Avoiding a SharePoint Disaster

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Avoiding a SharePoint Disaster
Whether you’ve already implemented SharePoint, or are only preparing to, backup and recovery should be a priority. Discover how to use SharePoint’s out of the box backup and restore capabilities to protect your data in case of calamity. This session will take a quick trip through the built in backup options available with SharePoint; suggest some tips, tricks, and best practices; and focus on some techniques concerning how to restore that data before disaster strikes. Presented by: CA Callahan Sponsored by: EMC (www.EMC.com)

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> Live date: 2/3/2010 at 12:00 Pacific

Featured Article(s)
The DBA Database (Watching Procedure Execution Times)
A common problem that I hear when I start a new contract is the performance. The performance not only of stored procedures but ad hoc SQL statements. A common problem that you may face when you look at these issues is the fact that you don’t know or don’t have a history of the code that has been running, unless you are fortunate enough where someone left that data for you

Have You Registered for the Virtual Conference Yet?
If you’ve been to other virtual conferences, you may be a bit (!) surprised at our Virtual Conferences. 75 Sessions. 20 Speakers. Scripts, transcripts of the presentations, slide downloads, interactive chat with presenters during the sessions and so much more. Don’t take my word for it – check out the sessions, the speakers and the conference information pages. You won’t be sorry! It’s coming in April, but you can register now and save nearly $100 (that’s almost 50%) – early bird rate at this level expires *Friday*.
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Are We Learning to "Settle"?
I fear my family must think by now that "oh jeez, there he goes again, talking about some random thing and wanting to related it to databases…" The latest came from listening to music and it has me thinking that we’re slowly getting numb and not even realizing it – and yes, it ties to what we do with databases. I know, go figure, right?

So, here’s the bit, then the database stuff. I was listening to some music on a certain satellite radio service. Liking the music, turned it up, it didn’t sound good – sound hollow, low-quality, etc. Was disappointed, thought "hmmm… that’s odd. Should be excellent quality – paying for it and all that…just never realized it wasn’t so hot." Switched to broadcast radio. Better – but… yeah. Not fabulous, just better. Tried the trusty MP3 player. Better again, but still… not fabulous. I’m not talking "I want to feel like I’m at a concert" – just that in each case, it wasn’t what you might call the "full" music. Some would clearly be off on the high-end, some on the low-end. Popped in a CD. Now THAT’s the ticket. Perfect.

I’d become used to the fact that these other sources of music weren’t as true to the music. Numb to the lesser quality, used to the fact that I wasn’t getting the full picture, just that it was "good enough." Ask anyone that works with me, "good enough" is a pet peeve. It never is good enough once you shine light on it. It’s just settling. I even showed my guinea pig daughter what I was talking about with the music – she noticed it when we put them back to back to. See? The Dad does make at least a little sense. I felt great until I told her it was like databases. Then I got the full eye-roll and moan with a grin.

This does relate though, and it’s important. I think we’ve become numb and accept the easy answers, the "good enough" approach too easily. It sort of goes back to last weeks notes on IT being too simple, but really it moves beyond that. We accept that if we add an index, we can bump up performance and things will be better. Not that we’ve tried to figure out if the design is right and look to correct things and really kick performance up, just that we can make it OK. We accept that rebooting a server can clear up an issue. The system comes back alive, things seem OK. We don’t see any clear issues remaining, so we clap our hands, smile and walk away. All better. We don’t necessarily take the time to figure out what’s really happening. Must have been a one-time issue. Yeah, that’s it.

I think we’ve learned to settle in working with our systems, in understanding what’s happening. I think it’s like the music – it’s good enough, we’ve not heard the clear music in long enough that the differences aren’t clear. We’ve not seen the database running in top shape, making information available in top form, with top performance in long enough that the incremental things we do are good enough.

Don’t settle. Learn. Listen to a CD. Pump it up. Compare it. Look at the performance on your servers. Look at issues that come up and really dig in. Don’t settle.

"Good enough" isn’t.

SQL Server 2008 Indexes – Internals and Best Practices
Kalen Delaney will be presenting our next virtual workshop, all about SQL Server Indexes. You’ll learn about key design considerations as you determine where, and what types of indexes will best support your queries. You’ll also learn the value of unique indexes and included columns. You’ll find out about composite indexes, and how to determine the best indexes for your queries involving ANDs, ORs and JOINs. Last but not least, we’ll discuss best practices that you can put to use immediately as you review and update your designs to support the queries on your system.

When: Feb 12, 2010 at 9:00a Pacific
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