Storage

If you want to keep the data, back it up; even if it’s your cell phone!

Another major data loss is showing that if you want to keep your data, its up to you to back it up.  T-Mobile customers who have a sidekick phone are being told this weekend that they shouldn’t turn off their cell phones.  If they do they will loose their address book data and anything else saved on the phone.  Apparently there are some major data center problems going on over at Danger (the folks who make the Sidekick) and the Sidekick relies very heavly on the servers in the Danger data center.  Apparenly there have been problems going on for a couple of days now.  So far there’s no planned update from T-Mobile until Monday.

The problems are serious enough that T-Mobile has suspended the sale of the phone, and posted a very serious notice on there forums “Sidekick customers, during this service disruption, please DO NOT remove your battery, reset your Sidekick, or allow it to lose power.”.

This is just another indicator that you need to be responsible for backing up your data.  You also need to know how your devices work.  Personally I have a blackberry and it is synced up with my Exchange server.  I know that if something happens to my Exchange server, I know that my local copy is fine.  Same goes if there is a problem with RIMs servers.

Don’t rely on your service provider to backup your device, if you want to keep your data back up the data your self.  If your phone provider doesn’t offer a way to back it up, check on the internet.  Most cell phone models have some way to back them up so that you don’t loose everything if something goes wrong.

Denny

Learn to use the COPY_ONLY flag for one off backups

Taking a full backup when doing major database upgrades is a great idea.  However if you are taking differential backups this one off full backup will break the differential backup chain. Continued »

SoCal Code Camp - LA #2 has been announced

The SoCal Code Camp website has been reset and is ready for the next Code Camp.  This code camp will be the second camp camp that we are doing up in LA.  This time it is November 21st and 22nd and is being hosted at USC’s campus again.  (There’s a second site setup for the LA Code Camp specifically so be sure to check that site out as well.) Continued »

Push vs. pull: Configuring SQL Server replication

I’ve published a new artcile over on SearchSQLServer.com.  This article is titled “Push vs. pull: Configuring SQL Server replication“.  In this article I talk about the differences between the two, and when each should be used, as well as how to combine them to get the best of both.

Denny

PASS 2009 here I come

The people at the PASS 2009 have made the ultimate mistake.  They’ve decided to allow me to come and speak at the PASS 2009 Summit this November. Continued »

Clean up the backup history

Something that most people don’t release needs a little TLC in SQL Server is the backup history.

Every time a database is backed up records are written about it.  Over time this can add up to a lot of useless data floating around the SQL Server in the msdb database.

If you like to use the UI to restore you databases, this can also lead to the UI stalling when the restore database window comes up.

Fortunately Microsoft has provided a system stored procedure which you can use to clean up this old data.  This procedure is the sp_delete_backuphistory system stored procedure.  The usage of this procedure is very simple.  It takes a single parameter @oldest_date which is simply the oldest date of data you want to keep.  As an exmple:

EXEC sp_delete_backuphistory ‘1/1/2009′ would delete backup data older than Janunary 1, 2009.

Denny

#emcworld Day 2 In Review

Today was day 2 of EMC World 2009.  There were some great sessions today.  I’m focused on two tracks this year, VMware and the CLARiiON product as we have just deployed both of these in our data center migration project.  Continued »

Got Pics from EMC World Day 0 posted

Thanks to my wife Kris reminding me that the SD card in my camera will also fit in my blackberry I’ve gotten the photo’s uploaded to flickr.

Denny

EMC World Day 0 In Review

This morning is Day 1 of EMC World, so it’s a perfect time to review yesterday.

Day 0 is all about getting to the show, and getting checked in.  And of course the party.

The food was pretty good, as was the beer.  The band sounded ok, but the sound guy wasn’t all that great.

I’ll be posting photo’s probably when I get home, since I’m a dork and I forgot the cable for my camera.

Denny

#EMCWorld 2009 is starting tomorrow, and I’m on my way

Well tomorrow begins my annual trek to EMC World.  This year I’m headed back to Orlando as EMC World is being held at the Orange County Convention Center.  As I’ve done the last couple of years I’ll post as often as I can during the conference both on here on my blog, as well as on Twitter.

This years EMC World event should be a blast and very educational.  They’ve got tons of sessions on VMware, and one that I’m really looking forward to on setting up Exchange under VMware using a CLARiiON for the storage.  This is something that I was hoping to get done before EMC World, but when I saw that session on the schedule I decided to hold off on our Exchange Migration until afterwords so that I could get some additional best practices first.

I’m also looking forward to the sessions that I’ve found about SQL Server on the CLARiiON.  I haven’t found all that many of these up there, something that I’ll be sure to mention in my eval this year as I would assume tha the bulk of data stored on SANs is database data, and contrary to popular believe database servers are not file servers and should not be treated as such.

If you will be at EMC World come on over and say hi.  I’ll be on twitter so shoot me a message or a DM or find me in the Web 2 lounge or the EMC returning attendees lounge, or the exhibit hall somewhere.

Don’t forget to check back here for photo’s of the event.  I can’t upload in real time as my phone doesn’t have a camera, so I have to wait until I get back to the hotel or the convention center to upload them.

Denny