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Meet PASS Board Candidate Tom LaRock

Brent Ozar
#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:

You can read their bios at the PASS Candidate List, and they’re good, but I wanted more.  I emailed each of them with a set of interview questions to satisfy my bizarre curiosity.  Today’s response comes from Tom LaRock:

Brent: First, thanks for volunteering to dedicate your time to the community. What made you decide to run for the Board of Directors this year?

Because there is more work to be done. I have an idea where I want PASS to be, and I want to help get us there. Being on the board allows for me to help the PASS Community as a whole. In return I get board-level work experience. See, my company is not going to let me be the COO for the next two years. But on the PASS Board I get that level of work experience, which is where I want to be with regards to my own career path.

Walk us through one of your typical workdays. What do you do?

That depends on who is asking and who is reading. Let’s just say I am currently the Database Administration Manager for a global investment management firm. I am responsible for production and project support and have a team of DBA’s located in India that provide wonderful support. My day is usually filled with routine tasks, meetings, and I get to listen to some music every now and then.

What parts of your day-to-day experience will make you a better Board of Directors candidate than the other candidates?

I do not believe I can answer that question in all fairness, as I do not know enough about what the other three candidates do in their daily routines. It would be wrong for me to assume that my experiences make me any better than anyone else. I can, however, tell you what I feel makes me a strong candidate. I believe that my ability to lead a disparate team of DBA’s located in other cities and countries gives me the experience necessary to lead a global organization such as PASS. You have to juggle a lot of things when dealing with global entities and managing people all over the world. I have that experience, both here and for PASS already, and not many other people have that same level of experience.

I’ve heard that the PASS Board of Directors is a time-consuming hobby to say the least, and at this point in our careers, none of us have tons of extra time. What other projects or things do you expect to have to cut back in order to make time for the Board? (I’d just like to give the readers an idea of how tough it is to prioritize things.)

Since I am already on the board, I do not expect I will need to cut back on anything. I expect that in the next two years I will find myself saying “no” more often so that I do not overextend myself to the point that my duties for the board suffer. It seems that with each passing day I get asked to take on new projects and I do my best to keep the end game in sight.

I believe social networking and Web 2.0 tools like Twitter, Facebook, and StackOverflow are changing the way DBAs interact with each other, get training, and solve problems. Do you agree or disagree, and why?

I agree that it has changed the way a subset of DBA’s interact with each other. And for those that use the tools it works great. I also believe there are many more DBA’s that are not as involved. While serving on the PASS Board I want to make certain we do what we can to get those people engaged and get them to contribute in whatever way they feel most comfortable.

Do you blog and use social networking tools? Where can DBAs find you online?

People can find my blog at http://thomaslarock.com, and I can be found on Twitter at http://twitter.com/SQLRockstar, Facebook at http://facebook.com/thomas.larock, and LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/thomas-larock/0/67b/b37. I enjoying interacting with people both online and in person. I am a naturally shy person and find it difficult to network with others, but I am doing my best to get better.

Do you have any conflicts of interest that may pose a challenge?

Not at the moment. Because I am not an independent contractor or work for a consulting firm there is less of a likelihood of a conflict of interest. In other words, my motivations during board meetings are for the best interests of the community, without consideration for any possible company or personal benefits. My reward for serving is professional growth, not financial.

Of course there are other possible conflicts, such as if I have to be in two places at once. There have been times when I needed to attend a PASS function and a non-PASS function. PASS always comes first, it’s that simple. At least for me, it is. For someone that is independent they may need to take care of business before something for PASS, and I respect that very much. That’s why it is important the Board have a mixture of members; some independent and some not.

If PASS put you in charge of increasing new memberships, what specific steps would you take?

Everything PASS does is with regards to driving new membership. So, a better question would be to simply ask: how do you plan to increase membership? And what I can tell you is that I have an idea as to what I want PASS to become and it is my hope that if we get there the memberships will naturally follow.

The simple version of my vision is to get PASS recognized as the best Professional Association for database professionals. When I was in graduate school I was automatically a member of the AMS (American Mathematical Society). As such, that was the association I would belong to if and when I became a mathematician. Now, imagine if every graduate student in CS, MIS, or whatever other tech field was enrolled as a member of PASS when they entered school? Over time we would be infused with new members, younger members, members who will stay members for a long time, members that will share with us their fresh ideas on how to make things better. Before you know it, PASS will be recognized as the same level as the AMS or even the AMA.

We can get there, and I want to help make it happen.

What do you think PASS is doing right to improve the day-to-day lives of database administrators?

PASS is an organization that is dedicated to the promotion of Microsoft SQL Server. There is more to SQL Server than just administration, so PASS is doing what it can to help all database professionals. And PASS does this by keeping three things in the back of their mind with every project: Connect. Learn. Share.

What do you think PASS could do better, and how?

Because PASS is a disparate, global entity there is one area that needs improvement and that is communication. We need to be able to communicate up and down the chain. I should mention that I feel we communicate better now than we have in the past, but we could always be doing a better job.

Sum up your goals for PASS in 140 characters or less:

Connect. Learn. Share.

Thanks for your time!  Readers – you can learn more about Tom and why he’s running at his web site.

Meet PASS Board Candidate Brian Moran

Brent Ozar
#SQLPass
1 Comment

The PASS Board of Directors election starts on October 12th, and we’ve got four really well-qualified candidates to choose from:

You can read their bios at the PASS Candidate List, and they’re good, but I wanted more.  I emailed each of them with a set of interview questions to satisfy my bizarre curiosity.  Today’s response comes from Brian Moran:

First, thanks for volunteering to dedicate your time to the community. What made you decide to run for the Board of Directors this year?

You know that I was a member of the inaugural PASS Board of Directors, right?

PASS launched 10 years ago. I was reading about PASS’s 10 year anniversary and thought “Wow, it doesn’t seem that long ago”. Then I thought that I must be getting old if 10 years didn’t seem that long ago.

I decided it might be fun to serve on the Board again. I use the word fun cautiously. Being a PASS board member is a serious commitment but I’m of the opinion that life is too short to do things that you’re not passionate about and don’t make you happy.

I’ve been working with SQL Server for the past 17 years. Yes, that makes me feel old too. I don’t want to sound corny; but I’m at a point in my career where I feel that I should be investing in the community that has helped shaped my professional existence and success for almost 2 decades. My experiences as a technician, an entrepreneur, and an executive will benefit PASS and the community. I’ll have fun doing it. So I decided to throw my hat into the ring.

Walk us through one of your typical workdays. What do you do?

Solid Quality Mentors (SolidQ) was built from the ground up as a virtual company. We have no dedicated office space anywhere in the USA, although now we do have some offices in other locations around the world. I work from home when I’m not visiting customers. Working from home is both a blessing and a curse. Typically it moves back and forth between those extremes multiple times a day.

I’m married and have two young (getting bigger every day) children. I try very hard to be around for breakfast and to help get them off to school, and I try very hard to stop work around dinner time and spend time with the family at least until the kids get to bed.

What’s my day like in between? It varies a lot. I do a lot of email. Virtual companies don’t have water coolers and conference rooms. We have Mentors and executives in most times zones around the world. I’m often doing email, while IM’ing one or more people, while listening in on a conference call.

I don’t spend as much time with customers as I did a few years ago. But I’m in the process of changing that. I liked playing boss man for a while. I joked with my wife and friends that it was like a grown up version of playing house. I swung a bit too far to the executive side of being an entrepreneur and I’m now swinging back a bit more towards my technical roots.

Among other things my current portfolio at SolidQ includes being the Business Unit Manager for our Relational Technology practice in the USA. That role requires a blend of tactical and strategic decision making. I interact with my peers on the executive teams around the world, our Mentors, our customers, and our partners. Most days it’s a lot of fun. Most days it’s very stressful. Most days I don’t get anywhere near the amount of work done that I had hoped to when I woke up that morning. Did I mention fun? Like I said, life’s too short to do things you don’t like.

Getting back to the curse and blessing of working at home. Sometimes I have to hit mute quick when I’m on an important call and the dog starts barking or the kids start fighting. At other times I feel incredibly blessed that I can take time out during the day to spend some time with my kids or readily go to events at their schools that would be difficult to attend if I had a ‘real job’. I’ve learned over the years that there are a lot of things that I can delegate to other people. I can’t delegate being a good husband or father. I prioritize those jobs on a daily basis even when I’m super busy with other professional responsibilities.

What parts of your day-to-day experience will make you a better Board of Directors candidate than the other candidates?

I’m not comfortable saying that I’ll be better Board Member than the other candidates. I know the other candidates, or at least know of them. All of the candidates are distinguished members of the community and have been very successful. We all have much to offer. The community will be well served by who ever is elected.

I’d prefer to focus on what makes me ‘me’ rather than what makes me better.

Did I mention I’ve been feeling old lately? “40 is the new 30” is my current mantra. I don’t ‘feel’ old (except maybe in the morning when I get out of bed, and definitely after the intense game of flag football I played a few weeks ago when I got stuck blocking a 6’9” 300 pound monster. ) But age does have it’s benefits. I’ve been a database professional for 19 years and I’ve been a SQL Server professional for 17 years. That makes me somewhat of an elder statesmen in the community.

