Hooray for Wonderful Husbands

I was talking to my boss yesterday about my professional development plan for this year, and the subject of training came up. He said we only had enough money in the budget to send one person to a conference this year, and since I’d attended SQL PASS Summit last year, they were going to send my coworker this time – meaning I wasn’t eligible to attend any offsite training at all. He suggested I find some books to read to fulfill my professional development plan.

Needless to say, I was not at all thrilled, and mentioned it to my darling husband.

He, too, was unimpressed. He knew how important and useful attending SQL PASS Summit had been for me.

Over dinner, he casually asked me, “Do you think you can take time off from work the second week of May?”

I checked my calendar – I was not scheduled to be on call, so I could take time off.

I replied, “Sure. Why?”

He held my hand and said, “There’s this PASS SQLRally thing in Orlando that week. We have enough vacation money saved up to send you.”

(Queue romantic music and sappy romantic scene….)

Ok, get your mind out of the gutter… The final result is: I’m going to PASS SQLRally and even get to attend one of the Pre-con classes. Hooray for wonderful, amazingly loving husbands! I certainly picked the BEST husband in the world. See you at PASS SQLRally!

Mater Immersion Event Competition (Entry)

As an amazingly wonderful contribution to the SQL community, Paul Randal (blog | twitter) has offered the opportunity for a member of the SQL community to win a free seat at the SQLskills.com 5-day Internals and Performance class in Dallas, February 21-25. To qualify, one has to state in a blog post why you want to come to a class taught by them and why you'd make the best use of the knowledge you'll get from being in the class. I've decided to throw down the gauntlet and accept that challenge.

What would deep SQL Server training provide me?

Although I've been working with SQL server for about 14 years, for the most part it's still a black box. I'm often required to quickly respond to performance and corruption problems related to critical SQL Server systems belonging to my company's customers. I often feel as if I’m staring down the barrel of Mon’s Meg (see picture at right) as I strive to think up what to try next to solve the issues. Normally I wind up following the "well, last time we did -this- and the issue went away..." 

For many types of issues involving SQL Server, using past experience to solve them without fully understanding exactly how SQL server functions can produce acceptable results - that is, the issue is cleared, but I cannot explain the failure, nor can I can't elaborate on why what I did worked or why the database failed the way it did.

I often feel as if I’m an archeologist on the Shetland Island unearthing another broch. I know how to handle the items to reduce or prevent damage to them, but may not necessarily have a full understanding of what they are or how they’re really supposed to be used.

Understanding how SQL server stores and retrieves data is crucial to efficiently finding solutions to complex issues within extremely aggressive SLA timeframes. This is even more important when users are wanting to take advantage of the new features of SQL 2008, because structures such as data compression, sparse columns and Filestream can drastically impact a server's ability to perform as the users wish it to.

Many times when I’ve needed quick assistance with solving database issues or explaining to yet another customer why one should not shrink databases daily as “maintenance,” I’ve referenced Paul’s blog to provide the explanations for me. I’m hoping that by attending this training, I will learn what I need to know so that I don’t feel so sheepish when defending the necessary fixes for SQL issues.

I would make use of the knowledge learned in Paul & Kimberly’s class almost every day at my job. It could also help me advance from just another regular SQL person to a senior level or even expert level SQL person.

Finally, I have a friend living about an hour outside Dallas, TX who has a mixed herd of Barbado sheep and fainting goats – proving that sheep and goats can live together happily (Paul knows I have 5 goats).

*ALL photos taken by me on our trip to Scotland in July 2000 (well, except the last one, which was taken in 2009 at my friend’s place in Texas).

Un-SQL Friday: My Tech Giants

It’s Friday, the end of another long work week, and just as we have the monthly T-SQL Tuesday in which all SQL people are encouraged to post something related to a particular topic, the female half of Midnight DBA, the dazzling newly-minted MVP Jen McCown (blog | twitter) has declared this Friday, “Un-SQL-Friday”. For this Un-SQL-Friday, she asked us:

“Read this blog, and then write whatever you want about Tech Giants. Be sure to mention in your blog that you’re writing for Un-SQL Friday, and link to this post. Oh, and have it up any time before the weekend (Saturday Jan 22) hits, mmkay?”

