Showing posts with label SQL Community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SQL Community. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Pro SQL Server 2012 Practices Chapter 18 Review Tuning for Peak Load



I'm on a Book!

Hello Dear Reader, early last year I was asked if I would like to contribute to a book.  The concept was get a lot of really great SQL People together and let them write a chapter on a subject that they were passionate about.  Eighteen different top SQL professional’s, at least two MCM’s, many MVP’s, Shake Stir and you get our book, Pro SQL Server 2012 Practices.

Having only written once chapter I hadn’t read the others.  I had an idea I’d read the chapters and then blog reviews.  I shared this idea with Mr. Grant Fritchey (@GrantFritchey|Blog), check out his review of Chapter 12 yesterday,  and he suggested that we get all of the authors to blog reviews.  A lot of people signed on and we’re releasing our reviews one at a time. 

My first review is on Ben Debow’s (@BBQSQL | Website) chapter Tuning for Peak Load.  Ben is a co-founder of SQLHA with MVP Alan Hirt(@SQLHA | Blog).  Ben is a speaker, very active in the SQL Community, and an all around expert.

“So Balls,” you say, “Get to the review all ready!”

Alright Dear Reader, away we go!

TUNING FOR PEAK LOAD

Ben does an amazing job of stepping through many different tools that you can use to assess your environment.  First Ben identifies what Peak Load is.  He talks about the people that should be involved in the process of identifying and tuning for this period, and really steps through the business logic of why these different people should be involved.  Your mileage may vary based on how large or small your shop is, but in bigger shops he is spot on.  He goes on to talk about how you identify where you are today.

This is an important concept.  You cannot measure improvements, or if changes were detrimental, without first knowing as much as possible about your current environment.  We start at a 10,000 foot view of a setting up a topology diagram, Ben also lists a detailed table of Attributes to gather on your servers.  Next up we begin doing a performance assessment.

Ben weaves his way through Perfmon, gives you counters to monitor, and reasons for why you would want to collect them.  We move into a discussion of how to gather profiler data and recommendations what counters you would want to collect.

We move next into Observations.  Ben walks through metric’s he has collected and what they tell him.  This is invaluable to a DBA.  You often hear professionals say “Collect this data” if you’re lucky you hear them say “You want these numbers”, in this case he tells you how he interprets the numbers and what they could mean.  I’m stressing could, because this will help you in diagnosing your server, but each environment will be different.

We move into using PAL, http://pal.codeplex.com, to interpret and report on our Perfmon counters we’ve been collecting.  A quick aside if you want to set up PAL and get it working  read the documentation, there are two add ins.  One is tools for Office 2013 Web Components, another is Microsoft Log Parser, not listed but required as well is Microsoft Chart Controls for Microsoft.NET Framework 3.5.  If you do not have that last one you’ll get a nice little .NET error when trying to generate the report.

From there we move onto DMV’s and gathering index statistics.  Ben discusses gathering Index Usage Statistics from sys.dm_db_index_operational_stats, no script is listed to verify, but the columns discussed are from sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats.  As long as you get the right DMV the content is solid and I found the Costly Indexes description very interesting!

Finally Ben helps you devise a plan to actually implement the analysis into a plan you can implement.  The thing I love is that you can ask 20 brilliant SQL minds to do the same thing, and you’ll get 20 different variations of the same thing.  Ben looks for some things that I had not considered.  I enjoyed the chapter immensely and look forward to implementing what I’ve learned.

If you pick up the book please feel free to drop me a line and tell me what you think!

As always Thank You for stopping by!

Thanks,

Brad

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Pro SQL Server 2012 Practices



Hello Dear Reader.  Every now and then professionally you get to be a part of something really cool.  Back in the spring of 2012 Jonathan Gennick of Apress contacted me about participating in a book.  His idea?  Get together a lot of really amazing SQL Server Professionals in order to write on subject they were passionate about.

The list of professionals involved was one that made me immediately want to own the book.  When I got the chance to help I jumped!  I wasn't alone.

The companies whose employees collaborated on this book come from Red Gate SoftwareSQL Skills,Brent Ozar Unlimited, Pragmatic Works, and many others.  They are MVP's, MCM's, and regular old SQL Community folk like myself.

We all decided to write blogs reviewing/describing each others chapters.  I will be listing and updating them here.

If you're interested here is a link for the book on Amazon.  Big Thanks to Apress, Jonathan, and my fellow Authors!


