Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

New Tagging in SQL Monitor to Keep Organized

I recently got an update from the SQL Monitor PM on the progress we’ve made across all the teams. We have a number focusing on different aspects of the product, and they’ve built an impressive produce over the years. I remember when it was SQL Response and only provided alerting. Now it’s an Enterprise Monitoring solution for SQL Server.

One of the additions that was added across the last few months is tagging. Traditionally the monitored instances and databases are organized in categories, which is OK, but very limited. Below you can see at monitor.red-gate.com that we have instances in various categories: production, azure database, staging, test, and simulation.

Tagging is a much more flexible structure that makes it easy to classify and filter your estate. There are plenty of cases where you might not only have an instance set as Production, but perhaps it’s a US or UK server and you want to know the geography. Maybe there is a need to know this instance also relates to CRM v a data warehouse system. Tagging makes that easy.

Filtering with Tags

At the top of the global dashboard shown above, there is a new filtering area where we can filter by tags. You can see below that I’ve filtered the 28 instances in our demo setup to the 2 that have the “sqlservercentral” tag.

What’s more, clicking in the tag box shows me the existing tags that are applied.

Tagging is also available on the Estate tabs.

There are a few other places, and it’s slowly making its way across the product to all areas. You’ll see it slowly appear in other places as well.

Adding Tags

You can add these in the Server Configuration, which works fine. Pick a server and then you can add tags that correspond to what you care about.

If I’m working with a server in the overview, I can also expand the right Alerts panel and in the top About section, I can adjust tags. A good way to fix these up as you work on issues.

Look for tagging to make it’s way into the PowerShell cmdlets as well.

There’s a post on the Redgate Blog about tagging as well. They are looking for feedback, so please send it along.

If you haven’t used SQL Monitor, it’s a great tool to help you keep an eye on your estate with minimal effort. You can get alerted of issues and even integrate with other tools. Download an eval and give it a try today.;

February 14, 2022
Daily Coping 14 Feb 2022

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to look for the positive side of a challenging situation.

Recently I had a kid that I coach get upset with the amount of time she spent on the court. She is a player that is weaker in some areas, strong in a few, but struggling to find a place on this team. To be fair, we coaches struggle to find ways to use her. We do, but not much.

She was upset at a competition where she didn’t play much. I know how hard this is, and could see her body language in talking to her father. I’ve been that Dad and watched my kid sit on the bench for long periods.

I decided to make this a learning opportunity. I went over to the Dad and asked him to meet, saying I’d like to try and salvage her time with us. He agreed, and we met the next day, trying to help this kid see the reality, learn to be a part of a team, and give her ways to improve that might help. However, we also were honest that things aren’t likely to change a lot in the short term.

I love this kid. I’ve known her for 4 years and this is my second time coaching her. I wish her the best, but I also had to give the hard advice I’ve given my daughter in the past. A very challenging time, but I think it was worth the effort to try and make it more positive.

February 14, 2022
The First Tesla Ski Trips
This is part of a series that covers my experience with a Tesla Model Y.

After a bit over 4 months, we finally had a long road trip in the Tesla Model Y. As I live in Colorado, we went to the mountains to ski. This post covers two trips, a day trip and a multi-day trip.

Day Trip

My wife and I took a day off and drove to the Keystone on a Thursday for a day ski trip. I charged the Tesla up to 93% overnight and we headed up on a snowy day. A fairly heavy snow was falling as we left the house and kept falling until we were well into the Colorado mountains on I-70.

The snow tires worked well, and I felt the car was gripping well on the road. Traffic wasn’t too bad, and the drive went as smoothly as it had gone in other cars.

The one place where I was careful was driving through Dillon, CO, where the roads were snow-packed, and there are some substantial curves. I was careful here, as the Model Y is a heavy car and slips a bit more near the bottom

A few stats from the drive up (109 miles)
- Power: 48% of the charge (93%->45%)
- Cost: $4.81 (37kWh * $0.13)
The drive down:
- Power: 38%
- Cost: $3.64 (28kWh)
As a comparison, 110 miles in the X5 costs about $20 (at $3.50/gal). The Prius would have been about $9.20 or so.