Well, that’s an interesting question. I suppose another way to put it is,

“If you were asked to fill the shoes of __<name of tech giant>_ , could you do it?”

I think the picture to the right answers the question quite succinctly as “Well, I can plug the top of his boot, but I’ll need a lot of other material to fill the rest.”  That is, I may not be at the same skill level on that topic as the one who wrote the book on it, but with enough effort and time I could get there. Much of the “greatness” comes from that person having researched and documented something that I haven’t yet encountered. The "SQL Gurus” are the ones who wrote the books I’m buying or actually worked on making SQL server what it is today.

I could rattle off a litany of names (as some of the other un-SQL participants did), or I could

SELECT TOP 10 GuruName FROM SQLServerGurus

and see what that returns to me. Or I could direct you to the listing on the right-hand side of my blog which includes links to many of the SQL blogs that I frequent. Either way, you’ll see that there is no shortage of knowledge available and I thank each and every one for all of the information that they’ve freely provided which has made my job much easier to do.  

t-sql-tuesday-resolutions



TSQL2sday Linkback



Happy TSQL Tuesday Everyone!

This week's TSQL2day is hosted by the lovely Jen McCown (blog | twitter ), the female half of the dynamic duo of SQL MVPs known as the MidnightDBAs. The theme is to post about our technical resolutions for 2011 – what we hope to accomplish and why.

It seems that a lot of us are making similar resolutions for 2011, so if you think you've seen this list before, you probably have. I'm not copying other people's lists, it's just that many of us in the SQL Server Community are seeking to accomplish similar things this year (birds of a feather and all that).

RESOLUTION: BLOG at least once a Month on SQL topics

I started my blog in July 2010, and have been rather lazy about updating it. In 2010, I posted 15 articles, of which only 1 was 100% about SQL. I did have 6 others I tagged with "SQL" or "SQL PASS", but they were not focused specifically on SQL. That's not a particularly good record, especially since the purpose of starting this blog was to write about SQL and NOT about sewing, random thoughts or my goats, even though those are excellent topics for blogging. The good news is that by posting this article, I can check off January's SQL post...a good start to any set of resolutions. Of course, I DO have at least 11 other SQL blog posts that I must create.

RESOLUTION: READ Books on SQL Server 2008
AND
POST reviews of the SQL Server 2008 Books on my BLOG

This is a dual resolution, thanks to Brent Ozar (blog | twitter), who very kindly sent me a copy of "Professional SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting"  which he co-authored with 6 other people. As a condition for giving it to me, he asked that I write a review of it. (Brent: I'm reading it now - really!!). Reading books on SQL will certainly help me better understand the inner workings of SQL and hopefully advance my career. Blogging about what I read will not only ensure that I absorb the information I read about but also will fulfill my blogging resolution.

RESOLUTION: WRITE a PRESENTATION on a SQL Topic
AND
Volunteer to PRESENT on a SQL Topic

As a SQL professional who has been working with SQL server since the days of SQL 6.5, I really ought to volunteer to present at a SQL-related event - be it a SQL Saturday, SQL User Group meeting, 24 Hours of PASS, or PASS Summit itself. This resolution is a two part resolution since the second part won't happen unless I actually have something prepared to present. I've been hiding in the background whenever calls have gone out for volunteers to speak because I "have nothing to say" and "have no idea what I can present about." Anyone who has heard me talk about sewing and costuming at the Science Fiction and Anime conventions that I've been attending knows that I have plenty to say (well, plenty to say about sewing, costuming, and a few other hobby-related topics) and don't fear getting up in front of 50 or so people and talking their ears off.

