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Year: 2011

My 3 Favorite Connection String Tips

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Always On Availability Groups, Development

Connection strings – boring topic, right? Well, it turns out there’s a few things that can save your behind. Tip 1: Build your application with 3 connection strings. If you want to scale, write your application from the start with 3 different connection strings: Writes and real-time reads Reads that can tolerate data older than…

Get Your Hands on SQL Server 2012 CTP3 in Five Minutes

Last Updated October 20, 2011

Jeremiah Peschka

SQL Server 2012 in AWS - It's like a cupcake kebob... but nerdier I really hate waiting for software to download. It’s a first world problem and I’m an impatient guy. Thankfully, you don’t have to wait through the hour long download of a SQL Server 2012 CTP3 ISO, Windows installation, and SQL Server installation…

Data Driven Promotions: How DBAs and Developers Should Ask for a Raise

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Professional Development

The Women in Technology lunch and panel discussion at the PASS Summit last week had a great topic: negotiation. When it came time to Q & A, I knew exactly what topic I wanted to introduce. How Should You Prepare to Ask for a Raise? It’s funny this was my question, because I don’t need to…

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Interview with #SQLPASS Presidents Rushabh Mehta and Bill Graziano

Last Updated February 12, 2017

PASS takes bloggers seriously. This is the third year I’ve been offered press-style sit-down interviews with members of the PASS Board of Directors. On Friday, outgoing President Rushabh Mehta (@RushabhMehta), upcoming President Bill Graziano (@BillGraziano), and PASS Marketing’s Alison MacDonald talked with me for over an hour about PASS, the Summit, finances, membership, web sites,…

Bill Graziano Supporting #SQLKilt Day

PASS Summit 2011 Day 2 Keynote Liveblog #sqlpass

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Time for another keynote liveblog. Let’s get started. It’s #SQLKilt day! Bill Griaziano is kicking things off in a kilt: Bill Graziano Supporting #SQLKilt Day 8:19am – Bill introducing Tim Radney and Jack Corbett as outstanding volunteers. 8:22 – Lori Edwards is the 2011 PASSion award for her outstanding work making this such a great…

sp_Blitz Output

Announcing sp_Blitz®: Automated SQL Server Takeovers #sqlpass

Last Updated February 12, 2017

I’m presenting right now at the Professional Association for SQL Server Summit in Seattle, and I’m just about to show my attendees the latest incarnation of my Blitz script. In the past, my manual Blitz script has helped DBAs all over the world discover ugly problems in SQL Servers. However, one thing has been bothering…

PASS Summit 2011 Keynote

Liveblog for #SQLPASS 2011 Day 1 Keynote

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Welcome to the big show! I’ll be liveblogging today’s keynote at the Professional Association for SQL Server Summit in Seattle. If you’d like to check out some of the photos I’ve taken so far, check out my Facebook album for the Summit. You can watch the keynote live, and refresh this page every couple of…

Downloading the PASS Summit 2011 Guidebook

Free Guidebook App for #SQLPASS Summit

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Want a complete session schedule, conference center maps, feedback forms, and more all on your phone? There’s an app for that. Go to Guidebook and download the app for your iPhone, Windows Phone 7, Android, or Blackberry. After launching it, you’ll be prompted to download a guide. Type in PASS Summit, and we’re near the…

Denali Release Date Guesses

Guessing the SQL Server Denali Release Date

Last Updated October 5, 2011

In July, I started a contest for readers to guess the SQL Server Denali release date. People can leave a comment with their best guess, and the closest guess wins a USB-powered 7″ monitor. Denali Release Date Guesses We can see their 113 guesses so far at right. We had a few readers who optimistically…

PASS Summit Tips and Tricks

Last Updated October 4, 2011

Wanna learn where to go after hours? What to take with you during the day? What to say to presenters? It’s all here in this week’s Technology Triage Tuesday webcast: Watch this video on YouTube

DotNetRocks Podcast

Last Updated September 4, 2011

Jeremiah Peschka

What’s a post about the DotNetRocks podcast doing over here? Turns out that I recorded a podcast! You can check it out on September 27th (that’s in just a few days). So what the devil did I talk about? It turns out that there’s some interested in the .NET library for Riak that I’ve been…

Kendra Little Explains How to Design Smarter Indexes

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Indexing, SQL Server

How do you know which indexes to create to improve your database performance? Microsoft Certified Master Kendra Little shows you how to find a missing index, decide on the best index definition, and measure the usefulness of your new index. If you know the basics of what a database index does and want to learn…

No, it's not me.

6 Blog Projects to Improve Your Writing

Last Updated September 13, 2011

You’re stuck in a rut. You’ve been writing the same thing for the same way for months. Dated is also a style. You’ve deluded yourself into thinking you’ve built up a style that works for you, but that’s the thing about style: it rarely lasts forever. As Heidi Klum says, “One day you’re in, and…

SQLservr.exe Mem Usage in Task Manager

A Sysadmin’s Guide to Microsoft SQL Server Memory

Last Updated March 5, 2017

Database servers suck, don’t they? Don’t you just hate dealing with these things? They’re totally different than any other server in the shop, making a mockery of any CPU, memory, and storage you throw at ’em. What the hell’s going on inside? Today I’ll give you the basics – starting with the question every sysadmin…

SQL Server in EC2

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Jeremiah Peschka

Always On Availability Groups, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

The cloud is robust and reliable. The cloud solves all of our scaling needs. The cloud makes my poop smell like roses. While all of these statements are theoretically true it takes some effort to make them true in reality, especially when a database is involved. Who Is Deploying SQL Server in EC2? A question…

Does This Transaction Log Make My Database Look Fat?

Last Updated July 20, 2013

Face it; your database doesn’t get much exercise. It spends its day sitting on the same old server in the same old rack eating garbage all day long. Sure once in a while it may go for a spin, but SSDs are chipping away at that. They may hop around in a VM farm, but…

All the better to store you with

Automated Tiered Storage for Databases

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Database administrators want just one kind of storage: fast. Companies want just one kind of storage: cheap. Since fast storage isn’t cheap, and we can’t put everything on slow storage either, we end up buying different tiers of storage. Let’s start by pretending that we’re buying a new HP DL370 G6 to act as a…

Encryption Demo 1

How Do You Mask Data for Secure Testing?

Last Updated September 1, 2011

Data masking, data scrambling, and just plain old obfuscation: these are ways to get developers access to production-quality data for testing purposes without actually giving them real production data. It’s much harder than it looks, though. The Easy Part: Obfuscating Data Developers love working with production data. Today’s privacy-concerned companies aren’t quite so keen on…

Indexing for Deletes

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Jeremiah Peschka

Indexing, SQL Server

If you’re only indexing to make reads faster, you need to think again. Indexes can make every operation in the database faster, even deletes. The Problem: Deletes are Very Slow I was lazily researching new development techniques one day when I received an email from a client asking why deletes could be slow. I rattled…

The Dedicated Admin Connection: Why You Want It, When You Need It, and How To Tell Who’s Using It

Last Updated August 27, 2017

There’s a DAC in SQL Server that you should know and love. Sadly, you probably either haven’t met or you’ve forgotten to turn it on. DAC? What’s That? First, a little disambiguation. The acronym ‘DAC’ is too popular. For the context of this article, our DAC is the ‘Dedicated Admin Connection’. SQL Server implements a…