First off, I should apologize for not blogging in quite a while. I've been traveling extensively and, because traveling can be so exhausting, I usually have to queue up blog posts to hit while I'm traveling in order to remain active while on the road. I didn't do that for these most recent trips. And, as you can see, there's quite a gap between this post and my last few posts. On the other hand, I've experienced an unexpected surge in requests for mentoring and advice from friends and colleagues about career growth. I'm always happy to help out a friend and, in fact, there's little in my … [Read more...]
My Advice About Growing as an IT and Data Professional
Filed Under: Challenges, Interviews, Opinion, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Career, DBA, Developer, Leadership, Management, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development, Writing
MySQL, NoSQL, and NuoDB
I've been keen on MySQL ever since I first started using it heavily more than a decade ago. In fact, I liked it well enough to include it as one of the four main database platforms, over and above the ANSI-ISO SQL standard, in my popular book SQL in a Nutshell. However, with the advent of NoSQL data platforms in the last few years, the waters have been muddied. It's no longer a quick easy decision as to which database platform you should use, both because there are many new platforms to choose from and because the old, easy choices aren't as cut and dried as they used to be. MySQL, for … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Cloud, Cool Technologies, Databases, NoSQL, Opinion, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Azure, cloud computing, DBA, MySQL, Oracle, sql, SQL Programming
What’s the Data Modeling Standard for Business Intelligence Systems?
I had the good fortune to overhear some of my good friends and fellow MVPs discussing the process of data modeling for business intelligence systems. So what are the industry standard approaches for modeling dimensional data modelling? The short answer is that Kimball's dimensional modeling is the most widely adopted standard for any sort of data warehouse. Inmon is also well respected. But the consensus is to stick with Kimball, especially if you're looking for something an enterprise standards team is going to recognize as "standard". The book on my shelf and which I most … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Architecture, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Databases, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Architecture, Best Practices, BI, Business Intelligence, Data Modeling, Data Warehouse, MVP, SQL Server 2012, SSAS
Hear the SQL Server 2012 story on DotNetRocks
I was privileged to have a chat with my buddies over at www.dotnetrocks.com, Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell, episode number 876 (876!). Listen to the most popular internet audio talk show for .NET developers! Here's the abstract: Carl and Richard talk to Kevin Kline about the latest features in SQL Server 2012. The conversation starts out talking about the new features that developers will love, like windowing - no need for cursors anymore, you can request a window of records from a set and move easily window-to-window. Kevin also talks about the new column store index that is especially … [Read more...]
Filed Under: BigData, Cool Technologies, Databases, Interviews, NoSQL, Opinion, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Trends, Virtualization Tagged With: Azure, cloud computing, Developer, Fusion-io, Hekaton, In-Memory Databases, NoSQL, sql, SQL Server 2012, SQL tuning
Cheaters Never Win, Even in TPC Benchmarks
In this column, I want to tell you about one of my favorite aspects of the TPC benchmarks – CHEATING. Keep in mind that I use the term “cheating” in a joking manner with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek. But I’m also half-serious. One of the of the things that is great about the TPC benchmarks is that each of the vendors are required to fully describe all of the shortcuts, tweaks, and special operating configurations they use in order to achieve their spectacular performance numbers. In a sense, the Transaction Processing Counsel requires that all benchmarked platforms declare all of … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, DBTA, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, DBTA, Monitoring, Oracle, Performance, SQL Server 2012
Use TPC Database Benchmarks to Save Money
Last month, I began a series of articles describing database application benchmarking. In the first article, I told you about different ways that you can construct your own database application benchmark. However, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The Transaction Processing Council (www.tpc.org) has already created a large number of database benchmarks that are extremely useful and informative. I also described last month how the TPC provides several different types of benchmark tests. For example the TPC-C and TPC-E benchmarks are extremely useful for measuring transaction throughput. … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, DBTA, Oracle, Performance, SQL Server 2012
Read the New TPC Database Benchmarking Series
Introduction to TPC Database Benchmarks Let's talk about database application benchmarking. This is a skill set which, in my opinion, is one of the major differentiators between a journeyman-level DBA and a true master of the trade. In this article published in my monthly column at Database Trends & Applications magazine, I'll give you a brief introduction to TPC benchmarks and, in future articles, I'll be telling you how to extract specific pieces of valuable information from the published benchmark results. But let's get started with an overview … read … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, Oracle, Performance, SQL Server 2012
PASS Business Analytics Conference (BAC) Recap
The PASS Business Analytics Conference (PASS BAC) is PASS' first foray into an event that is dedicated to business intelligence, big data, data visualization, and business analytics. And it totally makes sense for PASS to move in this direction, over and above the flagship community work centered on database management and application development. Why? Because business analytics is all about how to apply the data being collected and managed by all of those developers and DBAs. And, at the end of the day, how we use and apply our data is really the nexus of its value. That's what matters … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Conferences, Databases, On-Line Resources, PASS, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Trends Tagged With: Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, DBA, Developer, SQL Server 2012
The All-New ‘Database Lifecycle Management” is available on MSDN
The initial release of Database Lifecycle Management is now available on MSDN. The site is something called "curated content". This means it's a single consolidated location to look up lots of disparate articles and content, all in one easy to search location. This “curated content view” contains the best content, video, and community-centric information from Microsoft, including topics like: SQL Server Data Tools · Get started with sample projects, code samples · Video demos by Gert Drapers (blog) · Script common data portability tasks using Sqlpackage.exe · Link to the SSDT … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Architecture, Challenges, Cloud, Databases, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Video Tagged With: Azure, Backup & Recovery, Best Practices, DBA, Developer, SQL Server 2012, Virtualization
Squishy Limits in SQL Server Express Edition
It's an old story you've probably heard before. Provide a free version of your software product with strict limitations on performance or other specific capabilities so that folks can give it a try without risk, while you minimize the chance of cannibalizing sales of your commercial products. Microsoft has take this strategy with SQL Server Express Edition, not only to increase adoption in the student market but also to counter the threat of open-source (i.e. free) relational databases like MySQL for entry-level applications. One such limitation of SQL Server Express Edition is that it … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Databases, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: DBA, Developer, Express Edition, Internals, Memory, SQL Server 2012
