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Cloud Computing

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Cloud Computing

Richie Rump

Lessons Learned From Working in the Clouds

Last Updated October 29, 2016

Architecture, Cloud Computing, PasteThePlan.com

Recently, we released PasteThePlan.com, which runs on top of Amazon Web Services. PasteThePlan.com allows you to share SQL Server query plans with others. Behind the scenes, we’re using DynamoDB (a NoSQL database) for record data and S3 (a file storage service) to store text data. Since we’re a bunch of data freaks, we wanted to make sure…

SQL Server Timeouts During Backups and CHECKDB

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Backup and Recovery, CHECKDB and Corruption, Cloud Computing

So you’re hosting your SQL Server in the cloud – say Amazon EC2, Azure VM, or Google Compute Engine – and you’ve noticed that when you’re running a backup or a DBCC CHECKDB, you suffer from extreme performance problems. Queries run slow, and even worse, applications report timeout errors even just trying to connect to…

Are You Load Testing for Best Case Scenario, or Worst Case?

Last Updated February 14, 2017

Cloud Computing, Load Testing, SQL Server

In preparation for a recent load testing engagement, we started talking about the company’s goals. The DBA said something really insightful: “We want to get to 1,000 page requests per second, which is around 5,000 batch requests per second. We’re testing with all of our caching turned off, because we want to simulate what might…

HOLY COW. Amazon RDS SQL Server Just Changed Everything.

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, SQL Server

Platform-as-a-Service users (Azure SQL DB, Amazon RDS) often ask me: OMG How can I move my data into the cloud? Can I just take a backup on-premises, and restore up in the cloud? How can I use the cloud as inexpensive disaster recovery? Once I go to PaaS, why can’t I just get a backup file…

When Should You Hire a Consultant for Amazon RDS?

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Amazon Web Services (AWS), SQL Server

Powered By Somebody Else’s Database on Somebody Else’s Computer You’re hosting your SQL Server databases in Amazon RDS, and performance has been getting slower over time. You’re not sure if it’s storage IOPs, instance size, SQL Server configuration, queries, or indexes. What’s the easiest way to find out? Ask a few questions: Are you using…

Breaking News, Literally: SQL CLR Support Removed from Azure SQL DB

Last Updated September 21, 2017

Breaking News, Microsoft Azure

In the on-premises, boxed-product version of SQL Server, you can build your own CLR assemblies and call them from your T-SQL code. For years, this feature was missing from Azure SQL DB – Microsoft’s platform-as-a-service database offering – and users voted that they wanted it. In December 2014, Microsoft brought SQL CLR code to Azure SQL…

Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts: Much Cheaper SQL Server Licensing

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Licensing, SQL Server

When you build SQL Servers in your data center, and you license the host with Enterprise Edition, you get the ability to run as many virtual SQL Servers as you want on that hardware. In the cloud, though, you haven’t had that luxury. In the past, with Azure VMs and Amazon Web Services’ EC2 VMs,…

Enabling Query Store in Azure SQL Database

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Jeremiah Peschka

Execution Plans, Microsoft Azure, Query Store (QDS)

Enter Query Store Query Store, in short, is a way to track query performance over time. In Microsoft’s words, “The feature automatically captures a history of queries, plans, and runtime statistics, and retains these for your review”. It’s like sys.dm_exec_query_stats but it persists across reboots! And it has execution plans! The Query Store is a…

When Did My Azure SQL Database Server Restart?

Last Updated April 8, 2020

Microsoft Azure, SQL Server, Wait Stats

In Azure SQL Database, no one can hear you scream query common system objects that tell you when a restart happened. You don’t get the access you need to sys.dm_os_sys_info, sys.dm_exec_sessions, sys.traces, or sys.databases. The closest I’ve been able to get is to query sys.dm_os_wait_stats for several common wait types that seem to correspond with…

Amazon RDS Instance Backup Settings

The Easiest Way to Restore Transaction Logs to A Point In Time (Spoiler: Use AmazonRDS)

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Amazon Web Services (AWS), SQL Server

… is to use a SQL Server where a robot does it for you! Let’s take a look at how you can do this in AmazonRDS’s hosted SQL Server these days. Normally, restoring transaction logs is super tedious. You’ve got to restore all the files in the right order, for every single database. Even if…

The Fastest Way to Reconfigure a Bunch of Servers

Last Updated June 20, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

Cloud Computing, SQL Server

… is to use a SQL Server where a robot does it for you! I stole that from Kendra – someone else already wrote the sentence for me and why not keep re-using things, right? Configuring SQL Servers the Usual Way What’s the usual way to do this? There are a few commercial tools on…

Announcing Row-Level Security in Azure SQL Database

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Microsoft Azure, SQL Server

Your users probably shouldn’t be able to view all of the data. You might have regional sales managers who should only see sales for their region, or human resource staff who should be able to see employee details but not salaries. This is usually challenging with databases. How We’ve Historically Built Row-Level Security in SQL Server…

Is Azure Really 60% Faster?

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Jeremiah Peschka

Microsoft Azure, SQL Server

Microsoft just announced a new round of D-grade VMs that have 60% faster CPU and local SSD than can go up to 7,000 IOPS in a canned IOmeter test. Before jumping to conclusions or, even worse, picking a cloud provider, it’s best to look at these numbers critically. CPU Speeds The new CPU is being…

Sizing SQL Server for AWS

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Jeremiah Peschka

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Let’s skip the shenanigans and get right down to it – you’re responsible for SQL Server and someone in your company wants to move things into Amazon Web Services (AWS). You’ve got SQL Server setup covered thanks to our helpful SQL Server setup checklist and you’re confident you’ve got hardware under control, but things are…

What Amazon RDS for SQL Server Users Need to Know about Multi-AZ Mirroring

Last Updated February 10, 2017

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Database Mirroring

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) now supports multi-availability-zone SQL Servers. This means you can have a primary database in one data center, and a secondary replica in another data center. Those Portland folks were always a little bit backwards anyway. When your primary server goes down, OR when the entire AZ goes down, you can fail…

How Would You Change Windows Azure SQL Database?

Last Updated December 12, 2013

Cloud Computing, SQL Server

This artist formerly known as SQL Azure is a cloud service something akin to Microsoft SQL Server. SQL Azure is still under legal drinking age. When it first came out, it had a lot of challenges – a small subset of T-SQL commands and datatypes, inability to take backups, and absurdly small database sizes. But much…

Auto-Scaling SQL Server Always On Availability Groups with Virtualization

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Always On Availability Groups, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Virtualization

Time for a thought exercise. Thought exercises are hard. You’ve got a database application that has bursty and unpredictable loads. Out of nowhere, you’ll suddenly get socked with a large amount of SELECT queries. Due to the way the app is written, you can’t cache the query results – the queries keep changing, and the business…

Who Needs an Operating System?

Last Updated October 25, 2013

Jeremiah Peschka

Cloud Computing

In the 1950s, the global economy saw a tremendous change – container ships revolutionized global commerce. Shipping costs got 36 times cheaper with the introduction of containerization. What if you could reduce operational costs and revolutionize application and database deployment in the same way? Containers to the Future In the last few months, the developer world…

CorrugatedIron 1.4

Last Updated July 19, 2013

Jeremiah Peschka

Cloud Computing

We’re happy to announce that we’ve released CorrugatedIron 1.4.0. This release contains a large number of bug fixes, new features, and enhancements. That’s right, brand new Riak and .NET straight to you! Get it while it’s hot or keep reading for more details. Riak 1.4 Support CorrugatedIron 1.4.0 brings Riak 1.4.0 feature support including: Index…