Recently, I caught my during a kickoff with a new client saying, “Hello I am John, and I love SQL. If SQL Server asked for more heart I will not say no!” That’s right folks I am a very lucky guy. Everyday I get to wake up stroll on down to the basement and do what I love to do. I get to work with databases and work on some really cool projects that improve my skills as a Senior DBA database architect. Every once in a while, even I need to be inspired and reminded that its okay to not get everything done today. Therefore, I make sure I watch the SQL Someday presentation by Thomas LaRock (blog | twitter) at last years SQL Inspire event created by SQL People for SQL People at least once a quarter. I always try to remember the following quote, “There are seven days in a week and someday is not one of them!”

“There are seven days in a week and someday is not one of them.  Someday may never happen, there are somedays that already happened and you never knew it and somedays that might still become true.”

Lessons Learned

I am a driven person. I am a goal setter and I like to accomplish my goals and move on to the next ones. Sometimes I am so locked in on my next goal I am not spending time appreciating the goals that were accomplished. I also need to remind myself that even though I love SQL and the SQL Community there are other things that I love. Someday may never happen, someday might have happend and I didn’t know it and someday may actually happen. I can easily think of an occasion where someday happend and I missed it. The biggest benefit of working from home is that I can go on a walk with babybeluga and my wife if I can step away from the computer at 6pm. Each night I continue being plugged in at 6pm is an opportunity missed to spend some special time with my family. Therefore, I need to make a better effort to stop and align myself towards whats important. This doesn’t mean I cannot accomplish everything it just means that Someday might not be today. Someday might never happen and I am perfectly fine with this as long as I prioritize everything correctly and make sure I get to the items in life that really matter the most to me.

SQL Inspire On Demand

If you missed the first SQL Inspire event in 2011 I have some good news. All the sessions were recorded and are available to view for free online. The following are videos on demand that you can watch to get Inspired and find that extra bit of motivation needed to help you get to the next level.

• Telecommuting and the Virtual Office: Making the Case to Convince your Boss by Robert Pearl
• Finding Balance by Steve Jones
• SQL Someday by Tom LaRock
• Navigating the New Job Market by Michael Coles
• Big Data, BI, Big Deal! by Andrew Brust
• DBA to CEO by Michael Corey
• Professional Services 2.0 by Brian Moran

I hope this post leads you to some great material to help keep you inspired. I also hope someone can learn from my lesson and make sure your work life is balanced towards your long term goals. Have you noticed any somedays that were missed? If so, please feel free to share them with us.

I always get excited when a new version of SQL Server gets released and rumor has it that  SQL Server 2012 will be released on March, 7th 2012. Why do I get excited? Well its quite easy, I know that each new release includes new features. These new features make my job easier. How do I know that these new features make my job easier? I know because I test them out and attend training sessions to see how other people are using them.

This year Microsoft is teaming up with the Professional Association of SQL Server Professionals (PASS) to provide several opportunities to give free SQL Server 2012 training.   Here are six ways you can learn about SQL Server 2012 and it won’t cost you a cent.

Online Labs

I love to get my hands dirty and throw things against the wall and see what sticks. Microsoft provides several virtual labs that allow you to do this without worrying about your servers.  If you want to checkout upgrading to SQL 2012, AlwaysOn Availability Groups or Installing SQL 2012 on Windows Core they have labs up and waiting for you.

Special Ops Tour

If you like to physically experience a launch event and rub shoulders with others who are using SQL Server you have to take part in the Special Ops Tour.  The Special Ops Tour is a 12 city event where Microsoft experts and local DBA’s will show you the must use features coming in this new release.  You can still sign up now. Hopefully, there is an event near you.

SQL Server 2012 Virtual Launch

Microsoft is also providing an all day virtual launch on March 7th that will include several topics on Mission Critical Confidence, Cloud on your Terms and Breakthrough Insights.  You can review the agenda and there still is room to sign up.

