SQL Server Jobs Running Every 2 minutes...Bad Practice? - sql-server

We have two servers, one is very slow and geographically far away. Setting up distributed queries is a headache because it does not always work (sometimes we receive a The semaphore timeout period has expired) and if the query works it can be slow.
One solution was to setup a job that populates temporary tables on the slow server with the data we need and then writes INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE statements to our server tables from the temporary tables so we have updated data on our faster servers. The job takes about one minunte and 30 seconds and are setup to run every 2 minutes. Is this bad practice and will it hurt our slower SQL Server box?
EDIT
The transactions are happening on the slow server agent (where the job is running) and using distributed queries to connect and update our fast server. If the job runs on the fast server we get that timeout error every now and then
As for the specifics, if the record exists on the faster server we perform an update, if it does not exist we insert and if the record no longer exists on the slow server we delete...I can post code when I get to a computer

Related

How does SQL deal with a long running query via Linked Server if there’s a PC reboot?

I have a SQL Server database and have a linked server connection to an Oracle DB.
I had the following query running on my SQL Server:
INSERT INTO dbo.my_table_on_sql_server
SELECT *
FROM OPENQUERY (linkedservername, ‘SELECT * FROM target_table’)
The target_table has 50 million rows and I'm aware the query takes time to execute but has successfully completed before.
This time though, my PC had an automatic restart in the middle of the query. SSMS 2017 automatically reopened as soon as the PC fired back up, but I could not longer see the query running. my_table_on_sql_server has no data.
I'd like to understand what happens in SQL Server in the event of such a situation. Am I correct in assuming that the query was killed / rolled back? Is there any query running in the background? I've seen some related answers on this forum but wanted to specifically understand this for linked servers, as I use them a lot to retrieve data from other DBs for my job.
I'm more concerned about the Oracle DB as I don't want my query to impact any performance upstream. I only have a read-only access permission to the Oracle DB.
Thank you!
On shutdown the query will be aborted, and the INSERT rolled back. The rollback may happen during shutdown, or after restart, and may take some time to complete.
There's no automatic retry or anything that will access the linked server Oracle after the shutdown.

Random slow querys in SQL Server in longrunning mass data migration process

We have do migrate data from another huge db to our db using tons of sql scripts. To do this a fast way, we drop most of all indexes from our destination db.
Now, in a not repeatable way, some queries tending to run for minutes an hours instead of minutes. It are not always the same queries. If we stop the hole migration for a time, and then repeat the query, it runs fast again.
So it seems, sql server sometimes chooses wrong execution paths or is having other problems. How should we approach this problem?

How to Update and sync a Database tables at exactly same time?

I need to sync(upload first to remote DB-download to mobile device next) DB tables with remote DB from mobile device (which may insert/update/delete rows from multiple tables).
The remote DB performs other operation based on uploaded sync data.When sync continues to download data to mobile device the remote DB still performing the previous tasks and leads to sync fail. something like 'critical condition' where both 'sync and DB-operations' want access remote Databse. How to solve this issue? is it possible to do sync DB and operate on same DB at a time?
Am using Sql server 2008 DB and mobilink sync.
Edit:
Operations i do in sequence:
1.A iPhone loaded with application which uses mobilink for SYNC data.
2.SYNC means UPLOAD(from device to Remote DB)followed by DOWNLOAD(from Remote DB to device).
3.Remote DB means Consolidated DB ; device Db is Ultralite DB.
4.Remote DB has some triggers to fire when certain tables are updated.
5.An UPLOAD from device to Remote will fire triggers when sync upload finished.
6.Very next moment the UPLOAD finished DOWNLOAD to device starts.
7.Exactly same moment those DB triggers will fire.
8.Now a deadlock between DB SYNC(-DOWNLOAD) and trigger(Update queries included within) operations occur.
9.Sync fails with error saying cannot access some tables.
I did a lots of work around and Google! Came out with a simple(?!) solution for the problem.
(though the exact problem cannot be solved at this point ..i tried my best).
Keep track of all clients who does a sync(kind of user details).
Create a sql job scheduler which contains all the operations to be performed when user syncs.
Announce a "maintenance period" everyday to execute the tasks of sql job with respect to saved user/client sync details.
Here keeping track of client details every time is costlier but much needed!
Remote consolidated DB "completely-updated" only after maintenance period.
Any approaches better than this would be appreciated! all Suggestions are welcome!
My understanding of your system is following:
Mobile application sends UPDATE statement to SQL Server DB.
There is ON UPDATE trigger, that updates around 30 tables (= at least 30 UPDATE statements in the trigger + 1 main update statement)
UPDATEis executed in single transaction. This transaction ends when Trigger completes all updates.
Mobile application does not wait for UPDATE to finish and sends multiple SELECT statements to get data from database.
These SELECTstatements query same tables as the Trigger above is updating.
Blocking and deadlocks occur at some query for some user as Trigger is not completing updates before selects and keeps lock on tables.
When optimizing we are trying make it our processes less easy for computer, achieve same result in less iterations and use less resources or those resources that are more available/less overloaded.
My suggestions for your design:
Use parametrized SPs. Every time SQL Server receives any statement it creates Execution plan. For 1 UPDATE statement with a trigger DB needs at least 31 execution plan. It happens on busy Production environment for every connection every time app updates DB. It is a big waste.
How SPs would help reduce blocking?
Now you have 1 transaction for 31 queries, where locks are issued against all tables involved and held until transaction commits. With SP you'll have 31 small transaction and only 1-2 tables will be locked at a time.
Another question I would like to address: how to do asynchronous updates to your database?
There is a feature in SQL Server called Service Broker. It allows to process message queue (rows from the queue table) automatically: it monitors queue, takes messages from it and does processing you specify and deletes processes messages from the queue.
For example, you save parameters for your SPs - messages - and Service Broker executes SP with parameters.

SQL Server Merge Replication Problems

I have Merge replication setup on a CRM system. Sales reps data merges when they connect to the network (I think when SQL detects the notebooks are connected), and then they take the laptops away and merge again when they come back (there are about 6 laptops in total merging via 1 server).
This system seems fine when initially setup, but then it almost grinds to a halt after about a month passes, with the merge job taking nearly 2 hours to run, per user, the server is not struggling in any way.
If I delete the whole publication and recreate all the subscriptions it seems to work fine until about another month passes, then I am back to the same problem.
The database is poorly designed with a lack of primary keys/indexes etc, but the largest table only has about 3000 rows in it.
Does anyone know why this might be happening and if there is a risk of losing data when deleting and recreating the publication?
The problem was the metadata created by sql server replication, there is an overnight job that emptys and refills a 3000 row table. This causes replication to replicate all of these rows each day.
The subscriptions were set to never expire which means the old meta data was never being deleted by sql server.
I have set the subscription period to 7 days now in the hope tat it will now clean up the meta data after this period. I did some testing and proved that changes were not lost if a subscription expired. But any updates on the server took priority over the client.
I have encountered with "Waiting 60 second(s) before polling for further changes" recently in 2008 R2.
Replication monitor shows "In progress state" for replication but only step 1 (Initialization) and step 2 (Schema changes and bulk inserts) were performed.
I was very puzzled why other steps do not executed?
The reason was simple - it seems that for merge replication demands tcp/ip (and or not sure) named pipes protocols activation.
No errors were reported.
Probably the similar problem (some sort of connection problem) became apparent in Ryan Stephens case.

SQL Server Merge Replication Schedule

We're replicating a database between London and Hong Kong using SQL Server 2005 Merge replication. The replication is set to synchronise every one minute and it works just fine. There is however the option to set the synchronisation to be "Continuous". Is there any real difference between replication every one minute and continuously?
The only reason for us doing every one minute rather than continuous in the first place was that it recovered better if the line went down for a few minutes, but this experience was all from SQL Server 2000 so it might not be applicable any more...
We have been trying the continuous replication solution on SQL SERVER 2005 and it appeared to be less efficient than a scheduled solution: as your process is continuous, you will not get all the info related to your passed replications (how many replications failed, how long did the process take, why was the process stopped, how many records were updated, how many database structure modifications were replicated to suscribers, and so on), making the replication follow-up a lot more difficult.
We have also been experiencing troubles while modifying database structure (ALTER TABLE instructions) and/or making bulk updates on one of the databases with continuous replication going on.
Keep you "every minute" synchro as it is and just forget about this "continuous" option.

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