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DBA Fundamentals pre-cons 2019

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While this post is for everyone, it is specifically written for  SQL Saturday organizers…

I am filling out my 2019 schedule of target dates/locations of SQL Saturdays I want to attend/present (US only…I don’t even have a passport)

I am offering to do my DBA Fundamentals pre-con and one or two Saturday sessions (Security/DR) with a twist:

You keep my part of the pre-con proceeds for your group.  I’ll cover my own travel, meals, etc. if you provide the space.  This should allow you to increase your funding for the rest of the event, buy some pizza for your local group, or even discount the pre-con price should you choose to do so.

If you only have 1 or 2 pre-con spots and cannot secure an additional room at your venue, please pick from the other submissions 🙂

Tentative schedule:

  • January –
  • March – Chicago (23rd, submitted) or Cincinnati (30th)
  • April – Dallas *
  • June –
  • August –
  • October –
  • December –

* All of these are tentative, some dates not granted yet

So, dear organizer…if you think this offer will be a benefit to your SQL Saturday, please get in touch and let me know what your planned date is so I can be sure to submit.  Kevin@DallasDBAs.com

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF

PASS Summit 2018 – My Schedule

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If you are going to PASS Summit in Seattle and want someone to sit with, check out my schedule (primary and backup sessions) – very much subject to change:

 

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

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10:15 AM – 11:30 AM Room: 2AB

dbatools Powershell Library – The Complete Introduction (Yes, my very first session is Powershell, lol)

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=85712

10:15 AM – 11:30 AM Room: 612

Uncovering Duplicate, Redundant, & Missing Indexes

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=77036

1:30 PM – 2:45 PM Room: 606

Improving Availability in SQL Server and Azure SQL Database

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=84728

1:30 PM – 4:00 PM Room: 6E

SQL Server Migrations Done the Right Way

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=84219

4:45 PM – 6:00 PM Room: 6A

SSMS & T-SQL Tricks: Working Smarter, Not Harder

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=78153

Thursday, November 8, 2018

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10:45 AM – 12:00 PM Room: 6B

Containers, Pods, and Databases- The Future of Infrastructure

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=78022

1:30 PM – 4:00 PMRoom: 606

Query Tuning Internals for the Advanced SQL Developer

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=78050

1:30 PM – 2:45 PM Room: TCC Tahoma 2

Top 5 Power BI Custom Visuals

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=82110

1:30 PM – 2:45 PM Room: 6C

Top Tips for Deploying AGs and FCIs On Premises or In the Cloud

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=78041

3:15 PM – 4:30 PM Room: 618

An Introduction to Partitioning

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=77002

4:45 PM – 6:00 PM Room: 604

Data Science 101 for the SQL DBA

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=86521

4:45 PM – 6:00 PM Room: 6C

Validate Your SQL Server Estate with Ease Using dbachecks

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=78382

Friday, November 9, 2018

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8:00 AM – 9:15 AM Room: 6C

T-SQL Habits and Practices That Can Kill Performance

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=78111

9:30 AM – 12:00 PM Room: 6E

Migrating to SQL Server 2017

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=78285

11:00 AM – 12:15 PM Room: 3AB

BI Power Hour

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=86517

2:00 PM – 3:15 PM Room: 3AB

Lightning Talks: DBA

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=85592

2:00 PM – 3:15 PM Room: 618

What’s New With Adaptive Query Processing?

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=78238

3:30 PM – 4:45 PM Room: TCC Yakima 1

A DBAs Guide to the Proper Handling of Corruption

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=78274

3:30 PM – 4:45 PM Room: TCC Tahoma 4

SQL Server Performance Monitoring Made Easy

http://www.pass.org/summit/2018/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=85138

 

PLEASE feel free to come introduce yourself like we are old friends.  My brain is defective in remembering names and where we met, so you may have to remind me if in fact we have met before 🙂  Fair warning…I may ask you to take a selfie with me.  I suck at selfies so I may actually get a shot of your shoes, or the ceiling 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF

SQL101: Import/Export wizard

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Do you need to quickly Import or Export data to/from SQL Server?  Do you want to avoid the hassle of creating and deploying an SSIS pacakge?

The SQL Server Import/Export wizard might be perfect for you!

The wizard steps you through the necessary pieces and is surprisingly flexible.  I cover the basics in this video (recorded in one shot, please excuse throat clears and “Ums”)

If you have comments, please leave them on the YouTube page (ideally) or down below.

Its very likely this is part 1 of at least two…trying to keep my videos to shorter lengths.

