Tomorrow, May 15th at 6pm I will be joining the script club and give a presentation on how DBA’s can leverage powershell to do their job quicker and automate processes. It’s not too late to sign up. If you will be near the north shore I highly recommend checking it out. You can also follow the Pittsburgh PowerShell User Group to checkout their future meetings.
Posted in IT Pro
Tagged Pittsburgh Powershell User Group, powershell, Presentation, SQL Server
I have a confession to make. I like to meet people who also work with SQL Server. There are so many different ways to use SQL Server. I love to hear how people are using it differently than me. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is to connect with people and start a conversation at SQLSaturday’s, User Group Meetings and PASS events like SQL Rally coming up in Dallas in May. Once upon a time, I would attend similar training events and was so shy I didn’t connect with anyone. Why didn’t I connect with anyone? Mainly, because I was afraid. If this is you, you are not alone I was in the same place as you. In fact, let’s meetup at one of the events listed below.
NOTE: The following schedule has been updated on May, 17th 2012
I will be presenting my Evaluating your Daily Checklist with PBM and CMS presentation. I always look forward to SQL Saturday’s in Houston as this gives me the opportunity to visit my family and my #sqlfamily in the same trip. If your in Houston its not too late to sign up.
I will be presenting “DBA’s use RML Utilities to help get your next raise!” If your in Pittsburgh or Morgantown area make the drive out. Anyone, can still signup for this free event. Not only will you learn how to prove that your new indexes or application upgrade will improve performance but you will get free pizza. As a bonus, you will also get to meet some cool DBA’s in Wheeling, WV.
I am looking forward to my first SQL Saturday in Columbus, OH. I will be giving my Performance Tuning for Pirates presentation. Columbus is only a two hour drive and I hope to bring #babybeluga and the wife out with me. I think they would have a blast at the Columbus Zoo.
Do we really need to say more? I cannot wait for SQL Saturday in the city of brotherly love. The schedule hasn’t has been posted and I will be giving my Performance Tuning for Pirates presentation. I look forward to learning, connecting and sharing.
I will be presenting, “Performance Tuning for Pirates!” in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has a great SQL Server User Group and it’s always an honor to present for this group.
I will be presenting, “Performance Tuning for Pirates!” Being that this is a virtual chapter I will not be presenting in person. This doesn’t mean that we cannot connect and chat. We always have twitter so send me shout out before or after the session.
Posted in SQLServerPedia Syndication
Tagged Presentation, SQL Server, sqlpass, SQLSaturday
I am speaking at 24 Hours of PASS
Thank you to everyone who attended my #24HOP session on Performance Tuning for Pirates! You can now download my slide deck, t-sql queries, and view my reference links. If you have any questions about the tools presented feel free to contact me and I will try to help you out or point you in the right direction.
Posted in Events, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication
Tagged 24HOP, DMV, Events, Presentation, SQL Server
This week on Thursday, January 12th, 2011 a 6pm I will be speaking virtually at the Columbus, OH SQL Server User Group. I will be giving an introduction to Policy Based Management.
If you are a chapter leader and would be interested in having me speak at your user group contact me.
This talk will give you an introduction into monitoring SQL Server using Policy Based Management and Central Management System which is provided out of the box with SQL Server 2008. I will then show you how you can combine these features with the Enterprise Policy Management Framework on codeplex to provide monitoring for your whole SQL Server farm. This topic assumes you know nothing about PBM and CMS and will include lots of examples with only a few PowerPoint slides.
Posted in Events, SQLServerPedia Syndication
Tagged PASS, PBM, Presentation, SQL, sqlpass, User Group
Now that we are finishing up the last few days of the year its time to take a few minutes and reflect on my accomplishments for the year. To be honest, looking back at the blog posts I have no idea how I completed so many mile stones. Last year I privately established some long term goals and I knocked several items off my three year and five year plan in the first year.
Vendor said, "Wow... it looks like you had a very big year. Would you like to attend our vendor party?"
My first child was born in February. Typically having a child would slow you down but somehow I still completed several milestones. I have to give huge props to my wife for all her help and support.
This year I gave presentations at the first SQL Rally; the SQL PASS Member Summit; SQL Saturday in Houston, TX (presented multiple sessions); the Pittsburgh SQL User Group and several session at the West Virginia SQL Server User Group.
One of my good friends and I co-founded the first SQL Server User Group in West Virginia. I also helped relaunch the Pittsburgh SQL Server User Group and was truly honored to speak at the relaunch event. I also organized the 2nd Annual SQL Saturday in Wheeling, WV. Its was truly an honor to bring my peers and friends to my hometown for some free SQL Training (photos). Towards the end of the year I also became a PASS Regional Mentor for the Mid-Atlantic Region.
Personally, I also had the following accomplishments. I was included in a local
It's never to early to get started on your professional development.
magazine article on “Digital Generation.” Finally, I changed jobs and became a SQL Server Consultant. I am truly blessed to say that many of these milestones couldn’t happen without my #sqlfamily and my tech giants mentors .
The following are my favorite blog posts and tips written by me in 2011.
I look forward to sharing some goals next week as we break in the new year!
Posted in SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication
Tagged PASS, Presentation, Professional Development, sqlpass, SQLSaturday, User Group
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.
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
Posted in Professional Development, SQL Server, Uncategorized
Tagged PASS, PBM, Presentation, SQL Server, User Group
A few months ago I blogged that you don’t have to be an expert to speak. This fact is very true as I am speaking at #SQLRally today about “Evaluating a daily checklist against 100+ instances of SQL Server while you get a cup of coffee.” Two years ago I would have never imagined that it would be possible for me to share my knowledge at SQLPASS events.
NOTE: If you are attending my session and have a camera please take photos and share them with me. I forgot my camera in Wheeling, West Virginia.
If you are at SQLRally or not at SQLRally you can access my slide deck here. You can also find my references here. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.
Do you have a DBA team that consists of more than one dba? Do you have a windows authenticated account that has access to all the SQL Server instances in your farm? If so, you might really want to consider leveraging the Central Management Server (CMS) to do your heavy lifting.
Today, we will cover creating your first Central Management Server. Come back later in the week to see a great example to automate the process of verifying full daily backups.
Step 1: You might not be able to registered serves or see Central Management Servers in SQL Server Management Studio. To view them click on view in the menu bar and click on Registered Servers.
Step 2: Now that you can see Central Management Server folder right click on it and click on Register Central Management Server. This will allow you to designate a server as your Central Management Server.
Step 3: Register your new CMS. In this example I am going to use PBMDEMO\SQL2008 as my Central Management Studio. Once you enter the name test the connection and then save your settings.
Step 4: Now that the PBMDEMO\SQL2008 Central Management Server is configured lets add a group to hold development and production instances. This is done by right clicking on the instance (PBMDEMO\SQL2008) and clicking on New Server Group.
Step 5: Configure a folder for your production servers. We will use Production as the group name. This will be shown as a folder in the screen shot below.
Step 6: Configure a folder group for your development servers. In this case we will add our SQL Express edition as a development server.
Step 7: Lets add our Express edition server to the development group. Right click on Development folder and select New Server Registration.
Step 8: Add PBMDEMO\SQLEXPRESS as the server name and test the connection. Once its successful save the connection. Lets now repeat steps 7 and 8 to add four instances of SQL Server to the production group (PBMDEMO, PBMDEMO,2008 and PBMDEMO\2005, PBMDEMO\2000)
The screen shot above should be the final result for adding five production instances and one development instance. Come back later in the week as we show you how to leverage the CMS server to run and automate the execution of multi-server queries.
Posted in SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication
Tagged CMS, Presentation, sqlpass, SQLRally
It was an honor to be the first presenter for the reboot of the Pittsburgh SQL Server User Group on Tuesday. I gave a sneak peek into my SQL Rally presentation, “Evaluate your daily checklist against 100+ servers while you get a cup of coffee.” I knew it was a success when I got home and saw the following tweet.
This tweet is purely SQLWinning
If you attended the session feel free to download the slide deck and check out my reference material.
I get a kick out of helping people solve problems. If I don’t know the answer this gives me the opportunity to learn something new. Here are a few questions that were asked during my session. I didn’t have the answers of the top of my head so I am including them in this post.
Q: “How can I automate the process of shrinking a T-Log?”
A: First I highly recommend reviewing your backup and recovery plan. Frequent backups of the transactional log is key to free up your VLF’s. If there isn’t a free VLF available the log grows. With that said, if you just want to automate the process of shrinking T-Logs check out Jeremiha Peschka’s script
Q: “How do I run a T-SQL script against all databases on a single instance?”
A: First, I was thinking about doing a simple loop in PowerShell to execute the T-SQL (see Aaron Nelson’s second script) but then I remembered an undocumented stored procedure. The undocumented stored procedure is sp_msforeachdb. Both options should work.
Below is a few photos taken before I started the presentation.
Right side say, "cheese"
Left side say, "gouda"
I am presenting SQL Server 2008 for Developers at the West Virginia SQL User Group (WVPASS) meeting on February 17th at 6PM. The meeting is free, open to the public and pizza will be provided. If you’re in the area (Pittsburgh peeps this includes you) they would be glad to have you. Registration is still open for the event.
I also submitted two abstracts to SQL Saturday #75 in Columbus, OH. The abstracts are SQL Server 2008 for Developers and Evaluate your Daily Checklist with Policy-Based Management and Central Management Server. The event is scheduled for June 11th. I hope to see you there!
Posted in SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication
Tagged development, PBM, Presentation, User Group, WVPASS