Extraction is very straightforward. First step is to open a command window and navigate to the directory where the utility is located, this is typically the C:\Program Files\Quest Software\LiteSpeed\SQL Server directory.

Next, issue the following command to extract the native backup files.  Yes, files. In fact you will have one file created for each thread that was used when Litespeed was taking the initial database backup. The command is roughly as follows:

extractor.exe -F [path to backup file taken by litepseed] -E [name of file you want to be created]

So, if you had a backup of AdventureWorks saved to C:\AdWks.bak, and you wanted to extract the native dump from that file and create new files in the same directory, you would run the following command:

extractor.exe -F c:\AdWks.bak -E c:\AdWks_ext.bak

This command results in the creation of multiple files. You can configure a path and filename here if you want to have the files stored somewhere other than the current directory.

OK, so what do you do with these files? Well, you restore them, of course, using either T-SQL or SSMS. One common reason for needing to have a native backup is for those rare times when you need to provide a vendor with a copy and that same vendor does not have a copy of Litespeed. And while the extraction utility makes it easy to provide the necessary files, you have no idea who is on the receiving end of the multiple files. I have lost count of the number of vendors I have sent the extracted files to and received an email back that either says “we don’t know what to do with these files” or “can you send us just one file instead?”

Sure, I can do that as well. Or, I could take a minute to teach you how to do it for yourself. Here goes:

Open up SSMS and all you need to do is point to the files. Just add in each file as shown below, and click OK. Then, select your restore point and click OK again. You should be fine, the database restore should be underway at this point. 

Now, if you prefer T-SQL, the equivalent syntax would be:

RESTORE DATABASE [AdventureWorks]
FROM  DISK = N’C:\AdWks_ext.bak2′,
DISK = N’C:\AdWks_ext.bak1′,
DISK = N’C:\AdWks_ext.bak0′
GO

It’s that simple.

http://bacontoday.com/bacon-cupcakes-part-deux

Rumor has it that in the summer the same people offer a ‘bacon cheeseburger’ cupcake, which I find to be an awesome idea. You can have an entire meal, entree and dessert, in just a few bites. I wonder if NASA is aware of this…

We have had a fair number of entries to date and I already have my top five set aside for people to vote on. But there is still time to get yourself entered. Below are all the entries so far. I’m still amazed that no one went with “this is the strangest urinal I have ever used.”

