SQL 2016 SP1

The recently released service pack(SP1) for SQL 2016 includes very big enhancements. The biggest of all is providing premium features such as inmemory, columnstore to standard edition. Of course, there are some restrictions but it is definitely good news for people using standard edition or looking to upgrade.

One interesting enhancement is support to “Create or Alter” syntax while creating objects such as functions\procedures\triggers.

Sample Syntax :

Create or Alter procedure usp_test
as
begin
select 1 as id
end

Advertisement

Database Backup Encryption

Starting from SQL 2014, we can encrypt the database backups without encrypting the actual database files. Prior to SQL 2014, the only way to encrypt the database backups using native SQL options is by enabling Transparent Database Encryption(TDE) on the database – which basically encrypts the database files at rest and this encrypts the backups as well. Obviously, enabling TDE is a bit overkill if you want to encrypt just the backups. This issue is addressed in SQL 2014 where backups can be encrypted without enabling TDE.

Below is a simple step by step procedure to encrypt backups in SQL 2014 and later.

1. Create Master Key.
2. Create Certificate.
3. Backup the Certificate and Private Key.
4. Use the Certificate to backup the database.
5. Create Certificate on the target server.
6. Restore the database on the target server.

--Step 1:
Create Master key Encryption by Password ='SQL2016Master'
--Step 2:
Create Certificate CW_SQL With Subject='Certificate'
--Step 3:
Backup certificate CW_SQL to file ='C:\Temp\CW_SQL.Cert'
with Private Key
(
File = 'C:\Temp\CW_SQL_PrivateKey.pvt',
Encryption by password='SQLBackup'
)
--Step 4:
BACKUP DATABASE [TestDB] TO DISK = N'C:\Temp\TestDB.bak' WITH FORMAT, INIT, MEDIANAME = N'TestDB Backup',
NAME = N'TestDB-Full Database Backup', SKIP, NOREWIND, NOUNLOAD, COMPRESSION, ENCRYPTION(ALGORITHM = AES_128, SERVER CERTIFICATE = [CW_SQL]), STATS = 10, CHECKSUM
--Step 5: on target server
Create certificate CW_SQL from file ='C:\Temp\CW_SQL.Cert'
with Private Key
(
File = 'C:\Temp\CW_SQL_PrivateKey.pvt',
Decryption by password='SQLBackup'
)
--Step 6: On target server
Restore Database TestDB from Disk='C:\Temp\TestDB.bak' with Recovery

When creating the certificate on the target server, the certificate name is not important – you can create the certificate with any name but the thumb print is what will be validated before restoring the database. So, as long as the certificate is created from the same cert\private key source combination even with a different name, it will work.

By default, all certificates created are valid for one year unless explicitly mentioned in the create certificate statement. While expired certificate cannot be used to backup the database, it can still be used to restore the database.
This also means expired certificates can be restored(created) should they be needed to restore the database.In fact, expired certificates will not be shown in the UI dropdown to encrypt the backups.

Without creating the certificate first, none of the restore arguments work to get the details on the backup file. So, commands like restore headeronly, restore verifyonly, restore filelistonly do not work without the certificate.

Also, along with backing up the certificate and private key, you should also backup the private key encryption password, otherwise the certificate cannot be recreated on the target server.

Floating Point Exception – When Accessing Columnstore indexes in SQL 2016 RTM

When working with Columnstore indexes in SQL 2016 RTM, you can get the below database exception error:

Microsoft addressed the issue in this KB article 3171759 (SQL 2016 CU1).

Refer: https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/kb/3171759

InMemory Tables – Hash Index

Couple of quick notes about InMemory Objects:

• Even with “Schema_and_Data” durability option on the Inmemory, the index data is not persisted to the disk. Indexes are rebuilt during the instance startup. This is something to be aware of as it increases the database recovery time.
• All Inmemory Tables need to have at least one index and primary key is required only for “Schema_and_Data” durability, primary key is not necessary for “schema_only” durability option.
• There are only two types of indexes that can be created on InMemory tables – 1. Hash and 2. Range.
• With hash index, hash value of the column is calculated and the memory address for the row is stored in the hash bucket. The same data will have same hash value, however, sometimes two different values can also have the same value.

Hash Match Example:
Create Table InMemoryHash(sno int not null index IX_Sno nonclustered hash with (bucket_count=100))with (Memory_Optimized=ON,Durability=Schema_Only)

Insert into InMemoryHash
Values (1),(2)
--check the maximum chain length
select * from sys.dm_db_xtp_hash_index_stats where object_id=object_id('InMemoryHash')


Insert into InMemoryHash
Values (4),(49)
--check the maximum chain length
select * from sys.dm_db_xtp_hash_index_stats where object_id=object_id('InMemoryHash')


The example shows that 4 and 49 have the same hash value and hence will be stored in the same bucket.  The newer row will be pointed by the hash bucket and the newer row will point to older row for values having same hash match. So, if there are several hash matches, there will be large chain of rows and this can lead to performance issue as optimizer should traverse through all the chains to find the data.

