Reuse database connection across multiple AWS Lambda invocations - sql-server

I have a lambda to connect to SQL Server database like this.
module.exports = async (event) => {
const sqlClient = getConnection(); // connection to ms SQL
doMyWork(sqlConnection) // my core lambda logic
closeConnection(sqlConnection) // closing Connection
}
when ever lambda is triggered, my SQL Server gets connected, work is done and connection is closed. Isn't there a way that i can use the connection object across multiple invocations of the lambda so that i can reduce a) no. of connection / disconnection attempts to server b) reduce the overall execution time of the lambda?
I have mentioned SQL Server here as I am currently using it here. as such I have to connect to MySQL and redis. what is the recommended way for connecting to databases (especially which support pools)?
Please suggest.

Generally, there are 2 ways to address this problem.
Store the connections/connection pool in a variable that persists across Lambda invocations. How to do it depends on the runtime/language you use. An example with node.js is here.
Use an external application that is long running and is able to persist a connection pool. Another Lambda function cannot do this and you'd need an EC2 or another long running compute instance. Thankfully AWS recently introduced RDS Proxy, which is a managed service that achieves this. It is however, still in preview.
For MSSQL/MySQL on RDS, you'll be able to use option 1 or 2 but for Redis you'll have to use option 1.

Related

Azure Serverless SQL Serverless Database

I Created SQL Server Database in Azure which is serverless and tried to access it using my SQL Server Management Studio in my local but I couldn't get it work.
It always gives me this message:
I tried to whitelist also my IP in Azure but still I get the same result.
Is there a possible way to make it connect?
Is the database currently online or paused?
I'll repeat the text from #David Browne's link:
If a serverless database is paused, then the first login will resume the database and return an error stating that the database is unavailable with error code 40613. Once the database is resumed, the login must be retried to establish connectivity. Database clients with connection retry logic should not need to be modified.
So;
Assuming the database is paused, this is normal operation
Please read docs
You need to retry after the database starts OR manually pre-start it using the Powershell provided in the link below
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-serverless#connectivity
And yes, you also need to whitelist your IP address as you have already done.
Obviously this flavour of SQL is unsuitable for some types of applications - there is more information in the link - I suggest you read the whole thing.

How to intercept SQL traffic client side

I'd like to log all SQL that a client app is sending to a remote SQL server I have no access to. I'm thinking of some kind of client side proxy that can log and pass through data. It has to run on the same machine as the client app.
Any ideas appreciated.
SQL Server's protocol, TDS ("Tabular Data Stream") is not encrypted by default, so a trivial packet-forwarder could be used to proxy SQL Server connections and intercept commands (and their responses).
The TDS protocol specification is available from Microsoft's website, you could write your own proxy which can intercept commands that way: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd304523.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396
However, this is a large undertaking. You have other simpler options if you don't need to capture every connection:
If you control your application's source-code, then simply modify all database operations to intercept every SqlCommand's CommandText and Parameter values.
You could skip writing a proxy and instead use native packet-capture, you'll need to use WinPCap: https://www.winpcap.org/
You could also use SQL Server's Profiling features to get a log of every command executed: What are the APIs used by SQL Profiler?
What you are looking is called an SQL Profiler.
In specific - you are looking for an API for one.
I have never used an API of a profiler myself - but this one looks promising.
Also - take a look at this question for another sample.
If you want to have an impression of a working profiler client you can take a look at this answer.

SQL Server 2014 - Service Broker: maximum Services

I am using SQL Server 2014 using FireDAC in Delphi XE7 to connect to the database.
We need an Event to automatically open a form if some Data where changed in a special Table. Therefor we found the TFDEventAlerter which we used to create a Queue and Service for each User.
UserEvent.Names.Add('QUEUE=qUserEvent');
UserEvent.Names.Add('SERVICE=s' + Username);
UserEvent.Names.Add('CHANGE1=usr;SELECT ID FROM dbo.MsgBox WHERE Status = 'A');
So we have got one Queue and a lot of Services that are listening to that Queue. In general this Setup ist working fine.
But if a lot of Users (550 in my case) are connecting to the database and adding new Services to the Queue we got the Problem that we are running into bad Performance enforced by ThreadPool_Starvation as each Service is blocking a Worker-Thread from time to time.
So does anybody know why there is a limitation using Services for the Service Broker in SQL Server 2014?
Is there another way to use the TFDEventAlerter with 500 Users without creating 500 Services? It seems to me, that we are not using the TFDEventAlerter as it is used to be.

