He writes:

We got into this due to different query plans coming from a VB or a web app than what was seen when running the same query from Management Studio. Eventually tracked this down to a difference in the set options predominatley whether Arithabort was on or off.

Read more to see his query.

Click here to see the execution plan of currently running queries.

SELECT TOP 10 creation_time, last_execution_time,  last_worker_time / 1000 as [Last Worker Time (ms)] ,min_worker_time / 1000 as [Min Worker Time (ms)], 
      max_worker_time / 1000 as [Max Worker Time (ms)],
    total_worker_time/execution_count/1000 AS [Avg Worker Time (ms)],
    execution_count, 
    SUBSTRING(st.text, (qs.statement_start_offset/2) + 1,
    ((CASE statement_end_offset 
        WHEN -1 THEN DATALENGTH(st.text)
        ELSE qs.statement_end_offset 
        END 
            - qs.statement_start_offset)/2) + 1) as statement_text,plan_generation_num ,query_plan, Plan_handle
FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats as qs
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(qs.sql_handle) as st
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan(qs.plan_handle)
-- where st.text like '%proc name to be searched for%'
ORDER BY execution_count DESC;

--- Determine options used at run time

select  * from sys.syscacheobjects with (nolock) where sql like '%proc to be searched for%' and objtype='proc'


select dbo.fn_setopts(249)

/*
 This contains a bitmap containing the SET options relevant to each cached plan for a proc.
The following function can be used to decipher this bitmask:
*/

 

create function dbo.fn_setopts(@setopts int)
returns nvarchar(4000)

as
begin

declare @s nvarchar(4000)
select @s='Options: '
if @setopts & 1    > 0 select @s = @s + N'ANSI_PADDING, ' 
if @setopts & 2    > 0 select @s = @s + N'max degree of parallelism, '
if @setopts & 4    > 0 select @s = @s + N'FORCEPLAN, ' 
if @setopts & 8    > 0 select @s = @s + N'CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL, '
if @setopts & 16   > 0 select @s = @s + N'ANSI_WARNINGS, '
if @setopts & 32   > 0 select @s = @s + N'ANSI_NULLS, '
if @setopts & 64   > 0 select @s = @s + N'QUOTED_IDENTIFIER, '
if @setopts & 128  > 0 select @s = @s + N'ANSI_NULL_DFLT_ON, '
if @setopts & 256  > 0 select @s = @s + N'ANSI_NULL_DFLT_OFF, '
if @setopts & 512  > 0 select @s = @s + N'NO_BROWSETABLE, '
if @setopts & 1024 > 0 select @s = @s + N'TriggerOneRow, '
if @setopts & 2048 > 0 select @s = @s + N'ResyncQuery, '
if @setopts & 4096 > 0 select @s = @s + N'ARITHABORT, '
if @setopts & 8192 > 0 select @s = @s + N'NUMERIC_ROUNDABORT, ' 

return @s

end

Rename the SQL Server engine. This describes how to run

sp_dropserver 'old_name'
go
sp_addserver 'new_name', 'local'
go

Rename SQL Server Reporting Services server. This describes how to update a config file with the new server name.

Correct an issue with SQL Server SP2 and Sysprep. This is needed when you run sysprep to rename the machine. The short of it is you will need to delete some registry entries.

Update: Here is a query to get the execution plan of the most frequently used queries.

Getting the SQL Server execution plan from a production can be difficult, since you are not running the code within Enterprise Manager. You can still get the execution plan of any running statement and display the graphical representation in Enterprise Manager.

If your script is currently running, you can lookup its execution plan in the plan cache. The steps are:

1. Run a query to get the the plan_handle of currently running code
2. Lookup the execution plan for the plan_handle.

The first query is:

SELECT
sder.session_id AS [SPID],
sder.sql_handle as [SQL_Handle],
sder.plan_handle as [PLAN_Handle],
sdes.login_name AS [Login],
sd.name AS [DBName],
sder.start_time AS [Start Time],
sder.status AS [Status],
sder.command AS [Command],
sdet.text AS [SQL Text],
sder.percent_complete AS [Pct Cmplt],
sder.estimated_completion_time AS [Est Cmplt Time],
sder.wait_type AS [Wait],
sder.wait_time AS [Wait Time],
sder.last_wait_type AS [Last Wait],
sder.cpu_time AS [CPU Time],
sder.total_elapsed_time AS [Total Elpsd Time],
sder.reads AS [Reads],
sder.writes AS [Writes],
sder.logical_reads AS [Logical Reads]
FROM
sys.dm_exec_Requests sder
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(sql_handle) AS sdet
JOIN sys.dm_exec_sessions sdes on sder.session_id = sdes.session_id
JOIN sys.databases sd on sder.database_id = sd.database_id
WHERE
sder.session_id <> @@SPID and sder.session_id > 50

The second query is:

SELECT * FROM sys.dm_exec_query_plan ( <PLAN_Handle> )
--here <PLAN_Handle> is supplied based on
--the results from the first query.

This gives you the XML execution plan that you can copy and paste into notepad, save it with a *.sqlplan extension, and double click on the file to view the graphical version of the execution plan.

SELECT sum ( used_page_count ) * 8 as SizeKB,
  sum(row_count) as [RowCount], object_name ( object_id ) AS TableName
FROM sys.dm_db_partition_stats
WHERE index_id=0 or index_id=1
GROUP BY object_id
ORDER BY sum ( used_page_count ) DESC;

SELECT db.name, i.name, S.*, i.*
 FROM sys.dm_db_Index_Usage_Stats S
      inner join sys.databases db on db.database_id = s.database_id
      inner JOIN sys.Indexes I
              ON S.Index_Id = I.Index_Id
              AND S.Object_Id = I.Object_Id
              AND S.DataBase_Id = DB_ID()
where I.Object_Id > 1000
order by db.name

A significant part of sql server process memory has been paged out.

Or worse, SSAS may fail to process a cube with the only message that it was cancelled. To see if you have this problem, open Performance Monitor and view “Private Bytes” under the Process category. The value should be less than the amount of physical RAM.

I found this following article useful in dealing with this issue: http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/05/18/sql-and-the-working-set.aspx

You want to configure SQL Server and SSAS to use a specific amount of RAM, but be sure to leave plenty of RAM for OS and other processes, such as SSIS packages. Monitor Private Bytes while you run a typical workload to see how much RAM you can allocate to SQL Server and SSAS. It won’t be surprising if you allocate 2/3 of the RAM to SQL Server and SSAS, and leave 1/3 for the OS and other processes.

• ALTER INDEX … REORGANIZE
• ALTER INDEX … REBUILD

Which one should you choose? According to BOL, it depends on how fragmented they are. The avg_fragmentation_in_percent column from the sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats() system function lets you know how fragmented your indexes are. If the value is below 5.0, then there is no need to defragment the index. If the value is between 5.0 and 30.0, then “ALTER INDEX … REORGANIZE”, is the best option. If the fragmentation is greater than 30.0, then “ALTER INDEX … REBUILD” is the best option.

REORGANIZE has a couple of benefits. REORGANIZE will log only the pages that changed, while REBUILD will log the whole index. REORGANIZE can be done online, while REBUILD can’t (unless you add the ONLINE=ON option for Enterprise Edition installations).

However REBUILD will update the statistics of the index which lead to better execution plans, while REORGANIZE does not.

BackupMedium::ReportIoError: write failure on backup

device 'G:\Backups\200501220402.BAK'. Operating system

error 33(The process cannot access the file because

another process has locked a portion of the file.).

One way to get around this is to stripe the backup to multiple files, for instance:

BACKUP DATABASE AdventureWorks to
DISK='G:\Backups\200501220402.BAK1',
DISK='G:\Backups\200501220402.BAK2',
DISK='G:\Backups\200501220402.BAK3'
WITH FORMAT, CHECKSUM;

Not ideal, but there are two options:

1. Buy LiteSpeed Backup which includes compressed backups
2. Wait for SQL Server 2008, which includes compressed backups

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3BF4C5CA-B905-4EBC-8901-1D4C1D1DA884&displaylang=en

SELECT object_name(object_id) as tablename,

 name AS index_name,

 STATS_DATE(object_id, stats_id) AS statistics_update_date

FROM sys.stats

WHERE object_id > 1000

ORDER BY object_name(object_id), STATS_DATE(object_id, stats_id);