CPU Hyperthreading: Is it ON or OFF

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Sometime back a customer had asked a question on how to find out the different between hyperthreaded CPUs and multi-core CPUs using Powershell. There are multiple utilities available on the web which provide this information readily along with code samples i.e. if you have an affinity for coding.

However, my requirement was to get this information without the use of an executable. Such an endeavor seemed worthwhile for me since such scripts can be used for auditing and inventory related purposes.

The powershell script below can help you identify if hyperthreading is enabled on the server or not and gives you information about the number of logical and physical processors on the server/machine. The powershell script below makes use of Win32_Processor WMI class. The script can be easily adapted to using VBScript as well.

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SQL Feature Discovery Script

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As part of my work, I very frequently have to collect information about the various database engine features that are currently being used on a particular SQL Server instance. Sometimes, this requires me to write T-SQL scripts to fetch the required information. I had updated my initial data collection script some time back and this gave me the idea to write up another set of T-SQL queries to fetch the information for the database engine features in use.

The script collects a bunch of information which are categorized under the following headings:

1. General Server Configuration
        Server Info
        Non-default sp_configure settings
        Server Settings
        Active Trace Flags
2. Replication Configuration
        Replication Publishers
        Merge Replication Publishers
        Replication Subscribers
        Replication Distributors
3. Full-text enabled databases
4. Linked Servers
5. SQL Agent information
6. Databases
        Database information
        Database file information
7. Server Triggers
8. Policy Based Management
9. Resource Governor
10. Database Mail
11. Log Shipping
12. Database Mirroring
13. SQL CLR Assemblies
14. sp_OA* procedures

Usage

  1. Download the script using the link given at the bottom of the page and save it to a file named SQL_DISCOVERY.SQL. Open the script file in a SSMS Query Window.
  2. Press CTRL+SHIFT+F so that the output results are put into a file. Doing this will not produce a message or any other notification.
  3. Execute the script and specify SQL_DISCOVERY.html as the output file name so that we can get the output in the require HTML format.
  4. Once the script is completed, open the HTML file.

Script download: image

If you have any feedback about the script or feel any new additions to the existing data that is being captured, please feel free to leave a comment!

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Awesomesauce SQL Server 2012: System Health Session

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There have been a spate of new features and enhancements to existing functionality in SQL Server 2012. The System Health Extended Events session is one of the benefactors. I had previously blogged about the usage of the System Health Session data using custom SSMS Reports in a four part series. Now it is time to talk about the enhancements to the System Health Session’s predecessor.

The SQL Server 2012 health session adds additional events to the default extended event health session running on the instance which is listed below to collect data for the following:

  • Out of memory errors for CLR and the database engine using the events:
    • sqlclr.clr_allocation_failure
    • sqlclr.clr_virtual_alloc_failure
    • sqlos.memory_broker_ring_buffer_recorded
    • sqlos.memory_node_oom_ring_buffer_recorded
  • Scheduler health issues using the events:
    • sqlos.scheduler_monitor_deadlock_ring_buffer_recorded
    • sqlos.scheduler_monitor_non_yielding_iocp_ring_buffer_recorded
    • sqlos.scheduler_monitor_non_yielding_ring_buffer_recorded
    • sqlos.scheduler_monitor_non_yielding_rm_ring_buffer_recorded
    • sqlos.scheduler_monitor_stalled_dispatcher_ring_buffer_recorded
    • sqlos.scheduler_monitor_system_health_ring_buffer_recorded
  • The results of the sp_server_diagnostics component
  • Security and connectivity errors encountered using the events:
    • sqlserver.connectivity_ring_buffer_recorded
    • sqlserver.security_error_ring_buffer_recorded

imageAdditional wait types are also tracked which adds to the existing list of waits captured by this session. Since SQL Server 2012 Management Studio allows you to view the configured Extended Events session on the SQL Server 2012 instance, you can get to the system_health session using the following steps from Object Explorer (see Screenshot 1):

Expand Management –> Extended Events –> system_health.

The Script Session as option now provides you with a way to view the session definition. Another enhancement made to this session is the target for this session is now also a .xel file which by default is located in your SQL Server LOG folder. The target definition for the System Health session are now:

a. Ring Buffer (as was in SQL Server 2008) 
b. XEL file – With a maximum size of 5 MB and a file retention policy of 4 files.