Frankly, there aren’t many people in the world who have been doing SQL Server as long as I have. I moved to OS/2 based SQL Server from UNIX based Sybase and Informix back in the early 90’s when many people thought Microsoft technologies were toys suitable for hobbies and small mom and shop businesses. I always had a different perspective on the cost/benefit/feature set of Microsoft tools and I decided to plant my flag there. The old saying ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’ holds true in many areas and oddly enough data management and architecture fits into this category. The technology has evolved in amazing ways over the years. But data is still data. It’s in my blood after 19 years. 19 years of being a data pro gives me incredibly valuable perspective for where our industry has come from and where it needs to go.

I have a few other unique value propositions besides simply being old.

Perhaps most importantly; there aren’t many SQL Server professionals in the world who have the unique mix of large company, small company, technologist, speaker, writer, evangelist, entrepreneur, and business executive that I do. This gives me a varied and well rounded perspective of what the community needs.

I’m rarely accused of being humble and I’m very proud of the fact that I was one of the world’s first SQL Server MVP’s and was able to hold my own among the best of the best SQL Server experts in the world. I loved that part of my life, but I also had visions for other things and have had tremendous fun being an entrepreneur and executive with SolidQ for the past 7 years. I like to joke that we’re the world’s smallest global, multinational company. With 100+ Mentors around the world we’re not exactly tiny but we’re also not Coke or Proctor and Gamble. We do have mentors based on 5 continents and close to 20 countries and we have formal subsidiaries in more than 7 countries. I’ve learned a tremendous amount about strategic thinking over the years above and beyond the technical skills I’ve picked up over 2 decades. I’m confident that this unique blend of experience will help me be a successful advocate for the SQL Server community on the PASS Board.

I’ve heard that the PASS Board of Directors is a time-consuming hobby to say the least, and at this point in our careers, none of us have tons of extra time. What other projects or things do you expect to have to cut back in order to make time for the Board? (I’d just like to give the readers an idea of how tough it is to prioritize things.)

Sleep is over-rated. Plus I can easily cut out at least one meal a day which will of course help me cut down on restroom breaks. Collectively this will free up several hours a day so I’m not too worried. Joking aside; the PASS Board is a serious commitment. I don’t expect to need to cut anything out of my schedule but I’ve given my candidacy careful and deliberate thought and I’m confident that I can invest the time that will be necessary for me to succeed on the Board.

I believe social networking and Web 2.0 tools like Twitter, Facebook, and StackOverflow are changing the way DBAs interact with each other, get training, and solve problems. Do you agree or disagree, and why?

I would have disagreed until pretty recently. For better or worse, I’m OK admitting that I didn’t have a FaceBook page until about 3 weeks ago. My wife has had one for years. I set up a Twitter account just this past week. I had always thought; ‘heck, I’m on the computer all day. Why would I want to spend free time on the computer? I like FaceBook more than I thought I would.

I was on a conference call with SQL Server Magazine last week and a large topic of conversation was about the growing reality that Twitter is becoming a virtual, real-time peer support group for DBA’s and other SQL Pros. I was surprised to hear how valuable Twitter had become. I had always thought of Twitter as a ‘I’m about to eat a sandwich’ sort of waste of time. I’m starting to think that I’ve been wrong.

I was one of the world’s first SQL MVP’s and I earned that status by answering a bunch of questions on Compuserve. Who out there is old enough to remember Compuserve? I felt pretty good if I logged in to support the community 2 or 3 times per day. Tools like twitter are real time. Have a question? Ask it and maybe get an answer in a few seconds or a few minutes. Is that changing the way that DBA’s interact with each other? Absolutely.

I’d like to go on a tangent for a second. Don’t take this the wrong way; but I notice that a few of your questions ask about ‘DBAs’. I’ve heard a rumor that there are some SQL Server professionals out there who aren’t actually DBA’s. BI folks, developers, developers who are tasked with DBA responsibility but don’t think of themselves as DBAs? My past and current experiences in the SQL Server world have required me to pay attention to the varied demographics of people who think of themselves as SQL Server professionals. I’ll work hard on PASS to make sure we support all of those different types of SQL pros.

Do you blog and use social networking tools? Where can DBAs find you online?

I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never blogged. Not once. Ever. My excuse is that I wrote the SQL Server Update commentary for about 8 years and had a weekly That’s not quite a daily blog, but it was a lot of work. Especially since I would respond to a large number of reader comments directly. So it was sort of like a blog before blogs had even invented. I eventually got a bit burned out having a weekly deadline. I now write an op-ed piece for SQL Server Update just 1 time per month which is a nice balance for me.

I’ve been thinking about starting a blog and most likely will in the near future. I have a FaceBook page and I’m briancmoran on Twitter.

Do you have any conflicts of interest that may pose a challenge?

Do I have potential conflicts of interest? Sure. SolidQ provides training and this is certainly an area that PASS might consider moving into at some point in the future. Will this pose a challenge? Yes and no. Over my 19 year career I’ve often had to wear many hats at the same time. I was a SQL MVP for about 13 years and a journalist with SQL Server Magazine for 10 of those years. I often got scooped by my journalist peers on SQL Server news that I had known for months or years prior to the scoop hitting the news wires. Why didn’t I write it up? I was under NDA with Microsoft as an MVP. What’s my point? I know how to wear different hats and respect the fiduciary and ethical responsibility of each hat.

SolidQ benefits from a growing and dynamic SQL Server community. PASS benefits from a growing and dynamic SQL Server community. A rising tide lifts all boats. Will there be potential for come competitive overlap creating a potential conflict of interest? Yes, but fundamentally SolidQ and PASS goals are aligned which will make it easy for me to wear my multiple hats and honor the fiduciary and ethical duties that each hat requires.

If PASS put you in charge of increasing new memberships, what specific steps would you take?

I see two main reasons people might not be members of PASS. The first reason is that potential members know about PASS and don’t feel that the value proposition is strong enough to join. PASS is free, so it’s pretty low threshold to demonstrate PASS’s value proposition to become a member. I don’t think this is the core problem. The second main reason people might not be members of PASS is that they might not know about PASS.

I was at a SQL Server user group meeting the other night and spoke for a few minutes trying to drum up support for my candidacy. There were about 35 people there. I asked how many attendees were PASS members. 2 or 3 raised their hands. I then asked how many people knew about PASS. Another 2 or 3 raised their hands. That means that just more than 10% of the attendees had even heard of PASS. I was disappointed but not surprised. It’s my experience that many members of the community, even people active in user groups, don’t always know much about PASS. It’s my experience that many Microsoft employees in the field, whose jobs revolve around the data platform, don’t know much about PASS. This needs to change.

The first step in my strategy to increase PASS membership would be to create an evangelism and brand awareness campaign to make sure that all potential PASS members at least knew about PASS. I’d also make sure that all key Microsoft data platform employees know about PASS and feel that encouraging their customers to join PASS would benefit the interests of Microsoft.

Convincing people to join once they know about it? That’s a relatively easy task since PASS membership is free. But with that said, I’m convinced there are people who know about PASS, know it’s free, and still don’t join. That says something about the way that the PASS value proposition is explained to potential members. Helping potential members understand how and why PASS members can benefit them would be the second prong to my member drive execution plan. Increasing the value proposition would be the 3rd prong of my drive.

Take a look at the PASS home page. There’s no information on the home page that explains why a potential member might want to join. There’s also no mention of the fact that PASS membership is free. I’d start my membership drive by ensuring the PASS home page has a big, bold, impossible to miss section that shouts ‘Here are the value added reasons you should join PASS’. And I’d make sure the home page shouts out that membership is free.

What do you think PASS is doing right to improve the day-to-day lives of database administrators?

First off; remember those SQL Server pros I mentioned above who aren’t DBA’s? Is it OK is I say SQLPro instead of DBA?

I think PASS does a fabulous job in providing the world’s best live SQL Server conference experience. There are other solid events out there; but year by year PASS has been adding more content and value added aspects to the Summit. It outpaces anything else offered IMHO. Education like that provides a lot of value to SQLPros.

I hope no one gets made at me for saying this; but I’m not sure that the vast majority of SQLPro’s think that PASS does day in day out to improve their daily lives. Maybe PASS can offer free concierge services, limo rides, and a butler to SQLPros. That would improve my daily life. Joking aside; I think this is one of the most important areas that PASS should address. Ie, adding value to SQLPros day in day out above and beyond the education and networking offered at the Summit.

What do you think PASS could do better, and how?

In no particular order of importance…

I’ll start with what I mentioned above. PASS needs to be a resource to SQLPros day in day out. I might begin addressing that need by actually asking SQLPros what they might want PASS to do for them.

PASS needs to greatly improve their international footprint.

I’d like to see PASS take a leadership role in providing guidance to leading universities on the types of real world experience that SQL Server professionals need to succeed in the real world.

Like I said above, I believe PASS’s Community Summit is the world’s premiere live conference event. But there is always room for improvement. If more than 100 sessions are good would more than 200 sessions be better? I think so. Are conferences forever destined to be shoe horned into the formulaic pre/post con with 90 minute sessions in between? I think there are ways that PASS could offer deeper, more pervasive educational experiences during the Summit that fall outside this traditional model. I also think that all of the Summit content should be available in an online delivery footprint to all registered Summit attendees at no additional cost. I’d want video, audio, and transcripts of the speaker comments.

I’d like to see PASS make an investment in providing free ‘virtual machine’ environments that SQLPro’s could use to learn new SQL Server technologies. Frankly it’s too darn hard for a relational engine pro to pick up BI skills and vice versa. I think that PASS should be a resource for making this easier. Providing virtual sandboxes for users to play in would be a huge boon to the community.

I’d like to see PASS offer more guidance to SQLPros who are considering moving from a purely technical career to a technical/executive/mgmt career that is focused in the data management space.

That list isn’t comprehensive and like I said it’s not necessarily in order of importance.

Sum up your goals for PASS in 140 characters or less:

Positively impact the daily life of a SQLPro. Positively impact the long term career, financial success, and happiness of a SQLPro.

How to Get a Better Job

Brent Ozar
Professional Development
6 Comments

One of the most common questions I get goes something like this:

I’ve been working as an (insertJobHere) for a few years, and I’d like to start looking for another job as an (insertBetterJobHere).  How can I get started?

It depends on the phase of your career.

Phase 1: The Kindness of Strangers

When you’re just getting started – whether you’re fresh out of college or currently enrolled – you’re not going to know anybody.  You’re going to be cold-calling strangers, sending your resume to people you’ve never met, and hoping that you can knock ’em dead in the interview.

Headhunter Company Car
Headhunter Company Car

Examples of hiring methods for Phase 1 are:

  • Newspaper and online ads
  • Recruiters
  • Consulting companies

There’s two problems with Phase 1.  First, you’re going up against complete strangers.  People in Phase 1 are desperate, and they’ll do some crazy stuff to beat you out in the job hunt.  They’ll work for less money, they’ll lie about their resume, they’ll use their mom as a reference, you name it.  Getting a better job when you’re going up against strangers can be a nightmare.

Second, you’re going to work for complete strangers, which can be a living hell.  You won’t find out that they’re raving lunatics until after you’ve already quit your current job and gone to work for them.  Every time I’ve gone to work for strangers – every single time – I’ve regretted it within a matter of months.

Strangers hire other strangers when they run out of friends willing to work for them.

Phase 2: The Buddy System

After you’ve been working for a few years, going to local user group meetings, and survived a few reorgs, you’re going to know a lot of other people working in your same field.  You’ll even know people in unrelated fields.  DBAs meet project managers, end users, report writers, developers, and so on.

Everybody Loves the Buddy System
Everybody Loves the Buddy System

When it’s time for you to start looking for another job, you can put out the word among your contacts.  Because they’ve worked with you before and they know what a kick-ass worker you are, they’re likely to vouch for you.  They’re likely to tell you about jobs before they go into Phase 1 recruitment, because they’d rather hire you than a stranger.  You’re a sure bet, because you’re doing such good work.

The only way to get from Phase 1 to Phase 2 is staying in touch with people.

I can’t emphasize this enough – if you don’t learn to network, you’re going to be permanently stuck in Phase 1.

Networking sounds so slimy, but it just boils down to this: meet people, and keep in touch with the ones you genuinely like.  I used to think networking meant rubbing shoulders with greaseballs who were trying to sell each other stuff, but that’s not true at all.  Just keep in touch with people you like, and go to the places where they hang out to meet more people like them.  For database professionals, that’s the upcoming PASS Summit.

Befriend Buddies, Not Just Bosses

One fast way up the corporate ladder is to hitch your wagon to a rising star.  If you do great work for a great boss, you can both go places quickly.  I’ve taken that approach a few times in my career, and it’s served me really well.  I remember getting a call from one boss as soon as he’d changed companies, and he said, “I know what you’re making now.  I’ll give you an extra $X to come work for me at the new shop, and you know I’ll be good to you.”  Sold.  However, that’s not the only way up.

The programmer next to you today might be the CIO at another company tomorrow.  A few years ago, Matt Mullenweg was just another guy I ran into at Houston Wireless meetings.  I had no idea he was building something cool in his spare time, and since then, that little blogging platform has raised tens of millions of dollars in funding.

Look around you right now.  Your coworkers and customers are the only ones who will take your career to the next level, regardless of how unskilled and antisocial they seem.  Even if they’re really, really bad at what they do, it’s your job to make them look better and leave a permanent positive impression on them.  They might be your key to a better job down the road.

If you wait to network until you need a job, it’s too late – and you’ll be stuck in Phase 1.

What do you want to know about virtualization?

Brent Ozar
#SQLPass
2 Comments

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 page) survey asking:

  • Have you virtualized dev, production, DR, large database servers?
  • If you’ve virtualized SQL Server, what’s been the biggest benefit?
  • If you haven’t, what’s the biggest barrier?
  • What information do you need to confidently virtualize SQL Server?
  • What significant problems do virtualization vendors still have to solve?
  • Have you got any databases you’d like to virtualize, but the 3rd-party-vendor won’t support it?
  • What webcast topics would you like to see covered?

You can take the survey here.  We’d really appreciate your help.  Thanks!

PASS Session Preview: DRP 101

Brent Ozar
#SQLPass
2 Comments

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 video previews of my sessions to help attendees decide whether it’s a good match for their skillsets.  Let me know if you find this helpful, and we might think about organizing an official video preview gallery for PASS 2010.

Disaster Recovery Planning 101

In this session, I’ll cover SQL Server high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DRP) options at a high level.  I’ll explain the differences between HA and DR, what techniques are used for each, and the pros & cons of each option.  I’ll also cover some backup best practices, since neither HA nor DR take the place of backups.  I’ll finish up with some real-life lessons-learned from ugly disasters when database outages brought down entire companies.

Here’s a video preview of me walking through the first several slides in the deck:

[media id=24 width=640 height=500]

This won’t be a hands-on session with demos – I’m covering such a large number of HA/DR options that we won’t have time to show step-by-step implementations.  Rather, this session is meant for developers and accidental DBAs who’ve never built their own cluster, replication, or log shipping solutions, and they want to understand what to learn first.

I’ll be giving this session on Wednesday, November 4th 1:30pm – 2:45pm in room 613-614.

Next Monday, I’ll follow up with another video preview & abstract – “Yes, I’m Actually Using the Cloud.”

Why I’m Suspicious of Free Web Tools

Brent Ozar
5 Comments

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 than one page at once.

Like…a…BLOG POST.

Folks, whenever you create a link, you’re leaving a bread crumb trail of your history.  You’re building a list of things that you might want to go back later and reread.

What happens when someone wants to go back and hit that link 24 hours later?  Like if they bookmark your excellent list of programming tools that you built in Bundl.it, and they just bookmarked that page?

Are you sure Bundl.it is going to be around?

Are – you – sure?

This is why I’m really leery of any web tool that pops up without a business model.  If they can’t figure out a way to be profitable before they run out of money, then any data I’ve got saved with them will vanish.  Maybe it’s the DBA in me, but I know that data and backups cost money.

Just Say No

Brent Ozar
Humor
8 Comments
The Moment We Won the War on Drugs
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 people are still saying yes to drugs.

However, I’ve had more success managing my own personal task list with Nancy’s timeless catchphrase.  A friend of mine was asking me how I found the time to do so many things, and I answered, “I just say no.”  I started rattling off the things I’ve said no to – just this week alone – and I realized it’d make an interesting blog post, so here goes.

In one week, I’ve said no to:

  • Other departments – in a company of over 3,000 employees, there’s always somebody who needs SQL Server help.
  • Mentoring more people – I get a huge feeling of satisfaction by helping people grow their careers, and I’d love to help everybody, but at some point I’ve gotta draw a line and work on my own career.
  • Writing book chapters – a friend’s writing a book, and I’d love to help by contributing material.
  • Consulting clients – every now and then, somebody asks me to help their company optimize their SQL Server infrastructure.  I love helping, especially when I’m getting paid for it, but all work and no play makes Brent a dull guy.
  • Traveling to see family – in theory, I could fly to Mom or Grandma & Grandpa’s place, stay with them for a week, work on my laptop during the day, and spend quality time with them after work.  In reality, it doesn’t work out well.  I get too distracted, so I have to schedule this only when I’ve got a bare minimum of stuff going on.
  • Helping foreign language bloggers – we’ve had requests from foreign-language bloggers who want to syndicate at SQLServerPedia, but they need an English-speaking editor to clean up their stuff.  Coordinating those efforts takes time.
  • Blogging for SQL University – Jorge Segarra’s SQL University series is a brilliant idea, and I’d love to contribute posts and info.
  • Writing PASS Quiz Bowl questions – I was asked to write virtualization questions for the Quiz Bowl event.  I passed this off to the PASS Virtualization Virtual Chapter members.
  • Speaking at events – I’m on the road for 5 of the next 8 weeks.  In order to be a good partner for Erika, I have to be here at least half of the time.  (At least!)
  • Getting Microsoft certifications – if I’m going to make a run for the MCM, I have to pass the prerequisite tests, and I have to study for those.  I definitely wanna do it.
  • Side ventures – I’ve got a dozen ideas for things I want to build, like the Pheathr thing I’ve had half-baked for months now.
  • Podcasting – I’m supposed to be cranking out 2 podcasts a week at SQLServerPedia, and I’ve got no shortage of topic ideas.  Just a shortage of time.

The longer your career plays out, the more people will ask you for help.  You can either say yes and get frustrated because there’s not enough time, or learn to say no.  The key to knowing when to say yes and when to say no is having a perfectly organized task list.

How I Organize My Tasks

I use RememberTheMilk.com because it’s web-based, plus accessible over my iPhone. I divide my tasks into groups, which show up as different tabs in RTM. (The task list goes on WAY longer than this screenshot, trust me.)

