Always On Availability Group Latency Reports

With SQL Server 2012 we introduced Always On Availability Groups, and the Always On Availability Group Dashboard in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). This dashboard can be utilized by database administrators to view the current health of an Availability Group and its availability replicas and databases. While the dashboard can be configured to provide information regarding the latency between Primary and Secondary Replicas (can be calculated using the Commit LSN, Sent LSN and harden LSN values), it does not provide insights into the reason for the latency. To understand the reason for latency, requires capture and analysis of Extended Events and Performance Monitor counters. This activity can be time consuming and requires extensive knowledge of the Extended Events associated with Always On.

With the new SSMS 17.4 release, we are introducing the Availability Group Latency data collection and reporting built into the Availability Group dashboard. This feature masks the capture and analysis of the Extended Events from the end user and provides an easy to understand report detailing the time spent during the various phases of the Log Transport process.

What to use it for?

The Latency data collection functionality and the associated reports allows a database administrator to quickly discern the bottleneck in the log transport flow between the Primary and the Secondary replicas of an Availability Group. This feature does NOT answer the question “Is there latency in the Availability Group deployment?” but rather provides a way to understand why there is latency in the Availability Group Deployment. This functionality provides a way to narrow down the potential cause of latency in an Availability Group deployment.

How does it Work?

As seen below, the Availability Group Latency Data Collection functionality can be accessed from the Availability Group Dashboard.

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SQL Server Performance Dashboard Reports

SQL Server 2012 Performance Dashboard Reports is one of most popular SQL Server monitoring solution for customers and SQL community leveraging dynamic management views (DMVs) for monitoring and reporting and available at no cost to consumers. SQL Server Performance Dashboard Reports are available as a set of custom reports in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) which runs against the connected instance in Object Explorer. When monitoring large enterprise deployments of SQL Server, hosting SQL Server Performance Dashboard Reports on a central reporting server can provide additional benefits making life easier for enterprise DBAs for monitoring and troubleshooting SQL Server issues. To support hosting SQL performance dashboard reports on a central SQL Server Reporting Services instance, we have customized SQL Server 2012 Performance Dashboard Reports, added new reports and uploaded in Tiger toobox github repository for customers and SQL community. The reports are tested to run against SQL Server 2012, SQL Server 2014 and SQL Server 2016 versions of target SQL Server instance and can be deployed against SQL Server 2012, SQL Server 2014 or SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services instance.

Following are some of the benefits of hosting SQL Performance dashboard reports on central SSRS reporting server.

  • Monitoring Reports accessible anytime, anywhere using browser – This removes the dependency of thick client like SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to be present on the workstation server allowing DBAs, DevOps audience to check the health of SQL Server and resource consumption using web browser from any workstation machine with access to the server.
  • Scheduling automatic report delivery – SSRS allows scheduled email or file share delivery of reports. This allows DBAs, application owners and database stakeholders to choose push model where by performance health reports can be scheduled to run against specified SQL Server instances at the specified time and be delivered in their mailbox to proactively monitor overall health of SQL Server instance and detect any anomaly.
  • Performance Base lining using Report Snapshots – SSRS allows you to capture scheduled point in time report snapshots at the specified time interval allowing DBAs to establish performance baselines using historical snapshots for the target SQL Server instances.
  • Linked Reports for Application owners and other stakeholders – In an enterprise environment, most application teams and stakeholders are interested to see the performance, resource consumption, blocking information and overall health of their SQL Server instance on-demand. In such scenarios, DBAs can create linked reports for the target SQL Server instances on the SSRS central server and delegate them permissions to view reports for their target SQL Server instance of interest. This allows application teams, developers to be self-sufficient to check the overall health of their SQL Server instances creating some bandwidth for DBAs who needs to be contacted only if there is an anomaly or problem detected.

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Capturing Deadlocks with Extended Events

I’ve been noticing a lot of deadlocks on my server. What’s the best way to track down the queries so I can fix the problem?

