I had a very interesting conversation recently with a good friend of mine. She's at the top of her game as a first class enterprise DBA in a major medical institution. She was interested in my career advice because she'd recently received an unsolicited invitation for a higher paying job in the business intelligence (BI) field. While I won't talk much more about the specifics of that conversation, it's not a unique conversation. In fact, I gave an interview to SearchSQLServer.com a while back about how DBA career paths are more and more leading into an even better paying career in business … [Read more...]
Business Intelligence Careers SearchSQLServer.com Interview
Filed Under: Administration, Databases, Opinion, Professional Development, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Business Intelligence, Career, DBA, Developer, SQL Server 2008 R2, SSAS
SQL People Interview
Many thanks to Microsoft SQL Server MVP Andy Leonard (blog | twitter) for conducting a series of interviews of prominent SQL Server types, including me. The interview found here. ~~~ Enjoy! -Kev Twitter at kekline More content at http://KevinEKline.com … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Databases, Interviews, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Career, DBA, Developer, MVP, Professional Development, Writing
Free Webcast Series: Patterns and Practices in Database Administration
SSWUG.ORG’s virtual webcasts will prepare the “Accidental DBA” for patterns and practices they will experience in their role as a database administrator. I will provide easy-to-understand insights and realistic examples for professionals who have not had any formal DBA training. By the end of our four-part series, you should have the information needed to get up to speed on database planning, administration and performance tuning basics. Session Descriptions In the first session, you will see what is needed to fulfill the role of a (Database Administrator) DBA by learning more about what … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, Presentations, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Career, DBA, Management, Performance, Professional Development, SQL Server 2008 R2, Training
Leadership, Management, and SQLRally
Transparency - A Great Leadership Quality I've always appreciated how Andy Warren (blog| twitter) operates in the most transparent manner, especially as it relates to his role as a director for the Professional Association for SQL Server. For example, Andy's latest blog post about prepping for the SQLRally, to kick off in less than 30 days, is insightful and gives you a good idea of the sort of work a strong director for PASS needs to put in. I also enjoy how Andy more or less thinks out loud and offers you the chance to provide your input. In that latest blog post, he was mulling different … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, Governance, Interviews, PASS, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Strategies, Video Tagged With: Career, Goals, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development, SQLPASS, Training
Funny Things You’ll Hear at the “Leadership for IT Professionals” at the 2011 SQLRally
The 2011 PASS SQLRally is just about one month away and it's high time I highlighted some of the important things you'll be hearing about in my precon seminar Leadership and Team Management Skills for the IT Professional. Just to set the context, many of us IT people got to our lofty career positions because of our keen use of technology. It takes a lot of smarts to get where we've gotten, but they are a very specific set of smarts that can't always be used in every business setting. And, since so many of us have topped out in our potential salary as long as we stay in the trenches and the … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, PASS, Presentations, Professional Development, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, Humor, Management, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development, SQLPASS, Training
And the winner of the SQLBits8 Pub Quiz is… [drumroll please]
Wow - what a great trip through Europe! SQLBits8 was in beautiful and sunny Brighton, which everyone local to the area assures me that it's not usually either. The crowd was large and enthusiastic. We did two rollickin' fun lunch time vendor sessions, one being the SQL Pub Quiz. (I'll tell you about the other one tomorrow in a separate blog post). We used a bingo pub quiz approach and, I have to say, a form of bingo I'd never before seen in my life. We managed to extract quite a bit of fun out of it any way, presentation hiccups and all. Our giveaway winners were Mark Dodd (at top) … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, Databases, Presentations, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: DBA, Developer, SQL Server 2008 R2
SQLBits and Events in Dublin, Koln, and Malmo
SQLBITS One of the top highlights of my year is when I get to visit the great cities of Europe and meet with the great IT professionals there. Last October, I was able to visit several cities in Europe, including my first ever stop in Stockholm and Malmo, Sweden. Last year's SQLBits event was in the lovely city of York, England. This spring, in fact the next two weeks, I'll be on a whirlwind junket. In just a few hours, I fly out to London and then drive down to Brighton for a couple days of SQLBits. SQLBits has a great lineup of speakers and content this spring. I'm looking … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, PASS, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: cloud computing, DBA, Developer, SQL Server 2008 R2, Training
SQLServerPedia Has a New Editor-in-Chief. Oh no, it’s Me!
Attrition has taken its toll once again as a few good friends move from being colleagues to being former colleagues. As a result of the folks moving on to bigger and better things, I'm now stepping up in to the roll of editor-in-chief of SQLServerPedia. This roll is mostly about checking on the quality of content produced by our syndicating bloggers to make sure that they're not trying to sell products or services and that their posts are of high quality. That's about where the official duties end, save for things like acting as a judge in big SSP contests. One new aspect that I want … [Read more...]
Filed Under: On-Line Resources, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: Oracle, Plays Well With Others, SQL Server 2008 R2, SQLMag, Writing
How Do You SKU?
I’d like your opinion here. Follow my logic here for a moment as I walk through a couple rhetorical questions. Have you ever had a friend developed an application entirely on SQL Server Developer Edition? (Not that YOU would ever do such a thing, but maybe you know someone who has. Right?) And has your friend’s IT department actually deployed said application only to discover that they’re only licensed for Standard Edition in their production environment? And then was your friend’s IT management team is horrified to learn that they’ve either got to go through the very expensive process … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Databases, Opinion, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008 R2
How Much Data is a Lot of Data?
It's always interesting to see the guestimations of the big brains about figures and facts that are hard to verify. Here's an example - how much data is computerized today? I'm not talking about ancient stuff, like the Codex Synaticus (which, incidentally IS on-line at www.codexsinaiticus.org). I’m talking about the new and really important stuff, like the fourteen pictures that my step-daughter posted on her FaceBook account from our recent trip to Rock City. Well, IDC figured that overall digital data was up to 1.2Zb (Zetabytes!) at the end of 2010. My mind is boggling. Ok, so that's … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Databases, NoSQL, Opinion, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Trends Tagged With: cloud computing, DBTA, FutureWatch
