Month: October 2009

Cloud-based database thoughts before #SQLPass

#SQLPass
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Next week at the PASS Summit, I’m presenting a session called “Yes, I’m Actually Using The Cloud.” I’ll be talking about what’s out there, why I use it, and why you might want to use it too. Brendan Cournoyer of SearchSQLServer.com interviewed me recently about the topic and asked questions like: For those who are…
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Bottlenecks and Bank Balances

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Pop quiz: should you be worried if your SQL Server’s page life expectancy is averaging 214? There’s only one correct answer: it depends.

Performance tuning is all about finding the RIGHT bottleneck, focusing on it, and fixing it to the application owner’s satisfaction. Learn what happens if you don’t do it right.

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Travel Tips for Non-Frequent Flyers

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If you’re traveling to one of the upcoming fall conferences, here’s a few of my favorite travel tips – as inspired by Kevin Kline’s recent travel tips post.  (If some of these familiar, it’s because I originally ran parts of it last fall before the conference season.) Use SeatGuru.com or SeatExpert.com to get the best…
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#SQLBingo: Meet nice people and learn their safewords.

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Stuart Ainsworth (Blog – Twitter) had a killer idea: what if we had a Twitter bingo at the PASS Summit?  We could print cards ahead of time, and attendees would run around the Summit trying to meet the celebritweeps.  Next thing you know, #SQLBingo was born.  Here’s how it works: BINGO! Step 1: Before you…
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StackOverflow #DevDays San Francisco Recap

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I didn’t know what to expect from StackOverflow DevDays, and I was pleasantly surprised. In a nutshell, the presenters showed the basics of several different programming environments, but it was anything other than “Language X 101.”  This was top-gun coders showing the pros and cons of their particular language, taking very sharp questions from very…
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Update on the PASS Board Elections

#SQLPass
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I don’t reread blog posts after I’ve read ’em once.  If there weren’t comments when I first read the blog post, I’m not likely to go back to check later to find out what’s going on. However, I published one post recently that you might want to reread.  I interviewed Matt Morollo about why he’s…
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Microsoft SQL Azure: The Flat Pack Database

Microsoft Azure
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Erika’s friends call her “Fancy Feast” because she only likes the best things in life. She’s got champagne tastes, but we can’t afford to buy the best of everything. I recently picked up a coffee table from Ikea, and it got me thinking about SQL Azure.

In a perfect world, I’d have on-premise SQL Server for every database. I’d use cutting-edge storage and cluster everything. But this isn’t a perfect world…

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Bad News, Good News, Worse News

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Ran across a funny situation in my test lab, and it’s only funny because it was my test lab. The bad news: backups started failing a few days ago. One of the databases had a filegroup that wasn’t online, and as my maintenance plan looped through the list of databases, it died when it couldn’t…
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Meet PASS Board Candidate Matt Morollo

#SQLPass
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The PASS Board of Directors election starts on October 12th, and we’ve got four really well-qualified candidates to choose from: Brian Moran (Twitter) Jeremiah Peschka (Blog – Twitter) Matt Morollo (Twitter) Tom LaRock (Blog – Twitter) You can read their bios at the PASS Candidate List, and they’re good, but I wanted more. I emailed…
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Meet PASS Board Candidate Tom LaRock

#SQLPass
2 Comments
The PASS Board of Directors election starts on October 12th, and we’ve got four really well-qualified candidates to choose from: Brian Moran Jeremiah Peschka (Blog – Twitter) Matt Morollo (Twitter) Tom LaRock (Blog – Twitter) You can read their bios at the PASS Candidate List, and they’re good, but I wanted more.  I emailed each…
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Meet PASS Board Candidate Brian Moran

#SQLPass
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The PASS Board of Directors election starts on October 12th, and we’ve got four really well-qualified candidates to choose from: Brian Moran (Twitter) Jeremiah Peschka (Blog – Twitter) Matt Morollo (Twitter) Tom LaRock (Blog – Twitter) You can read their bios at the PASS Candidate List, and they’re good, but I wanted more.  I emailed…
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What do you want to know about virtualization?

#SQLPass
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The PASS Virtualization Virtual Chapter is working with virtualization vendors to build an FAQ, and we’re going to hand it out at the PASS Summit in November.  We’re also working on a unique Q&A panel event talking about SQL Server & virtualization – more on that shortly. We’ve put together a one-page (well, one long…
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PASS Session Preview: DRP 101

#SQLPass
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I’m giving a presentation on Disaster Recovery Planning 101 at the PASS Summit in Seattle.  At past summits, I’ve struggled to pick good sessions to attend.  What’s the speaker’s real agenda?  Are they a decent speaker?  Can I see a short 3-4 minute preview of the material? This year I’m trying an experiment.  I’m recording…
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Why I’m Suspicious of Free Web Tools

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Twitter just lit up with people talking about Bundl.it, a service that lets you build one single link that points to multiple pages.  Tweet one short link to, say, your five favorite music videos.  Sounds great, right?  If only there was a way to have one single link that lets people find out about more…
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Just Say No

Humor
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The Moment We Won the War on Drugs In the 1980s, Nancy Reagan attempted to solve our nation’s drug problem by encouraging kids to “Just Say No” if they were offered drugs. According to my research performed while watching popular television shows like Burn Notice, CSI:Miami, Law & Order, and Spongebob Squarepants, it appears that…
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I’m a Microsoft MVP. No, seriously this time.

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I know it sounds crazy given my history.  Yes, I did write about how to become an MVP, and I did run an April Fool’s post about becoming a Natural Keyboard MVP, and then I had to run another post to clarify because people thought I actually *was* a Natural Keyboard MVP. Today, though, it’s…
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