Tag Archive: sql server training

SQL Server Index Tuning Tip: Identify Overlaps

Sometimes less is more – and indexes are definitely one of those times. Learn how to identify overlapping indexes and why they’re so bad for performance, and learn about SQL Server 2005’s new INCLUDE feature.

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SAN Multipathing Part 2: What Multipathing Does

Storage Area Networks (SANs) can do multipathing, but what does that really mean? I explain the differences between failover and performance load balancing, and talk about why active/active multipathing isn’t what it seems.

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SAN Multipathing Part 1: What are Paths?

In the beginning, God made drives directly attached to our computers. Over time, man decided to get jiggy with it and use Storage Area Networks. Learn why pathing is so important to these two systems.

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SQL Server Inventory Checklist

Richard Jones, a DBA in the UK, asked in with a question, and rather than giving my own opinion, I thought it’d be better to ask it here to get everybody’s opinion in the comments:
The DB team that I am a member of are about to take control of a number of SQL Server boxes [...]

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Upcoming Events

All kinds of webcasts and presentations coming up in the next couple of weeks:
May 14 – Quest Pain of the Week Webcast:
Developing Something for Nothing
Join SQL Server expert Brent Ozar and SQL Server developer Jeremiah Peschka in this webcast, as they discuss the free tools available to you to build solid, robust applications for free. They [...]

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Getting the most recent record

Sounds simple, right?  Just grab the max.  But what if you want to use a single T-SQL operation to fetch the most recent record and some of its attributes?
StorminSpank asked:
@BrentO SQL Question. 4 columns, ID, Date, Info1, Info2. ID has multiple entries. Want Latest Date for Distinct ID, but also info1 and 2.
Let’s say our [...]

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Certifications are the icing on the cake

Wondering whether or not you should get certified on something?
Experience is cake, certifications are the icing.
It’s hard to sell icing without cake.  Yes, there are some people who like to eat icing by itself, but frankly, those people are freaks.  They’re not healthy.  Something is wrong with them.
If you take an easy-to-get certification into a [...]

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Using aliases in multi-table queries

When joining multiple tables together in a query, use aliases every time on every field.
Say we’ve got two tables, Customers and Salespersons.  The Customers table has a PreferredSalespersonID field that identifies who their normal sales rep is, and that lets us quickly grab the right salesperson when a customer calls in.  We want to display [...]

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Free SQL Server DBA Training Videos

It’s tough for us SQL Server DBAs to get training.
Developers can get mentored by a more senior developer because it’s rare to have just one developer at a company: odds are, there’s a more senior person just down the hallway or in the next cube over.  Junior developers can ask ‘em questions, learn by reading [...]

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Should I Specialize?

A reader asked a great question, and I just had to share it in a more general form because it applies to so many of us production database administrators.
He’s currently a production SQL Server DBA, and his company’s bringing in a new application with a SQL Server back end.  He’s doing a good job as [...]

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WOOHOO!
Mar 3 - Day with the DMVs - free day-long webcast about performance tuning.

Apr 17 - SQLSaturday Chicago - I'm doing the keynote with Kevin Kline.

More Upcoming Events