There are a few different ways that you can capture deadlock information. You can setup a trace flag (1222) to write the deadlock information to the error log, setup a Profiler trace to capture the deadlock graph, or setup an Extended Event to capture all sorts of information.

I’m going to focus on setting up an Extended Event in this post since MS continues to say Profiler will not be released in future versions. Extended Events are the future so why not start using them now?

In SSMS, drill down to Management, Extended Events. Right click on Sessions and click New Session Wizard:

Deadlocks with Extended Events 1

Click next on the Introduction screen and give the Session a name. I’m going to name this session Deadlocks:

Deadlocks with Extended Events 2

Click next. On the Choose Template screen you can choose a predefined template (like Profiler) or you can create your own events by choosing “Do not use a template”. For this post, let’s create our own:

Deadlocks with Extended Events 3

Click next and you’ll see hundreds of events (like Profiler). We only want to capture deadlock data so let’s scroll down to the very bottom and choose xml_deadlock_report. Click on the event and click the right arrow to move it into the Selected Events box:

Deadlocks with Extended Events 4

You can choose other events if needed, but for the simplicity of this post I’m just going to use this one. Click next. The Capture Global Fields page allows us to select what fields we want to capture. These are unique to each event selected. For this example, I’ll choose the following fields:

  • Callstack
  • Client_app_name
  • Client_hostname
  • Database_id
  • Database_name
  • Plan_handle
  • Process_id
  • Sql_text
  • Transaction_id
  • Transaction_sequence

Deadlocks with Extended Events 5

Click next. On this page you can apply filters if needed. I’ll setup a filter so that I only capture data from the RollTide database. There are hundreds of different filters that can be configured so that you don’t pull back data that is not needed:

Deadlocks with Extended Events 6

Click next to the Session Data Storage page. This page allows you to save data to a file or work with only the most recent data. I don’t want to keep thousands upon thousands of events so I’ll choose “Work with only the most recent data”

Deadlocks with Extended Events 7

The next page summarizes all the options we have selected. You can also script this session if you need to create it on other servers or save it for later. Click Finish to create the new session.

The last page allows you to start the session immediately and watch live data. For this post, I’ll choose both:

Deadlocks with Extended Events 8

You should see the new session under Extended Events and the Live Data tab should appear:

Deadlocks with Extended Events 9

Deadlocks with Extended Events 10

Once a deadlock occurs it should show the deadlock in the Live Data window:

Deadlocks with Extended Events 11

This view shows all of the fields we selected including the XML report. If you click on the Deadlock tab, you’ll see the graph:

Deadlocks with Extended Events 12

You can also use this query to see detailed information including the Deadlock graph and Event XML

SELECT
DATEADD(mi, DATEDIFF(mi, GETUTCDATE(), CURRENT_TIMESTAMP), DeadlockEventXML.value('(event/@timestamp)[1]', 'datetime2')) AS [EventTime],
DeadlockEventXML.value('(//process[@id[//victim-list/victimProcess[1]/@id]]/@hostname)[1]', 'nvarchar(max)') AS HostName,
DeadlockEventXML.value('(//process[@id[//victim-list/victimProcess[1]/@id]]/@clientapp)[1]', 'nvarchar(max)') AS ClientApp,
DB_NAME(DeadlockEventXML.value('(//process[@id[//victim-list/victimProcess[1]/@id]]/@currentdb)[1]', 'nvarchar(max)')) AS [DatabaseName],
DeadlockEventXML.value('(//process[@id[//victim-list/victimProcess[1]/@id]]/@transactionname)[1]', 'nvarchar(max)') AS VictimTransactionName,
DeadlockEventXML.value('(//process[@id[//victim-list/victimProcess[1]/@id]]/@isolationlevel)[1]', 'nvarchar(max)') AS IsolationLevel,
DeadlockEventXML.query('(event/data[@name="xml_report"]/value/deadlock)[1]') AS DeadLockGraph,
DeadlockEventXML
FROM
(
SELECT
XEvent.query('.') AS DeadlockEventXML,
Data.TargetData
FROM
(
SELECT
CAST(target_data AS XML) AS TargetData
FROM sys.dm_xe_session_targets st
JOIN sys.dm_xe_sessions s ON s.address = st.event_session_address
WHERE s.name = 'Deadlocks' AND
st.target_name = 'ring_buffer'
) AS Data
CROSS APPLY TargetData.nodes('RingBufferTarget/event[@name="xml_deadlock_report"]') AS XEventData(XEvent)
) AS DeadlockInfo 