24 Hours of PASS

Once again, PASS is gearing up to deliver another 24 hours of PASS on March 21, 2012.  For those who don’t know 24 hours of PASS is  an in-depth look at the hottest SQL Server topics over 24 back-to-back free technical webcasts. You can gain access to the best SQL Server training and several of these session will be focused on SQL Server 2012. For more information visit the 24 hours of PASS website. If you want to speak get your abstract submitted now. The deadline is today!

SQL Saturday

SQL Saturday is an all day multi-track training event for SQL Server professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server. These events are spread all across the USA and the globe.

User Group Meetings

User Groups are monthly or bi-monthly meetings held to allow PASS members to connect, share and learn on a local level. There are several User Group’s spread out across the country.  Do you wonder if there is a user group in your area? You can find all the user groups here.

If you are in the Pittsburgh, PA area take a trip down to Wheeling, WV this Thursday to catch me at the WVPASS SQL Server User Group.  Registration is free and there  are a few free seats available.  I will be breaking out a brand new presentation titled “Performance Tuning for Pirates.”

Abstract

If you follow baseball you will notice that my favorite team the Pittsburgh Pirates has to do more with less to be successful. Working as a consultant, I have also noticed this trend with several IT shops. If you need to improve the performance of SQL Server and cannot purchase 3^rd party tools this session is for you.  I will help improve your performance tuning process while using several free tools. Through this presentation we will go over wait stats, dynamic management objects, perfmon, PAL, SQL Trace, ClearTrace, SQL Nexus and  SQLDiag.

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.

• You will be able to install, configure and run scripts against the Central Management Server
• You will be able to use Central Management Server and/or Policy-Based Management to complete a daily checklist
• You will be able to evaluate and build custom policies.

Bio:
John Sterrett is a database administrator at Remote DBA Experts and a member of the Integrations team. John has been active within the SQL Server community, including hosting the first and second annual SQL Saturday in West Virginia. John also presented a lightning talk and chalk-talk at the SQL Server 2010 Member Summit, presented sessions at three SQL Saturday’s, and presented to the Pittsburgh SQL Server User Group. John is a syndicated blogger at SQLServerPedia and contributes tips at MSSQLTIPS. You can find his blog at www.johnsterrett.com

Below is a collection of photos at SQL Saturday #80 in Wheeling, WV on July 23rd.

You can find my recap of hosting SQL Saturday #80 here.

The title for this blog post is my poor attempt to imitate one of my favorite Pittsburgh Steelers chants.

Now that I made it obvious that I am rooting for the Steelers. What else can I say, “Thank you everyone!” I am excited and stoked to be selected by my peers to speak at SQL Rally.  This week I got an email from Jack Corbett (blog | twitter) with the following quote.

We’re excited to have you on board as a presenter at our first-ever PASS SQLRally conference. Please confirm by return email that you will present your session in Orlando on either May 12 or 13 (date/time TBD).  We will send out the final contract once all voting is complete.

Taking a deeper look into the email it shows that I pulled 55% of the votes in the Policy Based Management category. I have no idea how this happened especially because there were three other great candidates. All of them are worthy of presenting.  Heck, Jorge Segarra (blog | twitter) is the reason why I am using PBM and CMS.

So now what?

I am excited that I was selected but this is where the real work starts.  I have to build, test and deliver my presentation. People are paying money to see these sessions so I have to step my game up.  This means I will be building quite a bit of content over the next month over Central Management Server and Policy Based Management.

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).

Brent Ozar recently posted a great blog post for people who are setting goals to speak in 2011.  His post motivated me to do one for people who are interested in speaking but don’t because they think you must be an expert.  I have a secret for you, I use to be one of those people. If you learn anything from me please check out the next sentence.  You don’t have to be an expert to speak in the SQL Server community.

I am not an expert but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night...

I have proof that you don’t have to be an expert to speak.  I did a lightning talk at the world’s largest and best conference for SQL Server professionals and while I strive to be an expert I have a long way to go!

In my opinion speaking is just like playing any sport.  You cannot get better if you don’t get out there and practice, practice, practice. If you don’t practice speaking how can you become an expert speaker? The SQL Server Community is awesome and they have your back. There are several avenues for people to start speaking.  Experts are also willing to give you pointers along your way to help you get better.

