Late last week I was informed our new servers would be available January 3, and I should be ready to set up my new SQL 2008R2 two-node cluster. I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am about this project! I’d already downloaded the latest backups for my databases, and restored them to my…
Month: December 2010
SQL 402:Deprecation in SQL Server
Last week at the Charlotte SQL Server User Group, Aaron Bertrand covered What’s New in Denali. During that presentation he mentioned a few of the things that would not be supported in Denali. That got me thinking. I know there are techniques I’ve used that are no longer supported. I made my self a task…
Making Due
Over the course of my career, I’ve been asked to build something that has already been built. I always point out that the task being assigned has already been built, and point to the solution that already exists. There are several reasons why I don’t like building something that someone else has already built. Those…
Custom Resume, or Generic?
In my last career article, I talked about balancing the truth and salesmanship. I wanted to try to explain how you can be honest, and at the same time make the case that you should be the one a hiring manager chooses to hire. Today, I’d like to go back a bit further in the…
Types of Optimization
One of the things I love most about my current position is the fundamental shift in the types of optimization I’m doing. Early on in my career I was concentrating on queries that would run once an hour, and cover thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of records per hour. I think that’s a great place…
Happy Christmas
Over the past few years, Happy Christmas has become one of my favorite Christmas songs. I like the message “War is over, if you want it.” Call me naive, but I believe it. The reason I chose it as my post’s title is the lyric: “What have you done? Another year over and a new…
Optimization Isn’t Always Easy
I’ve been at my new job for two weeks. In that time I’ve diagrammed all the databases as they are today. I’ve suggested recommendations on adding keys to some tables that had none. I’ve also started diagramming the object data that’s being collected in the system, I’m hoping to find duplication within the system and…
Foreign Keys and Witchcraft
I’ve worked with hundreds databases in my career. I could probably design a handful of them from memory if asked. I have notes to remind me of lessons learned from most of them. When I start looking through that list one of the things I most often reference is the importance of Foreign keys. Why…
No Turning Back
Well I did it! As of this morning I’ve submitted my session “The Career Your Career Could Smell Like.” I’ve been working on this one for a while now. Usually I would just take time one on one to help fix a resume, or to give some advice on interviewing. But I’ve decided it’s time…
Hitting the Ground Running
I’ve been on the job a couple days now, and I feel like I’m well on my way to contributing to my new company. On the first day I started pulling the latest backups to my local machine, and setting up a development environment where I can start diagramming the databases, and looking into the…