This blog post is about a situation that initially perplexed me – I was installing SQL Server 2017 onto a new DEMO machine – running Windows Server 2019. This install is one I have done over 50 times, if not more.

Halfway through I got an interesting error that (1) I’ve never seen before and (2) did not expect post SQL Server 2014.

MSI Error: 1706 An installation package for the product Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Native Client cannot be found. Try the installation again using a valid copy of the installation package ‘sqlncli.msi’.

And it then asked me to locate the install files for SQL Server 2012 Native Client.

I (obviously) could not find those as I had not installed it – so I downloaded the native Client off Microsoft’s website and then proceeded to get this error:

At which point I wondered what the heck was going on….

Until I remembered that unlike my normal setup I had installed Visual Studio 2019 on the VM first. So I looked in Programs and Features and lo and behold there was SQL Server Native Client:

I also noticed SQL Server 2016 LocalDB which is installed by Visual Studio – which I made a note to upgrade to version 2017 as this can cause issues with things like the TRANSLATE function that was introduced in SQL Server 2017.

So I uninstalled SQL Server 2012 Native Client and reinstalled SQL Server 2017 Developer Edition and boom!! – it worked.

Yip.

This blog post is not going to be a technical one…. but it’s about technology – well more accurately about bringing technology to the masses.

I recently got awarded this:

What is it?

It is an award that is given to people within the PASS Community who have done a heap of volunteering. You have to be nominated to get it – so thank you to whomever nominated me – it was a surprise. A very humbling surprise…..

You can find more about here:

https://www.pass.org/Community/GetInvolved/Volunteer/OutstandingVolunteers.aspx

I was lucky enough to have PASS President Grant Fritchey ( t | w) announce it via YouTube (2 minutes 08 seconds in but please watch the whole video – PASS is a great community initiative)

 

Oh and if you are interesting in learning stuff for free and be part of a growing community of 300,000 like-minded Data Platform people – register here:

https://www.pass.org/RegisterforSQLPASS.aspx?viewctl=Registration

It’s FREE!! And you get access to a lot of cool educational things like Virtual User Groups and a heap of material to help you be a better Data Platform person.

So here’s my challenge to you – in fact two challenges:

Do you know someone within the PASS Community who has been an outstanding volunteer? If you do – please nominate them, we need to recognise the hard work, late nights, early mornings and stuff that people do. By the way – people don’t do those things to earn awards – they do it because helping others is a fantastic way to live your life.

We’ve all been there where we don’t know how to do something, or need to learn or just need a helping hand.

I’ve been there, I’ve had so many people help me out, give me advice (both technical and personal) and that’s why my drive is to help that one person in the crowd or webinar to do things better. It’s why I give up my time in my local community to speak at any event that I can – especially ones with young people.

Helping others grow and learn is rewarding in itself and I’m flattered and humbled by the nomination and award. Writing this blog post I hope it inspires you too to go out and #MakeStuffGo for your local community.

Which is part of my second challenge – do you have a local User Group, Meetup or Community Conference that is run in your city? Please go and find the organiser and ask them if they need help.

Don’t worry if you don’t think you have anything to speak about – that’s OK – you know what makes a User Group or Conference actually work?

The people who are helping the registrations, the people who help test the AV, the people who stick around afterwards and clean up.

Those volunteers are the true engine of a community conference.

So please, give it a go – you will make a massive difference.

Yip.

 

 

This blog post explains how to get into SQL Server if you have lost your sa password or you have no way of getting into your SQL Server instance.

This blog post is dedicated to the people who came along to my training course in Wellington 22nd February 2019…..

Issue:

During the course on “DevOps for the Database” – my 2nd instance on the training VMs was not setup for the training user. I did not have the sa password on me at the time and so I had to break into the instance…..

Resolution:

There are two methods you can do this:

• the GUI
• command line

Using the GUI:

First thing – stop the SQL Server Agent using configuration manager:

Now we want to stop the SQL Server instance and add the -m flag to it’s startup parameters:

We now start the service up and SQL Server will be in single user mode. You can now choose which methods to connect to the SQL Server instance.

