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 ...

On Tuesday I presented an all-day pre-conference session on using PowerShell to automate and manage SQL Server.  It was a very full day and we had a lot of great questions.  One discussion in Module 6 was around scripting all the objects in a database, and I'd mentioned the script I wrote for the book The Red Gate Guide to SQL Server ...

The University of Virginia is having a fall conference that is free and open to the public on Tuesday November 13th. My good friend Andy Leonard and I will be speaking on various SQL Server related topics so if you are in the area and available that day you are most welcome to stop by. You can find more information and register for the ...

As I finish up the plans for Monday’s database design precon, I am getting pretty excited for the day. This is the third time I have done this precon, and where the base slides are very similar, I have a few new twists in mind. One of my big ideas for my Database Design Workshop precon has always been to give people to do some design. So I am even ...

Next week is the annual PASS Summit, the event of the year for those of us in the SQL Server community. We get to see our old friends, make new friends, and learn an amazing amount about SQL Server, and it'll be in Seattle, so it's close to the mother ship. I love having Microsoft close, because it's easier to get to know the people who actually ...

Today was SQL Saturday #146, put on by Mike Walsh, Jack Corbett, and a host of other volunteers and organizers. Scott and I missed the speaker dinner last night, but we headed up from Rhode Island at 6:00 AM and made a good day of it. We had lots of great conversations with both existing friends and potential customers. After lunch I ...

It's always a feel-good experience for me to return to SQL Saturday in Orlando, the place where SQL Saturdays  were started by Andy Warren (Twitter | Blog).  On this trip, I delivered a full-day, pre-conference seminar on Troubleshooting and Performance Tuning SQL Server.  I also delivered a session on SQL Server ...

Thanks to everyone who came out for the session today.  It was a lot of fun and I hope you had a great experience as well.  I've attached the demo scripts and slide deck to this post, and I look forward to seeing you in November at the PASS Summit! Allen

There's so much to learn to be effective with SQL Server, and you have an opportunity to immerse yourselves in 24 hours of free technical training this week from PASS, via the 24 Hours of PASS event. I'll be presenting an introductory session on PowerShell called PowerShell 101 for the SQL Server DBA. Here's the abstract: The more you have to ...

Well, East Greenwich, RI. Another successful event, this one put on by John Miner, Brandon Leach, Steve Simon, Scott Abrants and a host of other folks. Several #SQLFamily friends in attendance as well: Grant Fritchey, Mike Walsh, Jack Corbett, Wayne Sheffield and others. I gave a session in the morning and then a session to cap off the day. Thanks ...