We skied most of the morning in about 20-25F weather. We then left and headed home, having lots about 2% of charge while the car was sitting in the parking lot. We drove down to Idaho Springs, and at around 28%, we stopped at the Supercharger to add some power.

We spent about 10-15 minutes adding power (about 25%). We sat in the car, checked some email and chatted, though this location is walking distance from a number of restaurants in Idaho Springs. On another day we might have walked over to have a quick lunch and left the car, as many others did.

It was an easy trip and a pleasant experience for our first trip into the mountains.

A (Cold) Three Day Trip

The next week we went back, staying up at Keystone for three days. I charged the car up to 87% and we drove to coach kids and then left from the gym for a late night drive up. It was cold, around 20F, and we again used about 50% of the power. In this case, 87->33% with a few stops along the way.

The next morning, we were down to 26% on a night that dropped to about 8F. That was a 7% drop overnight. An interesting data point.

We drove over and skied, and then went to the Silverthorne Supercharger, arriving with 18% power left. Our plan was to get a cup of Starbucks while it charged, as the chargers are in the parking lot for Starbucks, but the store was closed. Not enough staff with a few out sick..

Not a problem. Rather than drive over to another place, we just charged and talked with our kids on the phone. Interesting, I pulled into charger 4B and plugged in. The car would say “starting to charge” and after 2-3 minutes it would say that something was wrong and I needed to unplug and plug it back in. I did that twice, and got the message.

I switched to a different flow and things worked flawlessly. The charger immediately jumped to about 50Kwh, putting around 240miles/hour of charge into the car. We spent about 25 minutes there, getting up to 75% before I decided to stop. I was hungry, so we left.

Overnight the temps were close to 0F, and we dropped about 15%of charge that night. The next night was –8F when I woke up, and we’d dropped about 18% of charge. Not insignificant, and I can see why people recommend waking up and charging in the am before a long trip.

If we were planning on a long drive, I’d have gotten up, gotten coffee and then gone and parked at the supercharger to eat, work a bit, and fill up. Slightly more cumbersome than a gas station, but really, I’d be moving some work time into the car rather than sitting inside and then hitting a gas station.

Overall, the car worked well under cold, winter conditions. We didn’t have any range issues, and easily charged up at the Superchargers along our route. I could pre-heat the car before driving, and I’m getting used to remembering to do this. Most of the time I think about this about 10 minutes before we pack up and go, which isn’t inconvenient. It certainly is nice to pre-heat the car as I’m paying a bill in a restaurant and have the heat going when we get in the car.

Tires worked well and gripped in the snowy conditions. It was informative to see how the battery faired driving into the mountains, as well as overnight in some of the coldest conditions I’ve seen in years. Not a lot of battery/range anxiety and charging was smooth and easy. Taking 15-20 minutes with a cup of coffee and my wife wasn’t a big interruption to our lives, and we didn’t mind taking a few breaks during our short holiday.
February 11, 2022
Daily Coping 11 Feb 2022

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to thank someone for cheering you up in the last month.

Someone didn’t actually cheer me up. Well, certainly some people did, but it was more the memory of someone made me smile and brought a moment of joy. Actually, two people.

I’ve been to Australia twice and New Zealand once. Recently my wife and I were talking about the trip we took together down there, how much we enjoyed it, and some of the people she met (I’d known them previously). The memory of standing next to this guy made me smile:

Hamish’s joy and love for life is infectious, and I miss him. I am hoping New Zealand will allow visitors again and I can return.

The same week, Martin Catherall reached out on another matter, and my wife and I enjoyed time with him in Australia. Martin also has an infectious, happy demeanor, and a wonderful accent, that I enjoy every time we talk. Hoping to get back to Australia again as well.

Thanks to both of them for cheering my up this month.

February 11, 2022