Author Archives: SQLGator
Troubleshooting Skills
One of the hardest concepts that new IT workers struggle with is the ability to troubleshoot. In my seventeen years in the field, I have never seen two employees tackle a problem in exactly the same manner. Troubleshooting is an art form derived out of experience and education.
You can learn how to troubleshoot various problems in a certain manner, but you have to be ready to switch gears and go another direction based upon the results of each step in your logic. Mentoring can help shape the way in which you tackle problems, but it is essentially your style which will determine how you logically break down problems and solve them step by step. The ability to troubleshoot will help determine the level of success in the IT field. What do you think?
What Are You Working For?
I’ve been asking myself this lately as I prepare to move into a new phase shortly with my youngest daughter being a senior in high school. For the last twenty years, it was providing for my children and family to make sure they had opportunities for growth and development. Now my youngest will go off to college and our home will be quiet.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not kicking my children to the curb, but they don’t need my security as much as they prepare to spread their wings and fly away. My wife and I love to travel and I love SQL Server, so I will most likely dive more into my career with the intent of traveling and spending more time with her as well as socializing more in order to fill the nest so to speak.
It’s a great time to be alive, but what are you working for?
Getting to Know sp_helpuser
The stored procedure, sp_helpuser, is useful in showing various information about the users such as login name, default database, default schema and the SID. You can also see if a user name is aliased. I hope you find this useful. Enjoy!
SQL Saturday Orlando
When looking back over the past month to determine things that I have no blogged about while doing my series of question’s and answers, I realized that I did not get a chance to announce the biggest news received during that months. The fine organizers for SQL Saturday #151 Orlando have chosen my submission to speak on September 29, 2012. This will be my first full-length speaking session and needless to say I am nervous and excited.
This past weekend, I began laying out my slide deck and starting to really think about the format of my session. This in itself is exciting trying to visualize what I want to say and how I want to convey the message. Stay tuned and I will let you know the progress of my slide deck. If you haven’t registered yet, please do so now!
Series of Posts Wrapped Up
Yesterday concluded my month-long journey with a question and answer series. That was fun having a structured series to follow and it really helped me with two projects I was working on because I had limited amount of time to dedicate to my blog. I think I will do that again sometime in the near future, but I missed being able to update everyone with daily solutions to problems or changes to my goals.
Next week I will look back into the last month of my life and see what things you have missed while on our journey and try to revisit them for you. In essence we can DVR the moments and fast forward the commercials. Enjoy!
Question of the Day Thirty
Let us continue our question of the day series with our final day, day thirty.
What is replication?
SQL Server replication is a process of distributing database objects across different instances and then synchronizing the data between the instances involved. This is great for remote application as well as mobile users across slower networks. I’ve personally worked with replication where data was synchronized over air cards to laptops with workers in the field with great success.
Enjoy!
Question of the Day Twenty-Nine
Let us continue our question of the day series with day twenty-nine.
What are snapshot backups?
Snapshot backups are a specialized form of backup which minimize the use of the server resources to produce the backup. They are typically done in conjunction with solutions provided by hardware and/or software vendors.
Enjoy!
Question of the Day Twenty-Eight
Let us continue our question of the day series with day twenty-eight.
What is snapshot replication?
Snapshot replication is similar to a database snapshot in that you can distribute a replica of the original database at a given point in time, however it does not update as the data changes going forward. This snapshot is then replicated to subscribers. This is a more appropriate solution if you have data that you want replicated but it does not change very often.
Enjoy!
Question of the Day Twenty-Seven
Let us continue our question of the day series with day twenty-seven.
What are database snapshots?
A SQL Server database snapshot is a static view that is essentially a read-only image of an existing database. When the snapshot is taken it is consistent with the original database and must reside on the same server and as data is modified in the original database, so will it be modified in the snapshot. There are quite a few limitations in using database snapshots.
Enjoy!
Question of the Day Twenty-Six
Let us continue our question of the day series with day twenty-six.
What are roles in SQL Server?
A role is essentially a group of users similar to active directory groups used by SQL Server for security purposes. In other words, you can grant permissions to the role and place users in the roles and they will inherit the permission for as long as they are placed inside of the role. There are also fixed roles that have pre-defined permissions established.
Enjoy!
SQL Swampland 