New on “Database Trends & Applications”

August 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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...]

Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Cool Technologies, Databases, IO, Opinion, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Virtualization Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Microsoft Document Watch for Operational Excellence

August 8, 2011 by 1 Comment

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...]

Filed Under: Administration, Architecture, Compliance, Cool Technologies, Hardware, On-Line Resources, Security, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Strategies, TCD blog post, Tips & Tricks, Virtualization Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

ETL Demo with Data From Data.Gov

August 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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...]

Filed Under: Administration, Cool Technologies, Databases, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: , , , , ,

Quest Named to the SD Times 100 List

August 4, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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...]

Filed Under: Cloud, Cool Technologies, Databases, SQL Server Tagged With: , , , , ,

Managing Complex DB Environments

August 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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...]

Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, SQL Server, Tips & Tricks, Trends Tagged With: , , , ,

Run as Radio Podcast – A little Denali

August 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment

      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...]

Filed Under: Databases, Interviews, Opinion, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Trends Tagged With: , ,

Microsoft SQL Server Internals & Architecture Matter!

August 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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...]

Filed Under: Administration, Databases, Presentations, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: , , , , , ,

What I’m Reading, July 22 2011

July 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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...]

Filed Under: Administration, BigData, Challenges, Cloud, Cool Technologies, Databases, Gov2.0, IO, NoSQL, On-Line Resources, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Tips & Tricks, Tool Time, Trends, Virtualization, Web2.0

Microsoft Windows Platforms Blog Watch

July 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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...]

Filed Under: Administration, Cloud, Cool Technologies, Databases, On-Line Resources, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Tips & Tricks, Tool Time Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Getting Ahead of the Curve – Big Data

July 8, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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.  … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Administration, BigData, Challenges, Databases, NoSQL, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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