SQL Server 2008 Invalid SKU error

I was trying to set up SQL Server 2008 Cluster on Windows 2008 OS. Creating the cluster with a single node went pretty smooth. However when I wanted to add the second node to cluster I kept getting 'Invalid SKU error' and installation kept aborting the operation. I downloaded the new ISO of SQL Server 2008 from MSDN website with no help. Searching the net came out with the link below which stated that it was a know bug and ways to workaround it. I started the setup process from command line using the command below. At the end the node has been added with success.

Here is the command that I started the installation:

setup.exe /q /ACTION=AddNode /INSTANCENAME=""

Microsoft Connect bug report site:

HTH

SQL Server 2008 R2 Availalbe to Download

SQL Server 2008 R2 is available for downloading to MSDN and Technet subscribers. Here are the links:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions
• http://technet.microsoft.com/subscriptions

Implicit Data Type Conversion

Hello all,

Yesterday by accident I ran into a query running slow. In this case the query is generated by Nhibernate. After looking at the query and execution plan I figured out that it was the implicit data type conversion.

The data in the table is stored in column of varchar data type. The column is a primary key with clustered index. However the query is issued against the table with a parameter passed in and it's declared as NVARCHAR. Do you see where this is going? So when the query is executed with nvarchar parameter sql server does an index scan on the clustered key and converts each column data to nvarchar and then compares the result against the parameter passed in. As we all know clustered index scan is equal to table scan.

I changed the query and declared the parameter as varchar and ran it. It worked as expected. There was no need to do a data type conversion so SQL Server used Clustered Index Seek operator and completed the operation 4 times faster than the slow query. In my case the table I am talking has 199K rows. Imagine how much slower it could be if it had millions of rows.

I talked to principal architect and the solution was to update Nhibernate mappings. He said that Nhibernate by default maps to nvarchar data type and if you're not using nvarchar for unicode characters in your table you definitely want to map Nhibernate to your tables properly using correct data type.

HTH,

MileHighDBA

SQL Server 2008 R2 Released To Manufacturing

Here is the announcement from Microsoft Data Platform blog that SQL Server 2008 R2 has been released to manufacturing.

SQL Server 2008 R2

Here is the link to free ebook download from Microsoft. Start learning before the product releases on May 2010.

SQL Server Trimming miliseconds (Zero out miliseconds)

Hi,
Where I work we needed to zero out the milliseconds from a datetime field in one of the database. I found out that somebody created function below which returns the passed datetime with the milliseconds zero out. Instead of 2010-04-15 14:50:49.953 this time we needed to return 2010-04-15 14:50:49.000. When I looked at the function I thought there is just to much DATEPART, CONVERT and concatenation being used. And I asked myself If I could make it much shorter, cleaner. So I did come up with a result and it works. Here is the original function:
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF
GO
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[TrimMilliseconds] (@D datetime)
RETURNS datetime
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @Date datetime
SET @Date = CONVERT(datetime,
CONVERT(varchar(4), DATEPART(yyyy, @D)) + '-' +
CONVERT(varchar(2), DATEPART(mm, @D)) + '-' +
CONVERT(varchar(2), DATEPART(dd, @D)) + ' ' +
CONVERT(varchar(2), DATEPART(Hh, @D)) + ':' +
CONVERT(varchar(2), DATEPART(mi, @D)) + ':' +
CONVERT(varchar(2), DATEPART(ss, @D)))

return @Date
END
GO

Here is my updated version:
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF
GO
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[TrimMillisecondsNew] (@D datetime)
RETURNS datetime
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @Date datetime
SET @Date = CAST(CONVERT(VARCHAR(19),@D,20) AS DATETIME)

return @Date
END
GO

As you see the second function is much cleaner and simpler. I only used convert and cast functions once to do the work. Less typing, less t-sql, work is done.

24 Hours Of Pass 2010

Check the link to obtain information and register for 24 hours of Pass 2010. This is 24 hours of back to back SQL Server related webcasts starting on May 19 at 12:00 GMT(UTC). There are a lot of good presentations available go ahead, check it out and register now. I don't think I can watch all but I hope I will have time for most.