# Wednesday, May 28, 2008

In other words, the system could not find the specified path... that was when I tried restoring through a substituted (subst R: G:\project02\SQLBackup) drive, and for sure R:\MyDB_20080521.bak did exist. Nastier was the fact that G:\project02\SQLBackup\MyDB_20080521.bak restored in an instant, so the problem was likely to be found in the interaction between subst and SQL Server. This was rather disappointing, as it would have been nice to separate the environment for different customers/projects and still be able to use generic scripts targeted at a drive-letter.

So a little quest started to find some solutions, if it's a bug?, should be a feature... I was surprised by the small number of pointers I came across on the Internet and only one useful. After establishing net use R: \\myserver\projdata\project02\SQLBackup suffered the same problem when it came to restoring, I widened the search an came across a post from the beta stage of SQL Server 2005. In there Erland Sommarskog hinted it might have something to do with profile setting, which would apply if the setting in question weren't a system setting. Now that made perfect sense, so let's see how the world looks like through xp_cmdshell.

So on my SQL Server 2005 instance I enabled xp_cmdshell and I substituted a path for a drive letter on Windows. Sure enough, I could see the substituted drive W: as pointing to D:\SQLData, but running EXEC xp_cmdshell 'subst' yielded NULL from the instance running under LocalSystem. Then, after running EXEC xp_cmdshell 'subst W: D:\SQLData' my SQL Server instance running under LocalSystem got the picture too. From SQL Server Management Studio I could "see" drive W: and also restore from and backup to my "W-drive". Safe to say it isn't a bug for SQL Server and if a feature request is to be made, it has to be addressed to the Windows team. Something like; enable system-wide setting of subst and net use commands by administrators through an extra switch (or make it a policy setting default on for administrators only).

In the end it can easily be solved with a little sqlcmd-script like:

:setvar path "G:\project02\SQLBackup"
:setvar drive "R"
EXEC xp_cmdshell 'subst $(drive): /d'
GO
EXEC
xp_cmdshell 'subst $(drive): $(path)'
GO

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 9:55:46 PM (W. Europe Daylight Time, UTC+02:00)
# Thursday, April 17, 2008

From my perspective, a very successful event. Congratulations to the organizing committee and the volunteers supporting them. Also may thanks to the speakers, especially Bob Ward (pre-conference and session), Remus Rusana, James Luetkehoelter, Chuck Hawkins, Klaus Aschenbrenner (GEOGRAPHY data type).

Also look out for James' follow ups on "our" questions, guess the audience was paranoid enough.

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Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:58:33 PM (W. Europe Daylight Time, UTC+02:00)
# Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Finally the results for the 71-646 and 71-647 are being published. I just checked the prometric site after reading Aaron's update on his scores, he passed his, I passed mine. Now all I need to do to haul in the MCITP: Enterprise Administrator is pass either the 70-620 or 70-624... I guess the 70-620 is by far the easier route.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008 10:28:24 PM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)
# Monday, February 11, 2008

Today I sat the 70-445 exam and completed those 53 questions with the minimal required passing score of 700 points. Now how did I get to that meager (but satisfactory) result?

First of all, I didn't allocate enough time for my preparation, so out of the initial things I mentioned, I only completed the MOC courses 2791 to 2794 (on a hindsight, the time spent with 2794 was wasted towards this exam). I also purchased the MS Press Training Kit for the 70-445 exam, but didn't really get to using it. In total, I only read the chapters 9 and 17 and ran through all 209 MeasureUP questions once. The reason for picking only chapters 9 and 17, besides time constraints, is the amount of Data Mining in the exam versus the (lack of) coverage of the subject in the MOC2791. The reason for running through the MeasureUP questions in study-mode was to get some exam-focus on the subjects and cover them all (see if there were things I missed from the MOC's). I should add that many of MeasureUP tests do not resemble the exam, like providing non-existent options or asking for trivial look-up fact... actual Microsoft exams have better quality.

