Is Big Data in Danger of Becoming Its Own Worst Enemy? I’m a big fan of what we can learn from patterns and information taken on a massive scale. I think the psychology of data is pretty fascinating. That we can predict with really pretty great accuracy what types of things people need, actions they’ll take, etc. It’s pretty incredible. […]

Are You a Project or Development Manager? If you’re working in the capacity of managing projects – whether they’re development or database or… whatever type of IT project you may be involved with, there are a few suggestions and ideas to consider as you go along. First, as mentioned yesterday, (read more here) begin with the end (user) in mind. […]

For Developers: 2 Things to Consider with SQL Server The next time you find yourself involved in the design and early phases of creation of an application that works against SQL Server, you’ll make things easier for yourself with a couple of items addressed as early on as possible. – Data Types – I’ve seen more and more examples of […]

How Does Data Protection Figure in to Your Plans? I have increasingly been talking with people about data protection only to find out that data protection (encrytion, thinking about the flow of information and protecting it along the way, etc.) is often an after-thought. It seems like many people put encryption in place at the database (TDE) or use cloud […]

You Do Backups, But Are You Covered? When you set up your SQL Server backups, it’s a great feeling to go and see the nice BAK, DIFF, TRN backups accumulating in your storage system (you do check to make sure they’re happening, right?) But there is much more to rebuilding a system that has failed in a big way. If […]

Alert Numbness – How Do You Cope? When you get that shiny new monitoring software set up, often the first few steps you’ll take include setting up new alerts. "Let the system watch things and let me know how it’s going…" is the thought. This is great, but you can quickly be faced with a stead flow of alerts, both […]

SQL Server Licensing – Some Important Information With all the work around the cloud – be it on-premise, hybrid, public or private clouds, it’s important to understand the impact your environment can have on your software licensing. First, the easiest perhaps of the mix is a vendor-provided cloud where you’re essentially renting time on a server – and can include […]

Time for Things to Change with Data Security I think we’re finally at the point where we’ll have to devise new and better ways of managing information stored. While there are some tools available today that we need to be taking advantage of (encryption, access controls, etc.), I think the value of information is the critical thing we need to […]

3 Things – Don’t Be Complacent with Your Servers Systems are pretty forgiving these days. It leads to a potentially much less urgent management of servers when it comes to performance, disaster recovery and more. I’ve talked with more and more different companies and DBAs about their priorities and it’s clear that what used to be key to a DBA-type […]

Being a DBA for the People – 3 Ways to Start Working with all of the different people that "touch" data you’re trying to manage can be challenging. The fact is that it’s extremely important to be involved in pretty much all phases of projects that work with information you’ll be helping with from a database standpoint. In today’s world […]