Interested in my various performance tuning and troubleshooting videos about SQL Server? These videos feature my good buddies (and uber-SQL Server experts) Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) and Buck Woody (blog | twitter). View these insight-packed training videos from our SQL Server training events originally presented on March 3 and July 21 of 2010:HERE.
You can watch the videos now at the URL above or order a DVD, shipped free of charge in the USA and Canada, HERE.
The 2011 PASS SQLRally is just about one month away and it’s high time I highlighted some of the important things you’ll be hearing about in my precon seminar Leadership and Team Management Skills for the IT Professional. Just to set the context, many of us IT people got to our lofty career positions because of our keen use of technology. It takes a lot of smarts to get where we’ve gotten, but they are a very specific set of smarts that can’t always be used in every business setting. And, since so many of us have topped out in our potential salary as long as we stay in the trenches and the only do technology work, a lot of us are starting to eye those middle manager positions so that we can continue to see our career grow. The only problem is that all of those skills that enabled us to become top tier technologists don’t transfer into the management arena.
I’ll be teaching a wide variety of soft skills and specific management checklists to help you survive those early transitional days. And if you’re not a manager? You’ll still want to attend because the wide variety of communication skills we’ll cover will help you stay on top of many other real life situations, from leading the local Girl Scout troop to taking a role on the local PTA organization.
You can read the full and pedantic session description at the link I provided up above. But here’s a list of Five Funny Things You’ll Hear in the Precon:
“Here’s where we get out the whips and chains…”
“In this section, we’re going to learn how to manage our managers…”
“And then I was, like, OMG. And she was, like, LOL. And her cousin was, like, ROFL. But then I was, like, meh…”
“Darth Vader would be proud…”
“The beatings will continue until morale improves!”
And one bonus:
“That’s what she said…”
Did I put these in context, heck no! But it’s a fun session, with some practice labs and LOTS of content to help you make that transition from full time technologist to part- or even full-time leader!
Follow my logic here for a moment as I walk through a couple rhetorical questions. Have you ever had a friend developed an application entirely on SQL Server Developer Edition? (Not that YOU would ever do such a thing, but maybe you know someone who has. Right?) And has your friend’s IT department actually deployed said application only to discover that they’re only licensed for Standard Edition in their production environment? And then was your friend’s IT management team is horrified to learn that they’ve either got to go through the very expensive process of extracting all of the Enterprise and/or Datacenter Edition features for the production application in order to remain in compliance, upgrade to the more expensive SKU licenses, or risk a potential future audit?
I’m not saying that this has happened to any of us. We’re too smart for that, after all. But have you ever known anyone who’s had this experience?
Having worked with a lot of customers another commercial RDBMS platforms (which I’ll euphemistically call “SEER” from Redforest City and “IB4” from Upstate City), I can tell you that auditing is a fun and exciting way for those platform vendors to make a LOT of money. This is especially true because a production application, once successfully deployed, tends to be too valuable to disable or otherwise compromise because high-end features slipped in to the development cycle even though the production environment only a “standard edition” SKU in place. Ouch! Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place. Now, keep in mind that this is a strategy used by SEER and not by Microsoft. But Microsoft could implement the same sort of licensing audits if they wanted to. (Please leave a comment here if you have ever been audited. I’d love to hear your experiences, at least as much as NDA’s allow).
So if you use SQL Server Developer Edition (DE), of any version, would you like to see a feature that enables you to run DE not in its default “full featured mode” but at another SKU level, such as good ol’ Standard Edition? I know I would.
If you’re on the same page as I am, there are a number of suggestions logged on Connect about this very feature! Make your voice heard! Check out:
Of course, the more skeptical reader might say “Hey, that’s their tough luck. Developers should know the difference in the SKU licensing options and feature sets of whatever SKU they’re developing on compared to what they’ll deploy on.” And I wouldn’t fault you for saying so.
But I would go on to point out that much of Microsoft’s success in enterprise IT settings can be traced back to their very strong relationship with developers. And anything that Microsoft can do to empower developers to save time, money, and resources during the development phase of an IT project in turn energizes that relationship between developer and Microsoft.
It also makes the life of the DBA that much easier, because they don’t need to imply that those cowboys on the development team went off half-cocked again. So what’s your opinion? Should SQL Server Developer Edition include a feature that sets the SKU-level of the database engine?
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.
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 abnormal?
Those of us over a certain age (read – old as dirt) can remember the theme songs to certain TV shows better than we can the National Anthem. Try these lines out and see if you don’t immediately remember the tune that goes along with them:
Come and knock on our door | We’ve been waiting for you …
Makin’ your way in the world today | Takes everything you’ve got …
Just some good ol’ boys | Never meaning no harm …
Thank you for being a friend | Travel down the road and back again …
So when I got the news that my employer, Quest Software, wanted to send one of the team to an upcoming SQLCruise put on by Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) and Tim Ford (Blog/Twitter), another nostagic TV show song popped into my head -
Love, exciting and new | Come aboard. We’re expecting you …
I’m really excited about this trip and for a lot of reasons. First, I’m not going to lie – I’ve never been on a cruise. So this factor alone is pretty awesome. Second, Brent and Tim are two of my favorite human beings. I’m looking forward to the chance to see them. Third, SQLCruise is also about community and I’m looking forward to making some new friends. I’ll also be an hand to provide as much free training and demonstration on any of the goodies we’re giving away to the attendees.
Finally, I’m looking forward to learning. Brent and Tim know their stuff. So, getting a chance to actually attend training under such skilled teachers is a treat I didn’t expect!
Don’t forget that free DVDs of our virtual conferences featuring me, along with Buck Woody (blog | twitter) and Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) will be mailed anywhere in North America free of charge, now available at this link.
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…
No, not that kind of script!
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 database management team. But, alas, they haven’t published any updates in quite a while. On the other hand, the other set of scripts came from Ola Hallengren, who has done a great job keeping his scripts up to date.
Recently, Ola added support for updating column statistics, both in a generalized update and also updates for only those columns whose statistics have been modified. He’s added some other goodies to the latest release, which you can read about here, http://ola.hallengren.com/Versions.html for all details.
In addition, I’d like to remind you of the white paper I wrote a while back called Automating DBA Processes, which covers many aspects of database automation and cherry picks some of the best practices from many different thought leaders, such as Ola, Michelle Ufford (blog | @sqlfool) who will be speaking at the 24HOP soon, and Allen White (blog | twitter).
Compliance is one of the most interesting elements of any data management plan – it’s a microcosm of evolution in action. When many of the laws that impacted data retention were first enacted, business wasn’t collecting a lot of information. Now, data collection happens everywhere. And, as citizens have come to realize that more and more of the information about their daily lives is recorded, they demand their governments provide privacy and protection from misuse of that data. [READ MORE]
If managing your corporate data for the long term isn’t currently on your mind, it should be, and in several different ways: cost, performance, business continuity, and compliance. [READ MORE]
Kevin Kline will offer insight into best practices for SQL Server 2005 set up, configuration and queries. He will also discuss tuning for both the server and hardware to help an application perform better after it is deployed. This presentation will offer a better understanding of several SQL Server performance related areas including:
* Hardware design
* SQL Server configuration settings
* Database configuration settings
* Application design
* SQL Tuning
