So now that you’re well versed on pwned or pwnage let’s talk about a way to ensure that the DBA (who we’ll call “Brent”) that left the company does not get all zombie and start eating your brain after he’s gone.

**RING RING RING**

You: Hello?

Them: Where is my report?

You: How did you get this number?

Them: Where is my report?

You:  What report?

Them:  Wow… Brent was way smarter then you *click*

(and yes this is a shout out to Brent Ozar and a huge congratz to Jeremiah Peschka!!  not saying Brent would ever do this but it’s the buzz of the SQL Twitterverse this morning so I thought I had to work it in somehow )

The first thing to check when something goes wrong after someone has left the company is if anything could of been tied to that user’s Active Directory account because chances are they are now disabled/deleted/removed/zombified.

“So here’s a little script that’s mine… you might want to execute line by line… don’t worry….. be happy.”

(as always any and all scripts on this blog should never be ran… k that’s a bit much… you can run it but test it, tweak it, and make sure it works for you in your environment )

I wrote this script to not care if the instance is the default or a named instance (why you may ask? well cause I use Powershell to run this script against all my servers and return me any reports that are not owned by a particular user):

SET NOCOUNT ON
 
DECLARE @InstanceName nvarchar(100)
DECLARE @ReportServerDatabaseName nvarchar(100)
DECLARE @ReportingDatabaseFoundInd bit
DECLARE @SQLSTMT nvarchar(2000)
 
SELECT @InstanceName = @@SERVERNAME
SELECT @ReportingDatabaseFoundInd = 0
 
IF @InstanceName = SUBSTRING(@InstanceName, ISNULL(CHARINDEX('\', @InstanceName)+1, 0), LEN(@InstanceName))
	BEGIN
		SELECT	@ReportServerDatabaseName = 'ReportServer'
	END
ELSE
	BEGIN
		SELECT	@ReportServerDatabaseName = 'ReportServer' + '$' + SUBSTRING(@InstanceName, ISNULL(CHARINDEX('\', @InstanceName)+1, 0), LEN(@InstanceName))
	END
 
SELECT	@ReportingDatabaseFoundInd = 1
FROM	master.dbo.sysdatabases
WHERE	name = @ReportServerDatabaseName
 
IF @ReportingDatabaseFoundInd = 1
	BEGIN
		SELECT @SQLSTMT = 'SELECT	@@SERVERNAME as [InstanceName],
									U.UserName as [SubscriptionOwner], C.[Path],
									S.[description]
							FROM	' + @ReportServerDatabaseName +
								'.dbo.subscriptions S INNER JOIN ' +
								@ReportServerDatabaseName + '.dbo.users U ON U.userid = S.ownerid INNER JOIN ' +
								@ReportServerDatabaseName + '.dbo.[Catalog] C ON S.Report_OID = C.ItemID'
		EXEC sp_executesql @SQLSTMT
	END

Now if this list is a bit HUGE you can add a WHERE clause in there to look for a particular user name.

So now that you’ve found all the reports that are tied to the no longer existant user how do you change them?

DECLARE @OldID uniqueidentifier
DECLARE @NewID uniqueidentifier
SELECT @OldID = UserID FROM dbo.Users WHERE UserName = 'Domain\LoginName'
SELECT @NewID = UserID FROM dbo.Users WHERE UserName = 'Domain\LoginName'
UPDATE dbo.Subscriptions SET OwnerID = @NewID WHERE OwnerID = @OldID

A gotcha to watch out for with this is that the new ID that you set the report to needs to be in the users table (in your ReportServer database) so if you want to change it to a user that is not already in there you’ll have to log in as that user and add/update/delete a report to get them in there. (There is probably an easier way but that has always worked for me)

Enjoy!!

I’m trying to get myself back into a “blogging groove” as the summer months have sucked all ambition out of me to do anything other then spend some quality time with wifey and the kidlets.  Not that spending time with the family is a bad thing but like everything else in life it’s about balance

So here is my first of hopefully many more blog posts to help get me started on getting my “voice” back and to get back in touch with the community that I think is the bestest out there!

Enjoy!!

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/792195478

Please be sure to not only click the “Add to my calendar” but also the “Register” button so that we can plan accordingly for food and drinks. 

