Category Archives: Uncategorized

Minion Backup for SQL Server

minion backupWe’re having a Minion Backup webinar on Wednesday, June 1 at 12:00 PM. Register here!

Enterprises have increasingly complicated backup needs.  With different data centers, high availability nodes, development refreshes, and more thrown into the mix, a DBA can almost keep a full time job simply making a backup routine that does everything it needs to do.  But we’ve done that for you.

Minion Backup is a free community tool that has more than enough features to handle even your toughest scenario.

In this webinar we’ll show you how this FREE tool by MinionWare can meet your scalability and HA/DR needs with almost effortless management. We’ll show you how Minion Backup can:

  • Be configured easily for all your servers.
  • Be highly customized without any extra jobs.
  • Be configured to be not only HA node, but also data center aware.
  • Be configured to copy backup files to dev or QA boxes for restore.
  • Backup all your certs with the most secure method available.
  • Dynamically tune your backups so you’re always using the proper number of resources for each DB.
  • Have multiple schedules and retention periods for each DB without having to create multiple jobs.
  • Be configured to redo backups that failed so you don’t have to get involved.
  • And more.

Come see why Minion Backup is almost literally taking the SQL community by storm, and why it’s the new diamond standard for backups in SQL Server.

Meeting registration.

A Very Heated Argument about Backup Tuning in Minion Backup

A couple weeks ago we here at MinionWare got into a very heated argument that lasted most of the morning and part of the afternoon. The argument was around the backup tuning settings in Minion Backup (MB), and how they should work vs. how they actually work.
The problem came about because Jen was doing some testing for her first MB session at a user group. She came across an issue with the tuning settings when she added the time component to the Minion.BackupTuningThresholds table. She noticed that she wasn’t getting the tuning settings she thought she should get when she was trying to tune for a specific time of day. So naturally she assumed I was stupid and filed it as a bug.

In actuality though it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to, and it’s following the letter of the Minion Backup law. That law is “Once you’re at a level, you never go back up”. Let me show you what I mean.

Precedence in the Tuning Thresholds table

Take a look at this sample Minion.BackupTuningThresholds table.

TuningThresholds

Ok, in the above table we’ve got some tuning rows. This is a truncated version of the table, but it’s all we need to demonstrate precedence. We’ve got two rule sets here; one for MinionDefault (the row that provides all the default configuration settings), and one for MinionDev (a specific database on my server).

  • MinionDefault is a global setting that says unless the DB has an override, it’ll take its rows from here.
  • MinionDev is the only DB on this server that has an override, so it’ll take its settings from the MinionDev rows.

At the most basic level, the precedence rule states that once there is an override row for a database, that database will never leave that level…it will never default back to the default row. So in this example, MinionDev is at the database level for its settings, so it will never go back up to the more generic MinionDefault row. Once you’re at a level, you stay at that level.

A “Zero Row” for every level

I’m going to explain how these rows work, and why they are the way they are. Notice that for both levels (that is, for the MinionDefault rows, and for the MinionDev rows), there is what we call a zero row. This is where the ThresholdValue = 0. The zero row is especially important for the MinionDefault row, because this is what covers all DBs; it’s quite possible that you could get a database that’s less than your lowest threshold value.

In the above table, the lowest (nonzero) threshold value for MinionDefault is 20GB. That means that no DBs under 20GB will get any tuning values. Without any tuning values, the number of files would be NULL, and therefore you wouldn’t be able to backup anything…they wouldn’t have any files. So setting the zero row is essential.

And, since each DB stays at that level once it’s got an override, then whenever you put in a DB-level override it’s an excellent idea to give that DB a zero row as well. It may be 50GB now, but if you ever run an archive routine that drops it below your lowest threshold, then your backups will stop if you don’t have that zero row to catch it. Did I explain that well enough? Does it make sense?

That’s how the rule is applied at a high level between DBs. Let’s now look at how it’s applied within the DB itself.