Automatic failover with SQL mirroring and connection strings

I have 3 servers set up for SQL mirroring and automatic failover using a witness server. This works as expected.
Now my application that connects to the database, seems to have a problem when a failover occurs - I need to manually intervene and change connection strings for it to connect again.
The best solution I've found so far involves using Failover Partner parameter of the connection string, however it's neither intuitive nor complete: Data Source="Mirror";Failover Partner="Principal" found here.
From the example in the blog above (scenario #3) when the first failover occurs, and principal (failover partner) is unavailable, data source is used instead (which is the new principal). If it fails again (and I only tried within a limited period), it then comes up with an error message. This happens because the connection string is cached, so until this is refreshed, it will keep coming out with an error (it seems connection string refreshes ~5 mins after it encounters an error). If after failover I swap data source and failover partner, I will have one more silent failover again.
Is there a way to achieve fully automatic failover for applications that use mirroring databases too (without ever seeing the error)?
I can see potential workarounds using custom scripts that would poll currently active database node name and adjust connection string accordingly, however it seems like an overkill at the moment.
Read the blog post here
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/spike/archive/2010/12/15/running-a-database-mirror-setup-with-the-sqlbrowser-service-off-may-produce-unexpected-results.aspx
It explains what is happening, the failover partner is actually being read from the sql server not from your config. Run the query in that post to find out what is actually being used as the failover server. It will probably be a machine name that is not discoverable from where your client is running.
You can clear the application pool in the case a failover has happened. Not very nice I know ;-)
// ClearAllPools resets (or empties) the connection pool.
// If there are connections in use at the time of the call,
// they are marked appropriately and will be discarded
// (instead of being returned to the pool) when Close is called on them.
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.ClearAllPools();
We use it when we change an underlying server via SQL Server alias, to enforce a "refresh" of the server name.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.sqlclient.sqlconnection.clearallpools.aspx
The solution is to turn connection pooling off Pooling="false"
Whilst this has minimal impact on small applications, I haven't tested it with applications that receive hundreds of requests per minute (or more) and not sure what the implications are. Anyone care to comment?
Try this connectionString:
connectionString="Data Source=[MSSQLPrincipalServerIP,MSSQLPORT];Failover Partner=[MSSQLMirrorServerIP,MSSQLPORT];Initial Catalog=DatabaseName;Persist Security Info=True;User Id=userName; Password=userPassword.; Connection Timeout=15;"
If you are using .net development, you can try to use ObjAdoDBLib or PigSQLSrvLib and PigSQLSrvCoreLib, and the code will become simple.
Example code:
New object
ObjAdoDBLib
Me.ConnSQLSrv = New ConnSQLSrv(Me.DBSrv, Me.MirrDBSrv, Me.CurrDB, Me.DBUser, Me.DBPwd, Me.ProviderSQLSrv)
PigSQLSrvLib or PigSQLSrvCoreLib
Me.ConnSQLSrv = New ConnSQLSrv(Me.DBSrv, Me.MirrDBSrv, Me.CurrDB, Me.DBUser, Me.DBPwd)
Execute this method to automatically connect to the online database after the mirror database fails over.
Me.ConnSQLSrv.OpenOrKeepActive
For more information, see the relevant links.
https://www.nuget.org/packages/ObjAdoDBLib/
https://www.nuget.org/packages/PigSQLSrvLib/
https://www.nuget.org/packages/PigSQLSrvCoreLib/

