27May 2015 by Grant Fritchey 5 Comments

PASS Board Update: May 2015

PASS
I've had a busy month on the Board. You may have seen some tweets going by about our compliance with international laws regarding SPAM. This has been something of an education, so anything I say wrong below, it's because I'm wrong, but not malevolent (at least in regards to this topic), so please be kind. It appears that the mechanisms we had on our emails for showing where the email came from and how to unsubscribe from it, weren't completely in compliance... IF... we were sending emails that involved advertising. By we, I mean Chapters, not HQ. Now, that IF, could mean that we could skip out of meeting this requirement when our emails didn't involve advertisements, but then it'd have to be in compliance when it did and we'd…
Read More
26May 2015 by Grant Fritchey 11 Comments

Database Engine Tuning Advisor

Azure, SQL Server, T-SQL
I would love to see the Database Engine Tuning Advisor (DTA) pulled from the product. Completely. Heck, I feel bad that I included a chapter on it in my query tuning book (all updated for SQL Server 2014 by the way). Let me tell you why we need to pull this tool. First, I understand its purpose. It's supposed to be a fast and easy way to get some performance tuning done for people who just don't have the time or knowledge to go through the full process of gathering metrics, evaluating poor performers, understanding root causes and applying indexes to fix those causes. I also readily acknowledge that it actually is an amazing piece of software. If you don't agree with that, go read this white paper. With those acknowledgements…
Read More
19May 2015 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Book Review: Connected

Professional Development
I heard about Connected from a show on NPR (Yes, I listen to NPR, why do people keep saying that?). It was right after another segment talking about how positivity affects your mood and your ability to think and act in a clear fashion. I've long been a believer in the ability of your network to impact you, but I really didn't think about it beyond that. Hearing about the book Connected changed my thinking, so I ran out (meaning, connected to Amazon) and got a copy. The premise of the book is pretty simple. You have close friends and acquaintances. Your close friends and acquaintances also have friends and acquaintances, that may or may not over lap with yours. Those people also have another set of friends and acquaintances.…
Read More
18May 2015 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Come to Us or We’ll Come to You

Database Lifecycle Management, DevOps
No, that's not a threat. It's an offer to help out. Redgate Software is very serious about the efforts we're putting into creating the tools needed to support your Database Lifecycle Management (DLM) processes. DLM is a vital part of supporting both Agile development methods and moving towards an automated DevOps style of systems management that tightly integrates your software development and deployments with your database development and deployments. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you can get really good at performing manual tasks, or you can get really good at automation. You want to get good at automation and we're here to help. Getting a smooth process from source control, continuous integration, continuous delivery and continuous deployment can be a lot of work, but work with huge…
Read More
15May 2015 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

I Am Grateful For…

Misc
I'm almost done reading the book Connected (will be by the time this is published). It's fascinating although, at least so far, little in the way of suggestions for how to take advantage of this information. That however doesn't change my plans around working on positive thoughts and emotions as a way to hack your own mind and increase productivity. I'm also trying to figure out how to reinforce my network. In short, these are completely self-serving posts. I am grateful for Thomas LaRock (b|t). Tom is hard to miss. If you look at the floor all the time, the green shoes might be a giveaway. If you look up a lot, keep looking up because he's quite tall. Oh yeah, and he's the President of PASS (for a couple of…
Read More
11May 2015 by Grant Fritchey 13 Comments

Is Performance Better With LEFT JOIN or RIGHT JOIN?

T-SQL
I tend to write my queries using LEFT JOIN. Why? Because logically I see it in my head like this: Give me all the rows from this table and only those rows that match from the other table. But, wouldn't this logic work just as well: Give me only the rows in this table that match the rows from this other table where I'm selecting all of them. I know. If I worked on it some more I could make that a better sentence, but I'm pretty sure the logic is still sound. Only matching rows from one data set, all the rows from another data set. In short, RIGHT JOIN. I read recently that we ought to be making everything into a LEFT JOIN because it performs better. I suspect…
Read More
05May 2015 by Grant Fritchey 15 Comments

Effects of Persisted Columns on Performance

T-SQL
I live for questions. And my favorite questions are the ones where I'm not completely sure of the answer. Those are the questions that make me stop presenting in order to take a note so I can try to answer the question later, usually in a blog post. Guess where we are today? I was asked at SQL Bits in London about the direct impact of the PERSISTED operator on calculated columns, both inserts and selects. I didn't have a specific answer, so I wrote it down for later (and asked the, self-described, persisting Dane, to email me to remind me. He did, so I put together a few tests to try to answer his question. First, I created three tables: CREATE TABLE dbo.PersistTest ( PersistTestID INT IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL PRIMARY…
Read More
01May 2015 by Grant Fritchey 6 Comments

Speaker of the Month: May 2015

Professional Development
I finally got out to some community events last month and got to see a bunch of great speakers. Not that you don't see great speakers at paid events, you do. It's just that they're usually professional speakers and I want to encourage others when I can. The Speaker of the Month for May 2015 is John Sterrett (b|t) and his presentation Automate Your Daily Checklist With PBM and CMS at SQL Saturday Boston. The very first thing that impressed me about this presentation was how John entered the room and immediately started interacting with the attendees. You see a lot of speakers hiding behind the lectern, fiddling with cables, nervously sipping water. Not John. He was chatting as he set up, immediately getting control of the room. It's a great…
Read More
27Apr 2015 by Grant Fritchey 20 Comments

Benefits for Some, All or Only a Few

PASS, Professional Development
As a member of the PASS Board of Directors I attended the PASS Business Analytics Conference (BAC) recently. You can read more about it here and here (as well as here). Let me start with an important note: I am voicing my opinion here as an individual, not an official stance of the PASS organization. There is controversy around the BAC because of a whole bunch of things, but one question in particular bothered me. It was suggested that the people attending the BAC were just consuming the worth or value that other people who paid for the Summit generated. At first, I just dismissed this concept. It stuck in the back of my mind though. Suddenly I realized why. Yes, the BAC was partly paid for by Summit. The…
Read More
23Apr 2015 by Grant Fritchey 14 Comments

PASS Board Update: April 2015

PASS
It's been a pretty interesting month on the board. First, we did have a little problem. I'm sure one or two of you may have noticed that the SQL Saturday web site was down for a moment. Well, three days. Joking aside, this was a serious problem, but my involvement was largely peripheral since I'm in charge of Chapters. I tried to help out a little, offering what support I could and, if nothing else, supplying an ear, willing to listen. Quite a few people took advantage of that. I communicated all their information up the chain to HQ and the other board members. Nothing has been held back. Next, we've started the budgeting process. That's fascinating. As well as a giant pain in the... well, anyway. Thankfully the people…
Read More