Paying It Forward With Project Phoenix

It seems like I've known Arnie Rowland (blog | twitter) since the dawn of time.  But it's really more like the last several years, or at least since Arnie achieved Microsoft MVP status, that I really got to know him.  Arnie has also been trying to get me to speak to the user group he leads in Portland, but coordinating it has been fiendishly difficult.  I hope to get out to Portland in 2011 (no promises, Arnie!!!). One of the activities that Arnie is leading that has deeply impressed me is Project Phoenix.  Described here: ...we are inviting unemployed or underemployed developers to … [Read more...]

DBTA: Microsoft’s Trajectory for SQL Server Becomes Clear with PowerPivot

I was once asked what I thought Microsoft's overall product trajectory for SQL Server was, in light of Oracle's rather obvious trajectory of acquiring multiple application vendors who will, in turn, deploy more and more of their applications to the Oracle database platform.  To be honest, I had a little difficulty perceiving a clear and concise strategy statement for the sort of work going on in Redmond.  I could see a lot of great features being developed.  And I knew the SQL Server development team had developed a lot of new "plumbing" with each new release - features like Service Broker and … [Read more...]

And the Winners are…

The winners were named last week in our contest for bloggers on SQLServerPedia.  Lots of great bloggers and great articles for you to read. A complete list of the winners is here: Thanks to the thousands who participated! Follow me on Twitter! … [Read more...]

Video: Worth the Wait Why SQL Server 2008 is Great

Join Kevin Kline, SQL Server MVP and SQL Server Technology Strategist for Quest Software and Brent Ozar, SQL Server Domain Expert for Quest Software as they introduce the top ten features and capabilities in SQL Server 2008 that they find to be the most exciting and valuable. Originally Posted on YoutTube November 12, 2008. Follow me on Twitter! … [Read more...]

Video: SQL Performance Optimization

Gain insight into best practices for SQL Server optimization and ways to alleviate many root causes that can impact performance of your SQL Server database. Kevin also will discuss how to manage for planned and unplanned changes, speed time to implementation of your applications and ensure that your databases are running as they should. You will learn how to: * Identify the root cause of bottlenecks that hinder performance of your SQL Server environment * Diagnose and fix T-SQL errors in development before code goes into production * Learn new best practices for project planning and … [Read more...]

DBTA: The Big Keep Getting Bigger

In this season of recession and financial meltdowns, a common question seems to be, "How big is ‘too big to fail'?" Titans of the financial industry made big bets with lots of risk and, when they didn't pan out, American society overall has to pay the price.  But, that aside, the very scale of our financial system, by just about every metric, has reached amazing heights, be that number of financial transactions per second, number of traders, number of funds traded, amount of money changing hands—you name it. [READ MORE] … [Read more...]

Videos: Strategies for Addressing Common SQL Server Challenges

As a busy SQL Server DBA you face an increasing number of daily challenges: Managing fast growing data volumes and database environments Diagnosing and resolving performance issues Effective backup and recovery Monitoring and tracking database changes Balancing current resources against future capacity needs Inefficiencies in any of these areas can lead to performance degradation, unauthorized database changes, and unplanned, extended downtime. Webcast originally presented by renowned SQL Server expert Kevin Kline and learn valuable strategies for addressing these challenges … [Read more...]

Video: SQL Server Disk Optimization

Since the release of SQL Server 2005, companies have been investing heavily in SQL Server for their business-critical applications. DBAs are now challenged with supporting ever-growing datasets and making efficient use of allocated disk space in both production and enterprise storage environments. Yet DBAs seldom have a clear picture of their data storage and therefore cannot determine whether they are getting a worthwhile return on their storage investment or if an out-of-disk situation is looming. In this presentation, Kevin will address these challenges and explore methodologies to help … [Read more...]

DBTA: The Ebb and Flow of SQL Server Instrumentation

Microsoft SQL Server's relational engine has offered new instrumentation that improves by light years with each new release.  The introduction of Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) in SQL Server 2005 provided a much-needed equivalent to Oracle's long-standing and capable V$ and X$ system views.  SQL Server 2008 has provided another dramatic improvement to its instrumentation with Extended Events (also known as XEvents) that promises to offer even greater opportunities to tune, trace and troubleshoot the inner workings of a SQL Server application.  All of this stands in stark contrast with the … [Read more...]

Video: Maximize SQL Server Performance with SQL Tuning

This presentation is a bit old, but largely still applicable.  It will help you understand Microsoft tuning techniques. It will teach tips and tricks for making queries perform better, and how to use tools to tune SQL. Posted March 27, 2007. … [Read more...]