Date:  August 25th 2010
Time: 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Location: Stanley A. Milner library
Map: 7 Sir Winston Churchill Square
Meeting Room: Centennial Room – Basement
Speaker: Aaron Nelson
Topic: Powershell for Database Professionals

Session Abstract:

In this session we will begin exploring the amazing world of the PowerShell language. We will learn to perform several everyday DBA tasks like backing up user databases, scripting table objects and evaluating disk space usage with PowerShell; then we will change these into multi-server scripts by adding only a single line of code.  We will also take a look at some data visualization techniques that require only a small amount of code.  Only a basic understanding of PowerShell or DOS is needed. This session should serve as a good introduction to PowerShell for database users.  The goal is to get data professionals feet wet about PowerShell and ready to practice it when they leave.  Yes you will get a copy of the scripts I use.

Presenter Information:  Aaron Nelson (@SQLvariant)  sqlvariant.com/wordpress/
Aaron Nelson is a Senior SQL Server Architect with over 10 years experience in architecture, business intelligence, development, and performance tuning of SQL Server.
He has experience managing enterprise-wide data needs in both transactional and data warehouse environments.  Aaron holds certifications for MCITP: Business Intelligence Developer, Database Administrator, Database Developer; as well as MCTS: Windows Server Virtualization, Configuration (meaning Hyper-V).

Agenda:
5:00 pm – Pizza and Socializing
5:30 pm – Sponsor Presentation
5:45 pm – Feature Presentation
7:00 pm – Wrap Up and Draws

If you haven’t signed up already at EDMPASS.com please do so now to receive meeting notifications, news, and updates from EDMPASS.

Hope to see you there.

Enjoy!!

As some of you know my sister-in-law is getting married in the Dominican this November and I’ve been having an inner battle about whether or not the Summit would be in the cards for me in 2010.  After some thought and weighing my options I’ve come to the conclusion that I just can’t miss the Summit.  Well… can’t miss SOME of the Summit I guess.

I’ll be flying into Seattle on the Sunday (Nov 7th) and flying out in the evening on the Wednesday (Nov 10th)… I know I’ll be missing a whole day of sessions on the Thursday (and the post-cons on the Friday) but this is the only way I could make it work.  Lucky for me as the chapter president for EDMPASS I’ll get the DVDs so I can be sure to catch all the Friday sessions I missed… yeah it’s not live but it’s better then not seeing them at all.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve been away from work for 2 weeks… I think the last time I took 2 weeks  off was for the birth of my son (4 years ago this August).  That’s how important the Summit is to me professionally and personally.  Last year was my first Summit and I can’t say enough about how great the speakers and SQL community is.  I’ll be attending my first ever pre-con this year (I figured if I’m missng  a whole day on Thursday that I should get in a “deep dive” pre-con session on the Monday).

   + 

November is looking like it’s gonna be a crazy month but it’s a good crazy, quality time with the family (and my first ever ocean… I know… how lame and I? LOL) mixed in with quality time with some of my favorite SQL geeks… look out Seattle @BenchmarkIT is coming back to town…..

Enjoy!!

Why wouldn’t they just release a PSP?

No not THAT kind of PSP…. PSP is my acronym for “Policy Service Pack”

Policy Based Management is/was/should be the replacement for the Best Practices Analyzer so why now are we bringing the BPA back?  To me it would just make more sense to release some additional policies to add to the 50+ “Best Practice” policies that already are included with SQL Server 2008.

Now granted (as mentioned above) I have yet to install and give it a test drive so perhaps I’m missing something but in my opinion releasing this tool will affect the adoption rate of DBAs using Policy Based Management.

I’m downloading and installing now…. follow up blog to come

Enjoy!!

Now I am NOT an Oracle DBA and this post will prove that so if you are an Oracle DBA and have something easier then my final “solution” please drop me some comments cause this seems way to painful to be the “right” way LOL.  As much as I’m an evangelist for SQL Server I’m wanting to learn more and more Oracle because you never know when something will get thrown over the fence right?

The following “use-case” came my way… “We’d like to have a fresh copy of our PROD database over to a new DEV database leaving the original DEV database intact”.

Seems easy enough… in my SQL Server environment I would restore from last nights backup of production and specify a new database name and filenames, paths, etc during the restore and bippidy-boppidy-bo we’re done like dinner.