Sql Server JDBC Connection Reset Error : Only on Amazon EC2

Context: The Cloud
We have a java-based web application that we normally host on our own servers. Recently we used Amazon Web Services (AWS EC2) cloud to host an instance.
This "cloud setup" matches our typical "on site" setup: one server for the app server, another server for the database server. (Several app servers point to the same database server)
The problem
In this cloud setup, we receive intermittent "connection reset by peer errors" between the database and the jdbc driver, where at (seemingly) random intervals and at random points in the codebase, the database connection fails.
Here are a few error excerpts for the log
Stack Trace Example 1:
at com.participate.pe.genericdisplay.client.taglib.GenDisplayViewTag.doStartTag(GenDisplayViewTag.java:77)
... 75 more
Caused by: com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerException: The connection is closed.
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerException.makeFromDriverError(SQLServerException.java:170)
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerConnection.checkClosed(SQLServerConnection.java:304)
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerConnection.getMetaData(SQLServerConnection.java:1734)
at org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.WrappedConnection.getMetaData(WrappedConnection.java:354)
Stack Trace Example 2
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)
Caused by: com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerException: Connection reset
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerConnection.terminate(SQLServerConnection.java:1368)
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerConnection.terminate(SQLServerConnection.java:1355)
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.TDSChannel.read(IOBuffer.java:1532)
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.TDSReader.readPacket(IOBuffer.java:3274)
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.TDSCommand.startResponse(IOBuffer.java:4437)
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.TDSCommand.startResponse(IOBuffer.java:4389)
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerConnection$1ConnectionCommand.doExecute(SQLServerConnection.java:1457)
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.TDSCommand.execute(IOBuffer.java:4026)
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerConnection.executeCommand(SQLServerConnection.java:1416)
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerConnection.connectionCommand(SQLServerConnection.java:1462)
at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerConnection.setAutoCommit(SQLServerConnection.java:1610)
at org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.BaseWrapperManagedConnection.checkTransaction(BaseWrapperManagedConnection.java:429)
Technical Environment
Jboss 4.2.2.GA (Jboss-Web 2.0/ Tomcat 6)
MSSQL 2005 2.0 jdbc driver
Some points
We have never seen this problem in
our own environment (i.e. own data centers) running the application for several years
This led me to conclude "something funny is going on with Amazon network environment". I may be wrong/missing something/etc.
This problem only occurs with our application. We have other java and php applications which have not had this problem. The other java application uses a different jdbc driver (jtds, afaik)
It doesn't seem like a simple connection timeout
Questions
-Has anyone seen this before?
-If it's an EC2 "known issue", can we configure our way around the problem (i.e. make sure everything is on its own subnet or virtual private cloud (vpc) ?
-Any jdbc driver settings to get past this problem?
** Update **
I've extended and increased the bounty on this question.
On extra bit of information: the two virtual servers (database and application server) were on different subnets--i.e. one hop between the two servers.
In a non-cloud environment we have "zero hops" bewtewn the two servers.
Our hosting admins said we had no control over the subnets of our EC2 instances. This made me wonder if virtual private cloud would help.
thanks in advance
will
Not sure if this is related or not. We experienced something similar with an app that we were running in the EC2 environment. Same symptom, that the database connection would intermittently close. We were using MSSQL 1.2 driver. Also, we would see the errors usually after a delay or idle time with the connection. Our assumption (never proven) was that something in the network layer was closing the connection and the client wasn't detecting it, so it became stale.
We were able to work around it because we were using commons connection pools, and had the pool recreate the connection on failure. We eventually moved the application out of EC2 and didn't see the issue again.
Just a word of caution on usind DBCP/connection pool features to mitigate the issue - the more you enable 'testOnBorrow' and other features, the more you can introduce latency or other performance changing affects on the system. I don't know if DBCP still does this or not, but a few years ago it would generate actual test queries to test the connection - full stack, database responses - not just at the network layer. The above link from Brian brings back horrific memories from the early 2000s on surrounding re-try logic for JDBC connection management.
Anyway, it's tough to really root cause this, other than gather evidence and eliminate the 'seemingly random' to a specific set of conditions:
You could try to throw up a Wireshark/PCAP trace, find when it happens, and send the results to both Amazon and Microsoft to see if they can root cause it
You could try the above with certain test harnesses to isolate the problem (JMeter tests to get concurrency up), bounce the network connection, watch for recovery, etc
You could try alternative versions of SQL Server to discount a SQL Server/JDBC driver bug that has since been fixed.
If DNS is used in connection strings, could use IP addresses to validate nslookup issues
I'm not a SQL Server expert, but another route for research could be within the related products domain - e.g. see if anyone experienced similar issues with TFS/Sharepoint (e.g. such as http://nickhoggard.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/further-experiences-with-tfs-2010-beta-2-on-amazon-ec2/ )
I have seen this issue in both the EC2 environment and the Windows Azure environment. I think connection retry logic needs to be a standard part of your design when working in a distributed computing environment.
This article is for SQL Azure - but I think it equally applies to EC2 and all drivers.
I can also confirm that this happens and will spin up a lower priority investigation since it's not production critical.
Our production servers are in our data center. We use developer laptops to run our applications. Neither of these get this issue once we configured c3p0 connection pool timeouts and test period (see article: http://www.codefin.net/2007/05/hibernate-and-mysql-connection-timeouts.html).
However, we do have a development staging server that is in EC2 and it does indeed happen there. If I find something that seems to work, I'll ping back. Also, I'm using mysql. I see that you are using MS SQL Server so it is across database vendors.

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