In this podcast on the uber-popular podcast “RunAs Radio”, host Richard Campbell asks me about what topics are of particular interest at Tech-Ed 2011, focusing the discussion on cloud and SQL Server “Denali”
You can download the MP3 version of the podcast or the transcript here.
I have to confess that I’m incredibly excited about BigData. I haven’t been this excited about new innovations in IT since relational databases first appeared on the scene early in my career. But what is BigData?
Back in those days, I can still feel the echos of adrenaline when I was hired to work on a NASA project that would involve over 100Mb of data. ONE HUNDRED MEGABYTES! Good grief, that was fantastically huge to us on the team. (That database was over 130Mb when I finally moved on to another project). And remember – PC software was installed using 640Kb floppy disks at the time. In fact, my Oracle v5 instance required shuffling through about a dozen floppy disks to get the thing installed on a 286 IBM PC.
BigData today takes on an entirely meaning as database sizes scale into the petabytes. But the emphasis is still the same today as it was back in the 1980′s – turning data into actionable information. However, with BigData, we can achieve amazing new insight from this data and mine for tidbits that would never have seen the light of day with smaller data sets.
The two major themes to remember about big data are 1) the more data you have on a given domain, the more power you have, 2) the better the analysis you can perform on the data, the more power you have. In fact, theme 2 might be the most important thing to consider because lots of data is meaningless unless you can extract knowledge from it. And that’s where better analytical techniques come into play.
Here are some articles about Big Data that you might enjoy:
The article, titled “Real World NoSQL: HBase at Trend Micro,” is the first in a five-part series Guy wrote, spotlighting NoSQL (non-relational) database deployments at five different companies. The other good learning experience for me was hearing about GigaOm for the first time. GigaOm, now on my reading list, is considered an influential and prestigious publication in the NoSQL realm.
There are so many great tools out there for data professionals using Microsoft SQL Server. I really like to see all of these great tools made free to the public. On the other hand, I’m bummed that the tools are cast about in a very decentralized fashion. If you haven’t done migrations before, you might want to start with these good white papers first.
Here are a hand full of cool migration tools worth mentioning:
SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for Oracle: Migrate from Oracle to SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 R2. I’m thinking about installing it on my SQL Servers even without even needing to migrate existing Oracle databases to SQL Server. Why? Well as an old Oracle hand, I came to really enjoy quite a few Oracle PL/SQL system packages (kind’a like a SQL Server system stored procedure, but often more powerful). As it turns out SSMA-Oracle includes stored procedures, extended stored procedures, and CLR routines that reproduce the functionality in most all of the cool and powerful Oracle packages like DBMS_PIPES. It’d be nice to have those on my SQL Servers just because I know them and like them.
Microsoft Services for Mission Critical Customers: Many enterprise customers running mission critical applications on SQL Server have asked for more – more service and support for their environments. This is an add-on that costs extra, but it’s worth it for those running the systems that keep the company in business.
If you’ve tried any of these tools out, I’m keen to hear your experiences. Did they work well for you? Did they work, though poorly? Did they fail utterly? Inquiring minds want to know.
MVP Rob Farley Channeling the Inner Viking at SQLBits, Oct 2010
SQLBITS
One of the top highlights of my year is when I get to visit the great cities of Europe and meet with the great IT professionals there. Last October, I was able to visit several cities in Europe, including my first ever stop in Stockholm and Malmo, Sweden. Last year’s SQLBits event was in the lovely city of York, England.
The Level of Attendees Has Come Up a Notch. See?
This spring, in fact the next two weeks, I’ll be on a whirlwind junket. In just a few hours, I fly out to London and then drive down to Brighton for a couple days of SQLBits. SQLBits has a great lineup of speakers and content this spring.
I’m looking forward to many of the sessions going on as well as the innovative CIO-oriented event that will include facetime with Fusion-IO executive and industry legend, Steve Wozniak.
This Crew Is Crazy!
Our lunch time sessions on Friday and Saturday are ALL ABOUT FUN! If you attended last year, you’ll know to get there as early as you can because it will be standing room only. Bring a good horror story to tell about your experiences in IT because we’ll have some fun prizes to hand out as well.
Of course, the biggest fun for me is time spent with other SQL Server people. Lots of great speakers and Microsoft SQLCAT team members will be on hand, too numerous to name them all, in fact. And of course, I always enjoy a visit with my colleagues at Quest, such as Iain Kick (at left).
We were so inspired by winning a Trivia Pub Quiz that we decided to do one at SQLBits!
DUBLIN
After SQLBits, I head out for a day long session in Dublin on Monday, April 11th with my old friend Niall Flanagan at the Microsoft European Development Centre, South County Business Park, County Dublin starting at 09:30 am. If you’re in old Eire, I hope to see you there! Registration details are HERE.
COLOGNE (KOLN)
At the conclusion of the Irish event, I head directly to the airport for a flight to Cologne, Germany. The next day, on April 12th starting at 09:30, we’ll do another day with the expert. The agenda is a bit different, but all the details including registration are available HERE.
MALMO
My final stop before heading home is on Wednesday, April 13 in Malmo, Sweden. The user group in that area is lead by the very talented Johan Ahlen, whose blog is located HERE. I especially enjoyed his posts about FileStream late last year. I’m looking forward to more good sessions and, again, to learning as much from the attendees as they do from me. Be sure to register for the event HERE.
