TSQL for the Rest of Us – TOMORROW!
Register Right Now and we’ll see you there! This virtual workshop will go through core TSQL, with *lots* of examples, lots of specific how-to information, information about stored procedures and how to create them, working with JOINs, working with and createing VIEWs and even how to set up tasks with SQL Agent for automation with TSQL. We’ll include SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and ORDER BY, GROUPING, TOP N, DISTINCT and many more TSQL items. Reserve your spot – then pull up a chair – I’ll be live during the virtual workshop to take your questions as the presentation is happening – you won’t miss a beat. Register Here, time is almost past to attend!
Watch the intro video
Get more information
Register for the Virtual Workshop
Featured Article(s)
Useful undocumented SQL Server 2008 Agent Procedures
In this article, Alexander Chigrik looks at nine undocumented SQL Server Agent stored procedures that shipped with SQL Server 2008.
9 Things I learned in 2009 (Part 2)
It is that time of year again. But the list has changed. This is Part two in a two part series
PowerPivot – the SSWUG.ORG Free Expo – Friday!
Register Here – Donald Farmer will be presenting on how PowerPivot works, what it’s all about, how you can put it to use and what it can do for your own work with SQL Server. Find out all about this exciting new tool that pulls together SQL Server, Excel and even SharePoint. Get registered here.
A Reporting Suite – Free for 100 Users!
MicroStrategy Reporting Suite is making their Reporting Suite, which includes the core components of the MicroStrategy 9 Business Intelligence Platform available – including the ability to run against SQL Server and other database platforms – for free for up to 100 users. No strings! This even includes the ability to run against SSAS and many other data sources. Find out how cool BI Reporting can be (really!) and use it in your own business – it’s could be just the ticket! Get more information, or your copy, here.
Something to Get You Thinking about IT
I read this fairly brief article by Paul Venezia (Is IT getting too easy?) and really had to stop and think. While I’m not sure IT is too easy, I do believe there is getting to be a chasm between "getting it done" and "thinking it through and understanding it…" I’m not sure, entirely, that it’s a bad thing, though I suspect that, in the medium-to-long run, companies that are sitting on the "it’s so easy we don’t have to worry about it" fence will pay a price. I don’t at all mean it as a threat or dig, but if you look at what people have come to understand about their systems, it’s much less today in many cases than it was a few years ago.
I think maintenance and control of systems is indeed very easy today. The tools are excellent, the insight you can get on a particular issue is pretty solid. The issues I have seen come where there is more than one issue at play. Where things become inter-related and work off each other, it’s tougher to see the symptoms unless you have a pretty deep understanding of the systems in use. I think this is where things come into the fold that are going to be challenging. It’s one thing to have a tool tell you that your disk is having issues and needs to be replaced. It’s one thing to see that your servers are memory-constrained. It’s another thing, though, to recognize a root-kit, or to know what’s happening when a driver isn’t quite right. When issues are masked and not presented as single, one-up issues, it’s not so clear as just looking up a single error message. With experience, you can look at things and recognize that the reason that the current mail system is having a problem has *nothing* to do with the newly installed mail server. It has to do with the fact that the mail server is shutting down CDONTS-type mail delivery and you have pages that use that. Just sayin’. You’re more likely to wonder why mail isn’t going out through the server, when all the lights are green.
I actually think that today’s IT professionals that really want to understand things are in a bit of a bind. I’ve had the luxury (!?) of learning what I’ve come to know as the "deltas" between product versions and even product developers/companies. I can pay attention to the differences between one version and the next, rather than learning the whole thing from the ground up. We’ve talked many times here in the newsletter about the fact that SQL Server is just too big any more to be "specialized" in SQL Server. You’re faced with picking a piece of SQL Server to know and love, rather than the whole product. Coming in new to SQL Server at this point, I think that, while the tools and day-to-day issues are more solveable online and with references, I think the solutions to the down and dirty issues remain a challenge. There are more variables, more interrelated technologies and more things masking the issues than ever before.
I don’t say this as a defensive "those young whippersnappers don’t stand a chance" type thing. I just think there are places where longer-term experience is going to be key to solve deeper, convoluted issues. So many times there are so many moving parts to a given issue. I can’t imagine Google coming up with a messed up job schedule or a saturated cabinet at the ISP as a performance thing to start working through.