Let me know what you think.  Accurate and informative? Or marketing fluff?

Thanks,

-Kevin

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System Center: Service Manager

System Center: Operations Manager

System Center: Virtual Machine Manager

System Center: Orchestrator

System Center: Data Protection Manager

And, as always, I’m interested in your feedback. Tell me what you think!

Enjoy,

-Kevin

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I was recently chatting with Megan Keller, my long-time editor for the Tool Time column and Executive Editor at SQL Server Pro, DevProConnections, and SharePoint Pro.

I’ve subscribed to SQLMag ever since it was first put to print back in the late 1990′s.  (That’s a pic of me, on the right, in the shirt given my by SQLMag’s first publisher way back in the day).  I have many bookshelves in my office, but SQLMag consumes more than half of the shelf closest to my desk.  It’s that good.  Some of my personal favorites and perpetual must-read content are the columns SQL Server Questions Answered by Paul Randal & Kimberly Tripp as well as the always excellent columns Puzzled by T-SQL by Itzik Ben-Gan and all of the great content by Kalen Delaney.

Megan recently told me about the exciting changes afoot there.  For starts, SQL Server Magazine’s has new name—SQL Server Pro.  This name, as you can tell from its sister publications listed at the top of the blog post, puts all of the Penton Media properties on an equal and consistent footing.

Please take some time to check out hands-on, how-to content from SQL Server experts at sqlmag.com. The on-line magazine features the same great expert advice and writers as before.  And you can access my articles on sqlmag.com just as you have in the past.

Suggestions for the Tool Time Column?

And while we’re at it, let me know if there are any SQL Server related tools you’d like to see in the Tool Time column!  My requirements are that the tool must be free, must be supported, and of course must be relevant to SQL Server professionals.

Enjoy,

-Kev

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SQL Server comes with a wide array of tools for monitoring your environment. There are logs and traces that provide information when errors occur, but these are often used passively to react to events that have already occurred.  There’s PerfMon, and Profiler, and loads of Dynamic Management Views to check.  But where to look?

As database administrators (DBA), we need to monitor our environments proactively and create solutions as issues arise. In this white paper, we will look at a couple technologies – event notifications and extended events – that can help you achieve these goals. With these two features, we’ll look at the error log and deadlocks, and demonstrate how you can get relevant information delivered as it occurs. We’ll also look at ways that run-time errors can be captured and used to help reduce the amount of time required to investigate issues.

This white paper, written by SQL Server MVP Jason Strate (blog | twitter), is a free download but does require a registration.

And, as always, I enjoy your feedback.  Thanks!

-Kev

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I also encourage you to come on down to SQL Saturday 130  the following day – whether there’s an official registration for you or not.  (But don’t tell ‘em I said that).  :^)

Come by the booth for a visit.  I’ll be hanging out most of the day and have some nice swag to give away.

Enjoy,

-Kev

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Jimmy and I were chatting about undertaking major life changes like these and, as is often the case, his thoughts were too good not to share. Be sure to explore these excellent career development resources.  So here were some great pointers from Jimmy:

I’ve referred you before to J.D. Meier. Incredibly powerful guy. Here are some brief yet powerful posts:
What’s the Challenge?
http://sourcesofinsight.com/2011/06/24/whats-the-challenge
101 Ways to Motivate Yourself and Others
http://sourcesofinsight.com/101-ways-to-motivate-yourself-and-others/

Want more?
30 Days of Getting Results
http://sourcesofinsight.com/30-days-of-getting-results
Take a Tour of Sources of Insight
http://sourcesofinsight.com/2011/06/21/take-a-tour-of-sources-of-insight
Still not enough? Here are his three blogs:
www.sourcesofinsight.com
www.gettingresults.com
http://blogs.msdn.com/jmeier

Let me know what other resources you enjoy for professional and career development!

And if you’re really interested in developing your IT leadership and management skills, I encourage you to attend my Leadership Skills for IT Professionals seminar.  I’m presenting this full-day seminar in Dallas at the SQLRally on May 8, and in Louisville at SQL Saturday 122 on June 19.  Hope to see you there!

Thanks,

-Kev

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Swag on hand? I’ve got a special printing of 500 video training DVDs for this trip:

SQL Server Training on DMVs

Performance Monitor and Wait Events

Plus, I’ll have a few posters, stickers, and other goodies.  Come see me!

