10Oct 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Another Book

Uncategorized
Well, part of one anyway. I wrote three chapters of Rob Walter's new book, Beginning SQL Server 2008 Administration. I think I've mentioned it before. Well, my copies showed up in the mail. Nothing like holding that book in your hands as proof that you've done it. When everything is electronic and we stop printing dead tree books... I don't think it's going to be nearly as satisfying to finish a book. Please, look it over. I think it's going to be a good resource for people just getting started as DBA's.
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10Oct 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

3 Weeks to the PASS Summit

PASS
The PASS Summit is only three weeks away and I'm getting awfully excited. It's not too late to register. Heck, you can register at the door, but you'll pay full price. If you want to save a little, use this registration code, FRP3D, and tell them you know me. They'll hook you up & you'll save $200.  If you're involved with designing, building, developing, developing against, supporting or maintaining SQL Server databases or manage any of those who do any of the above, this is where you should be for the first week of November. You're going to get great information from presentations by top experts within the SQL Server community. Speaking of community, this is one to take part in. You're going to be able to network, talk to, confer, converse…
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08Oct 2009 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

SNESSUG September Meeting

Misc
We had a good night with 13 people attending. I ran unopposed for president of SNESSUG for my second, and final, term. We were graced with the prescence of Jeff Moden, MVP and on of the top posters over at SQL Server Central. He was just visiting. He's a great guy and I was very happy for the chance to meet him in person. Jeff is going to be at the PASS Summit this year, so you too can have a chance to meet him. The presentation was on SSAS and SSRS by Sunil Kadimdiwan. He did a full introduction of cubes from Excel to Analysis Services, all with the purpose of showing how to generate good reports using Reporting Services. Attendees were very interested in some of the security settings…
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08Oct 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Log Reader Awards

PASS
Brent Ozar, Andy Warren and Jeremiah Peschka have put together a blogger award called the PASS Log Reader Award. I took a couple of posts that I did in the last year and entered. No, I'm not going to say which ones and I don't expect to win because I just picked 'em up, as is, no edits and submitted. I didn't browse all my posts, I didn't rank them, rate them, or do anything else. I just picked two that seemed to describe something and describe it reasonably well. The way I look at it, win or lose, this is supporting PASS, so it's worth taking part. Plus, I like a little competition. The award will be presented at the Summit (which is only three weeks away!).
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06Oct 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Hey, ho, where’d you go…

PASS
Ohio? I'm presenting on Thursday to the Columbus SQL Server Users Group, home of the newly minted MVP, Jeremiah Peschka (congrats again). It's to be a virtual presentation through live meeting. The topic is a Understanding Execution Plans. This time I hope that one of us remembers to hit the record button unlike last time when I did this presentation for the PASS AppDev Virtual Chapter. If you're in the area, come on down and meet me, virtually. Show runs from 6:30-8:30, although all that time is not my presentation, so I suspect Jeremiah has some more fun planned.
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05Oct 2009 by Grant Fritchey 15 Comments

Ad Hoc Queries Don’t Reuse Execution Plans: Myth or Fact

SQL Server, T-SQL
Another frequently heard story is that stored procedures get and reuse execution plans, but ad hoc queries do not. A lot of people believe this and say as much online and in the real world. Unlike my last myth, this time, I'm going to give you the DBA answer to this question. It depends. There are ad hoc queries and there are ad hoc queries. The classic ad hoc query looks like this: DECLARE @sql NVARCHAR(MAX), @value int; SET @value = 43668; SET @sql = 'SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS soh '; SET @sql = @sql + 'JOIN Sales.SalesOrderDetail AS sod '; SET @sql = @sql + 'ON soh.SalesOrderID = sod.SalesOrderID '; SET @sql = @sql + 'WHERE soh.SalesOrderID = ' + CAST(@value AS NVARCHAR); EXEC (@sql); And as ad…
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02Oct 2009 by Grant Fritchey 15 Comments

Free Stuff and a SQL Server Standard Update

Misc, PASS
Great news. We've managed to get one article all the way through the process. We'll have our first publication out within a couple of weeks. We might even get a second out at the PASS Summit. We're working through the final details on contracts, author payments and the layout of the magazine, including cover art. That brings up a question. The intent is to publish high quality articles by great authors (and believe me, we've got exactly that coming down the pike). In order to reflect this, instead of just an HTML layout, we're going with Adobe Acrobat so that we can get that magazine feel, but online. My question... We're trying to decide what to do with cover art. Our options are: Some type of stylish picture, say, stamps…
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30Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

SQL Server Standard Update

Misc, PASS
Just to keep people who might be interested up to date on what's happening with the SQL Server Standard relaunch. I've received some fantastic abstracts on a wide range of topics from a diverse group of SQL Server DBA's and Developers. From that, we've got a lot of articles in the hopper going through technical edits and second drafts. Three articles have made it all the way to copy edit. They should be done soon. I'm positive you'll see at least one of them, maybe two, before the PASS Summit. I need even more abstracts so I can publish even more articles. If you meet the qualifications to write for us, please submit an abstract to my PASS email address: grant.fritchey - at - sqlpass -dot- org (unobfuscate the obvious).…
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30Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey 27 Comments

Pre-Compiled Stored Procedures: Fact or Myth

SQL Server, T-SQL
There's a very common belief among DBA's: Stored procedures are pre-compiled. I had someone tell me all about it just last week. There are lots of sources that say what I'm getting ready to say, so this really shouldn't come as news to anyone,but it will. No, they're not. Stored procedures are not pre-compiled. When you create or update a stored procedure on the server, it gets a syntax check. But there is no compile process, let alone a pre-compile process. That stored procedure exists exactly as it is named, a procedure that is stored on the server. It's just a collection of TSQL code, possibly with some parameters, waiting to be called. Until it's called, it is not ready to be executed. Don't believe me? I'm not a huge…
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30Sep 2009 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Minor Celebration

Misc
A little cheap thrill for me. I passed 50,000 views on the blog yesterday. Thanks to everyone who has stopped by to read my fumbling attempts to understand SQL Server better. I hope some of the posts have proved useful to you. I learn a lot from putting them together.
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