Managing the size of the SQL Server SSIS catalog database

The SSIS catalog is the central point for working with Integration Services (SSIS) projects that you’ve deployed to the SSIS server. When the SSIS catalog is implemented, the SSISDB database is automatically created. The scope of this post will focus on the SSISDB growth more than the SSIS catalog itself.

SSIS projects, packages, parameters, environments, and operational history are all stored in the SSISDB database so if you have hundreds of SSIS packages or packages that run every few minutes you could see how the database storing all the historical information would grow exponentially.

Also included when you enable this feature is a SQL Server Agent Job called SSIS Server Maintenance job:

SQL Freelancer SSIS Catalog 1
Inside this job are two steps, SSIS Server Operation Records Maintenance and SSIS Server Max Version Per Project Maintenance, that will help clean up the database. By default, this job is set to run at 12:00am nightly which is sufficient:

SQL Freelancer SSIS Catalog
Looking at the first step, SSIS Server Operations Records Maintenance, you will notice that it executes a stored procedure named internal.cleanup_server_retention_window. This sounds like it could be the stored procedure that cleans up history:

SQL Freelancer SSIS Catalog
Let’s browse out to the stored procedure in Management Studio and take a look at the code:

SQL Freelancer SSIS Catalog
You can see from the very beginning of the stored procedure in the BEGIN TRY statement it first looks to see if Operation cleanup is enabled and if cleanup is enabled then it looks for the Retention Window:

SQL Freelancer SSIS Catalog
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Collect SQL Server Performance Counters and Build Reports with SSRS

Third party tools are awesome for capturing performance metrics, but some small shops (and even large shops) don’t budget for this type of software leaving it up to the DBA to create their own monitoring solution.

There are a few different ways to capture certain performance metrics, but in this post I’ll focus on using the sys.dm_os_performance_counters DMV and how to view this data in a more readable form using SQL Server Reporting Services graphs. The DMV doesn’t include all the counters as Performance Monitor, but it does show the SQL Server related counters. (Note that some of the counters in this DMV are of cumulative values since the last reboot.)

You can query this DMV using the following query:

SELECT * FROM sys.dm_os_performance_counters

SQL Freelancer SQL Server Performance Counters SSRS

As you can see from the screenshot above, this can be hard to read. Also, it only shows the current values at the time the query is executed so you don’t know anything about the past and it makes it hard to see how the data fluctuates during the business day.

Collecting the SQL Server Monitoring Report Data

For the purpose of simplicity, this tip will focus on one counter, Page Life Expectancy (PLE). I’ll show you how to capture data and create a graph for analysis.

First, we’ll need to create a table that will store our metrics:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CounterCollections](
[ID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[object_name] [varchar](128) NOT NULL,
[counter_name] [varchar](128) NOT NULL,
[cntr_value] [bigint] NOT NULL,
[collection_datetime] [datetime] NOT NULL )

Next, we’ll need to create a script that will insert our data into the table we created above:

INSERT INTO CounterCollections
SELECT object_name, counter_name, cntr_value, GETDATE() collection_datetime
FROM sys.dm_os_performance_counters
WHERE object_name = ‘SQLServer:Buffer Manager’
AND counter_name = ‘Page life expectancy’

Finally, we’ll need to create a SQL Server Agent Job that will run the script above on a specified schedule:

SQL Freelancer SQL Server Performance Counters SSRS
I’ll run this job every 5 minutes:

SQL Freelancer SQL Server Performance Counters SSRS

Creating the SQL Server Monitoring Report

While the table gathers data we can switch over to Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) or the SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) and create a SSRS Report that will display our data.

