Voice of the DBA

Tag: mcm

  • T-SQL Tuesday #14–Resolutions

    tsql2sdayIt’s T-SQL Tuesday time again, and this month the Midnight DBAs (Jen’s blog | Sean’s blog | @MidnightDBA) are hosting the party. You can read about the whole T-SQL Tuesday blog party idea from Adam Machanic (blog, Twitter) if you want, and if you want to participate, you have a few hours left.

    Resolutions

    The theme this month is resolutions. That’s interesting because this was the first year in quite some time where I haven’t set goals or resolutions for the new year. I’m behind and somewhat unsure of what I want to do in life.

    However, it’s T-SQL Tuesday, so I need to think of something if I want to participate.

    I recently received an offer to take the MCM written test for SQL Server. There was no downside for me, so I signed up. And I pushed back the test a month since I wasn’t ready. I could say that my goal is to get the MCM this year, or to pass the written test, but that wouldn’t be right. I have reasons I’ll blog about later, but suffice it to say those aren’t resolutions.

    However I would like to make an honest effort to pass the written test. I haven’t had production responsibilities on a SQL Server instance in years, and while I know a lot about SQL Server, and understand how many things work, I don’t have to practically apply that knowledge, and so I’m rusty.

    I’d like to remedy some of that this year. I have been watching the MCM readiness videos, trying to learn some things and get prepared. Part of the reason I pushed back the test was because I hadn’t had a chance to watch all the videos and read the other prep material. I’m still working my way through things, and hope to be better prepared when the test comes around.

    My resolution is to really make an honest effort over the next month. Not cramming, and making this a single-focus-I-have-to-get-it-all-done, but make a good effort, my best effort given my busy life, and do as well as I can on the test.

    Kind of a nebulous resolution, but I can say that I didn’t make a solid effort in December, and I’m working to fix that now.

  • MCM Prep – Sliding the test

    If you can’t cram enough for the test, what’s the thing to do? Slide the test. I realized last night that I was scheduled for this Friday, but I’m nowhere near prepared. Not that I’ll be totally prepared, but I’d like to be well prepared in my mind and I haven’t gotten through all modules.

    I did XML last night, and realized I’m a little lost. The CLR I did today made sense, but I decided to give myself more time. So I moved it to late February, after vacation, where I think I’ll do some prep as well with all the flights and laying around the pool time. It will be good to keep the mind moving while I’m in the Bahamas.

  • MCM Prep – Only ONE Transaction Log File

    Unlike for data files, SQL Server does not use multiple files for the transaction log in any way that improves performance. The writes are not striped across files. Instead SQL Server will write to one file, then the next, then the next, wrapping to the first file when all the VLFs are full, just as it would with one file. In other words, it moves sequentially through the files for new transactions.

    I haven’t found a BOL reference for this, and don’t really feel like continuing the search, but Kim Tripp blogs about it here and it’s mentioned in the log file internals MCM video.

  • Quick MCM Prep Help

    Before I went on vacation, I mentioned I was downloading some of the MCM videos from Technet.I had grabbed 4 or 5 before I left, dropping the MP3s on my iPhone, and I listened to a few of them on the drive to Steamboat Springs.

    That worked out so well, while I was on vacation, I tweeted that I was downloading more MP3s for the ride home, but Aaron Nelson (blog | @sqlvariant) sent me a script he was working on to automatically download them. I finally got around to trying it when I returned to get the video formats of the videos (some are demos) and after a little mucking around with paths, I got it to work.

    It’s a great script that runs from Windows Powershell, and you can get it from Aaron’s blog. Even if you don’t want to take the MCM test, watch the videos. Lots to learn in there.