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Wednesday, November 04, 2009 8:04 AM

Find and learn DMVs

This morning I showed how I find DMVs, and find out how to use them. First, I just run this query:   USE MASTER; GO SELECT ‘sys.’ + name FROM sys.sysobjects WHERE name LIKE ‘dm%’   Then I copy and paste a result into the “Index” panel of Books
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
Tuesday, November 03, 2009 8:24 AM

DBA? No – Data Professionals

I’m here at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) this week, and I’m here in the keynote. A few days ago I ranted about the fact that DBA should be a Data Professional – not an administrator. I’ve heard a lot of response about that blog –
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
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Monday, November 02, 2009 6:28 AM

Win7 – Install SQL Server Native or go Virtual PC?

I have Windows 7 on my laptop, and I also teach, demo and use SQL Server 2005 and SQL server 2008. Should I install this “native” on my outside operating system or use the Virtual PC (VPC) software that comes with Windows 7? Well, there are arguments
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
Thursday, October 29, 2009 6:23 AM

Don’t be a DBA – Be a Data Professional

I get asked quite frequently now about the “Cloud” technology and how it will affect the job of the DBA. The answer to that is pretty easy: If you’re “just a DBA”, then it will affect you a great deal. The fact that someone else will add users, take backups
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 8:13 AM

Templates for New Query Window

When I’m in SQL Server Management Studio and I click the “New Query” button, my Query Window comes up like this: /* <ScriptFileName, SYSNAME, ScriptFileName>.sql Purpose: <Purpose, SYSNAME, Purpose> Author: <Author, SYSNAME, Buck Woody>
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 7:14 AM

Disaster Response and the Physical Plant

Near our home is a Dam about to break. It was built long ago, and even though millions were taxed and spent for it, little to none of that money ever got to the actual shoring up and maintaining the dam  over time (don’t get me started). Anyway,
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
Monday, October 26, 2009 6:50 AM

How Normal(ized) Should You Be?

Normalization is the process of removing repeating values from your data design, and ensuring that the values depend on the Primary Key in the table. OK, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but this definition will do for this post. So how far DO you
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 7:14 AM

The 20 Queries

In the book “The Fourth Paradigm” , Jim Gray describes the modeling process he came up with modeling large databases. He was working with scientists, researchers and others, and the data sets they were generating were huge – terabytes of data at a time.
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 8:37 AM

Color Your Connections

In cyber-space, no one can hear you scream. Have you ever connected to a server, thought it was a testing or development system, and only a split second after you pressed “F5” to run that command, realized that it was the production server? Yeah….me neither
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 8:44 AM

Go To Find Combo

A friend of mine – Bill Ramos – showed me a little-used feature in Management Studio that I’ve been using ever since. It’s a combo box that works in the Query Window and it allows you to find text quickly in a script, but it also has a hidden benefit.
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
Monday, October 12, 2009 3:55 AM

DBAs and Metallurgy

Most of the time the business side of the house isn’t that technology-savvy. Sure, they know how to use their systems and even have a computer at home, but it’s not like they could calculate a TCP/IP subnet, nor should they. I was helping with a project
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
Wednesday, October 07, 2009 6:50 AM

Free Hyper-V Book

I work with a gentleman here in the Pacific Northwest who joined the Microsoft Server team from VMWare, and he in turn has a good friend (John Kelbley) who wrote a book on Hyper-V that you can get for free –  you can get it here: http://www.netapp.com/hyper
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
Tuesday, October 06, 2009 9:18 AM

The Much-Maligned Database Designer

There’s a feature in SQL Server Management Studio called the “Database Designer”, and it’s a strange beast indeed. It’s a mix between a graphical database design tool and an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD). Unfortunately, I don’t think it does either
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009 5:55 PM

The ERD as a Communication Tool

I teach a college course at the University of Washington, and as part of the class I include a series on creating a using an Entity Relationship Diagram, or ERD. An ERD, as I’m sure most of you know, is a series of box and connector shapes that explain
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 6:45 AM

Great new Whitepaper on High Availability

Paul Randal, he of SQLskills.com fame, has published a new whitepaper on High Availability with SQL Server. If you follow any SQL Server news or blog sites, you’ve probably already see the announcement for it, but I wanted to mention it here in case you
Posted by Buck Woody | 0 Comments
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