So now you can leverage the management studio XEvent UI to view the results. You can right-click on the ring buffer target in the UI and click on the View Target Data option which will give you an XML document. image

The coolest thing that I like here is the viewer’s capability to show you all the data from all the .xel files. Once you have the events loaded, you should see a view as shown in Screenshot 2. This gives you a list of all the events that were generated. You can sort on the event columns by clicking on them. The progress of the sorting will be visible towards the top right hand corner of SSMS as shown in Screenshot 3. Now that you have the basic view, let’s find out what more can we do with the System Health Session data displayed.

image

You can click on the Choose Columns option in the toolbar, select the columns that you want to view additionally apart from the name and timestamp by using the Available Columns list. See Screenshot 4 for an example.

image

Now that you have selected the additional columns, you can also set grouping (using the Grouping button) to view each of the event name categories, the number of events reported and aggregations on the column values (using the Aggregations button). So finally, I landed up with a view as shown below in Screenshot 5. What’s more, you can save the view settings using the Display Settings button!

image

I am currently writing a series on SSWUG for designing SSRS reports for viewing the events reported by the System Health Session. You can following the series here. If you have SQL Server 2012 RTM installed, then you need to download the T-SQL script attached to Mike Wachal’s blog post to address the wait type information captured.

Monitoring just got a whole lot easier!!

SQLDIAG and SQL Server 2012

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SQLDIAG is a data collection utility that is used for collecting T-SQL script output, perfmon data and profiler traces in a consolidated manner. This allows the database administrators for collect a single output without having to configure multiple data collection utilities for capturing the required data.

SQLDIAG has been shipping with the SQL Server product since SQL Server 2005. Now the reason I am writing this post is to talk about a specific issue that you can encounter when you already have a previous version of SQLDIAG installed on your machine along with SQL Server 2012.

Using the command below I am trying to execute a SQLDIAG data collection using a specific SQL Server 2012 SQLDIAG configuration file. The command that I used was to specify the output folder and the default SQLDIAG configuration file available at C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\SQLDiag.XML:

C:\>sqldiag /O "F:\Temp\SQLDIAG Output" /I "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\SQLDiag.XML"

The output that I got was:

SQLDIAG Output path: F:\Temp\SQLDIAG Output\

SQLDIAG Invalid SQL Server version specified.  SQL Server version 11 is not supported by this version of the collector

SQLDIAG . Function result: 87. Message: The parameter is incorrect.

The reason for the above issue is that my environment PATH variable has the path for a previous version of SQLDIAG listed before the path of the SQL Server 2012 SQLDIAG. My path variable has the directory “C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\” listed before “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\” which is the default location of the SQLDIAG utility. The PATH variable is updated with the SQL specific directories during a SQL Server installation. In my case, I have a SQL Server 2008 R2 instance installed on my box. So the configuration file which specifies a data collection for a SQL Server 2012 is failing because I am using a SQLDIAG from a SQL Server 2008 R2 installation.

If I executed the following command, then my SQLDIAG initialization will work correctly:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\sqldiag.exe" /O "F:\Temp\SQLDIAG Output" /I "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\SQLDiag.XML"

To summarize, you need to full qualify your SQLDIAG executable path when collecting SQLDIAG data from a machine which has multiple versions of SQLDIAG installed on the machine.

Awesomesauce SQL Server 2012: Performance Dashboard

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I had written an article on SSWUG on how to track performance problems using Performance Dashboard. So, I thought it would be a good idea to blog about the new enhancements to the toolset for SQL Server 2012. The Performance Dashboard has been enhanced for SQL Server 2012 and is available for download on the Microsoft Download site.

And with this I also start the Awesomesauce series on my blog where I will keep posting about new features of SQL Server 2012 which I think are just plain awesomesauce!!

Once you install the Performance Dashboard, you need to do the following:

1. Each SQL Server instance you plan to monitor must contain the procedures and functions used by the queries in the reports.  Using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), open the setup.sql script from your installation directory (default of %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Performance Dashboard) and run the script.  Close the query window once it completes.

2. In the Object Explorer pane in SSMS, right mouse click on the SQL Server instance node, then choose Reports-Custom Reports.  Browse to the installation directory and open the performance_dashboard_main.rdl file.  Explore the health of your server by clicking on the various charts and hyperlinks in the report.

3. All of the remaining reports are accessed as drill through operations from the main page or one of its children.  For a detailed explanation of all installation requirements and guidance on how to use the reports, please see the help file, PerformanceDashboardHelp.chm

Now that the nitty gritty details are out of the way, what will you get when you view the dashboard and you will notice the dashboard having a new entry for XEvent sessions currently active on the instance.

image

 

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