2. Agenda
• Introductions
• Top SQL 2008 new features
• How we can help
• Questions
• Wrap-up
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
3. Much More Than Just Great DBAs
• Focusing on world-class remote database support
for all major database products
• Over 60 customers and thousands of database
servers under our control
• Oracle Ace, Microsoft Certified DBA’s on staff
• Almost 70 years combined SQL DBA experience.
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
4. Top SQL 2008 New Features
• Management Studio Improvements
• Compression
• Resource Governor
• New Data Types
• Performance Data Collector
• Transparent Data Encryption
• SQL Server Audit
• Extended Events
• Change Data Capture
• Power Shell
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
5. Management Studio Improvements
• Activity Monitor
• Object Explorer Details
• Object Search
• Multi Server Queries
• Intellisense
• T-SQL Debugger
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
6. Activity Monitor
At a glance performance information
Automatically run a trace
• Graphs
• Processes
• Data File I/O
• Recent Expensive Queries
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
7. Activity Monitor - Graphs
• Percent Processor Time
• Waiting Tasks
• Database I/O
• Batch Requests per Second
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
8. Activity Monitor - Processes
• Provides metrics for key resources
• Identifies potential trouble spots
• Measures the time a worker thread has to wait gain
access to server resources
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
9. Activity Monitor – Resource Waits
• Provides metrics for key resources
• Identifies potential trouble spots
• Measures the time a worker thread has to wait gain
access to server resources
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
10. Activity Monitor – Data File I/O
• Quickly determine databases that have high disk
usage.
• Columns can be sorted and filtered
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
11. Activity Monitor – Recent Expensive Queries
• Displays the queries in cache that have consumed
the most resources.
• Right click to display execution plan
• Right click to display the entire query
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
12. Activity Monitor – Object Explorer Detail
• 36 possible columns of information about a database
• Views are automatically remembered
• CTRL-C copies the information to the clipboard in a
tab delimited format, past into Excel to create reports
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
13. Activity Monitor – Object Search
• Searches for all objects within the selected scope:
server, database, tables.
• Wild card characters can be used.
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
14. Activity Monitor – Multi-Server Queries
• Queries all registered servers within the server group.
• Returns results for each server.
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
15. Activity Monitor – Intellisense
• Highlights syntax errors.
– Keywords
– Object names
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
16. Activity Monitor – Intellisense
• Completes variables, commands, or object names
• Incremental as you type
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
17. Activity Monitor – Intellisense
• Displays parameters for procedures and functions.
• Can display a list of available objects for selection.
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
19. Activity Monitor – T-SQL Debugger
• Steps into and over T-SQL code.
• Developers will be more comfortable with features
that they have become accustomed to in .Net
• Displays the values of local variables and the call
stack.
• Start by hitting the F11 key.
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
20. Compression
• Data Compression
– This includes row and page level
compression and occurs within the .mdf
files.
• Backup Compression
– Occurs only when data is backed up
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
21. Data Compression
• Row Level = simplest method of
compression.
– Reduces the amount of metadata used to
store a row.
– Uses less CPU cycles to implement.
• Page Level = higher level of
compression
– Higher level of CPU usage
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
22. Data Compression - Implementation
• Implemented through SSMS
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
23. Data Compression - Implementation
• Wizard interface, estimates savings.
• Caution should be used when implementing in production
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
24. Resource Governor
• Implementation is
straightforward.
• Specific security account
(DAC) needs to be created.
• Implemented with T-SQL
• Improper configuration can
cause severe performance
issues.
• Takes effect when a
“Resource Contention”
occurs
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
25. New Data Types – Date and Time
• DATE - Stores date only in YYYY-MM-DD format.
• TIME -Stores time in hh:mm:ss.nnnnnnn format.
• DATETIME2 - More precision than existing DATETIME type.
• Format is YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss:nnnnnnnm
• DATETIMEOFFSET - Similar to DATETIME2, stores Time Zone
Information
New Data Types – FILESTREAM
• Stored in NTFS file system
• T-SQL Insert, Update, Deletes operations can be used on
datatypes.
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
26. New Data Types – Spatial
• Implemented as .Net CLR data type
• Conforms to Open Geospatial Consortium standards
• Indexes are spatial, stored as a grid based hierarchy
• GEOGRAPHY – Stores ellipsoidal data (Longitude and Latitude)
• GEOMETRY – Stores planar data (X, Y Coordinates)
New Data Types – HIERARCHYID
• Implemented as .Net CLR data type
• Represents node position in a hierarchical structure
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
27. Performance Data Collector
• Management Data Warehouse • Server Activities
acts as central repository • Performance Reports
• Data Collection Sets • Easy Wizard Configuration
• Disk Usage • Scheduled jobs run on regular
• Query Statistics basis
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
28. Performance Data Collector
• Different configurations
for each Data Collection
Set
• Built in reports for each
Data Collection Set
• Can be customized
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
29. Transparent Data Encryption
• Encrypted in both Memory and on Disk
• Key based, allowing for a finer level of
security
• Encrypts entire database
• Easy to administer
• Resource requirements are minimal
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
30. SQL Server Audit
• Granular, captures SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE,
REFERENCES and EXECUTE
• Uses Extended Events engine, increased speed
• Capture and view audit results
• Audits at the instance or database level
• Audits multiple activity types.
• Stores audit events to file
• Easy to implement using SSMS
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
31. SQL Server Audit
• Create a new audit with SSMS
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
32. SQL Server Audit
• Name the audit
• Choose items to be audited.
• Each audit appears in SSMS
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
33. Extended Events
• Generic event handling system
• Captures, stores and acts on troubleshooting SQL
Server, Windows, and applications.
• 254 events can be captured from SQL Server
• Correlates SQL, Windows, and Application events
• Supports SQL Auditing.
• Implemented with T-SQL
• Handled by the Event Engine
• Common format con be combined with different tools
• Less overhead than other tools
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
34. Change Data Capture
• Captures and records Insert,
Update, and Delete activity.
• Data is stored in a format that can
easily be consumed by an
application.
• Data can then be used to
synchronize an OLAP server.
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
35. PowerShell
• Part of Windows, SQL 2008 ships
with PowerShell snap-in
• Built on .Net framework 2.0
• Powerful scripting that replaces
Kix, Perl, VBScript
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
36. Questions?
For copies of the this presentation please email
Michael John mjohn@remotedbaexperts.com
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
37. References
• Brad McGehee ISBN: 978-1-906434-06-9
• Microsoft MSDN
• SQL Server Central
• http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/default.aspx
Much More than Just Great DBA’s