In this example, I’m using SSDT. Choose File, New Project. On the New Project dialog choose Report Server Project and name the Project:

SQL Freelancer SQL Server Performance Counters SSRS
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Fixing SQL Server error in-row data RSVD page count is incorrect

I ran DBCC CHECKDB (Integrity Checks) in my maintenance plan and I also ran it manually, but I keep getting the error “The In-row data RSVD page count for object “table_name” , index ID 0, partition ID 58037252456448, alloc unit ID 58037252456448 (type In-row data) is incorrect.” How can I fix this error?

Solution

Before we discuss the simple steps to fixing this error, let’s discuss what might have happened in this situation.

Anytime you see an integrity check error it might make you a little queasy. No need to worry on this error. If you have recently upgraded from SQL Server 2000 then this error is somewhat common. I know what you’re saying, “Why is there a tip regarding SQL Server 2000?” Trust me, a lot of people are still running SQL Server 2000 which is now out of compliance with Microsoft, so everyone is in a rush to upgrade. Anyway, SQL Server 2000 used to update the page space used metadata. Once SQL Server 2005 came along, this was no longer the case so if you didn’t run DBCC UPDATEUSAGE after the upgrade/migration this error is likely to appear when you run DBCC CHECKDB.

Here is what the error message looks like:

Msg 2508, Level 16, State 3, Line 1

The In-row data RSVD page count for object "table_name", index ID 0, partition ID 58037252456448,
alloc unit ID 58037252456448 (type In-row data) is incorrect. Run DBCC UPDATEUSAGE.

Running DBCC UPDATEUSAGE

If you notice in the maintenance plan or the DBCC CHECKDB results above, it displays “Run DBCC UPDATEUSAGE” after the error message. Ta da! After backing up your databases and establishing a maintenance window run DBCC UPDATEUSAGE (databasename). In a perfect world, SQL would notice this error and run DBCC UPDATEUSAGE on the appropriate table. This is not a perfect world, so we have to run it manually.

DBCC UPDATEUSAGE reports and corrects pages and row count inaccuracies in the catalog views. These inaccuracies may cause incorrect space usage reports returned by the sp_spaceused system stored procedure – MSDN.

 DBCC UPDATEUSAGE (Apollo32_Fixed)

After running DBCC UPDATEUSAGE (databasename) on my questionable database you can see that all the page counts have been updated:


DBCC UPDATEUSAGE: Usage counts updated for table 'UserList' (index 'UserList', partition 1):
        USED pages (In-row Data): changed from (5) to (4) pages.
DBCC UPDATEUSAGE: Usage counts updated for table 'UserRights' (index 'UserRights', partition 1):
        USED pages (In-row Data): changed from (72) to (24) pages.
        RSVD pages (In-row Data): changed from (80) to (33) pages.
DBCC UPDATEUSAGE: Usage counts updated for table 'UserRights' (index 'UserRights', partition 1):
        USED pages (In-row Data): changed from (5) to (4) pages.
DBCC UPDATEUSAGE: Usage counts updated for table 'UserGroups' (index 'UserGroups', partition 1):
        USED pages (In-row Data): changed from (4) to (3) pages.
DBCC UPDATEUSAGE: Usage counts updated for table 'Application' (index 'Application', partition 1):
        USED pages (In-row Data): changed from (3) to (2) pages.
        

You only need to run DBCC UPDATEUSAGE once. After the page counts have been corrected your SQL Server will be back to normal. If you do not fix this issue right away, page counts will continue to get worse when data is added and will result in abnormalities in space usage reports.

After the update, running DBCC CHECKDB gives me a clean database again:

CHECKDB found 0 allocation errors and 0 consistency errors in database ”database_name’. DBCC execution completed. If DBCC printed error messages, contact your system administrator.

