One of the most positive experiences I can have, as a former leader of the PASS organization, is when I see a neophyte become a passionate support and champion for the community. On my first day in Seattle, before the event had even begun, I was stopped several by people who'd attended their first PASS Summit last year. But this year, they were excited to tell me that they'd started user groups in their own community, spoken for the first time at a PASS event, or even helped launch a SQL Saturday event. Wow! To go from a complete newcomer in the PASS community to an active and engaged … [Read more...]
PASS Summit 2012, Day 1
Filed Under: Conferences, PASS, Professional Development, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: DBA, Leadership, SQL Server 2012, SQLPASS
Conquer Your Fear of Virtualization with a Free Day of Training at PASS!
Click the link above to register! Presented by my buddy, David Klee at House of Brick, one of the nations top VMWare consultancies specializing in Oracle and SQL Server deployments. David has a great write-up of this boot camp at http://www.davidklee.net/2012/10/01/virtualizing-your-business-critical-sql-servers-free-boot-camp-by-house-of-brick/. … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Architecture, Conferences, Cool Technologies, Databases, PASS, Presentations, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Virtualization Tagged With: DBA, SQL Server 2012, SQLPASS, Virtualization
Timewarp: What Is a Relational Database?
Relational?!? Move On, Geezer! Maybe you're thinking that relational databases management systems (RDBMSs), like Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle, are going the way of punched cards and rotary phones. After all, there's been a lot of hype these days in the IT media about the rise of so-called NoSQL (Not Only SQL) databases. Many new and upcoming CS and MIS graduates who like working with data might think that relational databases are, at best, soon-to-be legacy systems and, at worst, are a career dead-end. Wrong!!! It's true that all the cool-cat computing services (Amazon, Facebook, … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Architecture, BigData, Cloud, Cool Technologies, Databases, NoSQL, Opinion, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Azure, cloud computing, DBA, Developer, NoSQL, Oracle, SQL Server 2012
Secure Your Spot at the Nashville SQL Saturday!
PASS SQL Saturdays are free 1-day training events for IT professionals interested in Microsoft SQL Server, providing a variety of high-quality technical sessions, all happen through the efforts of local volunteers. The leadership team of the local chapter of PASS here in Nashville (Facebook | LinkedIn) have worked hard to make this year's SQL Saturday a day of great training and networking. The local NashSQL leadership team includes yours truly (blog | twitter), Joe Webb (Twitter | Blog), Louis "Dr SQL" Davidson (Twitter | Blog), Christina Leo (blog | twitter), and Shelton Dickson … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, Cool Technologies, Databases, Nashville SQL Server Users Group, PASS, Presentations, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Best Practices, Career, DBA, Developer, Leadership, Professional Development, SQL Server 2012, Training
Two New Slide Decks. Plus, the Week in Colorado.
I had the honor of traveling the great state of Colorado last week, speaking at the PASS chapters in Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Denver. At all three events, we had a stellar attendance and, at least in Denver, broke all the records in recent memory both in terms of overall attendance and in first-timers. Denver, in fact, was standing room only and had nearly 30 first time attendees. Great news! I also want to give a special shout-out of thanks and appreciation to Chris Shaw (Twitter | Blog) whose hard work and tenacity ensured that all of Colorado got to see me speak. From left to … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Cool Technologies, Databases, IO, On-Line Resources, PASS, Presentations, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks, Video Tagged With: Best Practices, CodePlex, DBA, Developer, Leadership, Performance, SQL Server 2012, SQLSaturday, Tools & Scripts, Troubleshooting, Video
High-Availability White Papers and Resources for SQL Server
I was just telling the good people of Charlotte about how they (and how YOU) need to read all things by Paul Randal (blog | twitter), except for all of his cheesy romance novels like Caress and Conquer written under the nom de plum of Connie Mason. There's lots more good stuff from Paul, just not romantic. This is a 'so-last-version' whitepaper describing five common high-availability and disaster-recovery architectures deployed by customers, along with a case study of each. Although the white paper is specific to SQL Server 2008 R2 and isn't updated for AlwaysOn features, it's still … [Read more...]
Recorded Webcast Available: Extend SCOM to Optimize SQL Server Performance Management
Join me and Eric Brown, Quest Software senior product manager for SQL Server monitoring tools, as we discuss the server health-check capabilities of Systems Center Operations Manager (SCOM) in this previously recorded webcast. We delve into techniques to maximize your SCOM investment as well as ways to complement it with deeper monitoring and diagnostics. You’ll walk away from this educational session with the skills to: Take full advantage of SCOM’s value for day-to-day SQL Server monitoring Extend the capabilities of SCOM to proactively manage SQL Server performance Troubleshoot … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Video Tagged With: DBA, Monitoring, Quest Software, SCOM, SQL Server 2012, System Center, Troubleshooting, Video
Review the New Migration Guide to SQL Server 2012 Always On
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Cephas Lin, of Microsoft, last year at the SQL Saturday in Indianapolis and then later at the PASS Summit in the fall. Cephas has been writing content for SQL Server 2012 Always On. Cephas has recently published his first whitepaper, a migration guide to SQL Server AlwaysOn. Read it and then pass along any feedback: HERE Enjoy, -Kev -Follow me on Twitter! … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: High Availability, SQL Server 2012, White Paper
Two TechNet Radio Sessions You Don’t Want to Miss
I was recently honored to speak on TechNet Radio in two separate sessions about BigData & Hadoop and cloud databases (specifically SQL Azure). The show debuted on the TechNet homepage under “Today’s News” and on the TechNet Edge homepage. In each of these shows, I did what I like to do for all the parties I attend - bring a friend. To make my life easier, I simply reposted the verbiage that TechNet used, rather that to write my own. About the BigData/Hadoop video: Microsoft SQL Server MVP Kevin Kline and Vice President of Database Development at Quest Software Guy Harrison (blog | … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Architecture, BigData, Cloud, Databases, NoSQL, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Video Tagged With: Azure, BigData, cloud computing, Crowdsourcing, DBA, Developer, Hadoop, NoSQL, Quest Software, SQL Server 2012, Video
Azure Trust Services
You might have noticed that Microsoft has recently launched a cool set of Trust Services for Azure. This is an application-level encryption framework that can be used to protect sensitive data stored on the Windows Azure Platform. One of the hindrances to adoption of Azure that I keep hearing about is trust and security. If you want to learn more about protecting your data in the cloud you can read up HERE. I'm not pushing you to get into Azure (even though you should), nor am I subtly trying to make you feel guilty for ignoring the cloud in general nor Azure specifically (subtle, ain't … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Cloud, Databases, NoSQL, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: Azure, cloud, Developer, Security, SQL Server 2012
