Search results matching tag 'Infrastructure'

Learn More About SQL Server IO and Query Tuning in These Webcasts

KKline — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 18:50:00 GMT

I'm doing two new webcasts next week on Wednesday, December 19th, one in the morning and the other after lunch.

SSDs are a Game Changer for SQL Server Storage

No, session is not exclusively about SSDs. But this is my first session on IO and storage tuning that emphasizes SSDs over hard disks. As Bob Dylan said "Times, they are a'changin'". This session on Wednesday, December 19th at 11:30 AM EST, sponsored by Astute Networks, takes you through all of the basics of storage and IO tuning, regardless of the underlying storage technology. I'll show you how SQL Server handles storage structures, how to identify IO activity on Windows and SQL Server, and best practices for minimizing IO bottlenecks. Register now for: Storage IO Best Practices for SQL Server and a New Approach to Solving Application Performance Issues.

Write Better SQL Queries

The next webcast on Wednesday, December 19th at 2 PM EST, is with me, Aaron Bertrand (Twitter | Blog) and SQLCruise Impresario & Microsoft MVP Tim Ford (Twitter | Blog) as we take you through the query tuning process, discussing important DMVs to use during query tuning, as well as demonstrating several essential query tuning techniques that every SQL developer should know. Not only are we presenting an hour of top quality technical content, we’ll also be giving away some cool prizes, including the grand prize of a paid registration for the upcoming SQLCruise Miami, a $1,395 value! Register now for: SQL Server Query Tuning Best Practices, Hosted by Kevin Kline and Aaron Bertrand with special guest Tim Ford

I hope to see you at both of these sessions next week! Best regards,

-Kev

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Let's Talk Licensing and Virtualization for SQL Server

KKline — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 19:23:00 GMT

I have two new articles up on Database Trends & Applications magazine. I'd love to get your thoughts and feedback!

Welcome to the Weird, Wild World of SQL Server Licensing

Not long in the past, SQL Server licensing was an easy and straightforward process. You used to take one of a few paths to get your SQL Server licenses. The first and easiest path was to buy your SQL Server license with your hardware. Want to buy a HP Proliant DL380 for a SQL Server application? Why not get your SQL Server Enterprise Edition license with it at the same time? Just pay the hardware vendor for the whole stack, from the bare metal all the way through to the Microsoft OS and SQL Server....

DBTA E-Edition - December 2012 Issue

Virtualization Conquers the Database

I was privileged to deliver a session entitled Managing SQL Server in a Virtual World at the PASS Summit 2012, the largest annual conference for Microsoft SQL Server. It was a packed house, literally at standing-room-only capacity. I delivered the session with my friend David Klee and we were swarmed by attendees after the session wrapped up. With almost 600 people in the room, we conducted one of those informal polls that speakers like to do along the lines of "Raise your hands if …" and the informal findings were very telling. Probably around 90% of the attendees used VMware and SQL Server in some capacity and at least 60% used it in production environments. Another important fact was that only 10% of the attendees were actually able to get information on the performance of the actual VMs themselves. Most had to get all of their information and support from the VM / System administration staff....

DBTA E-Edition - November E-Edition Issue

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Conquer Your Fear of Virtualization with a Free Day of Training at PASS!

KKline — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:50:00 GMT

Click this link to register: http://www.houseofbrick.com/education/sqlserverbootcamp/Registration.

Presented by my buddy, David Klee at House of Brick, one of the nations top VMWare consultancies specializing in Oracle and SQL Server deployments.

David has a great write-up of this boot camp at http://www.davidklee.net/2012/10/01/virtualizing-your-business-critical-sql-servers-free-boot-camp-by-house-of-brick/.

Build Your Own Microsoft Operations Manager Pack

KKline — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:25:00 GMT

Operations Manager Management Pack Development Kit

I just recently told you about some cool new things happening with System Center - before I stumbled across this tidbit. Hey, if I could, I'd go back in time and add this entry to the previous one --- yeah, and totally NOT play the stock market to make a fortune through time travel. But I digress...

So the Operations Management Management Pack Development Kit applies to Microsoft Operations Manager 2012 and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007. It provide the you with all of the info need to design and build a management pack intended of your own for monitoring an application via Operations Manager.

At last! You can now manage all of those FoxPro and Access 2.o apps you've still got in production. More info at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee533840.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mpauthor/archive/2011/09/21/new-module-documentation.aspx

Let me know what you think! Enjoy,

-Kev

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How is Microsoft IT using the Cloud?

KKline — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:46:00 GMT

Steve Balmer very publicly pronounced that Microsoft was “all in” for cloud computing and Windows Azure. So that means Microsoft is using cloud for its internal IT as well as building products to utilize the cloud. If you want to learn how Microsoft IT is using Windows Azure to move existing applications to the cloud and creating new applications for the cloud, click here: IT Showcase on Windows Azure.

Let me know what you think. Accurate and informative? Or marketing fluff?

Thanks,

-Kevin

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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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New on "Database Trends & Applications"

KKline — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 19:37:00 GMT

In last month's column, "2012 Might Really Be the End of the World as We Know It," I described a number of major developments in the IT industry that are likely to disrupt the life of database professionals everywhere. I categorize those four disruptors - virtualization, cloud computing, solid state drives (SSD), and advanced multi-core CPUs - into two broad groups. I'm going to continue an analysis of these disruptive technologies in inverse order. Today, let's discuss SSDs.

[READ MORE ON DATABASE TRENDS & APPLICATIONS ]

Microsoft Document Watch for Operational Excellence

KKline — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:59:00 GMT

Back when my day-to-day duties included database administration work and enterprise architecture, I became rather obsessed with the idea of operational excellence. I read everything I could on the topic. I made a list of favorites, which became somewhat shabby over time, as I dog-eared important pages and scribbled notes in the margins. (Perhaps that list of favorites might, in and of itself, make a good blog post). Fast-forward a decade and I'm still mightily interested in operational excellence for IT organizations. It's just that so much good material is available for free on the web. Here's a run-down of several useful documents and downloads to improve overall operation performance for those of you in a Microsoft-centric IT organization:

Microsoft Operations Framework

Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) version 4.0 guide is practical guidance for IT organizations. With the release of version 4.0, MOF now reflects a single, comprehensive IT service lifecycle—it helps IT professionals connect service management principles to everyday IT tasks and activities and ensures alignment between IT and the business.

Infrastructure Planning and Design

The Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) guides are the next version of Windows Server System Reference Architecture. The guides in this series help clarify and streamline design processes for Microsoft infrastructure technologies, with each guide addressing a unique infrastructure technology or scenario.

Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 2.2 (for IT Professionals)

The Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer provides a streamlined method to identify missing security updates and common security misconfigurations. MBSA 2.2 is a minor upgrade correct minor issues and add optional catalog support.

Security Compliance Manager

The Microsoft Security Compliance Manager provides centralized security baseline management features, a baseline portfolio, customization capabilities, and security baseline export flexibility to accelerate your organization’s ability to efficiently manage the security and compliance process for the most widely used Microsoft technologies.