Thursday, December 26, 2013

$5 eBook Bonanza

 Packt eBooks $5 Offer

Packt Publishing just told me about their Christmas offer, get eBooks for $5.From December 19th, customers will be able to get any eBook or Video from Packt for just $5. This offer covers a myriad of titles in the 1700+ range where customers will be able to grab as many as they like until January 3rd 2014 – more information is available at http://bit.ly/1jdCr2W

Monday, November 4, 2013

Job failed with 'QUOTED_IDENTIFIER, ARITHABORT' in SQL server 2000

Recently I faced issue in SQL server 2000. The Database maintenance plan was in place on weekly basis which were doing Update Statistics on the specified database. The Update Statistics job was failing everyday. When I checked the history of the job I found below error:

[Microsoft SQL-DMO (ODBC SQLState: 42000)] Error 1934: [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]UPDATE STATISTICS failed because the following SET options have incorrect settings: 'QUOTED_IDENTIFIER, ARITHABORT'.

The solution is to add a parameter in the Job:

-SupportComputedColumn: This parameter is the new feature that was introduced in SQL server 2000 Service pack4(SP4).

Add this parameter in the Job like below and excute the job, it will successfully execute.

EXECUTE master.dbo.xp_sqlmaint N'-PlanID <GUID> -Rpt "Location of the output file" -WriteHistory  -UpdOptiStats 10 -SupportComputedColumn'







The description for Event ID '1073741877' in Source 'SQLAgent$Name' cannot be found.The following information is part of the event:'[sqagtres] LooksAlive request.

Recently I applied service pack 2 in one of the cluster environment which is SQL server 2008 R2. After applying SP2, few information logs was generating on 2008 SQL Servers which was related to SQL Agent service, these logs were filling up in system application event logs in all the SQL Server nodes.

I was getting below information message in application log:

Message
The description for Event ID '1073741877' in Source 'SQLAgent$Name' cannot be found.  The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display the message, or you may not have permission to access them.  The following information is part of the event:'[sqagtres] LooksAlive request.
'
Message
The description for Event ID '1073741877' in Source 'SQLAgent$Name' cannot be found.  The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display the message, or you may not have permission to access them.  The following information is part of the event:'[sqagtres] CheckServiceAlive: returning TRUE (success).

As per Microsoft articles:
The issue occurs because of a code defect in the Sqagtres.dll SQL Server Agent resource file. The information that is mentioned in the "Symptoms" section should not be logged.

The resolution for this bug has been fixed in Cumulative update 3. So if anyone is getting this informational message in application log, apply Cumulative update 3 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2754552).

For more information you can visit to Microsoft link:




How to apply SQL service pack or CU in SQL server 2005 Cluster

Here I will explain how to apply Service pack or CU in SQL server 2005 cluster.
Lets assume there are two nodes with Active/Active and SQL is rnning on both the nodes
Follow below steps to apply service pack or CU.


      1. Make sure media is available in C drive on both nodes .
      2. Make sure all SQL instances are running on the same node. If it is Active/Active node, failover instance       from one Active node (B) to other Active node (A) to make other node as passive (B).
      3. After failover validate all SQL instances are up and running
      4. Pause passive node (B) in cluster admin.
      5. First apply Service pack/CU on active node (A). Since the passive node (B) is paused, the installer won’t be able to do anything on the passive node.  
      6. Double click on media and follow steps on active node (A)
   
  Note: If you want to apply Service pack or CU only for specific instance, then select only that instance otherwise select all instance to apply patch.

      7Once the installation is finished, and if it asks for Server reboot
      8.  Resume passive node (B) in cluster admin.
      9.     Fail over all the instances from Active node (A) to passive node (B).
     10. Now Active (A) becomes passive and Passive (B) becomes Active
     11. Reboot passive node (A).
     12.  Now We need to apply patch on current Active node (B)
     13.  Pause Passive node (A) in cluster admin
     14. Double click on media and follow steps on active node (B)
     15. Now the patching is completed on Active node (B).
     16. If reboot is required, then resume Passive node (A) then fail backup all instances from Active node (B) to          Passive node (A).
     17. Now reboot passive node (B).
     18. Once the passive node comes up, connect all SQL instances and verify the SQL Services are DBs and  also check version of all SQL instances.
     19. Now fail back all SQL resources to its intended nodes



Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Explore the Full range of eBooks and Videos at 50% off this Columbus Day!!


Explore something new this Columbus Day with Packt’s biggest ever sale

Packt Publishing is giving everyone the chance to explore its full range of over 1600 DRM-free eBooks this Columbus Day at a massive 50% off at www.packtpub.com, for 4 whole days. Customers simply use the code COL50 in their cart – as many times as they like until Thursday October 17th. The offer even extends to Packt’s bestselling pre-order of 2013, the highly acclaimed Mastering Web Application Development with AngularJS.
But that’s not all – to mark the transition out of beta stage, the publisher will also be including its Packt Video product range in this limited offer. These practical screencast tutorials give users the working knowledge they need to get the job done, and all videos will be featured in the Columbus Day sale at 50% off – that includes the hugely popular Kali Linux - Backtrack Evolved: A Penetration Tester’s Guide.

The exclusive 50% discount code COL50 will be active on all eBooks and Videos until Thursday October 17th.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Review of IBM Cognos Business Intelligence by Dustin Adkison


IBM Cognos Business Intelligence is very friendly with Business Intelligence. If you are an IBM Cognos or Business Intelligence developer and want to improve productivity and efficiency of your IBM Cognos 10 environment then I highly recommend this book to you.



A great Book written by Dustin Adkison.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Preview of IBM Cognos Business Intelligence



New book on Cognos Business Intelligence, is now available.

If you are having a basic knowledge of Cognos 10 BI and a good level of understanding of Cognos 8 then this book is for you.


Read more about IBM Cognos Business Intelligence
: http://www.packtpub.com/ibm-cognos-business-intelligence/book