Microsoft Document Watch for Operational Excellence

Back when my day-to-day duties included database administration work and enterprise architecture, I became rather obsessed with the idea of operational excellence.  I read everything I could on the topic.  I made a list of favorites, which became somewhat shabby over time, as I dog-eared important pages and scribbled notes in the margins.  (Perhaps that list of favorites might, in and of itself, make a good blog post).  Fast-forward a decade and I'm still mightily interested in operational excellence for IT organizations.  It's just that so much good material is available for free on the … [Read more...]

Microsoft Windows Platforms Blog Watch

Remote Desktop Services Component Architecture Poster Grab your own poster! A visual guide to key Remote Desktop Services technologies in Windows Server 2008R2   Virtually Free Get the latest update rollup package for the Hyper-V role in Windows Server 2008 R2 and be sure to bookmark the Windows Virtualization Team Blog.  Be sure to check out blog World Simplified is a Virtual World. And doncha evah neglect application virtualization, such as the goodness at the App-V Product Team Blog.   Let's Optimize Some Desktops (Assuming You Have Gone Full Cloud … [Read more...]

Have You Heard About Project Lucy?

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 … [Read more...]

Video: Magic Formula for SQL Query Tuning

Featuring Kevin Kline this video focuses on accelerated Disk Optimization and improved productivity with SQL Query Tuning. Posted December 18, 2006. … [Read more...]

Free Poster – SQL Server PerfMon Counters

You Needs It! You Wants It! 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 … [Read more...]