The issue seems to be that if you allocate too much transaction log at once, you could end up with a few, very, very large (GB in size) VLFs, and despite regular log backups, you could not be clearing any VLFs inside the log until there are no active transactions in that VLF. And that could cause a performance slowdown as it clears that large VLF.
So if you need 50GB of log space, do as Kim recommends and get 512MB chunks by allocating 8GB at a time. You can do this contiguously, as in all the same day, but allocate 8GB, let it finish, then ALTER to add 8GB more, repeat until you reach the correct size.
Usually at the end of each year I try to look back at the previous year in the database world. This past year seems to have been an amazing year for the SQL Community and for me it has been the opportunity to meet new people, and also reconnect with so many of the amazing professionals that work with SQL Server.
The year started early with the decision for PASS to take over the management of the SQL Saturday franchise. Andy Warren and I symbolically passed a key (thanks to Peter Shire of SQL Sentry) to PASS at SQL Saturday #33 in Charlotte, and from there the number of events exploded. When Andy talked with me about this idea almost 4 years ago, we wondered if we would ever get to 50 events, or even if we’d have more than 20 in a year. Right now SQL Saturday #71 is scheduled for Boston in April 2011, and there were 32 events last year. It looks like 2011 might be an even better year, with 14 events scheduled so far. If you are even thinking of having one in your area, contact PASS, or even me for a little help.
We also had quite a bit of change in the SQL Server world. SQL Server 2008 R2, the Parallel Data Warehouse edition, and a few service packs, including SP4 for SQL Server 2005, were released. The growth, and support, of the platform from Microsoft continues to give us data professionals more tools, and opportunities, to build amazing applications for our companies. When I look back at where I started, with SQL Server 4.2, the platform is almost unrecognizable. Next year we may get another new version, with some nicely matured subsystems like PBM and Extended Events, that will greatly help DBAs better manage their systems.
Checking servers from a horse
Beyond the laptop was a change that amazed me. After having an iPhone, and seeing Surface, I was truly stunned at the success of the iPad, and the rush to build other tablets, like the Galaxy Tab. It’s amazing how versatile and useful these devices can be for consuming information. I expect some amazing new applications, especially in the BI area to be coming in the future. Even my employer has found them useful, giving away dozen’s of iPads in our SQL Monitor launch, which can be used to watch the SQLServerCentral servers in real time.
There were many more events, from the release of Windows Phone 7 and 4G networks to the growth of the Cloud and NoSQL databases. We had Arnie Rowland’s Project Phoenix, which looks to help unemployed tech professionals, another Exceptional DBA in Tracy Hamlin, and perhaps the beginning of a recovery in the global economy. It seems more people are taking an interest in their career, and poised to take advantage of the hiring that is starting to pick up.
From my perspective, 2010 was a great year for the SQL community. I don’t know if this community is closer, stronger, or more helpful that those of other technologies, but I do know that it’s an amazing group, and I am better for being a part of it.
These were a variety of work, community, and professional goals that I set with, thinking that I would be able to achieve these in the year. As with many things, I was wrong and didn’t end up I the place that I expected. Some of this was due to my poor time management, some due to changing situations, and some due to a changing of my feelings towards the end result of these goals. Here are my final comments on the goals:
Forums – My original goal was to post less, but keep 300 posts a month average. About 40-50 of those are set (editorials, handling issues), so it’s really a 200+ technical posting. I managed to make that average, with a wildly varying level per month.
Blogging – I wanted to blog 5 times a week, each week, with at least 2 being technical. I think I made this, outside of vacations, and most weeks I did manage to get a couple technical posts. In some ways, I think this is an artificial goal that forced me to look for technical items, but it also resulted in some less than stellar posts. I think I need to re-examine what I am trying to accomplish here for 2011.
Learn Reporting Services – Fail. I was hoping to devote 1-2 hours a week, a fairly small goal, to this. However besides getting this setup no 3 machines, building some basic reports, and fighting through non-domain security issues, I didn’t accomplish a lot here. Part of the issue is that I had no focus on “what” I wanted to do with SSRS and no work to produce. I think this was my learning goal for SQL Server, but it wasn’t well focused or developed. While I think these are good skills, and worth learning, it wasn’t a good choice for me. In short, a bad goal to pick, and one that was easy to let go as my life became busy.
Attend one SQL Saturday – A huge success, and I actually attended 7, along with a couple other events. I spoke at:
SQL Saturday #33 – Charlotte
SQL Saturday #22 – Pensacola
SQL Saturday #28 – Baton Rouge
SQL Saturday #52 – Colorado
SQL Saturday #53 – Kansas City
SQL Saturday #59 – New York City
Write a book – I made progress here, devoting a few afternoons here and actually working on two separate items at the same time. However what ended up killing me here is no enough of a focused effort, enough times. If I had spent 15-20 days on this, it would be done. I think that I moved some of this time to speaking events, and building presentations.
Build 2 new presentations – I actually built 3 this year. Two on basic SQL Server (one non-technical, one technical), and one on Common SQL Server Mistakes. I have another in progress that I want to get ready for 2011. Again, need to make focused time.
Take all my vacation in 2010 – Close. I didn’t make it, and again, work is interfering with my ski-Thursdays this winter. However I did manage to get in 4 vacations this year: St Martin, Las Vegas, Winter Park, and Steamboat Springs. I’ll call this a success, assuming I can free up 3 days each month in Jan/Feb/Mar.
Travel to one new city for work – Charlotte, Kansas City, Las Vegas, New York (for SSC) were new trips for me. It was good to me to visit with people outside of the areas I have tended to go (Seattle/Orlando) over the years.
So was it a successful year? It’s hard to say. It certainly was a busy one, and that impacted some of my personal goals. I think that overall I did well, and some of my failings were a lack of a well-focused goal.
In 2011, I want to look for goals that produce some result, and not arbitrary goals like blog every day. I am looking to better define a goal that will make my career grow, as well as contribute in a positive way to the community for SQL Server.
The subheading for this article caught my eye. Sixty percent of workers think they can be productive outside of an office in a survey conducted of 2,600 IT professionals. Most of the these people also said that they tended to work extra hours each day outside of the office. The majority also said they would take a lower paying job if they could access the information they needed outside the office.
That’s actually a smaller percentage that I expected would want to work away from an office, though more than I expected would actually take less pay to do so. As least in America, it seems that people are very concerned with their salary, and reluctant to ever take a pay cut. I’m glad it seems that some people are starting to understand that value of their time to themselves and their families.
It’s hard to work at the office, as Jason Fried said recently in a TED Talk. I haven’t worked in an office in some time, but I do remember a constant stream of interruptions. An hour of time without someone talking to you was rare, and I assume that the situation is similar with many knowledge workers today. We have people that we pay to think, and solve problems, but we don’t give them the time to actually work on those problems.
