In the same way that the finest presentations involve much more than the simple relaying of information, the finest software demos are much more than just presenting features. REMEMBER: The goal of a demo is to INSPIRE the audience to use the software/technology, not to teach them every nuance of software/technology. I've spent the last 10 years learning how to give good presentations and to give good software demonstrations. Here are several tips to take your software demonstration from informative to masterful: 1. Know your audience Whenever you start a demo, make sure you have a good … [Read more...]
Demo Mastery for the Technology Evangelist
Filed Under: Challenges, Cool Technologies, Databases, Opinion, Presentations, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: Best Practices, Career, DBA, Developer, Presentations, Professional Development, Training
The Year That Was – 2012
2012 was, simply stated, a year that kicked my butt. When I wasn't struggling professionally, I was struggling personally. Health issues, culminating in a diagnosis of Type II diabetes, and the passing of my father soon after Thanksgiving marked my biggest struggles. I apologize to those of you who are normally on my Christmas card list for not sending any this year. The wind was not in my sails. On the positive side of the ledger, I made a scary but exciting leap to SQL Sentry midyear. This was a huge shake-up after 10 years with my previous employer, but one which has been met with … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Conferences, Cool Technologies, Databases, DBTA, On-Line Resources, Presentations, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tool Time Tagged With: Best Practices, Career, DBA, DBTA, Developer, Professional Development, SQL Server 2012, SQLMag, Writing
Learn More About SQL Server IO and Query Tuning in These Webcasts
I'm doing two new webcasts next week on Wednesday, December 19th, one in the morning and the other after lunch. SSDs are a Game Changer for SQL Server Storage No, don't let the title mislead you. This session is not exclusively about SSDs. But this is my first session on IO and storage tuning that emphasizes SSDs over hard disks. As Bob Dylan said "Times, they are a'changin'". This session on Wednesday, December 19th at 11:30 AM EST, sponsored by Astute Networks, takes you through all of the basics of storage and IO tuning, regardless of the underlying storage technology. I'll … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Databases, IO, Performance, Presentations, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Transact-SQL Programming, Video Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, Developer, Internals, IO, SAN, SQL Server 2012, SSD, Storage, Training, Transact-SQL Programming, Video
Let’s Talk Licensing and Virtualization for SQL Server
I have two new articles up on Database Trends & Applications magazine. I'd love to get your thoughts and feedback! Welcome to the Weird, Wild World of SQL Server Licensing Not long in the past, SQL Server licensing was an easy and straightforward process. You used to take one of a few paths to get your SQL Server licenses. The first and easiest path was to buy your SQL Server license with your hardware. Want to buy a HP Proliant DL380 for a SQL Server application? Why not get your SQL Server Enterprise Edition license with it at the same time? Just pay the hardware vendor for the … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Architecture, Cool Technologies, Databases, DBTA, On-Line Resources, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Trends, Virtualization Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, DBTA, Developer, Internals, Licensing, Monitoring, SQL Server 2012, SQLMag, SQLPASS, Virtualization, VMware
How To Download Free Sessions From PASS
For all members of the Professional Association for Server (PASS), are you downloading slides and videos from all sorts of great PASS events? If not, what are you waiting for ... an invitation? Ok, here it is. I invite you to download like a madman! (How a madman downloads, an almost entirely virtual activity, is not the question here, ok?). For starters, there's the recent 24 Hours of PASS event. I hope you were able to attend all of the sessions you wanted. But even if you didn't get to see any, you can see them now as long as you're a (free) member of PASS. The session recordings … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, On-Line Resources, PASS, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, Career, DBA, Developer, Professional Development, SQLPASS, Training
The Zombie PerfMon Counter That Never Dies! Quick Tip
The PerfMon Counters That Just Won't Die One of the things that's simultaneously great and horrible about the Internet is that once something gets posted out in the ether, it basically never goes away. (Some day, politicians will realize this. We can easily fact check their consistency). Because of longevity of content posted to the Internet, a lot of performance tuning topics become "zombies". We shoot 'em in dead, but they keep coming back! In other words, those old recommendations were a suggested best practices for long ago, for a specific version of SQL Server, but are now … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Challenges, Databases, IO, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, Developer, DMV, Monitoring, Troubleshooting
Recap – SQL Saturday 151 in Orlando
It's always a feel-good experience for me to return to SQL Saturday in Orlando, the place where SQL Saturdays were started by Andy Warren (Twitter | Blog). On this trip, I delivered a full-day, pre-conference seminar on Troubleshooting and Performance Tuning SQL Server. I also delivered a session on SQL Server Internals and Architecture to a totally packed house. For those of you who emailed me directly, here's the link for the special SQL Sentry offer. I got to attend the extended events session by Jack Corbett (Twitter | Blog), middle in the photo above. Good stuff, Jack! Jack … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, Cool Technologies, PASS, Presentations, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, Career, DBA, Professional Development, SQLPASS, SQLSaturday
Secure Your Spot at the Nashville SQL Saturday!
PASS SQL Saturdays are free 1-day training events for IT professionals interested in Microsoft SQL Server, providing a variety of high-quality technical sessions, all happen through the efforts of local volunteers. The leadership team of the local chapter of PASS here in Nashville (Facebook | LinkedIn) have worked hard to make this year's SQL Saturday a day of great training and networking. The local NashSQL leadership team includes yours truly (blog | twitter), Joe Webb (Twitter | Blog), Louis "Dr SQL" Davidson (Twitter | Blog), Christina Leo (blog | twitter), and Shelton Dickson … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, Cool Technologies, Databases, Nashville SQL Server Users Group, PASS, Presentations, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, Career, DBA, Developer, Leadership, Professional Development, SQL Server 2012, Training
Two New Slide Decks. Plus, the Week in Colorado.
I had the honor of traveling the great state of Colorado last week, speaking at the PASS chapters in Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Denver. At all three events, we had a stellar attendance and, at least in Denver, broke all the records in recent memory both in terms of overall attendance and in first-timers. Denver, in fact, was standing room only and had nearly 30 first time attendees. Great news! I also want to give a special shout-out of thanks and appreciation to Chris Shaw (Twitter | Blog) whose hard work and tenacity ensured that all of Colorado got to see me speak. From left to … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Cool Technologies, Databases, IO, On-Line Resources, PASS, Presentations, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks, Video Tagged With: Best Practices, CodePlex, DBA, Developer, Leadership, Performance, SQL Server 2012, SQLSaturday, Tools & Scripts, Troubleshooting, Video
How is Microsoft IT using the Cloud?
Steve Balmer very publicly pronounced that Microsoft was “all in” for cloud computing and Windows Azure. So that means Microsoft is using cloud for its internal IT as well as building products to utilize the cloud. If you want to learn how Microsoft IT is using Windows Azure to move existing applications to the cloud and creating new applications for the cloud, click here: IT Showcase on Windows Azure. Let me know what you think. Accurate and informative? Or marketing fluff? Thanks, -Kevin Follow me on Twitter! … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Cloud, Cool Technologies, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: Azure, Best Practices, SQL Azure, SQL Server 2012
