Let’s get one thing clear right off the bat – I’m not typing “Board of Directors” repeatedly throughout this blog post. It’s just too much typing. BoD will have to do. Live with it. Perhaps, you’ve been paying attention to the PASS Twitter feed, read the newsletters, or otherwise stay abreast of happenings within PASS. If you haven’t, here’s a news alert – it’s time for a new round of the PASS leadership cycle. And since this is the season of PASS nominations, I thought it’d be an appropriate time to share some of my lessons learned about effective BoDs. Having spent over a decade … [Read more...]
Do You Have One of “the Three W’s” to Sit on a Board of Directors?
Filed Under: Ethics, Governance, PASS, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Career, Management, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development, SQLPASS
Come See Me. I’ll Probably Be Just Down the Street Soon!
Even though I've recently changed jobs, I'll still be speaking at a lot of SQL events across the country and internationally. There are still a few trips that I've yet to finalize, in particular with the fine folks in Houston, run by my friend Nancy Hidy (blog | twitter), and my friends in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, run by my friend Mark Ginnebaugh (blog | twitter). Also, do to some missed deadlines, it looks like I won't be speaking at the Nordic SQL Rally this fall. My bad! On the other hand, you can see when checking my roster, that I hardly have time to catch my breath with this … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Conferences, Cool Technologies, Databases, Nashville SQL Server Users Group, PASS, Presentations, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: DBA, Developer, Leadership, SQLPASS, SQLSaturday, Video
High-Availability White Papers and Resources for SQL Server
I was just telling the good people of Charlotte about how they (and how YOU) need to read all things by Paul Randal (blog | twitter), except for all of his cheesy romance novels like Caress and Conquer written under the nom de plum of Connie Mason. There's lots more good stuff from Paul, just not romantic. This is a 'so-last-version' whitepaper describing five common high-availability and disaster-recovery architectures deployed by customers, along with a case study of each. Although the white paper is specific to SQL Server 2008 R2 and isn't updated for AlwaysOn features, it's still … [Read more...]
New Developments at SQLServerPedia.com
What's Going on at SQLServerPedia.com? Since the news broke that I was leaving Quest, I've gotten a lot of questions about the future of SQLServerPedia.com (SSP). For those of you who don't know, SSP is a very popular community wiki and blog aggregator with nearly one hundred bloggers actively syndicating their content on the site. Quest actively supports SSP as a non-commercial community entity and I was its former editor-in-chief. The good news is that SSP is not going anywhere. If you write for a blog that appears on SSP, don't change a thing. (Ok, change one thing. Start adding more … [Read more...]
Filed Under: On-Line Resources, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Blogging, Syndication, Writing
The Next Chapter: Inspiring and Motivating
I’d like to start this post first by thanking everyone who sent well wishes, both public and private, about my decision to move on from Quest Software. It was very uplifting and encouraging to hear from you! So, again, the question of “Where am I off to?” The answer is SQL Sentry. I’m joining them as Director of Engineering Services, with a focus on technical sales and marketing, as well as a heavy dose of R&D design work. (Read the press release here). In case you haven’t encountered SQL Sentry before, they’re a small Southern company concentrating on the SQL Server market. In … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Opinion, Professional Development, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Career, Professional Development, Quest Software, SQL Sentry
A Fond Farewell to Quest Software
The week of the 4th of July is a happy week for Americans. Most families get out for a parade, a fireworks display, a picnic in the park, a movie where Will Smith puts the beat down on a bunch of aliens, or an afternoon at the pool or lake. We celebrate the contributions of our service men and women. We honor veterans. We drink a lot of beer. We reflect on the founding of our nation and the meaning of “Independence Day”. My own reflections over the Independence Day holiday took me in a new and rather unexpected direction. After ten-and-a-half immensely rewarding years at Quest Software, … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Challenges, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Goals, Leadership, MVP, Professional Development, Quest Software, Writing
One Week Until Louisville!
Louisville has a special place in my heart because it was my brother's home for more than 15 years. I spent a lot of time on I-65 traveling from my home town of Huntsville, AL to visit my bro in Louisville and New Albany, after he bought a place on the north side of the mighty Ohio River. It's always felt like a home away from home, even long after he moved on. SQL Saturday 122 is just around the corner and I'll be speaking both in a full day, pre-conference seminar plus a couple sessions at the SQL Saturday itself. Leadership Skills for the IT Professional My pre-con is all about … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, PASS, Presentations, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication
Review the New Migration Guide to SQL Server 2012 Always On
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Cephas Lin, of Microsoft, last year at the SQL Saturday in Indianapolis and then later at the PASS Summit in the fall. Cephas has been writing content for SQL Server 2012 Always On. Cephas has recently published his first whitepaper, a migration guide to SQL Server AlwaysOn. Read it and then pass along any feedback: HERE Enjoy, -Kev -Follow me on Twitter! … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: High Availability, SQL Server 2012, White Paper
Azure Trust Services
You might have noticed that Microsoft has recently launched a cool set of Trust Services for Azure. This is an application-level encryption framework that can be used to protect sensitive data stored on the Windows Azure Platform. One of the hindrances to adoption of Azure that I keep hearing about is trust and security. If you want to learn more about protecting your data in the cloud you can read up HERE. I'm not pushing you to get into Azure (even though you should), nor am I subtly trying to make you feel guilty for ignoring the cloud in general nor Azure specifically (subtle, ain't … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Cloud, Databases, NoSQL, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: Azure, cloud, Developer, Security, SQL Server 2012
‘Backup Completed’ is NOT an Error Message
If you're like me, you like for things to be semantically reliable. Huh? Said another way, I like for things to mean what they say and say what they mean. Here are a few examples of I get annoyed by failed sematics - when a footpath is used almost entirely by cyclists, when an escalator is merely stairs, or when a restroom has a huge crowd and long lines. (No rest to be had in that room). So you can bet that I get a little prickly when the "Error Log" is used to post messages that something completed successfully. Really? I came here to this error log looking for, wait for it, ... … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Databases, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Backup & Recovery, DBA, SQL Server 2012
