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The Voice of the DBA

Developer Deployment Frustrations

This editorial was originally published on Sept 7, 2012. It is being re-published as Steve is at DevConnections.

Why don't developers like SQL Server? Probably a few reasons, but I'm sure this is one that really frustrates them. I found a Connect Item that was titled:  Why is Deploying SQL Server 2008 R2 sooooo FRUSTRATING?!!  There really is a question there, asking for guidance on  which versions of SQL Server are available and recommended for developers to include in their applications.

When SQL Server MSDE was released, it seemed that Microsoft was looking for it to be included in small applications that might then be upsized to a Standard or Enterprise edition of SQL Server. It seems to me that this is really the market for Express (the evolution of MSDE) and that it ought to be simple for a developer to not only deploy this with their application, but also setup basic maintenance easily.

I sometimes think that the software developers at Microsoft get lost in their own specialty and forget just how frustrating it can be for the rest of us trying to use their product in new ways. They forget that many of us want to deploy simple solutions easily, and not spend a lot of time working out the nuances of software setup.

I'd like to see Express not only have a very simple setup that works across multiple versions of Visual Studio, but also baic maintenance plans built in that allow full and log backups (if needed), along with index rebuilds with a simple switch set as a part of setup. A few registry keys or XML config changes could set paths or frequencies.

Making life simpler for developers is a worthwhile investment for the SQL Server team. It makes them more likely to include it in their applications. If you can add a one-switch replication to sync to a Standard or Enterprise SQL Server, they might think Express is required in every application.

Steve Jones from SQLServerCentral.com

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Error Logging Gone Wild

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Many of have applications that log errors to a table. Ever thought about what happens when an application starts to throw a lot of errors? This article looks at the problem and some of the responses you might consider having ready in case it happens to you! More »


 

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Question of the Day

Today's Question (by Steve Jones):

What happens if you run this code?

 CREATE TABLE MyNewTable ( id INT , firstname VARCHAR(200) , lastname VARCHAR(200) , ) 

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Yesterday's Question of the Day

Yesterday's Question (by GP Van Eron):

You have recently patched one of your SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition instances to SP3 bringng the version to 11.0.6020.0. In SSMS, you execute the following

 SELECT @@VERSION SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('PRODUCTUPDATELEVEL')

What will be the result of the second line? 

Answer: NULL

Explanation:

The correct answer is NULL

Support for the 'PRODUCTLEVEL' SERVERPROPERTY was added to SQL 2012 in SP3 Cummulative (CU) 1. 11.00.6518

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3123299

Support was also included in CU10 for SQL Server 2014 (or CU3 for SP1). PRODUCTUPDATELEVEL is available by default in SQL Server 2016 (but might still return NULL if no CU installed yet)

Additional SERVERPROPERTY information https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174396.aspxhttp://www.sqlservergeeks.com/sql-server-2016-new-serverproperty-properties/


» Discuss this question and answer on the forums

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Shrink Tlog Files

S M from SQLServerCentral.com

DBA many a times need to shrink the log files if that grows very large. Though I am not recommending to do it daily or often but if space is an issue and you want to release space to OS, you may use the script.

Copy the script onto SQL Server Management Studio

Run it.

Copy the string from cmd column and run it. Do not run all the shrink against all databases together. You need to review properly before you run the script as this is just for the purpose of assisting other DBAs. If any performance issue occurs I may not be able to guide.

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