Reviews/Summaries

Jes Schultz Borland @grrl_geek

1/14/2013   Book Review: Pro SQL Server 2012 Practices Indexing Outside the Bubble


Herve Roggero  @hroggero

1/15/2013 Chapter Review:  The Utility Database (By Chris Shaw) and how it applies in Cloud Computing 


I'll be updating this page on my blog daily as we crank out new reviews.  All the authors have pitched in and we'll be writting them out one day at a time.  Tomorrow SQL MVP Chris Shaw (@SQLShaw | Blog) all around awesome guy will have his review  on Compliance and Auditing. Thursday the Dr.  of Database Design himself SQL MVP Louis Davidson(@drsql | Blog) is up on Release Management.

Hope to see you then!

Thanks,

Brad

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

SQL Live 360 Kicks off Today!




Hello Dear Reader!  Today in beautiful Orlando FL at the Loews Royal Pacific Resort the Live 360 Conference kicks off.  Live 360 combines 4 different conferences into one.  Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL Server, and Cloud & Virtualization all have their own conferences.  I’m helping to kick off the SQL Live 360 by presenting not once, not twice, but three times today!  

Before we dive into the content I want to say a big Thank You to my wife Silva.  Every time I’m presenting at a conference she’s taking off work to be at home and manage the kiddos.  Without her none of this is possible for me.  Thanks Silva!

“So Balls”, you say, “What are you presenting on?”

Excellent question Dear Reader.  We will be kicking off the day with Trimming Indexes Getting Your Database in Shape, next up is Transparent Data Encryption Inside and Out in SQL Server 2012, and we end the day with the Page & Row Compression Deep Dive in SQL Server 2012.  Conferences are expensive and I want to make sure that you get the most out of your experience.  So to help you decide if you should be spending your time with me, I’m placing the decks and demos online now.  They are also live on the Resource Page.  Attendees should have a copy of all of this information on their conference CD, but just in case you didn’t find it here we go!



KICKING IT OFF WITH A BANG


If you’re in town for the conference I hope you get a chance to stop by.  Here are the abstracts for each presentation:

Trimming Indexes Getting Your Database In Shape
Indexes are a wonderful thing.  We should be using them, and we should be maintaining them.  But over time our production databases start to look a little pudgy around the mid-section.  Maybe they are a little bloated with Unused Indexes, maybe they have Duplicate Indexes, and possibly even Reverse Indexes.  The first step to fixing these problems it so see if you have them, and if you do the second is to set about fixing them. You could be costing yourself CPU cycles, I/Op’s, and space and never even know it.




Transparent Data Encryption Inside and Out in SQL 2012
Security is a very important part of your job and in how data is utilized.  We have many tools to make data more secure, and starting in SQL 2008 we were able to add Transparent Data Encryption to that list.  Find out What it does and What it doesn’t do, How it effects Read-Only Filegroups, Performance, Compression (Backup and Row/Page), What the X.509 Encryption Standard is and Why you should be careful of what you store and where, and other Advance Features as well as some tips on how to manage it.

Slide DeckDemos

Page & Row Compression Deep Dive with SQL Server 2012
Page and Row Compression are powerful new tools. Page & Row with SQL 2008 RTM, and Page & Row with Unicode Compression with SQL 2008 R2, and Spatial Types in SQL 2012.  We can turn it on, we can turn it off, but we want more!  What are Access Methods and how in the SQL Engine do they affect Compression?  What are the “Gotchas” of Page Compression?  How does Compression differ in the way it treats Non-Leaf & Leaf Level pages?  What additional functionality did we get in DBCC Page, DMV’s, Perfmon Counters, and Extended Events to support our usage of Compression?  How do complex query plans affect Compression?  Come find out!


Slide Deck, Demos

LUNCH!

That’s not all, on top of having 3 great sessions to choose from if you’re still not sick of me we’ve got a speaker round table on Wednesday where I’ll be hosting a table on SQL Server 2012 and new features.  While I may not have presented on them there are a lot of great 2012 topics like Columnstore Indexes, Always On Availability Groups, Always On Clustering Improvements, and more that we could chat about.

Great SQL People like MVP’s Jen Stirrup(@JenStirrup | blog), Grant Fritchey (@GFritchey | blog), Allen White (@SQLRunr | Blog),  Thomas Larock (@SQLRockstar | Blog), and William Pearson (@Bill_Pearson) will be there hosting different tables as well!


WRAP IT UP


Okay with that being said, it should be a fun filled week of SQL Learning.  There will be some wonderful night time activities as part of the conference as well. 

  I won’t make it to all of them, Wednesday night is the baby’s Christmas play at her day care can’t miss that!  For the rest of the week though I look forward to getting to see you all.


If you are in town I hope you get to stop by and say “Hi BALLS!”, and have a great time!

Thanks,

Brad



Thursday, September 27, 2012

SQL Saturday 151 Interview: Stacia Misner





Hello Dear Reader SQL Saturday 151 is just around the corner.  If you haven't registerd there is still time to sign up now, click here!

