19Jul 2017 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

SQL Cruise: Alaska 2017

Professional Development
We're weeks away from another SQL Cruise. If you've never heard of this before, follow the link to read more. There you'll also find testimonials and suggestions on how to sell SQL Cruise to your boss. I'm going to leave selling it to your boss to you. I want you to consider this. Class Time I'm extremely honored to once more act as one of the Technical Leads. When you look at the people I'm working with, Argenis Fernandez, Andrew Kelly, Allen White and Bob Ward (SQUEEE!), you can understand why I feel this way. I'm as grateful as I can be to Tim Ford for putting faith in me to let me stand next to these wonderful people. I'll do everything I can to prove myself worthy. That means…
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18Oct 2016 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

SQL Cruise as a Speaker and Sponsor

Professional Development
SQL Cruise offers a number of unique opportunities for everyone involved, including speakers and sponsors. I've written before, several times, about the benefits of SQL Cruise. As an attendee of the cruise, you will get to sit in classes by amazing people (and me) talking about all aspects of the Data Platform. Further, you get the opportunity to sit down, for long hours, with these people and get, for want of a better description, free consulting time. What about as a speaker and a sponsor though, do we get benefits? As A Speaker Tim Ford is quite a bright fellow. He has tweaked and tuned SQL Cruise. I have been on SQL Cruise a number of times over the last five years, and it has changed radically since my first cruise…
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01Dec 2015 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

It’s Not Too Late

Azure, Professional Development, Redgate Software, SQL Server 2016
You know you want to go on the SQL Cruise. You can. You just have to convince the boss that it's worth doing. It is. I've said it before and I'll repeat it as necessary, SQL Cruise changes peoples lives. I've watched people go on the cruise with a job and come back with a career. People don't just learn on the Cruise. They get energized. They get engaged with the data professional community. How do I profit by promoting SQL Cruise? I don't. Tim Ford is a friend and I'm supporting him. My company, Redgate Software, is a sponsor of the cruise, so I'm supporting them. I could just be doing the bare minimum in support of these parties. However, I'm not getting paid anything special by anyone for doing more.…
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03Jul 2015 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Speaker of the Month: June 2015

Professional Development
With my travel schedule, I don't always get out to events where I can see a community speaker. Sometimes, I just see pros. That's the case this month. Instead of skipping the month entirely, which feels wrong, I've decided to do a special award. Speaker of the Month for June 2015 are all the speakers (except me) on SQL Cruise Mediterranean 2015. I've said it before and I don't mind repeating myself, SQL Cruise changes people's careers. There are a lot of reasons for this. The number one reason is all the work that Tim & Amy Ford do to put together the cruise, create the itinerary, ensure plenty of structured and unstructured time on the boat to ensure intense interaction, and all the rest of the stuff that they…
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06Jan 2015 by Grant Fritchey 5 Comments

Execution Plans, Performance Tuning and Rum

Misc
[caption id="attachment_2827" align="alignleft" width="150"] This is me on the last cruise[/caption] In just a few more weeks I'll be setting sail on the first of two SQL Cruise events this year. I'm honored beyond my ability to appropriately express it to be included as one of the Technical Leads for both the cruise in February (7-14, 2015, I think there's a seat or two left) to the Caribbean and the one in June (14-21, 2015, definitely a couple of seats left) to the Mediterranean. Lest you think that this is just an excuse to hang out and drink, you ought to know a little about how sessions are presented on the cruise and the sessions I'm presenting. Don't mistake sessions on the boat for your typical one hour session at…
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18Dec 2013 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Speaking in 2014

Professional Development
I love that I get to travel around and learn from my #sqlfamily. We're still filling in the majority of the 2014 schedule, but the plans are to go to as many events as Mrs. Scary will let me. I'd like to alert you to a couple coming up in January, and then I should be able to get a fuller schedule for the first quarter posted soon (that way you can complain to me in person about Managed Backups). On Friday, January 10th, I'll be presenting a SQL in the City Seminar on Database Deployment in Cambridge, UK. Presenting in the UK is just fantastic. And this is a live event. And it's at the stately Red Gate Towers. Oh, and this is a free event, but seating is…
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26Sep 2011 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

Book Review: Smarter, Faster, Cheaper

Professional Development
In my continuing quest to not get personal visits from Buck Woody (blog|twitter) I’m making sure that I make good on my commitment to read 12 personal development books in 12 months. We’re up to #4 (again demonstrating the degree of fear that Buck can put in a person) and the book is Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-Free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business by David Siteman Garland (blog|twitter). The extended title on the book covers what it’s about quite well. David Garland is considered one of the top marketers these days and he seems to follow the processes laid out in his book. I say this because I received a tweet from him after I tweeted that I’d finished reading the book. One of the processes laid out…
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20Jun 2011 by Grant Fritchey 9 Comments

Make the Optimizer Work Harder

SQL Server
One of my favorite indicators for whether or not you have a good execution plan is when you see the “Reason for Early Termination” property in the TSQL operator like this: The optimizer considered this particular plan “Good Enough.” which is what you want to see. When you see “Timeout” as the reason, that’s an indication that the plan you have may be sub-optimal. The question is, can you make the optimizer spend more time on your queries. Well, actually, the question is, should you make the optimizer spend more time on queries. During my session on SQL Cruise I answered the original phrasing of that question, no. As usual when I present in front of people smarter than I am, I was wrong. Brent Ozar (blog|twitter) pointed out that…
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08Jun 2011 by Grant Fritchey 6 Comments

SQL Cruise Alaska 2011

Misc
Yes, I went on the SQL Cruise to Alaska. Yes, it was as grand as you've heard. Yes, I'm going to be putting up a series of blog posts about it. This is the first. It's also part of my class work done during the cruise. Three Reasons for Choosing to Cruise 1. My first, and most important, reason for coming on the cruise is because I thought it would be good for Red Gate Software. I’m still figuring out how to do my job as a product evangelist, so I’m experimenting with contacting audiences in as many ways as I can. This is one way to make that contact. 2. Frankly, I thought it would be fun. Fun because I knew a bunch of the people running the show…
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