Search results matching tags 'DBA' and 'Tools'

SQLintersection!

KKline — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:47:00 GMT

The best emotion to describe how I'm feeling is 'astounded'. I'm astounded that I'm in such august company to be speaking the SQLIntersection (#iSQL) conference. Read the blog post from my first SQL Server mentor, Kimberly Tripp, which tells you all about SQLintersection.

Check out this list of speakers:

Aaron Bertrand, Sr. Consultant, SQL Sentry, Inc. [blog | twitter]
Andrew J. Kelly, Mentor, SolidQ [blog | twitter]
Bob Ward, Principal Architect Escalation Engineer, Microsoft [blog | twitter]
Brent Ozar, Brent Ozar Unlimited [blog | twitter]
Conor Cunningham, Principal Architect, SQL Server, Microsoft [blog]
Grant Fritchey, Product Evangelist, Red Gate Software [blog | twitter]
Jeremiah Peschka, Brent Ozar Unlimited [blog | twitter]
Joseph Sack, Principal Consultant, SQLskills.com [blog | twitter]
Kendra Little, Managing Director, Brent Ozar Unlimited [blog | twitter]
Kevin Kline, Director of Engineering Services, SQL Sentry, Inc. [blog | twitter]
Kimberly L. Tripp, President/Founder, SQLskills.com [blog | twitter]
Mat Young, Senior Director of Products, Fusion-io [blog | twitter]
Paul S. Randal, CEO / Owner, SQLskills.com [blog | twitter]
Paul White, SQL Kiwi Limited [blog | twitter]
Steve Jones, Editor, SQLServerCentral.com [blog | twitter]
Sumeet Bansal, Principal Solutions Architect, Fusion-io [blog | twitter]

Read the list of SQL Server sessions here. On top of the list of outstanding sessions to attend, I'll be giving a keynote on Tuesday afternoon. Witness:

So the only thing between the attendees and the booze in the reception hall is our keynote address?!? Oh yeah, that's going to go down real smooth, isn't it? I'll last about as long as a puny henchman between James Bond and the villain of the movie. Sumeet Bansal, from Fusion-IO, will have to survive until the credits roll. We'll be talking about high performance computing on SQL Server 2012 with an eye towards high availability, AlwaysOn, and Availability Groups.

If you're in Las Vegas, I hope to see you there! If not, you should consider coming to this excellent conference.

-Kevin

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SQLMag = SQL Server Pro. Goes all-digital!

KKline — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:30:00 GMT

I was recently chatting with Megan Keller, my long-time editor for the Tool Time column and Executive Editor at SQL Server Pro,DevProConnections, and SharePoint Pro.

I've subscribed to SQLMag ever since it was first put to print back in the late 1990's. (That's a pic of me, on the right, in the shirt given my by SQLMag's first publisher way back in the day). I have many bookshelves in my office, but SQLMag consumes more than half of the shelf closest to my desk. It's that good. Some of my personal favorites and perpetual must-read content are the columns SQL Server Questions Answered by Paul Randal & Kimberly Tripp as well as the always excellent columns Puzzled by T-SQL by Itzik Ben-Gan and all of the great content by Kalen Delaney.

Megan recently told me about the exciting changes afoot there. For starts, SQL Server Magazine’s has new name—SQL Server Pro. This name, as you can tell from its sister publications listed at the top of the blog post, puts all of the Penton Media properties on an equal and consistent footing.

Please take some time to check out hands-on, how-to content from SQL Server experts at sqlmag.com. The on-line magazine features the same great expert advice and writers as before. And you can access my articles on sqlmag.com just as you have in the past.

Suggestions for the Tool Time Column?

And while we're at it, let me know if there are any SQL Server related tools you'd like to see in the Tool Time column! My requirements are that the tool must be free, must be supported, and of course must be relevant to SQL Server professionals.

Enjoy,

-Kev

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New White Paper: SQL Server Extended Events and Notifications

KKline — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:13:00 GMT

SQL Server comes with a wide array of tools for monitoring your environment. There are logs and traces that provide information when errors occur, but these are often used passively to react to events that have already occurred. There's PerfMon, and Profiler, and loads of Dynamic Management Views to check. But where to look?

As database administrators (DBA), we need to monitor our environments proactively and create solutions as issues arise. In this white paper, we will look at a couple technologies – event notifications and extended events – that can help you achieve these goals. With these two features, we’ll look at the error log and deadlocks, and demonstrate how you can get relevant information delivered as it occurs. We’ll also look at ways that run-time errors can be captured and used to help reduce the amount of time required to investigate issues.

This white paper, written by SQL Server MVP Jason Strate (blog | twitter), is a free download but requires a registration. Download the Extended Events white paper here.

And, as always, I enjoy your feedback. Thanks!

-Kev

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Simplifying CSV Data Loads

KKline — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:55:00 GMT

Data files containing comma separated values, or CSV, are some of the most common data formats used for data representation and storage outside the database. When it comes to loading CSV data into the database, many options exist, however, few make it as simple as CSVexpress, powered by expressor software. I recently visited www.csvexpress.com to check out just how simple it could get. In short, CSVexpress offers a repeatable and quick way to load any CSV file into SQL Server (or any other database). For those whose data quality is not as pristine as it should be, CSVexpress also offers a wide variety of built-in functionality to repair the data issues. These are in addition to the data transformation components available out of the box, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The first thing I notice when I visit CSVexpress is that there are some video tutorials available on the main page. I found it pretty straightforward to load a CSV file into the database without watching the tutorials beforehand. However, by watching the tutorials I was able to learn more about some neat features and functions that I had not previously noticed.

For my test, I grabbed a simple CSV data file containing the following data:
City,User_ID,Name,Street_Address,Status
"Dallas",47,"Janet Fuller","445 Upland Pl.","Trial"
"Lyon",38,"Andrew Heiniger","347 College Av.","Active"
"Dallas",43,"Susanne Smith","2 Upland Pl.","Active"
"Berne",22,"Bill Ott","250 - 20th Ave.","Active"
"Boston",32,"Michael Ott","339 College Av.","Trial"
"New York",41,"Bill King","546 College Av.","Deleted"
"Oslo",45,"Janet May","396 Seventh Av.","Active"
As you can see from the diagram below, the import of the data to create a schema was not difficult at all:
Once the schema is configured, I can create the following simple data flow to move data from my CSV input file to my target table in SQL Server:

While there are other tools available for performing similar tasks, CSVexpress makes it very simple and intuitive. However, as I mentioned earlier, where it starts getting really interesting is when you need to pre-process and clean-up the data prior to loading it. Whether it involves enriching the data from external data sources or web services, or identifying and repairing bad data, CSVexpress maintains a simple interface for all of that.

The best part - it’s all free of charge. The version you can download from www.csvexpress.com is expressor’s free Community Edition. expressor also offers a licensed Desktop and Standard Edition with even more advanced features, which are available for a 30-day trial. As a matter of fact, at the end of November, expressor will be introducing Salesforce support into their commercial editions and CSVexpress will feature a 30-day trial version. You will be able to load Salesforce just as easily as if loading to SQL Server, or download your Salesforce contact, lead, and opportunity data and transform it before generating the right CSV output file (or files) that meets your daily, weekly, and monthly Excel reporting and analysis needs. Now that’s easy!

- Kev