Tag Archives: BI

Data Vault Series, Datawarehouse series, Miscellaneous, SQL Server Series, SSIS Series, T-SQL Scripting Series, Windows User Series

Free download: Blog Yearbook 2016

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I have made a compilation of all my blog posts of the past year, and it was more work than you would think.
Especially because it also contains a non-published new article.

After filling in the form you can download the e-book for free.

    I promise you the following:

    • I will not give or sell your email address to any third party.
    • I will not spam you.
    • If I start with a newsletter, you can easily unsubscribe or change the frequency.

    (c) 2016 hansmichiels.com – Do not steal the contents – spread the link instead – thank you.

    Data Vault Series, Datawarehouse series, SQL Server Series

    Zeros, bloody zeros! (Data Vault Series)

    2 Comments

    Introduction

    I must admit I have a weakness for British humour.
    When I had to cope with leading zeros in business keys some time ago, I spontaneously came up with the title of this post, not knowing that it would serve as such.
    For those who do not know, “Meetings, bloody meetings” is a British comedy training film in which John Cleese plays a main role. It was made in 1976, and a remake was made in 2012.
    It tells in a funny way what can go wrong at meetings and how you can do better, check it out if you can.

    DV-S01E05-meetingsMr John Cleese

    But, obviously, this post is not about meetings but about zeros.

    Problem

    I can be short about that: leading zeros in business key values.
    For instance a customer number is delivered to the data warehouse as 0001806 (instead of 1806).
    This would not be a problem it is would always be delivered exactly like that. But to be honest, you can and will not know that upfront. Even this might be the case now, it might not be in the future.
    When other tools are used, leading zeros could suddenly disappear (for instance when a csv file is modified using Excel), or (more rarely) the number of leading zeros could change (01806, 00001806). When this happens you have a problem, because for the data warehouse 01806, 0001806, 00001806 and 1806 are all different business keys! Even if you have only two variants, it is already a problem.
    Because every business key gets a different row in the hub, and this customer now exists multiple times!

    DV-S01E05-zeros(No acting here, this is how I look sometimes)

    Solution

    If you are familiar with Data Vault, you might already think of same-as-links to solve this.
    But I think the solution should be implemented earlier, to avoid having multiple hub rows.
    Simply always remove leading zeros when the sourcecolumn is (part of) a business key (either primary or foreign key) and seems a number or ID but is delivered as a string/varchar. In this way 1806 will always be 1806! And I think it is pretty impossible that 001806 and 1806 would refer to two different customers.
    Unless, of course, they would come from different source systems. But in that situation, depending on leading zeros would be a bad thing to do, because when then leading zeros dropped off, satellite rows of different customers (in different source systems) could end up as connected to the same hub row! In this situation, in a non-integrated Raw Vault, it would be better to prefix the business key with the source system code and remove the leading zeros, for instance, CRM.1806 and ERP.1806.
    In all cases, you can still store the original value (with leading zeros) as an ordinary attribute in a satellite for auditing reasons.

    How to implement the solution

    There are many ways to remove leading zeros. When I was searching for this I had two requirements:

    • No casting from and to an integer may take place, otherwise all business keys need to be numeric, so this would make the solution less reliable.
    • No function, routine or assembly may be called, this could negatively impact performance. I was looking for an “inline” conversion.

    After some research I found an expression that was the same for SQL and SSIS and quite okay (T-SQL version by Robin Hames, my credits for his work), but appeared to change a string with only one or more zeros to an empty string. And because a 0 can have a meaning – and is certainly different from an empty string – this is undesired behavior, IMHO.
    So I had to add some logic to it: a SELECT CASE in T-SQL and an inline condition (format {condition} ? {true part} : {false part} ) to the SSIS expression.
    Furthermore I came on a different method for T-SQL as well, using the PATINDEX function, which is more compact than the other solution.
    For SSIS I still use the ‘Robin Hames’ method, because the PATINDEX function is not available in SSIS Expressions.
    So .. this is what it has become:

    T-SQL

    Remove_leading_zeros.sql

    SELECT
        example.[id_with_leading_zeros],
       CASE
          WHEN LTRIM(example.[id_with_leading_zeros]) = '' THEN ''
          WHEN PATINDEX( '%[^0 ]%', example.[id_with_leading_zeros]) = 0 THEN '0'
          ELSE SUBSTRING(example.[id_with_leading_zeros], PATINDEX('%[^0 ]%', example.[id_with_leading_zeros]), LEN(example.[id_with_leading_zeros]))
       END AS [id_without_zeros_method1],

       CASE
          WHEN LTRIM(example.[id_with_leading_zeros]) = '' THEN ''
          WHEN PATINDEX( '%[^0 ]%', example.[id_with_leading_zeros]) = 0 THEN '0'
          ELSE REPLACE(REPLACE(LTRIM(REPLACE(-- Robin Hames' method
                REPLACE(LTRIM(example.[id_with_leading_zeros]), ' ', '!#!') -- replace existing spaces with a string that does not occur in the column value, I have chosen '!#!'
                , '0', ' ') -- replace '0' with ' '
                ) -- end of LTRIM to remove leading '0's that have been changed to ' 's
                , ' ', '0') -- change ' ' back to '0'
                , '!#!', ' ') -- change '!#!' back to ' '
       END AS [id_without_zeros_method2]
    FROM
        (
        SELECT
            TOP 1000 RIGHT('00000000000' + CONVERT(NVARCHAR(12), object_id), 14) AS [id_with_leading_zeros]
        FROM
            master.sys.objects
        UNION
        SELECT N' 00000 '
        UNION
        SELECT N'00'
        UNION
        SELECT N' '
        UNION
        SELECT ' 0099990 A '
        UNION
        SELECT '-5550'
        ) example

    SSIS Expression (can be used in Derived Column)

    (LTRIM(REPLACE(id_with_leading_zeros,"0", "")) == "" && LTRIM(id_with_leading_zeros) != "") ? "0" : REPLACE(REPLACE(LTRIM(REPLACE(REPLACE(LTRIM(id_with_leading_zeros)," ","!#!"),"0"," "))," ","0"),"!#!"," ")

    DV-S01E05-151In a Derived Column Transformation this looks for instance like this

    Conclusion / Wrap up

    In this post I have motivated why I think you should remove leading zeros from business keys when data is loaded from source systems to a data warehouse.
    This post also contains different ways to remove leading zeros, two for T-SQL and one for a SSIS expression.

    (c) 2016 hansmichiels.com – Do not steal the contents – spread the link instead – thank you.

    Data Vault Series

    Stop being so precise! and more about using Load(end)dates (Datavault Series)

    4 Comments

    Introduction

    My web site was offline a few days ago. Sorry for that.
    I got this email from my webhosting provider: “A new message or response with subject: User *** has used up 153% of their bandwidth ..”.
    Shortly after they suspended my account. It was suspended for about 8 hours. I have upgraded the network traffic limit.
    All right, when all bandwidth was consumed .. then somebody must be reading my blog. Thank you for that.

    This weeks post is about the LoadDate and LoadEndDate.
    Actually there are two things to be nerdy on:

    1. End dating without gaps
    2. Getting the best value for bytes on DATETIME2 precision

    By the way, these topics apply to SQL Server, the examples are made using SQL Server 2014.

    1. End dating without gaps

    How end dating works

    In a Data Vault Satellite, different subsequent versions of a row in the source system are distinguished through a LoadDate (which usually contains a date/time value). So the HashKey of the corresponding Hub Row plus the LoadDate are the primary key for the satellite.
    However to get the right version out when querying for a specific date, this requires a relatively difficult query, and this can also have a negative impact on performance.
    This is why the LoadEndDate is an optional column of a Satellite, to make querying (read: getting data out) easier and better performing.

    Important to remember that the LoadEndDate is not the date/time the load(process) ended, but the date/time the row was replaced by a newer row for the same business entity in the hub. What’s in a name, if I had to choose I would just call it EndDate, but LoadEndDate is the standard, and once you know it, it is not a problem.

