11Nov 2013 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

For the Aspiring DBA

Professional Development
Getting started as a data professional is an incredibly daunting task. If you’re not concerned that you’re going to mess stuff up and cause a system to crash and burn, maybe you’re in the wrong job. The amount of information you have to learn is insanely huge, coupled with the fact that you are straddling application development, system administration and business needs, multiplied by the factor that all the apps, all the code and the very server structure on which you’re building everything is constantly changing. Concerned now? Good. Stay that way. The one piece of advice I want to offer you is that very state of concern. You are in a wonderful and horrifying position. If you’re working in the database administration space, you’re tasked with protecting the data…
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05Nov 2013 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

More Azure Goodies

Azure
Microsoft keeps sneaking little things under the door for Windows Azure SQL Database. This time it's a couple of new views, a system view and a Dynamic Management View (DMV); sys.resource_stats and sys.dm_operation_stats. But, I also learned another fun fact, not all this stuff rolls out at the same speed. For example, if I run sys.resource_stats on a database on a server located in the North Central US data center, the output looks like this: But, if I run the same query against the same view with a database in a data center in East Asia (I experiment with where I put things), it looks like this (click on it to expand it, probably want to do that into a second tab or window so you can refer to it…
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04Nov 2013 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Speaker of the Month, November 2013

Professional Development
Yeah, I'm a couple of days late. Tough. My blog. My rules. Speaking of rules. Speaker of the Month is chosen by me based on my whims, interests and the direction of the wind on every other Tuesday at 3PM. No whining. I saw a ton of excellent sessions during the month of October. I was at SQL in the City, SQL Saturday Charleston, and the PASS Summit, so I had an embarrassment of riches to choose from. One session stood out. It's on a topic that, frankly, I find incredibly dull. But not this presentation. Without further ado, for November I'm picking Chris Bell (b|t) and his presentation, Indexing Encrypted Data (oh stop yawning, this is good). Chris went to town on the slides. He's clearly very carefully built…
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29Oct 2013 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

Query Tuning in Dallas

SQL Server, T-SQL
Let's have some fun. This Friday, November 1, 2013, I'm putting on an all day seminar on query tuning. It's set up as a pre-conference event for SQL Saturday 255 in Dallas. It's a 200 level course on understanding how the query optimizer works, the importance of statistics, constraints and indexes, how to read execution plans, and how to take all that knowledge and go to work on tuning your queries. Here's the fun. Sign up for the seminar, and bring a nasty query you've been trying to tune or a query you don't understand or an execution plan that's making you crazy. Depending on the time available near the end of the day, we'll walk through a few of them. I've slightly restructured the seminar so I have some…
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22Oct 2013 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

SQL in the City, US Tour 2013, Recap

Professional Development, Redgate Software
Red Gate visited three cities this year with our SQL in the City event; Pasadena, Atlanta and Charlotte. I just wanted to give you a quick assessment of how the events went from my point of view. Overall, each and every one of these events was awesome. I can safely say that because each and every one of these events provided something special, the opportunity to network with our peers and with the developers and project managers at Red Gate (who are also our peers, but not usually available to us). I both took part in the networking and stood back and watched it happen. I love seeing a bunch of data pro's sitting (or standing) in a circle exchanging war stories, ideas, questions, thoughts or suggestions. It means you…
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17Oct 2013 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

PASS Summit 2013: Women In Technology Luncheon

PASS
This year I was invited to attend the Women In Technology luncheon as a blogger. So I'll be live-blogging it through it in the same way as I did the keynote. The WIT lunches are a fascinating, and let's face it, unique PASS-style event, that have been taking place for years at the PASS Summit. It's about growth and empowerment for women within technology. But, it's not some crazy man-bashing event. It's just another, special, way to network (that thing that PASS does so well). Panelists are Cindy Gross, Gail Shaw, Kevin Kline, Rob Farley and Erin Stellato. Mickey Steuwe is acting as moderator. The theme is Beyond Stereotypes: Equality, Gender Neutrality, and Valuing Diversity is the theme. The first question: "Do you have to make an effort to fit…
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17Oct 2013 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Summit 2013 Day 2 Key Note

PASS
KILT DAY! Today we have to eat our vegetables and then get lots and lots of sweet desert. Or. Today we hear about PASS Finances as a part of the official annual meeting and then we get to hear Dr. David Dewitt speak (completely and utterly getting our nerd on and squeeing like teenage girls at a Bieber concert). I will be live-blogging this event, so watch this space. 8:20: Douglas McDowell kicks off the key note today.  the vast majority of the money that runs PASS comes from the Summit. That's right, by attending the Summit you're also supporting the organization. The Business Analytics Conference, which kicked off this year also provides quite a bit more money to the organization. 8:25: PASS has changed its budgeting process. At this…
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16Oct 2013 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Summit 2013 Day 1 Keynote

PASS
I am liveblogging the keynote from the bloggers table at the PASS Summit again this year. Just keep scrolling. Watching the introduction video as people trickle in. All the other bloggers are setting up. I get in early. I didn't rearrange the seats this year. I see others doing it now. 8:11: Watching the videos of all the attendees registering and meeting people at the start of the event and last night's welcome reception is awesome and fun. 8:21: The lights go down and the videos of what everyone is looking forward to at the Summit. In keeping with our location, right next to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, we've got a bit of a race theme going on. We're seeing current PASS President, Bill Graziano having a dream about…
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15Oct 2013 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Monitoring Structure Changes

Azure
Most everyone I know works with environments that are carefully controlled and structured. All changes go through rigorous testing and full documentation. Absolutely nothing happens in a production environment that hasn't been thought through, discussed, planned for and written down. But, there are a few, a very few, who work in a slightly different kind of environment that they refer to as "the real world." In this "real world" changes to a production environment can happen without approval, planning or testing. Scary, right? There's good news for these poor benighted souls. Red Gate is testing out a new piece of software called SQL Lighthouse. It's meant to monitor your systems for changes so that you know what has happened and when in case you don't have a good source control…
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09Oct 2013 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

Do Be a Gatekeeper

Professional Development
I read this fascinating blog post called "Don't Be a Gatekeeper" by Julie Zhuo. Please read that first. It really resonated for me in a lot of ways. Everything she said is 100% applicable to our jobs as data professionals. Work to make things more robust. Create processes and structures and an environment where you don't have to be the hero all day every day. Yes, absolutely. But... ah, there's this nagging little voice at the back of my head. Let's ignore it for a moment. Are you a gatekeeper for your developers? Why? Get out of their way. Listen to what Ms. Zhuo has to say. Your development team doesn't need you squatting on their servers preventing them from moving as fast as they can. In fact, they need…
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