My Remember the Milk Task List
My Remember the Milk Task List

When I first started using RTM, I just had task groups for Work, Personal, and Blog, but I’ve since really expanded ’em out:

  • Blog – topics I want to blog about.  I could start draft entries in WordPress for these, but I’ve got several dozen entries in here, and I like to keep WordPress clean.
  • Book – writing & editing work for my books.
  • Budget – long-term things I want to buy.
  • Dream Home – not tasks, but RTM is so gosh-darned efficient that I use it to keep notes on things.  I mentioned my Dream Home task list in my blog post about What I Want vs What I Can Afford.
  • Indie Label – tasks for my side consulting company clients.
  • PASS VVC – the PASS Virtualization Virtual Chapter.
  • Personal – things I need to do for Erika, my family, or my friends.
  • Work Development – I work in the marketing department, but when folks in other departments like dev ask me to do stuff, it goes into here.
  • Work Marketing – my 8am-5pm task list.
  • Work SSP Ideas – long-term things I’d like to add to SQLServerPedia.
  • Recurring – tasks that RTM automatically regenerates.  For example, I owe my boss a status report every Monday morning, but I don’t want that to clutter up my to-do list, because I only do it on a specific day.  Another example – get a haircut.  I never go into my Recurring list to see what I need to do, because RTM just sends me reminders when these tasks are due.
  • Shopping – stuff I need to pick up when I’m out and around.  Whenever I find myself out shopping, I double-check this list to see if there’s anything else I need to grab at that same store.
  • Training – things I’d like to learn.  I try to dedicate a set amount of time per month to keeping my skills up-to-date.
  • Wines – like the Dream Home group, this isn’t really a to-do list.  Although it kind of is – I must drink more of these tasty beverages.  I’m horrible at remembering wine vintages that I liked, so whenever I’m at a restaurant I can add to or check this list.

I can grant other people (like my boss) access to specific groups, like Work Development or Work Marketing, without them seeing all of my personal tasks.  That way, when we’re working together to prioritize my work, we can both see the same list of tasks.

I can’t say enough good things about RememberTheMilk.com and the Getting Things Done productivity philosophy.  The book is subtitled “The Art of Stress-Free Productivity”, and it really delivers what it says on the label.

Managing Incoming Work Requests

When someone asks me to do something, I ask what the deadline is.  I use that deadline to decide right away whether I’ll be able to deliver the task on time, keeping in mind the other stuff that’s already in my RTM task list.

If the task doesn’t have a deadline, then I make it clear to the requester that they’re in the list, and they can contact me anytime to request an update on what’s ahead of them in priorities.  However, the onus is on them – not me – to manage the task deadline.  If the task suddenly becomes urgent, they don’t get a shortcut to the top of my task list just because the task suddenly has a new deadline.  They still have to compete with everything else.

If the task has a deadline I can’t meet, then I say no.  Nothing personal – I just point to the list of tasks I have to do.  Since every single one of my to-dos is documented in RTM, I can instantly say, “I’d love to do ____, but unfortunately I’ve got ___, ____, and ___ on my plate already, and those will keep me busy past your deadline.”  If the requester demands a higher priority – and it happens all the time – I export the list of higher-priority tasks from RTM, email it to them and my manager, and ask for them to work together to sort out the priorities.  I truly don’t care what I work on first – I’ll be busy until the day I retire – so I just want to do what my manager needs first.

If the task has a deadline and I believe I can meet it, then I take ownership of the status updates.  I agree to meet the deadline, and I give them regular updates on whether I’m meeting that goal.

This simple process lets me deliver on time – but it also means breaking a lot of hearts by saying no.

You can either break hearts at the beginning by saying no, or break hearts later by not making your deadlines.  People will only forgive you for one of those two options.

Update: It’s About Your Learning Plan, Too

Steve Jobs once offered advice to Mark Parker, the President & CEO of Nike at the time. Mark tells the story:

“Nike makes some of the best products in the world, products that you lust after, absolutely beautiful, stunning products. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.”

You have to edit. There’s a million interesting tasks in your company, and a million interesting things you’d love to learn. You’re not going to be able to do them all. Focus is about saying no to a million things, and saying yes to only as many as you can really execute beautifully.

 

I’m a Microsoft MVP. No, seriously this time.

Brent Ozar
32 Comments

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 the real thing.  The announcement came down through official channels this time:

Official MVP Announcement
Official MVP Announcement

You could view the announcement yourself on Twitter, but you have to be following Zannabanana, and her feed is private.  Because, you know, it’s, like, NDA and stuff.  You wouldn’t understand.

Wait a minute – on second thought, this might be another one of those Twitter spam things.  Maybe her feed was private so that I’d beg to get in, like a reverse psychology thing.  I’m not saying I begged to her to approve my friend request, but – okay, so I begged.  Maybe it’s like a honeypot – one of those fake things set up to attract no-goodniks like me.

Wait – I’m not saying Suzanna Moran is a honeypot.  Because this might be legit.  Of course, it might be legit AND she might be a honeypot.  The possibilities boggle the mind – or at least my mind.

Assuming It’s For Reals

The last year of my life has been even cooler than the previous ones, and believe me, they’ve been pretty cool.  In the last twelve months, I’ve:

  • Traveled to England, Germany, Switzerland, and all over the US
  • Attended the PASS Summit and PASSCamp Germany
  • Co-authored a book with some of the smartest people I’ve ever met
    (although it might have a pirate ravishing a woman on the cover – I haven’t seen it yet)
  • Helped build a wiki and syndicate almost 40 bloggers
  • Started the PASS Virtualization Virtual Chapter
  • And finally, been recognized as an MVP along with my former BBnB cohorts Jason Massie, Tim Ford, and Tom LaRock.

Two things have made all of this fun and worthwhile.

First, you, dear reader.  I’ve always blogged in an effort to help other people do their jobs better, and interacting with you is a ton of fun.  I love sitting down each morning and firing up email & Twitter because there’s so many genuinely great people in the community.  Community doesn’t just mean developers and DBAs, either – there’s great people inside Microsoft like Andrew Fryer, Jimmy May, and Zannabanana (I think) who reach out from inside Microsoft too.

Second, Billy Bosworth, Christian Hasker and my coworkers at Quest Software who actually pay me to do this.  I am so grateful for the chance to serve the community, and to get paid for it is cool beyond words.  I really salute all those MVPs out there who have real jobs and yet simultaneously serve the community in so many ways – I just don’t know how you manage to find the time to work, write books, help others, and yet still maintain a family life.  I do this stuff full time, and it still stretches me thin.  Part of me even feels like I’m cheating, but if this job is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

My Pledges To You

I will never use the term NDA in public. It irks the hell out of me when people tweet from the MVP summit saying things like “There’s so much cool stuff here, and I’d tell you, but it’s under NDA!”  That’s elitist and vain, and it makes people feel excluded.  I pledge to keep my pie hole shut, and you can trust that I will because I see NDA stuff all the time at Quest Software anyway.  I’ve seen amazing tools in development ever since I came here, but I don’t talk about it because it doesn’t do you any good.  When it comes out, you’ll hear more than enough about it.  Trust me, I work in marketing.

I won’t cheerlead products. I won’t gushingly praise anything from Microsoft (or anybody) unless it’s really great.  I do genuinely cheerlead Microsoft stuff like SQL Server, Gemini, and the SQL Server Compliance Guide, but it’s because that stuff is killer.  If I didn’t like where SQL Server was going, I’d pick up my toys and go play in somebody else’s sandbox.  About a week from now, I’ve got a post scheduled that compares SQL Azure to Ikea furniture, and that should settle any doubts.  (It’s not that bad of a review – after all, I did just buy an Ikea coffee table.)

I won’t censor myself. I got recognized as an MVP for – well, I’m not sure what I got recognized for, but I’d be an idiot to change anything now.  It’s worked for me so far.

I won’t start coasting on my reputation. Because compared to the other MVPs out there, man, I’m a n00b.  I’m still stunned to be in a group of people like Kevin Kline, K. Brian Kelley, Gail Shaw, Grant Fritchey, Christian Bolton, Jonathan Kehayias, I could go on and on.  WTF, man?  How did this happen?  I gotta go track down Zannabanana and ask some tough questions.

But first – time to go update my profile on all my sites.  I’M AN MVP, DAMMIT!  WOOHOO!

Meet PASS Board Candidate Jeremiah Peschka

Brent Ozar
#SQLPass
5 Comments

The PASS Board of Directors election starts on October 12th, and we’ve got four really well-qualified candidates to choose from:

You can read their bios at the PASS Candidate List, and they’re good, but I wanted more.  I emailed each of them with a set of interview questions to satisfy my bizarre curiosity.  The first one to respond back was Jeremiah Peschka, and here’s our interview:

Brent: First, thanks for volunteering to dedicate your time to the community. What made you decide to run for the Board of Directors this year?

Jeremiah: You did. In all seriousness, though, I’ve tremendously enjoyed volunteering within PASS (both locally in Columbus, OH as well as with the Application Development Virtual Chapter) and I want to keep giving back to PASS as a whole. I also have some great ideas about how we can keep growing PASS and give more to the members throughout the year instead of over 3 days at the Summit.

Walk us through one of your typical workdays. What do you do?

On a typical work day I check up on any outstanding tasks that I had from the previous day, check on the nightly jobs, and make sure that none of the database servers have suffered a sudden, catastrophic failure. Generally I look for ways to automate checks for anything that could go wrong and then I concentrate on writing new stored procedures, performing index tuning, or doing performance analysis on the entire system.

