@Convergence 2007: Diary

WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
edited 2007-03-18 in General Chat
May be a small Diary directly from Convergence. A lot of Mibuso members are here, so may be a little thread to post the experiences.

Session: Microsoft Dynamics Communities
I'm actually now sitting in the session, so this is "live" typed :wink: .
They seem to give a lot of attention to these "snaps" allthough I see not much NAV links. Take a look at:
http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/product/snap.mspx

Also the community homepage got some attention:
http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/Community/default.mspx. Very useful (also know that mibuso is on the NAV part now, but I think a lot of you already do).
On this site, there is also a "reference" to the NAV Newsgroup: "Participate in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Newsgroup". Type in a question and see that there is actually more info on Mibuso :wink: ... no, really .. it might be useful.

You can also make a suggestion to the Microsoft team. There is an entire application devoted on this, allthough, I just missed the part where they gave the URL for NAV and it seems I can't find it. May be somebody can help?

No special announcement for Mibuso, but there was one for the MVP's. They are considered for being the real product experts in the community ... And I guess we all know that kind of true :wink:

Microsoft Dynamics Live Finance Community.
URL: http://community.dynamicslive.com/
Just another community site, that seems to be devoted to finance professionals.
You can find articles from professionals to share experiences and information (just like other community sites...).
What can you find: Articles/Blogs/Forum/Networking/Executive Insight/...
Networking: is not available yet, but it's going to bring that "learning and sharing" online.
Private workgroup: You can also create a private workgroup, and choose people to join the group for dealing with private issues/information/ ... .
Blog: Videoblog is also an option. If you're too lazy to type ... Then just explain it in front of a web cam :wink:

--- end of the description of the session. ---
Don't know if it was interesting. Don't know if I can find the time to do it for all sessions, but I will sure try.

Eric Wauters
MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
My blog

Comments

  • Luc_VanDyckLuc_VanDyck Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 3,633
    Thanks for your report about the current Convergence conference. Much appreciated.

    Shame they didn't mention mibuso.com in their communities session. But maybe they'll during a keynote session ;-)

    Have a great time overthere.
    No support using PM or e-mail - Please use this forum. BC TechDays 2024: 13 & 14 June 2024, Antwerp (Belgium)
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    Thanks, Luc. I did mention mibuso that session, so that error is rectified :wink: .

    Here is my next session report.
    Session: Indexing For SQL Performance
    It is quite hard to summarize this kind of sessions ... But I'll give it a go.

    The session starts about explaining what are clustered/nonclustered indexes with some nice graphs (may be somehow they'll be put on the download section?). Also the ground principles of how it's going to decide

    Also explained: the 4 basic access mehods (Unordered scans, Ordered scans, Index seek, Row fetch) and how they form the basis of the execution plan. The primary goal of this execution plan is to retrieve data as fast as possible.

    If you're creating indexes, keep this information in mind:
    - Uniqueness: order: most unique columns to the least unique
    - Number of columns: keep it limited if possible
    - Number of indexes: don't worry about it [-X
    - Try not to index columns that change a lot (not too big of an issue, but anyway ... ) Columns like status: no problem, but others that can have an unlimited number of values ... And change a lot ... Try to avoid.
    - Try to eliminate duplicate indexes: (A,B,C and A,B,C,D ... Eliminate A,B,C - don't need it)

    too many indexes is a myth... . Now, this is a bit surprising for me, because disabling the "MaintainSQLIndex" really gained some performance in some fields... .
    I talked with Hynek and Mark about this after the session ... and indeed: bull§èçt. It DOES matter how many indexes there are ... . 8-[

    There was some attention for "OLTP vs OLAP". You can tune indexes for transation processing (OLTP) or for Analysis processing (OLAP).

    We got a demo, let's try to go over it.
    For a statement, we looked at the execution plan. Result: a clustered index scan. This is typically. Users can search/filter all kind of fields. You have to investigate how users are using the data in a certain table ... . Usually, the where-clause causes the horror.
    Remarks:
    SQL Server reacts differently for big databases in stead of small databases. e.g.: for a small table, a clustered index scan might be better then something else...
    Having a clustered key is a must (some products doesn't provide it out-of-the box...). This key is always available, also when doing an index seek, so if you create a nonclustered index with two columns (date, name) the clustered index (ID) is also available, so when doing a query with the data in the where clause ... It will do an index seek on the new nonclustered index, because it has all the fields there ... Together with the clustered... (am I making sense?)

