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SQL Saturday Dallas 2019

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Dallas DBAs is a Gold Sponsor of SQL Saturday Dallas

June 1, 2019

Richardson, Texas

 

Dallas DBAs is pleased to announce that we are upgrading our sponsorship of our “home” SQL Saturday event from Silver in 2018 to Gold level in 2019!

Why the change?

We believe in the mission, membership and management of the North Texas SQL Server User Group and want to give it as much support as possible.

Also, a Gold Sponsorship allows Lead SQL Server DBA Kevin Hill to present his session during the lunch hour:

“Your SQL Servers are Mi$ConFiguReDed”

Come to this session to learn the 5 or 6 most common mistakes that are made when SQL Server is installed.  While you eat fajitas!

Even if you miss the lunch session to attend a different one, stop by our booth to grab some swag and talk to Kevin, Derek, Kaitlyn, or Jeff.  We don’t do hard sell, but we will have a “SQL Saturday Show Special” to offer you.

Just for fun…here’s a picture from last year:

We will be raffling off something either really cool, or valuable, or both. Make sure you drop your SpeedPass raffle ticket in the jar and stick around all day.  You must be present to win any raffle items from any sponsor.

If you are thinking of coming, make sure to register HERE. If you have already registered and are not able to come, make sure to cancel your registration and open up that spot for someone else. Thanks!

As an added bonus we have convinced Jeff from Ignis Images to come back this year to do event photography and “quick” headshots in front of the SQL Saturday backdrop!  If you want a more professional shot, you need this service!

See you there!

The Dallas DBAs team

 

Pluralsight: Getting Started With Your First SQL Server Instance

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Almost a full year after I first thought I might have something relevant to contribute, my first Pluralsight course has been published!

Its called “Getting Started With Your First SQL Server Instance” and is targeted to non-DBAs that want to know more about SQL Server Administration, or just want to understand SQL Server beyond the random Google Search when something breaks.

I’m hoping this is just the first of many “Getting Started…” courses that take SQL Server all the way down to entry-level training so people can learn, then test, then do as they go.

The trailer for the course:

I want to thank Chris and Derek at Pluralsight for their guidance along the way…and a huge shoutout to Eugene Meidinger (b|t) for his valuable input before, during and after the course creation.

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF

Announcement: Pocket DBA™ service

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Several months ago, we posted a blog about keeping a Database Administrator on retainer for emergencies, called “Put a DBA in Your Pocket”

We cross-posted a version over to LinkedIn at the same time.

The response to both was overwhelmingly positive!

So much so that we are bringing this idea on as a new service offering, effective today!

This service comes with different levels for different needs and budgets.  It is primarily intended for you to be able to get a quick response from someone you trust (that’s us…) when bad things happen to your database server, which they eventually will.  Its the nature of tech.

In addition to being there for emergencies, you also get some periodic proactive benefits as well.

All of the pricing, benefits and terms are on the Pocket DBA™ page, separate from our current Services page.

Launch Special:  All new customers that sign up in February qualify for special rates and additional benefits… This is a limited-time offer, please message me directly for more details.

Contact us today with any questions, or to grab one of those 3 early-adopter spots!

This service is only available to US businesses at this time.

Video: Moving SQL Server Data Files

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If you are like me, when you look at certain pieces of SQL Server documentation the sheer volume of information can be a little overwhelming.

ALTER DATABASE is one of those documents, due to the number of things that can be ALTERed.  The documentation has been improved since I was a young newbie DBA, but still…

Anyway, here is a simple video showing me moving a LOG file from my D drive to the C drive:

If you have comments or questions, please leave them on the video, or ping me on Twitter.

Thanks for watching!

Kevin3NF

IRL #2: Cannot Connect to SQL Server

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IRL #2 – Connectivity Issues

Problem: Application owner is trying connect to SQL Server to create a database, connection failed.  Error message suggests checking Instance Name and “Allow Remote Connections” option set to True.

Background: This client has a wide variety of SQL Servers in Prod, Test and Dev.  Many different versions and editions, quite a few coming from 3rd party vendors.  This was in a new test environment for an application already up and running in Prod.

Resolution Attempts:

  • Try to Connect via IP address – failed
  • Verify Instance name – verified
  • Verify “Allow Remote Connections” is set to 1/True – it is
  • Verify SQL Browser Service Running – discovered Set to Disabled
  • Verify TCP/IP network protocol enabled – discovered disabled

Solution:

  • Enable TCP/IP for Named Instance SQLEXPRESS03
  • Restart Instance
  • Set SQL Browser Service to Automatic and start
  • Test logon via UDL file – success

Lessons you can benefit from:

  • SQL Express default install only enables Shared memory connections
  • Error messages are not always going to give you complete information
  • Have a process for testing

This entire process took about 10 minutes, including the instance restart.  There are 3 other Express edition installs on this server.

 

Other posts in the IRL – In Real Life series:

https://dallasdbas.com/category/sql/irl/

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF

Video: Getting Started with SQL Server Execution Plans

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I put this video together in about ten minutes of T-SQL code prep, and one-take of the video.   It is not meant to be an all-inclusive lesson…merely an introduction to how to read SQL Server Execution Plans (Right to Left, Top to Bottom, etc.) and some basic things to look at.  Senior performance tuning DBAs…you probably don’t want to watch this 🙂

Comments and likes are appreciated if you think it has value…

Thanks for watching!

Kevin3NF

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