• “You met me at a very strange time in my life” – SQLChicken
• “…Therefore by optimizing your queries you can…HEY GET AWAY FROM MY SEGWAY!” – SQLChicken
• “First day of work and of COURSE I forgot to wear underwear. This won’t end well…” – SQLChicken
• “My database, I can not deny her. My database screams. She is my mother. She is my lover, and I am her DBA.” – SQLChicken
• “Somewhere out there, a database is crying out in pain.  I can feel it.” -BrentO
• “So this is what an Oracle DBA’s office looks like?”-BrentO
• “I wonder if I could throw a developer through this window.” -BrentO (Inspired by @SQLDumbAss.)
• “Is that the SQLBatLight in the distance?”-BrentO
• “I finally found a view in this company that I don’t have to maintain – the Access guy washes the windows.”-BrentO
• “The recovery is complete, time to reflect.” -Breck Dahlin
• “If a backup fails and no one gets an alert, did it really fail?” – Jonathan Gardner
• “Somewhere out there someone shrunk a database and killed a kitten because of it.” -Troy Gallant
• “Ok, who put the datacenter up here on the 35th floor??” -Troy Gallant
• “Sheesh, from way up here those full-text indexes look like ants!” -Troy Gallant
• “Now, I know the executive washroom’s somewhere around here.” -Troy Gallant
• “SQL Server – Color Your Day!” -Valentino Vranken
• “Waiting for that report to finish?  Hire A DBA!” -Valentino Vranken
• “A World of Data Awaits” -Mike Wells
• “A World of Databases Awaits” -Mike Wells
• “I am done with my work today,  here is what I want to do for tomorrow?” -msrviking
• “How do I achieve 99.99% SLA with all these jokers around?” -msrviking
• “What is that I should budget for this year?” -msrviking
• “How do I fly between these tall buildings?” -msrviking
• “Yeah… I’m going to have to take a taxi to get back to my car. Why did I park so far away?” -Andrew Dykstra
• “I wonder if those people can tell that I’m not wearing any pants?” -Jon Crawford
• “Crap, this database is more corrupt than our Accounting team.” -Jordan Bullock
• “This mural IS pretty life-like, but I still miss working above ground.” -Jordan Bullock
• “Mark?  MARK!  We asked you where you see yourself in 10 years. Hello?” -Jordan Bullock
• “Hey!  Anybody out there hiring?!?  I hate it here!” -Jordan Bullock
• “Wow, the contractor did a GREAT job fixing the window the last DBA jumped through!” -Jordan Bullock
• “DBA’s Log Stardate 0518.2 – Today’s encounter with SQL Server 6.5 was deeply disturbing…” -AdaTheDev
• “SELECT Building FROM vwWindow ORDER BY Height ASC” -AdaTheDev
• “The sinking feeling soon hits as he realises his new job is not actually as Drew Barrymore’s Assistant .” -AdaTheDev
• “If you always blame the developer, you’ll always be the victim.” -Marlon Ribunal
• “You’ll always be the first casualty of your database failure.” -Marlon Ribunal
• “Don’t suck! It’s not the database, stupid!” -Marlon Ribunal
• “We will upgrade the server when we hit the ‘wall’…” -Josef Richberg
• “I’m going to jump if I don’t get bacon soon” -Pat Wright
• “I hope those zombies aren’t coming for me” -Pat Wright
• “Has anyone seen my database?” -Pat Wright
• “This city needs more bacon!” -Pat Wright
• “I wonder if I can shrink that building like I do my databases?” -Pat Wright
• “Why in the hell is Thom making us do this contest?” -Pat Wright
• “Made it! I’m a SQL Server DBA! Now what?” -wnylibrarian
• “Guess the interviewers didn’t like that SQL injection joke.” -wnylibrarian
• “Is that a clown, a priest, and a rabbi heading into that bar?” -wnylibrarian
• “I can only hope they think it was Tibor who dropped that sales database. -wnylibrarian
• “I’m out there Jerry and I’m loving every minute of it!” -wnylibrarian
• “Think I’ll go ‘Candle Pin Bowling’ after work.” -wnylibrarian
• “Wonder when they’ll find out there really is no back up?” -wnylibrarian
• “You can’t shrink databases you can only hope to contain them.” -wnylibrarian
• “Damn! I know I should’ve taped the SA password to the side of my monitor.” -wnylibrarian
• “Oh no…I think I left the iron on…” -wnylibrarian

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You

Many of the “Laws” discussed were idea that I have already come across at one time or another. The power this book has for me is that it will serve as a handy reference going forward. I hope it can do the same for you as well. At one time or another you will need help with one or more of the “Laws”, be it Influence, Connection, Respect, or Solid Ground.

I have added the book to my Book Review page at http://thomaslarock.com/book-reviews/, inside of the Professional Development section.

I am about a 90 minute drive from Waltham, meaning in order to make it to SQLSaturday for the 8AM start time I was up even earlier than I would be for a routine day of work. That’s how much I love SQL Server. And box lunches. But mostly the SQL thing. I showed up, was recognized by Adam Machanic (@AdamMachanic) and Grant Fritchey (@gfritchey), Grant immediately called for security, and I ducked into the speaker room to chat up Tim Ford (@SQLAgentman).

There were six session slots lined up for the day, each one lasting about 75 minutes. I was able to attend six talks during the day, which I thought was a fantastic way to spend a cold winter day near Boston. Who wouldn’t, right?

The first talk of the day was by Mike Walsh (blog | twitter), speaking on “As a DBA, Where Do I Start?” Mike had some great advice to give to new DBA’s (whom he called ‘reluctant’ DBA’s), including a brief section on meeting expectations. He had a couple of things I wish I would had included in my book but it is too late to stuff anything else in there. I spoke with Mike briefly afterwards and found it it was the first time he had given the talk. For a first take on professional development, Mike did a great job.

The next talk I attended was by Grant Fritchey talking about “Best Practices for Working with Execution Plans”. It was the same talk that he presented at the PASS Summit this past November. The room was packed, I would estimate about 120 people. I still had my jacket on and needed to get some fresh air so I ducked out after about 15 minutes. But Grant was doing very well, he really knows how to work a room.

