Category Archives: meme monday

Top 4 ways I will contribute to the SQL Community in 2012

Posted on January 10, 2012 by | 2 comments

One of my friends, Tom LaRock asked, “What do you want to do for your #sqlfamily in 2012?” Below is how I plan contribute to the SQL Community, and my #sqlfamily in 2012.

  • Bring  SQL Saturday to a new city
    Anyone who knows me in the community knows I am a huge fan sucker for a SQL Saturday. I have had the pleasure of being a host, attende, and a speaker. This year I am looking forward to being a volunteer and sharing all my knoweledge to bring a SQL Saturday to a new city.  With that said, there is a city very close to me that has never hosted one.  The ball is already rolling and I look forward to helping this chapter host their first SQL Saturday in 2012.
  • Help Chapter Leaders
    Being a chapter leader I personally know it can be hard running a user group. I was very lucky and thankful to get a lot of help.  I look forward to helping other chapter leaders who can use a hand. I am willing to help connect leaders to a sponsors; help leaders find swag, find books, find a speaker or anyting else. I am game and looking forward to helping.
  • Give Virtual Presentations
    Typically I do at least four presentations a year.  To this point I have never done a virtual presentation. This will change shortly as I am speaking  at the Columbus User Group virtually this week.
  • Mentor
    I have been blessed with having good mentors in my career. Without them I wouldn’t be where I am today. There advice and guidence has been very valuable.  I reciently started mentoring a DBA but would more than willing to help others out. If you would be interested please shoot me an message.

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This years Christmas wish list for Microsoft

Posted on December 5, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Once again its the first Monday of the month. This means its time for another #mememondy presented by Thomas LaRock . This months topic is what gift do you want Microsoft to leave for you under the tree this year? For this post I am going to list two items I would love to see in SQL Server 2012.

  1. Distributed Replay to be easy to configure, work as advertised and include the great reporting features I am used to seeing with RML Utilities.  Currently, I don’t see much for reporting with Distributed Replay in BOL.  No, need to convert SQL Traces multiple times.
  2. AlwaysOn to be included in SQL Server 2012  Standard Edition. Yes, I know this is a long shot but hey its my Christmas list 🙂

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Monday Meme: My First SQL Pass Member Summit

Posted on September 5, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Once again Tom LaRock (blog | twitter) has put together another Monday Meme assignment.  The goal is simple just get your writing juices going. This months topic is to write about your favorite moment from a previous  PASS Member Summit.

What is PASS Member Summit?

PASS Member Summit is an annual conference to bring together SQL Server professionals for deep-dive technical learning, hands-on labs, and the best networking in the community.

My Favorite PASS Summit

Last year was by far my favorite PASS Member Summit.  Why was last years Summit my favorite? The answer is very simple. Last year was my first Member Summit. I paid my own way and it was one of the best decision I made. In fact, I enjoyed the Member Summit so much that I decided to make it a goal to try to make it every year.

Favorite Member Summit Moment

On Saturday after the Summit ended I stood inline at the hotel lobby to checkout.  I noticed the guy standing next to me had the same backpack so I started a conversation saying, “nice backpack, I am John Sterrett.”  Little did I know this was Aaron Nelson (blog | twitter) and I quickly learned that he was trying to meet me all week. We are both big fans of SQL Saturday’s and he told me that he tried to motivate other chapter leaders into hosting a SQL Saturday by saying, “If Wheeling, WV can host a SQL Saturday so can you.”  We ended up chatting for about an hour.  It’s strange to think that I built a good friendship while I was checking out of my hotel room after the Member Summit.

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Meme Monday: I Got 9 SQL Backup Problems but a Disk Ain’t One…

Posted on May 2, 2011 by | 2 comments

First of all I had no idea Hugo did a version of “99 Problems.” I may be biased because I have two turntables and a microphone (If you volunteer to help or speak at  SQLSaturday #80 I can give you a demo) but its true Jay-Z’s version is much better than Hugo’s version.

I got two turntables and a microphone

I got two turntables and a microphone

Now that we have who’s version of “99 Problems…” is better resolved lets dive into this months Meme Monday. If you are not familiar with Meme Monday check out Tom LaRock’s (blog | @SQLRockStar) blog post for more details.

Here are nine problems directly related to backups and monitoring backups that I have seen in my IT career that spans an ISV shop, consulting and the corporate world. I hope you don’t find these in your shop. Here they are in no particular order.

  1. No Automated process to backup your databases
  2. No retention policy or standards
  3. No Automated process to verify that backups succeeded
  4. Database Mail is not enabled (You cannot get any job failure emails with out DB mail)
  5. Notification for backup jobs don’t include an operator to alert SQL team on failure
  6. DBA doesn’t practice recovering databases from backups
  7. No automated  jobs to do transactional log backups on databases in “Full”  or “Bulk-Logged” Recovery mode
  8. Backups do not exist outside the production server
  9. Backup drive ran out of space (Oh snap, I broke rule #1 I cannot talk about disks)

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