in savings on licensing and server costs. In terms of dollars per IOPS, All Flash FAS is extremely economical relative to HDD.
And, because All Flash FAS runs NetApp clustered Data ONTAP, it delivers the most complete environment to support SQL Server and all your enterprise applications with capabilities that include comprehensive storage efficiency, integrated data protection, and deep integration for your applications.
For complete details on this testing look for NetApp TR-4303, which will be available in a few weeks. Stay tuned to Tech OnTap for more information as NetApp continues to run benchmarks with important server workloads including Oracle DB and server virtualization.
Learn more about NetApp solutions for SQL Server and NetApp All-flash solutions.
Quick Links
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May 2015
Explore
The Buzz from Microsoft Ignite 2015
NetApp was in full force at the recent Microsoft Ignite show in Chicago, talking about solutions for hybrid cloud, and our proven solutions for Microsoft SQL Server and other Microsoft applications.
Hot topics at the NetApp booth included:
OnCommand® Shift. A revolutionary technology that lets you move virtual machines back and forth between VMware and Hyper-V environments in minutes.
Azure Site Recovery to NetApp Private Storage. Replicate on-premises SAN-based applications to NPS for disaster recovery in the Azure cloud.
These tools give you greater flexibility for managing and protecting important business applications.
Chris Lemmons
Director, EIS Technical Marketing, NetApp
If your organization runs databases such as Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle DB, you probably know that these vendors primarily license their products on a "per-core" basis. Microsoft recently switched to "per-core" rather than "per-socket" licensing for SQL Server 2012 and 2014. This change can have a big impact on the total cost of operating a database, especially as core counts on new servers continue to climb. It turns out that the right storage infrastructure can drive down database costs, increase productivity, and put your infrastructure back in balance.
In many customer environments, NetApp has noticed that server CPU utilization is low—often on the order of just 20%. This is usually the result of I/O bottlenecks. Server cores have to sit and wait for I/O from hard disk drives (HDDs). We've been closely studying the impact of all-flash storage on SQL Server environments that use HDD-based storage systems. NetApp® All Flash FAS platform delivers world-class performance for SQL Server plus the storage efficiency, application integration, nondisruptive operations, and data protection of clustered Data ONTAP®, making it ideal for SQL Server environments.
Tests show that All Flash FAS can drive up IOPS and database server CPU utilization by as much as 4x. And with a 95% reduction in latency, you can achieve this level of performance with half as many servers. This reduces the number of servers you need and the number of cores you have to license, driving down costs by 50% or more and paying back your investment in flash in as little as six months.
Figure 1) NetApp All Flash FAS increases CPU utilization on your SQL Server database servers, lowering costs.
Source: NetApp, 2015
Whether you're running one of the newer versions of SQL Server or facing an upgrade of an earlier version, you can't afford not to take a second look at your storage environment.
End of Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is Rapidly Approaching
Microsoft has set the end of extended support for SQL Server 2005 for April 2016—less than a year away. With support for Microsoft Windows 2003 ending in July 2015, time may already be running short.
If you're running Windows Server 2003, new server hardware is almost certainly needed when you upgrade SQL Server. Evaluate your server and storage options now to get costs under control.
Test Methodology
To test the impact of flash on SQL Server performance, we replaced a legacy HDD-based storage system with an All Flash FAS AFF8080 EX. The legacy system was configured with almost 150 HDDs, a typical configuration for HDD storage supporting SQL Server. The AFF8080 EX used just 48 SSDs.
Table 1) Components used in testing.
Test Configuration Components
Details
SQL Server 2014 servers
Fujitsu RX300
Server operating system
Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 Standard Edition
SQL Server database version
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Edition
Processors per server
2 6-core Xeon E5-2630 at 2.30 GHz
Fibre channel network
8Gb FC with multipathing
Storage controller
AFF8080 EX
Data ONTAP version
Clustered Data ONTAP® 8.3.1
