When I was at lunch today I was thinking about the basic tools in my tool belt. In my tool belt I have SQL Scripts, software and even links to references if I need them. But as I was thinking about the software I know that what I use really comes down to a couple basic tools. The tools that I use make my life easier and well make it so that I can do my job faster and then move on to the next task.

Over the summer I have been onsite with a number of clients and none of them had moved into the direction of purchasing tools for their SQL Server. I however did have my scripts and my references. My tools not so much, the way the majority of the tools that I have used and or seen are licensed by server or instance. Not by the user.

Maybe I am asking too much but each of these tools have a number of different feature sets, I have the tool I like. It would be so nice to go to a client, plug in my key and know that I can get full use of the product as long as I need it. Once I leave I can deactivate the licenses by uninstall or web. This method would allow me to have the tools that I like and know how to use with me at all times. I have my references like web sites; I have my SQL Scripts now I want my tools.

It could be that this is a problem for just me. I do find that I want a lot.

I say down last night and I tried to figure out why I am so busy and what I have in the works right now.

Well to say the least there is a lot going on. First and foremost the new item on my list is that I have signed a contract that has be authoring a book. From the looks of it this should take about 18 weeks, maybe a bit longer. During this process there are a number of other events that are happening.

Over the last couple weeks I have had 2 articles published on SSWUG in the Month of January it appears that there will be 4 more.

• Validating an Object has Been Used
• The 1-2-3s of SQL Server and Your KPIs
• Beyond the Traditional Backup (Jan 5th)
• 9 Things I learned in 2009 (Part 1) (not scheduled yet)
• 9 Things I learned in 2009 (Part 2) (not scheduled yet)

Then there is also the free SQL Server 2008 Power pivot event that I mentioned last week. If you have not signed up I highly recommend it. This is a free event meaning it will cost you nothing at all, it is hosted by SSUWG on the vConference Platform.

    http://www.vconferenceonline.com/shows/spring10/uvc/event.asp

Once those items started to move along the Rocky Mountain Tech Trifecta v2.0 is going to kick off Feb 27^th, 2010. I was at last year’s event and it was a kicked. Looks like we are back at Metro State College again. This event is being sponsored by Colorado Technology Consultants. If you want to sign up take a look here.

The Spring SSWUG Conference is just around the corner as well. We are well along in the phase of picking speakers and sessions and look forward to having more information on line soon.

I hope you had a great holiday week and a happy new year.

If I were to look at who would be the best person to give me an overview of Power Pivot or the next release of SQL Server, I without a doubt would pick the man himself Mr. Donald Farmer from Microsoft. However getting the chance to sit down with Donald on a one on one base is very difficult; he is one of the driving forces behind Power Pivot. Not too long ago I had the chance to work out a schedule with Donald that will allow for a FREE event that is going to be hosted by vConferenceOnline in coordination with SSWUG. This Free event is completely free but will require that you sign up. You can find all the information here:

http://www.vconferenceonline.com/shows/spring10/uvc/event.asp

This event looks like it is going to be a 4 hour review with a full list of the sessions on the registration pages. If you work with SQL Server I honestly cannot think of a reason why you would want to miss this event.

I have a number of event announcements for this week, but on the way into work I heard on the radio that most Toy for Tots programs are well under 50% of what they need to help children have any sort of Christmas this year. Here in the Denver area they were talking about how they had 70,000 requests for a toy for a child yet they had only received 20,000 donations from the community. I know that times are tough for many right now, and I hope that things are picking up but if you are walking around the store this weekend or this week during this crazy Christmas rush I ask that you buy a small gift if you can afford one, maybe even two. Maybe we can help a few more children have a great Christmas.

Sorry to be so off topic, tomorrow I hope to have the ability to announce a couple more events that are just around the corner. Yesterday SSWUG release an article of mine on how to determine if a stored procedure is being used. You may want to check it out.

How do you get around that sales pitch? I talked to a vendor yesterday that was telling me all about the product that they offered that would help me do backups in a whole new way. I really did like the idea when I first heard about it but when I started to inquire about how it backups with SQL Server the water started to get a little murky.

See this product is for companies to backup everything, not just SQL Server. So they do Exchange and file servers and so on. Now I started to ask question about do they support log shipping or replication because they told me they use VSS and volume shadow copy. This is the link that they sent me.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175536.aspx

If you look at the bottom it is very clear that it does not support log backups, that makes me think it does not support log operations at all, so how could they look at replication, t-log shipping or database mirroring. The thing that gets me, when they claim they can backup a SQL Server on the home page you would believe that they could do it without impacting any of the SQL Server features that you are using. What they really mean is we sort of support SQL Server.

I do like the product and there is a way that I can support I just have to think about how much I trust a company that hides what the product can or cannot do… What do you think?

This entry is really to get you in the mode of answering questions that you would for a job interview. There are always the standard ones but I find that many times people running the interview will ask you a question that you don’t have a canned answer for. May I should have for this one. It was the second time I had been asked. The funny thing is that it relates to a question that I use to ask a lot, but it’s now been changed. My question was or use to be.