Using the CommandLine to bring up SQL Server in Single User Mode:

These days it is way more preferable to write scripts for everything – and it’s a bit quicker to run the following commands.

For the example below the instance name is PROD.

First – if you’re not sure where SQL Server is installed you can look at the properties of the instance via the services applet and see where the path to the executable is.

For the example above the executable that we want to put into an ADMIN command prompt is:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL13.PROD\MSSQL\Binn\sqlservr.exe" -sPROD

You can now stop the services:

You can now paste in the executable path from the services applet and add a /m to the end

 

Logging in:

Regardless of which method you used to start SQL Server up in Single User mode you can now bring up another command prompt in Administrator mode and use SQLCMD to connect to the single user instance:

You have two methods of creating users – SQL Authentication or Windows Authentication.

Creating a SQL Authenticated User:

1.Connect to the master database in SQLCMD window:

USE MASTER
GO

2. Create a login called temp login (or whatever you want to call it)

CREATE LOGIN TempLogin WITH PASSWORD = '***********'
GO

(replace ******** with your password)

3. Add your user to SYSAdmin role:

ALTER SERVER ROLE sysadmin ADD MEMBER TempLogin
GO

You can now connect to your instance with SQL Authentication and your username/password from above and add your required user that could not login to your SQL Server instance.

Or change the sa password if required…

Creating a Windows Authenticated User:

1.Connect to the master database in SQLCMD window:

USE MASTER
GO

2. Create a login for your windows domain (i.e. my domain is called MyDOMAIN)

CREATE LOGIN [MyDOMAIN\Hamish] FROM WINDOWS; 
GO

3. Add your user to SYSAdmin role:

ALTER SERVER ROLE sysadmin ADD MEMBER [MyDOMAIN\Hamish];
GO

You can now connect to your instance with Windows Authentication and  and add your required user that could not login to your SQL Server instance.

Or change the sa password if required…

When you are happy that you can connect – remove your temporary login and if you used the GUI – stop the SQL Server instance and remove the -m flag from startup parameters and start up SQL Server.

This is a very quick way to essentially break into your SQL Server instance and create an admin account – obviously quite dangerous if you have RDP access to the server… so be careful who can access the server that hosts your SQL Server instances!!

Yip.

This blog post is related to my previous blog post on Azure SQL Managed Instances:

Azure SQL Managed Instance – full blown SQL Server in the cloud….?

Before you actually migrate your database you need to think about what changes to your application you may need to do.

Azure SQL Managed Instances do not utilise windows authentication – so your two methods of authenticating applications and users are:

• SQL Authentication:This authentication method uses a username and password.
• Azure Active Directory Authentication:This authentication method uses identities managed by Azure Active Directory and is supported for managed and integrated domains. Use Active Directory authentication (integrated security) whenever possible.

Azure Active Directory (AAD) logins are the Azure version of on-premises database logins that you are using in your on-premises SQL Server instances. AAD logins enables you to specify users and groups from your Azure Active Directory tenant as true instance-scoped principals, capable of performing any instance-level operation, including cross-database queries within the same Managed Instance.

Note: Azure AD logins and users are supported as a preview feature for Azure SQL Managed Instances.

A new syntax is introduced to create AAD logins, which utilises  “FROM EXTERNAL PROVIDER”  i.e.

CREATE LOGIN [hamish@morphit.onmicrosoft.com] FROM EXTERNAL PROVIDER
GO

compare this to our normal method of creating a login for a windows domain account

CREATE LOGIN [MorphiT\Hamish] FROM WINDOWS; 
GO

One of the key things to understand with Azure SQL Managed Instances is that if you are
leveraging AAD for authentication then the SID for the server level login will not be
the same as on-premises. This will be a consideration when you are migrating your database and users from on-premises to Azure SQL Managed Instance.

Just like any database migration where SQL Authentication is used, you will need to handle the mismatch in SID between the database user and Instance Login.

This means that you may have to use ALTER USER to link the AAD login to the database user. Which in effect will link the database user to the server login.

You can also remove the user and re-add them in – however this is quite a destructive method and you will have no certainty that you will get the securables correct or as they were before you removed the user.

