September OPASS Meeting Tonight!

Live Meeting: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=NQ65ZG&role=attend

Mini-Session

Topic: Using PIVOT – Going from Static to Dynamic


Sometimes data normalization results in a data structure that is not convenient for displaying the data. Take the common example of a sales database in which each record represents a single sale.  However, what the customer really wants is a summary of sales for each product by quarter in which the quarters are columns, not vertical groupings.  SQL 2005 introduced PIVOT  to solve that type of problem.  The only drawback is that you must know when you write the SQL statement, how many columns you will need along with their name/values.  In some situations you may not know how many columns you need ahead of time.  Suppose you wanted to pivot on products that your company sells, but the number of products changes frequently.  How can you make the PIVOT statement dynamic?  We will explore one solution to that problem in this month’s SQL Tech Shot.


Speaker: Michael Antonovich


Mike Antonovich is the Assistant Director of Web Services for Orange County Public Schools in Orlando, FL where he manages the SharePoint portal team implementing the Internet, intranet, collaboration, project, team, and school sites. They are also responsible for multiple .Net custom applications around the district. In June of 2010, he published his 7th book: Office and SharePoint 2010 User's Guide. Mike has been using SQL Server since 1998 and SharePoint since 2007.

Main Session

Topic:  Cool Stuff with SQL Azure


This session will provide a quick introduction into SQL Azure, including account creation and security, and discuss why a move to SQL Azure might be important to your organization. We will discuss supported functionality in SQL Azure and then look at different deployment scenarios and data access techniques such as sharding and why that is important in SQL Azure. We will then take a look at how to develop applications for SQL Azure using many of the topics discussed


Speaker: Scott Klein


Scott Klein is President of Blue Syntax, a consulting and services firm specializing in SQL Azure. Scott is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP and author of several books including Professional SQL Server 2005 XML, Professional LINQ, Professional Entity Framework 4.0, and Pro SQL Azure. Scott runs the South Florida SQL Server Users Group.


RSVP to webmaster@opass.org


Agenda

6:00-6:10 Welcome and Announcements

6:10-6:25 SQLSaturday

6:25-6:40 Michael Antonovich - Using PIVOT – Going from Static to Dynamic

6:40-7:00 Pizza/Networking

7:00-8:00 Scott Klein - Cool Stuff with SQL Azure

8:00-8:15 Wrap-up/Raffle

Hope to see you there

 Don't Forget to register for SQLSaturday #49 - Orlando!

July OPASS Meeting

OPASS will be holding it’s July meeting this evening from 6pm – 8:30pm at 225 S. Westmonte Drive, Altamonte Springs, FL. 

Sponsor:

Red Gate Software offers a wide range of eBooks for SQL Server developers and DBAs. Broaden your skills and download our latest releases here.

Live Meeting:  https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=W8S3JJ&role=attend

Speaker: David Pless, Senior PFE with Microsoft

For the past three years, David has been a Senior Premier Field Engineer with Microsoft. As a PFE David performs health checks, conducts chalk talks and full training workshops, David also works on reactive and proactive engagements on SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. David mainly supports the Southeast focusing on Florida, but can be anywhere in the world.

David's core areas are SQL Server Performance Tuning and Optimization, Database Mirroring SQL Server 2005 / 2008, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), and other topics such as consolidation, Table Partitioning, Resource Governor, Performance Data Warehouse, SQL Server Auditing, and more.

Prior to Microsoft David was a freelance consultant and also worked for Intellinet as an MCS Partner Consultant starting the SQL Server practice at the Atlanta based consulting firm. Prior to Intellinet David was a DBA for CheckFree Corporation in Norcross, Georgia for over 6 years. David has worked with SQL Server since version 6.5 and has been an active member of the SQL Server community for years.

Topic:  Performance Tuning and Optimization Part 2 (Part 1 was in March, Recording, Here)

This discussion will continue to cover how to troubleshoot performance issues on SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. In this discussion I cover performance impact analysis using DMVs, SET options in SQL Server, and Profiler and perfmon analysis. In this discussion I will cover SQLNexus, PAL (Performance Analysis of Logs), RML Utilities, SQLDiag, and other tools. Finally I discuss reading query plans graphically and what you can learn from reading the XML plans.

I will also cover Performance Data Warehouse in SQL Server 2008, new features in SQL Server 2008 regarding missing indexes, viewing query plans, and Extended Events if time permits.

RSVP to webmaster@opass.org so we can make sure we have enough food and drink for everyone.

