SQL Rally 2012 - I'm hoping to present a Pre-Con

This is a Shameless Plug to get your VOTE. Read on for some back story, and information about my and Chris Shaw's pre-con we are hoping to present.

SQL Rally is coming soon. May 10-11, in Dallas Texas, to be exact.

A couple days before this event, you will find various souls attending Pre-Conference sessions. 6 have been selected already. You can see them here. There were a few Pre-Cons that were not selected initially and have been served up for Community Vote. You can vote for them here.

As you peruse the available sessions, you will see one called "How to be a DBA - A Utility Belt of tools". This session is one conceived by myself and Chris Shaw (blog | twitter). The idea for this session came about as I watched Chris present last year in Utah his Utility Database session. It was then that I realized that he and I had had very similar experiences as we have supported databases throughout our careers.

Back in 2004 I became involved with PASS when I attended my first summit. I had been attending a local User Group and had even spoken a couple times at the User Group meetings. This was a scary and exhilarating prospect to stand up in front of people and talk about stuff. Some stuff that others knew much more about than I did. But I did it nonetheless. And loved it.

I have found that as I speak to folks, sharing my knowledge, I always learn form them as well. Really. This isn't one of those things you say. I do enjoy the interaction and almost always learn from the experience. Often it is new ways to look at what I do. This is priceless to me.

I have spoken at various events, User Groups, Code Camps, SSWUG virtual events, PASS SIG meetings and SQL Saturdays. As I have spoken, I have stretched and grown. I am a better DBA now because of my past experiences, including speaking and presenting. As I have spoken, I have challenged myself into bigger an better. Thus my desire to perform a pre-con at SQLRally. At the other events I have presented at, I have always felt bad that my sessions were level 100, and not level 300. But I have a certain set of skills and ideas that I feel are appropriate for this level of session. I often think back to when I started in this career, and had wished that someone would have taught me the things that I am teaching.

This same session was presented in Colorado Springs SQL Saturday 104. I was pretty worried about it, and hoped that it would come across well. Speaking for an hour is one thing. Doing that for 4+ hours is bigger. Doing it for 8 straight... well, I'm not there yet. First things first.

This pre-con will discuss various topics. Some of these I have presented many times in other venues. Chris has presented his portions as well. We are fine tuning this information, and regurgitating this for your benefit.

For this session, we will talk about the following:

• Daily/Weekly/Monthly DBA task checklist
• Utility Database
• Monitoring
• Release Management
• Data File Size monitoring and manipulations
• Documentation

All these topics will be presented in such a way as to help you, the attendee, the ability to learn valuable skills, and implement them when back in the office the next Monday.

After all this, I am asking you to look at the sessions available at SQL Rally. If you have some that stand out to you, vote for them. I would hope that mine would be voted for as well. Even if you will not be attending, know that this session will help someone out.

I hope to be able to present it. If not at SQL Rally, then another time, another place. I will continue to push this session. Practicing the presentation. Fine tuning it. Sharing my knowledge and ideas. Hopefully helping someone, somewhere, sometime.

Go and visit Chris Shaw's blog where he too pleads for your votes here.

So You Want To Be a DBA?

I recently was contacted by SSWUG.org to write a few articles. Its with trepidation that I accepted this challenge. There will be 6 articles in a 6 month period with various topics.

The first of these topics was what i thought it meant to be a DBA, and advice I could give others about this job, its tasks, and what motivates me to do it.

I sat down a couple times to write this article. I had a couple failed starts, like most writing inspires from time to time. However, as I thought about it, and about what inspires me, I was reminded of the tale I have been telling folks for years now. That I feel as if I am in charge of keeping a light on in a room in my company. That's the simplest explanation I have repeated over the years. Not a lot of glory, but its a necessity. As I thought about this, I expanded this tale into a couple of sentences and then a few paragraphs. This became the intro to my article.

I was worried about the word count. When one is given an arbitrary number of something to create, it always seems to worry me. 750 words seemed like a huge amount of words. The end article ended up having 3600 words to contain all the spewing about the subject I could muster. After a lot of editing, and tweeking, the count stood fairly high. They were all important words. They conveyed the meaning I wished to convey. So I went with it.

The article basically tells the tale I mentioned above, embellishing a bit to paint the picture in your mind. It then breaks down the tasks into 2 main tasks. Learn about your Data and Love your Data. Within each of these, you can further break down more individual tasks.

The article was broken up into 3 parts and will run 1 each week for 3 weeks. I hope that you enjoy it. Enjoy my perspective. Enjoy my tale and my verbiage. Enjoy the information that I hope to help you learn. Enjoy my article.

