Rob Symonds

Rob Symonds

SSIS Output to Multiple Files

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Let’s say a user asks you to create a flat file output from a database query. Piece of cake. Open SSMS, write the query, run it and copy the results (with headers using SSMS 2008) into a text file. Send the user the file and and you’re done with time left over for a siesta.

But oh wait—they want to be able to open it in an older version of Excel, which will only display ~ 65k rows per sheet. This file has 190k rows. So they ask you to write the output to multiple files, limiting the total rows per file to 60k.

Now what?

You could simply open the raw flat file, go to line 60,001 and cut-paste lines 60,001–120,000 into another file and repeat as necessary. That’s ok for a one-off task but not a good strategy if you are going to be doing this several times. It can be cumbersome and error prone to manually create several files this way.

No—the better approach is to make SSIS do the heavy lifting. I had to do this recently and thought I’d share my solution. [Read more…] about SSIS Output to Multiple Files

Journey vs. Destination

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Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.
— Shakespeare

The other day I was watching a television series which, at the beginning of each episode, had a voiceover announce “Previously on…” before showing a string of clips to recap all the important plot points in the past few episodes.

If you just watched those clips at the start of each episode and skipped the episodes, you could still get the whole story arc and save a heap of time. [Read more…] about Journey vs. Destination

The Well-Dressed DBA

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You may not be aware of this fact but DBAs (database administrators) are actually world renowned for their impeccable display of sartorial savvy. What the average person knows about fashion would fit nicely within a CHAR(4) field. What the DBA knows about fashion requires a VARCHAR(MAX) field. At least.

(Although the author assumes that many of the excellent recommendations below apply to both male and female DBA alike, he is wrong from time to time, like the time he shrunk let a friend shrink a database, and so will below address the male only.)

We begin at the bottom and work our way to the top… [Read more…] about The Well-Dressed DBA

The DBA’s Desk

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It is Friday and thankfully I’m knee-deep in SQL Server work today (instead of, say, sitting in meetings). It seemed like the perfect opportunity to open the kimono a bit and show you what the DBA’s desk looks like.

The DBA's Desk
This was only partially staged. I got rid of the dust bunnies.

This shot showcases the non-computer tools required by the proficient DBA. Each item was carefully selected and is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to accomplishing the DBA’s job. I’ll explain. [Read more…] about The DBA’s Desk

Resources for Learning More About SQL Server Internals

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A while back, I spent about a month working through several SQL Server performance issues after upgrading three systems from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005. During that time I would realize that my knowledge of how SQL actually manages data at a low level was sketchy. In the process of resolving said sketchiness, I came across a few resources that proved helpful. [Read more…] about Resources for Learning More About SQL Server Internals