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF

Getting Started with Index and Execution Plan Basics

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If you are a developer or new SQL Server DBA and have never really worked with query tuning, this post is for you.  If you are an experienced DBA/Tuner and want to nit-pick me saying field vs. column, feel free to leave a comment that I will delete or never publish, lol.  This is basics, yo…

I concentrate on how to measure the performance of a query, as well as the basics of “seeing” how SQL Server is executing the query to return the results.

I could type all of this up, but watching the video is going to be a WHOLE lot better teacher, so here you go:

As always, feel free to reach out via the comments here or on the video.  Or, follow me on Twitter and ask away!

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF

T-SQL Tuesday: Brick walls

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T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party for the SQL Server community. It is the brainchild of Adam Machanic (b|t). This month’s edition is hosted by Wayne Sheffield (b|t) who has asked us to tell a story about a time we ran into a Brick Wall.

So many walls, so few Bulldozers…

The largest brick walls I’ve ever run up against were not technical issues as you might expect…but people and processes.

Processes:

I was working for a company that bought a company that bought the company I had hired on with.  The newest owner was growing their managed hosting business by buying others out.   Not a bad approach when you have deep pockets.  BUT, they never integrated any of them.  Everything was still in its original silo.  So, anytime I got a call or a ticket, I had to search through 4-5 knowledge base/Sharepoints, 2-3 password repositories and 4 ticketing systems.  I could easily spend 2 hours to research and close a ticket that took 3 minutes to resolve on the technical side.

This place broke my flipper.  As in, I no longer gave a flip after it took a full year to get all the access I needed to every environment.  The Bulldozer here is that I got laid off.  They gave me a big bag of money to leave and go do cool things with modern SQL versions for other places.  YES!!

People:

I was asked to bill a crazy high rate for a full-time contract, to watch over a very small environment of 25 servers.  I was asked to put in best practices, be the unofficial team lead, make things go faster, secure them, etc.

BUT…JimBob the Manager (clearly not his real name) gave me the brick wall at every turn. It took 6 weeks to get rid of NetBackup in favor of SQL Server Maintenance Plans. (I know…lets not go there.).  Compressed backups?  Made me prove it.   Index maintenance?  OK, but he wouldn’t let me schedule it.  New indexes that actually made sense?  No chance, as that was a code change to the application our Very Big Vendor had written for us.  Within 3 months, I was down to 15 minutes of real work a day, and the rest spent blogging, Tweeting and answering questions on DBA.StackExchange.

The Bulldozer on this one was me walking out the door into cooler things.  33% pay cut was worth it, to save my sanity and go independent again!

Technology:

I don’t run into technical Brick Walls, because I know how to Tweet using #sqlhelp, as well as read blogs from people I trust in the #sqlCommunity, and Vendor docs.

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF


Your DR Plan isn’t a Plan

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My apologies, but someone had to tell you.

You don’t have a Disaster Recovery Plan™. You have a Disaster Recovery Hope. (paraphrased from a source I’ve forgotten…)

If I’m wrong (and I hope I am), its because you are in the 10% (optimistically) of companies that actually test their DR plans and document the results.

In the 18 years I’ve been asking the following question, I’ve gotten one excellent and correct response, and one that was good, but I still poked holes in it.

“If your most important database server melted right now, how long until you are back online?”

I get a lot of responses on this question:

  • 2 days
  • 30 minutes
  • I don’t know
  • Blank Stares (its a response…just a scary one)

If you are not testing your DR plan, you may be betting your company’s existence on a flawed premise: “Our people know what to do. We have backups.”

If your DR plan is a digital “living document” that lives on your Sharepoint server, you are already in trouble.  Everyone involved needs a current, non-digital copy on their desk and at their home.

Disaster recovery is about far more than restoring databases.  But, for my mostly-SQL Server audience, let me ask you this:

Can you do an emergency test restore of your most mission critical database onto identical hardware, to a point 27.5 minutes ago and have everything work as expected?

If you don’t do test restores, you are HOPING your backups are valid. If you don’t have the ability to replace critical hardware or spin up an identical VM, you are HOPING that your server or SAN never fails.

If you are running through your DR Plan regularly, with everyone ready to go and knowing their place in the process…you are HOPING the next disaster happens when everyone is available, online and up to speed.   What if that disaster happens when your Sr. DBA is on vacation?  Who is her backup? A Jr. DBA?

If you don’t know the answer to the “How long…” question above, you really should go find out who in your organization does.  If nobody does, contact me.

If you think you have it 100% nailed…I challenge you to let me into your server room unattended.

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF