Consulting Skills Learned in the Ambulance
I used to be a firefighter and EMT in years past. I still fondly remember those days and the 6 or so years I spent helping folks on their worst day and training to be ready to help them have given me some of the soft skills that have helped me through life as a technologist. … Read more
Letter to my Daughter
I’ve put this on my personal blog, Open Mike, where I am trying to keep matters of faith and personal life so I can keep the focus here on technology blogging and SQL Server consulting. But this was one I wanted to share in both spots as I sometimes do and will do. Introduction As … Read more
5 Database Lessons From The Bathroom…
I’m writing this post from my living room, don’t worry. A recent last-minute trip to replenish the household toilet paper supply had me thinking of this illustration. So… I’m a big fan of finding lessons for the day job from everyday life – call them illustrations, if you want. I’ve found inspiration preparing for planting … Read more
Free DBA Advice eBook
John Sansom recently completed a great project of his- an eBook with 20 DBAs offering advice and tips to those starting out as a DBA. There are 19 authors I look up to and myself sharing tips and advice to DBAs looking to make into the DBA world or looking to go further once already … Read more
Check Your SQL Server Configuration
I blog a lot about best practices, defaults and paying attention to your installations. It’s a huge pet-peeve of mine to see improperly configured instances. One of the things I always do when doing a health check is review an instances configuration options. On quite a few client environments, just a couple quick knob turns … Read more
If You Like Your Query Plan, You Can Keep Your Query Plan
Period(*). I have two motives here. One – I liked the title and I’ve been having fun with titles lately (A couple weeks ago it was the true story of a SAN Failure with “Yes, Virginia, SANs Can Fail“). Two – it’s a good reminder and a couple recent conversations brought it up so I … Read more
How Do You Prevent a SAN Failure?
… Well, prevent a SAN failure from ruining your week anyway. Because you can never fully prevent a failure 100% – even in a SAN, even when your SAN vendor says it’ll never happen (hint: anytime a vendor tells you never – be afraid.. Be very afraid). So that’s what this whole post series is … Read more
Yes Virginia, SANs Can Fail
“Well that’s on the SAN, so it’s good,” better never be a part of your recovery plan. If it is? You just lost. As I type this I’m on the way home from a city from an old client that just lost their SAN – their SAN that every VM was on, their SAN that their company … Read more
PASS Board Elections
Wow. It’s that time already. We have a lot of great candidates to choose from this year. It’s tough picking. It’s even tougher recommending. That said – I think there are three candidates worth mentioning and who I plan on voting for. And it was really tough to single any out! One candidate however, I … Read more
Bad news . . .
This is another post on the Bible, it isn’t technical content, you’ve been warned. Back to technical posts next week. Yesterday, for resurrection weekend a blog post of mine went live about the Gospel of Jesus Christ – the Good News. That was going to be it. Last night, however, I attended a simulcast of … Read more
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