Tomorrow kicks off with our Full Day Pre-Con's at the with Kevin Kline(@kekline | Blog) of Quest Software and Stacia Misner (@StaciaMisner | Blog) of Data Inspirations.  Click Here to read more about our DBA Pre-Con  and Click Here to read more about our BI Pre-Con.  There are still a few seats remaining so if you haven't signed up do so today!

Stacia was kind enough to sit down and have an interview with me running a wide gambit of topics.

We talked about Teaching being involved in the SQL Community and of course the up coming Pre-Con.

I hope you enjoy!


1.       What got you into IT and then into SQL Server as a Career?  Was the move to work with SQL Server straight to BI or where you ever a DBA?

My first official job in IT was as a installer/trainer for a software company that developed applications for tractor dealerships (which eventually customized for car dealerships as well). My mom had been one of the original employees there as a developer and thought it would be a good opportunity for me.

 She wasn't working there when I started working there, but in later years she did rejoin the company although we worked in completely different departments. My job was to travel out to tractor dealerships and get their IBM System 36 installed and configured and then to teach the personnel how to run their business using the computer.
Most of them had been on manual systems. I did some custom reporting development for them because, of course, canned reports in the software never answered the questions that management really had.

When we started moving our applications to PC-based systems, we had a database backend and that's where I started to learn how to write SQL queries but I didn't know anything about database management. Fast forward many years and I was in another software company as a project manager for custom development in the legal industry. I stumbled on Business Intelligence while I was looking for information on the Internet to use to train up a new employee on project management skills.

I read about cubes and thought this had to be valuable to the types of reporting and analysis that we were trying to incorporate into our software, and that's when my career veered off into BI. At the time, I managed a team of Lotus Notes and Java developers, and we extracted data from our Lotus Notes databases into Oracle databases so that we could do more sophisticated reporting than we could in Lotus Notes. I went straight from that in to BI - I've always been involved in one way or another in getting data out of computers into a format that people need for analysis. 



2.       You just moved to Alaska, why Alaska and what do you love about it?

I moved to Alaska because my husband told me when were dating (many, many years ago) that he would be happier living with me in a shack in Alaska than he would in a mansion in (somewhere I forget now).

So I wanted him to prove it to me! But more seriously, he's a country boy and was never very happy in our city homes. To rectify that, we were looking for property out in the country somewhere in the Western states a couple of years ago and a long-lost childhood friend of my husband's called during that time and described where he was living in Alaska. It had everything we were looking for, except it wasn't as close to an airport as I required. So I said I would put up with the travel inconvenience as long as I could get a decent Internet connection, which we made happen, and so here we are!

 Travel inconvenience is putting it mildly. It's quite an ordeal to get in and out of here - but it's an amazing place to be while I'm home. We're still getting set up and stocked up, but I love the access to fresh foods from the sea and from nature - we have all the salmon and halibut and other types of fish that we could ever want, plus wild mushrooms (chanterelles and morels) and a variety of edible seaweeds. We'll be building a greenhouse for year-round veggies. I go for a walk almost every morning when I'm home - rain or shine - and walk about 3 miles with a neighbor and see more deer (and sometimes bear and bald eagles) each day than I see people in a week. It's a beautiful view and environment, and I'm really glad to be here!



3.       You’ve had the opportunity to travel to many different places and teach to many different people and audiences.  What has your favorite experience been as a teacher?  What was your favorite location to travel to?
I have lots of favorite experiences as a teacher.  I really like to experience a place through its foods and I had a list of foods to try during the week I was there. It was my personal food scavenger hunt!

Each day at lunch I would ask my students to help me identify what was on our lunch menu to determine what I could cross off my list. On Thursday, I was asked if I would join some of the students for dinner to get some of the other items on my list. I assumed we would be going out to a restaurant, but I was invited to a flat that one company had rented for the students they had sent to my class and they cooked dinner for me.

Meanwhile there was an incredible storm outside - hurricane force winds in Warsaw! But we had such a wonderful time enjoying homemade food and they were telling me Polish folk tales as we waited out the storm. And to cap it off, one of the students told me she had used one of my books in a college course (which she had neglected to tell me all week until that night!). That evening was truly a memorable experience!

 As for my favorite location, that's more difficult question to answer because there have been so many places and so many wonderful people that I can't single out just one!


4.       How has the SQL Server Community, and/or being involved with it, affected your life?

Being involved in the SQL Server Community has given me the opportunity to meet people from all around the world. On a personal level, my husband is on a mission to acquire a certain breed of dog which is not commonly found in the US, so he found breeders in other countries and suggested I go to these places and I thought - I KNOW people in those countries who I could ask for help with the language, etc. How nice is that?