What parts of your day-to-day experience will make you a better Board of Directors candidate than the other candidates?

Better than the other candidates? Barring my good looks and charm, I would have to say that I can’t give you an honest answer to that question since I don’t know two of the candidates beyond their online reputation. However, I do think that my community involvement and ability to work within constraints give me some solid skills that will be an asset to my tenure on the Board of Directors.

I’ve heard that the PASS Board of Directors is a time-consuming hobby to say the least, and at this point in our careers, none of us have tons of extra time. What other projects or things do you expect to have to cut back in order to make time for the Board? (I’d just like to give the readers an idea of how tough it is to prioritize things.)

This is a question that I had to answer for myself before I decided to run for the board. In the end, I hired a team of highly trained office ninjas to take care of my day job while I pursued all of my hobbies. Truthfully, this was a really difficult decision to make because I enjoy all of the things that I do. Luckily, I have some incredibly helpful volunteers both locally and with the App Dev virtual chapter who have been willing to step up and take a more active role in the day to day affairs of the user groups. There are a few other goals (pursuing the MCM certification) that I decided to put on hold for the next two years, should I be lucky enough to be elected, because I wanted to help PASS by joining the Board of Directors.

I believe social networking and Web 2.0 tools like Twitter, Facebook, and StackOverflow are changing the way DBAs interact with each other, get training, and solve problems. Do you agree or disagree, and why?

I agree with you 100% about this. These ‘instant on’ tools make it incredibly easy to find the answers to questions. Instead of googling/binging ‘SQL Server clear database proc cache’ I can send out a tweet and find out, in a matter of seconds, that the answer is DBCC FLUSHPROCINDB. Do you know how long that takes to find otherwise?

These tools have also helped me form friendships with a lot of great people, many of whom happen to be DBAs. The ability to instantly connect with people across the globe give us the ability to share information, expertise, and our free time in a way that we’ve never had before.

Do you blog and use social networking tools? Where can DBAs find you online?

I do blog and network socially on the intertubez. Here are all of the various ways people can find me:

You can also find all of my contact info on my blog: http://facility9.com/about/getting-in-touch/

Do you have any conflicts of interest that may pose a challenge?

Apart from being fairly opinionated, I do not believe that I have any conflicts of interest. Does owning an Oracle book count? I use it to prop my laptop up to eye level to reduce the risk of RSI.

If PASS put you in charge of increasing new memberships, what specific steps would you take?

I’d make it free to join PASS. (Hand over mic – They already did that? Why didn’t anyone tell me?!)

I would immediately reach out to the community to find out what more PASS could be doing to help out. But I wouldn’t just reach out to full time DBAs – I’d also reach out to developers, IT Pros, network admins. All of these people could benefit from PASS and, likewise, we could benefit from their knowledge and viewpoints as well. It sounds corny, I know, but I spent a lot of my early career as a developer, so I know all to well how things can look from the other side.

What do you think PASS is doing right to improve the day-to-day lives of database administrators?

I think PASS does a great job of aggregating some of the best SQL Server training on earth into a single conference.

What do you think PASS could do better, and how?

Well, I think this goes hand-in-hand with what I said earlier: PASS is more than just a 3 day training junket. It’s a massively distributed community with a wealth of knowledge and expertise spread across tens of thousands of members. There’s so much that we can do to grow our current members as technical professionals, speakers, and writers. And these are things that don’t need to happen at the conference, they can happen every day of the year by pairing people with mentors to develop their SQL, professional, speaking, or writing skills.

Sum up your goals for PASS in 140 characters or less:

I want to make PASS the best community experience possible.

Thanks for your time!  Readers – you can learn more about Jeremiah and why he’s running at his web site.

What’s On My Bookshelf?

Brent Ozar
15 Comments

After I unpacked my new home office in Chicago, I was struck by the oddball contents of my bookshelf.  You might get a kick out of the list of books I’ve kept around over the years despite moving from state to state.  I’m merciless about discarding books as soon as I’m done reading them, so anything that’s survived has to be pretty good:

My Bookshelves
My Bookshelves

Top shelf, from left to right:

Bottom shelf, from left to right:

  • 101 Salary Secrets – because of my frequent blog posts about the HR side of database administration, I get a lot of questions on the salary topic.  This book crams a lot of info into a tiny package.
  • The Stand – epic work by Stephen King that really captured my apocalyptic imagination.  I’ve read almost everything King wrote, but I keep going back to reread The Stand.
  • A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – my sister gave me this a few years ago and said it reminded her of me.  I still haven’t finished it, but I love it.
  • So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star – by the drummer of Semisonic, a flash-in-the-pan band I really liked.  Great book, too – reminds you that fame is fleeting.
  • The Art of War – by Sun Tzu, translated by Samuel Griffith.  I use lessons from this book at least once a week, and this would be the other of the two Brent-making-books.
  • Elements of Style – trying to improve my word skillz.
  • Getting Things Done – awesome productivity book.
  • Pygmy – by the author of Fight Club.  Couldn’t resist the cover and the author’s resume, and stashed this away for my next cruise.
  • The Whuffie Factor – everything you need to know about the way the world will work five years from now.  The job market is already changing, and this book isn’t just for businesses.  It’s for IT people too.
  • Unorthodox Strategies from the Art of War – the problem with picking up The Art of War is that it can be cryptic and tough to imagine as relevant to our daily corporate lives.  Sawyer helped me get into The Art of War for the first time.
  • Financial Peace – I declared bankruptcy back in 1996, and I had one hell of a tough time figuring out how to manage my finances.  Dave Ramsey’s book gave me the answers, and I’ve been really happy ever since.  The advice ain’t easy to implement, but the really good things in life take hard work.
  • I Am America (And So Can You) – I really believed my first book would be something like Stephen Colbert’s, a big package of hilariously strung-together falsehoods.  Maybe it’ll be my second.  Books like this call to me because there’s none of that fact-checking crap.
  • Talent Is Never Enough – it’s pop psychology motivational crap, but it’s right.  (Note: it has come to my attention that this book is not in the bookshelf photo.  That’s because it’s currently in my bathroom – I rotate books through there regularly.  Probably too much information, but somebody’s going to notice.  Just so you’ve got proof that I own it, I’ve taken a picture of myself with the book before.)
  • Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything – you can’t believe everything you read, especially in this book.  It’s filled with dot-com companies that were destined to be The Next Big Thing, and now half of them have gone belly-up.  Good read though.
  • The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer – you can judge this book by the cover.  I’d never done any running before picking up this book, and it got me to my first 18-mile run.  It teaches you everything you need to know to train for a marathon – and I mean everything.
  • The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide – most geeks probably read this in high school, then discarded it.  I reread parts of it periodically to remind myself of the kind of writing I strive for.
  • Tax Savvy for Small Business – I started an LLC last year and I keep kicking myself for not doing it sooner.  Unbelievable tax paybacks.

Now, having seen my oddball bookshelf, are there any books you’d recommend to me or the readers?

Using SQL Server Without Monitoring Software is Like Overdriving Your Headlights

Brent Ozar
Monitoring, Wait Stats
1 Comment

The strength of your car’s headlights, the speed of your reactions, and the power of your brakes determine how fast you can drive safely at night.

Deer in the Headlights
Deer in the Headlights

Your headlights give you enough warning time to hit the brakes and stop your car before you hit an object. The better your headlights, the more distance you can see ahead, and the faster you can drive with confidence.

Let’s say your car’s headlights illuminate 350 feet in front of your car. Sure, you can see reflective signs from much farther away, but if a pile of lumber fell off a truck on the highway, it’s not going to be covered with reflective paint. To find out whether that 350 foot distance is far enough, we need to know three things:

  • How fast is your reaction time? – What’s the length of time you see the pile of lumber until the time your foot starts to move on the brake pedal? This length of time is affected by your alertness, your training, your muscle speed, and the iPhone you’re playing with while you’re driving.
  • How fast is your car going? – At 60 miles per hour, your car traveled 132 feet in the 1.5 seconds it took before your foot began to push the brake pedal. The faster you’re going, the more distance your car will travel.
  • How good are your brakes? – A Porsche 911 can stop from 60mph in 100 feet. If you’re going faster, or if your brakes aren’t as good as a 911’s, then you’re going to eat up more distance.

These factors combine to determine your safe stopping distance. Michael Schumacher might be able to drive at 100mph in a Ferrari using candles for headlights. You, however, are pushing the limits of your talents at 30mph even with those expensive fake xenons you installed on your Civic Si. Err on the wrong side of this formula, and you’re doing what’s called overdriving your headlights. People often learn this when the state trooper fills out the forms explaining why they hit the deer.

Monitoring and Forecasting: SQL Server’s Headlights

Most of us don’t bother with predictive analysis – we gather statistics with Perfmon, the DMVs, wait stats, and so on, but we’re looking in the rear view mirror – not ahead of us. Heck, some of us don’t even go that far; we wait until our phone rings and the users scream about dead bodies – uh, I mean, dead queries – lying around. We don’t have the time to project future growth and capacity needs because it’s a painful, time-intensive process with the native tools.

Serious performance tuning, though, requires looking ahead. Imagine being the head DBA for the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ systems: you simply can’t afford to wait until your end users call about lag times. You have to predict performance needs as far ahead as possible in order to design and implement an infrastructure to support those needs.

