Category: Uncategorized

Join Denny Cherry and Associates at SQL Bits 2023

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I am very excited and lucky to be speaking once again at SQLBits along with my DCAC colleagues. SQLBits, the largest Data Platform conference in Europe, held this year in Newport Wales March14th – 18th. It is a conference for leading data professionals with over 300 sessions from speakers all over the world. It is a huge honor to have been selected to share my performance tuning knowledge with attendees. My session, Performance Tuning Azure SQL Database Have you moved to a cloud database like Azure SQL Database and are having performance issues? While the Azure SQL services running in… Continue Reading

Open Letter to PASS

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As you know, I spoke to 12 Chapter Leaders and 4 Regional Mentors yesterday. All are very upset with PASS right now and feel slighted, which as a volunteer myself, I empathize. I have given the feedback, to you. After talking with them here is where the problem lies IMHO: communication and transparency. We received an email taking away our token of appreciation PASS gives us for all our yearlong hard work that helps to build and amplify this community. In the email we also were asked to please promote and encourage Summit registrations among other things. You cannot take… Continue Reading

Blogging at SQLPerformance.com

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I am honored to be a Guest Blogger at SQLPerformance.com. As a member of the SentryOne Product Advisory Council (PAC) I will be writing occasionally for the site. You can catch my first blog post It’s Not You It’s Me (I/O Troubleshooting) through simple changes. SQLPerformance.com is about providing innovative and practical solutions for improving SQL Server performance. Whether you are running a 3rd party application database where very little can be changed, or you are a DBA at a site where getting the application developers to change anything is next to impossible, they cover both the “how” and the “why.” Continue Reading

SQL Family: The Wonder Years

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Last week, Bill Wolf aka @SQLWareWolf and I somehow got onto the topic of High School pictures. So in jest, I decided to post mine and hash tagged it with #SQLHSPics on Twitter. I challenged others to do the same, only really expecting @SQLWareWolf to respond in kind.  I was floored with over 100 picture responses from #SQLFamily. Many of them went searching through attics, yearbooks, called relatives, and other great lengths to be part of it. As always the response was heartwarming and hysterical to say the least. The reason why I am taking the time to blog about it is… Continue Reading

So How Did It Go?

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My first time speaking at a SQL Saturday is now behind me.  I cannot wait to do it again. The support from the SQL Family leading up to and after the event was nothing I expected, it was beyond AMAZING. From high fives in the halls to virtual hugs. I had my own cheering section. I was a little nervous and talked probably too fast at times, I am sure, but I hear everyone does on their first time out, right? (Evidently, I say that a lot) The good part was that the audience looked to be truly engaged and… Continue Reading

Admit You Can’t Do Everything

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As most of you know, I have been a Lone DBA for 15+ years and during that time I have learned a thing or two about how to survive on my own in relatively large environments.  One of those things is knowing when to admit you cannot do it all.  Working alone on 56 servers you can imagine how the workload can seem insurmountable.  There are times when in one week I will do 70+ tasks, not including project work and daily monitoring.  To manage and get this type of workload accomplish you have to learn to work smarter not… Continue Reading

My First Speaking SQL Saturday

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I will be speaking at my first SQL Saturday on September 26th in Spartanburg SC.  I am so excited to have been selected to give my session on Survival Techniques for the Lone DBA.  After a year of, not so subtle hints from the SQL Family (John Morehouse (b|t), Rie Irish (t), Melody Zacharias (b|t), Mike Fal (b|t), Argenis Fernandez (b|t) , Kirsten Benzel (b|t), Andy Yun (b|t), Lindsay Clark (t)), I submitted my first session and got selected.   I will be finally standing up before a room of colleagues and talking about my experience as a lone DBA for… Continue Reading

So let’s talk naming conventions

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How many of you have come across a database that had stored procedures, views or functions and you had no clue, by name, what they were for? Having standard naming conventions helps to prevent that. Everyone has their own preferences and opinions on what they should be, so I thought I’d share mine. My opinion In a nutshell, the name of any object should be informative; specifically what the object is used for and where it is used. This is accomplished by utilizing prefixes in conjunction with specific naming conventions.  I apply these standards to all of my stored procedures,… Continue Reading

The Outpouring

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I’ve wanted to write about this for months, now that I have a blog I can finally do it. Earlier this year, I found out, thru Twitter that fellow SQL Family member Larry Toothman (@IowaTechBear), had suffered a stroke. Having never met Larry in person, but having spoken to him on occasion via Twitter I wanted to let him know that people in his SQL community wished him well. That morning I tweeted that I was going to collect money for flowers to send him on behalf of the SQL Family. Unfortunately, we soon got word that Larry was on life… Continue Reading

How I joined the SQL Family

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For my first blog I want to talk about my experience as a member of SQL Family. My Start I started my career as a lone DBA, 15 years ago, with zero knowledge of what SQL Server actually was. I was promoted into a sole DBA job with expectations I would get certified and take the bull by the horns to manage the 50+ SQL Servers .  The company, The Port of Virginia, took a big risk with me, but within 6 months’ time the gamble had paid off. In the beginning, most of what I learned to do the… Continue Reading