    There are two ways to determine the value for this LoadEndDate:

    1. Exclusive: the LoadEndDate is the LoadDate of the new row that replaces this one, minus a small time fraction. Using the exclusive methods enables the use of the BETWEEN keyword in Transact-SQL to get the right row out, example:

      WHERE @SnapshotDate BETWEEN [LoadDate] AND [LoadEndDate]

      This is the method that is used in most Data Vault examples.

    2. Inclusive: the LoadEndDate is exactly equal to the LoadDate of the new row that replaces this one. This requires no computation when updating the LoadEndDate, but disqualifies the BETWEEN keyword, for getting data out you need to do something like:

      WHERE @SnapshotDate >= [LoadDate] AND @SnapshotDate < [LoadEndDate]

    Problem

    There is a (theoretical) problem when using the exclusive method.
    If you substract to much, there will be a tiny time gap between the LoadEndDate and the LoadDate of the subsequent row.
    I fully admit this is a theoretical problem, because the chances that you require the row valid exactly on this moment are astronomically small.
    (There is this not so hypothetical situation that your load starts at midnight, the LoadDate is set before the first second of the new day has passed, and you substract a second.
    Then you do not find a record when using the exact date (without time fraction) to get the row out. But you need a lot of bad luck for this to happen).

    Solution

    Still if you are a purist you want to do it right, certainly because the solution is so simple.
    If you make the the “grain” of substraction from the LoadDate equal to the precision of the LoadDate, there is no gap.
    E.g.
    – Substract 1 second from DATETIME2(0)
    – Substract 1 centisecond from DATETIME2(2) ***TIP***
    – Substract 1 millisecond from DATETIME2(3)
    – Substract 1 microsecond from DATETIME2(6)
    – Substract 100 nanoseconds from DATETIME2(7)

    Examples in T-SQL:

    Exclusive enddate without gaps.sql

    DECLARE @dt20 DATETIME2(0) = '2016-04-13 20:52:17'
    DECLARE @dt22 DATETIME2(2) = '2016-04-13 20:52:17.00'
    DECLARE @dt23 DATETIME2(3) = '2016-04-13 20:52:17.000'
    DECLARE @dt26 DATETIME2(6) = '2016-04-13 20:52:17.000000'
    DECLARE @dt27 DATETIME2(7) = '2016-04-13 20:52:17.0000000'

    SELECT @dt20, DATEADD(SECOND, -1, @dt20)
    SELECT @dt22, DATEADD(MILLISECOND, -10, @dt22)
    SELECT @dt23, DATEADD(MILLISECOND, -1, @dt23)
    SELECT @dt26, DATEADD(MICROSECOND, -1, @dt26)
    SELECT @dt27, DATEADD(NANOSECOND, -100, @dt27)

    2. Getting the best value for bytes on DATETIME2 precision

    This is about a “smart” precision to choose for your LoadDate and LoadEndDate columns. Unlike the older DATETIME datatype, DATETIME2 uses less or more bytes for storage depending on the precision you specify.
    The Storage size is: 6 bytes for precisions less than 3; 7 bytes for precisions 3 and 4. All other precisions require 8 bytes. (I shamelessly pasted this from MSDN).
    In the book “Building a scalable data warehouse with Data Vault 2.0” a lot of examples use DATETIME2(7). You can ask yourself why. Why do you need to be precise to 100 nanoseconds? I dare to say that in most cases (except when loading realtime or near-realtime streaming data into your Data Vault), seconds would be precise enough.
    But looking back a few lines, to the storage sizes, DATETIME2(0) uses 6 bytes, but DATETIME2(2) ALSO uses 6 bytes. So with the latter you get a higher precision for the same storage size. And for daily loads, the centiseconds precision that DATETIME2(2) is providing, is really precise enough, believe me.
    So DATETIME2(2) gives us the best value for bytes!


    DV-S01E04-precise
    Why would your LoadDates and LoadEndDates be more precise than needed ?..


    In this way you can save two bytes, compared with a DATETIME2(7), which uses 8 bytes and is used in the book. Because the LoadDate is in the primary key of satellite tables, also the primary key index will be smaller.
    In PIT Tables, which usually have multiple LoadDates, the storage gain is even more.
    And what counts for money, “who does not respect a small gain, isn’t worth a big one”, does also count for small performance gains you can get by doing this kind of tweaks. Never forget that! Multiple smaller tweaks might add up to a noticable performance improvement!

