You absolutely need to know about the servers you have under management in your estate. You need to know about the databases. Uptime, performance, behaviors, errors, corruption and a much longer list of items that will frankly fill this blog post, are very important to you. I've been doing work in and around data and databases for over 30 years now (OMG, I'm so old). I feel like I know how monitoring works, what's important, what's not, what's vital and what's trivial. However, I know that you have different needs, different requirements, different problems. Those problems need different solutions. Tell Us The Problems You're Solving, and How Or not. I'm assuming that you're doing the work you need to do to solve these issues, but maybe you just don't know…
Despite a hiccup recently on Twitter where I managed to spam all my followers with links to my YouTube videos (so sorry about that), I am still posting videos. Please subscribe to the channel. Video Lists I created video lists. Here they are, in no particular order: SQL Server and Microsoft Data Platform GDPR and How It Relates to Your Data SQL Server Query Performance Tuning Redgate Software Videos DevOps and Databases I hope it helps to have them grouped up. Videos Here are the videos I've posted over the last few weeks. First, too many people take a "poke it and see what happens" approach to query tuning. I try to talk to that issue here: [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHxOrPEyPb8[/embedyt] Want to know where I go to learn about the GDPR?…
I was asked, "Who here thinks that PASS helps people put food on the table?" To my shame, I initially said no. I mean after all, it's just training and networking that could lead to improved knowledge and abilities which... hang on. Just how wrong I can be sometimes when I don't fully engage my brain prior to speaking. The Table and the Food I'm almost entirely self-taught when it comes to IT. I make that claim all the time. You know it's not true. Do I have formalized educational training from any type of certified body? You know, a university education? Nope. Not at all. Instead, I've learned from a combination of experimentation, books, blogs, videos, friends, contacts and some classes at a variety of venues. Notice what's wrong there? Only…
That is a patently false statement and total BS. It sure does crawl up your spine though doesn't it? Why then do we need to do this? I read an article, "How DevOps is Killing the Developer," and, frankly, was a little put off by this: Good developers are smart people. I know I'm going to get a ton of hate mail, but there is a hierarchy of usefulness of technology roles in an organization. Developer is at the top, followed by sysadmin and DBA. QA teams, "operations" people, release coordinators and the like are at the bottom of the totem pole. Why is it arranged like this? Because each role can do the job of all roles below it if necessary. Nice to know I'm almost as good as…
Yesterday I passed 300,000 views on the blog. Recently I went over 1,000 comments. My little joke on Tuesday garnered over 2,000 views alone. I just wanted to say thank you for stopping by and reading about my struggles to understand SQL Server, Azure, our amazing community and whatever else it is that I've posted here. I appreciate your time. On to the next 300,000.
Laws of Thermodynamics TANSTAAFL Gods of the Copybook Headings All magic comes with a price Winter Is Coming My adult years started with a pretty thorough education in physics thanks to Uncle Sugar and the Navy Nuclear Power School. The laws of thermodynamics were carved into our brains (along with Baumgart's Law*). Experience has taught me that all these other statements are more or less riffs on the concepts put forward by the fundamentals of the laws of thermodynamics. They're just applications of the same within social spheres. In short, if you have a physical engineering background, you tend to be a realist. But note, I'm not a pessimist. I just recognize a simple thing. No matter how positive my thoughts are, no matter my belief in the righteousness of…
I heard about this new law that was passed to prevent employers from asking for your social media passwords. After the laughter stopped, I realized that, maybe, this would be needed. Not because I need the government to help me manage my interactions with my employers and potential employers. And not because I think the government needs to be involved in other peoples interactions, not at this level. But because I don't think people realize they have a word that they can use with employers. That word is 'No.' "We want you to sign this non-compete agreement that says you'll never be a DBA for any other company after leaving ours." Ha! No. And yes, I really had one of these. And yes, there actually are laws against it (I…
I can't sing and I can't play and I left the young generation behind a while ago, but I'm still coming to your town, or maybe one near you. Between August and December I'm hitting a substantial portion of the country, so if you want to have a little fun, discuss SQL Server, network, or just chat, here are your chances. Please, ask me questions. Please, walk right up and say hello because we can learn from each other and I love my SQL Family. Here's where I'm going to be: SQL Saturday #125 in Oklahoma City, August 25: Only one presentation here, Top Tips for T-SQL Performance, but it's a fun presentation. Register now because time is running out. SQL Saturday #156 in Providence, RI, September 15: This is…
Joe Fleming wants to know how I solve weird problems. I'm not sure I'm actually qualified to answer this question since I, myself, am a weird problem, but I'll give it a shot. One aspect of my job is to provide support to our clients. No, I'm not on call (thank the gods), but I'll get roped in for, well, the weirder ones. No, no, not the weirder clients (although...), the weirder problems. Recently we had one, not exactly weird, but it did take a few odd turns along the way. The Problem A client asked us to tell them when a query ran long. Simple. We have a long running query alert, all built in to Redgate Monitor, so, done. No, see, we like getting alerted when queries run…
I travel quite a lot for work. Most of it is in the US and Europe, but I get around to other places as well. Most of the time, connectivity, while not the greatest, isn't that bad, or hard. I run a VPN on my phone and laptop. I can set up my RDS connectivity by getting whatever IP address I've been assigned, and I'm good to go. However, recently, for whatever reason, I could not make a connection to AWS RDS no matter what I tried. I even switched over to my phone. I dropped my existing database (which hurt, just a test database, but now I have to rebuild it). Nothing. I validated every single possible problem. I went through all the troubleshooting steps. Nothing. It's Nice to…