• We need to specify the bucket_count – for hash indexes. The bucket counts are created to the base of two. So, if you specify bucket_count=100 in the table DDL, the actual bucket_count created is 128(2^7). If you specify, bucket_count=1000000, the actual bucket_count created is 1048576(2^20).
• Range Index are implemented similar to regular row index but with some difference. I will cover range indexes  in another post.

Cannot remove InMemory File Group

To create an InMemory Table – we first have to create a Memory Optimized file group and then associate a “filestream” file type to this file group. After this, InMemory Table can be created.

The catch here(or atleast in SQL 2016 RTM\14 SP1) is you cannot remove the InMemory File or FileGroup even after you dropped all the Inmemory Objects. The only option to remove InMemory file is to script out all the database objects\data and drop the database and recreate with the scripts.

So, if you wanted try InMemory tables and later decide not use them and you can drop the objects but not the InMemory file or file group.

NOTE: InMemory File\File Group can be removed as long as no InMemory Table was ever created. The issue happens only when an InMemory Table was created.

USE [Master]
Go
CREATE DATABASE [InMemoryDB]
CONTAINMENT = NONE
ON PRIMARY
( NAME = N'InMemoryDB', FILENAME = N'C:\Temp\InMemoryDB.mdf' , SIZE = 8192KB , FILEGROWTH = 65536KB ),
FILEGROUP [InMemoryDB] CONTAINS MEMORY_OPTIMIZED_DATA
( NAME = N'InMemoryFile', FILENAME = N'C:\Temp\InMemoryFile' )
LOG ON
( NAME = N'InMemoryDB_log', FILENAME = N'C:\Temp\InMemoryDB_log.ldf' , SIZE = 8192KB , FILEGROWTH = 65536KB )
GO
USE InMemoryDB
Go
Create Table InMemoryTable(Sno int not null primary key nonclustered hash with (bucket_count=1000),sname varchar(20))
with (memory_optimized=ON,Durability=Schema_ONLY)
--Let's drop InMemory Table
Drop Table InMemoryTable
--Trying Removing the InMemory File\FileGroup
ALTER DATABASE [InMemoryDB] REMOVE FILE [InMemoryFile]
ALTER DATABASE [InMemoryDB] REMOVE FILEGROUP [InMemoryDB]
GO
You will get the below error message:

Database Snapshot and InMemory Tables

Database Snapshots are very useful when you need to test some quick changes without having to take backup and, also, they provide way to access the mirrored database to serve READ-ONLY queries.

However, if you have InMemory FileGroup, which is required for InMemory Tables, you cannot use Database Snapshot. I tired this on SQL 2016 RTM version.

USE [Master]
Go
CREATE DATABASE [InMemoryDB]
CONTAINMENT = NONE
ON PRIMARY
( NAME = N'InMemoryDB', FILENAME = N'C:\Temp\InMemoryDB.mdf' , SIZE = 8192KB , FILEGROWTH = 65536KB ),
FILEGROUP [InMemoryDB] CONTAINS MEMORY_OPTIMIZED_DATA
( NAME = N'InMemoryFile', FILENAME = N'C:\Temp\InMemoryFile' )
LOG ON
( NAME = N'InMemoryDB_log', FILENAME = N'C:\Temp\InMemoryDB_log.ldf' , SIZE = 8192KB , FILEGROWTH = 65536KB )
GO
--Creating Snapshot Errors Out
CREATE DATABASE InMemory_Snap ON
( NAME = InMemoryDB, FILENAME =
'C:\Temp\InMemory_Snap.ss' )
AS SNAPSHOT OF InMemoryDB;
GO
Below is the error you will get:

Cannot update primary key in InMemory Tables

InMemory Tables are introduced in SQL 2014 and they are lot improved in SQL 2016.

While the surface area has improved in SQL 2016 compared to 2014 such as Foreign key constraints can be defined between Inmemory Tables, Indexes can have NULL columns, table can be altered etc.

There are still some restrictions in what you can do with SQL 2016 InMemory Tables and one such thing is, modifying the primary key of the table. Typically, we should not be modifying the primary key of the table but if there is ever a need to do that, it cannot be done in SQL 2016 InMemory Tables.

USE [Master]
Go
CREATE DATABASE [InMemoryDB]
CONTAINMENT = NONE
ON PRIMARY
( NAME = N'InMemoryDB', FILENAME = N'C:\Temp\InMemoryDB.mdf' , SIZE = 8192KB , FILEGROWTH = 65536KB ),
FILEGROUP [InMemoryDB] CONTAINS MEMORY_OPTIMIZED_DATA
( NAME = N'InMemoryFile', FILENAME = N'C:\Temp\InMemoryFile' )
LOG ON
( NAME = N'InMemoryDB_log', FILENAME = N'C:\Temp\InMemoryDB_log.ldf' , SIZE = 8192KB , FILEGROWTH = 65536KB )
GO

USE InMemoryDB
Go
Create Table InMemoryTable(Sno int not null primary key nonclustered hash with (bucket_count=1000),sname varchar(20))
with (memory_optimized=ON,Durability=Schema_ONLY)

Insert into InMemoryTable
Values (1,'SomeName')

---Errors out
Update InMemoryTable set sno=2 where Sno=1
You will get error as below: