Voice of the DBA

Tag: Redgate

  • The DBA Team #1–Code and Slides

    Our first DBA Team event, in Richmond, VA just before SQL Saturday #187 went well. Overall I think our experiment was a success and we’re already talking about where and when we might do this again.

    In the meantime, we didn’t make a separate site for this series of events, being an experiment and all. I’m adding this post as a placeholder for the various slide decks and code.

    Core Monitoring for SQL Server (Steve Jones)

    Good DBAs ensure that they are always aware of the state of their instances. All systems should have monitoring in place, not just so you know when things go wrong, but so you understand what a normal workload looks like and can plan for the future. This session will cover the basics of monitoring a SQL Server system and the various metrics you should be tracking.

    Getting Started with SQL Server Backup (Grant Fritchey)

    Backups are fundamental to protecting the investment your business has in its data and they’re the foundation of disaster recovery planning. We’ll go over best practices for database backups, to ensure you’re establishing that foundation correctly within your systems. This introductory level session covers full, log, and differential backups, as well as restores and restores to a point in time. Come along to be sure you’ve got the right protection in place for your systems.

    Understanding Database Corruption (Grant Fritchey)

    A DBA’s primary purpose is to ensure that the information in their charge is accessible by the correct people within their organization. Despite everything you do to make sure you’ve got your servers configured, monitored, and tuned, with well-tested backups in place, you can still lose data through corruption. But what is corruption in a database? This session lays out exactly where database corruption can come from, how to find out exactly where the corruption is within a database, and  the methods you have available to recover from database corruption.

    Indexing for SQL Server (Steve Jones)

    Indexes are important for improving the performance of your queries, but they add overhead to your server and require maintenance. This session examines how indexes work and the basic maintenance that you should perform to ensure your system is running at its peak level.

  • A Learning Experiment at SQL Saturday #187– Richmond

    dbateamlogoIn a little over a week, SQL Saturday #187 takes place in Richmond, VA. I’m looking forward to going back as I attended school not too far from there (Charlottesville), and even worked on the West side of Richmond for a time. My brother lives in MD and my mother in Virginia Beach, so it’s a good time for an extended weekend visiting family.

    However I’m also extending my trip before the weekend. Red Gate Software is experimenting with a short learning seminar on Friday. After last year’s SQL in the City, large events with hundreds of people, we’re trying something new again this year. We have a free half day set of talks scheduled on Friday, from 1-5, given by Grant Fritchey and myself. We’ll each give two talks, with networking time in between. We are planning on covering four topics:

    • Core Monitoring
    • SQL Server Backup
    • Database Corruption
    • Indexing

    It will be an interesting day as Grant and I have been working on our talks, trying to make them interesting to the attendees. We are linking the content to Red Gate tools, but don’t worry, these aren’t infomercials. We are delivering valuable information to help you in your job, whether you use Red Gate tools or not.

    Afterwards we’ll have a short happy hour as well before we start prepping for the Saturday event.

    You can register today, and there are still a few slots left, but this will be a small event, so my apologies if you can’t get in.

    Saturday is the SQL Saturday event at the University of Richmond campus. There’s a great lineup of speakers from the Virginia area and beyond for you. If you can come, it’s a free day of SQL Server information and training with tons of networking opportunities.

    Come join me if you can.

  • Planning

    I made it to the UK on a very smooth, uneventful, on-time trip. That’s just what I like when traveling. After arriving at Heathrow and traveling to Cambridge, I arrived at the Red Gate office just in time for lunch. A fortuitous event as I was hungry after flying all night.

    Most of my afternoon was meeting with various product groups talking about planned enhancements and changes and how these items might benefit DBAs in the field. Grant and I are usually called on for sanity checks on thoughts, ideas, and plans.

    It’s interesting to discuss with product groups how and why they want to make changes. I can’t talk about specifics, but hearing from developers and project managers is always interesting to me. We see the world differently and it’s good to give feedback on products that can make a DBA’s job easier. I haven’t always had the chance to do that, but when I do, it’s a growing experience to hear how a vendor sees the world.

    I wrote about this recently, and a few disagreed, thinking that Microsoft doesn’t listen to them. I disagreed then, and I still do. I get an opinion at Red Gate, and with Microsoft. I don’t get to make a decision, or even much of a vote, but I do get to voice my opinion. Just because it isn’t followed doesn’t mean that someone didn’t listen.

    I don’t know to what extent my thoughts will influence the products, but I did see and discuss things with a variety of people in different departments, and the discussions evolved, so I know my opinion is heard. Whether it changes things remains to be seen.

  • Back Across the Water

    Another trip to the UK this week, with me leaving today for Cambridge and meetings at Red Gate Software. This will be my third trip this year, a record for me, and also the most travel I’ve done in a year.

    We are doing some planning for 2013, for the community and various events that Red Gate is a part of each year. We’ve supported user groups, SQL Saturdays, various conferences and our own SQL in the City events. Our goal is to interact with the community and learn things about how people use our software, as well as promote it, but also to educate data professionals. We want to turn a profit, but we also want to be a part of the community and support it where we can.

    I wish I could say that I’ll travel less next year, but I’m not sure that’s the case. We are looking to more effectively provide support, with more value for the money we spend, but I suspect that will mean more travel for Grant Fritchey and myself.

    We’ll see what happens, and we’ll likely start booking some events in 2013 soon. If you have ideas, suggestions, or requests, please feel free to post something here or send an email to communities@red-gate.com.