Year: 2008

Wanna go to #SQLPass? Send this to your manager.

Last Updated February 17, 2020

Dear Mr. or Mrs. Manager, Someone’s sending you this because they want to go to the PASS Summit conference. I’m Brent, a guy who’s active in the community and I’ve been to a couple of Summits, and they want me to explain why it’s worth the money. What’s the PASS Summit and How Much Does…

Why does utility support suck so bad?

Last Updated November 23, 2008

Brent Ozar

I’ve gone through two hellish customer support experiences lately with utility companies, and I just had a third. Want to know what it’s like to order phone service from Charter? After you go through the web site, put in your info, pick your plan and hit Submit, you get a live chat window. The formatting…

PASS Session on Analytics by Donald Farmer (#sqlpass)

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

George Box said, “Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.” Donald illustrated this point with a brief history lesson. Early models of the universe said the sun revolved around the earth, and with that model, marvelous things were possible in architecture, celestial navigation and science. Even though the model was wrong, it was…

PASS Summit Keynote Notes (#sqlpass)

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

Updates It’s Friday, it’s 8:30 AM, and it’s time for another keynote. 8:30 AM – Bill Graziano just rode out on a trike! 8:40 – Two sessions will be repeated today due to high demand. At 10:45 in room 604 they’re repeating the clustering session, and 2:30 in room 6E is SQL Server on SAN.…

PASS Summit 2008 Thursday Recap (#sqlpass)

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

PASS Board Election Results Dribbling In Andy Warren is in! He talks about it on his blog, and I got a huge chuckle out of this part: I didn’t have any idea what my chances were, I really didn’t do a lot of campaigning (hard to figure out a way to do it that didn’t…

PASS Summit Keynote by Tom Casey (#sqlpass)

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

I’ll be liveblogging this morning’s keynotes at the PASS Summit. Refresh this page for the latest news. 10:02 – Tom’s focusing on the ROI of BI, and suddenly I get it. The database engine works great. Now we’re bolting things on top of it to make every end user in the company see the value…

PASS Summit 2008 Wednesday Recap (#sqlpass)

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

Aside from my liveblog of Ted Kummert’s keynote this morning and Jimmy May’s presentation on partition alignment, a few other things caught my eye today. I talked to JC Cannon about his SQL Server 2008 Compliance Guide. I’ve written here about it before, but it bears repeating. If you’re not here at PASS, and you…

Jimmy May explains Partition Alignment (#sqlpass)

Last Updated July 13, 2020

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass, Storage

Before attending this session, I’ve always gone to KB article 929491 article on partition alignment. I thought I kinda sorta understood what was going on, but Jimmy’s presentation drew on the best graphical illustrations to show it. Not to mention his audio stylings like, “Holy correlated wait stats!” Get your binoculars out Partition alignment is…

PASS Summit 2008 Wednesday Keynote (#sqlpass)

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

I’m liveblogging the keynote this morning on here and on my Twitter feed. Go to this page and refresh it periodically to get the latest news as it happens. Updates are at the top of the page to make reading easier during liveblogs, and I’ll reverse it tonight for easier reading later. 10:08 – And…

PASS Summit 2008 Tuesday Recap (#sqlpass)

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

PASS Election Update I’m seeing a theme on the interwebz: lots of endorsements for Andy Warren and Tom LaRock: Andy Leonard posted his vote on Twitter for Andy Warren, Lynda Rab and Tom LaRock (SQLBatman). Brian Kelley posted his endorsements on SQLServerCentral for Andy Warren and Tom LaRock. Steve Jones posted his endorsements on SQLServerCentral…

PASS Summit 2008 Monday Recap (#sqlpass)

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

Great SSIS Boot Camp by Brian Knight Brian’s a fantastic presenter – really funny, really engaging, and can answer questions on his feet. The one-day presentation was a great way to get started, and I ordered his Professional SSIS 2008 book to answer my questions as I start digging into SSIS. One indicator of a…

More Thoughts on SSIS Twitter Integration at #sqlpass

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

Yesterday, Andy Leonard and Jessica Moss announced that their Wednesday 3pm class on SSIS scripting will cover Twitter integration. In today’s SSIS Boot Camp by Brian Knight, I spoke with some DBAs about the Twitter idea. The initial reaction has been, “Why would you want to do that? Twitter is so unreliable.” True: us database…

PASS Summit 2008 Sunday Recap

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

I flew in yesterday and spent some quality time with some other folks who were lucky enough to fly in early, and by “quality time” I mean eating and drinking. I only got a handful of photos. Listening In on DBA Conversations The funnier momentos were the things we overheard. If you follow me on…

Use SSIS? Like Twitter? Wouldn’t it be great if….

Last Updated November 16, 2008

Brent Ozar

@AndyLeonard: “You got your SSIS in my Twitter!” @JessicaMMoss: “You got your Twitter in my SSIS!” That’s right, like peanut butter and jelly, we’ve got a hookup that produces better than the sum of its parts. Andy and Jessica will be unveiling their magic at their PASS session on Wednesday at 3pm in room 602. …

PASS Board of Directors Election Update

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

PASS has posted the list of candidates, but there’s no bio info yet. Fear not – the community is doing a great job of not just keeping up, but getting ahead! I love communities in the age of social networking. TJay Belt is doing a great job of centralizing information about the candidates for PASS…

So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star, Part 2

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

Professional Development

If my blog entry yesterday about my job as a SQL Server Expert at Quest Software sounds cool, then listen up: I’ll let you in on how to get a job like this. Be Really Passionate About Your Field I have the coolest job in the world – for me. My job would be absolute…

My endorsements for the PASS Board

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

When I was a DBA, before I got this “rock star” job, I didn’t have the time to get involved enough with the SQL Server community to really know the people running for the PASS Board. I had a “real job”, and when I cast my vote, I was basing my decision off a paragraph…

So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star

Last Updated September 6, 2009

Brent Ozar

I loved the flash-in-the-pan band Semisonic, best known for – okay, only known for – their hit song Closing Time. I thought the rest of their stuff was just as brilliant (She’s Got My Number is one of my favorite songs ever), but I was in the minority, because they disappeared off the rock radar…

New SQL Server 2008 Compliance Guide

Last Updated January 15, 2009

Brent Ozar

A while back, Bryan Oliver, David Gugick and I went to Redmond to take part in a SQL Server 2008 auditing and compliance lab. JC Cannon and other Microsoft SQL Server 2008 pros talked about the new 2008 features that help DBAs with their SOX/HIPAA/PCI/etc compliance needs. I’ve dealt with some of these regulations in…

What would you ask Microsoft and PASS?

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

What if you could sit down with these guys and ask ’em any questions you wanted: Tom Casey, Microsoft SQL Server BI General Manager. Tom’s giving the Thursday keynote about SQL Server’s business intelligence strategy beyond SQL Server 2008. My guess (and this is only a guess, not based on any behind-the-scenes info) is that…