It's an old story you've probably heard before.  Provide a free version of your software product with strict limitations on performance or other specific capabilities so that folks can give it a try without risk, while you minimize the chance of cannibalizing sales of your commercial products.  Microsoft has take this strategy ...

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, ...

2012 was, simply stated, a year that kicked my butt.  When I wasn't struggling professionally, I was struggling personally.  Health issues, culminating in a diagnosis of Type II diabetes, and the passing of my father soon after Thanksgiving marked my biggest struggles.  I apologize to those of you who are normally on my Christmas ...

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 ...

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 LicensingNot 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 ...

Ok, I have to admit the painful truth. I'm reliably slow to the finish line. This year, I got my slides into PASS HQ by the skin of my teeth, the weekend before the event was to begin.  Although I could say with a straight face ''I uploaded my slides!''.  I have to be honest that I wasn't surprised when many of my attendees said that ...

Even though I've recently changed jobs, I'll still be speaking at a lot of SQL events across the country and internationally.  There are still a few trips that I've yet to finalize, in particular with the fine folks in Houston, run by my friend Nancy Hidy (blog | twitter), and my friends in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, run by ...

When you're developing new Transact-SQL code or modifying some existing code, do you just launch directly into programming? I know that I did just that, for years. It wasn't until I was trying to performance tune some existing code that I realized I hadn't actually taken caching of data and execution plans into account. So all those modified ...

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 ...

I first wrote about Mladen Prajdic's excellent tool in my Tool Time column at SQL Server Magazine HERE. The tool is a nice plug-in to SSMS and definitely worth having. If you’ve never installed it or have only installed an older version, but sure to pick up the newest release. Here’s Mladen’s press release complete with hyperlink for the ...