Voice of the DBA

Tag: Redgate

SQL in the City – London 2012
It’s a wrap. Two days of SQL in the City are complete, and I’m back at home, almost feeling normal. I prefer short trips to the UK, but this one was extra hard since it was a conference schedule. For me that’s up at 6:30 to run and usually not getting back to my room until 10:00pm. Long days.

The event was great. If you haven’t been, or wonder what it’s about, SQL in the City is a day of training from Red Gate Software. We do have a track that talks about how to use our tools, but we have two tracks that are mostly technical information. Brad, Grant, and I do mention Red Gate tools, but we aren’t really there to focus on the tools. We’re there to talk about technical subjects and ideas.

Think SQL Saturday, but a bit more “posh” and sponsored by Red Gate Software. Not this posh:

This posh:

Once again this year the event was held at the Royal Society of Medicine in London. We had a tremendous number of people sign up, so we added a day and ran the same one day conference for two days. Friday was packed, with over 400 people coming to learn a few things about SQL Server.

A note for the US: We’re bringing this event to the US in September and October, touring 5 cities in two weeks. We’ll also be in Seattle on the Monday before the PASS Summit.

A note to the UK and Europe: Let us know if you enjoyed it, missed it, and want us to come next near. I’d like to do more of these if there is a demand.

One of our two joint-CEOs, Simon Galbraith, opened the event, giving a short keynote on building software. For those of you used to long-winded, marketing filled keynotes, take note. This was 10 minutes, about 10 slides, 3 laughs from the audience, and that’s it.

Then it was time to learn. I watched a session from two Red Gate employees, Dave Atkinson and David Simner, on Continuous Integration (CI). If you aren’t using CI in your software process, you should. They showed how this process works, and how it has helped them build software quicker, and more bug-free. A few of the Red Gate tools make this easier, but there are many ways to do it.

I’ve never used CI before since the last time I developed software in a team was almost a decade ago. I realize now that I was really missing something. There aren’t a lot of cool, new things that I think have come through our industry, but this is one of them. Read the white paper we have, and start learning more about Continuous Integration.

There were a number of other talks on database maintenance, writing T-SQL, and more. I did two, one on preparing for disasters and thinking about things ahead of time and one on Contained Databases and AlwaysOn in SQL Server 2012. Grant talked about Sandbox development and monitoring your servers with the ring buffer (an amusing talk with movie photo quizzes included).

This was a little more of a formal event than most SQL Saturdays. We recorded the event, and while the videos will only be available to attendees for the next few months, that does mean that if you missed a session, you can watch it.

We also had a very hard working staff, including product managers

developers

and quite a few people from all parts of the company.

Even more importantly, we had free refreshments at the end of the day. I remember because I was told more than a few times to mention this before my talks. Our 2012 Red Gate brew of Select Star beer (along with wine and soft drinks) was handed out at the end of the day.

We also had a nice happy hour with a few prizes. A SQL Toolbelt from Red Gate first, and then a ticket to the PASS Summit 2012. That one had quite a few people hurriedly filling out their evaluation forms.

This was a great time, and though it was hard and long for me to speak two days in a row, I enjoyed the trip. I got to run through Hyde Park (haven’t done that in 25 years) and Regents Park (never done that), and had the chance to meet a lot of people from the SQLServerCentral community, including a few I’ve corresponded with for years.

The US tour starts in September. The cities and dates are:
- New York City – Sept 28
- Austin – Oct 1
- San Francisco – Oct 3
- Chicago – Oct 5
- Boston – Oct 8
- Seattle – Nov 5
I’ll be at all of them, along with a crew from Red Gate and a few guest speakers from the local areas.

This is a great chance for free training, one that we think is worth a day of your time. Sign up today if you’ll be near one of the events, and I look forward to shaking hands with you if you attend.
July 16, 2012
The Exceptional DBA Awards – 2012

Who will be the Exceptional DBA of 2012? I’ll be judging.

It’s hard to believe that it’s time for the Exceptional DBA awards once again. It was just a few months ago that I watched the presentation of the award to Jeff Moden in Seattle. However time flies, especially as I get older, and the nominations are once again open for the 2012 award. You can enter yourself or someone else between now and June 29th, so take a chance and enter if you think you’re doing a great job as a DBA for your company.

The previous winners have been ordinary people, just like most of you out there, that go to work, do their job, and are relatively unknown. They are exceptional, however, and their applications have shown that. These are people that go above and beyond what others do. They under-promise, over-deliver, and they help others. Those are the types of traits and characteristics that I get from their nomination forms. It’s interesting to see that many of our past finalists not only entered the contest, but were entered by a co-worker. That in and of itself says something about their work when a friend is willing to nominate them.