Drive number and type
48 SSD
Source: NetApp, 2015
The test configuration consisted of 10 database servers connected through fibre channel to both the legacy storage system and the AFF8080 EX. Each of the 10 servers ran SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Edition.
The publicly available HammerDB workload generator was used to drive an OLTP-like workload simultaneously from each of the 10 database servers to storage. We first directed the workload to the legacy storage array to establish a baseline, increasing the load to the point where read latency consistently exceeded 20ms.
That workload was then directed at the AFF8080 EX. The change in storage resulted in an overall 20x reduction in read latency, a greater than 4x improvement in IOPS, and a greater than 4x improvement in database server CPU utilization.
Figure 2) NetApp All Flash FAS increases IOPS and server CPU utilization and lowers latency.
Source: NetApp, 2015
In other words, the database servers are able to process four times as many IOPS with dramatically lower latency. CPU utilization goes up accordingly because the servers are processing 4x the work per unit time.
The All Flash FAS system still had additional headroom under this load.
Calculating the Savings
Let's look at what this performance improvement means for the total cost of running SQL Server 2014 over a 3-year period. To do the analysis we used NetApp Realize, a storage modeling and financial analysis tool designed to help quantify the value of NetApp solutions and products. NetApp sales teams and partners use this tool to assist with return on investment (ROI) calculations.
The calculation includes the cost of the AFF8080 EX, eliminates the costs associated with the existing storage system, and cuts the total number of database servers from 10 to five. This reduces SQL Server licensing costs by 50%. The same workload was run with five servers and achieved the same results. ROI analysis is summarized in Table 2.
Table 2) ROI from replacing an HDD-based storage system with All Flash FAS, thereby cutting server and licensing costs in half.
Value
Analysis Results
ROI
65%
Net present value (NPV)
$950,000
Payback period
six months
Total cost reduction
More than $1 million saved over a 3-year analysis period compared to the legacy storage system
Savings on power, space, and administration
$40,000
Additional savings due to nondisruptive operations benefits (not included in ROI)
$90,000
Source: NetApp, 2015
The takeaway here is that you can replace your existing storage with All Flash FAS and get a big performance bump while substantially reducing your costs, with the majority of the savings derived from the reduction in SQL Server licensing costs.
Replace your existing storage with All Flash FAS and get a big performance bump while substantially reducing your costs.
Maximum SQL Server 2014 Performance
In addition to the ROI analysis, we also measured the maximum performance of the AFF8080 EX with SQL Server 2014. A load-generation tool was used to simulate an industry-standard TPC-E OLTP workload against an SQL Server 2014 test configuration.
A two-node AFF8080 EX achieved a maximum throughput of 322K IOPS at just over 1ms latency. For all points other than the maximum load point, latency was consistently under 1ms and remained under 0.8ms up to 180K IOPS.
Data Reduction and Storage Efficiency
In addition to performance testing, we looked at the overall storage efficiency savings of our SQL Server database implementation. The degree of compression that can be achieved is dependent on the actual data that is written and stored in the database. For this environment, inline compression was effective. Deduplication, as is often the case in database environments, provided little additional storage savings and was not enabled.
For the test data used in the maximum performance test, we measured a compression ratio of 1.5:1. We also tested inline compression on a production SQL Server 2014 data set to further validate these results and saw a 1.8:1 compression ratio.
Space-efficient NetApp Snapshot® copies provide additional storage efficiency benefits for database environments. Unlike snapshot methods that use copy-on-write, there is no performance penalty; unlike full mirror copies, NetApp Snapshot copies use storage space sparingly. Snapshot copies only consume a small amount of storage space for metadata and additional incremental space is consumed as block-level changes occur. In a typical real-world SQL Server deployment on NetApp storage, database volume Snapshot copies are made every two hours.
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Full-Text search is not working with PDF files - SQL Server 2012 64 bit