I have already received a box of swag from RedGate including single user licenses for SQL Prompt Pro and SQL Compare Pro.  All the swag is for in-person attendees only.  Sorry, we don’t have a good way to involve remote attendees in our drawings.

Presenting "Profiling: It's Okay in SQL Server" to Seacost SQL Server Users Group

I'm excited to be presenting Profiling: It's Okay in SQL Server to the Seacost SQL Server Users Group in Portsmouth, NH next Tuesday, June 8th.  I was invited to speak by friend Mike Walsh (@mike_walsh) who is one of the founders of the group.  This will be the 5th time I've done this presentation although each time is different.

Session Abstract

Learn how to use SQL Server Profiler/Trace to troubleshoot SQL Server performance and errors. This session will cover how to use Profiler to capture SQL Server events, creating server-side traces, creating custom templates, saving trace data, and interpreting trace data.

It's really funny that I am presenting at a user group in New Hampshire when I live in Florida when I never attended a user group in the 7 years I worked with SQL Server while living in New Hampshire.  I'm not even sure if there were any user groups in New Hampshire when I lived there.  I know that there weren't any up in my neck of the woods, but southern New Hamshire might have had one.

If you are in New Hampshire, southern Maine, or northeastern Massachussetts I hope to see you there and would love to talk with you.

June OPASS Meeting Date Change

Andy Warren (@sqlandy) already blogged about the change here, but I there might actually be someone who reads my blog that doesn’t read his, so I’ll also blog about it here.

At OPASS we try to meet on the second Tuesday of every month which for June would be the 8th.  Well, I’ll be on vacation in NH and actually speaking at the Seacoast User Group that night, and Andy will be at TechEd as a member of the press.  This means that no one from the official OPASS leader list will be there and the person who opens up their office for the meeting (Andy) will not be there.  For this reason we are moving our meeting to the next week, June 15th, when Andy will be available.  Our sponsor, speaker, and topic will all be the same.

Sponsor: Tews Company

Speaker: Kendal Van Dyke (@SQLDBA)

Topic:  Paging DR Availability, You’re Wanted in the Recovery Room

I won’t be able to see you there, but I may make the Live Meeting.

May OPASS Meeting Tonight

Join us tonight for our May OPASS meeting at the SQL Share Offices 225 S. Westmonte Drive, Suite 2010, Altamonte Springs FL.  Here are the details, including the Live Meeting link for the featured presentation:

Sponsor: Confio Software

Live Meeting: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=CSD3Q7&role=attend

Topic: Tuna Helper for SQL Server DBA's

Many DBAs and developers are faced with tuning poorly performing SQL statements. There is no way to learn everything you need to know about SQL tuning in an hour, but you can learn a process to employ when badly written SQLs are ruining database performance. However, many tuning projects fail because the process being used is inefficient. This presentation will walk through a process Confio Software uses with great success and will include topics such as: SQL diagramming, wait type data, column selectivity, and several more that will help you succeed on future tuning projects.

Speaker: Dean Richards

Dean Richards has over 20 years of performance tuning, implementation and strategic database architecting experience. Prior to Confio, Dean was a technical director for Oracle Corporation managing technical aspects of key accounts including short and long-term technical planning and strategic alliances. Specifically, Dean has focused his entire career on performance tuning of Oracle and SQL Server environments.

RSVP to webmaster@opass.org if you plan to attend in person so we have an idea about how much food and drink to provide.

Checklist for having a Remote Presenter at your User Group

After having a bit of a tough time in the April OPASS meeting (read about it here), due to not having a checklist, here is my newly minted checklist for hosting a remote presenter.  Let me know what you think.

1. Make sure you have the meeting setup correctly in Live Meeting.  The right date is very important.  I learned this the hard way by having the wrong date and the presenter could get in, but not any remote viewers.
2. Test both the presenter AND attendee links prior to the meeting.
3. Make sure you have the presenters phone number.  Many presenters turn off email, twitter, and IM clients.  You may need the phone number in case there are technical difficulties.
4. Remember to check sound at your location.  Make sure you have your speakers working for a remote presenter and that you have a working microphone so that you can speak to the remote presenter.
5. Turn off the screen saver on the PC connected to the projector.
6. Make sure you click RECORD!  When you send the presenter link to the presenter be sure to include instructions for them to check to see if the recording has been started and if not have them start the recording (they may need instructions for that as well).  This will make them check and help remind you to check as well.

February OPASS Meeting Recap

Introduction

Last night we had our February OPASS meeting with Ron Dameron (@RonDBA) presenting on Database Hardening using PowerShell.  We broadcast the main presentation using Live Meeting and this time I remembered to hit record, so the session will be available on the OPASS web site at some point.