Having that extra bit of exam-focus really helped, the MOC's tend to strongly focus on the development part of SSIS, SSRS and SSAS. The actual exam is more balanced between development and administration. The training kit too, seems to be more geared towards the administration part and definitely has a more task-based (or hands-on) approach than the MOC's. So in total, I think you need both for a proper preparation (or be able to compensate development or administration with in-depth practical skills).

Luckily the score report includes those scoring bars that indicate a little on your relative score. What is my experience based on the 7 topics tested;

  • Managing SSAS
    • My relative score; 5th
    • Impression, 2791 definitely is shallow on this subject. And since I don't have to much real-world experience managing Analysis Services...
  • Developing SSAS Solutions by Using BIDS
    • My relative score; 3rd
    • Impression, 2791 gives you all the handles you need, for the hands-on I can recommend taking a look at the tutorials in SQL Server Books On-Line. Again, no real-world experience on for me here either. Some applied MDX, nothing shocking.
  • Implementing Data Mining by Using BIDS
    • My relative score; 6th
    • Impression, next to no coverage in 2791, you really need the 70-445 training kit here (mind, I just read it, didn't do the exercises). Very little basic DMX.
  • Managing SSRS
    • My relative score; 2nd
    • Impression, some help from real-world experience, though I wasn't prepared for dealing with farms. Also, be prepared to modify the RSReportServer.config.
  • Developing Reporting Solutions by Using SSRS
    • My relative score; 7th
    • Impression, 2793 gives you all the handles you need, but you should also to develop reports and care about how they look (questions included some beatifications of reports). Also, take a good look at URLs. If you only have this covered with the training kit, it seems to me (based on a quick glance), it's not going to be enough.
  • Developing Business Intelligence Solutions by Using SSIS
    • My relative score; 4th
    • Impression, pretty well covered from the 2792... which was pretty helpful to me, as I'm used to solving a lot of stuff in the database (using views and stored procedures). Especially focus on transactions, checkpoints and logical combinations between expressions and constraints.
  • Administering SSIS Packages
    • My relative score; 1st.
    • Impression, my real-world experience helped me out here, not the 2792. Focus on things like supplying configurations on run-time, securing parts of packages and the differences between storing in SQL Server vs. on the file system. Also be prepared for some dtutil and dtexec syntax.

As Ronald Kraijesteijn noted on his blog-entry (in Dutch) on the exam, it's pretty tool-oriented (like how you do something, even in which order). I felt this was particularly true on the developing with SSAS and SSRS. A couple of months experience are definitely going to prove advantageous. This was not the case for me, SSAS real-world is non-existent and SSRS already dates back a year. But hey, a 700-point pass still is a pass.

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Monday, February 11, 2008 11:05:42 PM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)
# Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Fresh from the often delayed "SQL Server 2008 and Your Certifications", first session.

MCDBA will retire march 2009, no direct upgrade from MCDBA to a SQL Server 2008 certification.

70-446 will be superseded by 70-448 (~August 2008), 70-431 will be split in an Administration exam 70-432 (~August 2008) and 70-433 (~September 2008) for Development. So be ready for the following titles:

  • 70-432, MCTS: SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance
  • 70-433, MCTS: SQL Server 2008, Database Development
  • 70-448, MCTS: SQL Server 2008, Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance

MCITP's can probably upgrade the MCTS and MCITP in a single upgrade exam. No timelines on the professional level exams yet.

MCA Databases is available, targeted at OLTP... Business Intelligence is under consideration.

Blogs to watch for more info on SQL Server 2008 Certifications:

Wednesday, February 6, 2008 5:52:41 PM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)
# Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Just did my 71-647 (70-649 when it comes out of beta), without preparation... I just checked some links;

Permanent Link to 70-647 Windows Server 2008, Enterprise Administrator

Erfahrungsbericht 71-647 (German)

In general, my impression is in line with what Lucas and Noxx experienced. In terms of subjects, my exam was quite a lot of GPO, File Server, Clustering in combination with SQL Server 2005 ;-), AD DS, AD CS, AD FS.

