There are a lot of reasons why I love The Economist magazine and pay over $100 per year for a subscription. First of all, it summarizes all of its news articles, big and small, in the first 4-5 pages of the magazine. Don't have time to read the entire issue? No problem, how does 20 minutes work for you? Second, it reports news from around the world as if the rest of the world actually matters, whereas every American news magazine I read looks at the rest of the world as an afterthought. You probably know me well enough to know that I travel internationally at least a couple times each … [Read more...]
Innovation and Invention: Whose Method Is Best?
Filed Under: On-Line Resources, Professional Development, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Creativity, Innovation, Professional Development
Come Aboard. We’re Expecting You
Those of us over a certain age (read - old as dirt) can remember the theme songs to certain TV shows better than we can the National Anthem. Try these lines out and see if you don't immediately remember the tune that goes along with them: Come and knock on our door | We've been waiting for you ... Makin' your way in the world today | Takes everything you've got ... Just some good ol' boys | Never meaning no harm ... Thank you for being a friend | Travel down the road and back again ... So when I got the news that my employer, Quest Software, wanted to send one of the team to an … [Read more...]
Filed Under: IO, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, Professional Development, SQL Server 2008 R2, Training
Adventures in the Land of CloudDB/NoSQL/NoAcid
Last year, some of my friends from Quest Software attended Hadoop World in New York. In 2009, I never would've guessed that Quest would be there with products, community initiatives, as a major sponsor and with presenters? There were just under 1,000 attendees who weren’t the typical devheads and geekasaurs you'd normally see at very techie events like Code Camps, SQL Saturdays, Cloud Camps and or even other NoSQL events such as the Cassandra Summit. We're talkin' enterprise customers with active Hadoop projects underway. Some observations from the show that may be of interest to … [Read more...]
Filed Under: BigData, Cloud, Conferences, Cool Technologies, Databases, NoSQL, Opinion, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Strategies, TCD blog post, Trends Tagged With: Hadoop, news analysis, NoSQL, Oracle, Quest Software
Database Maintenance Scripting Done Right
I first wrote about useful database maintenance scripts on my SQLBlog account way back in 2008. Hmmm - now that I think about it, I first wrote about my own useful database maintenance scripts in a journal called SQL Server Professional back in the mid-1990's on SQL Server v6.5 or some such. But I digress... Anyway, I pointed out a couple useful sites where you could get some good scripts that would take care of preventative maintenance on your SQL Server, such as index defragmentation, updating statistics, and so forth. One of the script kits came directly from Microsoft's internal … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, On-Line Resources, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tool Time Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, Performance, SQL Server 2008 R2, Tools & Scripts
Back in Atlanta! Wed, Feb 9 2011
I always enjoy spending time with my friends from Atlanta, as well as meeting folks and making new friends. If you live in the Atlanta area, I hope you'll join me on the evening of Wednesday, February 9th, 2011. Details are at the Atlanta SQL Server user group website. It's common knowledge that I have a terrible memory for many things. However, one of the few things that my memory is usually really good at is remember names & faces (and remembering stories, but that is another story as well). It's only in the last couple years that I've gotten to know Atlanta-area folks like Aaron … [Read more...]
Filed Under: PASS, Presentations, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: DBA, Developer, Internals, Performance, Query Tuning, Transact-SQL Programming
Cloud Evolving, SQL Server Responding
Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) and I did an interview with TechTarget’s Brendan Cournoyer at last summer's Tech-Ed, which as turned into a podcast titled “Cloud efforts advance, SQL Server evolves.” The podcast covers all the major trends at the conference (like BI), virtualization features in Quest’s products (like Spotlight), Brent’s new book and MCM certification, and more. Here’s a link to hear it, appearing on 6/11/10: http://searchsqlserver.techtarget.com/podcast/Cloud-efforts-advance-SQL-Server-evolves … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Cloud, Databases, Interviews, Professional Development, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: Azure, Career, cloud computing, DBA, Professional Development, SQL Server 2008 R2, Writing
Education and Career Resources from Microsoft and the Community
Sometimes I'm timely in getting the news out on useful resources. And, other times, I'm a bit slower on the draw. As I told friends back at New Year's Day, "As an official member of the Procrastinators Club, welcome to 2008!" On the other hand, it's always good to remind folks of great resources that are still available and on the shelf. Why? Well, the Internet hits us with such a deluge of constantly new material, that we often forget about the old(ish) stuff that's still really useful. Quest vConference for SQL Server One of the most popular teaching sessions I ever engaged … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Databases, On-Line Resources, PASS, Presentations, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Tips & Tricks, Video Tagged With: Career, DBA, Developer, Professional Development, Quest Software, Training, Women in Technology
Azure, a Beautiful Color, and So Much More…
Windows and SQL Azure Resources Cloud computing is more than just the latest buzz word in the IT trade papers. It is a remarkable paradigm shift with as much potential to "turn over the apple cart" of IT computing as client-server had for the world of mainframe and minicomputers. If you're not spending time to learn about cloud computing, in general, and SQL Azure, in particular, then you're missing the boat in a big way. (Ha! Two big metaphors in one afternoon. My high-school English teacher would be proud.) There are mountains, literally MOUNTAINS, of free and high-quality content … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Cloud, Cool Technologies, Databases, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Tool Time, Video Tagged With: Azure, cloud computing, DBA, Developer, Training, Web Development
Video: Interview – Part 2 SQL Server Evolution
Heather Eichman interviews Kevin Kline, the former President of PASS and strategy manager for the SQL Server Business Unit at Quest Software. It's not brand new - originally posted January 28, 2008. … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, Cool Technologies, Databases, Interviews, Opinion, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Video Tagged With: Career, DBA, Society, SQLPASS
DBTA: Compliance – A Key Element of a Data Management Strategy
Compliance is one of the most interesting elements of any data management plan - it's a microcosm of evolution in action. When many of the laws that impacted data retention were first enacted, business wasn't collecting a lot of information. Now, data collection happens everywhere. And, as citizens have come to realize that more and more of the information about their daily lives is recorded, they demand their governments provide privacy and protection from misuse of that data. [READ MORE] Originally published Jul 12, 2010 … [Read more...]
Filed Under: DBTA, Opinion, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Strategies, TCD blog post, Trends Tagged With: Best Practices, DBTA, SQL Server 2008 R2