Where do you want to be in 5 years?

But now I am being asked.

If you were to define your role would you define it as. What would be the perfect job?

I think all of the questions were fair and I glad I had some time to think about them. I am going to have to send my mind into think mode because I can tell you that I never really thought about it. But I will now.

On a side note hope you had a great turkey day.

I was bouncing around looking at some list server posts and today I say on that when summarized asked:

I am being asked to justify upgrading to SQL Server 2008 over SQL Server 2005. I have a list of the many features that the new version has but I don’t have any benchmarks that describe in detail the benefits of upgrading to SQL Server 2008. The other requirement is that this needs to be done with the database existing as it is now with no changes to the code.

One person had mentioned that Backup compression that comes with Enterprise edition could be a good point to consider. Not too long after a reply came that mentioned the price difference between enterprise edition and many of the backup software packages. A bigger gap is created when you compare the type of licenses such as per processor (SQL Server Licenses) to per instance or per server licenses that many of the software packages are sold as.

A Quick note about SQL Server 2008 R2, It will have the standard edition with the backup compression feature enabled.

But more to the point, If you are looking to justify upgrading to Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2008 for a single feature you may be missing out on many of the other tools in there that assist in managing a production environment. A great example is looking at the Policy based Management to ensure that you SQL Servers are not in violation of any of the companies policies or just best practices. But I believe my favorite feature is the Data Collector, but again if that is the only feature you plan on using you may want to consider the cost implications.

You may not utilize all the feature sets right out of the gate when you upgrade to SQL Server 2008 however you can’t put a price on making sure all your servers are following the policies that you have set forth.

It has been quiet on here as of late. There have been a number of things that are happening and I look forward to sharing many of them however it may be a little bit longer before I can go into a lot more detail. At this point I can tell you that I am very excited to be speaking at the Colorado Springs SQL Server User Group on November 18^th, 2009. It has been a while since I have spoken at the user group with a full hour long presentation. This group in particular is my favorite.

Topic:

Disaster Recovery Planning (The points often forgotten)

Description:

Too often companies have no plan for disaster recovery.  Yet something as simple as a RAID configuration shows some steps have been taken to prepare for a disaster.  We will spend time looking at what may be missing to complete the disaster recovery plan.  This session can help you start to get documents in place that will help with the ease of working through a disaster successfully.  Discussion at the end of the session is directed around a flood disaster that left a bank crippled and how they were able to recover.

Location:

Consortio Services, LLC
2914 Austin Bluffs Parkway
Suite 104
Colorado Springs, CO 80918

Hope to see you there.

Well last week was an exciting week, in the SSWUG conference we did a few things that we had never done before. Any time you try something new there is a bit of the nerves that set in but you keep your head down and continue to press through them. Here is a short list of the firsts:

• We did a SKYPE Video Call with one of the speakers. The video was shown live to the conference attendees.
• We did a SKYPE Audio Call with an attendee in London. It was awesome to talk to someone so far away about a conference we were doing live.
• We had a whole room that was dedicated to all live sessions all day. Speakers in this room were delivering sessions without the safety of a recording. This gave attendees from around the world the chance to ask questions in the middle of a session.

All of this along with a number of other sessions and activities really lead to an awesome event.

If you attended this event make sure you fill out your survey. We look for these to help us plan for the next conference from the dates to the event to the subject.

Speaking of awesome events there has been a number of Saturday events around the country over the last few years. One of these a friend of mine is a coordinator and is really excited to be involved with this.

They plan on having various tracks, such as development, architecture, administration, and end users with 4 hands on lab sessions for SharePoint 2010. All the breakout sessions will be a mix between 2007 and 2010 topics. Our registration page is located at http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/kc. This year we are lucky to have Joel Oleson, former MS SharePoint Product Team Member and SharePoint Evangelist for Quest Software, keynoting our event.

If you have any interest in Share Point and will be around KC Dec 12^th, 2009 you may want to check out this Share Point Saturday. This is a free event and I know there will be a number of National Speakers there.

Day 1 for the conference is in the book. It was a great event with SQL Rockstar otherwise known as Thomas La Rock. We were getting a lot of questions and there was some great talk about if you as a DBA want to be Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now. I can’t go through and type his whole session, but here is the break down…

Mr. Right – This is the guy who is right all the time. He is known for being right and may not be known for the best customer service. You may have met this guy in the past. See the thing about Mr. Right is that he plans there may not be a lot of quick fixes. Mr. Right is confidant and does things the right way.

Mr. Right Now – Always has a phone to his ear and is spending most of his time working manual workaround issues. Mr. Right Now is very well like and is everyone’s best friend. He would be a big hit at all the parties, however he is working to make sure that everyone else’s mistakes have been corrected or should we say band-aided.

Maybe the descriptions are a bit drastic. But really is the mindset of proactive or reactive. Awesome discussion Mr. Rockstar, what a way to start our first all live all day all room confernce. It was a pleasure to meet you. I hope to work with you in the future.

In the morning we have Ted Malone, I am sure he is going to have some great information to pass along as well.