Speaking

TSQL Tuesday: Folks Who Have Made a Difference

November 14, 2017 by Kevin3NF 3 Comments

TSQL Tuesday Brent Ozar PASS Summit Ewald Cress

T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party for the SQL Server community. It is the brainchild of Adam Machanic (b|t) and this month’s edition is hosted by Ewald Cress (b|t), asking us to post about those who have made a difference our life in the world of data.

I’d like to call out 3 (of the many) people who have been instrumental in my SQL Server career (and two of them will only see this if I send it to them):

The early years: Max Lutz

Max was my manager at Jobs.com back in 2000. He taught me quite a bit about T-SQL development that I had no clue on. Max had been with Microsoft for some time before jobs.com and came in with a wealth of experience. He also covered me when I took down the company by pointing out that I had implemented a “disaster recovery” plan for situations just like that. I have not seen or heard from him since 2001.

The middle – current: Rand Boyd

Rand is one of my best friends on the planet. I met him in 2004 when I was on the first of two contracts I did at Microsoft in the SQL Support center in TX. He was my go-to for calls where I had no clue what to do. After my second contract was up I recruited him into the job I was moving to and we worked side by side every day either in person or WFH for the next 8 1/2 years. He’s still there, I’ve moved on but we stay in touch as well as 2 introverted DBAs can. His friendship is more valuable to me than all the SQL I know.

The current: Brent Ozar

Cliché? Probably. I met Brent at PASS Summit 2008, when I was wandering around the Daily Grill at the Sheraton the first morning. Brent was waving people over to his table to join him for breakfast. Funny guy, super approachable and great stories. I recall bacon. Tim Ford was there as well and someone else I’ve forgotten the name of. Since then I’ve been reading his blogs, buying his training and went to a pre-con of his at SQL Saturday Houston this year. A lot of people know the same things as Brent, but his style of teaching them works as well for me as it probably doesn’t work for others. I’ve started speaking/presenting this year and in addition to my own personality I’ve brought in some Brent and some Pinal Dave to my style.

Special shout-out to Andy Yun (b|t) for giving me the kick in the pants I needed to start the public speaking journey I began this year. 3 SQL Saturdays, one pre-con and two DFW area independent classes…all in 6 months. I had the chance to thank him in person last week at Summit.

There are a great number of people that could have been mentioned here due to their amazing work in and for the community, but these are the ones that have impacted me directly and in person.

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF (<<stalk me!)

Thoughts from a New Speaker

June 19, 2017 by Kevin3NF Leave a Comment

Sunday afternoon…enjoying the “Post SQL Saturday” calm…

SQL Saturday Houston was yesterday, which in and of itself is not that unusual for me. I’ve been to many technical conferences over the last 18 years…4 SQL Saturdays, 2 PASS Summits, SQL Server launch events, TechNet stuff back in the late 90’s and more user group meetings than I can count.

This particular event was the first time I ever went as a speaker. Its technically the first time I’ve ever spoken to a technical audience. 12 years ago I did a demo of some Red Gate tools, but that was a short ad-hoc thing. I’ve taught a few training classes in the workplace and am currently doing a 5 week fundamentals class now. Small, interactive and very different than yesterday.

Wisdom for first time speakers can be found all over. Blogs, Twitter, and there is even a Slack channel for it in the SQL Community slack. Almost all of that says to start small, like at work or at the local user group. Practice and rehearse, until your dog and kids know your topic inside and out. Never type in a demo, etc.

I prepared a slide deck and pretty much winged it…which is what I do best. If I rehearse things I get nervous and wind up second guessing myself. I skipped the local user group part and went straight for SQL Saturday. I applied to speak at Houston (DR/Backups) and Chattanooga (Security) hoping to get a nibble on one. Much to my surprise I was accepted to both. Apparently the desire for beginner/fundamental topics is significant. The attention some of my fundamental blog posts gets tends to support this.

My session went really well (in my opinion), with the only technical issue being a projector that overheated and had to cool for a few minutes. As a joke I broke out my backup laptop claiming to have been half-prepared.

I was a bit nervous the day before, but when I got to the event site and into the Speakers/Sponsor/Volunteer room, all that went away. I almost had a last minute switch of session times with Bob Ward, as he was running a little late. But, he got there with a few minutes to spare.

One of the best prep things I did was go to Brent Ozar’s (b|t)performance tuning pre-conference on Friday. I went as much to watch presentation style as for the knowledge being shared. Brent is a great presenter. I also really enjoy anything Pinal Dave (b|t)has to say, mostly due to the excitement and passion he delivers it with. Pinal could make a snail race exciting.

The San Jacinto Junior College facility was fantastic with clean rooms, stable WiFi, etc. Everything there looks new. The local SQL Saturday team had all the bases covered. Allen (t), Devon (t), Sarah and the rest made for a fantastic day.

I’m looking forward to Chattanooga next weekend, and who knows where beyond that. If you are interested is presenting, don’t let anything stop you from responding to a call for speakers. Applying is half the battle 🙂

Thanks for reading,

Kevin3NF

Free SQL Server DBA Fundamentals training (DFW) – completed

May 4, 2017 by Kevin3NF 2 Comments

Free. In person. Interactive.

Update: This is in-person only…not online or Webex at this time.

