Rick Heiges

As I was preparing for some labs, I decided to see if there were any updates for Upgrade Advisor.  There is a new version as of April 18th.  Be sure to grab this latest version as you prepare to Upgrade to SQL Server 2005.  If you haven't heard about Upgrade Advisor, it is a free download from www.microsoft.com/sql that analyzes the meta data in your database for possible issues.  It is very good.  It even allows you to specify a trace file to analyze so that you will know what issues that may appear from your application.  This tool is updated occasionally and I cannt tell a difference from the January version from my brief experience with this tool this past week.

I have to admit that I have been so wrapped up in SQL Server that I have paid little attention to something called "Vista".  It is important for SQL Server folks to know about the OS that the database runs.  I stopped by http://on10.net/ and found a short clip on Windows Vista.  It doe snot go into great detail, but it has got me to think about it a bit more.  I'm sure that TechEd will have a lot of info about it and look forward to continued learning.  If you are familiar with Channel 9, you may like 10 also.

There must be a "Hello World" Program written in every programming language there is.  There is a very good reason for this.

This is a little off topic, but last night, I helped my 10-year old son download VB Express (with SQL Express of course).  There are some really neat starter kits out there.  We tried one and then I had him do a simple change on it and then ran the program again to see the change take place.  He liked it. We created a new project with a label and a button that when clicked would display "Hello World".  I then asked him to change the message and watched over his shoulder.  Since he seemed to pick that up, I told him to add another button that would change the message.  I left the room and he had placed two new buttons which changed the message text in the label control.  Even though this is very elementary stuff, I was proud that he was able to pick up on it so quickly.  The reason that he was able to pick up on it so quickly is that it was simple. The next time that you are trying to pick up on a skill, try doing something simple first. It may make everything easier.

We will eventually get to database programming, but we have some other hoops to jump through first.

 

April has been much better for me.  I took a vacation in Orlando after I was at SQL Connections.  It really helped m e re-charge those batteries.  However, some things are coming up.  First, PASS will close its call for speakers on April 28th.  Check out the details at www.sqlpass.org.  I understand that there have already been a lot of abstracts submitted.  The conference will be in November in Seattle this year.  DevTeach will be holding its conference in the second week of May in Montreal.  It also covers .NET technologies with some other "junkies" spekaing there too.  Check it the schedule and register at www.devteach.com.  June means TechEd.  This year it is at Boston.  It always seems to sell-out, so register now if you can.

 

After getting back ffrom SQL Connections, an attendee emailed me a question that I thought was interesteing.  I thought it may be educational if I also relate my response here.

The attendee asked if SQL Server could be placed on VMWare in a production environment.  I've had almost no experience with VMWare, but I've used VPC and Virtual Server quite a bit. My gut was to say "No way!", but I also circulated this question to my colleagues.  Although each of us has used MSFT's Virtual Technology for testing and training, putting SQL Server on a virtual machine for production was not really a desirable thing.   This is due to several factors. 

• SQL Server loves to "almost" take over the OS by scheduling the threads that are to be run on each CPU
• MSFT Virtual Machine Technology only supports one CPU currently
• Disk I/O - One of the biggest foes of performance is accentuated in VM technology

VMware's technology may be more advanced than MSFT's technology in this area currently.  SQL Server may run fine in that environment, but it is not a situation that I would like to be in from a DBA point of view at this time.  If there are performance problems, one of the first troubleshooting steps would be to take the SQL Server out of the VM environment.  That could be a big pain.  Perhaps SQL Express could run fine in this environment, but for a mission-critical application, but I cannot see it being recommended for production use.  It is great for testing and development.

 

SQL Connections had its final day today.  I sat in on Kimberly Tripp's session again.  I also sat in on Brian Larson's session for a while in the early slot.  I spoke during the other slots. 

Trey Johnoson was also here today to speak about Data Mining.  I was unable to attend his session.  My two sessions were on Database Snapshots and Database Mirroring.  The attendees were very active with lots of questions.  I thought that they went fairly well. 

Last night at the speaker's reception, I sat at a table with several other speakers.  One of which was a republican and another a democrat.  It was very entertaining to observe the banter between the two on many topics. 

 

Here at SQL Connections today, I stopped in on a couple of sessions by Brian Larson who has an alter ego named "BI Powers".  It is amusing.  I also presented to day on Partitioning and saw Kimberly Tripp's session on Snapshot Isolation.  As usual, I walked out of that session saying "Wow".

I also saw Chuck Boyce again.  He has an interview he did with me on his SSWUG podcast.  Thanks Chuck!

I just left an excellent session called "Hacking SQL Server" by Bayer White and Brian Knight.  Basically, Brian played a hacker and demonstrated methods of hacking.  Bayer was the developer who kept on trying additional measures to thwart the attack.  It was very entertaining and educational.  Great job guys!

Also, congrats to Florida for their win last night over UCLA.  I really didn't have a favorite, but I saw a lot of determination in Florida on Saturday when they beat George Mason.  I correctly predicted that they would win.

Tonight, the women's NCAA title is at stake.  I'll be pulling for Duke.

I am writing this from SQL Connections.  I am slated to speak tomorrow and Wednesday so I was able to attend several sessions today.  The first session was on Security by Christian Kleinerman and the second one I went to was on SSIS by Donald Farmer.  I will try to make it to one more before I go to the Microsoft Unplugged session.  I have seen some good friends that I have met before as well. 

Chuck Boyce is here interviewing folks about SQL Server for his daily podcast on SSWUG.  Chuck is a ball of energy and contibutes a lot to the community.  He leads the PASS chapter in Philly too!

I also spoke to Joe Cheng.  He has a free tool available on SQL-Server-Performance.com called SQLClone.  It makes an empty copy of a database with statistics!  He is still fine tuning the tool, but check it out.