RESOLUTION: Become a SQL MVP

This is likely the hardest one for me to accomplish - especially since it requires others to recommend me for the award. However, if I work to exceed the other goals listed above, I might actually have that within reach.
 
What do you think? What are YOUR resolutions for 2011?

Corrupt Database Adventures

Ever notice how a “quick question” can turn into a major project? A coworker IM’d me earlier today with a “quick question” asking whether I knew how to get a database out of Emergency Mode.

Uh oh…

She then reassured me that it was a DEV box and not production. Whew! That meant that we didn’t have to worry about losing important customer data and at worst we could restore from back up without too much pain. I decided to investigate since it’s not often that one gets to fiddle with a genuinely corrupt database that’s not critical to the bottom line.

I did a quick web search and found an article by Paul Randal that talked about the last resorts that people try first with a corrupted database. It mentioned that one thing people try is rebuilding the transaction log  using  DBCC REBUILD_LOG. I tried it, but it’s not a valid DBCC command for SQL 2005 (in fact, if I’d read a few more paragraphs in Paul’s article BEFORE trying it, I would’ve seen him mention that very fact – that should teach me the folly of skimming articles).

The next item mentioned was to perform a DBCC CHECKDB using the REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS setting. What better time to try this than when you have a broken dev box to play with? Take a deep breath and see what happens.

DBCC CHECKDB (testdb, repair_allow_data_loss) WITH NO_INFOMSGS;

The results said:

Msg 605, Level 12, State 3, Line 1

Attempt to fetch logical page (1:2576) in database 5 failed. It belongs to allocation unit 72057594060406784 not to 281474980642816.

Msg 8921, Level 16, State 1, Line 1

Check terminated. A failure was detected while collecting facts. Possibly tempdb out of space or a system table is inconsistent. Check previous errors.

That didn’t sound promising.I tweeted #sqlhelp quoting the text of the Msg 605 to see if anyone else had any suggestions. Meanwhile, I searched for other possible tricks to try.

One posting I found on a SQL newsgroup (forgot which one and can’t find it again) stated that Msg 605 indicates a physical drive failure. I didn’t verify that, but since the dev box had been troublesome for quite some time, it didn’t sound too inaccurate.

Meanwhile, I got some suggestions from #sqlhelp to try DBCC DBREINDEX and DBCC CHECKTABLE on all the indexes and tables. I snagged a script from SQLServerCentral that loops through every table and performs a DBCC DBREINDEX on all indexes. Lots of black text scrolled through in the results pane, interspersed with some shocks of red. The red means something was wrong – but at least the black text following the red text indicated that things were repaired.

I then ran the DBCC CHECKTABLE using the same script as above to loop through all tables. It crunched through the tables happily for about 75% of the database, then it stopped with an error:

Msg 211, Level 23, State 51, Line 13

Possible schema corruption. Run DBCC CHECKCATALOG

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. An “Improvement”? No. I ran DBCC CHECKCATALOG as suggested. It completed successfully. THAT seemed promising. I tried rerunning

DBCC CHECKDB (testdb, repair_allow_data_loss) WITH NO_INFOMSGS;

Same results. One more time with gusto – this time I noticed that I’d lost the SQL connection. Reconnect, retry, and it disconnected before completing the command. The server had degraded sufficiently that there certainly was no hope of resuscitating it, so I logged off. A short while later, I received a message stating that they’d located the backup image of the dev box and were ready to rebuild it.

Although I spent several hours working on this, it was a great learning experience for me – most importantly, I learned that if DBCC CHECKDB can’t repair it, then likely you’re best off restoring the database from backup.

Before you find yourself in a situation with a corrupt database, take a look at Paul Randal’s “CHECKDB from Every Angle: Emergency Mode Repair”, which is an update to his article mentioned above. I wish I’d found that one first, but one uses the tools that the search engines return. Actually, the better choice would be to simply read through Paul Randal’s “Corruption” Category in his blog – this is the ever-growing set of articles that he’s written about database corruption. I’m going to spend a lot of time reading through those posts, and you should, too. It’ll certainly make you life easier when someone asks you a “quick question” on how do you fix a database in Emergency mode. 

