This talk describes the new MERGE statement and Change Data Capture (CDC) feature introduced in SQL Server 2008, and how to take advantage of them in SQL Server Integration Services. Well cover the traditional ways of doing incremental data loads, and see how these new key features make the process a whole lot easier. If you’re interested in learning best practices for this new SQL Server 2008 functionality, you won’t want to miss this session!

CDC and Merge are new in SQL Server 2008

Also 2008 has improved SCD processing

Options to Capture Change

• Audit columns – created via triggers
• Log Scraping
• Full DB Diff compare

(New Options) Change Data Capture in SQL Server

• Changes captured from the log asynchronously
  • Really just integrated log scraping
• Tells you what changed at the source
• Enabled per table or DB
• CDC API’s provide access to change data

CDC Components

• CDC Tables
• Capture Job
• Cleanup Job
• API

Change Tracking

• Captures that a row was changed, but not the changed data
• Synchronous capture mechanism
• Less overhead for applications that do not require the historical information

Turn CDC on:

• sp_cdc_enable_db
• sp_cdc_enable_table
• LSN = Log Sequence Number
• Sp_cdc_generate_wrapper_function
  • Creates a custom function DDL for reading CDC data

Loading SSIS Package

• Source from the CDC Wrapper function
• Split on CDC operation
  • Insert
  • Update
  • Delete

Lookup Changes in SQL 2008

• Explicit cache modes
  • Full
  • Partial
  • None
• Cache connection manager

External Reference Data

• Joins can work but can be difficult to manage
• Instead, use the SSIS Lookup transform.

The MERGE Statement

• Single statement can deal with Inserts, Updates and Deletes all at once
• Use Cases
  • Conditionally insert or update rows in a target table
  • Synchronize two tables
• Built to perform

Using MERGE in SSIS (Execute SQL Tasks in SSIS)

• Stage
  • Store data in a temp table
• Optimize
  • Create indexes on join cols
  • Provides addtl perf benefits
• Execute
  • Run the MERGE SQL statement

When doing the insert, you must drop the FK constraints in the destination table.

Taking Advantage of MERGE

• Consume CDC data
• Update Dimensions
• Alternative to the Slowly Changing Dimension Wizard

Additional Resources

• SSIS Team Blog
  • http://blogs.msdn.com/mattm
• Comparing Change Data Capture and Change Tracking
  • http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc280519.aspx
• Optimizing MERGE Statement Performance
  • http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc879317.aspx
• MERGE Destination
  • http://www.codeplex.com/SQLSrvIntegrationSrv/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=19048

In SQL 2008, Maintenance Plans create a workflow of tasks to ensure your database is optimized and backed up on a regular schedule. The Maintenance Plan will create an SSIS package that will be scheduled and run with SQL Agent. Attend this session and learn how Maintenance Plans will ease your administrative overhead.

Common Tasks

• Database backups
• Database Integrity checks
• Index Maintenance
• Automated Cleanup

Creating New Plans

• Maintenance Plan Wizard
• Maintenance Plan Design
• Must be member of sysadmin fixed server role

Important Tasks to Deal With

• Backup Database
• Reorganize Index (fragmentation level < 30%, Reorg)
• Rebuild Index (fragmentation level > 30%, Rebuild)
• Update Statistics
• Check Database Integrity (DBCC CHECKDB)
  • Also validates indexes in SQL Server 2008
• History Cleanup
  • Cleans information inside information Sys DB’s
• Maintenance Cleanup (MSDB)
  • Cleans up after maintenance plans themselves
  • Or Backup files, logs, etc…

“Failure to plan for a disaster is inexcusable.” – Thomas LaRock

Schedules will depend upon your organizational needs.

Recommended Practices

• Create separate plans for system versus user databases
  • Yes, System DB’s need to be backed up and able to be restored!
• Tasks should be run at non-peak hours (Duh!) 
  • Be sure to check for other running tasks, like reporting or ETL loads.
• Do not automate the Shrink Database task
  • Really? Do use it period according to Thomas!
• Perform database backups prior to other maintenance tasks
  • Back them up before you start touching anything even in a maintenance plan.
  • Always have a “comfortable” restore point.

MultiServer Management

• Configure a SQL Server Agent to be a “Master”
• Specify Target
• Define new Multi-Server jobs or
• Convert existing Local Job to multi-server.
  • Right click
  • See Target tab. Use it.

FYI, the job only shows on the Master. It does not show in the target server job list.

“Since it’s a demo, we need everything to work.” – Thomas LaRock – Great quote. Too bad it didn’t work.

Additional Resources

• http://sqlserverpedia.com/wiki/Main_Page
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187658.aspx

• First thing is first, turn on clean URLs
• Download the Drupal page title module.
• Download the global redirect module.
• Alleviate any canonicalization issues
• Edit robots.txt to block /node/*
• Download the Drupal Meta Tag module.

Thanks to Brian for a good quick list for starters.

Drupal SEO Tutorial and Drupal SEO implementation in under 5 minutes | Brian Chappell

There is also a little newer post by Pushkar Gaikwad that uses essentially the same list with the addition of XMLSitemap and SEO checklist

Finally there is Drupal4SEO.com. A small site devoted to Drupal SEO. Now, I did not find much new on this site with one exception. The section related to Advanced Linking Structure. There is some interesting information on content silos.

Blessings.

I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to try it out. So, nothing too empirical other than firebug net download times with my browser cache cleaned out.

Test Instance with 8 blocks making up a single node page with 100 generated users.
* Before the optimizer was enabled: avg. 4.4 secs total
* After the optimizer was enabled: avg. 2.9 secs total

The change boils down to this:

Open your php.ini file for editing (KB: (gs) HOWTO: edit php.ini). Add these lines:

For PHP4 (Replace the x.x-x with the version number you want to use.)

> zend_optimizer.optimization_level=15
> zend_extension=”/usr/local/php-4.x.x-x/zend/ZendOptimizer.so”

For PHP5 (Replace the x.x-x with the version number you want to use.)

> zend_optimizer.optimization_level=15
> zend_extension=”/usr/local/php-5.x.x-x/zend/ZendOptimizer.so”

Save the changes and quit.

That’s a decent improvement with all things considered. There are plenty of other optimization items that can be done, but since this site provide zero income, I’m not ready to pay any more for some of those non-free options.

I guess that leaves me with Drupal caching support, ZendOptimizer and MySQL Table optimization and indexing. No MySQL containers for me. If I ever move, it will probably be straight to a (dv).

Blessings!