Performance Dashboard Reports - Microsoft SQL Server 2012

The SQL Server 2012 Performance Dashboard Reports are Reporting Services report files designed to be used with the Custom Reports feature of SQL Server Management Studio. The reports allow a database administrator to quickly identify whether there is a current bottleneck on their system, and if a bottleneck is present, capture additional diagnostic data that may be necessary to resolve the problem.

Common performance problems that the dashboard reports may help to resolve include:

• CPU bottlenecks (and what queries are consuming the most CPU)
• IO bottlenecks (and what queries are performing the most IO)
• Index recommendations generated by the query optimizer (missing indexes)
• Blocking
• Latch contention

This is a downloadable available from Microsoft and can be downloaded from the link here.

This also works for SQL Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 as well

Reference: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=29063

Cannot Connect to WMI provider - Error while trying to open SQL Server 2008 Configuration Manager

When you try to open SQL Server Configuration Manager, you might get an error which states
"Cannot connect to WMI provider. You do not have permission or the server is unreachable. Note that you can only manage SQL Server 2005 and later servers with SQL Server Configuration Manager. Invalid class [0x80041010]"

During the setup sometimes, some .mof files don't get installed and registered properly and this causes the above error to pop up.
To fix this issue,

1. Go to the path "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Shared\" using command prompt.
2. And run the following command mofcomp.exe "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Shared\sqlmgmproviderxpsp2up.mof"

Once the commands execute successfully, you will be able to open the SQL Server configuration Manager.

Startup Parameters - A new tab in Denali's SQL Server Configuration manager

We all know that Denali was launched with many new things built within. In those wide range of new enhancements, a separate tab for Startup parameters is one among them.
To check this out,

1. Go to Denali's "SQL Server Configuration Manager"
2. Right-Click on a SQL Server Service and Choose "Properties"
3. Now, in the properties page you can find a new tab for "Startup Parameters"

The Older versions of SQL Server Configuration Manager used to show the "Startup Parameters" as part of "Advanced" Tab.

Different ways to check your SQL Server(s) Authentication mode

Checking the Authentication mode using T-SQL:

1. Using "xp_LoginConfig" extended Stored Procedure
   

   EXEC Master.dbo.xp_LoginConfig 'login mode'
   

   
   
2. Using "SERVERPROPERTY" Function
   

   SELECT CASE SERVERPROPERTY('IsIntegratedSecurityOnly')   
   WHEN 1 THEN 'Windows Authentication mode'   
   WHEN 0 THEN 'SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode'   
   END as [Authentication Mode]  
   
   

3. Using Registry
   

   DECLARE @Mode INT  
   EXEC master.dbo.xp_instance_regread N'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE', 
   N'Software\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\MSSQLServer',   
   N'LoginMode', @Mode OUTPUT  
   
   SELECT CASE @Mode    
   WHEN 1 THEN 'Windows Authentication mode'
   WHEN 2 THEN 'SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode'
   ELSE 'Not known'
   END as [Authentication Mode]  
   

Checking the Authentication mode using SSMS:

To check the Authentication mode using SSMS,

1. Right-Click on the Server
2. Choose "Properties"
3. Navigate to "Security" Page
4. Check "Server Authentication" Section

Moving SQL Agent Log file "SQLAGENT.OUT" to a different location

In one of my previous posts "Undocumented stored procedure for retrieving SQL Agent properties", I had explained how to retrieve the SQL Agent Properties.

In this post I will explain how to change the location of the SQL Agent Log file "SQLAGENT.OUT".

To find the current location of SQLAGENT.OUT file, execute the below SP and look at the value of the column "errorlog_file". This is location where SQLAGENT.OUT file is located.

EXEC msdb..sp_get_sqlagent_properties 
GO

Output:

Now, to change the location of SQLAGENT.OUT file, run the below command and re-start the SQL Server Agent Service and you are done.

EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_set_sqlagent_properties @errorlog_file=N'<new path>\SQLAGENT.OUT' 
GO