    Hopeful interesting stuff for you ... I know that Daniel (Denster), Mark (Brummel) and Hynek were also attending this session ... so may be they can add some more info ... or correct me if I misunderstood something.

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    Session: MS Dynamics NAV: Employee Portal and Sharepoint technologies
    I was a bit too late to this session, because I first had to build our booth at the MS pavilion with my collegue.

    I already attended this session at Convergence in Munchen and I was wondering if there were some new additions in EP. I had to conclude that I couldn't see much new, so may be some nice features that were discussed.

    Employee Portal:
    It seemed that it was now possible to put buttons like "Explosion of BOM", "Detailed calculation" (Item card) on the webpart. So, may I conclude that posting from a webpart is easy to set up now? :-k
    Sharepoint:
    You can download about 200 webparts for free at Microsoft.com. So this is available for

    Oh no ... a demo ... I'll try to keep up ...
    What's MOSS? Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007
    With Microsoft Frontpage, you can design your sharepoint ... Much richer than the standard WSS designer. We created a "zone" and put our Employee Portal webparts into it ... .

    During his presentation, the presenter somewhat "discourraged" the use of EP: "Keep in mine, our sales order took twice as much key strokes as the rich client".
    My conclusion is that EP is useful for providing your employees with easy, interactive access to critical data (quote), but you have to pay attention when you want to use this for avoiding to buy too many licenses ... . You should consider to investigate the "ease-of-use" of WSS (MOSS) versus the "ease-of-use" of the rich client... .

    The end.

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • ajhvdbajhvdb Member Posts: 672
    When will the Employee Portal WSS3 or MOSS version be available?
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    They didn't tell me anything about availability...

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    First Keynote session
    Normally I'm not that thrilled for going to a Keynote session. Like they say in Belgium: "Much 'blabla', less 'boom boom'" ... But anyway, I went ... Littlebit over time (again), but that starbucks coffie with a onut bagel really was delicious :wink: .

    The keynote session was opened by a speaker that gave us all the details about what's new and where to think about at Convergence. Little bit old news, but "repetitio mater studiorum est"... :wink:.

    Then Doug Burgum did his thing. First a big thank you and then actually the same thing we had in Munchen ... We had to introduce ourselved to our neighbour. I met a guy ... Chris. A client based in Toronto. He has a fiancee that comes from Belgium ... . Quite a coïncidence, isn't it?
    Doug emphasized the fact that Convergence is growing, knowing that the first Convergence (1997 was it? I might be mistaken) was attended by 47 attendees. Today, we're here with 8500 poeple.
    As I understood, this is Doug's last Convergence, leaving Microsoft to live from his pension probably ... .

    Next speaker was Satya Nadella, Vice corporate president (if I remember exactly). You know, at Microsoft, they are really "inventive" with titles, don't you agree? :wink:
    Satya worked for Doug for six years, and thanked him for his passion and dedication... . Then he got to business, stating the vision of Microsoft. Statements like: "you asked, we listened", "providing people ready software" ... The connected business.
    Furthermore, he "launched" the Microsoft dynamics Client for Microsoft Office:
    It should deliver power, insights and processes of dynamics to all information workers / it should be a familiar office. This product seems to be a sharepoint extension. Futhermore, it will be available in May (so not really a "launch", is it?). Off course ... We got a demo :).
    Also Office Business Applications got some attention: kind of like "user experience built into office". And again: Demo from Ben Vollmer. He gave the examples of the fact that in Outlook (tasks, mails, calendar), there are buttons like "track in CRM". Also the concept of a "live spreadsheet" in excel. Real time info into excel from the CRM system ... A bit of competition for JetReports?
    Next thing was the role-tailered experience: "made for me". It think you know all that. It has been a vision of Microsoft for a long time: No more "one size fits all" / streamlined user experience modeled ater office and ERP system / ... . Then, we got a demo of GP 10, not really one of my favourites, but is was quickly clear for me that what I've seen of 5.1 so far, that it's quite the same than GP ... The evolution to one product (MS Dynamics) was again pretty clear. The demo was given by Heide Easler.
    Next topic was Connecting Vision and software. The software must "look like your business", must be "integrated" and must be "industry relevant". Satya himself showed us the Sure Step Business Modeler, where you can visualize the structure of your organisation and drill down into the specific roles, put people behind them, and so on. This tool can become quite important when building role-based applications, model the business vision, and so on.
    The integration aspect ... Microsoft focused on "putting webservices infrastructure in every application". Thanks to this, it's now possible to integrate much better/faster/blabla .
    They picked 5 industrie focuses: Manufacturing, distribution, professional services, retail, public sector. They are keeping focus to these industries ... But that's not sufficient. Therefore they are relying on the ISV's, that are building applications on the Dynamics Platform. Darren Laybourn gave us a demo to show us this vision. It seemed like he showed us (finally) the 5.1 client of NAV. I'm in love :wink:. Again, we got the "production planner", with the 3D graph ... Amazing. Really an "eyecatcher".
    Last topic: You and your community. Aha! A keynote session ... And talking about communities? I wonder if Luc will appear again. Sorry, Luc, no luck :wink:. Again, we got the announcement of the online community for financial professionals. I already talked about this on a previous session description. Craig Dewar demo-ed the Dynamics Live Community. During this demo, we got some explanation about the "tags" where Miklos might have been referring to in another thread, no?
    Satya concluded with the announcements: Vista / Office / Gp 10 / SL 7.0 / NAV 5.0 / Dynamics Client for Office / Dynamics Live Community / Dynamics Sure Step / RoleTailored.