Un-SQL Friday 001: Branding - What's Your Brand?

In answer to MidnightDBA's  challenge for Un-SQL Friday 001, I humbly submit this simple post.

For some of us, Brand is all-important. In the case of corporations, Brand is vital becuase it implies a certain amount of trust and loyalty. Companies work very hard to protect their brands from genericization - how many of us call facial tissues "Kleenex" despite the fact that there are many other manufacturers of little folded rectangles that function as disposable hankies? We also see a vast amount of brand-loyalty - "I only wear <brand-x>* jeans because they are the only ones that fit right" (I happen to disagree - <brand-y>* fits MY figure better).

Certain individuals are also fighting to establish or maintain their "Brand". I'll point you to Brent Ozar, who frequently talks about how he is striving to make and maintain his "brand". I suppose part of that is why people like me keep coming back to his blog. Well, that and the various articles like "Plagarism Week: Finding the Slimy Slimeballs" where his discusses his latest experience with having his content plagarized (for additional fun, browse through his archive of plagarism articles. There will be a quiz later).

Other bloggers I frequently read - they're listed in the sidebar on the right - all have their own "brands" in that each is a blog I turn to for a specific reason be it entertainment, or excellent information on SQL server specifics.

So what is my "Brand"? I'm not sure. I know I'm working on building it. I feel a little like General Mills which has brands for various products. I have a brand for the me who is a costumer that attends various Science Fiction and Anime conventions; for the me who is a family memeber; and another for the me who works as a database professional. Each "me" has her own specialties and few are mixed together.

I first really noticed my "Brand" (for the Costumer) at a Anime & Gaming mini-convention just before Halloween. I'd neglected to bring a costume, having completely forgotten that there was going to be a costume competition. I did, however, bring a bag full of fabric because I was planning to spend the day cutting out some shirts and pants that I'd recently drafted the patterns for. While I was finishing up gluing together the patterns, I noticed they were having a costume competition, and about 10 contestants were left (they'd had about 40 and were moving through the line one at a time). I dumped out the rolls of fabric I brought, pondered a moment, then draped myself a quick Greek-style toga-ish costume. Arming myself with scissors, a spare piece of fabric and my tape measure, I hopped to the back of the line, which by that time had gotten down to 5 contestants (yup, 5 minute assembly there). When it came my turn, I presented myself as "Glitzlandia, Goddess of Costuming". I walked up to one of the judges and attempted to drape the fabric around her amidst laughter and giggling from the audience.

After all that silliness, I was awarded the "Best Use of Materials" prize.

As I picked up my prize, one of the judges commented that although the costume was very creative and looked very nice, it wasn't up to my "usual" standards. I laughed and informed him that not only did I spend merely 5 minutes assembling it, but I hadn't even looked at myself in the mirror and had no idea what it looked like.

So, my "Brand" at Science Fiction Conventions / Anime Conventions is "Costumer who makes really great costumes" (or something like that). Yey. I can live with that one.

I'm still working on building my "Brand" in the SQL server commmunity. I'm not really known yet as the one who knows <cool SQL thing that no one else is expert at>, but someday I will be know that way. Right now, I think the SQL Server Community thinks of me as that DBA who can sew. Maybe that's enough for now, but it certainly isn't helping my salary any.

In case you were wondering, my goats are not branded; yet everyone who lives near me know who they are and who they belong to. Of course, it helps that there aren't all that many goats in my neighborhood besides mine.
 
*brand names removed just becase this is an illustration and not an actual statement.

