Archive for August, 2009

The SQLSaturday Advisory Council

Monday, August 17th, 2009

It’s my pleasure to report that Andy Warren has asked me to participate in the SQL Saturday Advisory Council.  I’m really excited by the fantastic learning opportunities presented by the SQL Saturday system of events that Andy and company have established.  They’ve taken great pains to set up a system of high-quality events that are free or very low cost to attendees.  In addition, they’re leading SQL Saturday altruistically and transparently, as indicated by their blog.  I’ve spoken at the Atlanta SQL Saturday and hope to speak at more in the future.  In fact, the leadership of my local SQL Server user group where I’m active are trying to get one started ourselves.  If you haven’t already taken a look at SQL Saturdays, you really should take a look, as either an attendee or as a speaker.  I’m honored to be invited to participate with this team of servant-leaders and hope to actively contribute to the growth of the SQL Server community at a grassroots level.

Cheers!

-Kevin

Twitter @kekline

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Posted in Conferences, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication | No Comments »

Bitemporal Data

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Any IT pro with more than a year or two of experience will have faced the challenges of version control for an application, but what if you have to implement version control for data?

The most common way to tackle this problem is implementing something called “bitemporal data”. Under this method, each row in a table includes the current valid time and the transaction time. Since two distinct time values are stored, we get the term bitemporal.

A great place to start is Adam Machanic’s excellent article at http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/t-sql-programming/a-primer-on-managing-data-bitemporally/. In addition, I encourage you to check out Adam’s book “Expert SQL Server 2005 Development” at http://www.apress.com/book/view/9781590597293.

In addition, Dejan Sarka pointed out that you can get a very comprehensive information on supporting temporal data from a book entitled “Developing Time-Oriented Database Applications in SQL” by Richard T. Snodgrass. Mr. Snodgrass was so kind to publish the book in PDF format and make it available for free download at http://www.cs.arizona.edu/~rts/publications.html. (Note that the book is quite old now (year 1999), so the T-SQL code does not include any SQL Server 2005 or 2008 enhancements. But the basic SQL is still solid.

Cheers!

-Kevin

kekline @ twitter

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Posted in Transact-SQL Programming | No Comments »

24 Hours of PASS

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Join me and many other great SQL Server gurus on September 1st for a 24-hour virtual event, 24 Hours of PASS.  I’ll be there along with many of the great SQL community speakers (and personal friends) such as Louis Davidson, Kalen Delaney, Steve Jones, Andy Kelly, Brian Knight, Brad McGahee and many more.  Each session is one hour in length with a 45 minute presentation and 15 minutes of live Q&A.  Local PASS Chapters from around the world will be hosting each hourly segment.

If you live in middle Tennessee, northern Alabama, or southern central Kentucky, be sure to check out our great Nashville PASS chapter.  The Nashville SQL Server Users Group meets on the last Friday of every month.  Hope to see you there soon!

Cheers,

-Kevin

Posted in Conferences, Nashville SQL Server Users Group, On-Line Resources, PASS, Professional Development | No Comments »

More About Successful Directors versus Successful Technologists

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

If you’re a SQL Server professional who hasn’t been to the website of the Professional Association for SQL Server, you’re doing yourself a disservice.  Membership is free and, in addition to all of the technical resources that it provides, it connects you to a world of networking opportunities with other like-minded professionals.  I strongly encourage you to register and then go the second step of creating a PASSport profile.

Once you’re registered, you can get access to many resources such as live and recorded webcasts, SIG events, and much more.  Not to toot my own horn too much, but you’ll also get access to my monthly column on professional development called Plays Well With Others.  My latest article, Successful Directors versus Successful Technologists, is about the sort of skills retooling (or simple growth in your skills) that is needed to move from a highly tactical job to a highly strategic job.  You do have to register to see the article, but again, it’s free.  (For more information on this worthwhile topic, take a look at Andy Warren’s post at SQL Server Central and at Tom LaRock’s post.)

I won’t spoil the surprise by telling you what the article itself says.  However, I will make one addition point and it’s an important point to make.  I didn’t have the skills that I describe in the article when I started with PASS.

That’s one of the great things about taking a seat on the board of PASS.  You get to learn a lot of skills that might not otherwise come your way as an IT pro for many years.  Why wait to learn the skills needed to be a great CIO or CTO until you’re applying for those lofty jobs?  Why not learn the skills years and put them into practice years before your peers as a member of the board of directors?  And although learning to build a clean and tight budget doesn’t sound exciting or building a strategy for an important new program might sound pie-in-the-skill, these are the sorts of skills you’ll need to reach for the C-level positions in a big IT organization.

Let me know what you think!

-Kevin

kekline @ twitter

Posted in PASS, Professional Development | 2 Comments »