way0utwest

Careful Blogging

The Supreme Court Building – Will blogging rules get decided here?

Today we have a reprint of an editorial from Sept 22, 2005 as Steve is on vacation.

There are official blogs, like Jonathan Schwatz of Sun and others that are corporate preaching/marketing/promotional efforts. Not that this blog or others aren’t what the authors think, but I feel that they are probably checked and monitored by someone at the corporation to be sure that the message doesn’t bring any liability or unexpected issues out.

Then there are unofficial blogs, like the guys at MSDN that are handled by employees, they are asked to post, but they are not really monitored. I’m sure there are guidelines and regulations, however, that have been posted, emailed, snail-mailed, etc. to everyone.

I ran across this article on potential legal isues with blogs. It doesn’t appear the courts have been involved yet, but I’m sure it’s coming. At some point there will be someone that sues or gets sued over a posting and then we’ll really find out how “private” those blogs are.

I made a note on the SQLServerCentral blogs page, but it’s something to think about whether you use a corporate site or your own private one. Be wary of what you post in a blog. To me the same rules that apply with you at Happy Hour apply on the blog. If you don’t want it getting back to your boss, don’t post it.

Steve Jones

(published at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Editorial/72348/)

February 14, 2011

A Variety of Interpretations

Each month I look forward to T-SQL Tuesday week when there is a blog party. This is the brainchild of Adam Machanic (Blog|Twitter), and is usually hosted by a different person each month. I hosted December 2010, and that was probably the first time I wrote a post more than a day before the post date. It seems more people

This month Pat Wright chose the topic of Automation, leaving it simply as that word to inspire people. His summary showed that 34 people participated and left trackbacks on his blog. I read through a number of them, and was struck that this month is seemed that people interpreted the topic very differently.

You might expect that many people talked about SQL Agent, and they did, but there were some fascinating thoughts on how automation impacts an environment. Jason Bacani talked about data driven subcriptions in SSRS, which many people might not be aware of. These solve the problem of deliverying reports automatically to people, but in this case, the reports were not working. A little automation solves the problem and keeps the business running. Ted Krueger helps the DBA out by giving us a script to remove NOLOCK from code. An interesting way to enforce the rules that you might want to have in your environment. Grant Fritchey talks about keeping server side traces running all the time with a little automation to manage the process.

There are a variety of other techniques, including getting a testing environment setup with Powershell. These ideas are inspiring, and they are the reason that I think events like T-SQL Tuesday are a great idea. They make me think widely, and re-examine the tools that I have with SQL Server, and how I might deploy those tools in a new way.

Check out T-SQL Tuesday next month, and contact Adam if you’re interested in hosting one in the future.

Steve Jones

February 13, 2011

T-SQL Tuesday Topics – Feb 2011

I was looking for a static list of all the T-SQL Tuesday topics and couldn’t find one. The domain moves around to the current hosting blog, so when it was my turn to host it, I made a list just so I could reference what was out there.

After a few more months, I decided to update my list with the latest topics. That will give me the chance to plan for my own future hosting of the party if Adam will have me again.

February 11, 2011

OldSQL

: Support is expiring for SQL Server 2005. Does it matter to you?

Support for SQL Server 2005 is due to expire in a few months, which means that no new patch work will be performed on that version for the general public. Some people might sign extended support agreements, but most won’t. If you are unsure of whether you should, this blog post might help you understand the implications of not having an extended support agreement.

There have been quite a few blogs, tweerts, etc. about this date, asking people to consider upgrades to SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 R2. It is good to see some awareness being brought to the situation, since many DBAs do not think about their version falling out of support, and assume they can get patches from Microsoft at any time.

They can’t, but does it matter? I know there are still plenty of people running SQL Server 2000 right now and it performs well. They have stable applications, and stable hardware, and with virtualization, they could potentially run stand-alone systems on old versions of Windows or SQL Server forever. I even know of people still running SQL Server 7, or SQL

Server v6.5 today in support of some applications.

If you have a stable codebase, and your application has been running on SQL Server 2005, or even SQL Server 2000, I don’t think that support timelines necessarily mean you should upgrade. At some point you should upgrade, to ensure you can take advantage of new connection technologies, or better security, or some other feature, but not just because support is ending.

Evaluate your environment, and upgrade when you think it benefits your business and you get value from the new version. Otherwise you are allowing your budget to be managed by someone else, on their timetable, not yours.

Steve Jones

(published at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Editorial/72436/)