This post is part of the SQL Community Project #DBAJumpStart by John Sansom (Twitter | Blog). "If you could give a DBA just one piece of advice, what would it be?" John asked 20 successful and experienced SQL Server professionals this exact question. I share my own thoughts with you below and you can find all our answers together inside DBA JumpStart, a unique collection of inspiring content just for SQL Server DBAs. Be sure to get your free copy of DBA JumpStart. =-=-=-= John Sansom recently asked me and 19 other bloggers “What’s the one bit of advice you’d give a junior database … [Read more...]
One Piece of Advice for the Aspiring Junior DBA
Filed Under: Administration, Opinion, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Career, DBA, Plays Well With Others
New Windows and SQL Azure Resources for the IT Pro
Thanks to Microsoft DPE for the Central Region, Keith Mayer (blog | twitter), for these great tips! Windows 8.1 RTM and Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM bits available on MSDN and TechNet subscription sites. This is the version I'm waiting for since it fully preserves the Start menu. Note that updates are expected between RTM, now, and GA, October 18th. Be sure to check Windows Updates 2-to-3 times weekly if installing these bits. I'm not saying they're unstable. But they are definitely changed frequently as the dev team makes final tuning and tweaking changes. New Virtual Labs on … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Cloud, Cool Technologies, On-Line Resources, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Windows
Now Playing on SSWUG TV!
Hi friends, I know a lot of you regularly read my blog either on my home page at KevinEKline.com, on SQLBlog.com, or one of the locations where it's syndicated. And you may also regularly take in my content on SQLSentry.TV or my monthly column on Database Trends & Applications magazine. Click the image to see my new weekly video series on SSWUG.org! Now I'm adding a new video format to the mix, in partnership with my friend Steven Wynkoop and SSWUG.org. I've been a frequent speaker in the SSWUG virtual conferences over the past several years and, we thought, why not … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Architecture, Cool Technologies, Databases, On-Line Resources, Opinion, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, Business Intelligence, cloud computing, DBA, Developer, Leadership, Management, Professional Development, SQL Server 2012
New on DBTA.com: Database Benchmarking Tools, the final article in the database benchmarking series
In the last several articles on Database Trends & Applications, I've been describing the benefits of reading and analyzing the benchmarking case studies released by the Transaction Processing Council. I've given you from a broad overview of the TPC benchmarks and shown ways that the vendor-published TPC benchmarks can help you save money and how the vendor-published TPC benchmarks must explain in disclaimers how they tweak their workloads. I have described how to run your own benchmarks and explained how to properly prepare your environment for a benchmark test. Pictured (L-R): Scott … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Architecture, Cool Technologies, Databases, DBTA, Hardware, IO, Opinion, Performance, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Strategies Tagged With: Benchmarking, Best Practices, Career, DBA, Performance, Tools, Tools & Scripts
Cheaters Never Win, Even in TPC Benchmarks
In this column, I want to tell you about one of my favorite aspects of the TPC benchmarks – CHEATING. Keep in mind that I use the term “cheating” in a joking manner with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek. But I’m also half-serious. One of the of the things that is great about the TPC benchmarks is that each of the vendors are required to fully describe all of the shortcuts, tweaks, and special operating configurations they use in order to achieve their spectacular performance numbers. In a sense, the Transaction Processing Counsel requires that all benchmarked platforms declare all of … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, DBTA, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, DBTA, Monitoring, Oracle, Performance, SQL Server 2012
Use TPC Database Benchmarks to Save Money
Last month, I began a series of articles describing database application benchmarking. In the first article, I told you about different ways that you can construct your own database application benchmark. However, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The Transaction Processing Council (www.tpc.org) has already created a large number of database benchmarks that are extremely useful and informative. I also described last month how the TPC provides several different types of benchmark tests. For example the TPC-C and TPC-E benchmarks are extremely useful for measuring transaction throughput. … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, DBTA, Oracle, Performance, SQL Server 2012
Read the New TPC Database Benchmarking Series
Introduction to TPC Database Benchmarks Let's talk about database application benchmarking. This is a skill set which, in my opinion, is one of the major differentiators between a journeyman-level DBA and a true master of the trade. In this article published in my monthly column at Database Trends & Applications magazine, I'll give you a brief introduction to TPC benchmarks and, in future articles, I'll be telling you how to extract specific pieces of valuable information from the published benchmark results. But let's get started with an overview … read … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, Oracle, Performance, SQL Server 2012
The All-New ‘Database Lifecycle Management” is available on MSDN
The initial release of Database Lifecycle Management is now available on MSDN. The site is something called "curated content". This means it's a single consolidated location to look up lots of disparate articles and content, all in one easy to search location. This “curated content view” contains the best content, video, and community-centric information from Microsoft, including topics like: SQL Server Data Tools · Get started with sample projects, code samples · Video demos by Gert Drapers (blog) · Script common data portability tasks using Sqlpackage.exe · Link to the SSDT … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Architecture, Challenges, Cloud, Databases, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Video Tagged With: Azure, Backup & Recovery, Best Practices, DBA, Developer, SQL Server 2012, Virtualization
Squishy Limits in SQL Server Express Edition
It's an old story you've probably heard before. Provide a free version of your software product with strict limitations on performance or other specific capabilities so that folks can give it a try without risk, while you minimize the chance of cannibalizing sales of your commercial products. Microsoft has take this strategy with SQL Server Express Edition, not only to increase adoption in the student market but also to counter the threat of open-source (i.e. free) relational databases like MySQL for entry-level applications. One such limitation of SQL Server Express Edition is that it … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Databases, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: DBA, Developer, Express Edition, Internals, Memory, SQL Server 2012
SQL Intersection!
The best emotion to describe how I'm feeling is 'astounded'. I'm astounded that I'm in such august company to be speaking the SQLIntersection (#iSQL) conference. Read the blog post from my first SQL Server mentor, Kimberly Tripp, which tells you all about SQLintersection. Check out this list of speakers: Aaron Bertrand, Sr. Consultant, SQL Sentry, Inc. [blog | twitter] Andrew J. Kelly, Mentor, SolidQ [blog | twitter] Bob Ward, Principal Architect Escalation Engineer, Microsoft [blog | twitter] Brent Ozar, Brent Ozar Unlimited [blog | twitter] Conor Cunningham, Principal … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Cool Technologies, Databases, Hardware, IO, Performance, Presentations, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: AlwaysOn, Best Practices, DBA, Developer, High Availability, Monitoring, Performance, SQL Server 2012