This is where my journey of pain begins LOL (this is a long journey so feel free to skip to the end for my final solution or laugh at me along the way for your cruel fun and enjoyment hahaha)

I applied the logic I would use in SQL Server and thought about doing a “Database Recovery” using the Oracle Enterprise Manager 10G.  Hmmmm in order to use Enterprise Manager you need to be logged into a database instance though… I can’t log into an instance because I’m trying to restore one… I can’t restore one cause I can’t log into an instance… I can’t log into an instance because I’m trying to restore one… I can’t restore one cause I can’t log into an instance… *sigh*

Next stop… Database Configuration Assistant.  I thought I might find something useful there…. and I kind of did with “Create a Database”.  So I created a general purpose database cause I thought it’ll just be a place holder for my restore anyways so next, next, next, next, finish.  BOOYEAH! New database created.  For the sake of this post we’ll call this MYDBDEV2.

OK back to Enterprise Manager… and I start down the road of recovery

(Guilty Pleasure = Eminem)

So I go to perform a Whole Database Recovery and Enterprise Manager gives me this…

“The database will be shut down and brought to the NOMOUNT (STARTED) state to restore the control file first. Are you sure you want to shut down the database now?”

Sure… that sounds good.

OK so back to “Perform a Whole Database Recovery”… Can I just take a moment to complain about the “save as preferred” checkbox that NEVER saves… I digress lol

OK so I go to restore “Directly from a specified backup” and enter in the path to my backup file and my next stop is: “The operation for restoring the controlfile may take some time to complete. Are you sure you want to execute it now?”

Sure… that sounds good.  (All the Oracle folks reading this at this point I’m sure are laughing… but that’s fine LOL I can laugh now too about it)

Hmmmm so I viewed the details and it tells me… “ORA-01103: database name ‘MYDBPROD’ in control file is not ‘MYDBDEV2′”

*sigh* well yes I know that… so we’ll fast forward through the rest a bit here and give the quick run down of the rest of my pain before what I finally came up with that worked… so here we go:

• Deleted MYDBDEV2 and created a new database named the same name as the production database MYDBPROD
• That failed because I didn’t have the same file structure
• I used a “database template” of MYDBPROD to create a database called MYDBPROD on the DEV server
• I restored overtop of the MYDBPROD on the DEV server with a backup but that wouldn’t start cause my REDOLOGs were wrong
• Deleted the REDOLOGs and it started up
• Then the TEMP01.DBF file was giving me problems
• Added a new TEMP.DBF file, set it to default, dropped the old TEMP01.DBF file
• Went through a bunch of pain with NID command to rename the database
• I mean a BUNCH of pain
• MEGA, MEGA PAIN
• Eventually got it to work

WOW…. ouch.

I then started playing around with the “Clone Database” tool in Enterprise Manager and here is what my final solution/steps look like: (This is where I want Oracle DBAs to comment on an easier/better solution LOL)

MY FINAL SOLUTION (for now LOL)

• Create a new database (from a template of PROD) on the DEV server named the same as the database on the PROD server
• Perform a recovery and restore the PROD backup over top of the DEV databases (that’s named the same as the PROD database)
• Clone the DEV database that’s named the same as the PROD database and give it the name you want MYDBDEV2
• Delete the DEV database that’s named the same as the PROD database

 This CAN’T be the best way to do this… I just don’t believe it.  So all you Oracle DBAs out there… you’ve had a good laugh at my expense LOL drop me some comments and help me help you (well I’m not actually helping you so that doesn’t really apply…but your help would be greatly appreciated :) )

In all honesty this was a really fun exercise for me.  It’s nice to go into something totally blind and plug your way through it, get to a solution, find a better one, and keep on refining the process.  I learned a tonne of stuff and am wanting to do and learn more and more!   Oracle is like how PowerShell is/was for me… it’s fun to learn stuff that you don’t have a background in and after 13 years working with SQL Server I still learn new things but it’s a total different feeling with something so foreign to me.

Enjoy!!

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/686883487

Please be sure to not only click the “Add to my calendar” but also the “Register” button so that we can plan accordingly for food and drinks. 