The biggest consideration is – will your application handle AAD – if not then you will have to use SQL Authentication.

If you decide to use SQL Authentication initially and then move to AAD then you will need to re-engineer your application to leverage AAD….

Yip.

This blog post is one that I have had percolating in the background since around November 2018.

My good mate John Martin ( t ) was speaking at PASS Summit on Azure SQL Managed Instances and we had talked about use cases, some of the gotchas and things to consider when migrating your databases to it.

I have been discussing Managed Instances (MI) with more people recently and this blog post is basically a run down of what MI is and how you can migrate to it with some considerations.

The Past

Before we go into MI we should look at what the current offerings were in Azure before MI became available in 2018.

We already had Azure SQL Database (introduced in 2010) and also the ability to run up SQL Server on an Azure VM. Both of these offerings were attractive as:

Azure SQL Database:

Pros:

Server Administration is handled by Microsoft

You could scale out as required

Backups were fully managed

(BTW you can configure a long-term backup retention policy
to automatically retain backups in Azure blob storage for up to 10 years.)

Cons:

We don’t have SQL Server Agent

It’s running 24/7

Cross-database queries are not native

No control of files and filegroups

Can’t use native backups for restore

No Service Broker

Backups are fully managed (for control freaks like myself this can be an annoyance)

Note: Azure SQL Database comes in Singleton databases or Elastic Pools

SQL Server running an Azure VM:

Pros:

Good old familiar SQL Server

SQL Server Agent jobs!!

We can power down the VM if we do not require SQL Server 24/7

Cons:

We still have to administrate a server

The costs associated with hosting VMs in Azure

The management overhead of hosting VMs in Azure

Introducing Managed Instances:

Pros:

HA is built in

Infrastructure is handled by Azure

Can backup/restore to Azure Blob Storage

Lift & shift migrations

SQL Server Agent

Cross Database Queries

Linked Server (I know, I know….)

But like everything there are some cons.

Cons:

Commissioning the Managed Instance can take a fair while.

We can’t shut it down so cost can be prohibitive if you have scaled it wrong.

Azure SQL Database Managed Instance does not currently support long-term backup retention

Here is a good comparison of Managed Instance vs Azure SQL Database

Reference: “Azure Managed Instance your bridge to the cloud”, Joey D’Antoni, SQLSaturday Cambridge 2018

Requirements for Azure Managed Instances

Configuring network environment:

You need to configure the network environment where Managed instance will be created. You will need to create an Azure VNet and a subnet where the instance will be placed.

Although the VNet/subnet can be automatically configured when the instance is created, the only drawback is the fact that it will configure it with some default parameters that you cannot change later.

If you already have a VNet and subnet where you would like to deploy your Managed Instance, you would need to make sure that your VNet and subnet satisfy networking requirements.

Creating Managed Instance:

Once we have the network environment configured the Managed instaqnce can be created. The easiest method is to use the Azure portal, however you can use PowerShell, PowerShell with ARM template, or Azure CLI.

My recommendation is to script it out as that adheres to my philosophy of using Infrastructure as Code to do pretty much anything where possible.

Be careful though…

Storage is vital to the performance of your database:

You need to size your underlying disk with throughput in mind:

So if we want at least 5,000 IOPS per disk then we need to size at P30 or combine smaller disks to achieve the necessary IOPS.

Provisioned capacity and performance

When you provision a premium storage disk, unlike standard storage, you are guaranteed the capacity, IOPS, and throughput of that disk. For example, if you create a P50 disk, Azure provisions 4,095-GB storage capacity, 7,500 IOPS, and 250-MB/s throughput for that disk. Your application can use all or part of the capacity and performance.

Disk size

Azure maps the disk size (rounded up) to the nearest premium storage disk option, as specified in the table above. For example, a disk size of 100 GB is classified as a P10 option. It can perform up to 500 IOPS, with up to 100-MB/s throughput. Similarly, a disk of size 400 GB is classified as a P20. It can perform up to 2,300 IOPS, with 150-MB/s throughput.

