This is blog post #2 in support of Tim Ford's (b|t) #iwanttohelp, #entrylevel. If you haven't been working in SQL Server for very long, you may not have got this phone call yet, but you will: Hi, yeah, the server is slow. Thanks. Bye. Let's pretend for a moment that you know which server they're referring to (because just finding out that piece of information can be a challenge). Now what? The list of tools and mechanisms within SQL Server for gathering metrics is extremely long: Performance Monitor Dynamic Management Views & Functions System Views Extended Events Trace Events Activity Monitor Data Collector Execution Plans 3rd Party Tools I'm leaving out lots of stuff in that list. So where do you start when you get this phone call? Where is the server slow?…
Remember that post I wrote about taking on SQLSaturday events as my new PASS portfolio? Never mind.* Instead, it seems I'll be involved with a completely different role. Starting on January 1, I'll be moving onto the executive committee of the PASS Board and taking on the role of Executive Vice President. You can read the announcement here. While this means that I won't be directly involved in Chapters and SQLSaturday on a day to day basis, I will continue my engagement with Chapters until a new Director comes onboard and portfolio assignments are complete. As EVP, I want to stay engaged as possible in SQLSaturday in every way I can within my new role. I love SQLSaturday (and I don't mind saying, I was excited to receive that portfolio…
Working on my third year of "Speaker of the Month" posts now. The good news, I haven't run out of people to award it to. Most months, if I've been able to go to a community event or two, I have three or four candidates. Same this month. Speaker of the Month for October 2015 is Rob Volk and his presentation, Revenge: THE SQL, at SQL Saturday Las Vegas. What can I say about this presentation? Let me start by saying that you never, ever want to make Rob angry. Next, I think Rob needs a hobby that will help him turn his mind away from EVIL. Next, Rob has to be one of the smarter people that I know. Next, Rob is very funny. Oh yeah, and there was…
Feast or famine. The last several months I just haven't seen that many speakers, let alone that many community speakers. Then, in the last month, I've seen a ton. Contests being what they are though, someone has to win. To everyone I saw speak at SQL Saturday Oklahoma City and SQL Saturday Omaha who doesn't see their name here, apologies. I saw great presentations this month. The winner though is Ryan Adams (b|t) and his presentation: Backup and Restore Tips and Tricks. Ryan started off great, walking around the room, looking people in the eye has he talked and using the slides as a guide, not reading from them at all. He had a bunch of slides that visualized different aspects of backup and restore. I really loved the one…
I was actually travelling for most of July and some of that was on holiday with the family, the real family. That's why I didn't get a June update posted. I don't have anything much exciting to report. We're finally getting data out of our Chapter database and can report some interesting stuff. We've added 29 new chapters in the fiscal year of 2015. 10 in the US, 12 in EMEA, 2 in LATAM and 5 in APAC. There's a bunch more. Not sure when it's all supposed to be published, but I'll share some of it now, just 'cause. Our chapters logged 1,405 meetings in fiscal year 2015. That's a pretty serious amount of training. Well done everyone! Thanks for all your work Carmen. I missed the July board meeting…
I've had a busy month on the Board. You may have seen some tweets going by about our compliance with international laws regarding SPAM. This has been something of an education, so anything I say wrong below, it's because I'm wrong, but not malevolent (at least in regards to this topic), so please be kind. It appears that the mechanisms we had on our emails for showing where the email came from and how to unsubscribe from it, weren't completely in compliance... IF... we were sending emails that involved advertising. By we, I mean Chapters, not HQ. Now, that IF, could mean that we could skip out of meeting this requirement when our emails didn't involve advertisements, but then it'd have to be in compliance when it did and we'd…
I'm almost done reading the book Connected (will be by the time this is published). It's fascinating although, at least so far, little in the way of suggestions for how to take advantage of this information. That however doesn't change my plans around working on positive thoughts and emotions as a way to hack your own mind and increase productivity. I'm also trying to figure out how to reinforce my network. In short, these are completely self-serving posts. I am grateful for Thomas LaRock (b|t). Tom is hard to miss. If you look at the floor all the time, the green shoes might be a giveaway. If you look up a lot, keep looking up because he's quite tall. Oh yeah, and he's the President of PASS (for a couple of…
It's been a pretty interesting month on the board. First, we did have a little problem. I'm sure one or two of you may have noticed that the SQL Saturday web site was down for a moment. Well, three days. Joking aside, this was a serious problem, but my involvement was largely peripheral since I'm in charge of Chapters. I tried to help out a little, offering what support I could and, if nothing else, supplying an ear, willing to listen. Quite a few people took advantage of that. I communicated all their information up the chain to HQ and the other board members. Nothing has been held back. Next, we've started the budgeting process. That's fascinating. As well as a giant pain in the... well, anyway. Thankfully the people…
The one absolute promise I made about serving on the PASS Board is that I would let you know what I was doing there. Well, we're two weeks in and I figured now was a good time for a report. Next week is my first board meeting (and I will report back on how that goes). I'll be presenting the goals I've worked up for the Chapters and see how many of them we can get approved and then how many of them we can deliver. In the time I've had on the board so far, a big part of what I've been doing is learning about what has gone before. What kind of goals did we have for last year. Which of them were delivered. Which weren't. Why. What's…
I love it that my first post of the new year is going to be Speaker of the Month. I'm really enjoying doing these because I'm getting to attend a lot more sessions at the events I go to in order to get choices. But, please, don't bug me. If I can attend your session, I will. If I can't... Anyway. Speaker of the Month for January 2015 is William Wolf (b|t)Â and his session "Common Coding Mistakes and How to Mitigate Them" that was delivered at SQL Saturday DC. This was a good session. It was informative. I really liked how Bill (I'm going to use that because it's easier to type and despite looking like the Demon Biker of the Apocalypse, he's a bigger sweetheart than I am) kept…