On a professional level, it's extremely helpful because I have a network of like-minded people that I can connect with regularly which is so important as an independent consultant who doesn't have an office full of co-workers. I've been able to participate in many projects as a result of having met people through community and I've been able to connect people that I know with clients that need their sort of expertise.

Having this network as a result of the SQL Server Community also helps me keep aware of important happenings and trends in the industry, provides a sounding board when I'm dealing with challenges, and keeps me motivated to keep learning more and to see the same old things in new ways. 

5.       Last year you attended SQL Saturday 62 in Tampa and later you were at SQL Rally in Orlando, this year it is back to Orlando for SQL Saturday 151.  What keeps you coming back to visit the SQL Server Community in Florida?
I have a lot of friends I like to see in the SQL Server Community in Florida and it's a nice place to visit most times of the year!

6.       Your Pre-Con looks fantastic, if I was speaking to someone at an HR/Training department who should I tell them they should send to attend?

The Pre-Con is going to cover a lot of ground, although it is specific to the BI features in SQL Server 2012. The people who will benefit the most will be those who have some familiarity with earlier versions of SQL Server BI because I will talk about the things you need to know to make the transition more easily and I'll point out what's most important in the new features. If you're completely new to BI, you won't have the right context.

Anyone responsible for BI architecture, solution development, or BI support would benefit from this Pre-Con if a SQL Server 2012 upgrade is on the horizon, or if you're wondering why (or if) you should bother with an upgrade. 

7.       Why is BI so important to the business world?  Do you have any stories about how BI investments help change or shape a company that you worked with (that you can tell without breaking any confidentiality agreements)?

BI is so important because there are so many questions and there is so much data, but it's not so easy for a business person to find the answer to their questions. The structure of the data that is necessary for capturing transactions just doesn't lend itself well to summarization and comparative style queries. I don't think any of my clients would say that BI revolutionized their business.

 Instead, they would say that having BI has freed up their time so that they can spend more time thinking about what to do in response to what they learn from BI rather than spending all their time trying to gather the data and piece it together to make sense of it somehow. 


8.       I’m a DBA, why would I want to learn about BI?
I know enough about DBAs to know that there are different types of DBAs, so I would say it depends... I think you need to understand enough about BI to determine which tool is right for which job and then shift the work where it will get the best performance with the hardware and BI developer resources available.

You might even be an accidental BI developer, if not now, maybe soon. There is no escape from BI! The bottom line is that the business wants data for analysis, yesterday. The easier you make that process and the faster you can deliver, the more of a hero you can be.

9.       Your presenting Data Visualization in Reporting Services during the SQL Saturday 151 event, how does this tie into the pre-con?

They're actually unrelated. My Pre-Con focuses on SQL Server 2012 whereas my Data Visualization presentation talks about what you can and should do in Reporting Services to tell the right story, and that's applicable regardless of what version of Reporting Services you're using.

That said, I will also delve a bit into spatial data visualization which is SQL Server 2008 R2 feature along with some other items that were introduced in that version, but the main theme of the session is about design techniques - good and bad.

10.   If you could give one bit of advice to someone starting out in the IT field what would it be?

Find your passion and run with it, as long as you can see how it solves a business problem. Everybody likes different aspects of technology, which is good thing else we'd all be in each other's way.

When you find what you're passionate about, you don't mind spending extra hours learning about it, whether you're getting up early or staying up late. You want to eat, breathe, and live it while everyone around you thinks you're nuts! But that passion pays off when you can use it to help others solve their problems.

The more problems you can help people solve, the more valuable you are, and the more you want to learn so that you can expand the range of problems you can solve. It's a vicious cycle!


As Always Dear Reader Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you Tomorrow and this Saturday!

Thanks,

Brad


Monday, August 20, 2012

Please VOTE for Me: PASS Summit 2012 Lightening Talks




http://www.flickr.com/photos/cyndydoty/2087680308/
Hello Dear Reader the PASS Summit is approaching and with that the program committee sent out a request for Lightening Talk Submissions.  Last year I was able to give a lightening talk, 24 a 5 minute Horror Story, about one of my worst on call shifts ever that unfolded during a 24 straight hours.  It involved the wrong RAID Drive being pulled, having to rebuild transaction logs, Master going nuclear and having to rebuild the system tables and restore from backup, and finishing off with a little DBA Prayer called “Please God let DBCC CHECKDB run clean so I can get to sleep….”.  It was fun and I tried to do it with as much humor as I could given the situation.

This year the Lightening Talks have been extended to 10 minutes, and I’ve submitted another that is now up for community vote. 

