November, 2010

In many organizations, there’s a push to save cost. “Cost” is an integral part of a profit-and-loss statement in the organization. Even if you work in a non-profit organization, cost control is central. Of course, you can take cost-control...

Don't let worry be the default response to uncertainty. -Buck Woody

This is one in a series of posts on a Windows Azure Learning Plan. You can find the main post here . This one deals with Storage for Windows Azure. Overview Overview and general information about Windows Azure Storage - what...

"The only interesting answers are the ones that destroy the questions." - Susan Sontag

Because Windows Azure is a platform, like Windows or Linux, there are a lot of things to know about it. Whenever I'm faced with learning such a broad technology I try to work "outside in" - that is, from a general perspective (understanding what it is...

My friend Paul Randal posted a blog entry on how he sets up SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) for demonstrations . I do a lot of teaching and presenting as well, and I’ve set up my environment in a similar way to help the audience see what I’m...

Yesterday at the SQL PASS 2010 Summit I did a presentation on database testing - I have two sets of links I mentioned there, one for the information I presented and the other for various tools I've tried. Enjoy: More information on Database Testing...

One of the great things about attending the Summit Conference for the Professional Association of SQL Server (PASS) is that you can participate in studies that Microsoft conducts to find out how we create our next projects. My good friend Dr. Mark Stempski...

With the advent of platform as a service (Azure and paradigms like it) it isn't enough to simply write the same code patterns as we have in the past. To be sure, those patterns will still function in Azure, but we are not taking full advantage of the...

Research shows that companies that are considering a “cloud” platform have various concerns, and that security is at the top of that list. I’ve put together a list of the resources I use for explaining our security posture, and the steps...