SQL Saturday 105; Dublin, Ireland; March 24

My maternal grandmother was first generation Irish-American and, somehow, going to Ireland feels a lot like going home to grandmom’s house.  And all my Irish friends make it feel like I’m going home to see the extended family – cousins and ‘once-removed’ family types.  And on top of that, we get to talk about SQL Server at SQL Saturday #105!   I’ll be doing a session called “Top 10 Things Every Developer Should Know”.  I’ll also be hanging out at the Quest Software booth much of the day and, just for fun, I plan on doing a completely unscripted lightning talk.

SQL Server User Group; Maidenhead, UK; March 27

From Dublin, I head over to the lovely town of Maidenhead, UK.  I’ll be spending a couple days in the Quest Software office there in Maidenhead, whose SQL Server User Group is lead by fellow Questie Richard Douglas (blog | twitter).  I’ll be presenting after Business Intelligence impresario Jen Stirrup (blog | twitter).  Space is limited, but there are still some seats left.

I’ve already heard from other twitterati that some great Microsoft SQL Server MVPs will be attending, like Tobiasz Koprowski (Blog | Twitter).  If you live in south, central England, then this is your chance!  Register here: http://www.sqlserverfaq.com/events/386/Maidenhead-UG-meeting-SQLBits-Preview-Speakers-include-MVPs-Kevin-Kline-and-Jen-Stirrup.aspx.

SQLBits; London, UK; March 29 – 31

This is the official launch event for SQL Server 2012!  This is your chance to get the best and biggest dose of SQL Server 2012 training for quite some time.  The free training day event is sold out.  However, some of the training day seminars have open seats, including my seminar Leadership Skills for the Database Professional.  This seminar distills the years of formal training and hard-won experience I’ve accumulated throughout my career starting as a developer leading a small team, through the founding and early startup years of PASS, into my later years leading a large, multi-national development organization.  You’ll learn all the skills that are crucial for you to make the leap (and it’s a big one) from full-time technologist to a leader and manager of people.

And we’ll be hosting our popular SQL trivia quize and IT Horror Stories sessions as well.  So be sure to plan on grabbing your lunch and heading into our fun lunch-time sessions!

I hope to see you at one of these upcoming events!  Cheers,

-Kevin

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The Expert’s Conference (TEC) is a multi-day event featuring five co-located Microsoft educational conferences at the San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina April 29-May 2.  It’s pretty – see!

The event includes advanced 400-level training on Microsoft Directory & Identity (including Active Directory), Exchange Server, SharePoint, Virtualization (Microsoft Hyper-V) & Workspace Management, and PowerShell Deep Dives.  There are lots of great activities for Quest and Microsoft customers and partners.  In addition, there’s a Quest Software Day, with User Groups sessions; Focus Groups to steer product direction; and Executive Briefings.

In the registration section, be sure to mention my name when it asks “How did you hear about TEC?”  If I get enough people to sign on, they’ll let me off of the chain and give me fresh bread and water instead of the old moldy stuff they usually slide under the cell door.

Click on the pretty picture below to get more info!

I can’t really do effective development on my little dev laptop because our production SQL Server database is 15 gazillionbytes, way too big for my workstation.  What’s a uber-nerd to do? 

Well, maybe they didn’t use the word “uber-nerd”.  But you get my drift, right?  The production database is really, really big – unmanageably big for keeping a local copy.  So that means the dev either has to create a metadata-only version of the database, which won’t produce realistic query plans, or somehow crush their laptop under 15 gazillionbytes of MDF and LDF files.

Actually, you have a better alternative – a clone database, sometimes called a shell database.  Here’s how I described a cloned database a few years ago here in my Tool Time column for SQL Server Pro Magazine:

In effect, a cloned database includes all of the schema objects of the database (e.g., tables, views, stored procedures), as well as the statistics and histograms (the so-called “statistics blob”). This metadata is quite small by volume but can tell you what estimated query plans look like outside of a large production environment and how those estimated query plans might change when SQL Server is upgraded. Cloned databases are especially useful when the data is confidential, classified, or subject to privacy laws.

The article gives you all the detail you need to effectively and quickly create a small version of a big, ol’ production database that produces the same query execution plans as you’d get on the prod server.

If you’re struggling with doing development on a big SQL Server database, learn the ropes on cloned databases asap!  You’ll be glad you did.

Enjoy!

-Kev

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The TechNet Wiki covers Microsoft technologies from writers throughout the community for use by the community. As with all wikis, this grassroots effort needs your help.

Microsoft is encouraging everyone to contribute the effort – all you have to do is join. So start a whole new article, add your knowledge or draw from your experience to improve an existing article. You can start small or large… Join in at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/ or simply use the wiki as a new resource to answer your tough technology questions.

Enjoy,

-Kev

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