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 Document Watch for Operational Excellence
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: Architecture, Best Practices, Compliance, DBA, Enterprise Architecture, Management, Operations, Performance, Security, SQL Server 2008 R2, Tools, Troubleshooting
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...]
Filed Under: Administration, Cool Technologies, Databases, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Data Cleansing, Data Quality, DBA, ETL, Master Data Management, SQL Server 2008 R2
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...]
Filed Under: Administration, Databases, Presentations, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, Developer, Internals, Monitoring, Performance, SQL Server 2008 R2
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...]
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: Best Practices, cloud computing, DBA, Debugging, Developer, Performance, SQL Server 2008 R2, Tools, Troubleshooting, Virtualization, Windows
Getting Ahead of the Curve – Big Data
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: Best Practices, Big Data, Career, cloud computing, DBA, FutureWatch, SQL Server 2008 R2
NOSQL- A Quick Overview
Several attendees at the SQLRally were asking about NoSQL ("Not Only SQL") and its benefits. This article gives a quick overview: HERE. Also, two good resources have come out from my friend Guy Harrison. This piece on Cassandra, one of the most popular NoSQL databases, was published a while back in Database Trends and Applications Magazine. I also really liked these entries from Guy at TechRepublic and TechTarget. Guy also had the good fortune of having one of his articles published on GigaOm and then picked up in the New York Times Technology section. The article, titled “Real World … [Read more...]
Filed Under: BigData, Cool Technologies, Databases, DBTA, NoSQL, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Azure, cloud computing, NoSQL
Available Online – SQL Server Training Videos
Interested in my various performance tuning and troubleshooting videos about SQL Server? These videos feature my good buddies (and uber-SQL Server experts) Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) and Buck Woody (blog | twitter). View these insight-packed training videos from our SQL Server training events originally presented on March 3 and July 21 of 2010:HERE. You can watch the videos now at the URL above or order a DVD, shipped free of charge in the USA and Canada, HERE. Enjoy! -Kev ~~~ Twitter at kekline More content on my Blog … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, IO, On-Line Resources, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, DMV, Internals, Monitoring, Performance, Quest Software, SQL Server 2008 R2, Video
From SQLMag Tool Time Column: SSMS Plug-in News
I first wrote about Mladen Prajdic's excellent tool in my Tool Time column at SQL Server Magazine HERE. The tool is a nice plug-in to SSMS and definitely worth having. If you’ve never installed it or have only installed an older version, but sure to pick up the newest release. Here’s Mladen’s press release complete with hyperlink for the tool: SSMS Tools Pack 1.9.4 is out! Now with SQL Server 2011 (Denali) CTP1 support. As Mladen says: ...this release adds support for SQL Server 2011 (Denali) CTP1 and fixes a few bugs. Because of the new SSMS shell in SQL 2011 CTP1 the SSMS Tools … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Databases, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tool Time Tagged With: DBA, Denali, Developer, SQL Server 2008 R2, SQLMag
SQL Server Migration Roll-Up
There are so many great tools out there for data professionals using Microsoft SQL Server. I really like to see all of these great tools made free to the public. On the other hand, I'm bummed that the tools are cast about in a very decentralized fashion. If you haven't done migrations before, you might want to start with these good white papers first. Here are a hand full of cool migration tools worth mentioning: Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for MySQL: Migrate from MySQL to SQL Azure or SQL Server with ease. Plus, here are a few related Knowledge Base (KB) … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, On-Line Resources, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks, Tool Time, Transact-SQL Programming, Virtualization Tagged With: cloud computing, DBA, Developer, MS-Access, MySQL, Oracle, PHP, SQL Azure, SQL Server 2008 R2, Sybase, Tools, Tools & Scripts, Transact-SQL Programming
