SQL Aloha

PASS European Conference in April

While it is probably out of reach for most DBAs in the United States to attend, the PASS European Conference is a great opportunity for those DBAs in Europe, who are unable to attend the PASS Community Summit in United States, to improve their skills and make new contacts within the DBA community.

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Keeping Up with PASS

I have often found it a little hard to keep up with PASS news, but after a little research, I found out that PASS offers many different sources of information about its activities, but it sometimes can be hard to find, as its news and information is dispersed over many different locations. If you want to keep up with what PASS is doing, then check out these links.

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An Introduction to Data Compression in SQL Server 2008

This is an excerpt from my free eBook, Brad’s Sure Guide to SQL Server 2008.

There is one thing every DBA knows with certainty, and that is that databases grow with time. MDFs grow, backups grow, and it never stops. The more data we have, the more work SQL Server has to perform in order to deal with it all; whether it’s executing a query on a table with 10 million rows, or backing up a 5 TB database. Whether we like it or not, we are fighting a losing battle, and DBA’s can’t reverse the information explosion. Or can we?

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Taking Advantage of SQL Server Tools

Reprinted from my editorial in Database Weekly.

An important question I think you should be asking yourself, when it comes to your professional development, is "Are You Taking Full Advantage of the SQL Server Tools Available to You?" I think it’s important enough that, when I make presentations at conferences or user groups, I often add this quote to one of my slides:

"One of the differences between an average DBA and an exceptional DBA is that the exceptional DBA thoroughly understands how to use the available tools to their fullest potential."

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SQL Saturday Schedule Update

In January, I blogged about the upcoming SQL Saturdays for 2010, and since then, many more events have been scheduled, so I thought I would do a quick update. I wish I could attend more of the events, but so far, I am scheduled to speak at: 

SQLSaturday #31 – Chicago 2010 

While I have been to the Chicago airport many times, I have never spoken in Chicago before. Besides speaking at the SQL Saturday event, I will also be speaking to the Chicago SQL Server users group on the Thursday before SQL Saturday. 

SQLSaturday #22 – Pensacola 2010 

I attended this inaugural event last year, and I am looking forward to attending again. This year, there will be about 40 different sessions, covering SQL Server, .NET, and SharePoint. 

SQLSaturday #28 – Baton Rouge 2010 

This will be my first time in Baton Rouge, and only my second time ever visiting Louisiana, so I look forward to seeing a new part of the country. 

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Please Provide PASS with Feedback on its Speaker’s Resource Pages

The PASS Program Committee is gearing up for the 2010 PASS Community Summit “Call for Speakers”, and it would like your feedback on its Speaker’s Resource and its Online Speaker Resources web pages. (Yes, I know the names of these pages are confusing, and this is something that will be fixed). I’m a member of the PASS Program Committee, and participate in the role of Speaker Management, so I have been asked to be the focal point for collecting this feedback. Once I get your feedback, I will then summarize and present it to the committee.

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How Not to Write a Resume Cover Letter

Although I am not currently a hiring manager, I occasionally receive unsolicited resumes from people looking for work. I just received a resume attached to an e-mail with the following cover letter. I have masked some of the content so that it is not personally identifiable, but otherwise, I have not made any changes to spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, or content.

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Winner of the February SQL Aloha Contest

In February, I started a monthly contest at www.bradmcgehee.com to help spur some sharing of best practices among DBAs. The February Question of the Month was:

What is one of your best practices for making full backups and transactions log backups of your production databases?

I want to thank everyone who participated. There were no wrong answers, only responses that described different ways that DBAs backup their databases and transaction logs.

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