It’s always interesting to see the guestimations of the big brains about figures and facts that are hard to verify. Here’s an example – how much data is computerized today? I’m not talking about ancient stuff, like the Codex Synaticus (which, incidentally IS on-line at www.codexsinaiticus.org). I’m talking about the new and really important stuff, like the fourteen pictures that my step-daughter posted on her FaceBook account from our recent trip to Rock City.
Well, IDC figured that overall digital data was up to 1.2Zb (Zetabytes!) at the end of 2010. My mind is boggling. Ok, so that’s only 1.2 trillion gigabytes! Doctor Evil, please put your pinky to your mouth and say this huge number . . .
1,319,413,953,436 Gb
Another way to say it is that it’s about 1,228 Exabytes.
You can get other numbers by extrapolating from storage purchases from the major storage vendors. Of course, not all of their storage sold is actually filled up right away. But it’s still an interesting number to hear. So just on scuttlebutt from a friend of a friend of a friend I heard numbers like this:
Online data back in 2002? around 5 Exabytes
Online data expected in 2011: around 700 Exabytes
And, again we’re surmising these values based on published storage sales from various vendors, this data growth is hurtling along at ridiculous speed, with data doubling every fifteen months or so. Who knows where this will take us, but if we assume a constant rate of data growth (which is a bad bet, IMO), we’ll have 996,000 Exabytes of data online by 2020. Hey, but that’s 8 years after the Mayan calendar, and the world along with it, is supposed to end, right?
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 www.projectlucy.com, and see for yourself
This initiative empowers DBAs and IT professionals to gain a better understanding of their database performance through automated analyses and collaboration with their peers. Our goal is to allow users to go beyond the benefits of installing and using a commercial product, and tap into an online community to share and compare experiences and results.
Our goal is to test the best ways we can help users learn and understand what their performance data really means, and how they should act upon that data – if at all – in a collaborative, meaningful way. For this debut, Project Lucy will accept SQL Trace files, or zip files containing multiple traces, and will provide a summary of the content and areas where performance can be improved. As y’all use the service, information will become available to help you compare your performance and engage in meaningful discussions with others about the issues you are facing.
Your feedback, your feedback, and participation will drive how Project Lucy evolves. Get involved by participating in the pilot program! And let me know what you think.
Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) and I did an interview with TechTarget’s Brendan Cournoyer at last summer’s Tech-Ed, which as turned into a podcast titled “Cloud efforts advance, SQL Server evolves.” The podcast covers all the major trends at the conference (like BI), virtualization features in Quest’s products (like Spotlight), Brent’s new book and MCM certification, and more.
Cloud computing is more than just the latest buzz word in the IT trade papers. It is a remarkable paradigm shift with as much potential to “turn over the apple cart” of IT computing as client-server had for the world of mainframe and minicomputers. If you’re not spending time to learn about cloud computing, in general, and SQL Azure, in particular, then you’re missing the boat in a big way. (Ha! Two big metaphors in one afternoon. My high-school English teacher would be proud.)
There are mountains, literally MOUNTAINS, of free and high-quality content to be had. For example:
Fire Side Chats are invitation only Live Meetings. They are an hour in length, repeated at different times of day so you don’t need to attend at 3:00am because of time zone issues. Each Fire Side Chat has a key Microsoft individual talking about their area of expertise and answering questions from the audience. The Fireside Chats are aimed at technical experts, MVPs, user group leaders and the like. But they have content of interest for everyone. When looking at the archives, I noticed that there didn’t seem to be many recent chats. But some of the older ones still looked interested. You can register to see one at http://ug.gitca.org/sites/FireSideChats.
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Microsoft Team Blogs of Interest
Do you ever wish that Microsoft consolidated all of their blogs in one easy to find central clearinghouse? Well, your wish was answered, actually quite a long time ago. BlogMS consolidates almost 250 Microsoft team blogs across a variety of Microsoft product and online services portfolio, with usually about 70 – 80 blog posts per week. Yes, children, that’s two to three HUNDRED blog posts per month.
You’ll find important announcements and details of Microsoft news, product releases, service packs and important support issues. On top of that, I really like all of the great links to Microsoft web resources on the right hand side of the website. If you’re like me (and let’s be honest, most rational or just sane people would not want anything of the sort), you’ll probably bookmark quite a few of those links.
The following BlogMS Resource Guides may also be of use:
You might be familiar with the term “Most Valuable Player”, but haven’t heard that MVPs exist in the professional world too. Microsoft has nearly 3,000 designated “Most Valuable Professionals”. These folks are designated experts who know their subject matter at an expert level and, as an added bonus, they don’t smell like a basketball locker room (SQLRockstar, Thomas LaRock, being a notable exception to this rule).
Late last year a cool new tool was launched called Microsoft Desktop Player. The player aggregates contextual technical content (webcasts, podcasts, white papers) from across all sorts of Microsoft websites having an IT Pro adoption lifecycle. In addition, it also provides links to local resources and news for the Developers and IT Pros based on their local settings, helping to drive the local engagement/relationship. You’ll need Microsoft Silverlight to run the website, but it’s oh-so-cool looking. Check out the details here: http://www.microsoft.com/click/desktopplayer.