“So Balls,” you say, “What are you presenting on?”

A very important topic Dear Reader and it is all about how to be a better DBA.  We all will go to the Summit and spend hundreds and in most cases thousands of dollars to attend.  What about the time in between?  

Once a year we have the largest get together in the World of SQL Server professionals.  After you go home how do you keep up with it?  Knowing where to look is the first step.  There are many many organizations that work tirelessly to keep the spirit of the Summit alive until we meet again, and you can get it without breaking the budget.  My topic is Get Top Notch Training for Free or Next to Nothing.

GET TOP NOTCH TRAINING FOR FREE OR NEXT TO NOTHING

Top Notch, You've said it all.

  The greatest thing about Microsoft SQL Server is the SQL Server Community.  I would use it as a major selling point if I were a Microsoft Rep.  

Save thousands of dollars, yep.  Get features included with Enterprise Edition that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars with other vendors, check.  Has a community of millions of users who bust their butt’s regularly to give free training, documentation, assistance, and put on over 100 free training clinics in 2012 alone, Check.   

I admit I am biased here.  Most technologies have a gathering and professionals that go out of their way to help others.  You would be hard pressed to find one as grand in scale and scope as the SQL Server Community.  Without further ado here’s my Abstract:

The greatest thing about SQL Server is its Community. This is always spotlighted at the Summit, but throughout the year there is Free Training offered by Top SQL Minds, MVP's, and MCM's alike. Learn about Webinars, User Group Meetings, and SQL Saturdays and how to keep your SQL Learning going all year long.


There’s a lot to be gained by going to the big conferences, but if you’re in a shop where the budget isn’t there you don’t have to miss out.  My company Pragmatic Works has free training on the T’s (Tuesday and Thursday’s), SQL Skills has their Insider video’s, The Brent Ozar PLF has weekly webinars, Idera has the Ace program, and you name it (and sorry to anyone I left out) we've got it!

Not to mention the PASS Virtual ChaptersDBA, DBA Fundamentals, Performance, PowerShell, Big Data, Business Intelligence, and more!  Want a preview of the great content you will get at the PASS Summit 2012 look no further than the 24 Hours of PASS, once again completely free.

Want to be able to reach people in person and network?  Maybe you should attend a SQL Saturday, check out SQL Saturday 151coming up in Orlando Saturday September 29th, where the same people and many of the same presentations given around the globe are brought to the local community.  

Want community more than once or twice a year?  Check out your Local SQL Server User Group http://www.sqlpass.org/PASSChapters.aspx(SSUG to the uninitiated), where you meet the DBA’s that make up your local community, once again absolutely free.

Many conferences will give you a chance to get training that may not make it out to any of these channels (the Microsoft PSS team the CAT team and other Microsoft guru's), and I would argue that they are still very important and valuable reasons to attend.

However, knowing where to look when those conferences are gone and just a memory and notes on a page is priceless.  So this will be my presentation.  It will be chock full of links to resources, how to find information, what sites to go through (I still haven't mentioned forums!).  Better yet being a lightening talk we'll have some people in the room that may be able to contribute more as well!


Thanks,

Brad

Thursday, April 26, 2012

See you at SQL Saturday 130 Jacksonville!



http://www.flickr.com/photos/rohicks/4788477593/

Hello Dear Reader, this Saturday April 28th is SQL Saturday 130 in Jacksonville FL!  The good people from the Jacksonville SQL Server User Group have put together an excellent event.  If you are in the Jacksonville area, (or in FL or GA for that matter) and would like to make it to the event, go register here because we would love to see you!

On Friday the festivities kick off with a great Pre-Con Kevin Kline (Blog|@KEKline)  a full day on Troubleshooting & Performance Tuning for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2.  Kevin is one of the top guys in the SQL Server world, he is a Founding member of PASS and a former PASS President, he’s a SQL MVP, an author, and an all around great guy.  This is a full day of training that normally goes for hundreds of dollars, and right now it is only $120 for the full day.  Click on the link above to get more details.

“So Balls,” you say, “What will you be doing at SQL Saturday 130?”

We will get to that in a moment Dear Reader but first let’s go to the line up.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS   

When you go to a SQL Saturday you expect a great line up, and SQL Saturday 130 in Jacksonville is no exception.  Six different SQL Server MVP’s, Six different tracks, two SSAS Maestro’s, all in all over 36 Sessions of pure SQL fun.   As if this wasn’t enough it is free.  That is right Dear Reader, if you have not been to a SQL Saturday in the past you may not know this but they are completely free to attend.  For the full schedule click here.

“So Balls”, you say, “What will you be attending?”


