10Nov 2010 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

PASS Summit: Day 2 Keynote

Misc, PASS
Today is Kilt Day at the PASS Summit. We're going to try to arrange a group photo at lunch time. The network connection is extremely slow. I suspect the tweeting about the kilts. Bill Graziano is leading the key note and he started off with having all the kilted stand. Only about 12-15 of us, but that's five times better than last year. Then it was time for the volunteers to stand up. It was excellent to see so many people. The Outstanding Volunteer of the Year was Lorie Edwards. The PASSion award went to Wendy Pastrick, who really earned it. Unfortunately the next segment was on governance... blech! But necessary. Everyone here is a member, so they should know how the money is spent. Luckily Bill is not digging…
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09Nov 2010 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

PASS Summit: Day 1 Keynote, Part 3

PASS
Ted Kummert is still talking. For the cloud, of course, they're talking about SQL Azure. Microsoft really is throwing themselves into the cloud, completely. The emphasis is that they offer both a cloud and an on-premises solution. I don't mind saying, I'm still trying to get the full business proposition for an old school, fat, business like the one I work for. What should we be doing with the cloud. I just haven't seen the magic. I see where smaller businesses, or start-ups, or temporary surge capacity for businesses that may have that type of thing can use the cloud, but... traditional work, it just doesn't seem to jive yet. We're going to see some made-up scenarios for how Azure can manage Contoso Bikes. He shows how the report can…
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09Nov 2010 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

PASS Summit: Day 1 Keynote, Part 2

PASS
Mark Souza from the SQL CAT Team, some of the smartest & most capable of MS consultants in SQL Server, is presenting how his team is offering a health check for people's SQL Server systems. There going to actually be using some technology to do this little event called SQL PASS It On, using Twitter. Twitter is become more and more of a major part of the event. If you're not at least monitoring Twitter, you're missing out. It's a busy day with the SQL Clinic, the Exhibit Hall, Community Learning Center, Birds of a Feather Lunch, Regional Mentors, Book Signing and Exhibitor Reception. That's not mentioning all the sessions. The key notes will be Ted Kummert today, Quentin Clark tomorrow, and David DeWitt (YAY!) on Thursday where he will…
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09Nov 2010 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Summit: Day 1 Keynote, Part 1

PASS
Sitting at the big kids table at the PASS Summit, ready to rock and roll. The Summit has not officially started yet, but it's been a fantastic ride already. I'm getting to meet a bunch of great and amazing people. I made my very first trip out to the Microsoft campus yesterday. Last night was the SQL Server Central party. This is just a great organization and a great event. Right at the start, the tweeting is hot & heavy. Hmmm... OK, starting off with a Tina Turner impersonator. She's extremely good, but I have to ask, what were they thinking? Her name is Truly Tina. She was outstanding. Just a bit odd. Rushabh Mehta is introducing the PASS organization. He's showing off the Board of directors and the executive…
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03Nov 2010 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

SQLServerPedia Award Votes

Uncategorized
This is just another reminder to please vote for my blog post on using PowerShell Remoting with SQL Server. It's a post I'm proud of. Also, I think that Gail Shaw (blog|twitter) is one heck of a great blogger. She has multiple posts in several categories. She's extremely deserving of your vote. She might even get the most votes overall, another thing I think she deserves. I've learned tons and tons from all the information she puts out there. The least she deserves is a little chunk of plexiglass for all that hard work. So vote for all her posts.
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03Nov 2010 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Kilt Day

PASS
A week from now will be Kilt Day at the PASS Summit. It's probably way too late to order a kilt at this point. But, don't despair. You can still take part. Just a short walk from the Summit is the headquarters of Utilikilt. These are not classic tartan wraps with sporans and socks. They're the modern equivalent, come in fun fabrics & colors and are actually pretty practical. So if you still want to participate in Kilt Day, and we'd love to have you, plan a trip to Utilikilt. And no, they're not sponsoring me or anything (more's the pity). I just like them.
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02Nov 2010 by Grant Fritchey 12 Comments

TSQL Tuesday: Why Are DBA Skills Necessary

Misc
  Quote: "Database stuff, all this programming stuff, is easy. Anyone can do it. That's why everyone in the company has sa privileges." For nine months, I worked in an environment where everyone, from developers to QA to the sales people to the receptionist, had SA privileges. You know what? DBA skills are necessary. I speak from the point of view of someone that has had to recover a server after a salse person helpfully "cleaned up the temporary stuff on the server" by dropping tempdb, causing a late deployment for a client. I speak from the point of view of the guy who kept a window open on his desk with the database restore script ready to run, all day long, because of "accidents" that stopped development until I could get the…
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01Nov 2010 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

SQLServerPedia Awards

Uncategorized
Right, I said I wouldn't compete, but I can't help pointing out that I'm pretty proud of this particular blog post that is in the Management and Automation category.  I thinki the number one tool for automation of administration of SQL Server, and pretty much all of Microsoft's server technologies, is PowerShell. Knowing how to execute scripts on multiple servers, asynchronously, is extremely important to a successful administration automation effort. So, please, despite what I said before, consider voting for PowerShell Remoting with SQL Server.
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01Nov 2010 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

More Voting

Uncategorized
As if the US Election and SQL Rally voting were not enough (and have you voted yet for the SQL Rally Pre cons? Polls close tomorrow at 8PM), I just found out that SQLServerPedia is holding an awards vote. You only have a week, so get on over there and vote. There are a ton of categories and some really excellent blog posts to choose from. Yes, I have a post in there, but in this instance, I am not asking for your vote and won't provide a link. All of those bloggers, many of whom I know personally, put in extra work to get that information out to you. They all deserve your vote. That is a collection of extremely hard working, smart people, that I learn a lot…
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