Date:  July 7th 2010
Time: 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Location: Stanley A. Milner library
Map: 7 Sir Winston Churchill Square
Meeting Room: Centennial Room – Basement
Speaker: Brent Ozar
Topic: Virtualization and Magicians: Dealing with Virtual SQL Server

Session Abstract:

Virtualization and Magicians: Dealing with Virtual SQL Server

• How to configure CPU, memory and storage for virtual environments
• How to benchmark your servers and make sure they’ll handle your loads
• Common pitfalls like antivirus definition downloads that can cripple your servers
• What to watch for after V-day

Presenter Information:  Brent Ozar

Brent is a SQL Server Domain Expert with Quest Software. Brent has a decade of broad IT experience, performing systems administration and project management before moving into database administration. In his current role, Brent specializes in performance tuning, disaster recovery and automating SQL Server management. Previously, Brent spent 2 years at Southern Wine & Spirits, a Miami-based wine & spirits distributor.

Brent has experience conducting training sessions, has written several technical articles, and blogs prolifically at http://www.BrentOzar.com. He’s currently writing SQL Server Internals and Troubleshooting for Wiley/Wrox along with Christian Bolton, and Justin Langford.  He’s Editor-in-Chief at SQLServerPedia.com, where he also records video podcasts.

Agenda:
5:00 pm – Pizza and Socializing
5:30 pm – Sponsor Presentation
5:45 pm – Feature Presentation
7:00 pm – Wrap Up and Draws

If you haven’t signed up already at EDMPASS.com please do so now to receive meeting notifications, news, and updates from EDMPASS.

Hope to see you there.

Enjoy!!

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/623637316

Date: May 26th 2010
Time: 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Location: Stanley A. Milner library
Map: 7 Sir Winston Churchill Square
Meeting Room: Centennial Room – BASEMENT
Speaker: Colin Stasiuk
Topic: Policy Based Management… not JUST for SQL Server 2008

Session Abstract:

Policy Based Management… not JUST for SQL Server 2008

Colin Stasiuk is an MCP, MCTS SQL 2005/2008, MCITP DBDEV, and MCITP DBA. Currently, he is an independent consultant contracted to Vantix Systems and working for the Government of Alberta.

Colin is an accomplished Microsoft SQL Server DBA who has been working with SQL Server since 1996. He is the founder of Benchmark IT Consulting and is always willing to lend a hand with questions in many SQL Server community forums and via Twitter (http://twitter.com/BenchmarkIT) . His specialties include SQL Server Administration, Performance Tuning, Security, Monitoring, Best Practice / Standards, Upgrades, and Consolidation.

Colin is a proud PASS member, President of EDMPASS, and has recently co-authored a book on SQL Server 2008 Policy Based Management.

Agenda:
5:00 pm – Pizza and Socializing
5:30 pm – Sponsor Presentation
5:45 pm – Feature Presentation
7:00 pm – Wrap Up and Draws

If you haven’t signed up already at EDMPASS.com please do so now to receive meeting notifications, news, and updates from EDMPASS.

Hope to see you there.

Enjoy!!

Msg 4922, Level 16, State 9, Line 1

ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN ColumnName failed because one or more objects access this column.

So what is a nice quick and easy way to list all the statistics that are dependant on that column?

My googling skills are obviously subpar this morning cause I couldn’t find anything to help me and it seems to me that this would be something that lots of people have run into. This is what I came up with:

DECLARE @SearchColumnName	nvarchar(100)
SELECT	@SearchColumnName = 'SearchColumn'
 
SELECT	OBJECT_NAME(A.object_id) as 'TableName',
		C.stats_column_id AS 'StatisticID',
		B.name as 'StatisticName',
		COL_NAME(C.object_id, C.column_id) AS [Name]
FROM	sys.tables AS A	INNER JOIN
		sys.stats B ON B.object_id = A.object_id INNER JOIN
		sys.stats_columns C ON C.stats_id = B.stats_id AND C.object_id = B.object_id
WHERE	COL_NAME(C.object_id, C.column_id) = @SearchColumnName

I dunno… seems like there should be a sp_ListAllStatisticsForAColumn system stored proc or something LOL.

If you have something easier/better please post it in a comment!!

Enjoy!!

My lovely wife Heather gave me a call and said… “Guess what I have in my hands?”  I had heard that Ken and Jorge received their author copies this week so I was very quick to guess it right

Can’t wait to get home today and check it out… I have all the pdf page proofs for all the chapters but it just isn’t the same LOL

By request I’ll be doing a blog in the next day or so about the whole book writing experience as it was probably one of the most challenging yet rewarding experiences in my career.

(Big thanks to wifey for taking a pic!!)

Enjoy!!