With all of these great speakers it will be tough to choose where to go, but I’m going to do my best!

If you’re new to the blog you may not know this, but I LOVE Compression! 

 One of the most interesting stories on Compression in SQL 2012, in my humble opinion, is ColumnStore Indexes.  So I’m going to start out the day with my friend Gareth Swanepoel (Blog|@GarethSwan) to learn more about them as he presents The Fangorn Forest – ColumnStore Indexes.  Then I’m off to present on Page & Row Compression in SQL 2012 (FYI 99.99% of what I cover works in 2008 R2 as well).  Next I’m off to watch Tom Brenneman (@TomBrenneman)  present on, Job Common Sense 101- Don’t be that Guy!!.  Tom does a lot of work with the Pragmatic Works foundation, runs the Jacksonville SQL Server User Group, and whenever I’ve spoken with him is a very engaging man.  I’m sure his presentation should be very interesting!  

After that I’m off to see Pam Shaw (Blog|@PamShaw)  presenting Taking the Scary out of Monster Reports.  Pam is a flat out expert at SSRS, she recently presented at MagicPASS, my SSUG home away from home, and she is great.  If you work with SSRS I would recommend you stop by and watch her present.  Next up I’m going to attend Chad Churchwell’s (Blog|@ChadChurchwell) session on SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn for HA and DR.  I’ve had the pleasure of working with Chad since I hopped over to Pragmatic Works, and he is absolutely brilliant, Availability groups are one of the best things to come out of SQL 2012 and I’m really looking forward to seeing Chad’s take on them.  

Finally I’m going to finish off the day watching my friend Rob Volk(Blog|@SQL_R) present on Lego Sets: Relational Building Blocks.  I first watched Rob present at SQL Saturday 85 in Orlando last year, he is funny, engaging, and presenting on a topic I think EVERY DBA should learn about, Set Based Logic.  This is the mathematical foundation of how data set’s inside of SQL server work, and are the most efficient way to move and alter data vs. the Row By Agonizing Row approach (RBAR).  This should be a great way to end the day.

PAGE & ROW COMPRESSION IN SQL 2012

I’m presenting on my favorite topic, data compression.  And I hope you will stop by and join me if you are at SQL Saturday.  Here’s my abstract.

 “Page and Row Compression are powerful new tools. Vardecimal shipped with SQL 2005 SP2, Page & Row with SQL 2008 RTM, and Page & Row with Unicode Compression with SQL 2008 R2. In SQL 2012 we add Spatial Data Types. Get an overview into how each version of compression works internally. Learn how your Allocation Units will determine if your data is a candidate for compression. Understand how your tables Update and Scan pattern’s affect the compression types you should consider. And what you should you take into consideration for additional overhead.

This presentation is always a lot of fun, small crowd or big.  AS what our companies want to track continues to grow, our data volume will only continue to grow, and Compression will be a major component of how to handle that.  Come and learn how you should do it, and I’m not just talking turning it on and off, but really learn what are the internals of compression.  Learn how to decide what you should and should not compress, and walk away with a Monday Morning Checklist that will aid you if you are looking to apply this soon at your job.


SEE YOU THERE

As always Thanks for stopping by Dear Reader, I hope to see you at SQL Saturday and if you cannot make it to my session, I hope to see you at the event!

Thanks,

Brad

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Presenting on SQL Internals, Recovery Models, & Backups! OH MY Today


 Today I’m presenting “SQL Internals, Recovery Model’s, and Backups. OH MY!”, for Pragmatic Works.  I did this presentation once before for SQL Saturday 79 and it was a big hit.  I had a lot of great feedback from the people in the audience that day, and my friend Kendal Van Dyke (@SQLDBA | Blog) attended and gave me some great notes and tips. 

My goal is not to make you an expert, but to give you a good base knowledge so you can continue to learn on the subject.  There is a lot to cover and we will scratch the surface of a lot of topics.

“So Balls”, you say, “Why should I come listen to you talk about Internals if I’m not going to become an expert?”

Great question Dear Reader, let’s dive right in!

WHY LEARN ABOUT INTERNALS?

I’m not a mechanic, but if I was I would expect that I could look at that picture to the right and tell you what I see.  And I’m not talking, it’s a car and an engine, but what are the components.  What is that pink thing?   What about the blue thing?  I look at that picture and I know the basics and that’s about it.

I am a DBA, and if someone shows me a SQL Instance, a Database, or asks me to perform a task then I should be able to tell them a thing or two about it.  The more you learn about internals the more you know about what you use every day.

As I’ve continued to learn about SQL I’ve noticed some common terms, some information that formed a common baseline.  I want to pass that information on to you because l want to make it easier on you.  I want you to go out and learn, and this information will help you.