    The End. It was a long session, with (indeed) much of "bla bla" and a little bit "boom boom" .... But nevertheless, more interesting then expected :wink:.

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    General Session: Launch of Dynamics NAV 5.0
    As expected (feared), it seemed to be a real "sales" talk about NAV. Using customer quotes, nice figures (+ 1000000 concurrent users, +57000 customers, ...). There was also some attention to the fact that 20 ISV's have been involved in the 5.0 Beta Program ... And that 8 ISV's are present here in at Convergence ... It makes me proud that I'm one of them :D .

    ToIncrease from the Netherlands was one of the ISV's that were involved in the program as well, and had a Video that was showed in this session. General message was the integration (Sharepoint, outlook, NAV) opportunities of 5.0 and the fact they're looking forward to the upgrade: increase efficientie.

    Demo time. These are some of the topics they showed us: Document approval (sales order), linking a sharepoint document to a sales order (record links), Prepayment, Outlook integration (sync every table/field to outlook from NAV).
    Also service orders (with std. Service codes), the export to word, where you can use stylesheets, to make it look how you want and the link to display the address on a map (windows live - most online map providers are supported). Nice thing they showed us was a photograph on the map (address) so "you could see the color of the front door of the place you have to be".
    Nice thing they showed as well is the Item Tracking, with the general conclusion: more visibility and usability.

    After, an interview with Exhausto, a NAV customer that upgraded to NAV5 by Lanham, who was involved in the Beta Program as well. This took too long ... I was hungry, my ass hurt, and there was not really valuable info provided by Lanham or Exhausto ... Only some advertisements of the lanham products ... But that's not what I was there for (sorry lanham).

    Next, an explanation of the Business Ready enhancement plan, with the excitement new enhancement: unlimited online training. In Belgium, customers pay 16% maintenance. They try to explain what customers get for this: CustomerSource / Knowledge base / unlimited online training / community and newsgroups / ... .

    Some customers may want a higher level of support: Deluxe Support Services. They didn't tell the price for this, but my guess is: a lot! And, if I remember correctly, the partner should have a Partner Advantage Plan ... Which is very expensive for a partner. Also for this, they showed a video.

    Kim Ibfelt and Jan Silleman showed the future ... NAV 5.1 . It's about role tailorder user experience: making sure that wherever you look at, fits your needs.
    In short: C/SIDE and C/AL remains the same: new object though: pages. And yes: the client is a RICH client!
    They could show now a lot more than in Munchen: changing action pane, freeze columns in the customer list, customize info on the "fast tabs", ... .
    Then, special attention to Web Services: MS NAV business logic and data exposed as web services / integrate external apps with NAV. Sounds nice, doesn't it ... Pitty they didn't go very deep in this matter. :(

    You can see, another long session.

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • p.willemse6p.willemse6 Member Posts: 216
    Pretty interested in the Sure Step Business Modeler, because we are currently setting the whole structure up for our add-ons. Any more info available?
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    I will try to find some more info.

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    Yesterday I had to "man" our booth, so no sessions for me anymore... . But at least I got to convince some people of our Integration product we have for NAV ... so that was interesting as well.
    I was looking forward to the first session of today ... A preview of 5.1.
    According Mark, I'll make myself very "popular" to post this on Mibuso ... So I feel a big responsibility now :wink: .
    Session: Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.1: a preview
    The intention was to go into a little bit more detail ... In a "geeky" way :wink: :
    For 5.0, the key words are: Simplicity, Ease of Use, Flexibility. For 5.1, this focus is the same, but building on top of that: Roletailored UX, Web Services, 3-tier architecture, .NET Compliant.
    In terms of upgrading: the application is the same as 5.0, so you'll have to do an upgrade to 5.0, and put the "application feature" on top of it.
    The two environments will have the: same application, same office integration, same Outlook integration!

    RoleTailored User Experience:
    Each user can have his own homepage (=rolecenter). Out-of-the box rolecenters will be delivered with the product.
    On top, there is a bar like we know in explorer (vista). You can navigate through the application like in explorer... :). I like that!
    Filtering is available (same filters can be applied), "open in new window" to compare windows (opening a new window is actually now a NEW window .. not in an MDI environment anymore), freezing columns in a list form (nice!), ... .
    There are numerous ways to customize the application. They showed us to customize the "fast tabs" ... . It is possible to: hide table, change info on a fast tab, making fields "additional" on a tab (when doing that, the fields won't be showed immediately, you have to click one more button"), ... . This way, a user is quite flexible what to show and what not to show.
    Also the Action Pane (the "menu" on top of the application) is customizable. You can increase the size of the buttons, delete/add buttons, ... .

    Reporting
    Now leveraging SQL Reporting Services: Richer visual effects / possible to create interactive reports / out-of-the-box export on all reports!
    BUT: what happened to our custom developed reports? With transformation tool, the existing reports can be re-used (allthough some adjustment to the code might be necessary).
    Demo Time:
    The Customer Top Ten List: with all the stars (you probably now the report). In C/SIDE, you have a new option: "transform layout". You open the report than in MS Visual Studio (RDL).
    Now, he added a graphical chart on the report (in VS), did some modifications involving sorting and stuff ... And there you have .. A reports with a colored graph on it :) . And also: you can set up sorting on the report in preview mode ... .
    Conclusion: Lots of new possibilities in regards to layout!

    3-tier architecture
    There are three levels available:
    Client tier: displays info and sends info to service tier
    Service tier: does the hard work
    Database tier: stores data

    The client is still a RICH client! They stressed this out during the session. My guess: Citrix is still needed ... But that's still a guess.

    Web Services
    Important:
    There are no new abstractions: Page and Codeunit can be exposed, without to write a single line of code
    Demo:
    To expose a webservice: he added a record in the web service table, filled in four fields, and that ws it. In Infopath, he tested the webservice ... And indeed: it worked (what did you think). Impressive! :)
    The webservices can also be used (off course) in sharepoint. That opens the opportunity to go further to link sharepoint to NAV. Bye bye Employee Portal :wink: .
    What can we use Web Services for:
    Extending NAV: Adding data from other apps
    Integrating with NAV: other apps can use NAV data

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • p.willemse6p.willemse6 Member Posts: 216
    Eric,

    Quote: Again, we got the "production planner", with the 3D graph

    is it going to be part of NAV 5.1, of future versions?

    Peter
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    That production planner you're referring to, is a seperate application that will be able to connect to a Dynamics App ... I've seen it running this time on GP.

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • p.willemse6p.willemse6 Member Posts: 216
    Ah, OK, they showed it in Munchen also... thanks
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    Correction:
    After talking to the marketing-girl that composed the keynote, it was NAV that they showed together with that production planner.
    Those products are starting to look exacty like each other :oops:

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    SQL Server and Windows Perfomance Counters That Matters
    What to start looking at ... .
    Why should you tune your database?
    Loss of user productivity
    Cust of new hardware
    Harware may only temporarily resolve
    Understanding load being placed on your server
    ...
    Seems logical, doesn't it, but try to explain to your customes that the application should be 'tuned' towards the usage of the application... .

    The hardware restricting performance, is usually: Disk I/O, CPU, Memory and Network.
    Most important: The Disk I/O. Some general recommendations:
    - Use Physical disk instead of logical disk
    - Sec/trasfer should be less than 15ms
    - Transfers/sec should be less than 120 per disk
    - Current disk queue length should be less than (2* # disks)
    - Disk bytes/sec should be less than (10MB/sec per disk)
    You should use the profiler, together with these counters, and see what it gives... .

    Now, he began explaining about the RAID volumes. The main message: RAID 5 has got a poor write performance ... RAID 10 has got a high read performance. So: the .mdf is best but on RAID 10. The .log can go on RAID 1, but if shown pressure, RAID 10. Don't put the log on RAID 5. The tempdb is best put on a RAID 1, but if shown pressure, RAID 10. The Master should be put on RAID 1.