Should I have to take this exam again, there still is a little I would look at based on today's experience. The only subjects I would be looking for are:

  • Feature overview of System Center (and a bit more specific System Center Virtual Machine Manager and SoftGrid)
  • Windows System Resource Manager
  • AD; what's changed from Windows Server 2003 to 2008
  • AD FS

In general, being MCSE 2003, proper preparation for 70-649 and a bit of reading on the four topics above should be enough...

Oh, I added my remarks on 5 out of 71 questions that had some serious flaws or were just plain wrong.

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Tuesday, January 22, 2008 4:12:30 PM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)
# Thursday, January 17, 2008

If you're going to take the SQL Server class 2779B, there is a lot of XML in it. That is, in relation to SQL Server 2005. But do you know your XML? Well, the training implies you do, though it is not one of the published prerequisites. If you're blank on XML, or want to check on your skills, you may want to take a look at www.w3schools.com.

The available tutorials give you an overview of the general usage of XML-technologies, some of them (XML, XPath, XQuery, XSD) will return in 2779 (Modules 3 and 6) where they are applied on SQL Server 2005. A little study-guide to prepare you for the things to come.

Thursday, January 17, 2008 6:40:39 PM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)
# Tuesday, January 15, 2008

A while back I wrote about Overridable IDENTITY or the order of things, offering a solution to store data in natural order. This solution worked form me in a couple of projects, until I recently had to reload a table... so the basic procedure would be to;

  • Create a new table based on the same definition
  • Do an INSERT new_table SELECT ... FROM old_table
  • DROP TABLE old_table
  • sp_rename 'new_table', 'old_table'

But this does not produce the proper result, as the most recent inserted identity prior to the insert will be applied for the default.

The trick is to make every insert an independent action, so the IDENTITY_CURRENT is properly set for every row; make it run in a cursor. Yeah, I know.... performance, but that pain is largely taken away by making it a FAST_FORWARD. Besides, if anyone has a better suggestion, I'm all ears. So instead of a INSERT ... SELECT, the CURSOR is opened for the selection and the new table is inserted based on the fetched rows.

Altogether in the attached script;

  • Create the soon to be table.
  • Populate the table.
  • Create the new table, pay attention to the default.
  • Use the cursor to fill the new table.
  • Drop the original table and rename the new table to the name of the original table, don't forget to recreate the default.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 9:53:29 PM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)
# Monday, January 14, 2008
 #
 

... or at least didn't feel things were important enough to post, at least that's the excuse for not writing here for well over a month.

In the mean time, beta-season is opened again and I registered for the 71-647. However, I won't go trough the same depth of preparation as I did for the 70-649... I'll just go in and try to make it on my Windows 2003 and 70-649 prep-knowledge ;-).

The other exam I registered for is the 70-445 and I'm planning to take the 70-446 later this year. Just to get myself started for the preparation of this exam, I collected some links to hold on to:

and I'll be using the Microsoft courseware for the courses 2791, 2792, 2793, 2794 and the MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-445): Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 Business Intelligence—Implementation and Maintenance.

That should keep me busy for a while again...

Monday, January 14, 2008 8:49:23 PM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)
# Thursday, December 6, 2007

One of the things that surface in module 2 of the 2780B course are the predefined reports you can use to get more info on what your system is doing. Good thing is, you can run these directly from Management Studio without Reporting Services. Bad thing, you don’t know what the reports are showing exactly (as in, you don’t know the report definition). That is, we can find out what the reports show since Microsoft released the report definitions, so you can reproduce what the report is showing. Also in Service Pack 2, Microsoft introduced the option to create your own custom reports… and that is just what one of the Microsoft Support Engineers did (performance dashboard). One of the community members also noticed and blogged about this new option and created his own DBA_Dashboard full of useful metrics. Thanks Greg, the effort is much appreciated, do keep up the good work for the next version.

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Thursday, December 6, 2007 10:56:58 AM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)