About Me
In My Native Habitat
I’m a SQL Server expert.
I work for Quest Software, the makers of Toad, LiteSpeed, Spotlight, Capacity Manager and other cool tools for SQL Server.
Until 2008, I worked in the field until mid-2008 as a database administrator. I’ve done SAN administration, VMware implementations, and software architecture, so I’ve been involved with all kinds of aspects of databases. I’ve done everything from the hardware architectures to stored procedure tuning to index analysis.
What does a SQL Server expert do all day?
My day is broken up into 3 things: helping the community, learning more about SQL Server, and helping Quest build better products for database administrators.
Helping the community means being the Editor-in-Chief at SQLServerPedia.com, a wiki and blog about SQL Server.
Learning more about SQL Server means diving into features that DBAs don’t often use, don’t understand, or just don’t have the time to RTFM about. I take my experiences, blog about it here and at SQLServerPedia, and I record free SQL Server tutorial videos.
Helping Quest means that when the developers have a question about how DBAs would use a particular feature, when product managers need help with how a product interacts with SQL Server, or when support just flat out runs out of ideas, they call me or one of the other SQL Server experts like Kevin Kline. (Okay, they probably call him first.)
Where To Find Me Online
My job takes me a few places around the web:
- I chatter at Twitter.com/BrentO
- I’m Editor-In-Chief at SQLServerPedia.com, a training resource for DBAs
- I travel for conferences & seminars, and I keep my travel schedule at Dopplr
- I answer questions at StackOverflow.com
- My bookmarks on Delicious - RSS Feed - Delicious is a browser plugin that automatically saves all of your bookmarks to their servers. You can spy on what I’m saving as favorites, basically. I tag stuff with terms like sqlserver, performancetuning, inspiration, funny, etc.
- My shared items on Google Reader - RSS Feed - I subscribe to a ton of SQL Server blogs, and basically I’m weeding out the crap for you. When I share something, it’s *really* good.
Contacting me for SQL Server help
I’m not in the job market and I’m not looking for side work right now, but feel free to email me questions. I get around, ha ha ho ho, and even though I probably won’t know the right answer, I’ll probably be able to tell you where to go to find it.