Here's my article

SQL Saturday - Colorado Springs #104

I had a great opportunity to go to a SQL Saturday event in Colorado Springs recently. It was my second time attending this event.

As a Regional Mentor for PASS, I have felt responsibility to contact and assist user group leaders in my area of stewardship. As I have contacted these individuals and fostered relationships with them I have become friends with many of them. Chris Shaw (blog | twitter) is one of these individuals that I have become friends with. Last year, Randy Knight (twitter|blog) and myself flew out from Utah to attend. The event was so much fun and we made so many great contacts that the next Utah SQL Saturday we had a large contingent from Colorado to attend our event. In response to this, I again felt the need to attend their event.

This time, instead of presenting during the regular SQL Saturday event, I had decided to try my hand at a Pre-Con session. I had discussed with Chris Shaw the possibility of combining our skills in presenting and dbaness to share a pre-con. It seemed like a good idea and I hoped that we would work well together. We had not really done anything together, so I was leery that we'd fit. I also didn't realize that when I asked him, he was the primary leader for the SQL Saturday event. With all that said, he agreed, and over the course of the months between SQL PASS Summit and the SQL Saturday event, we planed, schemed, and created presentations to present.

In an effort to sit down and do some final work on our session I asked if I could hang with Chris the night before the pre-con, staying at his house. This would simply afford us a lot more time to spend together as we prepared for the next day. Chris was a trooper and allowed me to hang with him, even picking me up at the airport in COS. I arrived a little after 3pm, and planned on spending the evening preparing for our presentation. What I had no idea that was going to occur was the quantity of stuff that needed to be done still for the event.

You see, Chris's wife, Gia Shaw(twitter), had been working like crazy to prepare for this event. Imagine your dining room in your house. A normal sized dining room, in a normal sized house. Now on the dining room table, picture boxes full of stuff. Now picture boxes full of stuff on the floor. In fact, picture boxes almost in every nook and cranny of your dining room. This is what Gia and Chris had produced in the past few weeks and days prior to the event. An incredible amount of stuff had been collected and needed to be transported to the event. AS soon as we got to Casa Shaw we started loading stuff up for a trip to Mr. Biggs event location to deposit items. We filled a vehicle up with gear. All in all, I believe 4 vehicles of stuff was transported to the event.

After dumping things off, we went to dinner nearby. My brother and his wife met us for dinner, along with Christina Leo (twitter|blog). We had a great dinner, actually being served dinner by a Tom LaRock (twitter|blog) look alike. After dinner and antics, Chris and I returned to his house and prepared for our pre-con. We ended up staying up later than we should have, but got enough sleep to get up early for the pre-con day of Friday.

The morning was without issue as we took loaded vehicles to the even location and got ready to present. We had to setup the projectors and get things situated to present, as attendees started showing up. And before we knew it, the event was underway and we were presenting on ourUtility Belt session. I felt that the session went well, lots of discussions occurred with the attendees. Happily, after the session was completed, I believe 5 different attendees handed us jump drives so that we could copy our slides, demos and templates for them. This always makes me happy to provide information as well as something tangible to assist folks in their day to day jobs. This is why those of us that present, present. To share. I love it.

I had no idea if I could make an entire day of presenting. Granted it was not a single pre-con where I talked the entire time myself, but it was not as hard as I thought it might be, and the time flew by. I was happy that I had enough information to share and had a great time doing it. I even heard from someone that heard from someone that it had gone well and they had enjoyed it. I'll take it. I love hearing that it went well.

After the pre-cons, we were able to make our way over to the speaker dinner just a bit north of the event location. Here we were able to see all the speakers, some sponsors, and many volunteers of the event. It is always a great time to spend with #SQLFamily prior to and after an event. This networking is always a great time and very profitable. Not always in the means of dollars, but profitable to your career. I had the unique experience of meeting one of my heroes, and was pleasantly surprised to have him introduce himself to me, eager to meet me as well. This always makes my day.

After the speaker dinner, my brother picked me up and took me to his house for the night. You can see that I try to spend as little as possible on these events. I try to scrimp where I can, so that I can attend more and more of these events. Bundling these events with seeing friends and family is a bonus. Seeing my brother and his wife and kids was a joy. We spent most of the time I was at his house wrestling and playing with cork pop guns. They were a blast to see and play with, and exhausting. We stayed up too late, as is normal for these events. We played. We talked. We enjoyed each other.

The next morning, Saturday, I got up early and took off, without seeing anyone from my brother's family. He lent me his truck to drive myself to the event. I made it a little later than I expected, but early enough to get some breakfast before the rocket of SQL Lurn took off. I love to volunteer for these events and learn as well as serve where I can. I was grabbed by Kieth Tate (twitter) grabbed me and asked for assistance as he presented. This was his first time presenting, and i was more than humbled to be asked to help. I sat in on his presentation and learned some things I took to my team to implement.

One of the favorite things with this event is the networking that occurs. Between certain sessions, games are played that thrust us attendees into situations where we must interact with each other. Bowling, pool, lasertag. You would think that these are simply fun activities, but they afford those that play a chance to interact with each other and build friendships, outside the normal SQL LURN. Its unique. Its a blast. It adds to the overall experience. I love it.

I volunteered to help run the SQL PASS desk, along with Sarah Strate (blog | twitter) and Jason Strate (blog | twitter), I helped out with lasertag. I helped organize the vendors end of day give-aways. I ran various errands. I learned from experts. I networked with friends and new friends. I discussed stuff with vendors. I made a great connection that may be monetarily profitable. I had a blast.

After the event we all retired to dinner at a nearby hotel. Some more final shmoozing and networking. Some great food. Great friends. Good times. I ended up leaving a bit early and heading over to another location with Red-Gaters Annabel Bradford (twitter), Max and Grant Fritchey (blog | twitter). Along with Tim Ford (blog | twitter). After some great food and talk, I retired early to visit with my brother and family again. I only had 1 more night in Colorado and wanted to spend as much time with them as I had with my SQL People.

The next day I flew home to Utah, after having spent the morning playing cork pop gun wars, shooting BB guns, tag with the kids and the dog, building a fire in the family room, taking pictures with the kids, making scrambled eggs, eating an incredible coffee cake, and a great talk with my bro about growing up and being a dad and all that that entails.

As usual, throwing myself into these events, and using as much time as possible to network, learn, and enjoy made for an incredible weekend. Its so full, so much fun, so quick, yet so full.

SQL Saturday. When are you attending your first? or your next? I can't wait for my next. I hope to see you there!

I don't know anyone, I don't sing karaoke, I don't drink. Can I still have fun at SQLPASS?

The Summit for the Professional Association for SQL Server is the premiere event of the year for the group commonly referred to as PASS. Its coming up soon. In October to be more precise. If you are not planning on attending, stop what you are doing and make plans.

I attended my first PASS summit in 2004 in Florida after the hurricane had hit the Florida area. Since Disney World was close by, my family came along with me. We rented a condo and stayed there for the duration. I had a rental car, and I would get dropped off at the Summit while they went to Disney World. I joined them twice, leaving the summit once early, and again on Friday. We went as an entire family on Saturday and then flew home. Each day I would arrive at the summit after breakfast and usually after the keynote. I would attend session and after session, learning tons of valuable information, and then meet my family somehow afterwards. That was the extent of my participation in the summit.

Looking back and realizing that some amazing memories were created with my family at Disney World, I think I would do things differently now. Knowing what I now know.

I would attend the summit earlier each day, earlier than breakfast. People are there already, milling about. I could get to know them. We could network. I could learn from them. No just the sessions. I would talk to more people while at breakfast. I would ask what they did, what they struggled with, and I would share those same things with them from my day to day experiences.

I would attend the keynotes and instead of making sure I had that saftey chair between me and anyone else in my row, I would sit next to someone. In fact, if I saw a group of folks talking and chatting, i might siddle up to them, if nothing else than to listen in and hope to join the conversation when I could. Inbetween sessions I might look again for a group of folks that seem to be discussing interesting topics and join in. If I was late to a session, I wouldn't stress about it. I'd attend when I could.

But what about drinking? What about all the parties? What about SQLKaraoke? What about wearing a Kilt? None of these things are things I would do in my day to day life. I never go to a bar. I have never drank alcohol in my life, nor do I smoke. Why would I go to something like this? Should I go to a gathering like this? Should I wear a kilt?

Well, let me tell you that after the first summit, I went to my next summit and implemented some of the things I mentioned above that I said I should have done from the beginning. I met people. I talked to people. I ate breakfast with people. We discussed issues. Soon I learned that there were even more networking opportunities out there for me. After the sessions had closed, people kept doing things. Kept hanging out. Yes, lots of them drink and even tend to sing crudely in front of an audience. Some will even wear a kilt. And no, these are not things I usually do, so I would usually return to my hotel. I should avoid them? WRONG!!

At one of my early volunteer outings with other PASS volunteers I realized that even if I didn't drink, I could still have fun with people that did. I talked. I networked. I commiserated. I discussed issues. I partied like I party. When someone tried to make fun of me for not drinking, another PASS volunteer stood up and defended me. He didnt drink either. But he sure likes pie. Instead of leaving or avoiding the gathering, I met more and more people. More and more opened up to me. I met even more people. It's insane the number of people you can meet if you open yourself up to meeting them.

Remember, they are all like you. There is not a cool kids club. We are all part of the club. Its up to us to determine how much we participate. Or not. And if we don't, we are simply hurting ourselves. Because others are meeting, talking, planning, sharing and learning from each other. Why aren't you out there with them doing the same?

Sleep when you return home from PASS. Soak up every moment you can with the SQLFamily.

Get out there and meet them. Open up. Experience PASS.

I have a backpack

I won it at a Microsoft Event many years ago. It says Microsoft Insider. Its an OGIO branded backpack. I have used it to daily transport my goodies to and from, between work and home. Almost daily I will grab it, with a laptop inside, some power cables, various other emergency cables of all varieties, spare mouse with batteries, an MP3 player, and so on. It has become the haven for holding all those precious things that I may need and use for electronic uses. When I go on a trip, I can typically grab this bag, throw in some cameras and camera chargers, and maybe a book, and be ready for the weekend. Whatever happens, I've got a cable or tool in that bag for what I may need. As you can tell, I practice the motto 'Be Prepared'.

Ive done this as far back as this backpack has resided in my possession. Although the actual items have shifted during said time, the existence of these items, among any others that seem necessary has been constant. This bag has a place to rest at home. A thrown if you will, where only it lives. Its near the door, so I can grab it easily on the way out the door. At work, it always goes in a similar place of glory. Always where I can get to it, see it, be comforted by its existence and all it stands for.

Whats the point of all this? We'll get there...

So, I changed jobs recently. I no longer have a laptop to bring home at night, nor to bring back to the office in the morning. I no longer have that single power cable for the laptop. My bag is a lot more light these days. But I continue to bring it back and forth. Now, the only purpose to do this is habit. The extra cables and power supplies and what nots are simply that, extra. Usually used in conjunction with a laptop. Either at the office, at home, or away. So, without a laptop in the bag, whats the point? It becomes a bag only. Not a super special device to hold all my special things. It ceases to have the purpose it once had. And I believe that it is silly for me to bring it back and forth under the old habit, since my circumstances have changed.

Get where I'm going yet? This applies to us as Database Professionals...

Sit back now, look at what you do, day in, day out. Analyze these actions and detail to yourself which of those actions serve a purpose, accomplish a goal, and which are simply formed from habit. Those that are only habitual, really dig deep on them, and tell yourself if they still serve a purpose or not. I bet you will find some that you simply do because you have become accustomed to perform said action, and they may no longer be needed. If you do not have any, congratulations. Or maybe you didnt take as honest a look at your tasks.

As for me, my bag is at home now. Still holding its collection of extra tools and what nots. But its not at the office. This entire week, i forced myself to not grab it and bring it. Forced myself out of my comfort zone to see if this tool, this crutch of a habit is really necessary. The jury is still out on that. I may need more time to fully realize the results of this small action. But I took the step to analyze myself, my actions and the usefulness of that tool. I hope you will do the same.

swwug 2011

I have been invited back to present for the SWWUG vConference in April. I will be flying down to Tucson on March 8th and recording my 4 sessions. These are not the exact titles, but from the top of my head.

Documentation. You know you love it.

Data file sizes.

Profiler / Traces

DBA Tasks

At this point, Documentation has been completed, and actually practiced as a presentation already. The others are nearing completion. I had set a goal to have them completed by this last weekend, and failed to accomplish that goal. I have a bit more work to do on some of them. But most are already well planned and created. Just need to be fluffed up at this point.

One of the tools that I used to help me was a mindmap software where I simple was able to link ideas together and list them all out. I used a couple different versions of the software, and a few different computers, including my Galaxy Tab, to simple brainstorm with myself and come up with the skeleton for each presentation. I believe that I will actually use this document in the the Documentation presentation, as an example of how to simply start documenting. Its been a work in progress, and the mindmap software allows me to simply keep adding ideas to the map and utilize those when the time comes to flesh out the presentation.

I'm nervous and excited, as always, as the date approaches. I love the creative process, I love actually presenting, I love teaching and talking and always hope that i can do a descent job and help folks. However, its still a nerve wracking process. Once its all done, I always appreciate the effort put into it, the experience as much as I do that its over. Its a funny process to look forward to something that scares you, kinda like a rollercoaster. I keep getting back in line for another ride, but am scared while in line and on the ride, yet I always return to the line and ride.

SQL Saturday 66

This started out as a simple review of the SQL Saturday 66 in Colorado Springs. Then it needed some back story. Then it simply became a novel. So, enjoy, or jump out now. Your choice.

Sometime last year, I decided that I would try to get to some regional SQL Saturday events. It didn't know exactly how I would accomplish this, for there were a couple obstacles standing in my way. The first was time.

The second was money. Those were the big ones.

Time was hard to come by, as it seemed that I didn't really have a lot of time to do professional development since it consistently seemed to be impacted by work. Ironic that I was unable to learn about skills that would help me in work, because I really needed to be at work instead...

Money was a difficult resource to acquire and use for this type of venture. Its benefit is obvious. Its a great education and networking opportunity to attend any SQL Saturday event. Yet it was always difficult to come up with the slush money to fly myself and get a hotel, car and anything else needed in order to go to somewhere else for a couple days.

Let's keep it simple, and keep it to those two obstacles. Time and money.

If I was one of the lucky ones, those that work at a company that has a vested interest in attending an event such as this, I'd be lucky to be sent, with expenses covered. This is an obvious win win for company and employee. I, however, am not one of those few lucky ones.

There are also those that are in the consulting gig that see their attendance at these events as a business expense to drum up potential business for their own company and skills. This is a noble gamble to bet on yourself, all the while giving back to the community as you do. This is a win win as well. I am not one of these either.

I'm just a working stiff, like many of the other DBAs and Database Developers out there that attend these events. However, something changed in my life a couple months ago. A job change changed everything. I now have more discretionary time that allows me to attend an event like our beloved SQL Saturdays. So, the time element was relaxed and I decided to simply throw the money part out the window. After discussing it with my CFO, she and I decided that we'd spend the money to fly me to a location and spend a couple nights. I can keep it cheap, and doing so would allow me to learn, grow and experience professional development on a budget.

So, I looked at the events coming up, and thru my hat into the Colorado Springs SQL Saturday event. It's close by, and I know some of the folks from the area. I am also the Regional Mentor, so it would be good for me to meet more of the local SQL people and get some face time with them as well as their leaders in the community. From my house to their home is about a 10 hour drive, and with the gas prices as they are, it would be 6's to fly or drive as far as cost went. However, there is a significant cost to spend 10 hours driving, instead of 2 hours flying. So a choice was made to fly to Colorado Springs. A couple nights in a hotel would be $50 or so, maybe $100 each. This isn't too bad of a cost. But its still a cost. I had a few opportunities to cheapen my hotel cost with a few options that presented themselves to me. One was to rent a cabin with Chris Shaw (twitter|blog) and split the cost. Another was to split a room with some local community people. Another was to stay with a good friend that lives in the area. Since this last option was going to give me some good time to catch up with a good friend, i chose it and made arrangements to spend the night at his place. In order to get there with enough time to hang out, I decided that I needed to fly out a bit earlier (1:50pm) instead of the later time (8:00pm).

This decision meant that I needed to ask for a bit of time off on Friday to leave early. This means I need to talk to my boss. In the past, when events of this nature occurred, this didn't always work out well. When work seems more important than anything else, a SQL event falls way short. I was worried to ask, but needed to, and did. As I informed my boss, he started asking me questions. The conversation went something like this.

Me: I need to take off a bit early on Friday to fly to a SQL Saturday event.

Boss: What is this event?

Me: Its put on by individuals for individuals, part of the SQL Community, all over the nation.

Boss: This sounds like a Professional Development event

Me: Yeah... (waiting for the hammer to fall, some excuse why it would be difficult to attend)

Boss: This sounds like something tht we should be paying for.

Me: (shocked) Yeah.

This is the simple version, but they decided to not only allow me to take off a bit early on Friday, but they were intending on paying for the flight and hotel. I was shocked and amazed. Time and money. Solved. Woohoo!!

Off we go to SQL Saturday in Colorado Springs.

Luckily, as the dates approached, my friend Randy Knight (twitter|blog) also decided to attend. This meant that we could travel together and split some of the costs. We headed up to the airport Friday afternoon, and after a moment of slowness as we passed an unfortunate accident, we were again on our way, albeit a bit late.

Once at the airport we cruised thru security, leaving only a single bottle of Strawberry Jam behind that apparently is insidious enough in nature as to not be allowed into the airport proper for fear of use as a weapon of some sort. This bottle was an intended gift for the wife of my buddy, as a thank you for allowing me to spend the night at her house. It was also a bottle canned by my wife at the LDS Cannery, which made it something special from us to them. It was not meant to be though...

The plane ride was uneventful, dumping us into a different version of winter than we had at home, but similar enough to not be terribly different. As I left the airport, and watched as Randy grabbed his rental car and departed, I waited for my ride to appear. Even though it was clear and sunny, I was soon cold, having forgotten it was winter here too. I stand outside for a bit, until i start communicating with my buddy. The text messages and voice conversation soon took an odd turn as questions were posed but unable to be answered to anyones satisfaction. It turned out that my ride was in Denver at the airport as I was standing outside the airport in Colorado Springs. Funny. Even funny to us at the time. A bummer. But funny nonetheless. What a mix up. With all the communication tools that we have and at our disposal, neither one of us seemed able to clearly indicate which airport I was arriving at for this event. Funny. Sad kinda funny, but funny nonetheless.

I end up calling Randy back to retrieve me, as he had a head start to the speaker dinner from the airport already. Luckily he was able to return to get me, leaving the nearly empty freeway to return to the airport with plenty of time to allow the rest of Colorado Springs residents to embrace the Friday afternoon rush hour traffic, allowing us to gain a more full experience of the clogged freeway. This irony was repeatedly brought to my attention by my new chauffeur as we were stuck driving behind residents on their way home from work. We took off, driving north to the speaker dinner. We initially went to Randy's hotel to check in, and I even checked on a price for a room there that night, in case I wasn't able to hook up with my friend for the evening. I then checked on the hotel that I was going to stay at the next night, to see what the price would be for the first night, again, in case. After this, I went to Mr. Biggs to assist with the preparations for the event in any way that I could. It was great to meet some of the speakers and organizers. I already knew Marc Beacom (twitter|blog) from past SQL Community events, and it was great to catch up with him. He was the only person that I already knew IRL though. The others, some friends, others acquaintances, were mostly known to me via twitter already. I got to give Chris Shaw (twitter|blog) a big bear hug to great him as we had become friends over twitter, facebook, Im and email for the past couple years. I have always felt like he was a brother. Funny how our community becomes family. SQL Community -> #SQLFamily.

Soon it was the speaker dinner and time to shmooze, cavort, meet, discuss, talk, enjoy and share. It was also the first meal of the day for me, as I had barely eaten anything for breakfast and completely missed lunch because of the time suck that flying can be. Luckily I survived on some snacks from my bag while on the plane, as well as those incredible Biscotti cookies. Dinner was great and we had a great time talking to new people. One of which, Jeremy Lowell (twitter|blog), was nice enough to allow me, a stranger, to get into his vehicle and deliver to the house of my friend for the evening. Jeremy was headed home anyway, which turns out was about 5 minutes from my end location. So it turned out that it was a win win for us. We talked about SQL, but soon turned the conversation to other random topics that we found out we had in common. Its always amazing to meet people in these events that are just as human as you with the same concerns, ambitions, interests and whatnots. We had a great time talking for an hour. A friendship began.

Once at my buddies house, I was honored to meet the kids. Gifts were given, minus the Strawberry jam which now lives in a trash in SLC airport. Soon we were simply talking, telling stories, and having a great time. We both do woodworking and it was great to see his work space. Later in the evening I was even able to help feed the horses, which made me feel like I was channeling Mike Rowe as I attempted to perform a task I was unaware of how to perform. Standing in the cold Colorado night, helping feed the animals in the snow was invigorating. Fun to do once. Once back in the warmth of the home, it was time to get to bed, so that we could get up early the next morning and make the 1 hour commute down south to the SQL event. Off to bed we went. Me, grateful for the time spent, the stories told, the experiences had and the roof over my head and bed offered within their home. Thanks.

The next morning had us up early to make the commute. After stopping at a gas station along the way, and after purchasing the first cup of joe ever, I was able to make a small effort at paying back my gracious host for the previous nights lodging. We had a great time talking about many many things and I truly enjoyed the time we had to spend together as the sun chased us. Soon we arrived at our destination and got on our game faces. It may seem otherwise on occasion, but we are all geeks at heart and want to simply sit in front of a computer, shunning human contact in all its forms. Attending an event such as a SQL Saturday seems against our nature, but it is such an important part of our Professional Development that we suck it up and go and put on our game faces, getting ready to talk and interact with each other.

Luckily Chris Shaw and the other organizers thought of this and planned to have many networking events that forced and allowed us to interact with each other, getting to know each other. The first event gathered us together in disciplines, into two circles. One inner circle faced an outer circle, one to one. We were to take 2 minutes with each person in the circle and perform some SQL Speed Dating, answering 2 questions. It was a simple exercise and allowed me to introduce myself to 13 people as well as get to know them. It was fun. Soon the sessions were underway. SQL Lurn was ON! Between each session, a networking event occurred. The first I chose to participate in was Lazer Tag. What a rush. This is always such a fun activity and we all seemed to have a blast shooting each other. There was lunch, which allowed us a chance to eat and talk with each other, performing our own networking discussions while cramming pizza into our gullets. More sessions and more networking occured. Lurnin and Networkin. Over and over. It was great, well organized, and well participated in by all.

I ended the day with my session in the last slot. I had participated in Lazer Tag just prior to my session in one of the networking events, which got my blood pumping and ready to stand in front of a group of SQL peeps and discuss Documentation. I believe that the session went well, and we had good discussions. Many speakers attending my session, which was always a bit nerve wracking initially, but enables me as a speaker to engage the audience even better than typically, as these are now friends and family that can be pulled into the discussions easily.

After the sessions, we had one more networking event. We all had to make a trek across the family fun center to the sand box, and retrieve an easter egg. Inside each egg, for each member of the event, a prize awaited them. The organizers had gotten many items to give away and each person received something. It was well received and I believe everyone went away feeling a bit more special at having received a thoughtful gift for simply attending. It was a nice touch.

And just like that, as quickly as it started, it was over. It was such a full day, with so many interesting topics, great knowledge, great networking, that it blew by so quickly. I for one barely noticed that I had been on my feet for many hours, had done a great many different things as well as learned and gotten excited about SQL stuff. It was exactly what was needed. Many thanks go out to the organizers. Great job!!

After the event folks retired to the bar to continue networking. I don't drink, so tend to not spend a ton of time at the bar, but did take the chance to relax a bit, talk a bit, and continue to network and build those relationships started previously. Discussions about the event ensued, Regional Mentor duties were performed with various members of the community, help given to those folks looking to setup new chapters and needing some ideas to get them going, and friendships were continued. It was a great time.

Randy and myself departed, after many handshakes, fist bumps and a few hugs. We took off to go get some dinner and relax before our 4:30 am start time the next day for the 6:00 am flight. Dinner was quick, once we finally found a place, got a seat and got our food. Having forgotten that this was a Saturday night and that many other people also wanted to eat dinner, we were slightly delayed in our own goals. Dinner did occur, bellies were filled and more discussions were had about SQL and other topics. Finally, bed awaited, its siren song calling me to slumber at 8pm, finally falling asleep sometime around 9pm. Rare for me to retire so early, yet needed to make the flight the next morning.

The next morning came quite a bit earlier than I could have expected. Its always funny to drive around in the dark, knowing its morning, yet being deceived into still believing its night. An odd juxtaposition. We arrived at the airport without a problem, albeit at the ungodly hour of nearly 5am. We got thru security easily, except for the TSA groping that occurred. Ironically I tend to travel in a tshirt and sweats, releaving myself of a belt, buttons or anything that would pose a threat to the metal detectors. However, this was the reason the TSA groper choose to use to get close and personal with my persona, the baggy sweats. Funny.

After arriving home a couple hours earlier than I would normally wake up on a Sunday, it was all over. I was home. Early and tired and spent. I laid down and rested for most of the day, getting ready to start my normal work week. Good times, good friends, good knowledge. Forging existing relationships and building new ones. Making the SQL Community into my SQL Family. Thats what I see occurs in these events.

Long live SQL Saturday!!!

SQL Monitor - giving it a whirl

I recently started a new gig, and there is little monitoring occurring on the database systems currently. Happily enough, I am aware of a fairly new product called SQL Monitor from RedGate that says it can fill the bill nicely. What better time to try it out than now?!? I get myself a copy of it and install it to my local hard drive, web presence and db together ( i know its not the best installation scenario, but its worth giving it a try). I initially only set it up to look at my machine, which has little or nothing going on on it anyway. This is done for a day or so, to see what sprouts up, what it finds, and what it suggests on a quiet system. It still finds plenty to complain about, like missing backups, no tlog backups, no maintenance (DBCC CheckDB, or as they are called in the tool, Integrity Checks). Plenty of entries appear each day. I was particularly fond of the Long Running Queries that it came across, especially when these were actions I was taking to remediate other issues that it had found. I found some of the Long Running Queries funny to me, since they were judging this execution against past executions. Lets say I had a process that took 5 seconds to run once. The next time it took 10 seconds to run. Well, this is twice the previous time, and warranted an alert as a Long Running query. Don't get me wrong, I can see the irony that a job that takes 10 seconds once and 5 seconds the next time is labeled a 'Long Running Query'. But the alternative is to have this process run, take twice as long, and no one be the wiser. I would rather know, and deal with it, remediate it, or ignore it than not know.