“Zero Rows” within the database level

As I just stated above, you should really have a zero row for each database that has an override row (you know, where DBName = <yourDBname>).

Let’s look at MinionDev above. It has a BackupType=All set, and a BackupType=Full set. The All set takes care of all backup types that don’t have backup type overrides. So in this case, the All set takes care of Log and Diff backups, because there’s a specific override for Full. Get it? Good, let’s move on.

Notice that MinionDev has a zero row for the All set, and a zero row for the Full set. This is essential because following the rules of precedence, once it’s at the MinionDev/Full level, it doesn’t leave that level. So again, if there’s a chance that your database will fall below your lowest tuning threshold – in this case it’s 150GB – then the backup will fail, because there are no tuning parameters defined below 150GB. This again is why the zero row is so important: because it provides settings for all backups that fall below your lowest tuning setting.

And, if you were to put in a BackupType=Log override for MinionDev, it would also need to have a zero row. I could argue that it’s even more important there because it’s quite possible that your log could be below your tuning threshold.

So now, our Argument

That’s how the precedence actually works in the Minion.BackupTuningThresholds table. The argument started when Jen thought that it should move back up to the All set if a specific BackupType override falls below its tuning threshold. So in other words, in the above table, she wouldn’t require a zero row for the MinionDev-Full set. Instead, if the DB size fell below the 150GB threshold, she would move it backup to the MinionDev-All set, and take the lowest tuning threshold from there.

She said that it wasn’t in the spirit of the precedence rules to make the setting quite that pedantic. So after hours of arguing, drawing on the board, making our case, sketching out different scenarios, etc… we just kinda lost steam and moved on, because she had to get ready for her talk.

The point is though that this is the way it currently works: once it’s at its most specific level, it stays there. So, if you have tuning settings for specific backup types, you’d be really well served to have a zero row for each one just in case.

And I’ll also note that BackupType is the lowest granularity. So, Day and Time (another config option in this table) have nothing to do with this setting. You need to concentrate on the DBName and BackupType. Everything else will fall into place.

Final Caveat: We break the rule (a little)

Now, I know it sounds like a contradiction, but there is just one place where I break this rule. I call it the FailSafe. With the FailSafe, it’s possible to have specific overrides and still get your tuning thresholds from the MinionDefault zero row. Here’s why:

This is a rather nuanced config in Minion Backup, and it’s fairly easy to get something wrong and wind up without a backup. I didn’t want that to happen. So, if you do something like leave your zero row out for an override level, and your DB falls below your lowest threshold setting, you would wind up without any backup because there isn’t a number of files to pass to the statement generator.

Failsafe says, if you screw up and don’t have a tuning setting available, MB will grab settings from the MinionDefault Zero Row.

In this situation, I kick in the FailSafe mechanism, which pulls the tuning settings from the MinionDefault zero row. At least you’ll have a backup, even if it’s slow.

(That was one of Jen’s arguments: that a FailSafe is a great idea, but she wants it to come from the DB-All set instead of the MinionDefault-All set. I don’t know, maybe she’s right. Maybe that’s more intuitive. I’ll have to think about it. It wouldn’t be that big of a change really. I could walk up the chain. In the above table I could try the MinionDev-All zero row and if that doesn’t exist then I could use the MinionDefault-All zero row. What do you guys think?)

So why not just hardcode a single file into the routine so that when this happens you’re backing up to that single file? The answer is: flexibility. Your MinionDefault zero row may be set to 4 files because all your databases are kinda big and you don’t ever want to backup with fewer than that. So, set your MinionDefault zero row to something you want your smallest DB to use. If that’s a single file, then ok, but if it’s 4 or 6 files, then also ok. That’s why I didn’t hardcode a value into the FailSafe: It’s all about giving you the power to easily configure the routine to your environment.

Takeaways:

  1. The precedence rules are followed to the very letter of the law.
  2. Once a database is configured at a level, it stays there.
  3. The configuration level is specific to DBName, and then (at the next most specific level) to the DBName and BackupType.
  4. Whenever you have database-level override row, always have a zero row for it.
  5. Whenever you have a BackupType-level override, always have a zero row for it.
  6. The FailSafe defaults back to MinionDefault Zero Row, if a level-appropriate setting isn’t available.