Hi,
We are in the process of storing PDF files in SQL Server 2012 with Full-Text search capability.
I followed the steps as below and it works fine with word document but not for PDF files. I tried with PDF ifiler 11 & 9 and both are unsuccessful.
Server/DB Level Settings:
1)
Enable FileStream
2)
Install Full-Text
then restart
3)
Use [specific db]
alter
database [db name]
add
filegroup Files
contains filestream;
alter
database [db name]
add
file (
name = N'Files',
filename =
N'D:\SQL\DATA') to
filegroup [Files];
3)
Database level
Settings:
FileStream:
FileStream
Directory name:
[Set the name]
FileStream
non-transacted
Access: [set Appropriate]
3a)
Add a
datafile to DB
with filestreamdata
filetype.
4)
Share D:\SQL\DATA
directory and
add specific accounts
with read/write
access
5)
Give bulkadmin
access to those
specific accounts
at server
level
6)
From the
page (link)
download and
install the *.pdf
IFilter for
FTS. Link:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5542
7)
To the
PATH global system
variable add
path to the
catalog,
where you installed
the plugin.
Default for
this version is:
C:\Program
Files\Adobe\Adobe
PDF iFilter 9
for 64-bit
platforms\bin
8)
From the
page (link)
download a
FilterPackx64.exe
and install
it. Link:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=20109
9)
Now from
SSMS execute the following
procedures:
-sp_fulltext_service
'load_os_resources',1
-sp_fulltext_service
'verify_signature', 0
EXEC
sp_fulltext_service
'update_languages';
-- update language list
EXEC
sp_fulltext_service
'restart_all_fdhosts';
-- restart daemon
reconfigure
with override;
10)
Restart the
server
11)
select document_type,
path from
sys.fulltext_document_types
where document_type
= '.pdf'
-select
document_type,
path from sys.fulltext_document_types
where document_type
= '.docx'
12) Results are OK.
Following is my Table /Index/ catalog script:
CREATE
TABLE dbo.DocumentFilesTest
DocumentId INT
IDENTITY(1,1)
NOT NULL
PRIMARY KEY,
AddDate datetime
NOT NULL,
Name nvarchar(50)
NOT NULL,
Extension nvarchar(10)
NOT NULL,
Description nvarchar(1000)
NULL,
FileStream_Id UNIQUEIDENTIFIER
ROWGUIDCOL NOT
NULL UNIQUE DEFAULT
NEWSEQUENTIALID(),
FileSource varbinary(MAX)
FILESTREAM DEFAULT(0x)
go
--Add default add date for document
ALTER
TABLE dbo.DocumentFilesTest
ADD CONSTRAINT
DF_DocumentFilesTest_AddDate
DEFAULT sysdatetime()
FOR AddDate
EXEC
sp_fulltext_database
'enable'
GO
IF
NOT EXISTS
(SELECT
TOP 1 1 FROM sys.fulltext_catalogs
WHERE name
= 'Ducuments_Catalog_test')
BEGIN
EXEC sp_fulltext_catalog
'Ducuments_Catalog_test',
'create',
'D:\SQL\PDFBlob';
END
--EXEC sp_fulltext_catalog 'Ducuments_Catalog_test', 'drop'
DECLARE
@indexName nvarchar(255)
= (SELECT
Top 1 i.Name
from sys.indexes
i
Join sys.tables
t on
i.object_id
= t.object_id
WHERE t.Name
= 'DocumentFilesTest'
AND i.type_desc
= 'CLUSTERED')
PRINT @indexName
EXEC
sp_fulltext_table
'DocumentFilesTest',
'create',
'Ducuments_Catalog_test',
@indexName
EXEC
sp_fulltext_column
'DocumentFilesTest',
'FileSource',
'add', 0,
'Extension'
EXEC
sp_fulltext_table
'DocumentFilesTest',
'activate'
EXEC
sp_fulltext_catalog
'Ducuments_Catalog_test',
'start_full'
ALTER
FULLTEXT INDEX
ON [dbo].[DocumentFilesTest]
ENABLE
ALTER
FULLTEXT INDEX
ON [dbo].[DocumentFilesTest]
SET CHANGE_TRACKING
= AUTO
ALTER
FULLTEXT CATALOG
Ducuments_Catalog_test REBUILD
WITH ACCENT_SENSITIVITY=OFF;
INSERT
INTO DocumentFilesTest(Extension,
Name,
FileSource)
SELECT
'pdf'
'BOL12006553.pdf'
* FROM
OPENROWSET(BULK
'd:\SQL\PDFBlob\BOL12006553.pdf',
SINGLE_BLOB)
AS BLOB;
GO
INSERT
INTO DocumentFilesTest(Extension,
Name,
FileSource)
SELECT
'docx'
'test.docx'
* FROM
OPENROWSET(BULK
'd:\SQL\PDFBlob\test.docx',
SINGLE_BLOB)
AS Document;
GO
SELECT
d.*
FROM dbo.DocumentFilesTest
d WHERE
Contains(d.FileSource,
'BILL')
Returns nothing. it should come from PDF file
SELECT
d.*
FROM dbo.DocumentFilesTest
d WHERE
Contains(d.FileSource,
'TEST')
Returns from word document as follows:
2           2014-06-04 10:11:41.393            test.docx docx
NULL   [BINARY Value] [Binary Value]
Any help is appreciated. Its been a long wait.
Thanks,
Vel
Vel Thavasi

Hello,
Did you check the fulltext log files for more details about the errors. If the filter isn’t working, there should be errors in the error log file.
The following thread is about similar issue, please refer to:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/sqlserver/en-US/69535dbc-c7ef-402d-a347-d3d3e4860d72/sql-server-2008-64bit-fulltext-indexing-pdf-not-working-cant-find-ifilter
Regards,
Fanny Liu
If you have any feedback on our support, please click here.
Fanny Liu
TechNet Community Support

How to retrieve data from SQL server?

I'm thinking this is a request for plug-ins as I'm not aware that Indesign CS3 can hook into a SQL server.
Specifically, I'm trying to connect to a data server which has a built-in "SQL Stored Procedure" which will give me access to this database? I'm trying to avoid dumping into a intermediate data file, like Excel or XML.
What pointers should I try to look into? thanx, sam

I would say it depends on what you need to do. There are a few good plugins for InDesign out there that can hook up to a database, easycatalog by 65 bit http://www.65bit.com and Cacidi http://www.cacidi.com are some of the high end plugins that I can recommend, but the question is if cost outweights need. Both in their full version are quite costly.
If you can give a better description of what you need to do it might be easier to recommend a solution.

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