After watching my boring database, I turned it onto a couple other systems. It found a lot of the same things, which prompted me to create jobs to take those actions into account, and perform them on a much more regular basis than before. I had already launched into fixing the Backups from being a single Maint Plan for everything, to individualized jobs that would execute in proper sequence, and order, with proper notifications going to the newly minted email list 'DBAlerts@mycompany.com". A couple more processes in place, and I had all but eliminated those alerts that SQL Monitor was complaining about. The next morning, though, I was surprised to find myself inundated with over 300 alerts from one of the databases. It's a good thing that I hadnt hooked up email alerting to this yet, or it would have been a miserable night of sleep. As I waded thru the alerts, there were some obvious items that were of valor, and needed to be fixed. More processes needed to be added to the systems. Or the alerts needed to be configured to be a little more forgiving, or disabled, whichever be the case for the particular database and its alert. This went on for a few days, until the majority of the alerts were related to Long Running Queries again. From these, I have compiled a list of distinct queries that need to be investigated. When others within the company are asked if they recognize these particular items, they all sigh, groan, say how nice it is to have someone seeing these things, and more importantly, grin when they realize that they may in fact be 'dealt' with at some time, instead of simply ignored, as has been the process heretofore sans a DBA.

So, after dealing with a few days of many alerts appearing, two days ago, i simply wiped them all out. Keep in mind that they are still stored in the SQL Monitor system, simply with a cleared setting, so that they do not obfuscate the main portal shoeing 'active' alerts. I eliminated them to give me some breathing room, and start a new baseline of activity after having configured many alerts. The one that seems to appear the most is 'Long Running Queries', and I have not configured this one in any way, as it doesnt get specific with SQL Statements that can be ignored. Whereas Unusual Job Execution times are not only specific for SQL Server instance, they are for job name as well. So a similar job on 2 systems can have distinct handling of the alert, based on its specific configurations. Allowing for more leniency on one side and more strictness on the other, for example.

Its not all rosy and shiny though. I have had some alerts raised that when I clicked on them to dig in, the app simply coughed up an error. Support let me know that this is a known bug and will be fixed. When you click into an alert to handle it, there are a lot of options, but when you are done, you have to go 'back' to the alerts page, often losing your place. I wish that there was next or previous button within the actual alert, such that once the alerts is dealt with, you can traverse the list to the next one more easily. When you add a comment to an alert, there are 4 controls, 2 of which are buttons (cancel and the other, maybe its ok, i cant remember). Point being, when you add a comment, and then tab from the comment control, its actually highlighting on the cancel button, though you cant really tell, but if you hit space or enter at this point, it cancels the comment. I cant tell you how many times i have written the most beautiful comment, only to have it wiped out by my quick fingers on the apparently wrongly focused next key. I know that there is a lot left to learn about the product, and look forward to learning it, either on my own, or via training from RedGate (free webcast on the product is coming up in a week or so).

I'm almost out of time on my evaluation period, and have not been given the money to purchase the product yet. I may have to request a bit more time to test it out. Since I installed it locally, I do not have access to see it via any webpage, except my own host, and I am unable to send emails. Both these functions, i believe, are important to a true review of the product. I will attempt to get it onto a true web box soon, maybe tomorrow, and get it visible to me at least, via web page.

This is a rather quick run thru of the product from my memory, while at home, before heading to bed. I am sure that there are items I have forgotten to mention that warrant mentioning. I will sit down with the product and try to recall all these, and get a list of them for a future post. Since I didnt win a copy of the product, nor a fancy iPad recently, I am excited about getting pics of my eval version on my Galaxy Tab monitoring my systems from some place other than my office to show off to folks. If nothing else, the tool has given me a means to brag about DBAs abilities to become informed of goings on in the systems. I have reported some of the items found in our daily stand up meeting, and a Product Manager mentioned 'after hearing these things about our database, I am glad, today, that he (meaning me) is part of our company as the DBA'.

So far so good. This tool has done what it claims to be able to do. Its interactions with me have not left me frustrated or angry. It has provided me with information that is useful in my day to day duties. Configuring it properly will allow me to monitor my systems and keep an ear to the ground, even if I am not in the office to be present when things occur in my DB.

See more reviews of this product at the RedGate website itself http://www.red-gate.com/products/dba/sql-monitor/reviews. And look at more information about the product here : www.red-gate.com/sqlmonitor.