    Conclusion / Wrap up

    In this blog post you have read about the two methods for enddating: Inclusive and Exclusive.
    Also you could read how you can use the Exclusive method for end dating in Data Vault satellites, without having gaps in the timeline.
    Finally I discussed which precision will in most cases be good enough for LoadDate and LoadEndDate columns.

    (c) 2016 hansmichiels.com – Do not steal the contents – spread the link instead – thank you.

    Data Vault Series

    Hash Diff calculation with SQL Server (Datavault Series)

    4 Comments

    Updates

    Change log

    Date Changes
    31 January, 2017 Really good news! The 8k limitation on HASHBYTES has been removed in SQL Server 2016!

    Today I would like to discuss Hash Diff calculation using SQL Server 2014, from my own experience.

    My purpose is NOT to be complete and/or to replicate book “Building a scalable data warehouse with Data Vault 2.0”. For full details please read the book.

    However I will give a short intro for those who hardly know what I am talking about.

    Introduction

    Hash differences or Hash diffs

    A hash difference is a hash value of all the descriptive data of a row in a satellite, plus the business key column(s).

    A hash difference column is used to detect changes in a new version of a satellite’s row for a particular business key, and can be used in a comparison instead of doing a comparison on every individual descriptive attribute.
    The main reason to use hash diff columns is to improve performance when loading new satellite rows (of which one or more attributes have changed).
    The more columns the satellite has, the higher the performance gain will be.
    To support data warehouse automation patterns, hash diffs can also be used for satellites with only a few or even one descriptive attribute.

    I think a different name, like RowHash, RecordHash, DataHash or AttributeValuesHash, would better describe the contents of the column, because the value itself is not a difference, but that’s a different (relatively unimportant) discussion.

    Hash keys

    This article is not about Hash keys, however to be complete on hashing as far as Data Vault 2.0 is concerned, I will give a short introduction on that as well.

    Hash keys replace sequence numbers (generated by the database engine) of the Data Vault 1.0 standard. They support geographically distributed data warehouses, as well as integration with big data environments like Hadoop.

    A hash key is a hash value of the business key column(s) used in a Hub or Link. The advantage is that it is predictable, which enables parallel loading and a multiplatform / distributed datawarehouse architecture. For instance a customer with code NL123 will have the same hash key on all distributed parts of the data warehouse. Because the hash key always has the same length and is stored as a (fixed length) CHAR column, performance is usually better than when the business key column(s) are directly used as primary key.

    How to calculate a hash difference in T-SQL

    For full details about Endianness, differences of hash functions between different platforms, how to cope with new columns and other technical details I refer to the book mentioned above. If you want to work with Data Vault 2.0 you will need the book anyway.

    As said, a hash difference is a hash value of all the descriptive data of a row in a satellite, plus the business key column(s). To do the hashing, we have to put all the column values together in one nvarchar value, and then apply a hashing function on it. This is the short version and the base to understand it.

    DV-S01E02-hashdiff

    Between the different column values you have to use a delimiter, preferably one that does not occur in the column values. Otherwise you have to “escape” the delimiter in column values.

    If you want to do a case insensitive compare, you should convert all values to either upper- or lowercase. But this means that if in the source system a customer name was “hans michiels” and is changed to “Hans Michiels”, you will not detect the change and therefore do not store it in the Data Vault. So it depends on the contents of the satellite and your business view on it if this is desired behaviour or not.

    The hash diff calculation results in a binary(16) value, when using the hashing algorithm MD5 (which is recommended). To enable better cross-platform- and tools support, this is then converted to a hexadecimal string of 32 characters, stored as a CHAR(32) column.

    In all cases you must also convert the hexadecimal hash value to all UPPER- or all lowercase, because not all convert functions give the same output, some lower- and other uppercase. To compare values that were made by different hash functions (read on different systems) making it all uppercase (or lowercase) makes sure the values do not differ in casing only (which could lead to a false negative answer on the “are the rows the same” question).