I left Grant’s session in the hope that I could sit in on the last part of Aaron Bertrand (@aaronbertrand) talk “Management Studio Tips & Tricks”. But a funny thing happened on my way to see Aaron. I got sidetracked by the guys from Confio sotware. I enjoyed learning more about their product (Ignite) and would encourage you to download a free trial. In a nutshell, their product is focused on performance gathering and they use wait stats in order to help you diagnose issues quickly.

The next session was by Matt Van Horn and it was on “Developing with SQL Azure”. All I can say about this is that if you are planning to work with SQL Azure, or to give a talk that includes a demo on SQL Azure, you should make sure you can connect to the intertubz. Unless, of course, you either (1) want to show people the biggest reason to not push your app to the cloud or (2) show people what to do when they lose connectivity and how important it is to have your data local, just in case. Still, Matt gave about 30 minutes before he ended his talk, and I did manage to take away a few items even without a demo. I also spent a few minutes chatting with Matt afterwards and I hope to stay in touch with him in the very near future.

After lunch it was time to listen to Tim Ford talk about “Index DMV’s”.Tim did a great job despite being heckled from the front row by myself, Grant, and Aaron. We had our own MVP corner right there and more than once when Tim would ask a question he would have to tell us to not bother answering in order to let someone else answer. Tim also told me that every time I shrink a database I am feeding a live kitten to an alligator. Which actually sounds kinda cool. I mean, n alligator’s gotta eat, right? I have no idea what they eat, it could be stray cats for all I know, so I decided to shrink a few hundred databases today.

The next talk was by Dean Richards from Confio, his talk was “Tuna Helper for SQL Server DBA’s”. I had no clue what the title was about and later fund out ‘tuna’ was a play on the word ‘tuning’, so I can only assume Dean spent time in Boston at one point. As clever as the title was, the content inside was just as good, and so was Dean’s polished delivery. I am guessing he has spoken at least once or twice before. And during the talk he gave me a glimpse into ‘SQL Diagramming’, a concept he attributed to Dan Tow. If you already know about SQL Diagramming, then you are lucky. If you don’t, then get to know about it, because it is something that can make a marked improvement in performance.

The last talk as by Peter Tassmer, “Storage Design for SQL Server”. Peter gave a nice overview of how to tune your database server regardless if you are using DASD or SAN storage. His method of delivery was god as well, he could tell a story well enough and knew how to work the room. You could tell he had spoken before to large groups, and that he was comfortable with the material. While some of the details he shared were already familiar to me, he did raise my awareness for the need to define an acceptable iops threshold for an application and to measure against the iops periodically. If we are not getting the throughput we require, then we need to present our empirical evidence to our storage team and work together on a solution.

Overall I would say that the event was a smashing success. I only wish I had more time to spend learning and sharing knowledge with colleagues. I look forward to the next SQL Saturday and expect to present at that one.

Thanks to Adam and Grant for getting this event done.

The book is on track to be released sometime next month. Between now and the actual release I want to have some fun. Also, I am going to get 20 copies and I can’t have them laying around my office just taking up space. So, I need to find ways to give them away.

Clearly this is a sign. Why else would I keep getting fortunes with the word ‘bing’ on them? And how many more can I expect to come across? How much more Chinese food must I consume to collect the entire set?

So, ’bing’ not only means disease, but it also means ‘cold’. But not cold as in ‘I have a cold’, which would logically follow along the idea of having  disease or sickness. No, this is more like cold as in ice. Which means to me that when I eventually visit China there is a good chance that I am going to order a Coke with ice only to get back a Coke with tuberculosis instead.

The title of the talk will be “DBA Survivor (or What to Expect When You Are Expecting to Be a DBA)”, and you can see more details here. The link for the LiveMeeting isn’t working right now, but I am sure once they are not distracted by all those screaming kids they will get it fixed so that it more resembles this link.

As always, please…no wagering. And if you want to know more about my book, you can check out the DBA Survivor website at http://dbasurvivor.com.

If you have nothing else to do on February 11th set aside some time to learn how to survive life as a DBA and how you can thrive in your career. I’ll cover a lot of topics including how you get started on your first day as a DBA, how to get yourself organized, how to help manage expectations, and how to build relationships with others that will be key to your success.

Food and drinks will be provided, but not by me, and only for those physically in C-Bus that arrive on time.