I really like training and teaching the basics of anything to people new to it. Right now that is SQL Server, and cycling (I am Kevin3NF or CoachKev depending…). Every day on the various forums I see the same questions over and over on basic tasks…and the askers go away with a solution but very often they don’t get the understanding to be able to resolve the issue on their own the next time.

So…if you are in or near the Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas area and have a couple of hours free after work once every 2 weeks come join me for some very informal training.

Target audience:

Managers
Developers
SysAdmins
Students (college, tech schools, etc.)
Very junior/accidental DBAs that are struggling to stay afloat

If you are already a DBA, this is probably not for you unless you are just starting out.

RSVP for Day 5 here

5 weeks, every other Wednesday 6-8pm starting on May 24, 2017 in Richardson, TX.

Day 1 (May 24):
- Intro to databases, with a little history thrown in
- Installing SQL Server 2016/2014 (on your laptop)
Day 2 (June 7):
- Getting around in SQL Server Management Studio
- SQL Server Security Model
Day 3 (June 21):
- Backup Basics…the Why, followed by How
- Creating a database from scratch, or from a backup
Day 4 (July 5):
- Database querying basics – getting the CRUD
- Indexing and basic performance troubleshooting
Day 5 (July 19):
- High Availability/Disaster Recovery options (overview)
- Wrap up

If this goes as well as I hope, I will offer it again after some time off. Maybe in a different part of the Metroplex.

Not sure if this class is right for you? Ask in the comments, send me a DM on Twitter, or email me.

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF

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SQL Saturday Houston, 2017

April 27, 2017 by Kevin3NF Leave a Comment

I will be presenting my session “Backups for non-DBAs…the Why, not the How” at SQL Saturday Houston on June 17.

Abstract:

Join me and get some new perspective on what your DBA is doing, and why!

Targeted at the non-DBA such as BI/DW folks, Application Developers, Managers, and System Admins, this session will go over the reasons we back up our databases, our systems, etc. Considerations such as Single points of failure, High Availability/Disaster recovery, Business Continuity and others will be discussed in this interactive conversation. It will be conversation heavy, with supporting slides to download, and one Database backup demo at the end if time permits.

Everyone involved in a technical role needs to at least know that the things they have created will be recoverable in the event of a disaster, or even just an “oops” moment. The CIO/CTO should know how long critical systems will be down when bad things happen.

Backups are everyone’s responsibility…whether asking the right questions or implementing the process.

If you come on Friday, there is a pre-conference full day of training on Performance Tuning by Brent Ozar…$199 as of this post for a full day of awesomesauce. Or, my friend Tim Mitchell (b|t) will teach you how to build better SSIS packages for $129.

Hope to see you there!

Kevin3NF

T-SQL Tuesday: Speaking & Presenting

November 8, 2016 by Kevin3NF 3 Comments

#TSQL2SDAY is a monthly blog party hosted by a different blogger each month. This blog party was started by Adam Machanic (blog|twitter). You can take part by posting your own participating post that fits the topic of the month and follows the requirements below. Additionally, if you are interested in hosting a future T-SQL Tuesday, contact Adam Machanic on his blog.

This month’s topic is going to be about Speaking & Presenting with a focus on Helping New Speakers.

I have presented “publicly” exactly one time, probably 12 years ago. It was to the North Texas SQL Server User Group, during the “Pizza and Networking” portion of the evening. I was the warmup act for the main presenter, which was perfectly fine with me. I was simply doing a walk through of Red Gate Software‘s SQL Compare and SQL Data Compare tools, which weren’t as well known as they are now.

I’ve done a boatload of teaching since then, but almost exclusively to people I work with. I’ve had dozens of one hour ad-hoc sessions to teach level 1 engineers SQL Server basics such as Backups, Log Shipping concepts, etc. so that they could close more tickets without having to escalate. These were limited to 2-3 people, and no slide decks. All whiteboard with circles, squares and arrows. I’m also very experienced in teaching Bible stories and concepts to teens and pre-teens. Lastly, I’ve been a cycling coach to teenagers for almost 10 years now…teaching training techniques and race tactics. Multiple Texas State Championships from those I’ve coached.

All that to say I’m comfortable teaching to kids and those with open minds.

Teaching to SQL Server professionals is quite a bit more intimidating.

My ideal first presentation has to be things I know very, very well to a group of people that rarely use the info, and don’t know they need it:

“DBA basics for non-DBAs”

Target Audience: developers, junior and accidental DBAs, managers, Sys/Storage Admins, Data Warehouse and BI folks. DBA-101.

I don’t know how well this would fit into a User group meeting, since most of the attendees are fairly experienced with SQL Server. I think it would go over really well at a SQL Saturday, where there are multiple concurrent sessions.

Topics I think would fit really well into this talk (not necessarily all):

Backup/restore – What they are, what your DBA is doing, and what to ask for when you need a restore
How to find things in SQL Server Management Studio
What exactly is in the ERRORLOG?
Installation/Setup best practices
Concepts and differences in Log Shipping, Replication, Clustering and AGs (no tech, just descriptions…possibly its own presentation)

The key point of all this is take the massive enterprise product that is SQL Server and boil the basics down to the new users in terms they understand without drowning them. A fine line for sure…

I would LOVE to get your feedback in the comments!

Thanks,

Kevin3NF

The OnPurpose DBA