Pain of the Week/Expert’s Perspective: Performance Tuning for Backups and Restores

First off - the Pain of the Week webcast series has been renamed.  It's now known as The Expert's Perspective.  Please join us for future webcasts and, if you're interested in speaking, drop me a note to see if we can get you on the roster! The bigger your databases get, the longer backups take. That doesn't really seem like a huge problem — until disaster strikes and you need to restore your databases as fast as possible. Join my buddy Brent Ozar (blog | twitter), a Microsoft Certified Master of SQL Server and good friend, as he reveals ways to make these critically important … [Read more...]

New Releases in the Toad Family of Tools

Toad Extension for Visual Studio 1.2 is now live. You can access it HERE. Key new features in Toad Extension for Visual Studio v1.2: Deployment Scripts: the pre- and post-deployment scripts of TFS are now supported. XML Columns: supports tables with XML data type columns. Nested Tables: supports tables with up to two levels of nested table type columns. Synonyms: synonyms can now be imported into your DB project Source Navigation: You can now use F12 navigation to find the definition of items in the code editor. Stored Procedures: generate Oracle stored procedures that … [Read more...]

Wednesday Quest: Toad and Policy-Based Management

Did you know that Toad for SQL Server has some nice features for users of policy-based management (PBM)? Importing Policies For example, Toad can import policies into a PBM server, so that you don’t have to manually create them every time.  You can import policies that you have exported from other servers, and you can also import the Microsoft Best Practice Policies.  (Read about the concept HERE).  The Microsoft policies are a great place to start learning what you can do with PBM, by simply importing them and inspecting their various configurations.  They are installed by default and … [Read more...]

Available Online – SQL Server Training Videos

Interested in my various performance tuning and troubleshooting videos about SQL Server?  These videos feature my good buddies (and uber-SQL Server experts) Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) and Buck Woody (blog | twitter).  View these insight-packed training videos from our SQL Server training events originally presented on March 3 and July 21 of 2010:HERE. You can watch the videos now at the URL above or order a DVD, shipped free of charge in the USA and Canada, HERE. Enjoy! -Kev ~~~ Twitter at kekline More content on my Blog … [Read more...]

From SQLMag Tool Time Column: SSMS Plug-in News

I first wrote about Mladen Prajdic's excellent tool in my Tool Time column at SQL Server Magazine HERE.    The tool is a nice plug-in to SSMS and definitely worth having.  If you’ve never installed it or have only installed an older version, but sure to pick up the newest release.  Here’s Mladen’s press release complete with hyperlink for the tool: SSMS Tools Pack 1.9.4 is out! Now with SQL Server 2011 (Denali) CTP1 support. As Mladen says: ...this release adds support for SQL Server 2011 (Denali) CTP1 and fixes a few bugs. Because of the new SSMS shell in SQL 2011 CTP1 the SSMS Tools … [Read more...]

Toad for Sybase Beta and Webcast Now Available

The Toad for Sybase webcast is now available on-demand.  Don't have Toad for Sybase?  Get it HERE while it's a free beta. There are two ways to access the webcast: 1. Quest.com - requires a username/password and gets tracked 2. ToadWorld - for quick viewing Go with option two if you don't wanna be tracked.  Lot's more Toad for Sybase goodies HERE. Enjoy! -Kev Twitter at kekline More content at http://KevinEKline.com … [Read more...]

Pulling real-time data from Twitter using StreamInsi​ght and Other Scandinavian Treasures

On my recent trip to SQLBits with subsequent visits to Dublin, Cologne, and Malmo (southern Sweden), I enjoyed a chance to meet several SQL Server MVPs, including Peter Larsson and Thomas Ivarsson. Among them, I enjoyed Johan Ahlen's article on Pulling real-time data from Twitter using StreamInsi​ght.  You can Find Johan's blog here.  I also enjoyed several other conversations, such as the one I had with Feodor Georgiev (blog).  I particularly enjoyed Feodor's guest post on SQLAuthority.com about waits in the round-trip loop from client to server back to client available HERE. There's a … [Read more...]

SQL Server Migration Roll-Up

There are so many great tools out there for data professionals using Microsoft SQL Server.  I really like to see all of these great tools made free to the public.  On the other hand, I'm bummed that the tools are cast about in a very decentralized fashion. If you haven't done migrations before, you might want to start with these good white papers first. Here are a hand full of cool migration tools worth mentioning: Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for MySQL: Migrate from MySQL to SQL Azure or SQL Server with ease.  Plus, here are a few related Knowledge Base (KB) … [Read more...]

Business Intelligence Careers SearchSQLServer.com Interview

I had a very interesting conversation recently with a good friend of mine.  She's at the top of her game as a first class enterprise DBA in a major medical institution.  She was interested in my career advice because she'd recently received an unsolicited invitation for a higher paying job in the business intelligence (BI) field.  While I won't talk much more about the specifics of that conversation, it's not a unique conversation.  In fact, I gave an interview to SearchSQLServer.com a while back about how DBA career paths are more and more leading into an even better paying career in business … [Read more...]

SQL People Interview

Many thanks to Microsoft SQL Server MVP Andy Leonard (blog | twitter) for conducting a series of interviews of prominent SQL Server types, including me.  The interview found here. ~~~ Enjoy! -Kev Twitter at kekline More content at http://KevinEKline.com … [Read more...]