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?
Toad Data Analyst, the Reporting Tool for non-technical types
If you’ve attended any of my public sessions about SQL Server technology, then you might remember that I extend a standing offer to provide a free, long-term license to any of several products from Quest Software, such as Toad for SQL Server (including the SQL Optimizer), Toad Data Analyst, Toad Data Modeler, and the awesome performance and scalability testing tool Benchmark Factory.
If you’ve ever wondered about these tools and why I tout them, why don’t you take a couple minutes to look at the on-line demos available at each of the preceding links? If you like what you see, drop me a note and I’ll get you that license I was blabbing about. I thank you and my children thank you! <grin>
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.
Disco, aka Discovery Wizard for SQL Server, like John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever" except the pants aren't as tight
I really like the free SQL Server utility from Quest Software, nicknamed “Disco”, that enables you to discover and inventory all versions and editions of Microsoft SQL Server from the mid-1990′s onward. You can see what it does at http://questkb.com/category/sqlserver/discovery-wizard/.
I’ve had a lot of customers who have faced the challenge of bringing an unwieldy and chaotically growing SQL Server infrastructure to heel. It can be really daunting in a big enterprise trying to find all of the SQL Servers tucked behind third-party applications, Microsoft products like Sharepoint, and various tools that use SQL Server as its data repository.
I’m hearing rumors inside of Quest that Disco may be heading towards the great product dustbin in the sky. Me no likey!
If Disco is a tool you use and enjoy, or it’s a tool you would like to use and enjoy in the future, then please post a comment here and/or send an email to info@quest.com voicing your support for Disco. I’d like to see Quest keep this product free and supported, now and in the future.
Kevin discusses resources online that he uses and considers to be excellent destinations for SQL Server professionals. Kevin will discuss each site he uses in detail – check it out!
Join SQL Server MVP and President of PASS, Kevin Kline as he:
* Identifies the issues that can arise from relying only on modeling tools
* Discusses the 10 most common modeling issues you will face when transforming data models from logical (conceptual) to physical
* Describes how to correctly identify and resolve serious problems
* Provides best practices to resolve issues
My employer, Quest Software, Inc. (QSFT26.15, +0.68, +2.65%) today added Apache Cassandra, an open-source NoSQL database, to its list of supported NoSQL platforms with the second beta release of Toad(R) for Cloud Databases. Toad now supports data access and management for Apache Cassandra, Amazon SimpleDB, Microsoft Azure Table Services, Apache HBase, and any Open Database Connectivity-enabled relational database.
If you haven’t paid attention to the new social media, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Just as email was a game-changer in the 1980s and the internet revolutionized society in the 1990s, social media is making a huge impact on the way people work and interact today. Personally, I was skeptical about social networking until some good friends persuaded me to give it a trial run. It seemed like a great way to dither away some valuable time, but I didn’t see the business value in the whole proposition until I tried it. [READ MORE]
We all know how hard troubleshooting SQL Server can be. There are tools and techniques that can make troubleshooting much easier, such as the Windows System Monitor.
The only problem with SysMon, or more commonly “PerfMon”, is that it takes a lot of knowledge and experience to know which objects and counters to examine.
I’ve put together a nice poster for you covering all of the important PerfMon counters for SQL Server troubleshooting, with a little help from some of my friends: Brent Ozar, Bob Ward, Christian Bolton, and Raoul Illyes.
You Can Has It Fer Free!
If you live outside of North America, get the hi-resolution PDF here.
If you live in North America, order the poster here, and it’s free including postage anywhere in the USA and Canada.
PerfMon is Irie, Mon!
But Wait There’s More!
And just in case you didn’t watch our virtual conferences back in March or in July, you can watch my “PerfMon is Irie, Mon” session that describes how to use Windows System Monitor and some related tools, all in my rasta-man costume.
Order a free copy of the events on CD here. Restrictions apply.
