MSSQL

SQL University – Community Service Week

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ June 16, 2010 ⋅ One comment

Welcome to this week’s installment of SQL University. For this edition of I am going to focus on serving the SQL Community, but feel free to perform any acts of community service you desire (especially those that are court-ordered).
tempdb
The first step you need to take is to be aware of the SQL Community. If you [...]

Back From TechEd

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ June 14, 2010 ⋅ 3 comments

What a crazy first week of work I had last week. My new company had me fly down to New Orleans to be with them for TechEd 2010 and on Tuesday we officially announced my new position for Confio Software. I spent a lot of time in and around our booth in the Exhibition Hall [...]

SQL University – HA/DR Week

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ June 9, 2010 ⋅ 2 comments

I may be at TechEd this week, but that doesn’t excuse me from pitching in for SQL University. This week we are going to discuss the most critical function you have as administrators: your ability to recover from a disaster. Make no mistake, this is going to decide if you are able to keep your [...]

What Are You Waiting For?

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ June 8, 2010 ⋅ 18 comments

Earlier this year I attended SQL Saturday #34 in Waltham, MA. While there I happened to meet David Waugh from Confio Software who used the oldest line in the book on me to get my attention: “Hey there, I bet you look good wrapped in bacon.” I stopped and talked with David and with Dean [...]

SQL University – Database Testing and Refactoring week

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ June 2, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

Welcome back to this week’s installment of SQL University. The topic this time around is a contentious one which is very odd to me. See, most everyone agrees that database testing is necessary, but there is a lot of disagreement on who does the testing, how the testing is to be done, and what is [...]

SQL University – Parallelism Week

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ May 26, 2010 ⋅ 9 comments

I may be in the middle of a career makeover, but that does not excuse me from missing out on SQL University. This week we are going to talk about parallelism, an aspect of SQL Server that many DBAs have only a cursory amount of information.
tempdb
The first thing you need to do is to understand [...]

SQL University – Powershell Week

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ May 20, 2010 ⋅ 5 comments

Welcome back to SQL University. This week we are going to talk about Powershell and how you can win the lottery. Wait a minute…apparently Powershell and Powerball are two different things altogether. One of them requires you to spend many hours learning how to work a system that can ultimately make your life richer and [...]

24 HOP Diary

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ May 19, 2010 ⋅ 4 comments

Much like last time, I decided to keep a running diary of events as the day unfolds, so check back frequently for updates.
I will also be on UStream, you can watch me watching the sessions by going to:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/24-hours-of-pass
The broadcast will get started in just a few minutes…
6:55AM I’m awake, and so are the [...]

The 24 HOP Strikes Back

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ May 17, 2010 ⋅ 2 comments

This Wednesday, May 19th, PASS will be hosting their second 24 Hours of PASS event. The first event last September was quite successful. So successful, in fact, that when PASS decided to do it again my first thought was about how difficult it is for sequels to be as successful as the original. For example, [...]

Statistical Sampling for Verifying Database Backups

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ May 14, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

There was a conversation a while back on Twitter regarding a survey that claimed to represent “Americans”. I don’t recall the survey itself, but I believed the end result used words such as “62% of Americans think bacon should replace turkey as a Thanksgiving meal.” The survey itself was conducted using 1,000 people, and someone [...]