Monthly Archives: January 2011

I want your vote for #SQLRally

Posted on January 26, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Hello Everyone, I am John Sterrett coming to you from Wheeling, WV and I need your vote for SQL Rally! I need your vote because I eager to share what I have learned about Policy Based Management and Central Management Server in the past four months.  This presentation will give people the knowledge they need to start evaluating a daily checklist.

Let me take a step back for a second and explain. I am currently responsable for over 100+ Instances of SQL with more than 3,000 databases.  We rarely didn’t evaluated a daily checklists against all of our production databases until I learned about Central Management Server and Policy Based Management.  Now, I can evaluate my daily checklist in the amount of time it takes to get up out of my seat and brew a cup of coffee.  I am eager to show you multiple ways to start evaluating your checklists.

What is SQLRally?

 SQLRally is PASS’ new regional event that fills the gap between our free PASS SQLSaturday 1-day training events and PASS Summit, the world’s largest conference for the SQL Server community. One of my favorite parts about SQLRally is that the community votes for the presentations.

Hopefully, I will be selected to speak at the first annual SQLRally. Regardless, I look forward to presenting this abstract at user groups, virtual chapters and  future SQL Saturday’s. In fact, I am giving this presentation at SQLSaturday in Houston this Saturday. If you would want me to deliver this abstract or one of my other presentations contact me.

How do I vote?

 Click here to vote. You will see my session under the fifth group (PBM).  You get two votes for this catagory so I will also recommend Jorge Segarra  (Blog | @SQLChicken) because I wouldn’t be using PBM without his contrubutions to the community.

What am I voting for again…..

Evaluate your daily checklist against 100+ instances of SQL Server while you get a cup of coffee

Abstract

You will walk away from this session with an understanding of how to use the Policy Based Management and Central Management Server to complete a daily checklist against your whole SQL Server farm. We will cover the basics to evaluate, monitor and apply best practice policies, which are included out of the box with SQL Server 2008. We will also make custom policies to cover additional best practices to evaluate daily checklist items. Finally, we will combine Policy-Based Management and Central Management Server with the Enterprise Policy Management Framework on codeplex to automate the monitoring process and create manager friendly reports to monitor your checklist items against the whole SQL Server farm.

Deliverables

  • You will be able to install and configure Central Management System
  • You will be able to use CMS and/or PBM to complete a daily checklist
  • You will be able to evaluate and build custom policies.

Session Prerequisites:

Session prerequisites assume you are familiar with SQL Server Management Studio, have an instance of SQL Server 2008, and that you have administrative access with SQL Server. You don’t have to be familiar with Policy-Based Management or Central Management Server, you will learn the basics during this session.

Related Posts:

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Posted in SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication

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Un-SQL Friday #2 – My Tech Giants

Posted on January 21, 2011 by | 7 comments

UnSQL Friday #2

The second round of UnSQL Friday is here and the topic is so good I am typing while I eat lunch rushing to beat the deadline to get this in. UnSQL Friday was created by Jen of @MidnightDBA’s to provide an avenue for SQL Bloggers to focus on a non-technical topic. The topic is as follows:

“Read this blog, and then write whatever you want about Tech Giants. Be sure to mention in your blog that you’re writing for Un-SQL Friday, and link to this post. Oh, and have it up any time before the weekend (Saturday Jan 22) hits, mmkay?”

Jen said, to write about whatever I want so here we go!  I am using this venue as an opportunity to say thanks to a bunch of people who have helped become who I am today. I will also explain how they fit into my definition of a Tech Giant.

There are several other people I could include but I have a deadline so I will have to find another way to thank them later.

What is a Tech Giant?

This definition is subjective and will be defined differently from blogger to blogger so here is my definition. To me a Tech Giant is someone I look up too within IT; someone who has helped me out; someone who is mentoring me; someone who is mentoring me without even knowing that they are mentoring me.

In no particular order here is a list explaining why these individuals peeps are my tech giants:

David Hoerster, Eric Kepes & John Hidey

David Hoerster, Eric Kepes & John Hidey: These are three stand up .NET developers who are highly involved in Pittsburgh .NET User Group and the Pittsburgh code camp for years. To this day I will always remember my first code camp four years ago. The next year they gave me my first public speaking opportunity. Every year the Code Camp in Pittsburgh gets bigger and bigger. This year there were two code camps with over 150 attendees.  David, Eric and John showed me first hand how important it is to give back to your technical community.

Side Note: How the heck are none of these guys a Microsoft MVP? This almost makes me question the MVP program. I am going to do my part in correcting this by nominating them at the Microsoft MVP site.

Thomas LaRock aka SQLRockStar

Tom LaRock: Last year Tom asked the community if anyone wanted to have a mentor on his blog.  I jumped on this opportunity and we have been skyping (is this actually a word?) monthly. His book (check out my review) and those sessions have shaved years off my learning curve moving from a developer to becoming a valuable Production DBA.

I finally meet Tom in person at the 2010 SQL Pass Member Summit. He introduced me to almost everyone in the community that week. It’s weird, in a way I feel like he is my older brother from another mother.

Tom also has a great blog. In my opinion it’s one of the most entertaining technical blogs out there because he does a good job teaching with stories. A perfect example is “Everything I Needed to Know about Waits and Queues I learned From the TSA.”

Side Note: Other than his addiction to bacon and being a Patriots fan he is a great guy! Can you tell I am a die hard Pittsburgh Sports Fan?

Brent Ozar

I love this book!

Brent Ozar: I ran into Brent virtually two years ago at the Pittsburgh SQL User Group. At the end of his presentation he challenged the crowd to start blogging. I found his intro to blogging series and gave it a try.  A little later I was hooked.  Brent made me a syndicated blogger at SQLServerPedia. People will see this blog post because he took a chance on a new blogger.

Its amazing how much time and energy he puts into the SQL PASS Community with his presentations and blog posts.  His blog is a great resource for SQL Server, Professional Development, Speaking and Blogging.  Did I mention that he also co-authored one of the best SQL Server books (its the image on the left side)?

Side Note: I am working on creating a VMWare Workstation image right now due to his blog post on “How to rehears a Presentation.” Brent, I will be shooting you some question soon 🙂

Andy Warren

Andy Warren: The first SQL Saturday in West Virginia wouldn’t have happened without Andy’s help.  Andy and I had several phone calls where he gave me the guidance I needed to make it happen. He helped me from the point where I wondered,can I make this happen up to the week of the event.  Now, I have spoken at three SQL Saturdays and am adding another one to the list next week.  I don’t think this would have happened without Andy’s support.

Side Note: At SQL PASS Summit I learned that Andy is referred to as the godfather of SQL Server. I am not sure why this is true. I will have to follow-up with more at a later date.

Justin Siebert

Justin Siebert: There is no way I am going skip the great state of West Virginia. And there is no one better qualified than Justin. He started his own consulting company to provide Online Marketing and Search Engine Optimization. He now does business with Fortune 500 companies.  He is a big supporter of LAMP and is doing great things with WordPress.  His website is a perfect example.

Once he found out I was interested in blogging he talked me into using WordPress. Justin gives me several tips on WordPress and SEO and has never asked for money.   He also pulls me aside every once in a while to make sure I am focused on my goals and heading down the right path.

Side Notes: some people call Justin by his name. I call him the SEORockStar.  Justin and I might be the only remaining die-hard Pittsburgh Pirates fans left in Wheeling (Yes the owner Bob Nutting also lives in Wheeling).

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Posted in Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication

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What I am reading in 2011- week two

Posted on January 14, 2011 by | Leave a comment

This year I am going to try to keep better tabs on what I am reading on the intertubes and why I found the posts interesting.  Here is my first list of the year.  I hope you enjoy these links.  I know I did.

Writing a Technical Blog: Why to do it and what to write about – Kendra Little (blog | @Kendra_Little) wrote a great post for someone who is technical and is thinking about blogging. Actually, If you work within IT and don’t blog you should really read this blog post!

Cloud Computing for IT Pros – My local IT Pro Microsoft Evangelist Youg Chow produced this is a  six part series going over the basics of cloud computing for IT pros. It starts with defining what is a service.

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New SQL User Group in Wheeling, West Virginia’s first meeting is January 20th

Posted on January 6, 2011 by | Leave a comment

If you caught my last blog post and reached the bottom of the page then you noticed that we are starting the first SQL Server User Group in West Virginia.   Last year we hosted our first SQL Saturday and drew interest for a user group.  I have teamed up with a few local friends and we are excited to see where our user group goes.

If you would like to attend our first meeting click here to signup so we will have pizza for everyone.

The Mission

The mission of the Wheeling SQL Server User Group is to provide an opportunity that will allow database developers, database administrators and all other IT professionals who work with databases to connect, share and learn for free. While everyone’s shop might be unique the majority of the DBA’s have similar projects and problems. We will allow all attendees the opportunity to share their experiences while they can also build their soft skills.

Our First Meeting

Our first meeting will be held on January 20th, 2011.  Everyone who attends will be an instant winner as there will be free pizza and free membership to the coolest organization for SQL Server Professionals. We are excited to have Jose Chinchilla (blog | @SQLJoe) speak. The following is our agenda:

  • 6:00pm to 6:15pm – Network and eat free Pizza
  • 6:15pm to 6:30pm – Establish a few goals for the group and eat more free pizza
  • 6:30pm to 7:30pm – The Main Event (Learning SSIS under 1 hour)

Abstract:

Need to know what is the corresponding SSIS transformation or task to a specific T-SQL statement? How do you accomplish Unions, Joins, and Merges in SSIS? How do you do CASE statements in SSIS? How do you group and aggregate data in SSIS? In this session I will cover the some of the most important SSIS control flow and data flow tasks to jumpstart DBAs and Developers into SSIS with SQL Server 2008-R2. At the end of this interactive demo, you will be able to identify what control flow tasks and data flow transformations can be used in place of T-SQL statements and scripts. I will also cover how to accomplish in SSIS:
• Basic SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE statements
• Inner and Outer joins
• CAST and CONVERT
• CASE statement • Sorting, Grouping and Aggregate functions (SUM, COUNT, MAX, AVG)
• MERGE and Unions
• Loops (WHILE) and more

Bio:
Jose Chinchilla is a Microsoft Certified Database Administrator and Business Intelligence Developer working as a BI consultant for a Tampa based full service consulting firm. Jose has12+ years of experience in IT and has focused his career in OLTP and OLAP database design, development and administration and specializes in ETL/ELT, Data Warehousing and Multidimensional Analysis using SQL Server 2008 BI tools. He is also the current president of the Tampa Bay area Business Intelligence User Group and Official PASS Chapter. He is an avid twitterer under the @SQLJoe handle and blogs at http://www.sqljoe.com.

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Posted in Events, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication