Have you ever wanted to know how long its going to take to complete  a restore once you issued the restore T-SQL command? The DMV’s can actually give you this information.  My script to complete this task is included below.

/* Query used to find status of a backup. */
SELECT	sysdb.NAME,
    dmv.PERCENT_COMPLETE AS [PercentComplete],
    dmv.TOTAL_ELAPSED_TIME/60000 AS [Elapsed_Time_in_Minutes],
    dmv.ESTIMATED_COMPLETION_TIME/60000	AS [Time_Remaining_in_Minutes],
    [Individual Query] = SUBSTRING (qt.text,  dmv.statement_start_offset/2, (CASE WHEN dmv.statement_end_offset = -1
   THEN LEN(CONVERT(NVARCHAR(MAX), qt.text)) * 2
   ELSE dmv.statement_end_offset END - dmv.statement_start_offset)/2),
   [Parent Query] = qt.text
FROM	MASTER..SYSDATABASES sysdb
inner join sys.dm_exec_requests dmv on sysdb.DBID=dmv.DATABASE_ID AND dmv.COMMAND LIKE '%restore%'
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(dmv.sql_handle)as qt
ORDER	BY 2 desc, 3 desc

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

Woot! I am in InWheeling Magazine. Get your copy today!

Recently I was recommended to take part in the “Digital Generation” article in a very popular magazine in the Ohio Valley. This was my first invite to participate in a magazine so I was all in.  The article profiled several people in the community and explained how digital technologies  impacted their lives. I was shocked to find out I was the only IT Pro selected for this article. We have a lot of great IT Pro’s in the Ohio Valley so this makes the invite extra sweet.

For fun I am including the published profile and the questions I answered. If you enjoy the clip below and are intersted in how technology has improved Wheeling buy a copy.

Q:   We need some basic information: Name as you wish it to appear in the article, Birthplace, Occupation (if willing to share) and Current city of residence.

A: John Sterrett is proud to call Wheeling, WV home. He currently resides in Elm Grove, but was born in Glenwood Springs, CO and moved around a lot as a kid while his dad worked in the oil and gas industry.  John was raised in Bakersfield, CA and went to four high schools in Farmington, NM, Dallas, TX and Houston, TX. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. In his professional career John has had jobs as a software developer and database administrator at Deloitte, highschoolsports.net and Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe.

Q:   Describe in detail how the digital revolution has affected your life (were you asked to participate in this because of an online business, job, social medium, meeting spouse online, was this the reason you moved to the area, etc.).

A:In 2006 I moved to Wheeling, WV to work for ScheduleStar, the company that ran highschoolsports.net, as a software developer. I learned a lot about the dotcom industry.  I did well and had a great time. I will always remember Adolph Santorine bringing in investors and introducing me as his Senior Developer.

Recently I have leveraged new technologies and social media to progress my career, professional and personal life more than I would have ever imagined. At work I rely on Twitter to connect, share and learn from database administrators around the world. I can immediately solicit advice to solve problems that arise. I use my online blog to share what I have learned with others in my field. Twitter, Facebook, and blogging also help get the word out about events hosted by the Greater Wheeling Chapter of AITP; without them it would have been impossible to attract professionals to our first SQL Saturday event, a free conference for SQL users hosted in Wheeling last spring. SQL Saturday brought in 75 attendees, 9 speakers for 13 sessions. In my personal life, we rely on Skype to connect with our family members who live all over the country. It has allowed our parents to share in our excitement as my wife’s pregnancy progresses. Frankly, it’s amazing how much technology is changing how I do things and connect with people. I am constantly plugged in and I’m not sure how I would function without technology.

Q:  Tell us how you stumbled into this?  What were you doing before this impacted your life?

As a software developer and database administrator I relied on the internet to read about new technologies and innovators within my field. About two years ago I noticed many of my peers were using Twitter and blogging to communicate their ideas and problems. I want to be the best at what I do and beginning to Tweet and starting my own blog followed naturally as I aimed to strengthen my own presence in our field.

From my early youth I have always been interested in computers and despite my parents warnings not to touch our new computer I quickly became the family computer expert at the age of eight; I’ve been hooked on technology ever since. I later taught myself how to develop software by reading books at the public library and used my mother’s business phone at night to run a bulletin board system before the internet became mainstream.

Q:  What would you be doing or where would you be if it were not for the digital impact on you life?

A:Without Twitter, Facebook, Skype, message boards and blogging I would still be working with technology but I wouldn’t be as efficient or as valuable as I am today.  These technologies have given me a voice in my community and without them I might be the typical IT geek stereotype, a quiet guy with some computer skills who keeps to himself. I would probably need to limit my participation in my professional community because I would have to spend significantly more time, energy and money to promote and attend fewer activities.

Today, I am going to start a series of blogs on one of my favorite topics Data Warehousing with SQL Server.  I will start by defining a data warehouse.  I will then give some business cases that explain the benefits of a data warehouse.  Finally, I will start writing about the built in tools SQL Server provides to implement a data warehouse with SQL Server.

What is a Data Warehouse?

In its simplest form a Data Warehouse is a way to store data information and facts in an format that is informational.  Hopefully, you were able to pull this information from the photos above.   Personally, I like to think of a Data Warehouse as a tool used by decision makers to improve decision‐making.

Business cases for a Data Warehouse

The following are several reasons business cases that explain how “insert company name here” can benefit from a data warehouse.

• A Data Warehouse is fast to query. After the initial setup is complete, queries can run up to 1000% faster in an OLAP database than in an OLTP database.
• A Data Warehouses improves ROI by allowing end users to make more efficient use of enterprise information so many companies have all the information they need.
• A Data Warehouse is a good solution for application’s that are great for data entry but lacks in depth reporting and drilldown capabilities.
• A Data Warehouse could be used to bring several applications and/or data sources together.
• If you are a service company a data warehouse could be used to analyze work completed to estimate future flat fee engagements. (I can go on and on on these examples…)
• If you already own SQL Server you can implement a data warehouse solution with the built in tools.  This means no additional cost for software is needed.

What tools are needed to Build a Data Warehouse?

Both SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 include three tools that are very helpful towards implementing a Data Warehouse. These three tools allow you to create an killer data warehouse.

• Analysis Services (SSAS)
• Integration Services (SSIS)
• Reporting Services (SSRS).

We will go over these tools in great detail in future posts.  For now, let’s just think of SSAS as the tool that provides storage for the data used in cubes for your data warehouse. SSIS is the tool we will use to extract, transform and load (ETL) data into our data warehouse.  SSRS is a tool used to view the data in our data warehouse.

Next post : Introduction to Data Warehouse Dimensions

I wanted to give a quick update and thank everyone who has responded to my initial posting about bringing SQL Saturday to Wheeling, WV.    I have spoken to a couple technology groups and several individuals and everyone is very supportive of this event.

The following are upcoming work items:

1. Establish a budget
2. Build a support team that will help with organizing the event.
3. Find a location and pinpoint a date (tentatively First Quarter 2010.)

I look forward to blogging the status of these work items.

On another note, It looks like I will be presenting the following topic “Building a Data Warehouse with SQL Server” twice in November.  I will present first at the Greater Wheeling Chapter of AITP meeting on November 11th.  I will also give the same presentation at the Pittsburgh SQL Server User Group Meeting on November 16th.

You will soon see a series of blog post that go over building a data warehouse.  You can find the first one here.

This past week I took a trip over to my local Best Buy and decided to purchase a portable hard drive.  I noticed that one of my mentors was using a similar device for hosting Virtual PCs so I thought I would give it a try.  The following are my initial reasons for purchase:

1. Consolidate Virtual PC’s and Demos
2. Need to Synchronize documents on multiple computers
3. Good disk I/O for portable drive

Consolidate Virtual PC’s and Demos

From time to time I do quite a few demos at work, AITP, code camp etc.  I want to consolidate all my presentations, sample code, virtual drives etc. so I could repeat a presentation on the go as needed.  This device works great for this purpose.  A benefit of the WD My Passport is that the device is so small it fits in my pockets.  I now take the portable drive almost everywhere I go. 

Synchronize Documents

I have many files going all the way back to college on several computers.  I want to be able store and/or modify versions of these files on a single device without having to worry about manual synchronization.  Basically, If I make a modification to a document on the portable device I want to be able to synchronize these changes when I connect the portable hard drive back to the computer that hosts the original version of the file.

The WD Sync application that comes with the WD Passport accomplishes this task.  This application allows you to create profiles for computers and allows you to sync documents, photos, videos, email and more.  I was easily able to modify documents from different computers and sync them back with the original pc.  I am very impressed with WD Sync.  It takes a few minutes to understand the functionality but its a great free tool.

Test Disk I/O

Using SQLIO and perfmon I was able to create a quick test to put this portable hard drive to the test.  From the following screen shot below you can see an average disk transfers/sec is 102.093.  This result isn’t great but I believe its workable for a portable hard drive.

Conclusion

For only spending $90 I believe this is a good device.  Are you currently using portable hard drives? If so, which model are you are using? What are your favorite features?

Being an IT professional with a focus on the legal industry I am glad to say that I have a place on the web.  With Justin Siebert and Ted Cromwell pleading WordPress I am joining the dark side and leaving the Microsoft stack for this blog.  I am primarly a ASP.NET developer and a SQL Server guru. I look forward to communicating with several IT professionals through this site.