In essence, DBCC UPDATEUSAGE updates the used, reserved, and rows columns of the sysindexes (later named sys.indexes in SQL Server 2005) table.

In this example I have two databases named Apollo32 and Apollo32_Fixed. When running an integrity check against Apollo32 I get the error described above. Apollo32_Fixed is a copy of Apollo32 after running DBCC UPDATEUSAGE.

Before and After Comparison

If I compare Apollo32.dbo.sysindexes to Apollo32_Fixed.dbo.sysindexes I can see I have 534 differences.

 (SELECT id, rowcnt, used, reserved, rows FROM Apollo32.dbo.sysindexes
EXCEPT
SELECT id, rowcnt, used, reserved, rows FROM Apollo32_Fixed.dbo.sysindexes)
UNION ALL
(SELECT id, rowcnt, used, reserved, rows FROM Apollo32_Fixed.dbo.sysindexes
EXCEPT
SELECT id, rowcnt, used, reserved, rows FROM Apollo32.dbo.sysindexes)

SQL Freelancer SQL Server RSVD fix
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Using the SSIS WMI Task to Gather System Information

Finding server information is vital when monitoring servers and is usually pretty easy to find on SQL Servers, however when monitoring web or app servers this may be a bit of a challenge when SQL querying is not at your disposal. This post will talk about the SSIS task “WMI Data Reader” and how it can help you monitor your non-SQL Servers.

First, a short introduction to WMI….

WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) is used for accessing management information in an enterprise environment. The ability to obtain management data from remote computers is what makes WMI useful. It provides a consistent approach to carrying out day-to-day management tasks with programming or scripting languages – MSDN

Some things you can do with WMI may include:

  • Rebooting a computer remotely
  • Get a list of applications installed on a local or remote computer
  • Find OS info such as the version of Windows and service pack levels
  • Query the event logs on a local or remote computer
  • Find system information such as Manufacturer and Model of a computer

As you can see, WMI is a very powerful tool and can be used locally or remotely.

There are tons of different metrics you can capture using WMI scripts, but for this example I’ll capture disk space information using the Win32_LogicalDisk class and insert it into a database table using a SSIS package.

First, let’s create our database table that will store our disk information:

CREATE TABLE DiskInfo
(
Drive varchar(4),
DriveSize numeric(18,2),
FreeSpace numeric(18,2),
[Date] Datetime Not NUll Default GetDate()
)

Once our table is created, we can create the SSIS package. Open BIDS or SSDT and create a new Integration Services project.

SQL Freelancer SQL Server SSIS WMI
From the SSIS toolbox, drag the WMI Data Reader Task into the Design view.

SQL Freelancer SQL Server SSIS WMI

Right click in the Connection Manager window and select New Connection and select WMI. Click Add:

SQL Freelancer SQL Server SSIS WMISQL Freelancer SQL Server SSIS WMI
This will open the WMI Connection Manager Editor. Give the connection manager a name and description. If you are creating the package for a local computer then use \\localhost to connect. If you are creating the package for a remote server then use \\RemoteServer to connect. For this example, I’m connecting locally using Windows Authentication:

SQL Freelancer SQL Server SSIS WMI

Next we’ll need to right click on the WMI Data Reader Task and choose edit. Click the WMI Options tab. This tab is where we will need to input information such as the WMI connection string and the WMI query. For this example, I have used the following:

  • WMI connection – This is the connection we created in the previous step.
  • WqlQuerySourceType – Direct input
  • WqlQuerySource – Select Name, Size, FreeSpace From Win32_LogicalDisk Where DriveType = 3
  • OutputType – Data table
  • OverwriteDestination – Overwrite destination
  • DestinationType – File connection
  • Destination – New destination (see below)

SQL Freelancer SQL Server SSIS WMI
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Detecting CPU Pressure

There are a few different ways to detect CPU pressure, for example, Performance Monitor or SQL Profiler, but in this tip we’ll discuss the wait type SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD and the DMV sys.dm_os_schedulers.

