The Heap™ – Consultancy ©® - 2014-07-30 (page 2 of 2)

Max Vernon

20:01

when I read articles like this one by @PaulWhite I realize I know almost nothing about SQL Server.

sqlperformance.com/2014/07/sql-plan/…

swasheck

@MaxVernon not after having read it. you get a lot more smartly by reading that man

Max Vernon

@swasheck true. my head hurts.

Paul White

20:27

@MaxVernon That is a tricky one, to be fair.

Today's one is much friendlier.

I think.

Max Vernon

yes, you're correct. Interesting bug.

we apparently don't need to worry about that here since we practically never apply any updates. Got tons of servers still running on SQL Server 2000. :-(

Paul White

Right. Do you apply Service Packs?

Max Vernon

I've only been here for a few months, so I'm not quite certain. We have 125 instances or so, and I'm damn sure none of them have anything like the latest service pack.

Paul White

Yikes™

Max Vernon

I'm just reading your article on unexpected side effects of filtered indexes. Nice one.

Paul White

20:32

Yeah they're sneaky little fellahs.

Max Vernon

@PaulWhite yeah, that's what I said. Apparently its "too much work".

Marian

@MaxVernon wow, I thought we're screwed with our lot of 2k5 boxes. But you, my friend.. are faqed.

Max Vernon

at my last position, I had problems getting the query processor to take advantage of filtered indexes. Never could narrow down why it wouldn't use the filtered index, and instead would use a duplicate non-filtered index.

Paul White

It's often because the query is auto-param'd

Max Vernon

@Marian I did an inventory of the boxes the other day and thought for certain I'd fine at least one or two that were SQL Server 7.0

or 6.5 (gah!)

Paul White

20:34

I wish I still had a SQL Server 7.0 instance

Marian

@MaxVernon what's 6.5?! the sybase bit?

Paul White

Almost entirely. 7.0 was the MS core rewrite.

Max Vernon

@Marian funnily enough we were running OLD versions of Sybase until recently... now our Sybase boxen are mostly at 15.7

Marian

ah, so you're doing Sybase too. Is it interesting?

mmarie

Alright Heap, i need your best sarcasm/snarkiness...

I'm doing a phone interview with a BI architect and he keeps saying something to the effect of "Guys, I have years and years of experience so I'm not sure why you are asking me these questions.""

billinkc

20:38

/me laces hands together and cracks the knuckles

Max Vernon

I'm enjoying it. So far, I haven't had much exposure to the Sybase side, but this weekend I'm on call, so I'm pretty sure I'm being thrown into the deep-end.

mmarie

I need a snarky response that I won't get in trouble for after this call is over

Lamak

@mmarie because we know how difficult it is to recall a little bit of information when you have so much wisdom?

billinkc

@mmarie "in your years and years of experience, surely you've come across charlatans, idiots and assorted unemployables. These questions are designed to weed them out"

Max Vernon

@billinkc YES!

JNK

20:41

@mmarie "We want to make sure you have the RIGHT experience"

@billinkc isn't it impossible to work with unemployables?

billinkc

@JNK You would think but at the previous engagement, the full-timers were collectively referred to as "the hopeless band of unemployables"

JNK

or is it like an "inedible" that you can still eat, it's just a bad idea?

billinkc

The latter

JNK

gotcha

Marian

@mmarie "the questions are not designed for you, but for usual reporting monkeys. You'll best'em all with A+ and will make my boss put your CV to the higher end of the $ interval in our team."

billinkc

20:44

As the other consultant constantly exclaimed "I should never be out of work" after solving the Nth problem that was found under the first bingle search result

Marian

@billinkc bingleing is a great skill, don't undervalue its position. That's why lmgtfy has so much success..

billinkc

@mmarie "Old Country Buffet has lots of food, doesn't mean it's any good"

JNK

@billinkc in that same vein, "My grandpa's been driving for 70 years, but that doesn't mean he should be a chauffeur."

then give them some aloe for that sick burn

3

Lamak

VtC please

0

Q: Emptying tables doesn't empty views - SQL Server

I created views from two tables. When I delete all data in all tables, view keeps data as tables still have values. What is all about? EDIT: I don't know types of view, so I will say it like this: I created views as: CREATE VIEW xxx AS SELECT columns FROM table1, table2 WHERE co...

Marian

@Lamak no d-v?! no worries..fixing that.

@Lamak you've got to be kidding me..

I had the same issue with SQL Server 2008. Dropping and recreating the view solved my problem at the time, but never got to go deeper. Hope something comes up in the answers. — Alireza 38 mins ago

that's a facepalm moment.. or faceplant :?

Lamak

20:55

@Marian yup, it was the quality of those comments that made me comment myself

Marian

@Lamak lost the last bit of the party, see the author has removed his masterpiece.

how'd it end? in applause?

