SQL Saturday Dublin and Pre-Conference Seminars

One of my favorite events is just around the corner! It's just a few days until SQL Saturday Dublin, Ireland’s largest SQL Server conference on the 19th/20th September, run as a community event by the SQL Ireland User Group. Have You Seen the Schedule? The schedule is complete with an amazing line up of speakers from around the world and you can download a copy HERE. Closer to the event we will be launching a mobile guidebook so you can plan your schedule on a mobile device. I'll be doing my very popular session Convince Me - Persuasion Techniques for IT Pros that Get Things Done. Step Up … [Read more...]

Four New Slide Decks for SQL Server and IT Pros from the DevLink 2014 Conference

I always enjoy presenting at the DevLink conference, presented each summer in middle Tennessee.  This year, I'm trying to be a better social media person and actually post my slides (in their most recent forms) on my SlideShare account for everyone to see and share. If you attended my session(s) and enjoyed them, feel free to download the content here. But it'd be even better if you also left a few words in the Comment section. Skip below to grab the slide decks. Thanks very much! Enjoy, -Kevin -Follow me on Twitter! -Google Author Microsoft SQL Server Internals & … [Read more...]

Amazingly Useful SQL Server Articles on SQLPerformance.com

Me and Aaron Bertrand, SQL Sentry flagbearers. One of the things we've been working on at SQL Sentry is building up institutional knowledge for the SQL Server community. There are three main ways that we're doing that on-line: Hard-core tech articles on SQLPerformance.com, edited by long-time SQL Server MVP Aaron Bertrand ( b | t ). Helping tune tough SQL Server transactions on Answers.SQLPerformance.com for free. Streaming videos at SQLSentry.TV. In addition, our monthly eNews newsletter keeps you up to date on all the latest happenings on all of these websites. Please subscribe! … [Read more...]

One Preparation that makes SSMS Crash Dumps Easy to Survive

  Uh oh! So you're plugging along in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) when it suddenly goes belly up. Now you're staring at various dialog boxes telling you that SSMS crashed. Usually the first dialog box you get will ask you if you'd like to close OR the program. If you choose to close the program, you'll be presented with the opportunity to recover your lost SQL scripts once you reopen SSMS, as shown above.  (Image above courtesy of Aalam Rangi). But let's say that closing the program represents a big issue for you due to lost time, productivity, etc. You want to go … [Read more...]

What Does a Good Mentor Do for You?

These would be good mentors - me plus Adam Machanic, and Klaus Aschenbrenner Not long ago, John Sansom (Twitter | Blog) kicked off a SQL Community Project #DBAJumpStart by asking 20 successful and experienced SQL Server professionals this exact question: "If you could give a DBA just one piece of advice, what would it be?" I wrote up my Advice for the Aspiring DBA post here, while John collected the entire set of responses here within the DBA JumpStart collection. Part of my advice, indeed of several of the contributors, was to find and build a strong mentor-protege relationship.  But what … [Read more...]

Now Playing on SSWUG TV!

Hi friends, I know a lot of you regularly read my blog either on my home page at KevinEKline.com, on SQLBlog.com, or one of the locations where it's syndicated. And you may also regularly take in my content on SQLSentry.TV or my monthly column on Database Trends & Applications magazine.   Click the image to see my new weekly video series on SSWUG.org! Now I'm adding a new video format to the mix, in partnership with my friend Steven Wynkoop and SSWUG.org.  I've been a frequent speaker in the SSWUG virtual conferences over the past several years and, we thought, why not … [Read more...]

My Advice About Growing as an IT and Data Professional

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]