Unfortunately, there’s no quick and easy way to forecast how much our SQL Server CPU, memory and storage needs are going to grow in the next twelve months. DBAs can build their own data warehouses with performance data sourced from the DMVs, wait stats, SQL 2008’s Performance Data Warehouse, or Perfmon counters. To anticipate future needs and look down the road, the DBA would build time-based reports that use historical information to predict the future. This is left as an exercise for the reader.

Another approach is to use your company’s financial metrics to predict system loads. DBAs in the financial industry often relate their system loads to stock trading volumes. They know that at a certain level of stock trading, their systems will have a certain level of loads. Instead of guessing SQL Server load directly, they can look at their financial analysts’ predictions of future stock volumes and use those to predict SQL Server activity. Your business may have similar transaction volumes – sales quantities, employee head counts, or widget production rates – that can help you guesstimate future database loads.

The farther down the road you can see, the more time you buy for reaction and braking.

Reaction Times in the DBA World

Reaction times measure the lag between your monitoring software’s alerts and your first action. Take one step backward if you’ve got an Outlook rule set up to automatically move all performance alerts out of your inbox and into another folder for later perusal. Uh-huh, I thought so. If you want to get a job driving the Ferraris of SQL Servers, you’re going to need to break the rules – specifically, your Outlook rules. Michael Schumacher didn’t win titles driving cars with automatic transmissions, and you can’t do serious SQL Server performance tuning by ignoring alerts.

The first challenge is to reduce false alarms coming from your monitoring system. Reconfiguring your monitoring system can be a constant challenge, especially if your monitoring systems are controlled by a different group in the company. This is one of the things I like about SQL Server monitoring software – the dashboard metrics show a historical high/low range, so you’re only alerted when a metric is outside of the established norm for a given server. Some even refine their baselines based on the day of week and time of day, because a CPU load metric that’s perfectly normal for noon on a workday might be completely out of the ordinary on Saturday at 9AM.

The second challenge is to be able to act faster when the alert comes in. In my experience, reaction times seem to be grouped in sizes of companies:

  • Small companies with one DBA – as soon as the DBA sees the alert, they either know right away exactly what action they’re going to take, or they have to hit the web to figure things out. They don’t have more senior DBAs on staff who may have seen a particular problem before, so some problems take longer than others to research before reacting.
  • Midsize companies with a couple/few DBAs – one DBA might be on call, but they may not know exactly what action they’re going to take right away. They may need to get approval from other DBAs before acting, or they may have security restrictions that stop them from taking serious actions like rebooting servers.
  • Large enterprises with multi-tier support groups, rigid policies, and run books – some problems are handled autonomously by help desk staff or first level support, and more serious problems are quickly escalated to the appropriate staff.

Each type of company has different solutions for reducing reaction times, and this sounds like a great idea for a future blog post series.  Note to self…

Braking Times: The Time Required to Fix Things

Just Like The Ones On Your Neon.
Just Like The Ones On Your Neon.

Just as race teams improve their stopping power by using new tools like ceramic brakes, you can use more advanced technology to help you solve problems faster. Some of the examples include:

  • Clustering improves your reaction time when dealing with broken server hardware.
  • Database mirroring helps you recover from a borked SAN or page corruption quicker.
  • SQL Server Enterprise Edition helps your database mirroring become even more powerful by compressing the data and by fetching corrupt pages from the mirror.
  • Virtualization can give you high availability for servers that might not ordinarily be able to afford HA.

Just like ceramic brakes, which can cost upwards of $10,000, none of these technologies are free. If you wanna go seriously fast, you gotta spend serious money, despite what you heard from that guy selling “Type R” stickers on eBay. Start by improving your reaction times first, because that’s free.

Another Giveaway: Keyboards and Mice

Brent Ozar
48 Comments

Dayton Brown and Netster won themselves 120gb USB hard drives a couple of weeks ago in my Clean Brent’s Office Contest, but now that I’m settling into my new home office in Chicago, I’m finding even more unneeded gear lying around.

If Only I Had Something Insightful to Type
If Only I Had Something Insightful to Type

I have no clue how this happened (well, that’s not true – I have a pretty good clue, but I’m too ashamed to admit my stupidity on the blog) but I’ve found myself with half a dozen keyboards and another half-dozen mice.

Drawing time!

Prize Package #1: a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 and a Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000

Prize Package #42: a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 and a Microsoft Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer 2.0

Prize Package #11: an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and a Microsoft Wireless Presenter Mouse 8000.  Includes a Microsoft USB Bluetooth adapter.

Leave a comment by Sunday the 27th, and on Monday the 28th I’ll draw a winner.

In your comment, put the number of the prize package you’d like to win (only one). This introduces a little strategy; should you pick one you think nobody else will pick, or do you pick the one you really want?  Good luck!

Only one entry per person.  US residents only, because shipping overseas is complicated and I’m lazy.  No purchase required to win – all comments on this entry will be completely free of charge!  It’s your lucky week.

All of this gear is used – albeit lightly, because what human being in their right mind can use this many input devices at home?!?  None of this stuff comes with warranties or batteries, though, so your mileage may vary.  Odds are it all works – I don’t keep stuff around when it breaks, as evidenced by the fact that I’m not holding a drawing for the many Ethernet cables with busted jacks that I’m throwing away.

Update 9/29 – the winners were Brett Flippin (#1), Matthew Chestnut (#42) and Jack Corbett (#11).  Congratulations, guys!

How to Deliver a Killer Technical Presentation

Brent Ozar
Writing and Presenting
60 Comments

It’s presentation season – time when we start crafting our slide decks for the PASS Summit, the SSWUG Virtual Conference, SQLBits, SQL Connections, the QuestConnect Virtual Conference, you name it.  Today, I’m passing along my presentation tips, and starting at the end….

How to End a Presentation

Call to Action
Call to Action

Marketing gurus say that in order for audiences to really respond to your message, you have to finish up with a call to action: a specific thing you want your audience to go do.  At the end of a successful presentation, your attendees will want to act on your words, but they’ll need your words, your sample scripts, and your recommended reading links in order to do it.

Don’t make the audience scribble down a dozen long links and bullet points.  The people at the back of the room will strain to see the screen, and even if they care enough to write ’em all down, they’ll probably get a lot of it wrong.

Make it easy for your audience by putting everything they need in one place.

Bring People to Your Web Site

Build a single web page on your site with:

  • Your slides
  • Your recommended reading links
  • Your scripts in a downloadable format
  • Your related blog posts on the topic

Yes, include the slides.  Some people like to print out a copy of the slides later as a reminder.  Some people might be so inspired by your talk that they’d like to repeat the same talk to their own user group.

Scared of them stealing your work?  Don’t be – they’re probably still going to use your resources page because you did such a great job of compiling a ton of useful links in one place.  This in turn brings more people to your site, and when those new visitors come to your site, they’ll know the presentation was yours.

To build a short URL, WordPress bloggers can use the GoCodes plugin, which gives you your very own URL shortening tool.  After installing it, click Tools, GoCodes, and you can build your own short links.  If you don’t use WordPress, sign up for an account at Bit.ly and generate your own custom shortlinks.  Make the links catchy.  For example, in my performance tuning presentations, I point to https://www.brentozar.com/go/faster.  It’s easy for me and the audience to remember, and it makes people chuckle.

Update The Page Over Time

After the presentation, you’ll get emails from people saying, “That presentation was great!  Here’s another link you should tell people about.”  You can add that link to your resources page, and immediately everybody else who goes to your resources page will find out about that link too.

Sadly, some of your sample scripts will be wrong.  Your audience will helpfully point out those errors and give you an updated version with your goofups fixed.  Sometimes they’ll even expand on your scripts and give you improved versions with more features.  Update your page whenever this happens, and share the new code goodness with the rest of your audience.

Use Your Blog as Resource Material

In the list of recommended reading materials, include your own blog posts.  Going forward, as you write more related material, don’t forget to revisit your resources pages and add your new blog posts too.  These resources pages can even serve as inspiration when you’re starved for blog ideas.  Go to your resources pages, look at things you’d like to add to your presentation, and blog about them.  Your blog entries can serve as presentation fodder, and vice versa.

Whenever you write a piece of content – a blog entry, a whitepaper for a vendor, or even an email to your coworkers – think about other ways you could use that same content.

When I get a question from a reader or a coworker, I often think right away, “This is a great question, and I bet lots of other people out there have this same exact question.  I’m going to write my response in a way that I can copy/paste the whole thing straight into my blog, or into a SQLServerPedia wiki article.”  When I start writing something that way right from the beginning, it makes the copy/paste much easier.  I don’t have to go back and clean up my language or reword it to exclude a company or product name – I just write it for the public from the start.

I don’t usually pre-think presentations in this manner, because presentations require a lot of design work.  Presentations take crafting in order to build a story.  However, when I’m building a presentation, I’ll search my own blog for material because I’ve already done a lot of the hard work.

My Blogging Guidelines Work for Presentations, Too

Remember when I told you to use images in your posts, and how you should make sure they’re licensed with Creative Commons, and how you should link back to the source?

Payback time!

As you’re compiling presentation material, you’ve already accumulated screenshots and funny photos, and you’ve linked back to the source so you can get higher-resolution copies.  You can use that same material again in your presentation in order to tell your story.

