Funny Things You’ll Hear at the “Leadership for IT Professionals” at the 2011 SQLRally

April 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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: , , , , , ,

How Do You SKU?

March 25, 2011 by 3 Comments

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: , , ,

Integrating Workload Replays into Database Change Management

March 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I would like to make you aware of a recently written paper by Bert Scalzo.  The paper focuses on how DBAs can rely on the Toad and Benchmark Factory to perform database workload replays, ensuring that changes to the databases do not degrade the user experience. White Paper: Integrating Workload Replays into Database Change Management I encourage you to read the paper and make workload replay a part of your database change management practices.  As I’ve been saying for years, if you don’t have quantitative evidence of what normal is for your database, how can you know what is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Challenges, Cool Technologies, Databases, Opinion Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Come Aboard. We’re Expecting You

February 28, 2011 by 3 Comments

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: , , ,

Totally Awesome and Totally Free Training SQL Server Training

February 21, 2011 by 1 Comment

One of the things that I enjoy about working for Quest Software is that we give back copiously to the community.  From activities and offerings like SQLServerPedia, to our free posters mailed anywhere in North America (and don't forget the free hi-res PDFs for the rest of the world), Don't forget that free DVDs of our virtual conferences featuring me, along with Buck Woody (blog | twitter) and Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) will be mailed anywhere in North America free of charge, now available at this link. Enjoy! -Kevin Twitter at kekline More content at http://KevinEKline.com … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, On-Line Resources, Presentations, Professional Development, Tips & Tricks, Video Tagged With: , , , ,

Database Maintenance Scripting Done Right

February 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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: , , , ,

DBTA: Compliance – A Key Element of a Data Management Strategy

January 4, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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: , ,

What’s Your Data Management and Retention Policy? [DBTA]

December 28, 2010 by Leave a Comment

If managing your corporate data for the long term isn't currently on your mind, it should be, and in several different ways: cost, performance, business continuity, and compliance. [READ MORE] Originally posted on Jun 7, 2010 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Databases, DBTA, Opinion, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Trends Tagged With: , , , ,

Video: Ensure Optimal Performance When Deploying SQL Server 2005

December 16, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Kevin Kline will offer insight into best practices for SQL Server 2005 set up, configuration and queries. He will also discuss tuning for both the server and hardware to help an application perform better after it is deployed. This presentation will offer a better understanding of several SQL Server performance related areas including: * Hardware design * SQL Server configuration settings * Database configuration settings * Application design * SQL Tuning Posted December 20, 2006. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Databases, IO, On-Line Resources, Performance, Presentations, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Video Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Microsoft SQL Server High-Availability Videos and Q&A Log

December 1, 2010 by Leave a Comment

You Want Videos? We Got Videos! I always enjoy getting the chance to catch up with author, consultant, and Microsoft Clustering MVP Allan Hirt.  Allan and I recently presented two sessions covering an overview of high availability in Microsoft SQL Server and, the following week, a demo of how to implement several different kinds of high availability techniques including database mirroring, transactional replication, and Windows clustering services. You can see videos of these presentations at the Quest Software Pain of the Week webcast site. Archives of other videos are here. We're … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Challenges, Databases, On-Line Resources, Performance, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks, Video Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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