What is Hot, Warm & Cold Data?
We all work with Data everyday, but is everyone required to access every single data on a daily basis? Mostly it is a BIG NO. Because we don’t have to see what happened, 3 years ago but may be used to compare and that too bit rarely.
When your company ask for current week, last week, this month, last month, this quarter is what we talk about latest data and this becomes the hot topics and this is referred to HOT data.
In the below picture, I have given a simple example from Jan to Dec. Let’s say we are in Dec 15 and the data showing up for Oct, Nov, Dec is going to be much more latest data compared to Jan, Feb, Mar. The below picture gives you an ideal scenario on how you can segregate the Hot, Warm & Cold data.
Also HOT data is very heavily accessed but comparing the same with cold data is very less accessed. Also the data in recent months changes quite frequently compared to the very earlier months.
SQL Server Instance Maintenance
What does every single installed SQL Server Instance Maintenance covers? Below slide gives information on Monitoring Disk Space usage, Adding/Removing users, Moving objects for better performance, Reviewing and verifying system / error catalogs, to check database integrity, Server monitoring, adding / removing servers, Apply patches, etc.,
Configurations – Management Studio and sp_configure
Once sp_configure query is executed the following 16 options are displayed with its default values. By changing these values the advanced configurations can be set up here.
I will show the detailed options in my next post for most of them. Till then good luck on your search on my blog.
Create a new job from already existing job
You can create a brand new job by duplicating already existing job within the SQL Server instance. Open SSMS and then go down to SQL Server Agent and expand to see the JOBS and again expand to see all the available Jobs. From the below screen, I have chosen a maintenance plan job and then right click on it to see the available options on it and mouse over “Script Job as” and then further mouse over to “CREATE To” and then choose the relevant options for you. I would suggest to choose “New Query Editor Window” and this gives all the settings that is available for this job. You can choose this and rename wherever required and you can execute the same by creating a new job accordingly.
Automation of taking backup of all databases within single SQL Server instance
Below scripts will enable you to take backup of every single database except Model & TempDB databases, by using cursors on it. Strongle advise not to run this with very large databases or in OLTP environments where the systems are heavily used.
DECLARE @dbName VARCHAR(50)
DECLARE @backupPath VARCHAR(256)
DECLARE @backupFileName VARCHAR(256)
SET @backupPath =
‘F:\’
DECLARE All_Backup_Cursor CURSOR FOR
SELECT Name FROM sys.databases WHERE Name NOT IN (‘Model’,’TempDB’);
OPEN All_Backup_Cursor
FETCH NEXT FROM All_Backup_Cursor INTO @dbname
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
SET @backupFileName = @backupPath + @dbName
BACKUP DATABASE @dbName TO DISK = @backupFileName
FETCH NEXT FROM All_Backup_Cursor INTO @dbname
END
CLOSE All_Backup_Cursor
DEALLOCATE All_Backup_Cursor
Job Activity Monitor
After you have created your new job following this article, you can view all the new created jobs and monitor the health of the jobs like whether it succeeded or failed, how long it took to run, reasons if it has failed, what time it started and what time it completed, when is the next run scheduled, etc.,
Once you have opened your SSMS follow the JOBS section and you can see JOB ACTIVITY MONITOR once you expand it. Double click on this and you can find below screen, which gives overall status.
If you want to take further action on each job you can right click on any of the listed jobs and you will find more options on this like below screen. In this you have options to Start the job from any step level, stop the job, enable/disable the job, refresh to see the current job running status, delete the job, view the whole history of job run and properties to further edit by opening the job itself.
Create new SQL Server Job
Whatever developments you have done, may require a job to get it scheduled to ensure the data is always up to date for your reporting purpose. The schedule to update the job is achieved using SQL SERVER AGENT JOBS. Below is the screenshot that shows how you can create a new job. Open SSMS and connect to your server and navigate down to SQL Server Agent and expand it. Here you will find jobs and right click on it to get a new menu and choose “New Job…”
After this a new pop-up screen appears and you need to key in your new job name. I am using below screenshot from one my colleague’s computer and hence you see a different name on it.
In the same pop-up you have to go step by step tab in the left side. Go to steps and then provide the path to your SSIS package, but in the below example, I am giving an option to run SQL Script. And then go to schedules tab and choose how frequent you want this job to run, like hourly / daily / weekly / monthly / quarterly / yearly.
Explore DMVs
You can explore DMV’s within SQL Server Management Studio. A sample picture is provided below.
Also you can right click on any DMV’s and then select top 1000 rows how you do like every other table in your local databases. Below image provides information on selecting DM_OS_BUFFER_DESCRIPTORS DMV.
