Category Archives: SQL SERVER

Azure Site Recovery jobs fail on servers hosting SQL Server instances with AUTO_CLOSE DBs

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This post is to help you if you are suffering from the following issue:

A VSS writer has rejected an event with error. The writer experienced a non-transient error. If the backup process is retried, the error is likely to reoccur. Changes that the writer made to the writer components while handling the event will not be available to the requester. Check the event log for related events from the application hosting the VSS writer.

Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

  • You have a server that is running any version of Microsoft SQL Server.
  • This SQL Server instance hosts databases that have the AUTO-CLOSE option set.
  • You run a non-component VSS backup (for example, by using Azure Site Recovery (ASR) Agent) against volumes of this server that is hosting SQL Server database files.

In this situation, you notice that the VSS backup fails and triggers the following entry in the Application log.

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SQL Server 2019 eBook

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SQL Server 2019 is ready available for use, but before you download you should review the webinars, white papers and eBook available on the technology (definitely the eBook 😉 ).

2019book.JPG

You can find the eBook at the following link –

https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-introducing-sql-server-2019-content.html

 

 

Backup Techniques for SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines

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In the previous blog post I did a quick overview building a SQL VM (imaged) in Azure. It is now time to clarify some backup techniques because it can get confusing.

At a high level there are 3 techniques.

  • Automated backup.
  • Azure backup for SQL VM (that’s what MS call it).
  • Manual backup, for example backup to URL.

I prefer not setting up manual backups to storage accounts, I have done it, I just find it painful to  setup/support/fix. So my choice would be automated backup vs “Azure backup” for SQL VM. What’s the difference?

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SQL Server Virtual Machines in Azure

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Let’s create a virtual machine in Azure that has an imaged copy of SQL Server on it. I want to do this because down the line I want to show how you can setup automated backups to a storage account based on an IaaS extension, when I do that I will most likely talk about the different backup options because there are many.

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Hot Patching sqlservr.exe in Azure SQL Database

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An amazing blog post by Microsoft describing the idea of hot patching the database engine in Azure SQL Database to allow for minimal downtime when applying patches to SQL Server. We know that it is one of the benefits of Azure SQL Database but now we get some insight into how it’s done.

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SQL Server Management Studio

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Hopefully you know that SSMS is a separate install from the main SQL Server install. You can find the binaries from Microsoft (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/download-sql-server-management-studio-ssms) Using SSMS version 18.2, whilst playing around with the options I noticed a dark theme was available, easy to say I got a little excited, then I didn’t.

darktheme.JPG

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