Archives for June 2015

 Some of my favorite articles originally appearing at SQLPerformance.com.   Grouped Concatenation in SQL Server and Grouped Concatenation: Ordering and Removing Duplicates In these two related blog posts, Aaron Bertrand ( b | t ) of SQL Sentry takes on the safest and most efficient ways to perform grouped concatenation in SQL Server. Then he follows up with a closer look at some additional requirements for typical grouped concatenation queries in SQL Server. Recommended Intel Processors for SQL Server 2014 Workloads Glenn Berry ( b | t ) of SQLskills continues his … [Read more...]

All good things must come to an end and, after logging almost 1400 miles on the road, the #SQLVacation road trip returns to its home city - Nashville, TN, the "Music City". Eight SQL Server users groups, eight matching blog posts, two hundred t-shirts, and many hundreds of attendees later, it's time to get back home. Only there's one last catch for this Clark Griswold of an everyman. I have one last session to deliver, Top 10 Things Every SQL Developer Needs to Know, here at the Nashville chapter of the Professional Association for SQL Server. Our regular monthly meetings occur on the last … [Read more...]

Our long #SQLVacation is nearly at an end because our stop in Evansville, IN is our last roadtrip location for the family and the penultimate (i.e., second to last) technical session of the journey. It's a bittersweet, but a joy to have the family with me while I work these long days and late nights. Evansville is such a beautiful place that it was name La Belle Riviere ("The Beautiful River") by the early French trappers who were the first Europeans to explore the river valley. Today, the city is the commercial and cultural hub of the "entire tri-state area!". (I can't help but say that in … [Read more...]

The Griswolds had an experience they'll never forget in St. Louis. And we've had ours too, but in a very good way. We'd vacationed in St. Louis two years ago and had a great time. We've seen the sights, gotten the pictures, and have the t-Shirts. I still love to see the big, iconic Gateway Arch though. In fact, I'm pretty much old news in St. Louis having spoken at their SQL Server user group several times over the years. They've set a grueling pace for me at this meeting, asking for 3 out of my 4 roadtrip presentations along with a vendor presentation to talk about SQL Sentry's tools. … [Read more...]

If you've been managing databases for any length of time, you've probably had to contend with the "noisy neighbors" scenario. In this scenario, you have several applications, each with their own database residing on a single instance of SQL Server, which don't share the resources of the server nicely. To deal with this issue, you might want to investigate Resource Governor as an alternative. Click HERE to read more … [Read more...]

In the movie, National Lampoon's Vacation, Clark and Ellen Griswold decide to lead their family, including the kids Rusty and Audrey, on a cross-country expedition from the Chicago area to the Los Angeles amusement park Walley World, touted as "America's Favorite Family Fun Park." Ellen sensibly wants to fly, but Clark wants to bond with his family over the course of a long road trip. Clark: So, this is the ol' homestead. Eddie: Yeah, but I don't know for how long? Bank's been on me like flies on a rib roast. Clark: I know the feeling. Eddie: Enough 'bout my problems. Hell, … [Read more...]