Less than a week left and I’m extremely excited about SQL Saturday in Philly on June 7th, 2014 and the Precon the day before (I signed up for Allan Hirt’s). I lived in Philadelphia for about 10 years during which I went to college, had my first two full-time jobs, and my first to kids were born in that area. This SQL Saturday is going to be a blast from the past for me. The actual event takes place in Malvern PA which is off of 202 in the Northwestern Region of the Philadelphia suburbs. It is part of the “mainline” and close to Valley Forge, King of Prussia and other historic/tourist attractions. I used to work in the Mainline area for Johnson Matthey in Wayne (and part time in Malvern) so I’m very excited about taking this trip back to visit friends and family.
For those of you that don’t know about SQL Saturday it is a fantastic event. Here are some of the reasons I’ve encouraged people to attend SQL Saturday events:
Welcome back for part 3 of my SQL Snack Pack on Table Partitioning! If you have not watched the first two videos, I would highly encourage you to do so.
I hope you’re hungry for another SQL Snack! In fact, this will be one of a series of snacks (dare I call it a SQL Snack pack?). Table partitioning is a fantastic feature that is easy to learn and can significantly improve your OLTP and Data-warehouse environments. It can be a little intimidating because it is tricky to get started with, but once you get the basics down you’ll realize it’s pretty straight forward and a very useful feature to have. I will be providing the code and outline for each of the SQL Snacks related to table partitioning so that you have a chance to practice on your own. Happy partitioning!
SQL Saturday has been a fantastic experience for me here in the DC area (I blogged about it here) and I hope for the same thing in Richmond. This is my first time to attend a SQL Saturday in a city outside my area of residency, and I will also be speaking there. This is a bit of a new journey and one that I think I will enjoy.
This is a new experience and one that I have been excited about since speaking with Wayne Sheffield about it at the DC SQL Saturday in December 2013. I have him to thank for encouraging me to spread my wings and I hope for a smooth ride upward from here. That is the embodiment of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) after all; to establish life long learning and grow the community by giving back. I think I could probably do a commercial for them or be a PASS spokesperson. Seriously though, I’ve learned so many things that have helped my career for free or a very low cost.
For this SQL Saturday, I’m also planning to attend the PreCon event scheduled for the day before. There is still time to register by going to the main site for the event here. I’ve selected to go to session by Robert Davis for my PreCon and it was a hard choice because the “Murder Thy Wrote” PreCon was very appealing as well and I hope to catch that one at the next SQL Saturday I attend.
Alright, I’ve got your attention. You’re probably thinking “who is this crazy guy that is using the word Love with Windows 8 in the same sentence?” Honestly though, I have not had many problems with Windows 8 and I’ve been happy running it for a long time. I’m actually disappointed that I don’t have Windows 8 at my job, so I can only use it at home. It has been extremely beneficial for me for my SQL Server related work. Why? And why am I stalling to answer your question? And why am I going to change the subject to Hyper-V?
If you’re still reading, then great, you’ve got the patience for what is coming next. Windows 8 Pro includes a Hyper Visor in it (Hyper-V to be exact). I’m not talking about software to connect to virtual environments, I’m talking about an actual Hyper Visor that allows you to create and manage virtual machines. Once you enable the option you’re ready to go after a restart, it’s that simple.
So what does this have to do with me as a SQL Server Professional? Well, how else are you going to build your own lab environment at home or at work where you can play around, build and break things, and be your own domain admin (warning: power may go to your head on that last one). It’s all part of your life long learning journey and your drive to become a better SQL Server Professional and get the latest and greatest version on your machine to test out without ruining your OS. It so happens that I’m a nice guy, and I’ll show you how to get your environment setup and how to create “templates” for future VMs with this Hyper-V Tricks for the SQL Professional Video I put together.
Are you ready to push SQL Server to it’s limits, test things you’ve never tested before, build and break environments without losing your job? If the answer is yes then this video is for you! When you’re done with this video make sure you check out my Virtual SQL Server Lab with Clustering post to enhance your own Virtual playground.
PowerShell Scripts mentioned in video (Remember to rename your VM if you like and to change the paths to match your setup):
First let’s get things straight, this post is not an encouragement for anyone to spend more time with his/her Database or with Database Snapshots for that matter. If you’re married to your Database, that’s a different story all together and I don’t think I could help you. As database professionals we are always looking to improve the quality of our code and data. This post is intended to show an easy way to use Database Snapshots in order to test new code or change data and revert changes back quickly and easily.
This is my first time attending a SQL Saturday event and I’m quite excited. If you live in or near the D.C. Metro area I hope to see you there. If you have not registered, you still have a chance:
The SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse and SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse are very high end builds of Microsoft’s SQL Server 2008R2 product; and SQL 2012 in the future. I’ve been intrigued by these products so I’ve started to learn about it. They have both been on the market for a while, but I’ve just recently been exposed to the technology and it has been exciting to learn more and more about it.
Module 2 talks about the PDW architecture. Module 4 talks about the Fast Track Datawarehouse; which is a product that sits between your custom build of SQL Server and the PDW. Of course all the other modules are useful, but just in case you wanted to take a quick dive into material related to the PDW you should go for Modules 2 and 4.
Finally the epic conclusion to my three part series about listing server and database roles. In this post I will show you how to create SSRS report to use for regular tracking or auditing purposes. This is a much easier and cleaner way of looking at the data and you can provide it to other team members or even your manager.
I’ve run into a road block. As a Microsoft Certified Trainer, I have all the software I need to get hands on with SQL Server. I even have Virtual Hard Drives (VHDs) that I can download directly from Microsoft; there are even publicly available ones HERE. My problem is on the hardware end. Since I’m not a millionaire that can throw money around and buy an entirely new server to put Windows Server on with SQL Server, I had to find another way… and I did 🙂
One big question I have gotten often is “I need data, what kind of reports do you have?” It is a valid question from a user, especially with a server that may gave hundreds of reports. The solution? Create a Reports Catalog Report. I have provided the simple instructions and code to create this report in 15 minutes or less.
The first job I got out of college was what introduced me to SQL Server Reporting Services. Initially I thought the job was a less technical reporting analyst position with a focus on competitive/business intelligence.
I found myself loving the technical work more and more; my concentration was in DBMS in college so this just built upon that love. Although I don’t work with SSRS as much anymore, I still love going back and doing report development, maintaining the reporting environment, and looking at report usage stats.
![[SQL Snacks Video] SQL Server Table Partitioning 103](https://thesqlpro.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/sql-snacks.jpg?w=150 "[SQL Snacks Video] SQL Server Table Partitioning 103")
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