Attendance

We had a decent turnout of around 20 which is around our average,   but this was lower than we expected because we had a lot of RSVP’s come in.  There were a couple of reasons for the lower than expected turnout, weather and traffic.  It was pouring at the start time of the meeting which probably caused some folks to decide to go home.  If you had to come through Orlando to get there the traffic was backed up everywhere because of accidents, likely due to the weather.  So we lost some attendance and had some late arrivals.  We also had 6 remote attendees and we were a little disappointed that the folks who didn’t make it in person didn’t attend the Live Meeting.

Announcements

We started the meeting with announcements and the chapter deck from PASS.  There was a lot of information in the deck and, in my opinion it could have been trimmed down a bit.  I hit the highlights and moved fairly quickly through them.  I added a couple of slides to the deck for local announcements and, on my laptop, a white font on the background was hard to read on the right-side and black font was readable so I went with the black font.  When I got it up on the screen the black font was hard to read on the left-side.  I needed to take a bit more time with that, as I certainly didn’t want to have a second deck just for my couple of slides.

Networking

We then had a longer than anticipated informal networking side where we discussed the recent Tampa SQLSaturday, the transition of SQLSaturday to PASS ownership, and other PASS topics.  The delay was because we were waiting for the Pizza to arrive, apparently a 10 pizza order is tough to fill on time (see Andy Warren’s recap for more).

Featured Presentation

The featured presentation was Ron describing and demonstrating how he is using PowerShell to automate common tasks and to fulfill requests for audit type information (server settings, users, etc…).  He’s on a team that is charged with automating, standardizing, and optimizing DBA tasks for each of their database platforms and as the SQL Server DBA on that team his responsibility is the ~600 SQL Servers (Servers not databases) in the company.  Without Powershell some of the tasks he has had to do would be nearly impossible to do.  It was good session that shows the power of PowerShell in a large environment and he also did a good job sharing how he learned PowerShell.

The Raffle

We finished up by raffling off some SWAG and it was nice that each of our first-time attendees won something!  It’s always nice to reward new people with some nice SWAG! 

Post-Meeting

After the meeting several people hung around for an hour or so to talk shop and to get to know each other better.  I think the networking aspect of our group is getting better and people are seeing the value of building relationships in the group.

Andy (@SqlAndy), Kendal Van Dyke (@SQLDBA), and I looked at an interesting issue Kendal had seen at work and not been able to solve.  We didn’t solve it either, and, hopefully, we’ll see a nice blog post from Kendal about it.   We also talked about PASS and about growing speakers and providing a path for growth and how PASS can help newer speakers get out to more events.  We ended up staying way too late, but it was great discussion.

Personal Conclusion

I say this often, but, if you have access to a user group and aren’t going, you need to start.  Honestly, I felt horrible and wanted to go to bed when it was time to head to the meeting, but I felt great AFTER the meeting.  I’m almost always energized and refreshed after attending a user group meeting because I get excited again about what I get to do by hearing about what other people are doing.

A Week of SQL Server

As anyone who reads this blog knows, SQLSaturday #21 – Orlando was last Saturday (Oct. 17, 2009) and as a lead in to the event Andy Warren and SQLShare put together a week of one day seminars.  Here’s how I spent the week.

Monday

It was the one day there was not a lot I had to do for SQLSaturday nor were there any good networking opportunties here.  I did answer some email questions about the event and make a schedule tweak so one of our out of town speakers could make her flight home.

Tuesday

We had a volunteer meeting this evening and stiffed the event bags.  We had a good group of volunteers and got the bags done quickly.  We also made general plans for who would do what jobs on Saturday.

Wednesday

I had the opportunity to attend the Real World Performance Tuning seminar by Kevin Kline.  I had never met Kevin so it was good to meet him and have the opportunity to hear and see the method he has developed when performance tuning.  It was also neat the one of the other attendees, Dale (can’t remember his last name), recognized me from my picture on SQLServerCentral.  I felt famous.

After the seminar we had an informal OPASS meeting Bahama Breeze billed as a meet and greet with Kevin Kline.  Not counting Kevin and Andy Leonard, who was in town to do a seminar on Thursday, there were 11 people that came to hang with and talk with Kevin.  This was a great time.  We talked shop and made contacts.

As we discussed SQL Server and technology in general it was nice to be able to possibly help out with some technical problems others had experienced and it was great to be able to point over to Andy Leonard when an SSIS question came up and say, “There’s the man you want to talk to.”