And remember when I told you to start scheduling posts in advance, and if you had enough of them built up you could start bundling them into a multi-part series on the same topic?  A multi-part blog series is an excellent foundation for a presentation.  For example, I put a lot of work into this 3-part blog series:

Months later, when I was looking for presentation topics, I realized I could break those up into slides, talk through ’em, and presto, lots of material.  The bulk of the hard work – tying the material together into a logical order and telling a story – had already been set up for me.

Youre So Vain, You Probably Think This Shirt Is About You
You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Shirt Is About You

But Everybody Already Read My Blog!

I hate to break this to you, but they didn’t.

And even the ones who did have already forgotten about it.

Heck, I’ve started to write blog posts about a topic, hit up my favorite search engine to clarify something, and then found a blog post I’d already written months/years ago on the exact same topic.  I know I write a lot, but that’s still awkward.

Just because you covered something once in a blog post somewhere doesn’t mean you can’t repeat it in a presentation.  Like the Barenaked Ladies said, it’s all been done.  Bring the same material, but bring what you’ve learned since, and spice it up in a fun way.

Besides, delivering a presentation is completely different than writing blog posts.  Good presentations don’t consist of words on the screen – in fact, that’s probably the best way to categorize a bad presentation.

The Slides Are Your Enemy

Your audience can only pay attention to one thing at a time, and some of your attendees can’t even focus at all.  Sometimes I wish I could lace the water bottles with Ritalin.

The next time you’re attending a presentation, look around the room.  Check out all the things that are distracting your attendees:

  • Blackberries and iPhones
  • Laptops
  • The view outside
  • Other attendees talking
  • People getting up and going to the bathroom

If you’re going to hold the attention of your attendees, you have to view everything in the room as your competitor – and that includes your own slide deck.  Told another way – do you want the audience to remember you, or remember your deck?

Save the Sentences For Your Blog

When people have the choice between listening to you or reading, they’ll take reading every time.  Need proof?  Watch what happens when you change slides.  Every pair of eyeballs in the room goes straight to your slide deck.  Attendees stop processing information coming out of your mouth until they’re done reading the deck.

Beginning presenters are victims too – the words on the slide capture their attention, and they end up standing with their backs to the group, reading words off a slide deck.  Ripping as many words as possible off the slide cures that problem right away.

If you absolutely have to put a sentence on a slide, it should be the only thing on the slide, period.

Save one of your presentation slides as an image, and then resize it to 150 pixels across.  This is actual size for your attendees sitting in the back row of a big room.  Your slides need to be perfectly legible at this size.  If you don’t get the point of the slide at this size, it’s time to edit.

PowerPoint doesn’t make this easy – they use absurdly small font sizes as defaults.  Go into your PowerPoint templates and set the minimum font size to 36.  And yes, that includes code snippets – if your code is more than twenty words, do a demo.

Plan to Fail: Build Demo Slides

People say they want demos, but what they really mean is that they don’t want any more of your gawdawful slides.

If you insist on doing a demo, try it first with coworkers.  If they don’t yell “Wow, that’s cool!,” then your demo is not gonna wow attendees either.  Hone down your demo to be as short as possible and only show the highlights.  Think of your demos as the highlight reel, not the 9-inning baseball game.  Your demos need to be as finely honed as your slides.

You’re not going to practice your demos enough, and they’re going to fail.  Even the best presenters have demo problems.  Plan for it by adding several pages in your slide deck showing screenshots of your demo one step at a time.  That way, when all hell breaks loose, you can switch back over to the deck and say, “Well, that went over like a lead balloon.  Let me show you how it should have looked.”

When You Bomb, Ask Questions

I tell my audiences to interrupt me whenever they’ve got questions.  When things are going great and I’ve got a really interactive audience, 15-20 minutes per hour will be used up with Q&A.  When the audience doesn’t interrupt, I gotta find out why.

Is the audience awake? Start a dialog.  When you finish a slide, turn to a member of the audience, make eye contact, and ask them a question about the slide. Pick a different audience member every time.  Don’t ask whether they understand what you’re saying, because people will usually smile and nod even if they’re clueless.  Good prompting questions include:

  • “You were nodding – have you used this before?  What’d you think of it?”
  • “You were shaking your head – have you tried this and had problems?”  (Don’t be afraid of audience members who disagree – it just gives you more chances to start dialogs with more audience members.)
  • “How many of you have tried something like this?”
  • “What’s the biggest thing stopping you from doing this?”

Is my presentation relevant to them? During a cloud computing presentation in Germany, the attendees just weren’t biting.  I knew it wasn’t because the audience was quiet – I’d seen them partying the night before.  About halfway in, I started asking if attendees could see themselves using cloud-based computing, and if not, why not?  Turned out there were strict laws in Germany about putting any customer data onto the internet, even on private servers.  That was a crummy fact to find out halfway through a cloud computing deck, but at least I knew what was going on, and I could adapt my presentation from that point on.

Do I need to work on my presentation skills? Maybe the audience is awake and your material is relevant, but you’re, uh, a little too calm.  Asking the above sets of questions will help make you a better presenter by livening things up, as will clearing off your slides with less text and more pictures, but sometimes the problem is your delivery.

Fire Yourself Up with Inspiration

Say Hello to My Little Friend
Say Hello to My Little Friend

Before I start writing a presentation, I watch a TED talk one of the Steve Jobs keynotes on YouTube.

Before the presentation, I play my favorite upbeat music.  I’ve got an iTunes playlist called “Firing Up” that I use to put myself in the right frame of mind to go out there, kick ass and win people over.  If I’m doing a webcast from home, I’m the only one hearing it, but when I’m doing in-person events I play the music over the meeting room loudspeakers.  After all, the audience needs to get fired up too!

All this sounds like a lot of work – and it is – but the results pay off.  You’ve got great information that I’d love to learn, but I’m tired of sitting through your boring, word-filled decks.  Help a brotha out.

Why Are You Backing Up?

Brent Ozar
Backup and Recovery
1 Comment

We focus so much on the fine-grained details of exactly when and where we’re backing up our servers.  Sometimes it helps to take a quick step back and ask what we’re trying to protect ourselves, because it’ll help us do a better job of designing a recovery strategy.

Dude, Wheres My Datacenter?
Dude, Where's My Datacenter?

From small problem to big disaster, we need to protect ourselves from:

  • Someone deleting a few rows of data
  • Someone deleting a database
  • A hard drive (or an entire array) failing
  • A server failing
  • The entire datacenter turning into a smoking crater

In all of these events, we need to bring up the most recent copy of the data, as fast as we can.  But that’s not the only time we need protection, because sometimes we need to step back in time:

  • Someone deleted some data, but didn’t tell us right away
  • Hardware (particularly storage) started going bad and gradually corrupted more and more data over time
  • Financial auditors need to see the data the way it looked a year ago

Some backup vendors sell their solution as everything you need in one single package.  Before you sign on the dotted line, step through each of these scenarios with your vendor and ask, “With your solution, how would I protect myself from this particular problem?”

What Presentations Should I Give?

Brent Ozar
8 Comments

I’m doing another Quest Day with the Experts on October 9th at the Quest Software home office in Aliso Viejo, California, and it’ll be simulcast over the intertubes.  Which two of these presentations would you like to see?  They’re all 200-300 level:

[poll id=”4″]

The poll will close on Friday, September 18th and I’ll pick the top two then.  If there’s another SQL Server engine topic (not SSIS, SSRS or SSAS) that you’re dying to hear about, let me know in the comments.

Know When to Call Professionals For Help

Brent Ozar
5 Comments

I used to have red-eared slider turtles, and I’ve got a few web pages about how to take care of them.  Every now and then, I get a comment like this:

My turtle is bleeding and he hasn’t eaten in a week.  Should I be concerned?

Credibility Fail
Credibility Fail

Uh, hello.  If the turtle was your son, would you be worried?  (Maybe the answer is no, in which case I’d be worried.)  Obviously, if somebody’s health is involved and there’s something seriously wrong, your first reaction should be to call a doctor, not post a question on a web site.  I’m glad you think of me as so gosh-darned helpful, but I am not a doctor, although I play one on TV.

Similarly, I see questions on web forums asking things like:

My server is down and every time it boots, I get a blue screen.  What should I do?

Uh, hello.  Pick up the phone and call Microsoft for support.  Don’t get me wrong, you can get some fantastic free support on the internet, but if your production server is down, isn’t it worth the cost to open a support ticket with Microsoft?  Be up front with your boss, explain how much the support call costs, and ask if it’s worth the money.  If your boss decides it’s not worth the cost, then you can feel comfortable sitting around hitting refresh while waiting for someone to answer your plea for help.

Otherwise, as long as you’re hitting F5 on your forum of choice, you should open another tab and start looking for another job.

Consulting Line: “You’ve got bats in the cave.”

Brent Ozar
Consulting Lines
7 Comments

When someone’s got boogers hanging out of their nose, they want to hear about it in the most subtle way possible.

Here's Your Sign
Here’s Your Sign

Blurting out, “Hey, dude, you’ve got a booger hanging out of your nose!” won’t win you any friends. Sure, people will laugh, but they’re not just going to be laughing at the guy diving for the Kleenex. They’re also going to be laughing at your blatant lack of tact in addressing the issue. Ideally, you start by gesturing at your nose. If the poor guy doesn’t take notice, you gradually ramp up the hints until you have to say something out loud. My dad likes to say, “You’ve got bats in the cave,” and that’s his code phrase for boogers in your nose.

