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TSQL Tuesday: Life Hacks

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My Pluralsight course for new SQL Server DBAs

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 Jess Pomfret (b|t), who  has asked us to write about “Life hacks to make your day easier“.

So many hacks accumulated over 30+ years of adulting…

Non-technical:

Coffee timer. I will not own a coffee maker that doesn’t have an “Easy to change for the weekend” timer built-in. The last thing I need to try to do is set up coffee in the morning. I wake up, get cofee, get to work. Starts the whole day off on the right foot!

Technical, the first:

Since I am an independent consultant here under the Dallas DBAs name, I am frequently asked to come in and quickly find out why the server is so slow. Sometimes by existing customers, sometimes out of nowhere. Many of these times I cannot make any “permanent” or “lasting” changes, so my go-to is to run sp_whoisactive as a temporary stored procedure (code in link). Works the same, nothing left behind, no corporate policies violated.

Technical, the SQL:

Registered server queries:

registered server window in SSMS

In SSMS, we are all used to the Object Explorer window showing the SQL Servers we have connected to. A surprising number of people do not know about the Registered Servers window (Ctrl-Alt-G) that does not appear by default. In this you can register and group servers, and then run queries against all of them or any subset depending on how you group them.

My preference is use Prod and Non-Prod Groups for my clients with more than a few instances.

You can even export these settings so other people can easily have the same list without having to add them one by one. The most servers I have ever managed at once was 130.  Every morning I ran SELECT @@SERVERNAME against the whole group just to see who wasn’t responding on any given day.

This is profile/machine specific, so its great for those that work in a corporate environment using SSMS from their laptop. Works well when set up on a jump box via RDP too.  Not so much when the client has you remoting into a prod server directly and you have to keep changing your RDP target.

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF

T-SQL Tuesday 121: The Gift of the Dream Job I Didn’t Know I Wanted

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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) and this month’s edition is hosted by Mala (b|t) who has asked us to write about “Gifts received this year.” One idea given to write about was “landing a job you never thought you would,” which is perfect for me.

If you’ve followed my story, you know that I’m pretty new to the DBA world. I’m a retired worship leader who’s lost his voice and went home to work side-by-side with his wife in a graphic/web design biz. As I watched that business go through an extended downturn, I attempted to add photography services and grossly underestimated how saturated the local market was. In desperation for meaningful employment I reached out to my friends for help and referrals.

Kevin stepped in and offered a trial period as a DBA apprentice at Dallas DBAs and I’ve never looked back.

Why has becoming a DBA been such an amazing gift? Here are a few of my top reasons.

  • I get the opportunity to learn new things daily.
  • I get challenged by this role a great deal. That makes jobs enjoyable for me.
  • I get a steady income that brings stability and is allowing my family to build a new house in order to foster/adopt more kids.
  • I get to work from home and share an office with my wife—my favorite person in the world.
  • I get to work with my best friend, Kevin.
  • I get to ride my bike way more often than if I worked out of the house.
  • I got a new bike for Christmas as a direct result of this job.
  • I get to ride bikes with Kevin.
  • I get to continue working and serving at our church, which I love.

I could probably go on and on, and I fully expect being a DBA to continue to offer challenges and rewards in the year ahead!

T-SQL Tuesday 121: Gifts

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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) and this month’s edition is hosted by Mala (b|t) who has asked us to write about “Gifts received this year” – which is appropriate for the last month of the decade!

So…many…gifts!

Aside from faith, family and friends which are the truest gifts in my life, I had a fantastic year, SQL Server-wise.

In somewhat order:

  • Dallas DBAs is doing very well and will hit a record for sales in 2019!
  • We hired Jeff and he’s been great…
  • SQLDork continues to contribute and learn every afternoon…
  • Got to go to Summit again this year!
  • SQL 2019!
  • New clients helping me pay Jeff and the Dork…
  • Ellipses, bullet points and exclamation points went on sale…!
  • On-site sponsor at SQL Saturday Cincinnati, Dallas and Austin!
  • Existing clients that trust us with their data and projects…
  • 2 freelance DBAs that I can offload small projects to!
  • New prospects for 2020!!!

I could go into lots of detail on each…but nah…go read some more T-SQL Tuesday posts!

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF

T-SQL Tuesday 121: Gifts received for this year

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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) and this month’s edition is hosted by Mala (b|t) who has asked us to write about “Gifts received this year”

Over the last year or so I’ve attended several NTSSUG meetings on various topics, with various forms of food provided (usually pizza). Most of the time there’s more than enough leftovers to justify taking home an entire spare pizza, which I’d call a win.

Ed.: Yes, of course things were learned, people were met, networking happened and friends were made…but hey….free pizza is free pizza!

/*Please work*/,

SQLDork

T-SQL Tuesday 120: What Were You Thinking?

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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) and this month’s edition is hosted by Wayne Sheffield (b|t) who has asked us to write about “What Were You Thinking?” – things we have seen that left us scratching our collective noggins.

The list is long, so I’ll just go with something I saw yesterday.  And in September. Both created by a full-time DBA at a client.

BACKUP LOG MyDatabase
TO DISK = 'E:\SQLBackups\MyDatabase.trn'
WITH INIT

Yep.  It runs hourly.  And initializes the .trn file each time. Goodbye Point in Time recovery.

Ick.

Bonus points: Duplicate indexes, which I will cover in a future post.

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF

TSQL Tuesday: Changing your mind

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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) and this month’s edition is hosted by Alex Yates(b|t), who has asked us to write about “Changing Your Mind“

My best technical example of this is something I wrote about in January 2017, so I invite you to read the original post:

PowerShell for DBAs – why I changed my mind.

In addition to the 2 main reasons I gave then, I am adding a 3rd:

dbatools.io has become a very solid and almost all-encompassing way to manage SQL Server and will be a required skillset in 3-5 years at any large SQL shop.

That’s it for this month!

Thanks for reading!

Kevin3NF

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