    The causes of high I/O could be:
    Memory pressure / Excessive paging / Severe blocking caused backlog of I/Os / Poorly designed queries (missing key indexes) (important for NAV!) / RAID 5 .

    Demo time:
    Just showing a "busy" machine with the performance counters above. Random performance issues: probably blocking.

    Second thing to be looking into is CPU. Interesting counters are:
    % processor time < 80%
    % privileged time < 10%
    Processor queue length < 2
    Context switches/sec < 1000
    SQL re-compilations/sec (lower is better)

    The causes of CPU bottlenecks could be:
    Compiles/recompiles for exec. Plans / Hash joins / Aggregate functions / Data sorting / Disk I/O activity / Other apps/services / Screen savers

    Demo time:
    He showed creating tables and dropping inside a loop and outside a loop. The recompiles in the second scenerio was (as expected) better.

    Third: Memory
    These are the counters:
    Available MB > 10Mb
    Pages/Sec < 50-300 (depending on disk perf)
    Buffer cache hit ratio >= 90%
    Free pages > 640
    Memory grants pending = 0 (quite important!)
    Target server memory - physical memory
    Total server memory - target memory

    Things you should take in count to resolve the memory bottleneck:
    - Set to dynamically allocate or raise max
    - Increase physical RAM
    - Evaluate high read count queries
    - /3GB switch in boot.ini (!)
    - /PAE switch in boot.ini + AWE enable in SQL (!)

    He didn't go into the network, because there should be no problem these days thanks to the current technology.

    To conclude, there are also a number of SQL Specific counters. To investigate missing indexes: use the "Full Scan/sec". To investigat blocking, you can use:
    - Total latch wait time (ms)
    - Lock timeouts/sec
    - Lock ait time (ms)
    - Number of deadlocks/sec

    It was an interesting session, and you should download the presentation if it comes available on Mibuso ... :wink:.

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    Session: SQL Server: Understanding locking
    During this session, the speaker used a lot of diagrams and graphs, which is quite difficult to put into words ... .
    There are numerous lock types:
    X: exclusive
    S: shared
    IS: intended shared
    ...
    Some locks are compatible with each other, some are not. E.g.: if you put an exclusive lock, you won't be able to read the data with even an "IS" lock. In "Books Online" you can find all locking types and its compatibility.

    Furthermore a talk about Lock Escalation.
    This is used to lower the number of locks taken by a transaction. Lock manager attampts to replace one transaction's many row or page locks with a lingle table lock! You can monitor Lock escalations with Hynek's SQLPerform Analysis tool ... which I use :wink:.

    A hint he gave was: when reporting, make sure you're not locking! (Duh..) This should be done by the Isolation Level hint: NOLOCK ... But I doubt we can do this in C/SIDE, because those locking hints can be specified using SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE ... But we can't "influence" these statements. Luckily, because his recommendation was not to use locking hints, and let SQL Server decide what to use.

    Then, he began explaining (again) what a deadlock is. You probably know this: it's just that two users are waiting for each other. User A modifies X, User B modified Y, User A wants to modify Y, but is locked, user B wants to modify Y and is locked as well ... . It's as easy as that. SQL Server decides who the victim is .. But I missed that part by typing the above :oops: .

    Locking and blocking:
    Blocking occurs when two connections need incompatible locks on a resource (page, row, table, etc.) . Keep attention: blocking is normal! It's necessary to guarantee data integrity. When is it a problem? When users complain :wind: .
    But how to you recognize Blocking Problems??
    Sp_who2 ! There is a column called "blocked by" as well.

    SQL Profiler is THE tool to analyze anything in SQL Server, also for blocking.
    Small tip: A high duration and low read count, usually was a blocked read.

    There are some common causes of blocking:
    - Long running queries or transactions
    - Inappropriate transaction or transaction isolation level
    - Lock granularity too high (or too low)
    - Compile blocking
    - Not processing result quickly or completely (cursor to the database)

    How to avoid blocking:
    - Keep transaction short and in one batch
    - No user interaction during transactions
    - Rollback when canceling
    - Proper indexing
    - Beware of implicit transactions
    - Process results quickly and completely
    - Reduce isolation level to lowest possible

    Demo time
    One nice tip I got from him during the demo, was the fact when you have an index on the column you're getting .. SQL can set the row lock.
    To look what a user is doing
    Dbcc inputbuffer(SPID) --> givers the statement what the blocking user is executing
    In SQL2K: Select * from sys.syslockinfo: little ugly to read
    In SQL2K5, there are datamangement views (look them up in technet). Select * from sys.dm_tran_locks: These are easier to read :) .

