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2024-07-01: Consultant Toolkit Fixes
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@BrentOzar BrentOzar released this 01 Jul 15:51
· 46 commits to main since this release
20240701
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Learn about vigilant mode.

The next release would normally be August, but I'm doing a release a little early in order to fix 2 issues with the Consultant Toolkit. The May release broke the ability to automatically upload results to Amazon S3, and didn't include all of sp_BlitzLock's results. Those are now fixed, so I wanted to get another release out quickly so consultants don't have to keep using the old version.

If you've hard-coded First Responder Kit installer file names, there was a big recent change. There are now just 2 installer scripts: Install-All-Scripts.sql, and a new Install-Azure.sql, which only installs the scripts that are compatible with Azure SQL DB. The old Install-Core scripts are gone because we've deprecated sp_AllNightLog, sp_BlitzInMemoryOLTP, and sp_BlitzQueryStore. Read on for why.

To get the new version:

Consultant Toolkit Changes

We fixed the problems with AWS S3 uploads and sp_BlitzLock results that were introduced by May's big changes. As a reminder, here's what we did in May because the changes were pretty big:
  • Supports Microsoft Entra multi-factor authentication (MFA)
  • Automatically retries failed connections, allowing you to more easily gather data from Azure SQL DB Serverless databases that auto-paused
  • No longer requires create-table permissions, so it works better in environments where you can pull diagnostic data but not see database contents
  • Requires .NET Desktop Runtime 7 or higher on the machine where you run the Consultant Toolkit, typically your jump box or laptop (not the SQL Server itself)

sp_Blitz Changes

sp_BlitzLock Changes

  • Enhancement: add @DeadlockType parameter to filter for just regular or parallelism deadlocks. (#3525, thanks Erik Darling)
  • Enhancement: add max CPU and elapsed times. (#3545, thanks Erik Darling)

sp_DatabaseRestore Changes

  • Enhancement: add @EnableBroker parameter to turn on Service Broker after a restore. (#3532, thanks John McCall)

Deprecating sp_BlitzInMemoryOLTP, sp_BlitzQueryStore, and sp_AllNightLog

sp_BlitzQueryStore was originally written by Erik Darling when he worked here. He's moved on to start his own excellent company, plus his own sp_QuickieStore. You should be using that instead.

sp_BlitzInMemoryOLTP was always kinda distributed as a courtesy - the real home for it is in KTaranov's Github repository, and you can still find it there. It hasn't been updated in over 6 years, and I've never seen anyone using it, so I'm removing it to streamline support issues.

sp_AllNightLog was a ton of fun when we built it several years ago, but it's consistently had a problem. Companies start using it, then decide they want to build something even more ambitious, typically a C# service with robust error handling and scheduling. sp_AllNightLog isn't the kind of thing I want to encourage beginners to use - it's complex.

So when Reece Goding started working on cleaning up sp_BlitzQueryStore's code, I decided that now was the time to deprecate stuff we no longer use or recommend. You're definitely welcome to continue to use 'em if you get value out of 'em! I've going to move these procs into the Deprecated folder, plus simplify the installation scripts. For the rest of 2024, the only installer script will be Install-All-Scripts.sql.

For Support

When you have questions about how the tools work, talk with the community in the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. Be patient: it's staffed by volunteers with day jobs. If it's your first time in the community Slack, get started here.

When you find a bug or want something changed, read the contributing.md file.

When you have a question about what the scripts found, first make sure you read the "More Details" URL for any warning you find. We put a lot of work into documentation, and we wouldn't want someone to yell at you to go read the fine manual. After that, when you've still got questions about how something works in SQL Server, post a question at DBA.StackExchange.com and the community (that includes me!) will help. Include exact errors and any applicable screenshots, your SQL Server version number (including the build #), and the version of the tool you're working with.

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