Good grief, there's a lot of travel in my immediate future. <sigh ... deep breath> It'll be exhausting and it'll be hard to lose so much time with the family. But if I'm able to avoid travel mishaps, it'll be fun. Meet Me In St. Louis I'll be speaking in St. Louis, MO on Tuesday, September 14th for their mid-day meeting. The details, as I have them, are: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 1-4pm Location: Microsoft St. Louis Office, Three City Place Drive, Suite 1100, St. Louis, MO … [Read more...]
DBTA:Reaching for Highly Scalable Systems with SQL Server 2008
August 30, 2010 by Leave a Comment
SQL Server has supported VLDBs (very large databases) for some time now. Back in the SQL Server 2000 days, I recall hearing multi-terabyte databases were unusual but doable. Now, they are commonplace, while databases in the hundreds of terabytes inhabit the part of the map that says "there be dragons." While VLDBs are quite common on SQL Server today, highly scalable systems that can be flexibly extended in the same fashion as Oracle/RAC are less so. So, how do you design a highly available architecture for SQL Server if it's not like Oracle/RAC. [READ MORE] … [Read more...]
Free Poster – SQL Server Dynamic Management Views
August 29, 2010 by 2 Comments
I enjoy working at Quest Software partly because we do a lot to give back to the community. Here's one example, a free poster describing all of the SQL Server 2005 and 2008 dynamic management views. Get it here. It's the perfect compliment to the free system map poster available from Microsoft here. … [Read more...]
DBTA: Long-Term Changes Resulting from Policy-Based Management
August 23, 2010 by Leave a Comment
It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago that my company’s IT department was bracing for a major new line of work. Back in the mid 1990s, we were going full steam into client-server technology. At the same time, we were significantly expanding our workforce. The IT department that had spent years as an old-style mainframe shop, was suddenly inundated with requests for new workstations, network user IDs, new network domains, permission requests, and requests for application access privileges. Our lone mainframe permissions person quickly felt overwhelmed and a little baffled by all of these … [Read more...]
The All New LiteSpeed
July 28, 2010 by 2 Comments
LiteSpeed for SQL Server version 6.0 was released in June 2010 and includes these key features: Fast Compression Backups – Fast Compression is Quest’s patent-pending backup technology which significantly reduces backup times, improves database recoverable, and automatically reduces a database’s backup footprint by up to 85 percent over and above the backup compression algorithms already in the product. Network Resiliency – Backups will still succeed after network interruptions. User can also customize the number of retries and wait period for a finer level of control. Easier Restores … [Read more...]
Toad Just Keeps Getting Better
June 14, 2010 by 1 Comment
Toad for SQL Server Wins Best of TechEd 2010 in the Database Development Category Toad and I go way back. I first started with Toad as a user on the Oracle DBMS back in the early 1990's. When I started at Quest Software back on January 2nd of 2002, one of the first products I tackled as a SQL Server product architect was Toad. How do we make this very popular Oracle product one that users in the SQL Server world will love too? And this challenge was made that much harder by the fact that Microsoft SQL Server ships with fantastic tools right there in the box. I haven't worked directly on … [Read more...]
Join Me in N’Orleans at Microsoft TechEd 2010!
May 7, 2010 by Leave a Comment
Microsoft Tech·Ed North America 2010 June 7-10, 2010 New Orleans Morial Convention Center 900 Convention Center Boulevard New Orleans, LA USA CONFERENCE AGENDA Wondering if you should go? It's all about the education. So check for the most current and detailed conference agenda at https://northamerica.msteched.com. TECH·ED ONLINE – www.microsoft.com/teched Can't make it in person? There's still good things in store for you! Tech·Ed Online offers on-demand technical sessions recorded at our Worldwide Tech·Ed events that explore all aspects of current and soon-to-release … [Read more...]