Some of you might have seen the wait type SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD and wondered what in the world is this? Books Online (BOL) describes this wait type as:

Occurs when a task voluntarily yields the scheduler for other tasks to execute. During this wait the task is waiting for its quantum to be renewed.

SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD is a fairly common wait type and occurs when there is CPU pressure. SQL Server runs multiple threads and tries to allow all threads to run without problems. However, if all the threads are busy on each scheduler and can’t let other threads run, it will yield itself for another thread, which in turn creates the SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD wait type.

You can see the top wait stats and the percentage of waits at the current point in time by running the following query by Tim Ford and Glenn Berry.

WITH Waits AS 
( 
SELECT 
wait_type, 
wait_time_ms / 1000. AS wait_time_s, 
100. * wait_time_ms / SUM(wait_time_ms) OVER() AS pct, 
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY wait_time_ms DESC) AS rn 
FROM sys.dm_os_wait_stats 
WHERE wait_type 
NOT IN 
('CLR_SEMAPHORE', 'LAZYWRITER_SLEEP', 'RESOURCE_QUEUE', 
'SLEEP_TASK', 'SLEEP_SYSTEMTASK', 'SQLTRACE_BUFFER_FLUSH', 'WAITFOR', 
'CLR_AUTO_EVENT', 'CLR_MANUAL_EVENT') 
) -- filter out additional irrelevant waits 
SELECT W1.wait_type, 
CAST(W1.wait_time_s AS DECIMAL(12, 2)) AS wait_time_s, 
CAST(W1.pct AS DECIMAL(12, 2)) AS pct, 
CAST(SUM(W2.pct) AS DECIMAL(12, 2)) AS running_pct 
FROM Waits AS W1 
INNER JOIN Waits AS W2 ON W2.rn <= W1.rn 
GROUP BY W1.rn, 
W1.wait_type, 
W1.wait_time_s, 
W1.pct 
HAVING SUM(W2.pct) - W1.pct < 95; -- percentage threshold;

After running this query on one of my servers I can see that only 2.22% of my waits are due to CPU pressure so I can rule that out as a cause for poor performance. (This is only current since the last SQL Service restart):

SQL Freelancer SQL Server CPU Pressure DMV

If you see a high percentage of this wait type then one way of troubleshooting this is to use the DMV sys.dm_os_schedulers. BOL describes sys.dm_os_schedulers as:

Returns one row per scheduler in SQL Server where each scheduler is mapped to an individual processor. Use this view to monitor the condition of a scheduler or to identify runaway tasks.

This DMV has several columns including number or workers, active tasks, and the status of each scheduler, etc., which can help troubleshoot certain problems, but the most important column is the one used for measuring queued tasks, the runnable_tasks_count column. This column displays the count of tasks yielding to other tasks resulting in a SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD wait type. If this column is frequently greater than 0 then CPU pressure may be present and blocking may occur.

To see an average of current tasks and current waiting tasks you can use the following query:

SELECT AVG(current_tasks_count) AS [Avg Current Task], 
AVG(runnable_tasks_count) AS [Avg Wait Task]
FROM sys.dm_os_schedulers
WHERE scheduler_id < 255
AND status = 'VISIBLE ONLINE'

SQL Freelancer SQL Server CPU Pressure DMV
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Report to Capture Table Growth Statistics for SQL Server

There are a few tools that monitor table size growth, but with the use of sp_spaceused and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) you can make custom reports.

Using sp_spaceused

The system stored procedure sp_spaceused displays the number of rows, disk space reserved, and disk space used by a table, indexed view, or Service Broker queue in the current database in an object is provided or it displays the disk space reserved and used by the whole database.

This procedure, sp_spaceused can be used at the database or table level. For example, sp_spaceused at the database level returns the following:

SQL Freelancer SQL Server SSRS Table Growth
And sp_spaceused at the table level displays:
SQL Freelancer SQL Server SSRS Table Growth

 

Creating the Report

To create our custom report, first we will need to create a table that will store the data from sp_spaceused. For this example, I’ll create a table named TableSizeGrowth.