Ok, that’s it for this time. I hope this explanation helps you understand the reasoning behind what we did.

Sep 17 #pass24hop session: The Enterprise Scripting Workshop

On September 17 7:00GMT, I’ll be giving a sneak preview of our PASS Summit precon, The Enterprise Scripting Workshop, for 24 Hours of PASS. Here’s the registration link.

PASS_24HOPreview_Speaking_250x250

Abstract:
The database administrator (DBA) life can be frustrating: You rarely have time to innovate because the same tasks fill up your time day after day. Your users are unhappy about how long it takes to resolve “simple” tickets. You need to put big items on hold to manage special requests. As careful as you are, mistakes creep in the busier you get.

This is a preview of the PASS Summit pre-conference session. In the pre-conference workshop, learn how to develop enterprise scripts with a huge range of uses. A good set of reusable scripts can reduce task time from hours or days to just a few minutes, and eliminate mistakes from your environment.• Enterprise philosophy: Tackle simple tasks with the whole environment in mind.
• Single data store: Define the benefits and uses of a single central database for common-use data and metadata.
• Choice of tools: Choose the best tool (e.g., PowerShell, T-SQL, SSIS) for the job.
• Environment ground work: Prepare your environment for enterprise scripting.
• Real-world scripts: Work through dozens of enterprise scripting issues (e.g., alerting, error handling, multiple SQL versions) as you develop a real enterprise script in class

This session is for DBAs with a basic understanding of PowerShell. It’s for anyone who touches backups or security, maintains databases, troubleshoots performance, monitors disk space, or any of a hundred other DBA tasks. Enterprise scripting is for anyone who has more tasks than time.

PASS 2013 Day 1 Keynote

Today Quentin Clark announced SQL Server 2014 CTP2 is now available. It’s both available for public download and it’s the final CTP before going RTM.
Now, I don’t know about the rest of you but my favorite feature of 2014 so far is Hekaton. I’ve been a prod DBA for many years and speeding up OLTP is a big love of mine. So anyway, we got a really nice demo of Hekaton and columnstore and how they can update app data in a fraction of the time they could before.

You can also now backup sql DBs to azure storage. Of course, I doubt it really has to be azure, because the backup flag is ‘to URL’ instead of ‘to DISK’, so I would imagine it’s any internet addr. I haven’t verified that though.

They also introduce managed backups where they’ll backup the DB once they’ve determined that it’s changed enough. This can be helpful for small shops who don’t want to have to think about backups, and who don’t have highly changing data.

As well, SQL finally can encrypt backups and they do it in all versions.

There’s also a feature pack you can download for SQL2K8 that lets you backup those DBs to azure as well.

The new job problem

Ok, so you’re in an interview and their questions are finished and it’s time for them to answer yours.  So you start asking them different Qs about their shop.  You ask about servers, versions, support, team layout, upcoming projects, etc.  You cover all the bases and it all sounds pretty good.  You leave and an offer comes in a few days later and you accept. 

Fastforward to your 2nd week on the job and you’re starting to discover something.  All these people around you are idiots.  Not a single one of them really knows what’s going on and even worse you’ve heard a couple things that make you believe that all grand ideas the hiring manager had in your interview were just HIS grand ideas.  They’re things he’d really like to do.  As it turns out though, nobody else has neither the desire nor the skillset to make any of it happen. 

So what do you do now then?  You’ve saddled yourself to this new gig where you’re surrounded by morons and everything you came here for is now defunct and you know it.  Personally, I would probably start looking for another gig in a hurry.  The older I get the more I just can’t bear to work in those types of shops.  And I really wish that the interview process were such that you could tech screen the guys you’re supposed to be working with.  As it stands that kind of thing is presumptuous.  It would be considered pretty rude to come in and interview someone for their own job.  But what are you supposed to do?  Don’t you have the right to make sure you’re coming into a good shop too?  They don’t want to hire someone who’s an idiot, but certainly they can recognize that we don’t want to be put in that position either, right?  Well, I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m hoping that one day we can get to that point.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers other than to cut your losses and maybe get a little more clever about how you vet the next shop.  Maybe ask them Qs that are meant to see how they’re going to design something that they talked about and see if they know what they’re doing.  I’ve even flatout asked the hiring manager if the plans were just his or if there were an active project to make it happen.  You can also find out a little about their office politics by asking the right Qs, but you have to be sneaky.  Ask them about their top 5 support issues.  That’ll tell you a lot.  For example if one of their big issues is that they keep having unauthorized prod changes, then you know that they’ve got devs or end users in the DB.  So now you can ask them outright why those users have rights to prod.  Then you can ask what they’re doing to change it and what the roadblock is.  This can tell you a lot about the experience of the upper mgmt as well as the hiring mgr because based off of his answers you’ll know if he knows what he’s doing and if the company is too immature to keep their users under control. 

You can also ask them about their HADR.  Ask them what they’ve got in place and whether their happy with it.  Then you can ask what they’d do differently and why, etc.  This line of questioning can take you a long way in finding out things about the people you’re about to work with.  Maybe it’s a SQL group that’s pretty on the ball but when you ask why something is done the way it is you find out that the windows team is poor and blocks everything they try to do.

You can also ask the guy how he got started in the business and what his experience is.  I’ve asked hiring mgrs outright if they were technical or not.  The point is that while you can’t whip out your big list of Qs like if you were on the other side of the table, you can still find out quite a bit with a few well-placed questions.  The trick is to gear it toward something he said so it just sounds like you’re asking more info about the shop.  When what you’re really doing is finding out if these are the people you wanna work with.

Also, don’t fool yourself into thinking that if someone answers the Qs well that they’ll be good.  All the discussion boils down to is that they can at least talk the talk.  And I’ve met plenty of guys who can do that.  You get them in the interview and they say all the right things and really appear to know their job.  But when you get them in your shop they somehow can’t do the simplest things.  So this is no sure-fire way to vet your new team, but it’s all you’ve got. 

Another big point of this is to start you thinking in this direction.  You don’t have to just shut up and take what they give you.  Too often people are just so grateful to be offered something that they take the first offer they get no matter how bad the company is.  And then they sit there for years and put up with garbage every day.  But you don’t have to.  You’re (hopefully) a professional, which means you’re in demand.  You should be calling some of the shots.

Healthcare isn’t ready

I just left the healthcare industry for the 2nd time and it’s sad the level of ignornace and superstition that exists around computers… and SQL especially.  The entire industry treats computers like big electronic pieces of paper.  They print things they can easily email, they manually enter in things they could easily write a form for, and they perform repetative manual tasks they could easily script.  It’s pathetic how far behind the industry as a whole is and the people who work in it are so close-minded I don’t see how they ever get anything done.

Part of the problem is the doctors.  Doctors think that because they’re doctors that they know everything.  Several times I’ve had one doctor or another tell me specifically how they wanted me to do something in SQL.  They didn’t know the first thing about it, but they heard a few terms here and there so they decided to run the show.  And here they are in meetings insisting that I follow their HA architecture that was just ridiculous.  I got a reputation in my company for being difficult to work with because I always called them on it and told them to let me do my job.  Then they would complain and my boss would be at my desk the next day.  It’s just incredible ego to think that you’re a expert in all fields because you’re an expert in your own.

However, doctors aren’t the only problem.  Vendors are also a huge problem because they’re very slow to adapt to new technologies.  And by slow, I mean 15-20yrs too slow.  We’ve had so many vendors who only code against SQL2K.  Their support personnel is pathetic to say the least as well.  These vendors know nothing.  And they’re guiding hospitals in their implementations.  And of course now you’ve got the blind leading the blind because while there’s nobody at the vendor who knows what he’s talking about, there certainly isn’t anyone at the hospitals to call them on it.  And when they do get someone in there who knows what they’re talking about they can’t keep them because what really good IT person wants to work with an entire floor of people who don’t know the first thing about IT?

