Of the hundreds of cities that I've visited around the world, Chicago is one of my favorites. The food. The museums. The architecture. The scenery. It's all good - except for those outrageously cold winters. So I was really excited when my family agreed that they'd enjoy spending their summer vacation in the "Second City" as the midpoint for the #sqlvacation speaking tour. (Don't forget that the contest component of #sqlvacation lasts all summer long. You've got plenty of opportunity to win through July 31st). While I'm working, the Horde will visit Navy Pier, Art Institute of … [Read more...]

I've been to Chicagoland many times over the years. Winters are tough for a Southern boy like me. But summer in Chicagoland is one of the best experiences evah! One such magical experience was when I stumbled into a Taste of Chicago event back when that wasn't a wide-spread event. Irmagird. During the 1990's, when I worked for Deloitte, I occasionally traveled to the practice office in downtown Chicago or to the tax practice in Deerfield. In the later 1990's and early 2000's (a.k.a. "the aughts"), I frequently traveled to the original offices for PASS on Michigan Avenue. Later on during the … [Read more...]

For some people, Indianapolis means one thing, and one thing only - the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (a.k.a "The Brickyard")  and the Indianapolis 500. In my case, it means several times speaking at IndyPASS, the local SQL Server User Group, over the last 10 years. I first spoke at IndyPASS with the then head of Microsoft's Business Intelligence product line, Bill Baker. Bill was a big racing fan and, fortuitously, the user group leaders were happy to accommodate his request to speak in time to see the big race. I also got the chance back in 2005-2006 to see a hilarious comedian known … [Read more...]

Along the banks of the mighty Ohio River, in sight of the shores of Indiana, lies beautiful Louisville, KY. Louisville is a city I've long felt connected to. (No, not because I drink bourbon, although that's a pretty good reason to like the place, come to think of it). It's because my brother, five years my senior, earned his graduate degrees in one of the city's fine universities and worked there as an English professor for many years. Whenever I had a spare weekend, I'd load up the family, pop a cassette into the car stereo, and make the ~3 hour trip north to the Bluegrass State to visit my … [Read more...]

This summer, we at SQL Sentry have decided to do a fun riff on the National Lampoon Vacation movies starring Chevy Chase. And I'm asking you to participate as you take your own vacation, whether it's a week at the beach or a "staycation" catching up on chores around the house. In my case, I’m going to load up the 5 of the 7 members of the Horde in a minivan (no dog or mother-in-law on this trip) and drive a circuit of the big cities between Nashville and Chicago, speaking at a different SQL Server user group meeting each day. Your first way to participate is to come to the user group … [Read more...]

The Microsoft data platform team is on fire! It is delivering more updates and features faster and more thoroughly than ever before. If you're a data professional and you're using the Microsoft stack, this is a really exciting time to be involved. Here's a look at the top new capabilities in SQL Server 2016 Public Preview, SSIS Feature Packs For Azure, and Azure SQL Data Warehouse. Click HERE to read more … [Read more...]

The //build Tour If you build software using Visual Studio or code against the Microsoft stack, you don't want to miss the //build traveling road show. The Microsoft //build tours bring the Build conference experience to you for in-depth, usable knowledge about Windows 10 and much more. There's coding sessions and lots of new product demos. You'll also get facetime with Microsoft Technical Experts to ask those tough questions, partner showcases, and opportunities to connect with your fellow peers. Register today, it's a FREE event. Two dates are just around the corner: On Wednesday, … [Read more...]

With all the cheerleading and the steady drumbeat of new features being released to Azure, it's easy to lose track of the many cool and valuable new features released in the on-premises version of SQL Server. One of the crown jewels of SQL Server, the cardinality estimator (CE), underwent a large redesign for SQL Server 2014 to improve performance. Cardinality estimates are an extremely important part of query processing. In a nutshell, cardinality estimates are what the relation engine predicts for the number of rows affected by a given operation, including intermediate row sets like those … [Read more...]

Great topics for further reading about tuning SQL Server performance: Exploring SQL Server 2014 SELECT INTO Parallelism Joe Sack (b | t) provides us with a peak into the performance improvements and new behaviors of SQL Server 2014 in the way it can now parallelize large SELECT INTO operations. Parameter Sniffing, Embedding, and the RECOMPILE Options Parameter sniffing is a term used to describe the processes by which SQL Server attempts to reuse execution plans where certain parameters might frequently change. If you’re only familiar in passing with the term, it probably has … [Read more...]

When it comes to cloud-based database management, there are really only two players: Amazon, the value leader, and Microsoft, the innovation leader. Amazon has carved out a niche as the value leader in cloud-based database management, supporting not only its own implementations of various database platforms such as MySQL and Hadoop, but also supporting premier commercial DBMSs such as Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle. Meanwhile, Microsoft has, in my mind, carved out a very strong niche as the innovation leader by offering powerful technologies to integrate on-premises databases with various … [Read more...]