Reflections on SQL PASS Summit 2010

Attending Orycon immediately following SQL PASS Summit was not exactly the best thing for me to do especially since I managed to lose my voice part way though SQL PASS and still haven’t managed to fully recover from the damage despite taking both Monday and today as vacation days from work.
SQL PASS Summit was very educational, and I wish I had the time to personally document all that I learned. However, thanks to my bout with illness, I do not have the time to write all that I should. Fortunately for the rest of us, many SQL PASS Summit attendees already blogged about the highlights and they write much more coherently than I do.
Here is a brief list of the live blogging of SQL PASS Summit events, classes, keynotes and suchlike (in the order I stumbled upon them, rather than in any order of priority or importance)

• SQL Belle’s blog on the Women in Technology Luncheon at SQL PASS Summit, PASS Summit Day 1 keynote and classes she attended, her discoveries on the day prior to the start of PASS Summit (aka Day -1).
  
• Jen of MidnightDBA’s blog includes the PASS Virtual Vendors Area, Pass Day 3: Keynote Live Blog, Pass Day 2: WIT Luncheon, Pass Day 2: Keynote live Blog, Pass Day 1: Keynote Live Blog, and of course video of the MidnightDBA groupies PASS Meetup.
  
• Brent Ozar blogged about Keynote day #1
  
• Strate SQL blogged about Dr. David DeWitt’s amazing keynote about SQL Query Optimization on the 3rd day of SQL Pass. The blog page also includes the links I forgot to write down for the URLs Dr. DeWitt mentioned during his talk.
  
• Grant Fritchey on Keynote Day #1 (part 1, part 2, part 3) , Keynote Day 2, Keynote day 3.
  
• SQL Rockstar, aka Thomas LaRock, blogged on what he did last week, the first keynote, and the Women in Technology Luncheon.
  
• Replays of the Live streaming video of the keynotes from SQLPass site: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and WIT Luncheon.

Various neat things were announced at SQL PASS Summit, including

• New path to obtaining the Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) certification for SQL Server 2008.
  • Brent Ozar wrote a summary of the changes for those who want a quick bulleted list of the changes rather than the full program description.
    
  •  Paul Randal and Glen Berry also blogged on the MCM announcement.
    
  • Many posted the all-important link to the MCM readiness videos, which is required viewing for all MCM candidates.
• SQL Server Denali Community Technology Preview was released, and all attendees received a CD containing SQL Server Denali CTP1. Brent Ozar was one of the first to post a blog about Denali and its high availability features.
  
• SQL Server Tools code named “Juneau” – SSMS BI functionality now available in BIDs.
  
• SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse
  
• Microsoft “Atlanta” (online service providing proactive alerts for SQL server 2008+). Official site here. Brent Ozar expresses his concerns about Atlanta in a blog he posted within minutes of Atlanta being announced (fast blogger!).
  
• Project Crescent – web-based reporting tool

Random photos from SQL PASS Summit 2010. Generally speaking, the photos were taken outside the hours of the classes at social events because we ALL were actually paying attention to the speakers rather than snapping photos. The following are photo albums posted by various attendees.

• Lucid 77’s photostream with sqlpasspics tag
  
• Brent Ozar’s photostream
  
• The “official” flickr “SQLPass” tag series of photos

Wednesday was SQLKilt day. Many of the male attendees showed up wearing kilts in support of the PASS WIT (Women In Technology):

• Lucid 77’s photostream

Stuff from other evening happenings

• SQL Chicken’s inside view of the SQL Server Central Party on Monday evening

SQL Karaoke:

• SQL Chicken’s live streaming iPhone video set from SQL Karaoke, including “11/10/10 9:48 PM singing”, “11/10/10 11:18 PM” (the Elvis song singing guy is actually quite good), and of course “11/10/10 10:47 PM”,  proving yet again that Karaoke is singing better left in the shower.

I got to sit next to Brent Ozar in a panel at SQL Pass. He snapped my picture as I was trying to peek into his birthday gift bag:

(hyperlink to original of photo)  He tagged it “Celebrity  Sighting at #sqlpass and tweeted my photo to everyone. I guess I’m a Celebrity now. Wowza.