I’ve presented a few times recently and discovered I like doing it. Presenting is a great way to give back to the I.T. community – in this case the SQL Server community. I’ve previously blogged about things I learned from giving my first presentation, and what it was like presenting at New Stars of … Continue reading 6 things to consider when presenting
Back in early July 2021, I presented at the SQL Server Meetup I co-host with Anthony Fortner. We had a speaker no show a couple of months prior and then for the July meeting a speaker had to cancel about a week before the meeting. I couldn’t let another month go by with no … Continue reading What is it like to be a presenter at the News Stars of Data virtual conference
You’ve just been hired into a DBA role at a new company, or you’ve been given the DBA keys at your current company. Maybe you’re a SysAdmin and your boss has informed you that you are now supposed to manage the SQL Servers as well as everything else on your plate. In any of … Continue reading Four Areas to Focus on When You Start A New DBA Role
Everyone wants good performance from their database systems. Some even expect and need a high performing Ferrari all the time. How is this achieved though? What do you need to understand about SQL Server specifically in order to make your company’s applications hum along like a well tuned car? We will look at three keys … Continue reading Three Keys to SQL Server Performance
I recently saw a Tweet from Kendra Little where she asked the simple question, “What got you into databases?” I’m intrigued by people’s stories of how they got into their current careers so I looked through the thread. There were lots of interesting paths shared and even a blog post was shared by someone who … Continue reading How I Became a Database Administrator
SQL Server concatenation methods have been enhanced in modern versions of SQL Server. SQL Server 2012 introduced the CONCAT() function. In SQL Server 2017 we get CONCAT_WS(). A common usage of concatenation, or joining column values together in a string, is combining a FirstName and LastName column into a FullName column. Another common usage might … Continue reading How to Use the SQL Server CONCAT Function
In the initial post, we talked about some very basic items to get you up and running with temporal tables. In part 2, I’ll cover a few more things to think about and implement when working with temporal tables. In the first post, we looked at altering an existing table to be a temporal … Continue reading How to Configure SQL Server Temporal Tables Part 2
Temporal tables were a new feature in SQL Server 2016. They allow for the tracking of changes without having to set up change tracking, change data capture or triggers. For certain uses, they are not a replacement for something like change data capture, but would work if the purpose is simply having a record of … Continue reading How to Configure SQL Server Temporal Tables
I recently needed to configure log shipping for multiple databases at once as part of a migration project. I turned to PowerShell to do this. But before we get to that part, this post assumes that you’ve done the upfront work to create shares for the backups to write to and for the backups to … Continue reading How To Use Powershell to Configure Multiple Databases for Log Shipping
I recently was thrust into a conundrum. I suddenly found myself in need of a speaker for a recent SQL Server Meetup this month. My co-organizer and I had one week to find a presenter, set up a new Meetup, and then publicize so people outside of Meetup would know about it. I decided that … Continue reading What I Learned From Giving My First Presentation