Lamak

yup, a wise advice from martin

nah, a simple thanks:

> @MartinSmith You are totally right. Thanks

mmarie

ok, anyone knowledgeable about oracle clients and drivers and stuff?

billinkc

snickers

mmarie

@billinkc shut up you

Marian

21:08

@mmarie @Jack is an oracle guy

mmarie

i'm using Attunity connectors for SSIS and keeps giving me an error "ORACLE registry key cannot be opened. Verify that the Oracle Client for Windows x86 is installed properly."

just i have the client installed

i guess maybe it could be installed in teh wrong place?

billinkc

@phil is also an oracle resource

Change your project property to make sure it use the 32 bit drivers

mmarie

i have 64-bit runtime set to false

actually, it's dithered and i cna't change it

Does that mean my SSDT is 32-bit?

swasheck

@mmarie it's undecided?

Lamak

@mmarie maybe if you throw it money

mmarie

21:16

@Lamak Thanks, I'll try that

swasheck

Microsoft solution: Reboot
Oracle solution: $$

mmarie

oh hey, now it says OCI Error encountered.

i don't have anything nice to say about Oracle

2

Marian

@mmarie afraid to interfere, but will this dictionary help?

mmarie

@Marian Thanks for the link. I was looking at that earlier today.

swasheck

duh!!! just use Informatica

@mmarie i have a vague recollection of you going to a kimball group training. is that correct?

billinkc

21:26

Lay off the "baked" goods

mmarie

@swasheck yep

swasheck

@mmarie did you find them informative?

mmarie

yes

but i think that depends on what kind of information you are looking for

there were a lot of dbas in my class, actually

Marian

@mmarie yeah, well, sorry for sticking my nose where's not my business :).

mmarie

@Marian No, not at all. Thank you for trying to help! I rarely interact with Oracle and I try to keep it that way.

Marian

21:28

@mmarie DBAs learning DWH? know some in East Europe? :)

swasheck

@mmarie they're coming in to do an eval of the logical model of our transactional data warehouse

billinkc

i see what you did there

Marian

@mmarie @Mark is crying to hire some.. but they play hide and seek.

billinkc

Freud would be proud

mmarie

@Marian No, I met some from the Netherlands though.

swasheck

21:29

it was intentional, @billinkc

billinkc

Whatever, you edit monkey

swasheck

anywho ... @mmarie did you meet a lady named Joy ... forgot the last name

billinkc

mundy

mmarie

yep, Joy is cool

she taught part of my class

swasheck

<flings poo at @billinkc>

@billinkc @mmarie yeppers. Joy Mundy. she's doing the eval

mmarie

21:30

she used to work for Microsoft. Sometimes she speaks at SQLSat silicon valley

She's very smart. From what I can tell, good technical depth, but always stays focused on making sure the DW brings business value.

swasheck

we're trying to put together a list of questions for her. we have a "factless fact" table which is essentially a collection of relationships that was used to bandage a design flaw. trying to figure out what to axe her

mmarie

The whole Kimball thing is for IT to pull the stick out of its butt and make sure they are being useful

swasheck

cool

but all my questions are internals-related

mmarie

well, she used to work on SQL Server so i bet she knows some internals

billinkc

No, no, no. The purpose of a data warehouse is to keep SAN admins, DBAs, data modelers and developers employed. The business users are too dumb to use the beautiful things we deliver

swasheck

21:33

@billinkc they have Cognos so they just drag and drop

and create some awful awful queries

billinkc

You already mentioned that with the poo flinging part ;)

mmarie

@swasheck They actually have a whole class about the 34 subsystems of ETL architecture

they aren't just for happy fuzzy dimensional modeling

billinkc

I got 34 subsystems but users ain't one

swasheck

users are losers and losers are users

mmarie

You'll have to tell us what you think of their consulting services once they come in.

Also, I <3 that you know what a factless fact table is

swasheck

21:44

@mmarie does that sound like a correct usage of a factless fact? seems dumb to me

i get the purpose of a factless fact, but if you're going to want to evaluate fund performance, why would you go through a factless fact to get to your fund fact instead of just having your dimensions in your fund fact??? sucks. oh well.

billinkc

Duh, go to morningstar if you want to measure your fund's performance

swasheck

totes

JNK

@swasheck if there's a m:m relationship it's hard to model in a denormalized fact table or star

so if a fund is a member of many portfolios and each portfolio could have additional sub-portfolios...

or if membership in the fund changes, say they drop a stock and add another one on 7/1, you need a way to track that right?

swasheck

22:00

interesting. ok. thanks.

mmarie

yeah, what @jnk said

billinkc

Was years of experience person local?

mmarie

no, cleveland

Marian

how did it end?

billinkc

Like Hitler marching on Russia

2

swasheck

22:06

@mmarie i heard that place rocks.

Kermit

vertica boom!

0

A: Copying Vertica Schema or all tables in a schema from one physical cluster to another physical Cluster

You can use either COPY FROM VERTICA or EXPORT TO VERTICA to import/export the data to another Vertica database. Both methods allow for data migration from a version that's an earlier release from the last major release (running 6.x, you can import from 5.x). In the example below, I'll use EXPOR...

billinkc

Oh look at that, it's past 5. Peace

swasheck

"i've decided i'm going to take my talents to KC"

KC: "no, keep your talents in cleveland, that festering craphole"

mmarie

hehe

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The Heap™ – Consultancy ©®