The biggest issue we had with staffing was that everyone who does the hiring thinks that you have to have hospital experience to be able to work in IT at a hospital.  So they end up hiring ex nurses, or other clinical people and give them jobs as programmers, system admins, etc.  These people don’t know the first thing about being in IT or about C# yet they’re given positions based off of their hospital tenure.  So someone who wanted a career change could come in as a Sr. Programmer yet they’ve never even had a simple online coding course.  So now they’re in there trying to figure this stuff out.  They’re architecting solutions that they could barely qualify as end users for.  And anyone in IT who knows what they’re doing has to put up with this idiocy.  And make no mistake… it is idiocy.

The industry itself has too many older managers in it and they need to bring in some fresh blood that actually knows something about IT and how to actually get things done.  As it stands they’re just too scared of the change, too scared of the data, too scared of being sued, too scared of pissing off the doctors, and too scared of technology in general.  Oh sure, they’ll bring in iPads for the doctors to carry around, but big deal.  They’re not doing anything cool with them, and everything they put out there costs tons of money in support because they weren’t put together correctly.  Want a perfect example of how far behind they are?  Whenever you go to a new doctor you still have to fill out all that damn paperwork by hand don’t you?  You have to put your name, address, SSN, DOB, etc on like 9 forms.  Doesn’t that sound like something they should be able to get past by now?  And there’s more to that specific story than just being afraid of computers.  That particular one is caused by the system itself.  I won’t go into specifics though.  I’ve also seen plenty of people print online forms, fill them out, and then scan them back in and store that into the DB in a text column.  Seriously dudes?

So what can they do to change?  How can healthcare move into the 80’s?  For starters they can hire some younger more hip managers who understand how IT works and the benefits it brings, and give them the power to do what they need to do.  Next they can stop hiring from hospitals.  C# coders, or SQL guys don’t have to know crap about your business.  They have to know their business, which is IT.  And they’ll have to pony-up the money for some real IT folks.  IT folks aren’t going to work for peanuts… not when they can go somewhere else and get 20-30K more.  Oh yeah, and you’re also going to have to start treating them like they’re professionals.  IT guys don’t want to hear how much the doctors know about IT.  They want you to let them do their jobs.  So seriously, stop treating them like they’re nothing compared to the doctors.  Doctors are essential to hospitals, but your IT staff is too.  It’s getting so that hospitals are crippled without IT.  So why do you still insist that all IT guys are the same?  Hell, even all janitors aren’t the same.  I can easily tell the difference between one who cares about what he does and one who doesn’t.

Here’s a scoop for you.  Healthcare is going to need to get their act together or else.  The government is mandating that everyone have their health records in a meaningful use format by 2015 so the time of getting by on the idiots you’ve got is over.  You’re going to have to get some real talent and do what it takes to keep them.  If that means paying them a good salary, and listening to them, then all I can say is ‘you poor baby’.  Hospitals jump through hoops all the time to attract some new doctor because of what he brings to the network.  If anyone in healthcare is reading this then you’d better start planning now.  Start gathering some talented IT guys and let them do their jobs.  And NO, before you ask, you don’t know what IT talent looks like.  Get someone to help you find that talent.  And I’m not talking about recruiters either.  Go to the Microsoft MVP site and google someone in the field you’re looking for and start emailing them.  Ask them to help you interview a few guys.  I’m sure they’ll charge you a little, but it’ll be more than worth it.  Then once you get these guys on staff don’t treat them like 2nd-class citizens to the doctors.  You’ve got no choice anymore.  You have to do something.  You can’t keep this up.

My guess is that it’ll probably take about another decade before this starts really turning around though.

SQL PASS Summit Day 2 Keynote

Here are today’s announcements.

After 5 years in Seattle, PASS Summit is traveling to Charlotte, NC, in 2013 to bring the world’s largest SQL Server and business intelligence conference closer to database pros who may not have been able to attend in the past.

PASS Summit 2013 will be held at the Charlotte Convention Center, in the heart of the Queen City, Oct. 15-18, 2013, with two days of Pre-Conference Sessions beginning Oct. 14. Early registration opened today with a 3-day Full Summit rate of $1,095 and a special $100 alumni discount, both good until Jan. 4, 2013.

“We’re excited about bringing the PASS Summit experience closer to DBAs, developers, BI architects, and IT pros who haven’t been able to travel to Seattle,” noted PASS Vice President, Marketing, Thomas LaRock. “And we’re also excited to experience the beautiful city of Charlotte in what will be a jam-packed week of learning and connecting with community members from around the world.”

To learn more about PASS Summit 2013 and to register, see www.sqlpass.org/summit/2013.

24 Hours of PASS In addition, PASS is rounding out 2012 with two 24 Hours of PASS virtual events, extending its reach to the Portuguese and Spanish SQL Server communities. Both events will feature 24 free, live, back-to-back technical webcasts. The Portuguese event takes place Nov. 26-27, with the Spanish edition on Dec. 5-6. For details, see http://www.sqlpass.org/Events/24HoursofPASS.aspx.

PASS Business Analytics Conference

Yesterday, PASS also announced the PASS Business Analytics (BA) Conference, a new event supporting business intelligence and analytics professionals using Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint, SQL Server, and Windows Azure.

Over 1,200 business analysts, data scientists, line-of-business managers, and IT pros are expected to take part in the inaugural PASS BA Conference at the Chicago Hotel and Towers, April 10-12, 2013, for real-world insights, prescriptive guidance, best practices, and strategic vision for analyzing, managing, and sharing business information and insights through Microsoft’s collaborative BA platform.

Registration for the PASS BA Conference is also open now, with the $1,095 early-bird rate available until December 7, 2012. For more information and to register, visit http://www.passbaconference.com.

The Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) today presented its most prestigious award to volunteer Jen Stirrup during the PASSion Awards ceremony at PASS Summit 2012in Seattle.

The PASSion Award is presented annually to a volunteer who demonstrates exemplary service and commitment to the PASS organization by inspiring the community to collaborate, learn, and grow through knowledge sharing and peer-based learning. PASSion award recipients are nominated by their fellow PASS members and selected by the Board of Directors.

 

Jen (blog | twitter) has worked diligently over the past 2 years with various groups in Europe to promote support for Women in Technology. A SQL Server MVP, she is a frequent speaker at such events as PASS Summit, SQLBits, SQLRally, SQLSaturday, 24 Hours of PASS, and local user groups and has been an active volunteer with European SQLSaturday events. At PASS Summit 2012, she is part of the panel discussing “Women in Technology: Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going” at the 10th anniversary WIT Luncheon.

 

In nominating her for the PASSion Award, fellow volunteers shared the following:

  • “She has gone above and beyond making contacts with people at Microsoft Europe and user group leaders to bring together a fledgling community of WIT support and build it into a more recognized, if not more accepted, group of PASSionate people.”
  • “Jen continues to support the PASS community at large as a recognized MVP and frequent speaker. She always is eager to share her positive experiences with this organization to encourage others to join in.”

In addition, PASS named Amy Lewis and Jesus Gil Velasco as 2012 PASSion Award Honorable Mentions for their contributions over the past year:

  • Amy (LinkedIn | twitter) is Co-Chair of the PASS DW/BI Virtual Chapter, Co-Manager of the PASS Summit 2012 Program Committee, event coordinator for this year’s Phoenix SQLSaturday and next year’s event, and new coordinator of the Arizona SQL Server User Group.
  • Jesus (twitter) is founder of the Mexico City PASS Chapter, PASS Regional Mentor for LATAM, and organizer of the LATAM 24 Hours of PASS virtual event.

PASS also recognized Ryan Adams, Mark Broadbent, Andrey Korshikov, and Sarah Strate as Outstanding Volunteers.

Congratulations to all our honorees, and thank you for your service to PASS and the SQL Server community! For more information about PASS and the PASSion Awards, see www.sqlpass.org.

About PASS PASS is an independent, not-for-profit association dedicated to supporting, educating, and promoting the global Microsoft SQL Server and Business Intelligence community. From local user groups and virtual chapters to webcasts and the annual PASS Summit, PASS enables knowledge sharing, in-depth learning, access to the Microsoft SQL Server team, and the ability to influence the direction of SQL Server technologies. For more information, visit the PASS Web site at http://www.sqlpass.org.

SQL PASS Summit Day 1 Keynote

* Announcing the PASS Business Analytics conference in Chicago, Il on April 10-12 2013.

* Announcing SP1 for SQL Server 2012.

We arrived sunday for PASS 2012 and immediately met up with some friends and had a great time.

Following that we were both in precons yesterday.  I was in Private Clouds with Allan Hirt and Ben DeBow, and Jen was in t-sql with Itzik Ben-Gan.  If you’ve never been to a precon before I recommend you give it a try.  It’s an endurance trial though.  8hrs of concentrated training on a topic isn’t easy to get through, but if you throw a little water in your face you’ll get through it.

* Announcing Hekaton,  a new in-memory technology that will ship in the next major version of SQL Server. In-memory computing is a core element of Microsoft’s strategy to deliver a data platform that enables customers to analyze all types of data while also accelerating time to insight. Currently in private preview, “Hekaton” will complete Microsoft’s portfolio of in-memory capabilities across analytics and transactional scenarios, offering customers performance gains of up to 50 times. Because Microsoft’s in-memory capabilities are built into SQL Server, customers don’t need to buy specialized hardware or software and can easily migrate existing applications to benefit from the dramatic performance gains.  The live demo showed a 9x perf increase in a workload by using Hekaton to pin the table into memory.  They then optimized a stored procedure with Hekaton and got a 28x performance increase.

Also, a preview of the next version of SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW), Microsoft’s enterprise-class appliance, available in the first half of 2013. SQL Server 2012 PDW will include a new data processing engine called PolyBase, which will enable queries across relational data and non-relational Hadoop data to drastically reduce time to insight.

* CTP Microsoft HDInsight Server is now available.  HDInsight Server is the name given to the next iteration of Hadoop capabilities.

PolyBase was also demoed.  PolyBase is a new query construct that allows  you to query multiple data sources easily and merge them together.  So tsql and hadoop for example, are well within reach now in a single query.

*PowerView and PowerPivot are now fully integrated into Excel2013.

The integration is being billed as something that’s extremely easy for end users to setup.  I tried the same demo he did on stage with a very simple data set I created in excel on the spot and I was able to recreate his demo very easily on the spot without ever having played with it before.  This is the first time MS has billed something as being easy in the BI platform and I’ve actually been able to duplicate what they’ve done.

Great job guys.

#InapproPASS Party 2012 – Seattle

Many of you know about our annual event for charity, where we present sessions and make jokes that aren’t fit for polite society. There’s a lot of swearing and lewd jokes, and it’s all in very good fun.  If you like deeply inappropriate language, and will be in Seattle on November 6, read on!

Summary for the impatient:

  • What’s commonly referred to as “InapproPASS” is our vulgar event for charity (benefiting the Shriners Hospitals for Children).
  • It will be Tuesday, November 6 from 8:30-midnight ish, in Seattle.
  • We’re sponsored by Trainsignal!
  • Pay your $20 entry fee and email our attendance coordinator (Nic at SirSQL.net) with your favorite swear (consider it your password).

And a note for our sponsor: Check out TrainSignal’s SQL Training vids
or find out how to become a SQL instructor.

If you want the wordier version of this blog, go check it out on our Groupies’ site. But if you’re sold, register today!

Buy your tickets here (1 ticket, $20) – but please, don’t register if very strong language and adult humor offends you:

Losing your job Sucks

I’ve blogged about this before, but some things are worth repeating from time to time.

Losing your job really sucks. And it doesn’t matter if you find out about it ahead of time by 2mos, 2wks, or not until they walk you out the door, you’re going to feel like a complete failure.  And I don’t know, maybe you should, maybe you shouldn’t, but if you don’t get a handle on it and soon you’re going to find yourself in the middle of a depression that’s hard to get out of.  And once you’re there you’ll be useless for finding a job until you get out of it because everyone can see you’re depressed and nobody wants to hire someone who’s a major downer.  You can take some steps to avoid it though, and here’s what I do.

The first thing I do is learn something new.  I pick a single topic of something I really want to learn and I do it.  It’s important that you only pick a single topic though.  The reason is because if you’re already feeling like a failure, choosing to bone-up on SQL in general is only going to make you more depressed because it’s going to remind you how small you really are compared to the product.  There’s just too much to do.  So you pick one small thing and do that.  You can tackle a single feature much easier.  Maybe it’s not even a SQL topic you’re interested in.  Maybe you’ve always wanted to get started with ASP.NET, or HTML, or JavaScript, or Powershell, etc.  Pick one of those instead.  Now, you certainly won’t learn any of those overnight either, but at least it’s a solid topic you can practice and get better at.  This is very important because it shows you that you’re not a loser and you are capable of doing something.  It also gives you new confidence because you’ve added something significant that you like to your skillset.  And if something in IT isn’t what you’re dying to do, then take this time to learn French cooking, or the harmonica, or whatever.

The 2nd thing I do is I start working out.  This too is essential.  There are a couple reasons for this.  First, it’s something tangible.  Unless you’re just completely paralyzed it’s impossible to not see improvement.  You jog to the end of the street and you’re completely winded.  Then the next day (or later that day) you jog to the end of the street and go and extra 10ft.  The next time you go even farther… and so on and so on.  Or you lift weights and see some improvement there.  Do something physical.  Do it every day and do it to exhaustion.  Why exhaustion?  Well, that’s the 2nd reason.

Physical activity works out mental frustration.  It’s hard to be stressed when you’re too tired to walk.  So by working out really hard every day you go a long way to relieve your stress.  And if you’re the type to hold things in, you’re more likely to open up and talk when you’re tired.  This is why parents who know this, make their kids get on a treadmill or do some good exercise when they come home really upset and refuse to talk.  After a good workout they start talking.  This is also more or less how truth serums work.  They relax you to the point where you don’t have the energy to lie.  Lying takes energy and effort and if you’re really relaxed, you tend to not be able to exert that kind of effort.

All of this should help you achieve the ultimate goal that I’ll state now.  Your ultimate goal is to shift your self-worth from your job to something else.  If you place all your worth on your job and you just lost your job, then where does that leave you?  Completely worthless, that’s where.  But if your job is just something else you do and you’re succeeding at plenty of other things, well then you’re not worthless.  You just don’t currently have a job.  The point is that your job shouldn’t define who you are.  Instead, focus on your career.  Whether or not you have a job currently, you’re still a DBA.  Individual jobs come and go, but your career stays constant.

I’ve lost jobs before.  I think almost everyone has.  It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re an idiot or you suck at what you do.  It may simply be that you weren’t right for that gig for whatever reason.  I’ve found that there are some shops that are so dysfunctional no sane person will ever be successful there.  Sometimes it’s a single person being enabled by the entire company, and sometimes it’s actually the entire company dynamic.  For whatever reason, you’re just not suited to that gig.  Ok, try to define what it is you can’t work with there and try to avoid that the next time.

So it may not be you who sucks at all.  Of course, it very well may be, and if that’s the case then improving your skills will be your 2nd priority.  Your first priority of course is to do what I said above and keep yourself out of the funk.  Because if you can’t do that then you’re not going anywhere.