    I understand this is all dry and boring nerd stuff if you do not see an example, so .. a simple example:

    Calculating_a_hash_diff.sql

    SELECT
          [bla]
        , UPPER(
            CONVERT(CHAR(32),
              HASHBYTES('MD5',
                UPPER(
                  CONCAT( ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR, [BusinessKeyOfHub]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), [Column01]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), [Column02]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), [Column03]), N'')
                  ) -- END CONCAT
                ) -- END UPPER
              ) -- END HASHBYTES
            , 2) -- END CONVERT
          ) -- END UPPER
    FROM [stg].[bla]

    So far nothing shocking, but there are a few pitfalls. If you keep them in mind, you will be an excellent hasher soon. 😉

    CONVERT(NVARCHAR without specifying the size

    Do this only for values of 30 or less characters, otherwise the value will be cut off which could lead to wrong hash diff values, not changing when the attribute value changes. It is for instance okay for integers, decimals (unless the precision is more than 28, mind the decimal separator and possible negative sign), datetime stamps, and bits. When converting (n)varchar safest thing to do is follow the original size, for unique identifiers use 38 or 40.

    Beware for CONCAT

    Beware for concatenation of (N)VARCHAR(MAX), (N)TEXT and XML columns using the CONCAT function. It appears that only the first 8000 bytes of (N)VARCHAR(MAX) columns are in the concatenated result.

    And even worse, HASHBYTES ..

    HASHBYTES does only hash a NVARCHAR value with a length of 4000 or less. Above that the error “String or binary data would be truncated” occurs. This is really important to keep in mind.
    The 8000 characters (or 4000 unicode characters) limitation on any string hashed with the HASHBYTES function has been removed in SQL Server 2016! Now you can hash larger (N)VARCHAR values!

    Cope with the HASHBYTES and CONCAT limitations

    4000 characters is quite something, right? Only with very wide satellites (a lot of columns) and/or usage of (N)VARCHAR(MAX), (N)TEXT or XML columns (hereafter called ‘unlimited length columns’) you can get into trouble.

    So, what is wise to do? Some measures you can take are:

    Make your satellites not too wide

    This is a best practice, not only from hashing function perspective. Split the satellites by source system, then by rate of change. Keep in mind that the business key column(s) and all satellite column values are converted to NVARCHAR and then (including all delimiters) may not exceed the 4000 characters if you want to use the HASHBYTES function.

    Size unlimited length columns according to the actual maximum length

    What I mean is, if for instance a Country name is stored in an unlimited length column in the source system, you know that a size of 100 will be long enough. When you doubt just do some data profiling on the source to see what is the maximum length. Use that size plus a safety margin for the satellite column size. Problem gone.

    Handle true unlimited length columns

    Put true unlimited length columns (for instance free entry ‘memo’ fields or xml columns in source systems in their own satellite! Otherwise if any other (small) attribute changes, the 4k memo is copied, even when it was not changed. This absorbs storage. But that alone is not enough, as said, with HASHBYTES, above 8000 characters (4000 when unicode) you are still f*c**d. Luckily there is a system function in the master database, which uses the MD5 algorithm and takes a binary value as input. So to compute a MD5 hash value for a text column with unlimited length, you could do something like:

    Hash_for_memo.sql

    SELECT master.sys.fn_repl_hash_binary(CONVERT(VARBINARY(MAX),
    [MyHugeMemoField)) AS [HashDiff]

    But don’t make the mistake to use the function [sys].[fn_repl_hash_binary] for all hashing, because the performance of HASHBYTES is much better!
    On my machine HASHBYTES is three times faster than [sys].[fn_repl_hash_binary] on the same dataset.
    You can check for yourself using this script:

    Performance_comparison.sql

    USE [msdb]
    GO

    DECLARE @start DATETIME2(7)
    DECLARE @stop DATETIME2(7)
    DECLARE @elapsed1 BIGINT
    DECLARE @elapsed2 BIGINT
    --\-------------------------------------------------------------------------
    ---) TEST PERFORMANCE of HASHBYTES function.
    --/-------------------------------------------------------------------------
    SELECT @start = GETDATE();
    SELECT TOP1000000
          UPPER(
            CONVERT(CHAR(32),
              HASHBYTES('MD5',
                --UPPER(
                  CONCAT( ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(128), o1.[name]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[object_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[principal_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[schema_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[parent_object_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[type]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[type_desc]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[create_date], 126), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[modify_date], 126), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[is_ms_shipped]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[is_published]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[is_schema_published]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(128), o2.[name]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[object_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[principal_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[schema_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[parent_object_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[type]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[type_desc]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[create_date], 126), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[modify_date], 126), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[is_ms_shipped]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[is_published]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[is_schema_published]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(128), o3.[name]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[object_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[principal_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[schema_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[parent_object_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[type]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[type_desc]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[create_date], 126), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[modify_date], 126), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[is_ms_shipped]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[is_published]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[is_schema_published]), N'')
                  ) -- END CONCAT
                --) -- END UPPER
              ) -- END HASHBYTES
            , 2) -- END CONVERT
          ) -- END UPPER
      FROM [sys].[objects] o1
      CROSS JOIN [sys].[objects] o2
      CROSS JOIN [sys].[objects] o3;

    SELECT @stop = GETDATE();
    SELECT @elapsed1 = DATEDIFF(MICROSECOND,@start, @stop);

    --\-------------------------------------------------------------------------
    ---) TEST PERFORMANCE of [master].[sys].[fn_repl_hash_binary] function.
    --/-------------------------------------------------------------------------
    SELECT @start = GETDATE();
    SELECT TOP 1000000
          UPPER(
            CONVERT(CHAR(32),
              master.sys.fn_repl_hash_binary(CONVERT(VARBINARY(MAX),
                --UPPER(
                  CONCAT( ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(128), o1.[name]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[object_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[principal_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[schema_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[parent_object_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[type]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[type_desc]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[create_date], 126), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[modify_date], 126), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[is_ms_shipped]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[is_published]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o1.[is_schema_published]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(128), o2.[name]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[object_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[principal_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[schema_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[parent_object_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[type]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[type_desc]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[create_date], 126), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[modify_date], 126), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[is_ms_shipped]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[is_published]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o2.[is_schema_published]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(128), o3.[name]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[object_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[principal_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[schema_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[parent_object_id]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[type]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[type_desc]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[create_date], 126), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[modify_date], 126), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[is_ms_shipped]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[is_published]), N'')
                        , ';', ISNULL(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(50), o3.[is_schema_published]), N'')
                     ) -- END CONCAT
                --) -- END UPPER
              ) -- END HASHBYTES
              ) -- END CONVERT
            , 2) -- END CONVERT
          ) -- END UPPER
      FROM [sys].[objects] o1
      CROSS JOIN [sys].[objects] o2
      CROSS JOIN [sys].[objects] o3;

    SELECT @stop = GETDATE();
    SELECT @elapsed2 = DATEDIFF(MICROSECOND,@start, @stop);

    SELECT @elapsed1 AS [Elapsed_HashBytes]
    , @elapsed2 AS [Elapsed_fn_repl_hash_binary]
    , 'HASHBYTES is ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR, CONVERT(decimal(19, 2), @elapsed2 / @elapsed1))
    + ' times faster than [fn_repl_hash_binary]' AS [Result]

    That’s about it.
    Just a few more things:

    • If you use a different hashing algorithm (e.g. SHA1) you cannot use the sys.fn_repl_hash_binary function, in that case you will have to seek your solution in a C# script task or CLR stored procedure, doing the hashing in .NET code.
    • Don’t use CONCAT if you have more than one column in the satellite containing [MyHugeMemoField], or you still can run into problems.

    Conclusion / Wrap up

    I have explained in short why Hash diff columns are used in a Data Vault 2.0 satellite, and how these values can be calculated.

    After that, you have read about some limitations of the CONCAT and HASHBYTES function when used for calculating Hash diff values, and how to cope with these limitations.

    Credits
    My thanks go to Vincent Kuiper for reviewing the initial draft of this article.

    (c) 2016 hansmichiels.com – Do not steal the contents – spread the link instead – thank you.