You need to understand how a Transaction Log works, that SQL has internal components, what the data hierarchy is, what Recovery Model’s are, how they affect the backups you will take, and how that will affect Service Level Agreements you have with your user. 

From ACID to Transaction Isolation Level’s we are going to make a run at it.  I’ll upload the deck and the Demo’s when the presentation is over.  Click HERE to go to my Resource Page and get a copy of the presentation and the Scripts. 

Click HERE to sign up and join me today!  I hope to see you at 11 am.

Thanks,

Brad


Friday, October 7, 2011

Top 4 Reasons Next Week is a Big Week

Hello Dear Reader, next week is a very big week for me SQL wise.  Family wise I will be missing the heck out of my wife and my kiddos while I’m half a continent away.   Just this last week my Bug lost another tooth, the baby got even cuter (don’t ask me how she does it constantly), my Big Guy got even bigger (seriously my 7 year old has pec’s), and my wife continues to be AWESOME, (the Bug and I had a conference and deliberated on this earlier in the week).  So while I’m missing all the other Balls, I’ll be busy out of my mind. 

“So Balls,” you say, “What’s keeping you so busy?”

No good way to say it other than list it.
1.       My First PASS Summit
2.       I’m sitting at the Bloggers Table at the PASS Summit
3.       I’m Presenting TWO times at the PASS Summit
4.       I’m the Professor of Compression Next Week For SQL University!

Any other week one of those items would keep me fully occupied.   Next week I will be utterly consumed learning, teaching, meeting, and greeting.  So let’s break it down a little.

MY FIRST PASS SUMMIT

This needs no introduction.  If you are involved with SQL Server you know that the PASS Summit is the biggest SQL Server Conference in the World.  Not North America, not Europe, not Asia, the WORLD.  The brightest SQL Speakers in the World will be there.  People from all over the Globe, experts from many many nations will be together in one spot.   Top Microsoft Experts, the Cat Team, many Microsoft Developers for the SQL Server Team, you name it the PASS Summit has it.

I’ve wanted to go to this event since I started seeing advertisements for it on SQLSeverCentral.com, for the last 4 or 5 years.   Getting to watch the streaming keynote last year just made my desire to go grow even more, and now here it is! 

If you have never heard of the PASS Summit then go check out the current website.  As if that isn’t enough I’m attending 2 of the great pre-cons that are being offered.    I will be blogging like a mad man while I’m out there so keep checking back Dear Reader, this should be a fun week!

SITTING AT THE BLOGGERS TABLE


http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2011/SummitContent.aspx PHOTO CREDIT: Pat Wright
I’ve blogged previously on The Top 5 Reasons You Should Be On Twitter, but I could add a 6th as well.  Opportunity.  On Twitter it was announced that PASS was accepting applications to sit at the Bloggers table.   I jumped.  Then I emailed the contact listed and WAHOO I was selected!   As a result I’ll have access to blog from a table of Blogger All-STAR’s and SQL MVP’s, and lil ol’ me J!

So not only will I be at the top event for SQL Server, I’ve got a front row seat.  I’ll do live blogging of the Keynotes, and attempt a daily re-cap.  As I snap pictures I’ll make sure to get them uploaded and attached to the blog.

PRESENTING TWICE AT THE PASS SUMMIT!


My wife’s best friend had a quote on her Facebook page that I feel describes me to a T, since she told me it I laughed and then I thought, “If I could only get that on a Family Crest”. ….  The quote “I’ve got 2 speeds; Off & M@Ther F#(king ON”.  That has been me my whole life, when I’m down I’m out.  When I’m up and running, there’s no stopping.

During this week I’m presenting a Lightning Round Talk 24-a 5 minute Horror Story, and  the Page & Row Compress Deep Dive.   I’ve been working on a lot of great Demo’s that I can bring to the table.  I presented the Deep Dive recently at SQL Saturday 85, and internally for my DBA team.  I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback, and I’m really excited to give this a 3rd time.   The 5 minute Horror Story is a real life adventure, with appropriate details blurred, from Father’s day 2009.   Show up to the session and you hear all about the wonderful world of a 24-7 on call DBA and why backups are so important.   Not just that you take them, but if something goes wrong that you grab a fresh set.

PROFESSOR OF COMPRESSION FOR SQL UNIVERSITY


Jorge Segarra (@SQLChicken | Blog)  is the Chancellor of SQL University.  If you’ve never heard of SQL U then you should head over there and take a look.  It is a web blog that collects the input from the experts in our field and has them write on a new topic a week. 