I’m judging again this year, along with Brad McGehee, Grant Fritchey, and Rodney Landrum. We’ve all down this before, and we all have lots of experience with people that stand out, and do not stand out, at work and in the community. We each have a slightly different take on the award, but we all get together and debate and decide who the finalists will be.

From my perspective, I want to see someone that does two main things. First, they’re effective. I have always been very successful at different jobs because I get things done. I ensure the systems work, and I solve problems, without getting bogged down in arguments, religious wars, or personal conflicts. My job first and foremost is to ensure that things work as people expect. I’m looking for those traits in an Exceptional DBA. Second, I want to see someone that makes others better, that helps the community. It doesn’t have to be by speaking, or blogging, or any one particular thing, but there are lots of smart people out there that get things done. I think the exceptional ones also make others better, either inside their company, in their area, or throughout the world. They share what they know and help lift up everyone else’s skills.

If you think you qualify, take some time and put together a nomination. If you think there’s someone that’s helped you and does a great job, nominate them. Make sure you spend a little time drafting, and proofing what you write. Good communication is essential here, and we all are writers for a living, so make sure you send us your best effort.

Enter today, and you may be the Exceptional DBA of 2012.

June 11, 2012
I’m Going on Tour
I’ve done quite a bit of speaking over the last few years, which has required a lot of travel. I had 15 events that I attended last year, only one of which was in Denver, so I spent quite a few days on a plane.

This year I’ve cut back a bit, with only 3 events so far this year, but it will get busy this fall. The SQL in the City events last year in London and LA were a big success for my employer, Red Gate Software, and this year we’ve decided to expand and build a mini-tour of events.

We are back in London this July, for two dates this time on July 13, and 14. Friday is booked, but you can still register for Saturday, July 14 and come attend a free training event, which will talk about SQL Server issues and include information about how Red Gate’s products make you more efficient and effective at your job.

This fall, we are going on a 5-cities-in-11-days tour all over the US. We have booked the following dates:
In addition, we’ve added a sixth event in Seattle, on Monday, Nov 5, just before the PASS Summit.

These are free events, and we’ll have some tool tracks, talking about how to better get value from Red Gate tools, but we’ll also have tracks that talk about real issues you encounter as DBAs. I’ll be speaking, along with Brad McGehee and Grant Fritchey on writing better T-SQL, database maintenance, disaster recovery, and more.

This tour is something we’ve talked about for a few years, and we’ve finally gotten the time, money, and permission for a tour. So look for us to be traveling through your part of the US. I’m not sure if we’ll have a real tour bus to travel in style.

With quite a few people coming over from the UK, and a frugal boss, our budget might end up supporting a tour in something like this.

In any case, if you will be in one of the cities on any of the dates above, register today. It’s an exciting experiment, and one that I hope will be valuable for you and us, and something we’ll get to do every year in different cities.
May 30, 2012
From the Labs of SQL Prompt

I love SQL Prompt as an add-in for SSMS. The intellisense is very handy for me and I’ve gotten used to certain shortcut combinations that make it easy for me to write T-SQL quickly and get information on parameters without opening Books Online. It’s works better than the native intellisense for me, though perhaps I’ve just gotten used to it. When it’s not installed on an instance in one of my VMs, writing code is a chore.

When I was in Cambridge recently, I had the chance to sit down with one of the developers of SQL Prompt and he showed me a few things I had never seen.

For the most part when I install SQL Prompt, I leave it with the defaults. There are a few snippets that I change quickly, like the ssf snippet. This normally produces a “SELECT * FROM” and I add a “TOP 10” to it in order to reduce the amount of data I bring back.

However there are a few features in SQL Prompt that are “experimental” in nature. They are complete, but not deployed into the product by default. You can access them from the SQL Prompt menu in Management Studio.

This brings up the Experimental Features tab in the options dialog, which you can see below. There aren’t a lot of features, but these are ideas that have been suggested, or are working, but they developers aren’t sure if they are completely spec’d out.

You can enable a few of these to see if you really want to see how they work. For example, I’ve enabled “Automatic Refresh Suggestions”. Since I tend to work in one database at a time and create lots of objects, I want this to happen. I can ALT+S, Enter for this, but I’d like to tool to do it for me.

These items change periodically, and some link to related tools (like SQL Tab Magic), and they give you a chance to test the way the feature works and provide feedback. If you are a SQL Prompt user, you might check out this tab.

If you’d like to see what SQL Prompt can do for you, download a free trial and give it a try:

May 21, 2012