Connecting to Managed Instance:

Essentially – Managed Instance is a private service placed on a private IP inside your VNet, so you cannot connect via public IPs.

You can connect to your Managed Instance in a variety of ways:

• Create an Azure VM with installed SSMS and other apps that can be used to access your Managed Instance in a subnet within the same VNet where your Managed Instance is placed. The VM cannot be in the same subnet with your Managed Instances.
• Setup Point-to-site connection on your computer that will enable you to “join” your computer to the VNet where Managed Instance is placed and use Managed Instance as any other SQL Server in your network.
• Connect your local network using express route or site-to-site connection.

Validating your database before migration:

It is vital that you check that there are no differences between your SQL Server and Managed Instance.  You need to understand what features you are using and whether you need to update your existing instance in order to migrate.

A good method is to install the Data Migration Assistant which will analyse the database on your SQL Server and alert you to any issue that  could block the migration.

You also need to consider your authentication methods for your users and applications:

Authentication considerations for your applications when migrating to Azure SQL Managed Instances

Migrating databases:

There are several ways to move your database:

• Native restore functionality that enables you to create a backup of your database, upload it to an Azure blob storage and RESTORE database from the blob storage. This is probably the faster approach for migration, but requires some downtime because your database cannot be used until you restore it on Managed Instance. You can even roll your own log shipping to it to minimise the amount of downtime.
• Data Migration Service is a service that can migrate your database with minimal downtime. It does require vNet connectivity for source, VPN or Express Route to Azure.
• Transactional Replication – this also minimises the amount of down-time and you can use a push subscriber model for Managed Instance

You can migrate up to 100 database on a single Managed Instance.

T-SQL Considerations:

There are some differences in T-SQL syntax and behaviour between Managed Instance and on-premises SQL Server.

It is highly recommended that you read this:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-managed-instance-transact-sql-information

So there you have it – Azure SQL Managed Instances are live – some might say that they are the future of SQL databases in Azure.

I personally think that like anything it has it’s place. For new cloud based apps that require a SQL database in Azure I’d probably still use Azure SQL Database but of course there is that good old saying:

“It depends”

Yip.

In late December 2018 I had a discussion with Amanda Martin the PASS Community Manager around things that I would be doing in 2019.  I thought I would share the questions we discussed, and my replies below.

What are your professional goals for 2019?

My professional goals for 2019 are based around what SQL Server 2019 will bring to the Data Platform.  I am looking forward specifically to the changes around SQL Server on Linux – specifically the Red Hat Enterprise Linux based images.

See my blog post where I run up the Ubuntu images on CentOS:

Setting up CentOS to run docker for SQL Server

I have clients who are heavily into containers and this has driven me to start promoting this within the community – to help others learn about what containerized SQL Server is all about.

Is there a technology you want to learn or master?

As mentioned above SQL Server 2019 is going to be a great release in terms of what it can offer people to extend their data platform.

This in itself will be a technology that I will be mastering in 2019 and I look forward to be able to back-fill that knowledge to our community.

A technology I am looking forward to learn and master in 2019 is Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

The reason for this is I have presented on how powerful the Azure platform can be. I am also educating my clients and community around containers so this is a great partnership of both technologies.

In 2018 an area that I have been working in a fair bit has been Availability Groups and the fact that SQL Server 2019 CTP 2.2 allows for running an AG on docker with Kubernetes is exciting.

Using containers as part of a DevOps deployment pipeline for databases and applications is an area that will grow and being at the forefront of that is a driver for me in 2019.

Do you have a skill you want to upgrade?

I speak on continuous improvement – around deploying quality value every time you release software.

A skill I want to “upgrade” is my speaking skills, I want to spend time honing my speaking craft. I want to continually improve how I deliver content to the community and industry.

Being able to deliver quality content that helps people learn is fundamental to why I get up in front of crowds and talk about how to #MakeStuffGo

In terms of technological skills I want to upgrade – I always want to be a better Data Professional and so this year will be spent reading blog posts, registering for some of the fantastic (and free!!) webinars that PASS run.

Our Data Platform is growing exponentially and so a fair chunk of my free time will be spent ensuring that the skills I have within it are relevant, current and transferable.

