New Functionality in Adaptive Server Enterprise 11.9.2

lock hashtable size

Summary Information
Default value	2048
Range of values	1-2147483647
Status	Static
Display level	Comprehensive
Required role	System Administrator

The lock hashtable size parameter specifies the number of hash buckets in the lock hash table. This table manages all row, page, and table locks and all lock requests. Each time a task acquires a lock, the lock is assigned to a hash bucket, and each lock request for that lock checks the same hash bucket. Setting this value too low results in large numbers of locks in each hash bucket and slows the searches. On Adaptive Servers with multiple engines, setting this value too low can also lead to increased spinlock contention. You should not set the value to less than the default value, 2048.

lock hashtable size must be a power of 2. If the value you specify is not a power of 2, sp_configure rounds the value to the next highest power of 2 and prints an informational message.

The optimal hash table size is a function of the number of distinct objects (pages, tables, and rows) that will be locked concurrently. The optimal hash table size is at least 20 percent of the number of distinct objects that need to be locked concurrently. See “Lock Hash Table Information” for more information on configuring the lock hash table size.

Sybase

We’ve been upgrading a number of Sybase ASE databases from the end-of-life’d 12.5.x to v15.0.3 esd 4 the last few weeks.   My coworker (Degang He) ran into an interesting error when the upgrade process was failing on sysprocedures.

Database ‘my_db’: beginning upgrade step [ID 26]: alter table (table sysprocedures)
Command has been aborted.

Msg 3461, Level 20, State 1:
Server ‘my_server’, Line 1:
Database ‘my_db’: upgrade could not install required upgrade item ’26′. Please refer to previous error messages to determine the problem. Fix the problem, then try again.

Msg 3451, Level 20, State 1:
Server ‘my_server’, Line 1:
Database ‘my_db’: upgrade has failed for this database. Please refer to previous messages for the cause of the failure, correct the problem and try again.

Msg 3454, Level 20, State 1:
Server ‘my_server’, Line 1:

Database ‘my_db’: ASE could not completely upgrade this database; upgrade item 1501 could not be installed.

We looked on Sybase’s Solved Cases and Google but didn’t find anything that would really fit the problem.  So we called up Sybase Technical Support.  Somdev Sharma of Sybase was able to determine that this was a bug in the ASE 15x codeline and provided a workaround:

CR #643188:

Title Online database failed with 3461 error during upgrade , ‘max parallel degree’ >1

Workaround:

Before online the database, disable parallel sort via sp_configure ‘max parallel degree’,1

Sanitized:

Online database failed with 3461, 3451 and 3454 errors during upgrade sysprocedures table (upgrade  item ’26′). If ‘max parallel degree’ > 1, then please disable parallel sort with sp_configure ‘max parallel degree’, 1.

After disabling parallel sort, the database was upgraded successfully.

Sybase

Jeff Tallman replied to a question on how to avoid unnecessary reorgs. He graciously agreed to let me post his response here

You can avoid most (if not all) of the reorgs by doing:

1. setting the exp_row_size to something that covers about 90% of the space each row takes up
2. changing enable housekeeper GC to a 4 or 5

Both of these are a *MUST* do for DOL (datapages or datarows). See manuals on ‘enable housekeeper GC’ for correct setting of 4 or 5 (refers to whether deletes are batch or OLTP).

You can also watch for housekeeper overflows in monEngine/monOpenObjectActivity……and if you see any HKGC pending – wait a few before shutting down.

Jeff wrote up an excellent article, Locking Redux – APL vs. DOL and Tuning, that goes into detail why this is the case.

Now we need to get an updated license file from Sybase as the NIC mac address has changed..   You can *not* use the mac address from the VMware Server on ESX.  grr.

Twenty hours for the volume shadow copy to complete plus another 12 hours to scp the files to the esx box (esx console access is sloooow).   Keep in mind that the host VMware Server box was rebooting itself randomly so I really couldn’t leave it alone.  Then 3 hours to convert/clone the vmdk files and 2 hours to correct the database…  I’m tired.

It turned out to be an issue with allocating 3.75GB to a VM that was causing the rebooting.  Dropping it to 2 GB resolved the rebooting… who knew?  Nothing in Google and VMware Support wasn’t able to find anything on their side.

Install ActiveState Perl from http://www.activestate.com (free) and install DBI if it isn’t already installed.  It should be but you never know…

1. Start -> ActiveState Perl -> Perl Package Manager
2. install DBI
3. exit

Now, the easy part.  Install the DBD::Sybase 1.09.01 PPM:

1. download DBD::Sybase 1.09.01 PPM
2. extract zip file to temporary directory (e.g. c:\test)
3. Start -> Run -> cmd.exe (as Administrator if Vista or Windows 7)
4. cd \test
5. ppm install DBD-Sybase.ppd
6. exit

That’s it

It should automatically install the DBD::Sybase for Perl 5.8 or 5.10 depending on which version of Active State Perl you have installed.

While it is free, you have to fill out a form to get access to the download.  Sybase Sales will likely call you regarding purchasing a full blown version of Power Designer.  If you’re not interested in purchasing it, just tell them – Sybase Sales People are generally very nice folk.

Jeff Tallman also provided us with the MDA posters for Sybase 15.0.3 last year.

International Sybase User Group

For those of you that don’t know, I have written several articles for the ISUG Technical Journal.  I’ve been paid for one and refused payment on the others.  Are there other authors that haven’t been paid for one reason or another?

This is not meant as a dig at ISUG but simply determining if I’m the only one or if there are others.

Assuming that you installed Sybase OpenClient 15.5 from the 15.5 PC Client:

Install ActiveState Perl from http://www.activestate.com (free) and install DBI if it isn’t already installed.  It should be but you never know…

1. Start -> ActiveState Perl -> Perl Package Manager
2. install DBI
3. exit

Now, the easy part.  Install the DBD::Sybase 1.09 PPM:

1. download DBD::Sybase 1.09 PPM
2. extract zip file to temporary directory (e.g. c:\test)
3. Start -> Run -> cmd.exe (as Administrator if Vista or Windows 7)
4. cd \test
5. ppm install DBD-Sybase.ppd
6. exit

That’s it

Sybase

… plus a package of free Sybase Software valued at over $7000

Unfortunately there is a bit of misunderstanding that Not for Retail software are full versions.

The ISUG will happily entice you to join at the Gold level for the software:

^{New Version!} Free Developer Edition of Appeon for PowerBuilder 6.2

^{New Version!} Free NFR copy of Sybase PocketBuilder 2.5 (e-shop)

^{New Version!} Free NFR copy of WorkSpace Studio 2.1 (e-shop)

^{New Version!} Free NFR copy of Sybase DataWindow.NET 2.5 (e-shop)

^{New Version!} Free NFR copy of Sybase PowerBuilder Enterprise 11.5 (e-shop)

^{New Version!} EAServer 6.2 Developers Edition (e-shop)

Free copy of IQ 12.7 Developers Edition (e-shop)

ASE 15.0 Evaluation Kit (includes licenses, training materials, etc.)

Free Copy of SQL Anywhere Studio for Windows or Linux/UNIX (e-shop)

(User Group Presidents Only): Free NFR copy of Sybase PowerDesigner Studio

Let’s take a look at Sybase’s Not for Retail license:

NFR License

Please note that the NFR copies of PowerDesigner, WorkSpace, PowerBuilder, PocketBuilder and DataWindow .NET are for development and personal use, and not for commercial deployment purposes. A copy of the NFR license can be found below. Please note that references to development in the license typically refer to full-scale development. Prototyping (also a form of development) is generally permitted. All questions related to what can and can not be done with the program in question should be directed to your local Sybase sales representative for clarification and not ISUG.

PRODUCT-SPECIFIC LICENSE TERMS

NOT FOR RESALE — DEMONSTRATION VERSION

1. DEMONSTRATION USE OF PROGRAMS. You may install and use this Program internally in your organization solely for demonstration purposes on a single Machine. You may not use the Program for any development or production purpose, or transfer, assign, sublicense or otherwise convey the Program (or any portion thereof) to another party without Sybase’s prior written consent. You may not copy the Program except that you may either install the Program on your hard disk or make one copy for inactive back-up and archival purposes for your own use.
2. TERMINATION. You acknowledge and understand that Sybase may terminate this Agreement at any time upon thirty days written notice to you. Upon any termination of this Agreement, you shall cease using the Program and shall destroy all copies of the Program in any form.
3. WARRANTY DISCLAIMER. This Not for Resale — Demonstration version Program is provided AS IS, without any warranty or support. SYBASE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABLE QUALITY, NON INFRINGEMENT, AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
4. PRECEDENCE. THE ABOVE TERMS SHALL TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER ANY INCONSISTENT OR CONFLICTING TERMS OF THE ACCOMPANYING SYBASE LICENSE.

Make sense?  Well, for far too many people, it doesn’t.  So let’s just go over what you can and can not do with NFR software:

What you can do:

• Install and run the software on one and only one computer (your computer)
• Demonstrate the software
• Build diagrams, binaries, libraries, etc.

What you can not do:

• Only you can operate the software
• Share any diagrams
• Share binaries or libraries
• Release any source code generated or even YOUR OWN source code that YOU produce while using the NFR software.  Unfortunately, this also includes taking the source code (or diagrams,etc) and using them with other software outside of a ‘demonstration’.

There isn’t anything distinguishing Not for Retail software from demo software. 

International Sybase User Group

While ISUG does state that the software is Not for Retail, ISUG stating that the NFR software is valued at over $7,000 is not just a misrepresentation but a bold faced lie bordering on bait and switch.

The purpose of this post is not to direct people away from being ISUG members, you do get a nifty Technical Journal where  article authors are only sometimes paid for their work, but to have people join with their collective eyes open.

Subject: Old PowerBuilder Facebook page deactivated



PowerBuilder Fan Page

Hi Everyone,

Happy new year!

As of today, the old PowerBuilder facebook page is deactivated.

Please be sure to become a fan of PowerBuilder here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/PowerBuilder/160355699256

Go PB!!

Years ago PowerBuilder was king.  No one could touch it.  It was relatively inexpensive.  Microsoft’s Visual Basic matured and the Pascal based Borland’s Delphi was released.  Then it fell and fall it did.

Sybase

As it was falling from the throne Sybase purchased Powersoft, makers of PowerBuilder.  As the the market share continued to shrink, PowerBuilder developers had more difficulty in finding new projects.  Most new development was written in Visual Basic or Java.

Years went by with marketing of PowerBuilder little more than the occasional road show, TechWave presentations and the ISUG Technical Journal ads catered towards existing customers.  Little to no effort was put forth by Sybase to gain new PowerBuilder customers.

During this week’s Sybase TechWave, PowerBuilder version 12 was released.  It has all the whistles and kitchen sinks you could ask for.   An amazing tool for development!  Too bad no one outside of the die hard PowerBuilder programmers will use it.

Blasphemy!  Heretic!

Consider this:

Sybase owns PowerBuilder.  It owns the PowerBuilder software, PowerBuilder language, PowerScript, the PowerBuilder vm, and everything PowerBuilder.

No problem right?

What will happen to PowerBuilder when Sybase is bought out by another company?  Products with tiny market share like PowerBuilder would likely be killed or in a state of limbo for several years.  Anyone remember what happened when IBM bought Informix?

Do you really want to bet your career and business on a software development tool that is locked to a single smallish vendor?

Maybe, perhaps, if Sybase were to release the PowerBuilder 4GL language and PowerScript to the world like Microsoft did with the C# and Visual Basic languages and Sun with Java…   Perhaps if Sybase would allow 3rd parties to develop tools based around the PowerBuilder language royalty free…

Sybase:  PLEASE FREE THE POWERBUILDER 4GL LANGUAGE!

I mean, really, what benefit could Sybase have to cripple the PowerBuilder developers?

Last week we were given a hand me down desktop, a Dell Optiplex GX520 with integrated Intel 82945G/GZ video on the motherboard. When we added the NVidia GeForce4 MX 4000 low profile video card, Windows XP for whatever reason was unable to use both video cards. I proposed Kubuntu 9.04 Linux as an alternative. As it was only myself that I had to convince to make the attempt, I was hard pressed to say no

The Intel 82945G/GZ video card will be the primary card and must be attached to “Screen 0″ in the ServerLayout section.

The NVidia video card has two connectors:

1. A standard VGA port driven by a GeForce4 MX 4000 GPU < - Primary nvidia port
2. A super-video port driven by a Quadro NVS 110M

After the base install of the operating system, XWindows was only able to see the Intel video card. After much tinkering with the /etc/xorg.conf file, I was able to get all three LCD monitors to work with Xinerama. There are a number of gotchas that you might run into:

• If the integrated Intel video card is set to Auto in the BIOS, the card will be completely disabled. You need to disable Auto
• You need to know which Nvidia Device entry drives the VGA connector. It must be initialized prior to the S-Video port.
• Disable NVidia’s TwinView and metamodes option lines in the Screen Section.
• Use sudo lspci to identify the pci bus ids. You will need to put them in the Device Sections.
• The integrated Intel video card must use the vesa video driver as the intel video driver will stacktrace when used with xinerama.

Call the Twitter API from within an Oracle database. ORA_Tweet uses the UTL_HTTP API within Oracle to call the update_status API. It is written completely in PL/SQL.

So, my question is…  Will someone write a Flickr API for Sybase ASE?

Sybase

is an Eclipse distribution that uses highly customized Data Tools Platform (DTP) plugins.  Updating the Sybase version of DTP with the standard DTP release from Eclipse will break Sybase’s Workspace.

Last night I updated Workspace’s DTP with the standard DTP release from Eclipse’s website.  Several oddities started showing up when accessing the DTP releases:

Configuring the db connection

Testing the connection worked fine but when you open the database connection to a Sybase ASE database errors are reported:

Multiple errors have occurred

and

Connection errors

If you run into this issue, you will need to uninstall Sybase’s Workspace (delete the %SYBASE%/Workspace directory after the uninstall is complete) to resolve it.

I’ve created feature request CR 565285 with Sybase:

Workspace’s DTP (data tools platform) should be updated with the DTP current release from Eclipse. This will allow developers that work in a mixed environment to use Workspace with non-Sybase DBMS’s (view stored procedures, triggers, etc).

If you believe that this feature request is desired, please let Sybase know.

QweryBuilder uses innovative ideas to provide developers with the ability to easily insert, extract and modify data from a variety of databases.

The goal of QweryBuilder is to increase a database developer’s productivity. It contains many time saving features.

SQL Editor

QweryBuilder - SQL Editor

• Script auto complete
• Custom auto complete lists
• Code Templates
• Display column list for tables and views in editor
• Display procedure parameters in editor
• Keyboard shortcut to open procedures
• Generate and insert new GUIDs
• Syntax folding
• Auto indenting

Criteria Query

QweryBuilder - Criteria Query

• Form view criteria screen for easy data retrieval
• Updateable result set
  • Insert nulls, GUID’s, and computed values into results
  • Insert, delete and update data rows
  • Generate insert statements from results
  • Create graphs from result data

Graphic Query

QweryBuilder - Graphic Query

• Create queries graphically
• Cross table querying without writing SQL

Other Features

• Support for Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase ASE, SQL Anywhere and Oracle
• DDL Browser
• Database Search
• Visual Difference
• Code Formatter
• Getting Started Window
  • Displays last used connections, files and database objects
  • Easily navigate to the last thing you were working on
• Clipboard Saver
• File Browser
• Object Browser

International Sybase User Group

Over on ISUG‘s SIG-ASE mailing list, Peter Thawley wrote up the following reply that I think everyone using Sybase ASE and is thinking of using a RAM disk should be aware of.  When I asked Peter if I could repost his message on my blog he agreed

Creating a RAM Disk

Peter Thawley

Joe and Shane are spot-on about a task context switching off the engine on an i/o to a RAM-disk based device … and yes Joe, there is nothing you can do about this right now. Normally, one would think of this as a good thing … and it is for that specific user since they get to consume more cpu/engine time thereby getting better response time for their request.

Now, to throw a wrench into this! In these cases where some or all of the database is cached, one does have to be aware of the potential for other user tasks to experience some amount of starvation. Image a bunch of tasks, each consuming a full time slice (100ms by default) before yielding. For systems doing pure OLTP (short) transactions with users getting on an engine and getting off reasonably quickly … little risk of a problem. For mixed workload applications with some OLTP and some DSS/reporting, the potential for starvation is quite real and nearly guaranteed for environments with fully cached DBs. I’ve seen some trading systems in tier 1 investment banks brought to their knees by an innocent IT person deciding to buy a lot of memory to cache the entire DB only to wonder why performance started going to hell. [Of course, it was Sybase's fault ... ( - ; )]

In these cases, be thinking about execution classes/engine groups to segregate OLTP and DSS users onto their own disjoint set of engines using dynamic listeners to keep execution engines and network engines aligned within the same engine groups. You may also want to consider reducing “clock tick length” to keep a timeslice period lower than 100ms … I’ve seen some sites successfully using 50ms and even less … there seems to be little downside since most systems do the async disk io and net io checks a lot more frequently than 100 ms due to the “io polling process count” param.

Just trying to present a balanced view here …. This is going to be important for more people to consider as in-memory database techniques and/or features / products become more prevalent.

Peter
_____________________________________

Peter Thawley
Senior Director / Architect
CTO Group, WMO
Sybase, Inc.

The current version (ASE 11.0.3.3 ESD#6) package is different from previous distribution of ASE 11.0.3.3. The

Sybase

new package separates ASE and OC/OS SDK. Also OC/OS is now available for Alpha platform. You can also find FreeBSD version of the package. Intel, Alpha and FreeBSD releases differ only in packaging and they are all built from the same source.

Software is FREE for development as well as Deployment.

Adaptive Server Enterprise 11.0.3.3 ESD#6 for Linux runs on Linux systems with Kernel 2.2.12 and glibc-2.1.2-11 installed. Verify that your system meets the hardware/software requirements before installing the software.

ASE 11.0.3.3 Linux download and install instructions from Europe site.

To install Linux ASE 11.0.3.3 software:

• Download the following packages. The downloadable image are in RPM (Linux) or GNU-zipped tar (FreeBSD) format for the available different platforms.
  Linux Intel
  sybase-ase-11.0.3.3-6.i386.rpm – ASE (run-time) 20MB archive, 70MB installed
  sybase-ocsd-10.0.4-6.i386.rpm – OCSD (software dev kit) 19MB archive, 60MB installed
  sybase-doc-11.0.3.3-6.i386.rpm – DOC (PostScript and html) 9MB archive, 40MB installed

  Linux Alpha

  sybase-ocsd-10.0.4-5.alpha.rpm – OCSD (software dev kit) 18MB archive, 56MB installed
  sybase-doc-11.0.3.3-5.alpha.rpm – DOC (PostScript and html) 9MB archive, 40MB installed

  FreeBSD with Linux ABI installed (The SDK is native)

  sybase-ase-11.0.3.3-FreeBSD-i386.tgz – ASE (run-time) 20MB archive, 70MB installed
  sybase-ocsd-10.0.4-FreeBSD-i386.tgz – OCSD (FreeBSD native SDK) 9MB archive, 30MB installed
  sybase-doc-11.0.3.3-FreeBSD-i386.tgz – DOC (PostScript and html) 9MB archive, 40MB installed
• Download Cover Letter and follow the instructions. After extracting the software README files in various directories, $SYBASE/CONFIGURE and $SYBASE/doc/howto/howto-ase-quickstart.html provide more information to install and configure the product

It’s coming…

48 hours from now something big is coming!

An Informatica product manager Informed me they were considering dropping support for ASE as a repository. Please contact me if you run Informatica and have ASE as a repository.

Joe Buhl
BT Conferencing
joe.buhl@bt.com

I can only hope that the product manager was either misinformed or that Informatica can be convinced to retain support for Sybase ASE as a repository.