Wednesday Quest: Power GUI Integration

March 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Two tools that I really like are PowerGUI, a tool to take all the hard work out of PowerShell scripting, available in both free and paid versions from Quest Software.  You can also get PowerGUI extensions for Visual Studio for free from CodePlex. Another tool I really like is PowerWF.  PowerWF is a really cool visual workflow builder that creates PowerShell scripts for you.  Turns out that it integrates with PowerGUI! This video shows 2 different ways that PowerWF Workflows can be run from within Quest Software's PowerGUI tool. Watch the Video - Download PowerWF Enjoy! -Kev … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cool Technologies, Opinion, Tips & Tricks, Tool Time Tagged With: , ,

Integrating Workload Replays into Database Change Management

March 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I would like to make you aware of a recently written paper by Bert Scalzo.  The paper focuses on how DBAs can rely on the Toad and Benchmark Factory to perform database workload replays, ensuring that changes to the databases do not degrade the user experience. White Paper: Integrating Workload Replays into Database Change Management I encourage you to read the paper and make workload replay a part of your database change management practices.  As I’ve been saying for years, if you don’t have quantitative evidence of what normal is for your database, how can you know what is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Challenges, Cool Technologies, Databases, Opinion Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Adventures in the Land of CloudDB/NoSQL/NoAcid

February 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Last year, some of my friends from Quest Software attended Hadoop World in New York. In 2009, I never would've guessed that Quest would be there with products, community initiatives, as a major sponsor and with presenters? There were just under 1,000 attendees who weren’t the typical devheads and geekasaurs you'd normally see at very techie events like Code Camps, SQL Saturdays, Cloud Camps and or even other NoSQL events such as the Cassandra Summit. We're talkin' enterprise customers with active Hadoop projects underway. Some observations from the show that may be of interest to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: BigData, Cloud, Conferences, Cool Technologies, Databases, NoSQL, Opinion, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Strategies, TCD blog post, Trends Tagged With: , , , ,

Database Maintenance Scripting Done Right

February 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I first wrote about useful database maintenance scripts on my SQLBlog account way back in 2008.  Hmmm - now that I think about it, I first wrote about my own useful database maintenance scripts in a journal called SQL Server Professional back in the mid-1990's on SQL Server v6.5 or some such.  But I digress... Anyway, I pointed out a couple useful sites where you could get some good scripts that would take care of preventative maintenance on your SQL Server, such as index defragmentation, updating statistics, and so forth.  One of the script kits came directly from Microsoft's internal … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, On-Line Resources, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tool Time Tagged With: , , , ,

Have You Heard About Project Lucy?

February 16, 2011 by 1 Comment

Quest Software's latest community initiative, Windows Azure-based Project Lucy, has debuted! Project Lucy is part infrastructure analytics, part social media experiment, and part performance data warehouse. The best things about Project Lucy include: It’s Free - just like our SQLServerPedia website, Project Lucy is free to anyone who wants to upload a trace file It’s 1oo% web-based - you don’t have to download or maintain anything and updates roll out seamlessly, all the time It really helps - just generate a SQL Trace on a SQL Server 2000, 2005 or 2008 instance, upload it on … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cloud, Cool Technologies, Databases, On-Line Resources, Performance, SQL Server, Tips & Tricks, Tool Time Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Plays Well With Others – Can Integrity Be Learned?

December 11, 2010 by Leave a Comment

In a past post , I talked about the work of Dr. William Cohen, a renowned expert on leadership.  In Dr. Cohen’s work, he describes eight frequently recurring characteristics among excellent leaders, one of which is “absolute integrity”. However, this characteristic got pushback from several readers.  The general thread seemed to be “You either have integrity or you don’t.  It’s not something that can be learned”.  So let’s take a step back and examine the idea of whether integrity can be learned. I think that some of the pushback that I got about learning integrity comes from people who … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With:

Plays Well With Others – So You’re the Boss Now…

December 4, 2010 by Leave a Comment

I’m frequently asked the following paraphrased question: I’d been happily plugging away in my job as a {DBA/Dev/Terminator/Warp Drive Engineer} for several years, when I applied for the manager position.  I was surprised and thrilled when I got the job!  But now that I’ve been in the job for a while, I find that no one on the team is thrilled with me.  I know that I made a lot of changes.  But they were all for the good of the team.  What should I do to reconnect with my team and rebuild my friendships? A common theme in this series, “Plays Well With Others”, is that the skills … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ethics, Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: , , ,

Microsoft SQL Server High-Availability Videos and Q&A Log

December 1, 2010 by Leave a Comment

You Want Videos? We Got Videos! I always enjoy getting the chance to catch up with author, consultant, and Microsoft Clustering MVP Allan Hirt.  Allan and I recently presented two sessions covering an overview of high availability in Microsoft SQL Server and, the following week, a demo of how to implement several different kinds of high availability techniques including database mirroring, transactional replication, and Windows clustering services. You can see videos of these presentations at the Quest Software Pain of the Week webcast site. Archives of other videos are here. We're … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Challenges, Databases, On-Line Resources, Performance, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks, Video Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Plays Well With Others – Eight Behaviors of Excellent Leaders

November 27, 2010 by 1 Comment

Last week,  I talked about one of the worst type of management scenarios to work under – the micromanager.  Now, let’s take that conversation from the “Dark Side” into the light to talk about great leaders. To say that Dr. William Cohen knows a few things about leadership is approximately the same as saying that Moby Dick was a fish.  Not only was Cohen a former Air Force major general, university president, and business leader, but he has many degrees (including a PhD) and even holds several engineering patents.  One of the many books authored by Dr. Cohen is the 1998 Best Business Book of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ethics, Governance, Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: , , , ,

Plays Well With Others – Dealing with Micromanagement

November 20, 2010 by 4 Comments

Imagine you’re working on a new project.  It’s an important project and its success will be a big win for the organization.  You were chosen for the job because of your competency, skill, and effectiveness.  You get things like this done all the time and have a track record for pulling it off.  Now that the project is underway, you’re finding that trust and support you need from management is absent.  Instead, you’ve got a micromanaging boss, who’s put so many additional requirements on your for reporting, meetings, and whatever their favorite nit-picking happens to be that management is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Opinion, Professional Development, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: , , , ,
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