While at the PASS Community Summit in November 2008, I had the pleasure of attending a handful of excellent presentations.  One of the best was delivered by Mike Ruthruff (& not just because he shilled for my presentation on disk partition alignment later that day—though I suspect he contributed to my session being SRO).

Mike is a member of the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQL CAT).  He authored the deck with contributions from SQL CAT patriarch Prem Mehra.

Most of you probably know Mike because he is the primary author of the landmark white paper we all know-&-love & have read over-&-over again because we know how unbelievably valuable it is:

SQL Server Predeployment I/O Best Practices
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/bestpractice/pdpliobp.mspx

Mike provided a copy of his latest-&-greatest deck for publication here:

Microsoft SQL Server on SAN Best Practices

The deck includes the following:

• Characteristics of SQL Server I/O operations
• Best practices
  • SQL Server Design Practices
  • Storage Configuration
  • Common Pitfalls
• Monitoring performance of SQL Server on SAN
• Emerging Storage Technologies
• Additional Material In Appendix Section (not covered during session)
  • How to validate a configuration using I/O load generation tools
  • General SQL Server I/O characteristics
  • How to diagnose I/O bottlenecks 
  • Sample Configurations

I think you'll enjoy this presentation—one of the best, perhaps the best of its kind ever assembled.  ¡Yo!  Only first-rate decks on this blog.  Besides which, SQL CAT does nothing but the best.  Get ready to be wowed by 50 slides of geekly goodness. 

Administrivia

Jimmy May, MCM
SQL CAT Sr. Program Manager
SQL Server Customer Advisory Team, Business Platform Division
317.590.8650
http://blogs.msdn.com/jimmymay 
Microsoft: Change the world or go home.