Think college syllabus but for SQL, with different Topics, and written by MVP’s & Experts.  I’m honored beyond belief to be among them, and starting next week I’ll have a Lead Up to the Deep Dive.  I’m still writing and formulating as we speak and a lot of this will get finished up Sunday to Monday.  But I’ll have a post a day on Compression.  We’ll start up slow and work our way through a set of topics that will help you understand Compression and feel good about taking it to your work and finding ways you can apply it.

Alright Dear Reader the break from blogging is over, time to get to the grind stone and get working!  I hope your week is a good one.

Thanks,

Brad

I’m On The NomCom! What’s a NomCom?




This is a blog I’ve been wanting to write for a while, I’ve been a little backed up and with the 2011 PASS Summit starting next week, now seemed like the perfect time.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrick-smith-photography/4525976964/
  Back in August PASS, the Professional Association of SQL Server, announced that they were seeking applications for the NomCom.  I like to participate in things so I started reading up on it.

I wasn’t as active at this time last year with PASS, I was on the ramp up to becoming more active, but I was still a couple weeks away from attending my first SQL Saturday.   So if you are not familiar with it there was a bit of controversy last year with the PASS elections and the NomCom.   I’m not going to go into it, but I researched it before I submitted my application and it is pretty easy for you to find on the IntraWebs if you are interested.

My participation on the NomCom is a direct result from last year.   In order to put more transparency into the process that is the NomCom, it was decided that PASS membership should have the majority of the seats.  So I’m a community representative as well as Roy Ernest (@RumblingDBA | Blog ) and ½ of my Future Law Firm of Bigun’s and Balls Newly Minted SQL MVP Jack Corbett(@unclebiguns | Blog).

After reading over what the commitment would entail and speaking with my family to make sure they were okay with it I put in an application.  

“So Balls”, you say, “What in the name of SQL Server does a NomCom Do?”

Great question Dear Reader.

WHAT’S A NOMCOM

PASS has announced that there will be a Board of Elections meeting this year, to learn more visit the PASS 2011 Election Website.  As part of the process people will fill out an application and submit to be considered for the election.  There are some pre-qualifications that they have to meet, you have to be working with SQL Server (Sorry Larry Ellison).... you get the idea.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mshahab/4935745220/
After all the applications that do not meet the pre-qualifications are taken out of the mix, the applications are then handed over to the NomCom.  We review them weigh  (fancy word for score) each based on a set of criteria that we received from the current Board of Directors.   We will interview the references  and eventually we will interview the applicants and weigh those interviews as well.

We will use these scores to form a rank, and then we will pass these candidates along to the Board, passing along the top number that the Board Requests to be considered as the slate for elections.   The board will review everything we have given to them.  If they are not satisfied with the slate of candidates we put forward.  They will push it back to us and give us new instructions.

So to make a long answer short, What does a NomCom do?  We are nothing more than a Nominating Committee, that ranks the applicants as best we can and hands that over to the current Board of Directors.   We will be doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Just a quick clarification about the criteria used to rank candidates.  We have been meeting for weeks reviewing what the Board has given us and asking for clarification where needed, and disagreeing with criteria where needed.   It has been a very civil and easy process.  Everybody wants the community to vote and decide who is best to serve on the PASS Board, and we are doing our absolute best to make sure that who the community wants they will get.

So basically, I have no power, and if people are unhappy with the results I will probably get a lot of people talking to me through the IntraWebs USING CAPS!!!!

WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO YOURSELF
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yorkie/188523375/

Well I do enjoy a good roller coaster.  And to be quite honest it felt like the right thing to do.  I’m not running for the Board of Directors.  Personally I don’t feel like I have the experience yet to where that would be a good fit for PASS or for me.  The election process though is a very important one, and it is one I believe deeply in for better or for worse.

America doesn’t ask much of you, but it does ask that you vote.  (okay it wants those pesky taxes too, but nobody likes them.)   You have a chance to shape the world around you every four years.  And for PASS you get that option a little more often.   I’ve gotten to meet a lot of the Board of Directors.   I like them, they are nice people, and they are very knowledgeable in SQL Server which gives us a common bond immediately.

But when I look at the SQL World around us I want to get more involved and help change things for the better.  We've done a lot of good work, but there is always more that needs some doing.

I’m not a deep insider.  I still grin like a kid with a backstage pass when I look around at the places and people that I’m going to work with.   Getting to hang out with guys like Jack and Roy still makes me grin ear to ear.  As if that isn’t enough rounding out the NomCom is Thomas Larock(@SQLRockstar | Blog) and the Immediate Past President of PASS Wayne Snyder (@SQLWayne ).

I’ll be writing more as the process moves along.  I’ve seen several people on Twitter announcing their intention to run for the board and I’m looking forward to this. 

Thanks,

Brad