1. use the #tabletpriceisrightgame hashtag on Twitter, or leave a comment to this blog post
2. select a specific price. not a range of prices, an actual price
3. winner is the one who comes closest without going over
4. please select a unique price, otehrwise I will draw names to select one winner

So far I have these entries:

• @caderoux $1
• Chris $499
• @crummel4 $598
• @SQLChicken $599 plus your first born
• @SQLKnight $666
• @SQLBob $699
• @jgardner04 $699
• Betsy $750
• @BrentO $797 for the base model, with a service agreement
• @GratefulDBA $799
• @CameronMergel $850
• @wnylibrarian $895, case sold separately
• @MladenPrajdic $899 (which is also my guess, but I will allow him to use it as well)
• @tamaraclark $899 (a third guess for this price, apparently I wasn’t specific about guesses being unique)
• @joechr309 $899.98
• @Made2Mentor $900
• @mikeSQL $901
• @afernandez $999
• @tdrepass $999
• @Rougier $1099
• @peschkaj $1199
• @sqlinsaneo $1499
• Debora $1657

I had two other people make an attempt at a guess, but they are not specific enough to be valid entries at this time:

• @anthonydjames $899-$999
• @GFritchey “at least” $1500

I will ship a copy of my book, once available, to the winner. Good luck!

Inside the OperationsManager database look for a view named MTV_Database. All discovered databases will be there. There should be a column for DatabaseSize, but the column will have a GUID at the end of the name.

Now, I forget where I found it, but a while back I came across one of the view definitions that helped me to return a lot of other information, such as SQL version. The view that has SQL version is named MTV_DBEngine, but in order to join the MTV_Database to the MTV_DBEngine I needed to add in a handful of relationship tables and filter on the BaseManagedTypeID. I was going mad trying to make everything work until I found that specific view definition and I don’t recall which one it is, but what I do have is the end result which I can share (your GUIDs will be different, I imagine):

SELECT *
FROM [OperationsManager].[dbo].MT_Database T1
LEFT JOIN [OperationsManager].[dbo].MT_Database_2 T2
ON T1.BaseManagedEntityId = T2.BaseManagedEntityId
LEFT JOIN [OperationsManager].[dbo].MT_Database_1 T3
ON T1.BaseManagedEntityId = T3.BaseManagedEntityId
LEFT JOIN [OperationsManager].[dbo].MT_Database_0 T4
ON T1.BaseManagedEntityId = T4.BaseManagedEntityId
LEFT JOIN [OperationsManager].[dbo].[Relationship] RT5
ON (RT5.RelationshipTypeId = ‘328C1DCD-4AA5-9964-F3B6-0E607AE58416′
AND RT5.TargetEntityId = T1.BaseManagedEntityId)
LEFT JOIN [OperationsManager].[dbo].MTV_DBEngine T5
ON RT5.SourceEntityId = T5.BaseManagedEntityId
LEFT JOIN [OperationsManager].[dbo].[Relationship] RT6
ON (RT6.RelationshipTypeId = ‘6284518A-90CC-FADD-E56B-26669E2A0A8F’
AND RT6.TargetEntityId = T5.BaseManagedEntityId)
LEFT JOIN [OperationsManager].[dbo].MTV_Computer T6
ON RT6.SourceEntityId = T6.BaseManagedEntityId
JOIN [OperationsManager].[dbo].BaseManagedEntity BME
ON BME.BaseManagedEntityId = T1.BaseManagedEntityId
WHERE BME.IsDeleted = 0
AND BME.BaseManagedTypeId = ‘10C1C7F7-BA0F-5F9B-C74A-79A891170934′

I think what you want to do is first find the BaseManagedTypeId for the ‘Microsoft.SQLServer.Database’ entity (that is the one in my where clause). Not sure how I got those relationship GUIDs, I must have hunted for them manually at some point.

At any rate, the simplest answer is to query the MTV_Database view for the database size. Or you can modify some of the database state views to include the information, but I always like to know the T-SQL that is being done behind the scenes. It just makes me feel better knowing everything that is happening under the hood.

When you want to get more details about the instances, like version information, then you have to really dive into the relationships. The OpsMgr console can provide you with the information, but not always in the format you want, which means you may need to build your own T-SQL to get all the right details.