I’ll be speaking at the San Diego SQL Server Users Group

The good folks of the San Diego SQL Server User Group has invited me to come speak to them on March 20, 2008.  The meeting starts at 6PM.

 If you are in the area I urge you to come and check it out.  The topic of my talk will be Query Tuning as well as a bit of Query Governor.  If you attended the SoCal Code Camp in January and weren’t able to catch my session then, now is your chance.

The slide deck will be a little different so I’ll be adjusting it a little bit.  I’ll try and get the slide deck posted before the meeting, but no promises.

More information about the San Diego SQL Server User Group can be found on thier web site http://www.sdsqlug.org.  See you there.

Denny

New Paper Published: Bullet-proof Change Management – Don’t just Cross your Fingers and Hope

I’ve written a technical brief on how my company, Awareness Technologies, uses the Quest Software Change Director for SQL Server product to monitor for and track unauthorised changes to our environments.

Denny

T/SQL Back To Basics

I’ve seen a lot of posts online over the last few weeks with people asking about basic query syntax.  So over the next few posts I’m going to show some basic T/SQL queries as well as some more “advanced” features and syntaxes.

Hopefully you’ll find these syntaxes useful.

All the code syntaxes will cover SQL 2000 and SQL 2005.  Where code only works in one version or another it will be noted.

Denny

New Article: Configuring SQL Server memory settings

I’ve recently published a new tip on SearchSQLServer.com called “Configuring SQL Server memory settings“.

Denny

New Article: Create an upgrade plan for your move to SQL Server 2005

I’ve published a new tip over on SearchSQLServer.com entitled “Create an upgrade plan for your move to SQL Server 2005“.

While it’s based on upgrading to SQL Server 2005 it can be used to upgrade to SQL Server 2008 as well.

Denny

What should I speak on at PASS this year?

Well the call for speakers for the PASS Summit 2008 should be coming up shortly, and I’m trying to decide what to submit to speak about.  And I decided that I’d ask the community here; If you were going to go to the PASS Summit this year what sessions would you like to attend?  Please post your ideas to the comments below.  Nothing is to crazy (as long as it’s got something to do with Microsoft SQL Server).

 I’ve got a few ideas which I plan on submitting already, but I want to make sure that what I submit is what people want to actually here.

 For those who haven’t attended PASS in prior years it is a great place to network and learn a ton about Microsoft SQL Server.  There isn’t a whole lot of info posted yet, but the dates and basic info is posted on the PASS web site.

Denny

Webcast: Recover the Data, the Whole Data and Nothing but the Data You Need

Coming on the heals of the extremely successful webcast “Under The Hood of SQL Server – Checking Out Internals”, Quest Software has asked me to co-present another webcast.  This one is entitled “Recover the Data, the Whole Data and Nothing but the Data You Need” and will be on March 6, 2008 at 8am Pacific (11am Eastern).  I’ve been told that so far the sign up rate has been incredible so far.

If you are interested in the product or doing object level restores (restoring one table or stored procedure, etc instead of restoring the entire database) then I highly recommend the webcast; granted I am a little biased.

See you at the webcast.

Denny

SQL 2008 Launch Event was Yesterday

Well I just got back from the Launch event.  The event was excellent.  Microsoft was giving out a lot of really excellent information about all the products.  The turnout was just amazing.  I heard that about 5000 people registered, and that based on prior events about 3500 were expected to actually show up.  Somewhere around 6500 people actually attended so the show was very busy.

Tom Brokaw and Steve Ballmer both gave excellent speeches at the keynote speakers.  Because of the large number of people in attendance the check in process seamed to take quite a while for a lot of people.  The demos which were done were very interesting.  There was only one occasion of the “cooking show magic” where you go from the before to after without showing the changes with SQL Server Reporting Services Report Designer when adding a column.  Everyone seamed to know why we weren’t shown the work of adding a column to a report because it’s not as easy as they wanted it to seam.  We all got the gist of what they were getting at though.  Many of the sessions were packed so full that there were more people then could actually get into the session rooms.

Because of the extra people in attendance the lunch situation wasn’t the greatest, but it seamed that they were able to deal with it.  I didn’t see anyone going without lunch so I guess they were able to deal with it pretty quickly.

The only real complaints that I have are that the Microsoft pavilion was in a separate room from the main pavilion room so it was a little hard to find.  I didn’t even realise that there was a Microsoft pavilion until half way through the day, and by then I didn’t have time to go and check it out.

Because I was one of the first 1000 people to register for the event I was invited to the AMD / Microsoft party after the launch event.  The party was awesome to say the least.  The Barenaked Ladies performed a full set, and it was a great show.  Now I admit, I’m not the biggest fan of the Barenaked Ladies, but they put on a great show.  They appeared to be having a great time, and the music was great.  It was a top notch way to end a great day of learning.

Be sure to check out the event when it comes to a town near you.

I tried to take some photos, but my camera just didn’t cut it.  Some folks that I know took some pictures with me.  As soon as I get them, I’ll post them up on the site for all to see.

Denny

SQL 2008 Launch Event is Tomorrow

Well, tomorrow is the official launch event for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (as well as Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 but really cares much about them).

If you can’t make it to the launch event I’ll be posting to my blog as often as I can through out the day to everyone updated on the information which is released.

I highly recommend that everyone check out the launch event in thier area.

Denny

Webcast recording available online

The recorded webcast which I did a couple of weeks ago now is available for viewing on Quest Software’s Web Page.  The slide deck is also available for downloading.

 The URL is http://www.quest.com/events/listdetails.aspx?contentid=6907&searchoff=true&technology=&prod=24&prodfamily=&loc=

The original webcast was on Feb 7, 2008.  More info can be found here.

Thanks,

Denny