At the end it was down to Andy Warren, Andy Leonard, Kevin Kline, and myself and we had a great discussion about PASS and the PASS Summit.  Andy Leonard has a great story about meeting Ken Henderson at PASS.  I mostly listened and learned.  It’s like sitting at the feet of the masters.

Thursday

Unfortunately I couldn’t attend Andy Leonard’s seminar on SSIS because I had conference call I had to be at work for.  While this was on-going we found out that some of the rooms we planned on using for SQLSaturday would basically be unusable because we would have had to use the instructor computers in order to use the projectors.  This would have nearly impossible as those PC’s do not have SQL Server installed.  So when taking breaks from the conference call I re-arranged the rooms we used.  Unfortunately we had already printed out all the signs and schedules with room numbers on them.

That evening I was invited to dinner with Andy Warren, Buck Woody (in town for a seminar on Friday), and Kendal Van Dyke.  It was quite a learning experience as Buck shared some of his experience.

Friday

I as able to attend part of the seminar, A Performance Tuning Methodology by Buck Woody.   He talked about Application Path Analysis and how the DBA really needs to know all about the applications that access the database and how they do it.  Why, because DBA stands for Default Blame Acceptor, so you need to know what is happening elsewhere so you can find out what changed and identify the problem.  Documenting the Application Path is very important to this process.

In the afternoon I met Patrick Leblanc (@PatrickDBA) and he joined Andy Warren and I on a trip to CostCo to pick up supplies for SQLSaturday and helped load up the UHAUL with all the supplies so we’d be ready for the morning.  Patrick is a great guy, fun to be around, and knows his stuff.  Take a look at his SQLLunch site where he is attempting to provide regular lunch time (EST) SQL Server seminars.

After we were done loading up we went our separate ways to get ready for the Speaker Party at Jax’s Fifth Avenue in Lake Mary.  We had a very good turnout with over 20 of the speaker’s in attendance.  I could actually name everyone who was there, but I won’t since it would make for a long list.  Needless to say it was a really good time talking shop and the next time anyone tells you that computer geeks aren’t social tell them to go to a SQLSaturday speaker party, I’ve never seen so many talkative geeks!!

Summary

As you can see I had a busy week, but it was well worth it.  I met at least 30 new people this week, all of whom are SQL Guru’s and I got to re-connect with a bunch of “old” friends from other events.  It was like a taste of the PASS Summit just a few weeks early.

I’ll cover Saturday in my next post as I’ll discuss the event, what I thought went well and where I think we can do better.

September OPASS Meeting Recap

OPASS met last Tuesday, September 14th, with a mini (15 minute) presentation by Todd Holmes on Backup Basics and Jorge Segarra (@SQLChicken) speaking on Policy Based Management in the main presentation.  We had  good crowd of about 20-25.

Meeting Introduction

We started the meeting with some announcements and discussion of who was going to the PASS SUMMIT.  I was officially presented as co-President of OPASS and took some time to discuss the upcoming SQLSaturday 21 – Orlando schedule as I was the one responsible for putting the schedule together.

We then had about 10 minutes of networking time.  I spent it talking with Mark, who had come to Orlando on a contract job that had been ended and was looking for work and guidance as to where to go to get solid SQL Server training.

Mini Presentation – Backup Basics

Todd did an okay job on his mini presentation on Backup Basics.  He is a first time speaker and you could tell he was a little nervous about being in front of a group.  He covered recovery models, backup types, and backup and restore command syntax.  I thought he did well to cover that much information in 15 minutes.  I don’t think I could have covered as much, especially with the number of questions that were asked.

Feature Presentation – Policy Based Management

Jorge did a good job presenting on PBM.  This was my first exposure to it and I was impressed by what you can do with it.  He went over the architecture and examples of how to use it.  I came away convinced that any DBA in a shop with more than a couple of SQL Servers should become familiar with it and use it.  We did learn one thing that is a little disturbing about having an active policy in place, like requiring stored procedure names to fit a standard.  If you have an existing procedure that does not meet the standard and you, for whatever reason, make changes to that procedure and choose to deploy those changes using a DROP and CREATE the policy will block the rollback the CREATE, but not the DROP.  Here’s an example:

/*
Existing Procedure
*/
CREATE PROCEDURE sp_getorder
    (
    @order_id INT
    )

AS

SET NOCOUNT ON 

SELECT
    *
FROM
    dbo.orders
WHERE
    order_id = @order_id;
    
RETURN;    

GO    
/*
Now you create a policy that says that 
stored procedures must begin with usp_%
*/    

/*
You realize that SELECT * is a bad practice
so you want to change the procedure to only
return the required columns and you do a Drop
and Create
*/

IF OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.sp_getorder', N'P') IS NOT NULL 
    BEGIN
        DROP PROCEDURE dbo.sp_getorder ;
    END 

GO

CREATE PROCEDURE sp_getorder
    (
    @order_id INT
    )

AS

SET NOCOUNT ON 

SELECT
    order_no,
    customer_id,
    salesperson_id,
    purchase_order_no
FROM
    dbo.orders
WHERE
    order_id = @order_id;
    
RETURN;    

GO

The PBM violation will not allow the CREATE to take place, but will allow the DROP.  There may be ways to work around this, but Jorge didn’t know any off the top of his head.  This discussion was driven by a question from Kendal Van Dyke (@SQLDDBA).

Post Meeting Discussion

As usual we had a good post meeting discussion as Kendal, Jorge, Andy, and I stuck around for about an hour and others for about 30 minutes.  We talked about networking, PASS, PASS Summit, and keeping up.

As always some good value in the meeting and the post meeting discussion.

Orlando PASS Meeting

Tonight is the OPASS bi-monthly meeting.  Todd Holmes will be giving a mini presentation on SQL Server Backups and out main speaker will be Jorge Segarra (@SQLChicken) speaking on Policy Based Management.  Jorge is very involved in the community as a blogger, twitterer, and speaking at local user groups and SQLSaturday’s.  This will be my first time hearing Jorge speak, but I am sure it will go well as Jorge is knowledgeable and engaging.

Come on out.  Meeting starts at 6 and there is free pizza and always some type of SWAG.  We meet at End to End Training’s office in Altamonte Springs, FL, sorry that would be SQLShare’s offices (Map).

Thanks Space Coast SQL User Group

I want to thank the Space Coast User Group for having me over to speak on the Default Trace last night.  I had a great time meeting everyone and hopefully I presented some information that they all can take back to the office and use.

Space Coast is a relatively new user group but they have good core and are an enthusiastic group.  They asked good questions and 7 out of 9 (I think there were 9 I didn’t take attendance) attendees (not counting me) went to the after meeting get together at Holiday Inn.

The meeting started with some announcements and then I got to jump in and start my presentation.  I started by doing some marketing for SQLSaturday #21 – Orlando and the great seminar series scheduled the week before.  I then asked, “Before tonight, how many people knew that there is a trace running in SQL Server 2005/2008?”  Once again the majority were not even aware it existed.  We discussed what the Default Trace is, what it traces, where it is used, how to query it, and how to archive the data.  I went a little longer than an hour so I’ll have to trim it a little for SQLSaturday.  I’d probably grade myself a B-/B as I stumbled around as I changed applications to show code and do demos and had a couple of brain cramps.  I need to practice this one a few more times.  My slide deck and demo scripts are available here on SkyDrive and I have sent them to Bonnie Allard to post on the Space Coast SQL User Group web site so watch there as well.

We had some great discussions after the event about Powershell, hurricanes, software vendors, and the differences in diets around the world.

Speaking at Space Coast User Group

I have the privilege of presenting, Dive into the Default Trace, at the Space Coast User Group, tomorrow evening (Sept. 10). 

We’ll be discussing what the default trace is, what it collects, where' it is used, how to find it, and how to query it.  I have what I think are some interesting demos and hopefully information that will help developers and DBA’s better manage and audit their SQL Servers.

I’m really looking forward to meeting Bonnie Allard and the rest of the group.

No Training Budget Still No Excuse

When I first started by career in IT and SQL Server about 10 years ago I lived in a small town in northern New Hampshire.  I used my location as an excuse not to attend user groups and other events, unless the boss was willing to foot the bill.  Now I realize my mistake, I’m in charge of my professional development, and now, location is no excuse.  Here’s a list of just some of the FREE training available online:

• JumpstartTV - short (3-5 minute), specific how-to videos for SQL Server and .NET.
• Channel 9 – MSDN’s video training library. This has videos on just about everything microsoft. Over 200 on SQL Server 2008 alone.
• PASS - the Official Professional Association of SQL Server web site. PASS offers Virtual Chapters (user groups that meet online monthly).  Be sure to check out the upcoming 24 hours of PASS
• Quest Software – Quest offers free webcasts on several technologies including SQL Server and some on Quest products but many general ones. Check out Quest Connect
• SQLServerPedia - has video podcasts as well as blogs, wiki, and articles.
• SQLServerCentral – forums, articles, scripts, blogs, and videos. What more can you ask for?

I’m sure there are other resources as well.

Now on to the FREE events. 

• The biggest one for SQL Server, well, at least in my opinion, is the SQLSaturday franchise.  There have been about 20 over the last 2 years from Florida to Oregon.  I should make a disclaimer that I have spoken at 2, attended another, and the franchise is owned by my friend, Andy Warren and his partners.  Actually the first SQLSaturday event was when I met Andy, actually the day before at the Day with Celko event done in conjunction with the SQLSaturday.  It’s a full day of free SQL Server training with some national speakers along with the best local speakers.
• Code Camps – these one day events for .NET are what SQLSaturday is based on, so if you need .NET training here’s a way to get it.
• PASS – offers a SQLSaturday like event support with it’s Community Connections
• User Groups – just BING or GOOGLE for [your technology and location] User Group.  I’m sure you’ll find something in your area.  PASS has a list of official chapters for SQL Server.  I know of Sharepoint, Java, .NET, and Agile user groups.  I’m sure there are others.

As you can see there are plenty of training options that will only cost you time and maybe travel expenses and that’s really an investment in you. 

SQLSaturday 21 – Orlando Announced!

Andy Warren and crew at OPASS have announced that SQLSaturday 21 – Orlando will be held at Seminole Community College, 100 Weldon Boulevard, Sanford, FL 32773, on October 17th.  The call for speakers just opened this afternoon and we have our first session submitted, and it wasn’t by me or @SQLChicken!

This is the third SQLSaturday in Orlando and second at this location, so hopefully we have the kinks worked out.  There is one change this year that there will be a $10 charge to cover lunch, likely from Jason’s Deli.  You’ll still get water, soda, donuts, coffee, and fruit throughout the day for free, plus the usual swag.  That’s not to mention the excellent FREE training.  I attended the first SQLSaturday Orlando and was a speaker/volunteer at last year’s event.  I’ve yet to meet anyone who has not thought it was a terrific event.  I’ve also spoke at the SQLSaturday 14 – Pensacola and everyone there enjoyed that event as well.

If you work with SQL Server there’s no better way to get a free day of training, so register now.  If you work with SQL Server and are passionate about it, then there is no better place to share that passion by presenting.  I don’t think that there is anything more rewarding than sharing your experience and expertise with others.  I’ll be submitting at least one session.

If you have any questions about SQL Server then suggest a session.  I know I check the suggested sessions for ideas and if I have the necessary knowledge I’ll submit a session based on a suggestion.

I’ll be there, and hopefully I’ll see you there as well.

July OPASS Meeting Recap

Last night I attended, along with about 20 others, the latest and greatest OPASS meeting.  I got there early to help setup and great people as they came in.   I may not be the most enthusiastic greeter, but I’m willing and working on doing better.  Greeting also gives me the opportunity to “meet” everyone and try to remember names and find out where people work and how they use SQL Server.  Of course Andy Warren had to give me a hard time about how I was doing the job.  It wouldn’t be an OPASS meeting without taking some grief from Andy.

The meeting started with some updates from Andy on SQLSaturday – Orlando planning, other upcoming events, and some discussion about PASS and what technologies other than SQL Server that PASS could/should cover (Sharepoint, Excel, etc…).  My personal opinion is that PASS should stick with SQL Server, especially since there is so much that is part of SQL Server (SSIS, SSRS, SSAS, DB Engine), why does PASS need to expand?

We then had about 15-20 minutes of networking (group hug) and I spent the time talking with Nick who works in BI for Hilton and would like to transition to DBA.  We had a good discussion about how to transition and what resources are out there to learn how to be a SQL Server DBA.  I guess my biggest failing was not getting his last name and I probably should have given him a business card.  Hopefully I’ll see him again at the next meeting and rectify the situation.

The feature presentation was Powershell vs T-SQL by Chad Miller.  Chad is very passionate about the power of Powershell and knowledgeable and it definitely came across in his presentation.  I have to admit that I was looking for things to pick at Powershell, but really couldn’t come up with much.  I happen to be a “Jack of all trades” so I do some .NET development and would probably do a lot of what Chad did in Powershell in .NET because I already know .NET, but if I were not familiar with .NET I could definitely see learning and using Powershell.  Chad also did a good job of giving specific instances where Powershell is better/simpler to use than T-SQL and when T-SQL Is the better choice, so he did not have an “all Powershell all the time” stance which I appreciated.  I can definitely see where Powershell can make auditing easier and how it can make managing a multi-server environment easier to automate.  Since I am in a one SQL Server shop right now, I don’t see me using it a lot, but I will try to find a project to test it out and learn it.  Chad’s slide deck and demos can be found on his blog.

After the presentation we hung around and talked for about an hour or so.  I spent some time talking with Chad and Kendal Van Dyke about Powershell and other SQL Server tools like SSIS, etc…  Then Andy, Kendal, and Kendal’s co-worker, Todd, and I had some discussions about the PASS Summit, SQLSaturday’s, and growing speakers.  It’s always interesting getting together with these guys and finding out what they think and why.  I never leave without some interesting things to think about.

Tampa SSUG Recap

I had the opportunity and privilege to present Introduction to SQL Server Profiler to the Tampa SSUG last night.  I was impressed by the turnout as it was a full house with about 40 in attendance.  I arrived early, and had a chance to meet a few people, and attempt to work on my networking skills.  I learned I need more practice as I’m still having trouble remembering names of people that I met for the first time.  Some of the people I met were Jonathan Kehayias, @jmkehayias on twitter; Carlos; Andres (I hope I spelled it right); @SQLChicken, Jorge Segarra; Ron Dameron and Nathan (Fraggle on SSC), who I had met at SQLSaturday 8 – Orlando last fall; and, of course, Pam Shaw (@pamshaw) who does a great job leading the group.

After Pam went through the announcements Jorge led a discussion on the pros and cons of social networking (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc…).  Some good stories were told about how problems had been solved through the active SQL Server community on Twitter, and a couple of attendees shared how that they had used LinkedIn to either find a job or a candidate for a job.  I think some attendees may have been convinced that there are business/professional reasons to use social networking tools.

After that discussion I was up with my presentation on Profiler.  This was the first time I’ve done the presentation on my new laptop with SQL Server 2008 installed so I had a couple of minor technical glitches like not having reporting services running as I expected and adjusting to how Vista handles presentation mode.  I still need some work on that.  I always start by asking who has used or uses Profiler and I am always surprised that every hand doesn’t go up.  The other question I ask is how many people know that SQL Server 2005/2008 has a server-side trace running (the Default Trace) on install.  Again, the majority of attendees do not know this.  Overall I covered everything I planned in time and had some good questions around the difference between SP:Completed/RPC:Completed and SP:StmtCompleted/RPC:StmtCompleted and good discussion about why you even have the option of having Profiler write to a file or table while running the GUI, since it is recommended against and you can save to a file or table when the trace is done.  Jonathan Kehayias gave me a couple of tips on things I missed or should have said, like when tracing lock events DON’T trace Lock:Acquired as that will fill up a trace fast.  Remember locks are good, deadlocks are bad.  It felt like everyone was pretty happy with the information presented and several people let me know they enjoyed the session, so I guess it well. 

Even though it went well, I know I can do better, but the more I present the better I’ll get.  I’ve got SQLSaturday 14 – Pensacola coming up on June 6th where I’ll be doing my Profiler presentation and Space Coast User Group in September where I’ll be doing a presentation on mining the Default Trace.  I hope to see you at one of the upcoming events!

Speaking at Tampa Bay SQL User Group

I will be speaking at the Tampa SQL User Group on Tuesday, May 19th.  I’ll be speaking on SQL Server Profiler which I have presented at OPASS and SQLSaturday #8 – Orlando. 

I look forward to meeting everyone who is part of the group and re-connecting with those I have met at other events like SQLSaturday.  Please don’t be offended if we met and I can’t remember your name, it is a MY failing, not yours.

PASS Sessions Submitted, Should I Be Committed?

Well, even though the deadline was extended 2 weeks, I got 2 sessions submitted for the PASS Summit submitted by the original deadline.  Now the question is, should I be committed for even attempting to speak at a national (international) event?

Here are the sessions:

Profiler: An Underused Tool

Profiler has been around for awhile, but is often left in the DBA's toolbox. Profiler is a flexible tool that can be used for Auditing, Monitoring, and Performance Tuning

Goals:

1. Understand when, why, and how to use Profiler
2. Understand the differences between Profiler and server-side tracing.
3. Understand performance and security considerations for using Profiler.

Dive into the Default Trace

Beginning with SQL Server 2005 there is a server-side trace installed and started by default in every SQL Server installation. Not many DBA's take advantage of the wealth of information collected through this trace. This trace includes 34 events in 2005 and 35 events in 2008 that audit non-DDL activity on your SQL Server.

Goals:

1. Learn what events are included in the Default Trace.
2. Learn how to query the Default Trace
3. Learn how to process the Default Trace files to keep the information beyond the default amount of data (5 20MB files).

Now that I’ve submitted, how about you?

Update on my 2009 Goals

Since we are 1/4 through the year I thought I should give an update on my goals.  Overall I think I am doing okay, but I need to work toward them with more purpose.

1. Learn SQL Server 2008, particularly policy-based management, resource governor, and service broker.
   
   Not a whole lot of progress here.  I do have it installed on my laptop, but I have not done much with it, nor have I bought any books.  I really need to get started.
2. Write 1 Article per quarter for SQLServerCentral.
   
   Well, I did get an article submitted in the first quarter which will be posted early in the second quarter so I am on target, especially since I have the information for at least 2 more articles already, so I “just” need to write them.
3. Record and submit 1 video per quarter for JumpstartTV
   
   Again I did get one done in the first quarter so I am on target.  I also have some ideas for others so it is all about getting them scripted and recorded.
4. One Blog post per week
   
   Another one I am meeting with 19 posts in the first quarter.  I have to admit to this being a struggle for me.  I really want the posts to have good content and not just be announcements and recaps of meetings I have been to.  There is nothing wrong with those posts, but I’d like to be sharing something others can learn from more often.  I think that as I write more, it will get easier and better, not just to write, but also to find topics.
5. Become more involved in leadership in my local user group (OPASS).
   
   I’m trying to do make the time to do this, but I need to be more purposeful about it.  I am trying to help out by pursuing speakers from within my network.  Of course, a bigger network would make it easier.  Time is limited and whatever I do try to do I want to do well.  Also I have become more involved in PASS as my friend Andy Warren (the OPASS president) is on the board of directors, so I’m trying to help out there as well.
6. Speak at 2 community events.
   
   I have a submitted a session to SQLSaturday – Pensacola and will be submitting at least one session for the PASS Summit, so I am making some effort.  I do need to contact some of the other User Groups within driving distance (Tampa, Jacksonville) so I can get more experience.  Odds are I will put together another presentation for OPASS this year and at the next SQLSaturday – Orlando.
7. Attend the PASS Summit
   
   I am working on this one.  I have spoken to my boss about possibly getting some funds for it, but, regardless, I plan on going.  As I already mentioned I will also be submitting at least one session.  This is probably the easiest one to do as all it takes is a little money and some vacation time.

Why Speak at a User Group?

This post was going to be a plea for volunteers to speak at my local SQL Server User Group (OPASS), and, in reality, it still is, but as I began writing I thought I would share some reasons why I think you should consider speaking at a User Group, hopefully OPASS and why I did.

1. Share your passion.  People will listen to anyone speak on any topic if they can tell the speaker is passionate about it.
2. Become an expert.  There is no better way to become an expert than to teach someone else.  I spoke last year on SQL Profiler, which I thought I knew, until I prepared for my presentation.  Now I am an expert, but one who knows there is more to learn.
3. Build your brand.  Steve Jones writes and speaks about this.  By speaking, you build your professional profile.  If you are willing to share your knowledge with “strangers” this can set you apart in your next job search.  Being a team player and a good communicator comes up in almost every job posting and interview, if you speak publicly you’ll have evidence to support your claims.
4. Contacts, contacts, contacts.  In real estate they say it’s all about location, in the business world it’s all about contacts.  Not just for job searches, but for people you can contact for help on that issue you just can’t solve.  You may become that person for some, but you’ll also gain people who will be that person for you.
5. Personal growth.  Public speaking is scary, but very satisfying, and you know what, everyone wants you to succeed, so our fears are usually unfounded.  Once you get started you’ll be more confident.
6. Respect of your peers.  Don’t we all want that?  There is nothing I respect more than someone willing to take a chance.  No matter what people think about the presentation, they will respect you for daring to do it.

I have to be honest, I have only spoken twice on SQL Server (same presentation) and I was very nervous both times, but once I got started it just flowed and was over before I knew it.  Both times there were questions I couldn’t answer, but no one was upset by that because I didn’t bluff, I just admitted it.  As I said earlier, the audience wants you to do well, so relax and go for it.

If anyone is interested in volunteering to speak at OPASS, we do need a speaker for our next meeting which is in May, and to the best of my knowledge the rest of the year, you can contact me at corbett.jack@gmail.com and I’ll pass along your information to our president, Andy Warren.  We usually meet on every other month on the 2nd Tuesday, but we can be flexible with advanced notice, so if you are going to be in the Orlando area at another time and want to speak let me know and we’ll try to arrange it.