SSMS Tab Defaults

That’s nearly useless.  The tabs are wide, but they still don’t show useful information.  Even worse, I’ve got more tabs than I can fit in the window, so the rest hang out in a meaningless dropdown.

To fix it, click Tools, Options,and go into Text Editor, Editor Tab and Status Bar.  Check out the Tab Text options:

Tools, Options

You can uncheck the database name, login name, and server name because those are shown in the status bar anyway.  Then, if you wanna get fancy, change the status bar location to Top – it’s right above the Tab Text options.  Voila:

SSMS Tabs Fixed

When I’m working, I save my queries in c:\temp with a short descriptive name.  If I’m performance tuning, I’ll save them as Before.sql and After.sql, or maybe Index1.sql and Index2.sql.  Presto, I can easily switch tabs without playing the guessing game.

...
Upcoming free webcasts: SQL and SSDs: A Valentine's Day Love Story and Anatomy of the SQL Server Log File.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

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To use this, you’ll need a SQL Azure account.  You can register for an invitation code, and while you’re waiting, check out the SQL Azure Team Blog and the Microsoft SQL Azure site.

Create an Azure database and get the connection string.

Go to sql.azure.com and sign in with your Live account.  By default, your database list will just show master:

Azure Database List

Click the Create Database button at the bottom and enter a new database name.  You can either pick 1GB max size or 10GB, and when Azure goes live, you’ll either be billed $10 per month or $100 per month.  Your database list will refresh.  Click on the new database name, and click the Connection String button to get the full string.  All you really need is the server name.

Azure Connection Strings

Open the SQL Azure Firewall

Just like SQL Server 2008 ships with remote connections disabled, so does Azure.  To open ‘er up, click the Firewall Settings tab in the SQL Azure web control panel and click Add Rule.

Adding a SQL Azure Firewall Rule

Enter a name and an IP address range and submit.  SUBMIT, I TELL YOU!  (Guys, seriously, it’s 2009.  Stop using S&M verbiage on your web forms.)

Open SQL Server Management Studio and Connect to SQL Azure

Open SSMS and start a new Database Engine connection.  Copy/paste the server name from the connection string you generated earlier.  Use SQL Authentication (not Windows trusted authentication) and enter the username and password you set up for SQL Azure.  (This is not your Microsoft Live account.)  Click Connect, and you get a normal Object Explorer browser:

SQL Azure in SSMS

Click View, Object Explorer Details, and you can see the compatibility level, recovery model, and collations – in my case, 100, full, and case-insensitive:

Object Explorer Details

If your firewall settings haven’t taken effect yet, or if you didn’t set up a rule for your current IP address, you’ll get an error like, “Cannot connect to gr8clozgxt.database.windows.net.  Cannot open server ‘gr8clozgxt’ requested by the login. Client with IP address ’85.18.245.70′ is not allowed to access the server. Log in failed for user ‘brento’. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 40615).”

Azure Connection Fail

Go back into the SQL Azure control panel and double-check your firewall rules.

Poking Around in SQL Azure

Now the fun starts.  First off, you can’t right-click on the server itself.  You can right-click on a user database, but there’s no Properties or Tasks.  If you right-click in the Tables list and click New Table, you don’t get a GUI – you get a table creation script.  Put the mouse away, speedy, because you’ve got some scripting to do.  Speaking of scripting, there’s a new option in SSMS for the type of database engine you’d like to script for, either “Standalone SQL Server” or “SQL Azure Database.”

Scripting Options

You’ll find the master database in the System Databases tree, but no model or tempdb database.  There are no system tables visible in either your master database or your user databases, but there ARE system views like INFORMATION_SCHEMA.

Cross-database querying is a little odd.  In Object Explorer, click on the master database and click New Query.  The database dropdown is simply grayed out, and you can’t change databases once a connection has started.  Try to change it with a USE statement, and you get the following error:

Msg 40508, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
USE statement is not supported to switch between databases. Use a new connection to connect to a different Database.

You can’t specify the master database name, either.  You can query master system views like sys.bandwidth_usage, sys.database_usage, sys.firewall_rules, and sys.sql_logins only from the master database.

Querying sys.firewall_rules

If you try fully qualifying their names like this:

SELECT * FROM master.sys.firewall_rules

You get an error:

Msg 40515, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Reference to database and/or server name in 'master.sys.firewall_rules' is not supported in this version of SQL Server.

Or this one:

Msg 10054, Level 20, State 0, Line 0
A transport-level error has occurred when sending the request to the server. (provider: TCP Provider, error: 0 - An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.)

Innnteresting.  Not everything’s quite hooked up in the Object Explorer either – try drilling into the Replication Options, and you’re told that “Operation not supported on version 10.25. (Microsoft.SqlServer.SqlEnum)”.

Not So Fast

All in all, it’s an exciting step.  So let’s poke around the way a production DBA would:

Things That Don’t Work in Azure

Try this:

EXEC dbo.sp_who

And you get this:

Msg 2812, Level 16, State 62, Line 1
Could not find stored procedure 'dbo.sp_who'.

And same with our old buddy sp_configure – he’s not found either.

Try this (I picked spid 157 because that was my current logged-on one, and I found that high number rather interesting, but that’s a story for another post):

DBCC INPUTBUFFER(157)

And you get this:

Msg 40518, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
DBCC command 'INPUTBUFFER' is not supported in this version of SQL Server.

Same thing with CHECKDB.  All my good friends in the DMVs are MIA, too.

Which brings me to the final thing that doesn’t work in Azure – the production DBA.  In short, anything a production DBA would rely on isn’t there – and that’s because in theory, at least, Azure doesn’t need production DBAs.  Azure’s $100/mo 10GB pricing only seems expensive until you compare it to the cost of a full-time DBA for a small business.  I, for one, welcome our new Azure overlords, but only if they knock performance, availability, and scalability out of the park.

Is there anything you would like to see tested and documented about SQL Azure?  Let me know and I’ll take my best shot.  I plan on running some ballpark performance numbers over the coming weeks for starters.

...
Upcoming free webcasts: SQL and SSDs: A Valentine's Day Love Story and Anatomy of the SQL Server Log File.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

SQL Server Links

• Windows Azure Platform Launch Update – The blog notes that “a number of new features in Windows Azure will be made available for the first time” – but it’s at PDC, not the Professional Association for SQL Server Summit. This should be your clue that cloud-based SQL Server isn’t targeted at DBAs, folks – it’s targeted at developers.
• Don’t be a DBA – Be a Data Professional – Buck Woody explains that your real job isn’t tied to the exact version/edition/brand you’re using – it’s tied to the value you provide.
• SQL University: Diving into Authorization – Do you understand the differences between GRANT, REVOKE and DENY? K. Brian Kelley dives in for SQL University.
• SQL Server with NetApp SAN – Collection of best practices documents from NetApp.
• Checklist for installing SQL Server 2005 as a clustered instance – Your first cluster is painful – get help from Cindy Gross’s simplified checklist.
• How People Abuse Their SQL Server Transaction Log – Things NOT to Do – A laundry list of SQL Server abuses.
• Merrill Aldrich : Using Historical Perf Counter Data For Storage Planning – Dives into some of the cool metrics you can get from the Quest Spotlight repositories.
• Suggested Max Memory Settings for SQL Server 2005/2008 – I like hard-coding the maximum memory size for SQL Server whenever it’s not being shared with multiple applications. Glenn shows you some guidelines for the right numbers.
• SQL University: Authentication and Authorization – K. Brian Kelly talks about his specialty – making sure your data stays yours.
• Amazon EC2 – Now an Even Better Value – Amazon’s prices are lower now for SQL Server in the cloud.
• SSMS Tools Pack 1.7 is out! New feature: SQL Snippets – Great free tool.
• Deterministic Functions – Steve Jones talks about how to determine whether something’s deterministic – it affects caching of execution plans, too.
• Developing Data-tier Applications Using Visual Studio 2010 – Video showing off what’s coming for DBAs long term.
• Templates for New Query Window – Buck Woody shows how to force yourself into commenting your code better.
• High Availability Improvements in SharePoint 2010 – Woohoo! It’ll support SQL Server database mirroring out of the box.
• Introducing Amazon RDS – The Amazon Relational Database Service – MySQL in the cloud, cheap.

#SQLPASS Links

• Starting the Travel Tips Meme – Great tips from Kevin Kline for the upcoming PASS summit.
• What Should PASS Strive To Be? – Jack Corbett’s thoughts on #SQLPASS’s directions.
• A Rendezvous With Destiny: PASS 2009 (#sqlpass) – If you’re going to the PASS Summit, you need to watch Jimmy May speak.

Tech Links

• Losing Net Neutrality: The Worst Case Scenario [Net Neutrality] – If you don’t understand the talk around “net neutrality”, this post will illustrate how the net will look like if we don’t have net neutrality.
• VCE-101 Thin Provisioning Part 1 – The Basics – Thin provisioning involves creating storage arrays without actually having as much storage as you think. Doing it right requires some awareness at the OS level.
• ScreenFlow 2.0: top Mac screen recording app gets even better – This is the tool I use for my podcasts and screencasts.
• Motorola DROID review – Engadget’s review of the highly awaited Android headset. Comes out with more cons than I’d have expected.
• Free Public Careers CVs – This is going to change the way geeks get hired.
• Announcing Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0 – Free turn-by-turn navigation for Android phones. Interesting because Google is basically competing against the iPhone on price now – rather than paying for turn-by-turn nav, you can get an Android phone and get that for free.
• Dunbar’s Number isn’t just a number, it’s the law – Humans can’t handle having more than 150 friends.
• Now Available: The Virtual Storage Console vSphere Plug-in – If you manage VMware and you have a NetApp SAN, this lets you get better insight into your virtual server storage from inside VMware tools.

The Junk Drawer

• Newspaper circulation chart over the last 20 years – What a cliff. Scroll down.
• I Got Nowhere To Go – Tom LaRock questions why people are starting up all kinds of new sites that do the same thing as ones that are already popular & successful.
• Best Buy drops the price on the Netflix-streaming, Blu-ray playing Insignia Blu-ray player – $100 for a Blu-ray player is one heck of a breakthrough price.
• Book Review: Twitter Wit – Tom LaRock reviews a book with tweets.
• The Power of Being Personal on Your Blog – Wanna know why you should be personal? Ask a blogger who’s already been wildly successful.
• Which Religion Should I Follow? – Flowchart to pick your Jeebus.
• Caffeine & Edibles : Baconnaise – Man, if only there was some way I could get both bacon and mayo on my sandwich faster….ah-ha!

These bookmarks are automatically imported from my bookmarks at Delicious.com. If you’d like to get up-to-the-minute updates on what I’m bookmarking, you can subscribe to my bookmark RSS feed.

...
Upcoming free webcasts: SQL and SSDs: A Valentine's Day Love Story and Anatomy of the SQL Server Log File.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

SQL Server, Cloud, and Tech Links

• Viva la Famiglia! – Brad Schulz shows how to use T-SQL to determine family relations. This is freakin’ awesome.
• PASS Board 2009 Slate of Candidates – Candidates are Brian Moran, Jeremiah Peschka, Matt Morollo and Thomas LaRock.
• PASS Elections and UStream | SQLRockstar – Tom LaRock is on the ballot again this year for the PASS Board of Directors, and you can ask him questions live in a video chat.
• Vote for Mr. LaRock – Grant Fritchey, author of SQL Server 2008 Query Performance Distilled, endorses Tom LaRock for PASS Board.
• Off-Hours Work: A Guide For Managers – If you have to rally the troops to work after hours, here’s how to do it with minimal morale loss.
• Interview with Kevin Kline – Tom LaRock interviews the former president of PASS.
• One Million Pageviews – StackOverflow hits the one-million-pageviews-per-day milestone. And yes, the back end is just one single SQL Server on relatively cheap commodity hardware with local disks, not SAN.
• HOW TO: Get Started with Google Wave – I think I’m the only guy who’s not jumping up and down clapping about Wave. I think it’s technically awesome, but it doesn’t solve challenges that I can’t solve right now with other methods. I’m going to ride this one out (get it – ride – wave – okay, maybe not) and wait a couple of months to see if it has staying power. (This from a guy who signed up for Twitter the instant he saw it years ago.)
• ROI from MCM: A look back 6 months later. – A Microsoft Certified Master talks about the changes it’s had on his billing rates and negotiations.
• YES WE CAN!!! – Jen McCown’s announcement about winning the SQLServerPedia Dream Trip contest. Very cool.
• DPM 2010 Beta is available now – Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager is a very different way of backing up your databases (among many other things) and I’m interested to see what they brought in this new release. Says “can backup SQL servers with ~700-800 DBs” – makes me wonder what that bottleneck is.
• The ABCs of Management Studio Shortcuts – List of keyboard shortcuts for SSMS. Control+I is a neat trick.
• The old INNER JOIN syntax vs. the new INNER JOIN syntax – I got lucky – I started with the “new” syntax years ago and never looked back. It’s way better.
• Sessions for new DBAs at PASS – Bill Graziano suggests which sessions make sense for first-time attendees and new DBAs.
• Free Training in October at the Quest Connect vConference – Kevin Kline and I will be doing presentations and taking questions in our booth.
• Pre-Compiled Stored Procedures: Fact or Myth – Grant Fritchey plays Mythbuster.
• Inside Amazon’s Cloud: Just How Many Customer Projects? – An analyst estimated customers are launching 50,000 virtual servers a day on Amazon EC2.
• SQL Management Pack Survey – Live on Connect – Use Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (the artist formerly known as MOM)? Now’s your chance to influence development of the SQL Server management pack.
• Google Docs OCR – Another example of how cloud computing changes everything. The more we move services like this into the cloud, the more we can find creative uses for the data.
• Strong Password Generator – Uses T-SQL code to generate strong passwords. Interesting example.
• Consolidation Planning – Mike Hillwig is looking for feedback on his server setups.
• 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines – Lots of “ah-ha” moments about how to make your web site look better and attract more permanent visitors.
• SQL Server Best Practices: Guard the Backup Files – You know the deal: the only reason we do backups is so that we can do restores. Buck Woody talks more about it.
• First Look: Zipcar app for iPhone hits the road – Find nearby Zipcars with your iPhone, then unlock them. I gotta play with this now that I’m in a city with Zipcars.
• Windows 7 coming to netbooks in all its myriad forms – YES! We won’t have to put up with the bullshit 3-app “Starter Edition” on netbooks – you can get ‘em with any version of Windows 7.
• Random Gradient Wallpaper Generator – Does just what it says on the box. Windows only though.
• Run Everything Virtualized and Deduplicated : aka Chuck Anti-FUD – Talk about cutting edge – people are talking about running their virtual servers on SANs that are being deduped. That would reduce the storage footprint required for a lot of Windows machines, for example, that all share a lot of the same binaries.
• How do checkpoints work and what gets logged – By Paul Randal.
• No, I will not do your homework for you – When posting forum & StackOverflow questions, think about phrasing them in a way to make sure nobody thinks you’re posting homework assignments.
• SQLIOSim Parser by Jens Suessmeyer & Yours Truly – SQLIOSim pushes load through your SAN storage and can simulate SQL Server IO patterns. However, like SQLIO, the problem is interpreting the results, which get dumped out to text or XML. Now there’s a utility to make it easier.
• Mississippi leads the way: 3 MCM’s a requirement in State IT RFP – Mississippi is requiring Microsoft Certified Masters if a consulting company wants to compete for a particular project. Wow. Just wow.
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise edition and Virtualisation – When you use Enterprise Edition, you can install 4 OS guests for free. Andrew Fryer explains.
• Heard it from a friend who… heard it from a friend who… – Yet another hilarious blog posting from Colin, aka @BenchmarkIT. This guy’s on a roll. This time, he’s talking about a daisy chain of purity check info.
• Toys and Tools – Mike Hillwig’s favorite SQL Server utilities. (And yes, there’s a lot of Quest stuff in there, and no, I didn’t put him up to that.)