    Again, a lot of information in only one hour, but nice to get you going in the right way. I'm not really convinced of the fact that all this info is useful for NAV (locking types, locking hits ... It's all something we don't have under control) ... It'll just be a matter of how to avoid blocking , isn't it?

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    Session: Chalk & Talk with Michael DeVoe about SQL2005 & NAV Performance issues

    Mr DeVoe started off with a small explenation about the new feature in SQL2005: "Included Columns" and how it could "replace" the SIFTs we define in NAV.
    The "included columns" is an extension of an index, where you can define which other columns are included, but are not maintained. You can add as many columns as you want in the "included columns" for an index.
    It's all "speculative" (don't know how to say it in another way :oops:), but it should be possible to get rid of the workload to maintain a SIFT. He advised to use it on "small transactual tables" (Sales Header/Line, Purchase....).
    How?
    - Disable SIFT
    - Disable MaintainSQLIndex
    - New Nonclustered key + SIFTfields as include columns
    - Will NOT be maintained with a NAV backup/restore! A SQL Backup/Restore I don't know, but it seems logical it woul be maintained... :-k

    Then, the "chalk & talk" really began, and I noted some small points that were discussed with Michael:
    * Putting entry tables (G/L entry, Item Ledger Entry, ...) on seperate disks could help.
    * RAID 5: good for reading data, terrible for writing data. Use RAID 10 for that. He hasn't seen a situation where it was necessary to put the tempdb on a seperate volume. He would put it on the same device as the db-files (not Log).
    * Index usage: New in SQL2005 are the datamanagement views ... allthough watch out, because these are only interesting when the server has been running for a few weeks/months. These views can show you what has been going on with your server in the past. He referred to technet to look for more info.
    After some browsing, I think they were talking about "dynamic management views". May be this URL can get you going: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188754.aspx
    * You have to disable "createstats" in the setup of your database. Maintaining stats on indexes only is enough.
    * The new statements (FINDSET, FINDFIRST...) should diminish the number of roundtrips (also explained in Hynek's presentation about cursors).
    * If you use fillfactors, you have to set up a maintenanceplan to maintain them.
    * Database Mirroring can use a significant overhead!

    This was the last session. After that, I had a nice Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 Launch Party in the Marriot hotel in San Diego.

    It was a great Convergence, with lots of interesting people ... lots of Mibuso guys ... glad to be able to put a fact on y'all.

    C U next time in Orlando!

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • davmac1davmac1 Member Posts: 1,283
    "If you're creating indexes, keep this information in mind:
    - Uniqueness: order: most unique columns to the least unique"

    One of the Microsoft guys (I think Michael DaVoe) contradicted this for SQL 2005 - said SQL 2005 would work just as well on indexes where the first field had low selectivity - e.g. document type, order number.

    Does anyone have some practical experience that confirms or disproves this?
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    Well, in my recent tuning-project with Mark, I can confirm that the most selective/unique column should be placed first... .

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    Pretty interested in the Sure Step Business Modeler, because we are currently setting the whole structure up for our add-ons. Any more info available?

    About the Business Modeler I can tell you this:
    This is NOT a part of Sure Step (they presented this wrong :| )
    This will NOT be released before next year :|
    This will be part of (connected to) NAV :)

    I had a talk with the Dynamics responsible about this in the NAV 5.0 Launch party ... where they also teached me handling the "jojo" :wink:

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • DenSterDenSter Member Posts: 8,307
    and I must add that Mexi-Waldo is now a pretty good yoyo-er :mrgreen:
  • WaldoWaldo Member Posts: 3,412
    DenSter wrote:
    and I must add that Mexi-Waldo is now a pretty good yoyo-er :mrgreen:

    Yep, first day in San Diego, me and my collegue went to Mexico ... but unfortunately I forgot my passport. One tip: NEVER GO TO MEXICE WITHOUT A PASSPORT. You can't get back to America. It was very simple:"You don't have a passport? Very simple ... say goodbye to US. Have a nice day."

    =D>

    Eric Wauters
    MVP - Microsoft Dynamics NAV
    My blog
  • Marije_BrummelMarije_Brummel Member, Moderators Design Patterns Posts: 4,262
    Great Blog Eric!

    I enjoyed convergece very much! Had a great time with you, Daniel, Ahmed and all the other guys. :mrgreen:
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