What are your PASS community goals for 2019?

My PASS community goals for 2019 are to be more involved. To extend my reach and influence within the community. I live in New Zealand which is quite a remote country – which is a good thing and sometimes a bad thing when it comes to travelling (anywhere).

I want to be able to reach the wider community and part of this will be where I do more webcasts as opposed to writing. Being able to run webinars is a great way to connect and share content with a fair wider and diverse audience.

Are you already involved with a PASS Local or Virtual Group? If so, do you want to get more involved in these speaking, organizing and coordination opportunities?

I am already a PASS Local User Group Leader in Christchurch, New Zealand. I run the SQL Server and Data Management User Group which has grown from 250 members to 745 members in 3 years under my leadership.

I have recently been involved in the  “rebooted” DevOps Virtual Group with Rob Sewell (t | w) which has been a fantastic platform for us to get the DevOps message out to the world via the PASS VG platform. Rob is a very energetic guy and I think it’s gonna be brilliant working with a guy who is as bouncy as myself!!

It means that at least twice a month I am speaking, organizing and coordinating educational content to up-skill people – for free. That in itself is awesome and thanks PASS for all the support you give us UG/VG leaders.

Do you want to share more ideas and content with the PASS community through blogging or publishing video content?

I certainly do – 2018 has been a proving ground year for me. Over the past 3 years being involved with PASS I’ve grown my contributions within the community and the reason I’ve grown it is that it is rewarding to see the impact of what we all can do. 2019 I will be looking at how I can do more with web based sessions – so that a more diverse group of people can learn from both myself and others.

Collaboration is a key thing in how I work and also in my personal life and I am looking forward to seeing how I can work with others to increase our “touch points” within the industry to help people connect, learn and share.

I am also looking to collaborate with some people on writing a book to help people learn via another medium.

Do you want to get involved with or plan a SQLSaturday for your local PASS community?

I already organize a SQLSaturday – SQLSaturday South Island. This event has grown each year since I took it over in 2016 and it now boasts Australasia’s largest % of WIT speakers.

I want to further this and a goal for 2019 is to be a more inclusive and diverse community based event.

This is an exciting goal as I have never been one to stray away from goals or from encouraging people to be part of a community.

I am looking forward to collaborating with a whole range of people within both my local and extended network.

So there you have it – 4 days into the New Year and I’m excited about where 2019 will lead me – both from a technological, personal and community perspective.

A mention has to go to PASS as if it weren’t for the platform they provide then I wouldn’t be able to use such things as the Learning Center
https://www.pass.org/Learning/Recordings/Listing.aspx?EventID=931

to learn about containers and SQL Server….

…or attend heaps of SQLSaturdays around the world https://sqlsaturday.com to learn for free (and to give back to the community by speaking)…..

…. or attend PASS Summit year in Seattle  https://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Live.aspx to both learn things and share my own knowledge.

So if you’re reading this and have not joined the PASS Community https://www.pass.org/AboutPASS.aspx  then register here:

https://www.pass.org/RegisterforSQLPASS.aspx

it’s free!! And will help you set and achieve some professional, technical and community goals you may set yourself for 2019.

Yip.

in my previous post I wrote about how easy it is to add the tSQLt unit test framework to your database if it is running in a docker container.

How to use tSQLt unit test framework with a SQL Server database in a docker container

But let’s say you have the SQLTest utility from Redgate (hopefully you’ve bought the SQL Toolbelt as it really does make your life way simpler and more productive)

https://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-toolbelt/index

So as per usual – open up SQLTest and choose the database that you want to add the tSQLt framework (that is encapsulated in SQLTest) to;

You will be presented with this screen – I generally take off the tick for SQL Cop and add those tests later..