Writing, Blogging and Networking Links

• Books or Blogs: My Perspective – Scott Lowe, a published author, talks about whether or not writing books still make sense. I’d add that books force you to a higher level of technical accuracy due to the number of editors you have to get through.
• Tips for Networking at PASS – Great tips on how to meet fellow database administrators and why it can pay off.
• Shirts for Speakers? – Of everything in my closet, my very favorite shirt is my PASSCamp Germany polo with my name monogrammed on it. You could have knocked me over with a feather when Christoph and Oliver gave that to me. It made a huge impression, and I’m still really proud to wear it.
• 9 Ways to Make Your Writing More Compelling – Does what it says on the label.
• Tweet 2001: A Social Media Odyssey – OCDQ – Obsessive-Compulsive Data Quality – A ton of links about how LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networks can work for data people.

The Junk Drawer

• The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia « Copybot – Good way to blow an hour and learn stuff.
• Nine Workspaces Where Famous Folks Get Stuff Done [Workspaces] – Most of these are publicity shots, but they’re still useful to see how people like Steve Ballmer set up their offices.
• Penny Arcade! – The Distinction – What if football was an RPG? Wait – it is! Final Fantasy Football….
• Tokyo Preview: Honda EV-N concept is retro-adorable, has unicycle storage – Please, please build this car. Let the world have an electric car that has some semblance of personality.
• 9 Secrets of Truly Happy People – You don’t become happy by saying “Yes” to people in an effort to make them happy. You have to pay attention to yourself and your own needs too.
• Me, Darth Vader’s brother, Guy Kawasaki and the hijacker from The Usual Suspects. Just, you know, hanging out. – In which The Bloggess comes up with alternate versions of The Little Engine That Could, like “The little engine that can’t take a hint.”
• Eff You, Penguin – Not safe for work – uses funny animal photos with NSFW captions.
• Penny Arcade! – Love Bombs From On High – Jesus loves me, this I know, because he gave me Gyromancer and…

These bookmarks are automatically imported from my bookmarks at Delicious.com. If you’d like to get up-to-the-minute updates on what I’m bookmarking, you can subscribe to my bookmark RSS feed.

...
Upcoming free webcasts: SQL and SSDs: A Valentine's Day Love Story and Anatomy of the SQL Server Log File.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts