Category Archives: Training
Question of the Day Two
Today we continue our series with our second question of the day.
What is the difference between a clustered and non-clustered index?
In simplest terms, a clustered index is the actual data, reordering the way that the records are physically stored. Because of this, each table can only contain one clustered index.
However, a non-clustered index is more like a pointer to the actual record. The logical order of the non-clustered index does not usually match how the data is stored physically.
There is also a third option, the heap, which is a table without an index at all. Without an index, the server would have to read through all of the records in order to find the data queried. Enjoy!
Question of the Day One
For the next week, I will be on vacation and then when I return I have a big project that needs my full attention. However, being dedicated to blogging daily I thought it might be an interesting little journey for remainder of the month of August would be to post a question of the day with the answer. I am not trying to steal any thunder from the SQL Server Central QotD where you test your skills for points against the world. This will be simply an exercise in SQL learning.
So let us begin with day one…
What is normalization?
In simplest terms it is the organizing of data in a relational database to reduce the duplication of data. In order to accomplish this we would split one large record entity into smaller tables that are linked by their relationship. For example, if you had a simple database that stored orders of widgets. You would have a table that contained customer data and a table for order information. You would not want to store customer contact information in each record of the order table. There would be one customer record and then possibly multiple order records linked by a customer ID field to ensure a relationship and preventing you from redundant customer contact information in each order record. However, to the user who receives an invoice that contains his order and his contact information the data seems to be one contiguous unit.
Just in case you did not know, this theory was pioneered by E. F. Codd in 1970. Enjoy!
SQL Saturday Submission Completed
My first full-length session submission for SQL Saturday has been input. Even if I do not get selected, I am moving forward in the right direction towards the completion of my goals for 2012. The topic, Best Practices Are Not Just Hypothetical, explores the best practice settings available during the installation that will set your server off on the right foot from the very beginning.
Stay tuned to see if my topic is selected for SQL Saturday Orlando to be held in Lake Mary, Florida, on September 29, 2012. Come on out and hopefully at the very least I can entertain you. Wish me luck! Enjoy!
New Tampa User Group Meeting Tonight, Be There!
Tonight will be the first meeting of the new Tampa Side SQL User Group Meeting. The regular Tampa Bay SQL User Group meets in Clearwater on the third Thursday of every month. However, many people on the other side of the bay have a hard time attending because of traffic and geography until now. We will be meeting from 6:30 pm until 8:30 pm at the Computer Associates headquarters near I-75 and Martin Luther King Boulevard (see the address below). Please RSVP so that it gives the sponsor an idea of how much food to bring.
I am humbled to be the first speaker to present for the new group so come out and see my Seven Deadly Sins of the SQL Server DBA presentation that I gave at the Pensacola SQL Saturday last month. I look forward to seeing you there tonight! Enjoy!
Computer Associates
10210 Highland Manor Dr, Suite 300 (Room 302)
Tampa, Florida 33610
Never Heard of SQL Saturday?
Karla Landrum (twitter|blog), Community Evangelist for SQL PASS, made the comment this morning on Twitter that there are many people out there in the SQL community who still have not heard about SQL Saturday, the free training event that is taking the world by storm at a location near you every Saturday of the year.
This does not shock me even though I have been in the know for a while now because I was once that guy who did his job and did not know much about PASS or SQL Saturday. There was a point where I had belonged to professional associations and decided that annual fees with little to no interaction was no longer for me. Thus, when I started focusing on SQL Server several years ago, I did not seek out any professional associations for the simple fact that I had associated them with an annual fee for a nice little add-on to my resume. I had belonged to the HTML Writer’s Guild, the International Webmasters Association, and the Capital PC User Group in Washington, D.C. I joined that group and then could never make the meetings because of my work schedule, but it looked great on my resume. There were a few other groups, but I honestly cannot remember them now.
This is not a knock on these groups as I am sure that they are wonderful groups for some people, but that to me was what these professional associations were. SQL PASS is so much more and then some. I honestly wished someone had told me about it years ago. So make it your mission today to tell someone about PASS. They may already know, they may not. Do them a favor and spread the word. Enjoy!
Fun With SSMS
Recently I was showing a friend a query in SSMS, cause that’s what geeks do. I typed ‘SELECT’ and then dragged the columns over to the query window. He said “whoa, how did you do that?” Which reminded me that we all learn little things that we assume everyone else knows but apparently not everyone knows them all. That is why I love blogging, because I can share and when I read your blog I can learn what you share. Maybe I know, maybe I do not. The SQL community prospers either way.
So here is the tip: If you grab the ‘Columns’ folder underneath the table in SSMS and drag it across to the query window, then all of the column names are listed which is helpful when you do not want to type 40 of the 50 columns that you want for a particular query. It is a nice little trick, but I wish it would just drag a handful or that it would insert brackets in there but beggers can’t be choosers. Or can they? Enjoy!
Saturday SQL Schoolhouse
SQL Schoolhouse!
Today’s installment of the Saturday SQL Schoolhouse is brought to you by the fine folks over at Idera Software. They offer free webcasts broadcast usually monthly with some of the biggest names in SQL Server. Better yet, is that all of those are archived here for your viewing and learning pleasure.
Check out this month’s webcast, recorded earlier this week by my friend Robert Davis (blog|twitter). In addition, they also have SharePoint and PowerShell webcasts for your learning goodness. Enjoy!
Presentation Ponderings
After my first presentation at SQL Saturday Pensacola, I am ready to do another and need to submit for SQL Saturday Orlando later this month. All of that is not a problem, I just don’t know if I should do what I did in Pensacola and expand on it because the audience seemed to enjoy it or forge a new path. I have good arguments for both, maybe I will submit both and see which one gets picked, if they get picked, of course. I have three weeks to decide, but I should not wait until the last minute.
The presentation that I did in Pensacola was the Seven Deadly Sins of the SQL Server DBA. The other one I am thinking about doing is just a straight up best practices install guide. I am very passionate about best practices and there are so many people who I’ve spoken with said that they wish they had known some of the best practices at the time of their install instead of correcting them after the fact. It also may help that I was asked to give the Seven Deadly Sins at the next Tampa Bay user group meeting this month, so we will see how that goes, maybe it was a one-hit wonder and the decision will be made for me? What do you think?
SQL Schoolhouse: Myths and Misconceptions Reading
Paul Randal (blog|twitter) did a wonderful month-long series on the Myths and Misconceptions with SQL Server a couple of years back and I thought it would make an excellent read for the Schoolhouse. Here is the link for the 60 page completely documented PDF version of the blog series. Enjoy!
Personal Development Plan…Midway Status
Six months for 2012 are now in the books and I thought it would be a good time to revisit my original goals for the year and see what needs to still be done. My updates will be highlighted in bold.
- I will post daily to this blog in order to give back to the SQL community that has helped me so much over the years. So far so good here!
- I will spend time daily helping people on twitter, SQL blogs, and various SQL-related websites such as SQL Server Central. So far I have only been able to help on twitter and blogs.
- I am setting a goal of 300 followers on Twitter which would double my existing followers for 2011. I now have 315 followers, that is awesome, thank you everyone!
- I will attend at least ten of the twelve Tampa Bay SQL Server User Group meetings. So far I have not missed a monthly meeting.
- I will attend three to five other SQL User group meetings, such as the Tampa BI group or Orlando’s MagicPASS. I need to get going on this one as I have not made one of these yet, bad boy.
- I will attend every Tampa VMWare User Group meetings which occur quarterly. This is spot on, since the Tampa VMUG has not had a meeting since Dec 2011, I have not missed one yet.
- I will attend other events that interface with SQL Server or VMWare such as the Orlando IT Pro Camp scheduled for January 21, 2012. Missed the Pro Camp, will look for others.
- I will attend one Microsoft SQL training course this year, but I cannot say at this time what that course will be as that will depend upon my employer ;-). I would like to attend Course 2778a (Writing Queries Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Transact-SQL) and Course 6234 (Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services. Even better, I got to attend a SQLskills.com training!
- I will attend every SQL Saturday offered in the Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville areas. I would also like to attend some others, if possible, within driving distance. I am already registered for SQL Saturday #110 in Tampa on March 10, 2012. Had to miss Jacksonville because of a final in one of my college courses, but made up for it by going to Pensacola.
- I will volunteer to help with at least one SQL Saturday this year. Volunteered at Tampa, will do others later in the year as well.
- I would like to attend SQL Rally in Dallas this year and I would definitely like to attend the SQL PASS Summit, but with one child in college this year and two more entering over the next two years, I may have to pass on this one for a couple of years until they are situated and my bank account returns to normal. Rally was a no go, still hopeful for Summit.
- I will continue to take at least one to two classes a semester online in order to complete my degree in Business Administration. All those Engineering and Computer Science classes I took 20 years ago are not relevant today and I would like to possibly return to consulting in five or ten years and that degree would be more beneficial in that long term goal. Still attending classes regularly.
- I will continue SQLAndy’s recommendation to meet at least three people at every SQL event. This is a great recommendation for networking. It is hard sometimes to break out of our introverted ways. So far so good.
- I will attain my VMWare Certified Professional 4 certificate this year for VMWare. Not going to happen as VMWare retired the exam before my one year was completed, and I have not focused on VMWare as much as SQL Server.
- I would like to speak somewhere this year, my local SSUG, VMUG, or even a training session at work. I need to get over my fear of public speaking. 2012 is the year to step it up and take it to another level. Presented at Pensacola SQL Saturday and now will do my local user group.
Wow, I am well on track this year!
SQL Swampland 