What should I talk about?

This one is easy, talk about what you know. A list of tips or best practices you have discovered through your quest of SQL Server greatness would be a great start.   Recently, I have spent quite a bit of time figuring out how I could monitor and apply best practices to my SQL Server farm.  I compiled my notes and a presentation was born.

A well known speaker already submitted my topic

Submit your topic anyway.  Speakers usually submit multiple topics expecting to only do a couple presentations. If you submit your abstract it might get accepted so the other speaker can do another presentation.  Andy Warren (blog | @sqlandy) just wrote a blog post about missing an opportunity to speak. Andy thinks that  too many speakers is a good thing.

Where should I speak?

There are several options for you to  speak do your thing:

• Practice, Practice, Practice
  • Record yourself and evaluate. I did this a few times for my lightning talk. You can watch my practice run online for an example.
  • Practice your presentation in-front of family and friends or animals.
  • Speak in front of peers at work.
• Virtual Presentations
  • SQL Lunch
  • 24 hours of PASS – The committee is still looking for a few good women for the next installment.
  • Virtual Chapters
• User Groups
  • Find a local SQL Server User Group
  • Start a local SQL Server User Group
• SQL Saturday – There are tons of these.
• SQL Conferences
  • SQL Rally – Submit your topics now. The call for speakers closes December 15th.
  • SQL PASS Member Summit
  • SQL Connections

If you have never submitted a session to a User Group, SQL Saturday, Virtual chapter do it.  Trust me, if I can give a presentation anyone can.

This past weekend I presented SQL Server 2008 for Developers at the PGH.NET Code Camp.   You can download the slides here if you would like a copy.  You can also check out my scheduled speaking engagements.

The PGH.NET 2010.2 Code Camp was organized very well.  I want to give a big shout out to organizers as they did a great job.  My favorite session of the day was Scrum 101 with Eric Kepes (Blog | Twitter).  Personally, I knew very little about Scrum coming in to the presentation so this was a great opportunity for me to see how others have implemented it in their shops.  The presentation lead to some great debates.

If you would like to see Eric’s presentation or download a Scrum worksheet check out his blog post.

Last weekend I attended the first annual Mid-Atlantic Community Leadership Summit (#MACLS) held for user group leaders. I would like to thank Andrew Duthie (Blog | @DevHammer)  for inviting me.  He did a great job putting the event together at the Microsoft Offices in Reston, VA. 

The following are some notes for everyone that didn’t get a chance to make it out. In general the purpose for the event was to get user group leaders together to share what’s works and what doesn’t work.  There is no order to the post just some notes with some random comments from my experience running the Greater Wheeling Chapter of AITP and hosting SQL Saturday #36.

How do you measure your user Group?

Your user group doesn’t have to be huge to be successful. I learned first hand that 20 attendees is not considered a small group from the consensus of user group leaders.  Sometimes leaders get lost in user group stats. Stats being the number of new members or attendance per meeting.  I will admit that I have been guilty. These stats really don’t hold water towards determining if a user group meeting is successful.  If you have a lot of people attend but no value provided to the attendees the meeting is not successful.

How does the user group get better?  You have to ask the members.  Its hard to meet the attendees expectations if you don’t know what they are expecting. Doing so could be a rewarding exercise for the leaders of the group and the attendees.  It helps the attendees feel like they are part of the group and it helps the leaders provide value by implementing the missing pieces. 

When should I hold that event?

BatmanWhen should I hold that event? This is a question that is asked by many user group leaders during the planning phase of an event or startup phase of a new group. Andrew Duthie created a website known as Community Megaphone to help solve this problem.  There are several user groups which means you might be competing for speakers and attendees. The Community Megaphone cannot predict when another group is going to have an event but if everyone adds their events it is a great system to see if anything else is planned.

Just like the Batman cartoon try to have your events on the same bat day, same bat time, same bat channel.  From my experience I think this works well for user groups.  Its easier for members to attend if you hold the meetings monthly on the same day (number of month or day of a week), same time and same location.

Speakers and Topics

User groups need to communicate with their members and make sure the topics are covering what the needs of the user group.

When you decide to bring a speaker in to talk have them submit multiple topics.  This allows the user group leader to follow-up with its members to decide which presentation will be a better fit for the members.  This benefits both the group and the speaker.

Instead of always having one speaker talk during the meeting or a time slot consider having several speakers talk for a short period of time.  This will light a fire and motivate some new speakers to step forward and give their first presentation because they only need to present one small topic.  The PGH.NET User Group does a good job of doing this a couple times a year.  I really enjoy them check out my thoughts on the five guys with code meeting.  The SQL Server community is also doing this at the 2010 PASS Member Summit with their lightning talks series.

The general consensus of the group is that user groups need more real-world examples during presentations and more beginner (101) sessions.  More lights go off in attendees heads when they see something they can or should implement when they go back to the office.

Liability and Coverage

First of all I am not an attorney so everything covered in here is just notes from the meeting not my opinion.    If you are in a metro area you might want to combine user groups into one non-profit organization.  I learned that the DC area is currently doing this and it seams to be working out for them.  I also believe that the Pittsburgh area does the same leveraging the Pittsburgh Technology Council (This is not verified so don’t quote me on this).  If you are in a rural area then you can look at legalzoom or try to find an attorney who might be interested in doing a little pro-bono work.

It seams like a lot of small user group start off without incorporating.

If you are a lawyer or are friends of a lawyer ask them to do a white paper on the legal side of starting a user group.  It seams like there isn’t a lot of information out there on this.

Vendors (Sponsors)

One of the most surprising things I learned this weekend is that vendors want relationships not just sales.  Okay I you caught me, I knew this but sometimes its great to be reminded because it can be easy to forget.  Anyways, ComponentOne and Infragistics had evangelists at the meeting.  They both wanted all the user group leaders to know they are willing to help they just need to know what you need.

Vendors can also do more than provide swag, pizza and money.  A real world example is SQL Saturday #36.  I had no idea where I should put the sponsors.  I called Andy Warren (blog | twitter) my mentor for the event and he reassured me that this was a common problem.  His advice was very helpful.  Andy said, “Ask your platinum sponsor Confio they have sponsored SQL Saturday’s in the past they will know the best spot for the sponsors.” I followed Confio’s advice and the rest was history. The moral of the story is that vendors are not evil they can be helpful if you choose to ask them for help.

Hosting an All Day Event (SQL Saturday, Code Camp, SharePoint Saturday etc..)

The following advice was given about hosting a big event like Code Camp, SQL Saturday, SQL Saturday (or any other all day multi-track event) but I believe it also is good advice for running a user group.  You need to treat the event like a business and get a core team together to make it happen. A core team doesn’t have to be a huge team but it has to be more than one individual.  Treat the event like a business means assign action items and have people be responsible for the detailed action items and assign due dates. The group needs to have a task manager who can get things running and make sure everyone is meeting deadlines.

Always put your attendees in charge of giving away their information. Allow sponsors to have raffles where they can collect business cards or information.  At SQL Saturday #36 we printed out cards with everyone’s contact information and gave them to the attendees in their welcome kit.  This sponsors could get contact information from attendees who don’t have or forgot their business cards.

Don’t do individual sponsorship as it can be too complicated. For example, you might think to have a lunch sponsor, snack sponsor, after-party sponsor and so on. This can be complicated because one group had an after-party sponsor but found out after the fact that the sponsor would only cover non-alcoholic drinks.  The group had to pay out of pocket for half of the dinner bill. So what’s an easier way to handle sponsorship?  Divide up sponsorship by using levels.  Break sponsorship levels out into Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze and then assign values and benefits to them so that the sponsorship will cover your total budget and still get value out of their money.  Remember that you should build your sponsorship plan like a pyramid and have only a few Platinum level sponsors.

This covers everything I have in my notes.  If you attended and I left anything out feel free to add it in the comments section.