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SQL Server, Business Intelligence, .NET Development, SharePoint.
All the biggest name, most expert presenters. All to your desktop. Stop paying thousands for admission plus travel plus rooms, food and other things. This is a time to keep learning and stay on top of the technologies, stay focused and at the same time not have to worry about your budget for once. $110 gets you in the door (early bird registration). Get registered today and we’ll see you there. You can use Twitter to ask questions ahead of time – just use the hash tag "#SSWUGVC" and we’ll get the answers you need and address them in the keynotes or in direct email.
Featured Article(s)
Troubleshooting SQL Server 2005 Database Engine Tuning Advisor
In this article, Alexander Chigrik explains some problems that you can have with SQL Server 2005 Database Engine Tuning Advisor. He also tells you how you can resolve these problems.
SQL Server Migration Tips
When it comes time to migrate from one SQL Server to another, perhaps for a version upgrade, to apply patches, to update your schema, etc., you typically have to plan a downtime around a maintenance window. For some systems, that’s not a great option. You need to keep things up and running, even if you’re addressing a hardware update. Check out GoldenGate Software – they have some great solutions that may be able to eliminate this downtime requirement and can really help in the migration and recovery process. Get more information here and see how you may be able to keep your systems running 24/7.
Windows Azure – the Cloud – Issues (and Google Too)
The Windows Azure services recently had some issues with an upgrade that rolled across the servers in an unexpected way. You can read about it here. The issue was significant in that it was in the cloud services, but minor in the number of people impacted.
Google recently also had issues with their services for Google Docs. In their case, they had an issue with some security holes that impacted a fractional number of people using the services under certain circumstances.
In both cases, the problems became very public, very quickly. It’s interesting to see how problems rise up, are addressed, resolved, then reported on in the social web. It’s potentially one of the bigger benefits of services like these. It’s sort of like a "end-user’s union" with the power returning a bit to the public that is relying on these applications. The reason I say this is because you hear about the issue almost immediately on Twitter, on blogs, on Google alerts, etc. You also get updates, specifics, impact and other information about the issue as it’s occurring. I watched in both cases as people realized that there was a problem and the number of people turning first to their social network, then to their public networks, *then* to the vendor was really intriguing.
The vendors are not the first line of help in these cases. Not even the second or probably third line of help. Instead, the crowd gets involved and suddenly the vendor is paying attention in a big way.
If you’ve ever had the maddening experience of turning up a bug in a commercial software package – a bug that only impacts a fractional number of people using the software under certain circumstances, for example – you know the response you’re likely to get. "We’ll look into addressing this in our next release. Maybe."
That wasn’t the case here. Here, in both cases with Google and Microsoft, the issues were surfaced, addressed, documented, explained and triaged in a very short amount of time, very publicly. I am seeing this as a huge bonus on the way to more responsive software companies and services.
I think we may be on to something.
Weekly Show Online to Watch
[Watch] SelectViews #125 – Adam Levithan, Vishal Shukla, Sarah Barela and Shannon Callaway. From SharePoint to cloud computing lessons learned, from SQL Server security to development – great information!
Also Available:
[Watch] This show features several tech-industry experts, here in-studio for the upcoming vConference. Eric Johnson and Josh Jones get together for a discussion, Craig Utley and Erik Veerman are also on the show.
[Watch] On this show we have three interviews – Kevin Kline, Scott Golightly and Anthony D’Angelo. We talked about all sorts of things, from Business Intelligence tricks to upcoming tools.
Featured White Paper(s)
SQL Server Fragmentation Explained
This technical white paper will help you understand SQL Server fragmentation and the performance benefits you can gain on yo… (read more)