Error:

Unfortunately we get an error:

Resolution:

Basically we need to add tSQLt manually and edit some things to make it work with SQL Server running in a docker container:

1. First we need to ensure set both clr enabled and clr strict security to enabled:

EXEC sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1
RECONFIGURE
GO

EXEC sp_configure 'clr enabled', 1
EXEC sp_configure 'clr strict security', 0
RECONFIGURE
GO

 

2. We can then either grab the script manually that SQLTest is using or manually download the tSQLt framework from http://tsqlt.org/download/tsqlt/

We will use the tSQLt.Class.sql script and basically search for:

PERMISSION_SET = EXTERNAL_ACCESS

and change it to

PERMISSION_SET = SAFE

We can now either add our database to SQLTest as per normal (in fact if we’ve done everything correctly the it will just appear) so just try and hit refresh and your database should be there.

Now

 

There is now no reason at all that you should not be writing/running unit tests for your SQL code.

You can even do it against databases running in a docker container using SQLTest.

I always say unit tests are the thing that keep me employed – as all my buggy code (and there’s a lot) gets caught on my laptop (or container) and NOT in PROD or even UAT systems.

So go visit

https://tsqlt.org/user-guide/tsqlt-tutorial/

or these other great sites:

https://www.simple-talk.com/sql/t-sql-programming/getting-started-testing-databases-with-tsqlt

http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/unit-testing-t-sql-tsqlt

https://www.itprotoday.com/sql-server/getting-started-test-driven-design-sql-server

http://d-a-green.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/tSQLt

http://datacentricity.net/tag/tsqlt/

and in no time at all you will be writing your very own unit test.

Yip.

This blog post describes how to add the tSQLt unit testing framework to a database running in a docker container. You may have already read my article on how easy it is to install against a ‘normal’ SQL Server instance – running on windows…

How to install the tSQLt unit test framework to start unit testing your database code

..but what about SQL Server running in a docker container??

Background:

I have a SQL Server instance running in a docker container as described in my previous post:

Setting up CentOS to run docker for SQL Server

The main reason why I run SQL Server in a container is so that I can run up specific versions – all from a script and generally as part of an automated build within Continuous Integration processes.

Method:

The first thing we need to do is spin up our docker container which has our SQL Server instance:

Just to verify that it is running let’s run

docker ps

We can see that the container has an ID of 789f58fbef3f and a name of sql1 .

I have also mapped the default port of 1433 to 59666

We can now connect to SQL Server on port 59666 and do some typical queries whenever we connect to an instance for the first time:

Note that in the screenshot above – the servername result is the name of our container.

Now we can create our database and SQL Authenticated users as normal.

Yes – you interpreted that sentence correctly – right now you cannot use windows authenticated users against SQL Server running in a docker container on Linux. There is a way to get around this that I will be blogging about in late January 2019.

We can add our database to Source Control as per normal and apply the latest changes in our branch. I use the popular Redgate tooling for Source Control (and DevOps) activities

So all that is left to do is download the tSQLt framework (a whopping 86KB zip file)  from http://tsqlt.org/download/tsqlt/

Inside the zip file are some files:

There is:

Example.sql

Which is a script that allows you to create a database and run your first unit tests. It’s a great example and you can follow the documentation at https://tsqlt.org/user-guide/quick-start/

SetClrEnabled.sql

Which is a script to enable CLR. This is partly why you should only run tSQLt on your DEV or selected TEST databases.

This is where I diverge slightly from a stock standard install:

The SetClrEnabled script does the following:

EXEC sp_configure 'clr enabled', 1;
RECONFIGURE;
GO

Whereas for Linux based SQL Server we need to run this – as it will not install with clr strict security enabled – note we have to ‘show advanced options’ first:

EXEC sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1
RECONFIGURE
GO

EXEC sp_configure 'clr enabled', 1
EXEC sp_configure 'clr strict security', 0
RECONFIGURE
GO

tSQLt.Class.sql

This is the framework itself. Now before you run this you have to do the following to get it to run in a database running in a container:

In the script you need to change PERMISSION_SET = EXTERNAL_ACCESS to be PERMISSION_SET = SAFE

We now run the script and voila – we have tSQLt in our database and can now write or run all the unit tests we want.

So there you have it – you can add tSQLt very easily (just 2 changes to make) to a database running in a docker container.

As mentioned the reason why I am very interested in running tests against databases running on container is around testing – I can spin up the container, download a particular patch level of SQL Server 2017 and above, add my database from source control, apply any referential data from source control and apply tSQLt which allows me to run a plethora of unit tests.

All within seconds and all consistently across multiple environment levels (QA, Integration, Functional test etc).

So go visit

https://tsqlt.org/user-guide/tsqlt-tutorial/

or these other great sites:

https://www.simple-talk.com/sql/t-sql-programming/getting-started-testing-databases-with-tsqlt

http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/unit-testing-t-sql-tsqlt

https://www.itprotoday.com/sql-server/getting-started-test-driven-design-sql-server

http://d-a-green.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/tSQLt

http://datacentricity.net/tag/tsqlt/

and in no time at all you will be writing your very own unit test.

Yip.

This blog post describes how easy it is to install the tSQLt framework.

Don’t know much about tSQLt? If you are serious about dealing with data in SQL Server then you should be as serious about unit testing the changes you are making to your stored procedures, functions and the like.

In fact I wrote a blog post about unit testing here:

Doing DevOps for your Database? You need to start here…

So I am assuming that you have realised how important it is to unit test your data and code so here’s how to install tSQLt to your database.

First – go to the tSQLt website:

https://tsqlt.org/

and go to download the framework:

The direct URL is http://tsqlt.org/download/tsqlt/

You will get a zip file with some files in it:

There is:

Example.sql

Which is a script that allows you to create a database and run your first unit tests. It’s a great example and you can follow the documentation at https://tsqlt.org/user-guide/quick-start/

SetClrEnabled.sql

Which is a script to enable CLR. This is partly why you should only run tSQLt on your DEV or selected TEST databases.

tSQLt.Class.sql

This is the framework itself.

We now run the SetClrEnabled & tSQLt.Class scripts and voila – we have tSQLt in our database and can now write or run all the unit tests we want.

I guess at this stage you might ask – why do I need to enable CLR – well let’s say you don’t enable it and just run tSQLt.Class.sql – you will get the following error:

So yeah – enable CLR and then when you run the tSQLt.Class.sql script – things will go much better:

So now you can start writing your own tests. The tSQLt framework adheres to the three A’s of unit testing:

Assemble

Act

Assert

The tSQLt website has some great examples and tutorials and honestly – the learning curve is very small – I’d say most Data Professionals can be up and running unit tests within 1-2 hours.

So go visit

https://tsqlt.org/user-guide/tsqlt-tutorial/

or these other great sites:

https://www.simple-talk.com/sql/t-sql-programming/getting-started-testing-databases-with-tsqlt

http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/unit-testing-t-sql-tsqlt

https://www.itprotoday.com/sql-server/getting-started-test-driven-design-sql-server

http://d-a-green.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/tSQLt

http://datacentricity.net/tag/tsqlt/

and in no time at all you will be writing your very own unit test.

In my opinion tSQLt is that sweet spot of easy to use and comprehensive enough to make a difference.

Yip.

This blog post is about a situation where after windows patching the SQL Server service and SQL Server Agent services will not start automatically – but will manually.

At a client site they had recently patched the servers – things went swimmingly – except the SQL Server services would not start.

Manually starting the services by right clicking | choosing start worked….

It is SQL Server 2017 with CU12 applied.

We tried a few things:

Making the services Automatic (Delayed)

Increasing the service pipeline timeout from 30 seconds to 60 seconds

But nothing worked.

Looking at the event logs I (eventually) found this:

Event ID 7000:

The MSSQLSERVER service failed to start due to the following error:
The account name is invalid or does not exist, or the password is invalid for the account name specified.

Which is bizarre – as the service account had been used for months – but after each reboot the services had to be manually started. GPO and other things had been blamed but no one could actually find out why.

Just for a laugh – I decided to “rename” the service account.

From svcSQL@<domain> to <domain>\svcSQL

Rebooted and it worked.

Just to make sure it wasn’t a false positive I left the SQL Server Agent service how it was – and it did not start.

As to why this is the case – I’m not sure. To date I had always set up my SQL Server services with <domain>\<service account> so I have never stumbled across this – until now.

But I don’t care too much – it means that the client can reboot their server and know SQL Server will come back…

Yip.