Here, There, and Everywhere; Speaking in Fall 2011, Part 1

The last quarter of the year is usually my busiest due to the fantastic PASS Summit and SQLBits events.  The fall looks a little different ... BECAUSE IT WILL BE EVEN BUSIER!  Here's a rundown of where I'll be this fall through mid-October:   BASTA! SQLCON.NET September 26 to 29; Mainz, Germany This big developer and admin conference runs from September 26 to 29 in Mainz, Germany.  I'll be delivering at least one session and hobnobbing with Quest customers, friends, and in a very weird twist, my oldest daughter Emily, who will be in the Rhineland at the exact same time on a … [Read more...]

Upcoming SQLSaturday Events in Omaha and Atlanta!

I've had enough time off from traveling after my surgery to finally travel again.  First on the circuit , set for August 27th, is Omaha, Nebraska and SQL Saturday #91.  As a former Crimson Tide alum, I was stoked about going to the University of Nebraska, our once and future rivals on the Grid Iron.  But after a moment's confusion, I remembered that the Huskers are over in Lincoln, not Omaha.  (May Bear have mercy on my soul.) Almost all of the speakers are friends.  Many are Microsoft MVPs.  So it'll be great to catch up with these fine folks and, I hope, get a chance to meet many … [Read more...]

New on “Database Trends & Applications”

In last month's column, "2012 Might Really Be the End of the World as We Know It," I described a number of major developments in the IT industry that are likely to disrupt the life of database professionals everywhere.  I categorize those four disruptors - virtualization, cloud computing, solid state drives (SSD), and advanced multi-core CPUs - into two broad groups.  I'm going to continue an analysis of these disruptive technologies in inverse order.  Today, let's discuss SSDs. [READ MORE ON DATABASE TRENDS & APPLICATIONS ] … [Read more...]

ETL Demo with Data From Data.Gov

A little over a month ago, I wrote an article (Is There Such a Thing as Easy ETL) about expressor software and their desktop ETL application, expressor Studio.  I wrote about how it seemed much easier than the native ETL tools in SQL Server when I was reading up on the tool, but that the "proof would be in the pudding" so to speak when I actually tried it out loading some free (and incredibly useful) data from the US federal data clearinghouse, Data.Gov. If you'd rather not read my entire previous article - quick recap, expressor Studio uses “semantic types” to manage and abstract mappings … [Read more...]

Quest Named to the SD Times 100 List

My employer, Quest Software, was once again named to the SD Times 100 list, this year in the “database and integration” category! The program recognizes the top leaders and innovators, looking back at each company’s achievements from the year before. Out unwavering market leadership was also reinforced in 2010 with IDC ranking Quest as “the top independent database management and development tools vendor serving distributed and other non-mainframe systems”·    Other innovations contributed to our win, such: Ongoing innovation within the Toad product family, including the introduction of … [Read more...]

Managing Complex DB Environments

Check out the new white paper “Key Methods for Managing Complex DB Environments” at Quest.com. Heterogeneous database management hassles used to be much less common than today. When I first started at Quest nearly ten years ago, I'd put forward that on 15-20% of my big customers regularly managed more than one major database platform. (That doesn't mean they didn't have more than one, rather secondary platforms were either unmanaged or considered entirely unimportant). Today, I'd put forward that 70-80% of my big customers support at least two major database platforms. Often, they support … [Read more...]

Run as Radio Podcast – A little Denali

      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. … [Read more...]

Microsoft SQL Server Internals & Architecture Matter!

EPIC FAIL!  This was supposed to go out last week.  But I didn't schedule it properly, so I'd just like to point out that there are lots of other great webcasts to watch at the Pragmatic Works webcast URL below.  Plus, my session will be available via streaming by the end of the week.  And thanks the the 1600 folks who registered!   -=-=-=-   Come join me on Tuesday, August 2, 2011 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT for a free webcast covering the internals and architecture of Microsoft SQL Server.  It's not everyday that a dry topic like this is presented in a fun and easy to … [Read more...]

What I’m Reading, July 22 2011

I read too much, and that, my friends, is an entirely separate topic for a blog post. But I thought I'd share with you a little more about what I'm reading because sometimes, if I'm lucky, it might be something you'd enjoy too. So I'm going to start sharing what I'm reading at least once per week, partly so that I don't firehose too many reading links directly into your brain (where I to do it say once per month) and partly to solidify in my own mind the information that I'm reviewing. So here are a few good links for the seven days leading up to July 22, 2001: Microsoft and Whitehouse … [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...]