When senior DBAs are called in to look at a SQL Server problem, we sometimes run across the equivalent of nose goblins: things that aren’t really causing any serious damage, but they’re somewhat embarrassing and easy to fix.

For example, I was recently working with a client who had some (but not all) of their development databases in full recovery mode, yet they weren’t doing transaction log backups. This happens sometimes to the best of us (well, me at least) when I restore production databases over to a dev server.  The production box has all its databases in full recovery mode, and when they’re restored, they retain their full recovery mode status on the dev box.  The database’s log file will then grow as developers run transactions, and there’s a possibility that the log file will grow out of control if people run huge transactions.

Several of us (including a manager) were working together in a conference room with SQL Server Management Studio up on a projector when I spotted the issue. We had the list of databases up on the screen while we discussed some unrelated issues. The recovery mode didn’t have anything to do with the problem I’d been called in to fix, and I didn’t want to throw anybody under a bus. I casually gestured at the databases in full recovery mode, nodded over at the DBA, and said, “Catch that? I bet you know what happened here, right?”

Sure enough, the DBA recognized the issue right away, nodded, and jotted down a note.

The manager took notice too and asked, “Is that the problem? What are you pointing at?”

“Nothing,” I said, “It’s just a common configuration tweak that pops up every now and then, and it’s easy to fix. It’s totally unrelated to what we’re working on. I just wanted to mention it to him while we had that screen up. Don’t worry about it.”

When you notice someone’s got boogers hanging out of their SQL Server’s nose, be polite and discreet. They’ll like you and they’ll be more likely to take your other advice to heart.

What’s the Easiest IT Job to Get Without Experience?

Brent Ozar
Professional Development
83 Comments

A reader left an interesting comment on one of my posts:

“Can anyone please give me some suggestion? I am just graduated in IS/IT and don’t have work experience in IT field at all. I am thinking to get Oracle DBA training. Do you think having training will give more likelihood of getting a junior DBA job?  Secondly, in your opinion, which IT job would be easy to get just by having a training in a particular field?”

There’s two questions here.  First, no, I don’t think having formal training as a DBA will help get a junior DBA job without experience.  I’ve blogged about why you can’t get a junior DBA job without experience, and to get that experience, you need to spend time doing systems administration or development.

The second question really interested me, though – what’s the easiest IT job to get without any experience?  My first thought is desktop support, which means repairing end users’ computers and helping them solve issues.  A close second might be phone-based support, but I wouldn’t recommend going that route because it may not be easy to transfer into other IT jobs.

But I bet my readers have other good ideas, so I’ll put it out there.  What’s the easiest IT job to get without experience?

Laptop Virtualization Best Practices – And a Contest!

Brent Ozar
Virtualization
84 Comments

Whether you’re using Windows or a Mac, if you’re thinking about using virtualization for the first time on your laptop to test out new operating systems like Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2, there’s a few things you should know.

Get Another Hard Drive

Drive Bay
Drive Bay

Laptop drives aren’t quick to begin with, and running two operating systems simultaneously doesn’t make life any easier for your pokey drive.

Your laptop probably has a removable CD/DVD drive, and that drive bay slot is designed to hold more than just optical drives.  You can pick up a hard drive caddy that slides into that same slot.  Check your laptop’s hardware manual for the exact part number, and then search Ebay for that part number.  Drive bay caddies are usually available for around $20-$40.

Apple Macbook users can swap out their internal drives with the MCE OptiBay drive adapter too.  This voids the daylights out of your warranty, but it’s not as hard as it looks.  I just went through this process with my own Macbook Pro, and I recommend it highly – I have a review of that coming soon.

Pay close attention to the caddy bay specs, and then order a hard drive to match.  Most laptop bay caddies take either a PATA or SATA 2.5″ laptop drive.  Some high-capacity 2.5″ hard drives are a non-standard 12.5mm high instead of 9mm, so make sure you don’t get a drive that’s too thick to fit inside your caddy.  Buy the fastest (not the largest) drive you can afford.  I use the 2.5″ performance test charts at TomsHardware for reference, and the current king-of-the-hill on performance per watt is the Seagate Momentus 5400.6 for around $90.

USB Piggyback Drive
USB Piggyback Drive

If your laptop doesn’t have a drive bay adapter or if you’re not willing to give up that trusty CD/DVD drive, you can also use an external USB hard drive.  Just make sure to get one of the 2.5″ models that doesn’t require external power – the less cables you have to carry, the better.  Then mount it on the back of your laptop display using Velcro tape.  Presto, you can detach it and reattach it whenever you need to pack the laptop into a tight case.

After installation, Windows will see this as just another hard drive that you can partition and format.  When you build virtual machines, store them on this secondary hard drive.  Bonus points for backing up your important files there, too.

Get As Much Memory As Possible

The more memory you have, the better.  I’d consider 4gb the minimum to comfortably run two Windows OS’s simultaneously no matter what virtualization software you’re using.

To find out how much memory your laptop can handle, use the memory configuration tool at Crucial.com.

When It Comes to Virtual CPUs, Less Is More

When building your guest OS’s, always set them up with just one CPU.  Virtualization CPU scheduling has a gotcha: if your virtual OS is set up with two CPUs, then the hypervisor’s scheduler will wait until two cores are available before doing any work in the guest – even if the guest only needs to do one core’s worth of work.  This same concept holds true at the server-level too – don’t set up your ESX guests with 4 CPUs just because you can.

Understand Virtual Networking Modes

The various flavors of hypervisors have three basic network modes for guests:

  • Bridged Networking – aka Home Office Mode. This is the one you’re going to think you want, because each virtual machine gets its own TCP/IP address directly from your home router just like your host machine does.
  • Network Address Translation – aka Starbucks Mode. The hypervisor acts as a little router, and it assigns unique TCP/IP addresses to each guest.  The guests aren’t on the public network directly, but they can access network resources just fine.  This is my favorite because I can switch back and forth between different networks without the guest servers wigging out.  I can suspend them to disk at home, then wake them up at Starbucks and nothing changes.  I highly recommend this mode, especially since it’s easy to switch back and forth between this and…
  • Host-Only Networking – aka Tin Foil Hat Mode. Like Starbucks Mode, each guest gets its own internal TCP/IP address on your laptop’s private network, but there’s no communication with the outside.  This is good for testing software that might have conflicts with other stuff on your network, and it’s also good when you’re on a slow network.  When I’m using my aircard and I don’t have a good signal, I’ll boot up my guests in Host-Only mode so that they don’t try to connect to Microsoft to download updates or anything else that might suck up my precious bandwidth.

Back Up Your Virtual Hard Drives

Installing the Windows guest, configuring it the way you want it, and patching it takes hours.  After you’re done – but before you install any third party software – shut it down and copy the flat files to another directory.

When you want to spin up a new virtual server, just make another copy of those flat files and import them into your hypervisor.  The methods are slightly different depending on what virtualization software you’re using, but all of them are much easier than reinstalling Windows from scratch and patching it.

That’s it for my tips – if you’ve got more to share, feel free to leave ’em in the comments for other folks to get started easier.

Hard Drives, Get Your Hard Drives Here
Hard Drives, Get Your Hard Drives Here

Oh, And the Contest! Want a Free 120GB 2.5″ USB Drive?

I’m moving to Chicago soon, and I need your help.  I need to clean out my home office, but I hate throwing gadgets away.  Time to give away some of my extra goodies.

Today, since we’re talkin’ USB drives, let’s give those away.  I’ve got two self-powered USB 2.5″ hard drives, both 120 gigs, both exceedingly stylish.  One is a speaker’s gift from the PASS Summit last year, and one is a leather-bound hard drive.  (I have very strange tastes in USB devices.)

To win, just leave a comment here.  Only one comment per person, please.  I’ll draw two comments at random on Saturday Sept 12th at 7AM EST and announce ’em here.  Good luck!

Check All Your MSDB Cleanup Jobs With One Query

Brent Ozar
Backup and Recovery
21 Comments

Are all of your servers set up to clean out their backup history periodically?

Are you sure?

If you looked back at the monitor with “WTF?” written all over your face, I’ll bring you up to speed.  Here’s the problem: SQL Server stores information about completed backups in the MSDB database.  In older versions of SQL Server, that database isn’t indexed very well, and it can become a performance bottleneck during backups and restores.  I’ve written about one particular case where I cut the company’s backup times by 2/3 just by cleaning out their backup history.

To make sure your servers are keeping their MSDB clean, you can use SQL Server Management Studio 2008’s new multi-server-query-execute feature to quickly query all of your servers.  Go read my article on how to query multiple servers at once in SSMS, and then run this query against your SQL Servers:

The query runs almost instantaneously since it’s sorted by the primary key of the table.  The results of the query are shown here:

Consolidated MSDB Backup History
Consolidated MSDB Backup History

In that screenshot, I can see right away that three of the servers in my lab have problems.  They don’t have cleanup tasks properly configured.

If you see results like this in your own environment, drop what you’re doing and go add MSDB cleanup tasks to your maintenance plans or add sp_delete_backuphistory to your T-SQL maintenance scripts.  The first time it runs, you may run into some horribly long runtimes and locks, unfortunately.

Brent Ozar

Hi! I’m Brent Ozar.

I make Microsoft SQL Server go faster. I love teaching, travel, cars, and laughing. I’m based out of Las Vegas. He/him. I teach SQL Server training classes, or if you haven’t got time for the pain, I’m available for consulting too.

Want to advertise here and reach my savvy readers?