SQL Server News & Information tsql, performance tuning, industry trends, & bad jokes
tsql, performance tuning, industry trends, & bad jokes
This site is maintained by Jason Massie. He has 10 years experience as a DBA and has specialized in performance tuning for the last five. He was recognized by Microsoft as a SQL Server MVP. Jason has spoken at the Professional Association of SQL Server Conference, the North Texas SQL Server Users Group, SQL Connections and TechED. He has worked at Terremark (formerly Data Return) for nearly a decade.
You can contact him at jason@statisticsio.com or 469.569.5965
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Also in today's new, SQL Server 2008 stamps are available at your local post office? William Green provides a pic from the field.
An unconfirmed rumors of a public SQL Server 2008 RC0 and Windows 2008 VHD's are coming in but we think that is just right wing rhetoric. While the two products are certainly made for each other, the high oil prices and credit crunch make this combination unlikely until after the democratic convention in August.
Reporting from Dallas, I am Harry Q. Butte.
Some of the MSFT employees at TechED told me that SQL Server 2008 RC0 will hit next week. I suspect Tuesday so it can be announced in TechEd ITPro keynote. That is all.
What can I say? Another great day at TechED. My highlight was Adam Machanic's error handling session. I learned something new! I liked Andrew Kelly's trace session too but I do everything he does when analyzing traces already. Nice to know that I was on track. I have a trace session coming up in Swynk's vconference that is pretty similar + SQL 2008 updates. I worked the storage engine station for a while and helped customers. That was cool. I did sneak in to Peter DeBetta's and Michael Wang's session for a few minutes to snap a few picks.
As cool as TechED is, I must say that the SQL content is better at PASS and SQL Connections. I have done all three from both sides of the podium. I can honestly say that from a purely technical view of things, I would rank it like this: PASS, SQL Connections, TechED.
Anyway, here are today's the pics.
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P.S. I can't wait to get home to the wife and kid's. Hi, honey!
Click for larger image. Why does it remind me of a Wii game?
Another great day at TechEd Dev! My highlight was Bob B's SQL powershell session. Why did I have to choose between Bob B and Itzak? Sucked.... Definitely a scheduling FAIL. I met @DrSQL and @RachelAppel. I am tired. I don't know how I am going to make it until Friday. Videos will be coming when I get back in town. Check back tomorrow for the day 3 updates. You can also follow everybody's twitter updates on TechED here.
***** Here are today's pic's. *****
Here are my plans for tomorrow:
DAT302 Best Practices for Exception Handling and Defensive Programming in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and 2008
Thursday, June 5 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM, S220 E
Speaker(s): Adam Machanic
Track(s): Database Platform
Additional Track(s): Development Practices
Level: 300 - Advanced
Session Type: Breakout Session
DAT326 Supporting Microsoft SQL Server 2008 within Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Database Edition
Thursday, June 5 10:15 AM - 11:30 AM, S230 E
Speaker(s): Gert Drapers, Jamie Laflen
DAT306 Automating and Analyzing with SQL Trace
Thursday, June 5 1:00 PM - 2:15 PM, S320 E
Speaker(s): Andrew Kelly
Additional Track(s): Infrastructure for Developers
DAT312 Grouping Sets and MERGE in Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Thursday, June 5 2:45 PM - 4:00 PM, S310 A
Speaker(s): Itzik Ben-Gan
DAT313 New T-SQL Programmability Features in Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Thursday, June 5 4:30 PM - 5:45 PM, S210 E
Speaker(s): Peter DeBetta, Michael Wang
No Universal Studio for me tomorrow night. I present bright and early at 8:30 on DMV's for developers on Friday. I am pumped. It will be a great session. See you on the conference floor!
Wow, today was great. I have been to many other tech conferences but this is my first time at TechEd. They do not cut any corners. Good experience so far but I am exhausted and we still have 3 days!
 Bill's last day video was greatness. I didn't get a chance for sit in on many sessions. I caught Don Kiely's session on table valued parameters. It was a good session but I am not as excited about the feature as he is. I caught part of Itzak's Date Time session and I *always* learn something from him. My session went good although the crowd was light. It would probably have fit in better on the ITPro week. I know the DMV and query plan sessions are going to rock the house friday.
Anyway, here are some pic's. Click here. Stop back by tomorrow for another update.
p.s. New Logo for SQL Server 2008
I am pumped up about TechEd. Bill Gates's last technical keynote. He has to have a bomb to drop... The launch of Windows\VS\SQL Server 2008. All of the speakers are reaching deep into their bag of tricks and bringing new hardcore sessions. The universal party. The blogger's lounge. Twitter, FriendFeed, MSDN, and Technet are all buzzing with posts.Â
I found out a couple of days ago that a speaker would not be able to make it due to a family emergency. I offered to present his session on DMV's so I will be presenting these sessions:
Using Dynamic Management Views to Improve Your Development
Dynamic Management Views were added to SQL Server 2005 and have been enhanced in SQL Server 2008. While they provide great functionality and usefulness, it appears they are not widely understood or implemented as yet. This session provides an overview of the Dynamic Management Objects available (both Views and Functions) and describes those considered the most useful. It shows how they can be utilized in monitoring, troubleshooting, and ongoing management of SQL Server systems and in gaining an understanding of SQL Server’s operation. The session also illustrates how they can be used to improve the database development experience and how they can be used in custom reports within SQL Server Management Studio.
Database Platform300BRKJason Massie
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) for the Command Line DBA
This is a demo filled session on how a command line DBA can unleash the power of WMI. WMI allows the DBA access to information that was previously hard to get or unavailable like the application event logs, OS perfmon counters, and OS events. This session covers WQL queries from SSIS, accessing OS performance counters from SQL, automated reactions to WMI events, WMI from Windows PowerShell and much more.
Database Platform400BRKJason Massie
Troubleshooting Query Plans Gone Wrong
Have you ever flushed the procedure cache to resolve a performance problem? Have you ever had to use a join or index hint when you should not have to? Have you ever updated statistics to fix a performance problem and wondered why it worked? In this session, we get deep into how the query optimizer decides how to execute a SQL statement. We look at common problems that cause the optimizer to choose the wrong access paths like underestimation. We go over a detailed demo on parameter sniffing, problems with local variables and statistics. We also look at solutions to these problems in several areas including good design at the application, schema, and query levels, proactive maintenance and reactive fixes. This session applies to Microsoft SQL Server 2000 through 2008 but we pay special attention to new features in SQL Server 2008 like plan freezing, new hints, filter indexes, and statistics among others.
I'll be there Monday through Saturday. Hope to see you there!
Microsoft has donated the Orlando Convention Center the weekend between the TechED Developer and ITPro conferences and there are going to be a bunch of communities events. This includes two days of free SQL training. Saturday will be SQL Saturday and Sunday with be a day with Andy Warren. If you haven't talked your boss into TechED yet, now if the time! Read all of the info on the community events here.
There are a couple new features that I would like to quickly point out. These are basically just tools that I use daily so I integrated them into the site. I hope you find them useful.
ALT HEAD: HOWTO: Inserting dummy data