Thursday, February 4, 2016

Edition Upgrade in SQL Server

Hi Friends,

Check here for my last post of year 2015 on Hadoop. By this, lets start with this post on "How to perform in-place Edition upgrade". This procedure will work well with SQL Server 2005 and above.

Requirement:

There was a requirement from the client to upgrade the Edition from Enterprise to Standard for one of my SQL Server 2008 R2 instance.

So lets see how simple and time efficient is the in place upgradation:

Step 1: Launch the SQL Server setup file => Go to "Maintenance" tab on left hand side.



Step 2: Click "Edition Upgrade" link on Right hand side. This will check first check the rules.



(Next)



(Next)



Step 3: Very important step check the new edition here (Which I have highlighted below)



Step 4: Select the instance from the drop down for which the instance need to be upgraded.



(Next)



(Next)



Hold on for 3 Minitues and your in place edition upgradation is finished.

As you have seen how simple and time efficient it is to perform this, it comes with the cost. AND the cost is "if there is any error during the upgradation phase there is no procedure to rollback".

The only option left with us is complete uninstalltion and again installing the fresh setup. So before starting this procedure make sure you have taken the necessary precaution.

Have your ever faced this error.


Thursday, January 21, 2016

Error - Instant File Initialization Failed

Hi Friends,

Here comes the first post of the wonderful year 2016 ahead. Last year, we have ended with the post on Introduction to Hadoop. Lets start our first post with an Error in SQL Server.

Description:

One of the error which I faced very frequently now a days as you can see the below snapshot: "File initialization failed" because of which my Restoration activity was failed.

This error occurred when I was in the middle of a Migration activity, were I was suppose to Backup and Restore a Database from one Server to another one. After executing the Restoration command with stats=1, I was waiting for 1 percent to complete (after that I can have a nap because the backup file was huge and the activity was at mid night) but I was awaiting awaiting and awaiting for that 1 percent. It was getting suspicious because it should not take too long to complete even a percent.

So, I decided to stop the restoration. Once the session was stopped I found the below error message:

Instant File Initialization Failed

Instant File Initialization Failed
Basically, I will try to explain the behind the scene what exactly SQL Server does then we create or Restore a backup file in different post. In this post just lets look for the solution for the error.

Solution:

1. Run => Secpol.msc;

Open Local Security Policy => Local Policies => User Rights Assignment => "Perform Volume Maintenance Task" => Right click => Add the user through which SQL Server services are running. Like you see in the below snapshot.

2. No need to restart the Server.

3. Now, start the restoration process and this time it will work well.

Perform Volume Maintenance Task

Perform Volume Maintenance Task

So from now SQL Server will skip the Zero Initialization whenever we create or restore a Database. Later we will see what exactly does this mean in probably in different post.

Hope this will save your time and this will help you. Don't forget to drop a comment below. Also do vote below if it is Interesting, Informative or Boring.

Facing trouble while switching the Database from Single User Mode to Multi Mode check here for solution.

(It's been so long, more than couple of weeks I was away from my blog. I'm afraid this could further continue for few more, due to multiple projects on weekdays as well over the weekends. Due to this, my Blogging might also affected. So, stay tuned soon we will learn many things on SQL Server as well as Hadoop Administrator.)

Thanks,
Vikas B Sahu
Keep Learning and Enjoy Learning!!!