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It's hard for me to believe that I started working with the first board of directors for PASS nearly a decade ago, but it's true. PASS has grown over the years due to the support of the user community, the SQL Server expert community, and Microsoft's SQL Server team. This year's conference is just around the corner in mid-November. If you haven't thought about registering, you should! It's the best and most concentrated SQL Server learning you can get anywhere. This year there are over 130 sessions, dozens of full day pre-conference seminars, and huge contingents from Microsoft's SQL Server support, consulting, and development teams. Take a look at the event schedule at http://www.sqlpass.org.
I've had some neat and funny experiences over the years. In 1999, I was awed to meet the late, great Jim Gray for the first time. When I saw him again later that year, he remembered me in detail and, every other time after that, always expressed interest and excitement in what I was up to. What an honor. Back in 2001, I fell off the stage while delivering a session on translatinge between Oracle PL/SQL code and SQL Server Transact-SQL code. That tought me to never anger the gods of Transact-SQL by speaking about other database platforms at their conference.
In 2005, I experienced and blogged about the shower that tried to kill me in the conference hotel. And at the conclusion of the 2007 conference, I'd been working from 6:00 am until midnight or later all week. This resulted in Rick Heiges sending me a picture of me unconscious, literally stone cold asleep, on the lunch table on the conference on Friday. (Did you blog that Rick?) In 2004, I had one attendee stop me on Monday to tell me it was her worst conference ever and that she hated it. I worried about her all year, then in 2005, I saw her sitting at one of the lunch tables. "I worried about you all year!" I told her. "The conference was awesome after the first couple sessions. I really love PASS now. I was just mad because I kept getting lost," was her reply. Whew!
One of the things I've most enjoyed about the conference is the awesome people I get to meet. I remember meeting Allen White a couple years ago and was impressed with how eager and intelligent he was (and a good speaker too). Low and behold within a year or two, he had joined the ranks of the Microsoft SQL Server MVPs. I've seen that pattern repeated many times now. It's always a pleasure meeting the true geniuses of the business like Kalen Delaney, Itzik Ben-Gan, Kimberly Tripp, and the late Ken Henderson. If you've ever wanted to talk to the best known authors in the business, you should consider attending the event. They're all gracious people and are happy to speak with everyone.
So I thought it'd be fun to hear some other stories from other PASS events. I've tagged several friends below (in addition to Allen and Rick above). Now it's their turn to tell some good PASS stories and to tag a handful of other bloggers in turn!
Check their blogs to read their stories. Enjoy!
-Kev
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I had a great time speaking with the large communities of SQL Server users as I traveled about Europe last week and much of this week. I'm always impressed by the skill, intelligence, and creativity of these professionals.
And sometimes they raise questions that I think are worth sharing with everyone because they too might've heard the question before or asked it themselves. Here are a few examples. What are your thoughts on these questions?
1. To what extent does compatibility mode effect the behavior of SQL Server? For example, direct catalog updates aren't supported in SQL Server 2005. If we're running in SQL Server 2000 compatibility-mode, can we still access the SYS schema?
2. There are strong architectural reasons why SQL Server doesn't support multiple log readers, right? Let's discuss. (I have my own ideas about why you wouldn't want to enable it.) However, the potential for improving the performance of replication by the use of multiple Log Reader agents is very strong because you could have more data flowing from one server to another. Imagine for example, if you could have one log reader pumping data for the "customer" table and another pumping data for the "orders" table. How can we build a solution that offers us those benefits?
3. Error messages? Yes, error messages. Is there any way we can find out what error messages are most commonly encountered across the SQL Server universe? Maybe someone on the PSS team can help us out here?
4. How do I give a good presentation? Well, there's a hilarious YouTube video that covers all the bases - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cagxPlVqrtM&feature=related. But if you're looking for some real resources, here are some others that are useful:
Good web sites from Garr Reynolds and his associated book:
http://www.presentationzen.com/
http://www.garrreynolds.com/Presentation/index.html
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321525655/103-6148611-3957463?ie=UTF8&tag=garrreynoldsc-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0321525655
Guy Kawasaki web site:
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/09/winners-of-worl.html
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html
How to Give a Steve Jobs Caliber Keynote Presentation:
http://www.maclife.com/article/how_to_give_a_steve_jobs_caliber_keynote_presentation?page=0%2C0
So what do you think about these questions?
Best regards,
-Kevin
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I always like to stay on top of new and useful websites. Here are a few URLs that were recently brought to my attention that are worth your time.
First of all, Jimmy May is a friend of mine who serves as a Senior Performance Consultant for Microsoft on SQL Server projects. I’ve seen a lot of his private content on SQL Server and can testify that it is top-quality information. He’s started blogging, so I think that those private notes of his will start getting wider exposure. Subscribe to his blog now, at http://blogs.msdn.com/jimmymay, because you’ll soon be getting some fantastic content.
Next, Jonathan Kehayias is an enterprise DBA for Outback Restaurants (Yum!). Lately, he’s been working on a nice little tool for managing SQL Server extended events, which I’m writing up for a future Tool Time article in SQL Server Magazine. Check out his new tool at http://www.codeplex.com/ExtendedEventManager/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=16770. Extended events in SQL2008 are, in my humble opinion, one of the coolest features in SQL2008 at the same time as being one of the most poorly documented features.
Finally, Matt Masson works on the Microsoft SSIS team. I met him back at the MVP Summit during the spring. You can read his interesting blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/mattm/default.aspx. Since I live in a more heterogeneous world than a lot of the SQL Server bloggers, I really enjoyed his article comparing various data pump tools to SSIS. Read it here.
Enjoy!
-Kev
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I have a busy week in Europe next week, but I hope you can spare a few hours and join me for these free SQL Server seminars on performance tuning and consolidation/virtualization. I really hope I get to see you there!
=- Copenhagen, Monday, September 15th at the SAS Radisson Falconer Hotel, Falkoner Allé 9, Frederiksberg, from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. The topic is SQL Server 2008, performance diagnostics, and virtualization/consolidation. I'll be speaking with local SQL Server experts and MVPs including the Danish vice president of PASS; Kenn Schjødt among others.
Register for the event and see the full day agenda at http://www.quest.com/events/ListDetails.aspx?ContentID=7845.
=- Amsterdam, Wednesday, September 17th from 12:00 til 4:30 pm. Since I don't understand Dutch, I can't do much more than direct you to the website and encourage you to come. More details at http://www.quest.com/events/listdetails.aspx?contentid=7868&technology=&prod=&prodfamily=&loc=18.
=- London, Thursday, September 18th at the PASS User Group Meeting, London Chapter, from 6:00 - 9:00 pm. I'll be speaking about SQL Server Performance and Availability along with Phil Newman of HP. Complimentary refreshments sponsored by HP.
Location:
NYSE Euronext
Canon Bridge House
1 Cousin Lane
London EC4R 3XX
(Nearest Tube stations are Cannon or Bank.)
The organizers recommend you plan to arrive 30 minutes before the scheduled start to ensure enough time to check in and get through Security. Unfortunately, due to building security unregistered guests will not be on the list and may not be allowed entry.
To register and see the full agenda, please sign in at http://www.quest.com/sqlPASSUK.
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New to Business Intelligence (BI) on the SQL Server platform? Learn about the value of adding BI to your skillset.
From the registration page - "Join SQL Server expert Kevin Kline and Managing Director of Solid Quality Mentors, Douglas McDowell, in this webcast to learn what BI functionality is available on SQL Server."
Find all the details and register at:
http://www.quest.com/events/listdetails.aspx?contentid=7880
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Context switching can be hard to understand and measure. As it turns out, you can use the PerfMon counter System >> Context switches/sec to count all of the switches occurring in and managed by SQLOS, regardless of the application(s) where it originated. Note that this counter tracks all context switches UNLESS you’re using lightweight pooling, in which case some context switching may not be counted.
Here’s another couple quick PerfMon tips. Still like to look at Buffer Cache Hit ratio and expect it to stay high for most applications (> 90%), but I know in my heart it’s largely a waste of time. Some really strong combination of counters to monitor as an indication of poor query performance include low Page Life Expectancy (less than the default of 300), a very high number of key Locks, and long Average Wait Time for relatively low number of Batches/Sec.
Thanks to Greg Linwood for the tip! Check out Greg’s cool script for IO by databases at http://blogs.sqlserver.org.au/blogs/greg_linwood/archive/2006/03/15/59.aspx.
And in case you’re looking for good SQL Server 2008 forums, now that the product is RTM, go to: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=428&SiteID=1.
Thanks,
-Kev
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Have you ever looked at the Windows Task Manager for a quick read on SQL Server 2005 memory consumption?
You can get good information from the Windows Task Manager about SQL Server memory, but you have to know what to look for. When running with AWE memory enabled on a 32-bit system, you may see an unusually low amount of memory in the Windows Task Manager. If AWE is being used, you will probably get a much better idea of how much AWE memory is being consumed by checking page file usage. The page file usage value and the amount of AWE memory will correspond.
You can then cross-check this value against sys.dm_os_sys_info.bpool_committed for the exact value.
(Thanks to Geoff N. Hiten, the "SQL Craftsman", and Erland Sommarskog for the tip.)
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Scott Moore, a friend of mine from my days at Deloitte, is now a noted expert in application development testing, especially on HP and Mercury Interactive products. Scott has a new article up about "The Performance Authority" of a testing center of excellence. If you work at all with QA and software testing, then this is worth a read.
This was mainly in response to the many inquiries he got about how to explain the highest level of maturity when it comes to addressing application performance issues in the software development lifecycle. Many of us have been seeing the slides around the maturity model for years, and we always see that the highest level – the Performance Authority – is always listed with a statement that it represents less than 1% of clients for companies like HP (especially Mercury Interactive).
This statistic hasn’t changed in at least four years that anyone has seen or written about. Either companies are just not getting it, or HP and their partners are not telling clients how to get there, and more importantly what it would look like if they had such a thing as a "Performance Authority". This is Scott's take from years of studying various real clients of his and doing Center of Excellence assessments – the typical holes that he sees. Many companies are looking to achieve this level of maturity, and this article might give some clarity to what the “end game’ looks like. You can find the article online now at:
http://www.loadtester.com/performanceauthority.php
Enjoy,
-Kevin
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Last week, I was listening to John Rives, CEO of Amniox, speak about virtualization and clustered VMS (see pictures at http://drsql.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!80677FB08B3162E4!2292.entry. Thanks Louis!) at the local SQL Server User Group meeting in Nashville.
John gave a really interesting talk about implementing virtualization and many of the benefits and pitfalls that you might encounter. Most of the content was review for me, but the one concept that was new was a biggee - clock drift.
Clock drift is a situation in which the actual time shown on the physical machine's (PM) clock, for example 3:53 pm today, is no longer in sync with one or more of the clocks of virtual machines' (VM) running on the PM, showing 12:12 pm today and 9:30 pm yesterday. This can happen because the VMs 1) only receive a slice of the PM's total processing power and cycles, thus getting confused on the time, and 2) the application(s) running on the VM do not manually synchronize the VM clock with the PM's clock or an external time source. Naturally, if you're running SQL Server, this can be a huge data integrity problem for you - especially for any transactions that record the date and time.
This is a fairly old-school problem, it turns out, and there are lots of hits when you google for "clock drift virtualization". However, the state of the industry seems to be somewhat immature in that the best hits tended to be blogs and discussion forums rather than vendor documentation or best practices papers. If you're developing applications for SQL Server that might be implemented on a VM, do yourself a favor and make sure you include clock syncronization processes as part of the application. Otherwise, you might have to deal with a nasty clock drift problem.
Regards,
-Kev
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My favorite event at Microsoft's TechEd 2008 conference held in Orlando this year was a roundtable discussion about automating DBA work with several other SQL Server experts. The session was moderated by Allen White and included myself, Dan Jones (of Microsoft), Steve Jones (of SQL Server Central fame), and Buck Woody (also of Microsoft, though you may have seen his excellent column at http://www.informit.com/). These guys are smart, funny, and experienced.
Maybe you'd like to take a look? Microsoft has posted the video at Tech·Ed Online: Automating DBA Processes.
In addition, I'd like to point out that fellow blogger Jonathan Kehayias has posted a good issue up on Connect for a problem in the SQL 2008 Management Studio tools that I have already been told is a by design issue. You may not realize it, but Microsoft now allows you to vote on which issues you want tackled. Let's build some community support for issues like these - the issue is that SSMS 2008 can’t connect to 2005 Reporting Services Instances by WMI - https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=361680.
Thanks so much!
-Kevin
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Join me tomorrow, along with Quest Domain Expert Brent Ozar and SQL Server MVP Ron Talmage, for a roundtable discussion on SQL Server virtualization. We'll discuss a variety of issues that seem to come up constantly in the discussion forums - How are your virtualized SQL Servers going to be used? Are they running production environments with strict SLAs and heavy workloads? Do SQL Server licensing costs make a big difference for your organization? What about SQL Server management costs? Will performance troubleshooting be an issue?
The webcast is tomorrow, Thursday July 30th, at 8:00 AM PST / 11:00 AM EST. Register for the webcast here.
I hope to see you there tomorrow!
-Kev
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Although I blog at least once a week on average, I've always been the sort of blogger who spends a lot of time thinking about my blog posts. In effect, I've treated them like small magazine articles in which I write up the blog post, reread it, tech edit it, noodle on it some more, and finally post it. But that takes a long time. And, after much thought, I'm not sure that it dramatically improves either the efficacy of the information or is the best use of my time.
So, I've been thinking about shifting gears on blogging into the "near Twitter" realm of blogging rapidly and without too much emphasis on clean grammar, well-structure paragraphs, and the like.
What do you think?
Is more content better? Or is better content more important?
Thanks,
-Kev
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A lot of people sent me emails asking for a way to get ahold of Quest Software's new DMV poster. The poster shows all of the major DMVs in SQL Server 2005/2008, what they're used for, and how to query them.
You can get the poster (for free, of course) by signing up for and attending the accompanying webcast about DMV's that I'm doing next Thursday, July 10th. If you don't know much about Dynamic Management Views (DMVs), then you'll want to attend this informative webcast with me and my PASS cohort Tom LaRock. Get all the details about the webcast at http://www.quest.com/backstage/pow.aspx.
I hope this helps,
-Kevin
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