Monthly Archives: March 2012
Today is SQL Saturday Letdown Day!
SQL Saturday #110 in Tampa is in the books. Done. Finito. Over. The Sunday after SQL Saturday is the proverbial sugar crash for the weekend. What comes up must come down.
The build up for months of anticipation meets the pre-cons and then comes the big day SQL SATURDAY! Meeting all of the #SQLFamily, meeting local user group friends, meeting new peers and SQL rock stars makes for an excellent day, and oh yeah there was some amazing FREE training thrown in there, too.
Now we must face the reality: we have one year to wait until the next Tampa SQL Saturday! Well not really, as we are one of the lucky ones that has two events, our second one is for business intelligence held in the fall. And I won’t mention that we have one in Orlando in the late summer, early fall. Ok, I’ll admit that we are spoiled here, but I never get enough of these events.
I had planned this year to attend the events in Jacksonville and Atlanta, however I have exams on both of those weekends for one of my college courses. What a bummer! I may then have to expand out to South Florida or Pensacola to make up for the loss! See you there!
Enjoy!
We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Blog
We interrupt our regularly schedule blog, the SQL Saturday Schoolhouse, to bring you a blog live from SQL Saturday #110 from KForce in beautiful, historic Ybor City (aka Tampa). With around 350 registered attendees and several big name speakers flying in to our beautiful state, the excitement level was through the roof.
I have attended several great sessions today, learned a few new things, goofed off on twitter hoping to catch speakers with their twitter feed on, took my picture with a Lamborghini Countach, met a bunch of twitter friends in real life, remotely fixed a production systems administration problem, got some new laptop stickers, got some new pens, talked to some vendors about things that pain me in my daily world, ate some great Cuban food, saw SQLChicken rap like Vanilla Ice, created the blog world’s longest and most annoying string of disjointed phrases, and once again had a wonderful #SQLFamily day! I hope you too are taking advantage of this wonderful, FREE resource.
Enjoy!
SQL Server, Oh How I Love Thee!
Oh SQL Server How I Love Thee, Let Me Count The Ways!
Over the years I’ve had commitment issues with SQL Server as I was a Progress RDBMS Consultant as well as being a developer and a systems administrator. In the past, SQL Server was just one of my many duties and essentially I was an accidental DBA. However, I did consider myself a Progress DBA for the five years that I specialized in Progress 4GL. But during that time, I still administered SQL Server 6.5 and 7 databases, I just didn’t feel that it would be where my career path would go. I fancied myself a database developer who could also administer servers and perform other duties as assigned. That was my life calling, or so I thought.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve grown to love SQL Server more and more so much so that during the last year I proposed to SQL Server committing myself totally. Obviously, I still have numerous other administrative duties with my windows servers, SharePoint servers, OpenText ECM servers and VMWare infrastructure, however I have dedicated myself to the SQL Server community and my career to being the best SQL Server DBA that I can be. Are you willing to commit to SQL Server?
Enjoy!
Yesterday Was A Big, Big Day
Unless you are living under a rock, everyone knows that there were two big launches yesterday in the technology world. Both were important to me. The first was the virtual launch of SQL Server 2012, formerly known as Denali. The second was the launch of the Apple iPad3 or the New iPad as their website is calling it. They also launched a few other minor things but I find it interesting that Apple scheduled their launch after the SQL Server launch was announced. Was this intentional? I’m sure.
I tip my hat to Microsoft for this virtual launch platform was pretty nifty. However it did lack the free t-shirt and pen raid I usually make on the Expo Hall floor because frankly who doesn’t love free SWAG! I still have to set up a new virtual environment so I can begin playing with the SQL Server 2012 RTM, which was also available for download.
Now onto Apple, with the popularity of the iPad and iPhone, you would think that they would scale out their infrastructure to be able to accommodate the deluge of traffic to their store and website. With enough money to buy this country, they could have a better solution to these woes. I had to actually wait a couple of hours before I could buy my new iPad. Oh, the horror.
Enjoy!
SQL Saturday #110 Countdown
SQL Saturday #110 in Tampa is only a few days away…have you registered yet? Check out the schedule of speakers, especially if you have already setup your Guidebook app as there has been some minor shuffling over the last few days. There will be 35 great sessions and lunch is provided thanks to our great sponsors.
If you are interested in volunteering, please sign up now as your help is always appreciated. I look forward to seeing you there on Friday, if you are volunteering, and Saturday for some great #SQLAwesomeness!!
Enjoy!
RTM: Let’s Get Ready to Rumble
Today Microsoft announced the RTM for SQL Server 2012 with general availability set for April 1st! The SQL Universe and twitter #SQLFamily is all ablaze with excitement.
I personally will wait a few hours to let the servers catch a breath with some restored bandwidth. What about you?
Personally I will be setting up a Windows 2008R2 virtual lab running SQL Server 2012 and migrating the VMDK to my desktop and laptop probably. What are your plans? Do you plan to download 2012? Are you excited about Denali going RTM?
Almost Forgot
Ooops! I almost forgot to blog today! I couldn’t hold back my excitement in creating two new SQL Server clusters, the first ones that I have built from scratch. After my week of SQLskills awesomeness, I was ready to head back to my servers, well not really but since my employer would only pay for one week then I didn’t have much choice. That’s not to say that I’m not appreciative, because I am! Thanks guys! I’m also hopeful that I can continue the Immersion Event series in the next budget year!
My blogs will probably be short this week unless I run into major issues that I can blog about. Should I wish for that or wish for regular blogs? That’s a real dilemma! Enjoy!
SQL Saturday #110 – Tampa
We interrupt this episode on Sunday Funday to remind everyone that next Saturday, March 10th, is SQL Saturday #110 in Tampa. Over the last year, I have become a passionate proponent of attending SQL Saturdays working diligently to attend ones that are close to me. How can you pass up free training?
If you have not signed up to attend this SQL Saturday, then what are waiting for? Check out the schedule of sessions, as we have some pretty top-notch speakers. My biggest problem is that there are too many good sessions and inevitably, I miss a great one. That is a good problem to have! If you want to help out with this SQL Saturday, be sure to fill out the volunteer section of your registration. If you see me at SQL Saturday, feel free to say howdy!
Enjoy!
Saturday SQL Schoolhouse
SQL Schoolhouse!
In our first installment of the Saturday SQL Schoolhouse for March, I wanted to share a website that has numerous videos, blog posts and other resources that can teach you some nifty things with SQL Server. The site is run by a husband and wife team, Sean and Jen McCown, called MidnightDBA, check it out.
Also, if you are around late friday evenings they also host a live web show called DBAs@Midnight, where numerous DBAs congregate to chat and interject on topics discussed by Sean and Jen, myself included.
Oh I almost forgot, their newest project is called DBA Roadmap, which is very exciting for the SQL Community. In this project they will outline how to become a good DBA with great career and learning resources.
Enjoy!
Two Months Strong!
Wow March is here already. It seems like only two months ago I was laying out an aggressive Personal Development Plan. To date, the thing that I am most proud about is the daily blogging. it has become second nature at this point. Over the years, I have created a few blogs and always felt like I ran out of things to say, I really didn’t place a priority on the medium, until now.
What do you think about the blog? Please let me know, thanks. Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!
SQL Swampland 