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[TableSizeGrowth](
[id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[table_schema] [nvarchar](256) NULL,
[table_name] [nvarchar](256) NULL,
[table_rows] [int] NULL,
[reserved_space] [int] NULL,
[data_space] [int] NULL,
[index_space] [int] NULL,
[unused_space] [int] NULL,
[date] [datetime] NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]

I’m also going to add a default constraint that will automatically update the date column to the current date for each new row.

ALTER TABLE [dbo].[TableSizeGrowth] ADD CONSTRAINT [DF_TableSizeGrowth_date]  
DEFAULT (dateadd(day,(0),datediff(day,(0),getdate()))) FOR [date]
GO

Next, we need to create a stored procedure that moves the data from sp_spaceused to the table we created above. I have put comments throughout the stored procedure to help you figure out what is going on. Also make sure you change the table names to match your tables. For this example, I want to monitor HumanResources.Employee, Production.Product, and Purchasing.Vendor tables.

SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[sp_TableSizeGrowth] 
AS
BEGIN
 SET NOCOUNT ON

 --DECLARE VARIABLES
 DECLARE
 @max INT,
 @min INT,
 @table_name NVARCHAR(256),
 @table_schema NVARCHAR(256),
 @sql NVARCHAR(4000)

 --DECLARE TABLE VARIABLE
 DECLARE @table TABLE(
 id INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY,
 table_name NVARCHAR(256),
 table_schema NVARCHAR(256))

 --CREATE TEMP TABLE THAT STORES INFORMATION FROM SP_SPACEUSED
 IF (SELECT OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#results')) IS NOT NULL
 BEGIN
  DROP TABLE #results
 END

 CREATE TABLE #results
 (
  [table_schema] [nvarchar](256) NULL,
  [table_name] [nvarchar](256) NULL,
  [table_rows] [int] NULL,
  [reserved_space] [nvarchar](55) NULL,
  [data_space] [nvarchar](55) NULL,
  [index_space] [nvarchar](55) NULL,
  [unused_space] [nvarchar](55) NULL
 )

 --LOOP THROUGH STATISTICS FOR EACH TABLE
 INSERT @table(table_schema, table_name)
 SELECT  
  table_schema, table_name
 FROM
  information_schema.tables 
 WHERE table_schema + '.' + table_name IN ('HumanResources.Employee','Production.Product', 'Purchasing.Vendor') --INSERT TABLE NAMES TO MONITOR

 SELECT
  @min = 1,
  @max = (SELECT MAX(id) FROM @table)

 WHILE @min = @max
 BEGIN
  SELECT 
   @table_name = table_name,
   @table_schema = table_schema
  FROM
   @table
  WHERE
   id = @min

  --DYNAMIC SQL
  SELECT @sql = 'EXEC sp_spaceused ''[' + @table_schema + '].[' + @table_name + ']'''

  --INSERT RESULTS FROM SP_SPACEUSED TO TEMP TABLE
  INSERT #results(table_name, table_rows, reserved_space, data_space, index_space, unused_space)
  EXEC (@sql)

  --UPDATE SCHEMA NAME
  UPDATE #results
  SET table_schema = @table_schema
  WHERE table_name = @table_name
  SELECT @min = @min + 1
 END

 --REMOVE "KB" FROM RESULTS FOR REPORTING (GRAPH) PURPOSES
 UPDATE #results SET data_space = SUBSTRING(data_space, 1, (LEN(data_space)-3))
 UPDATE #results SET reserved_space = SUBSTRING(reserved_space, 1, (LEN(reserved_space)-3))
 UPDATE #results SET index_space = SUBSTRING(index_space, 1, (LEN(index_space)-3))
 UPDATE #results SET unused_space = SUBSTRING(unused_space, 1, (LEN(unused_space)-3))

 --INSERT RESULTS INTO TABLESIZEGROWTH
 INSERT INTO TableSizeGrowth (table_schema, table_name, table_rows, reserved_space, data_space, index_space, unused_space)
 SELECT * FROM #results

 DROP TABLE #results
END

Now that the stored procedure has been created, let’s go ahead and execute it.

Once the stored procedure finishes we can view the table:

SQL Freelancer SQL Server SSRS Table Growth
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Finding what port SQL Server is listening on

SQL Server communicates over TCP/IP and listens for incoming connections over what is called a port. The default TCP/IP port for SQL Server is 1433. The port doesn’t have to be 1433, but 1433 is the official Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA) socket number for SQL Server. (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287932)

Named instances are configured for dynamic ports. This means when the SQL Server service is started it selects a random port. Best practice is to configure named instances to listen on a specific port.

You need to know what port your SQL Server is using so you can allow the ports through the firewall otherwise you can run into connection problems between the client and the server.

There are a few different ways to find the port number that SQL Server is listening on. Below you will find T-SQL statements that will allow you to find the port number for default and named instances.


--SQL Server 2000 Default Instance 
DECLARE @tcp_port nvarchar(5)

EXEC xp_regread
 @rootkey    =    'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE',
 @key        =    'SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\MSSQLServer\SuperSocketNetLib\TCP',
 @value_name    =    'TcpPort',
 @value        =    @tcp_port OUTPUT

select @tcp_port

--SQL Server 2000 Named Instance
DECLARE @tcp_port nvarchar(5)

EXEC xp_regread
 @rootkey    =    'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE',
 @key        =     'SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server(InstanceName)\MSSQLServer\SuperSocketNetLib\TCP',
 @value_name    =    'TcpPort',
 @value        =    @tcp_port OUTPUT

select @tcp_port

--SQL Server 2005 Default Instance
DECLARE @tcp_port nvarchar(5)

EXEC xp_regread
 @rootkey    =    'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE',
 @key        =    'SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQLServer\SuperSocketNetLib\TCP\IPAll',
 @value_name    =    'TcpPort',
 @value        =    @tcp_port OUTPUT

select @tcp_port

--SQL Server 2005 Named Instance
DECLARE @tcp_port nvarchar(5)

EXEC xp_regread
 @rootkey    =    'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE',
 @key        =    'SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.(#)\MSSQLServer\SuperSocketNetLib\TCP\IPAll',
 @value_name    =    'TcpPort',
 @value        =    @tcp_port OUTPUT

select @tcp_port

--SQL Server 2008 R2 Default Instance
DECLARE @tcp_port nvarchar(5)

EXEC xp_regread
 @rootkey    =    'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE',
 @key        =    'SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQLServer\SuperSocketNetLib\TCP\IPAll',
 @value_name    =    'TcpPort',
 @value        =    @tcp_port OUTPUT

select @tcp_port

--SQL Server 2008 R2 Named Instance
DECLARE @tcp_port nvarchar(5)

EXEC xp_regread
 @rootkey    =    'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE',
 @key        =    'SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.(InstanceName)\MSSQLServer\SuperSocketNetLib\TCP\IPAll',
 @value_name    =    'TcpPort',
 @value        =    @tcp_port OUTPUT

select @tcp_port

 --SQL Server 2012 Default Instance
DECLARE @tcp_port nvarchar(5)

EXEC xp_regread
 @rootkey    =    'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE',
 @key        =    'SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQLServer\SuperSocketNetLib\TCP\IPAll',
 @value_name    =    'TcpPort',
 @value        =    @tcp_port OUTPUT

select @tcp_port

--SQL Server 2012 Named Instance
DECLARE @tcp_port nvarchar(5)

EXEC xp_regread
 @rootkey    =    'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE',
 @key        =    'SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.(InstanceName)\MSSQLServer\SuperSocketNetLib\TCP\IPAll',
 @value_name    =    'TcpPort',
 @value        =    @tcp_port OUTPUT

select @tcp_port