Category Archives: SQLServerPedia Syndication

Why You Should Attend SQL Saturday 97

Reposted from :http://sqlaj.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/why-you-should-attend-sql-saturday-97/

By AJ Mendo

Free Training

Part of the mission statement of SQL Saturday (read the full statement here) is to provide a day of free training to SQL Server Professionals and those new to SQL Server an event that combines training and networking as well as find and grow new speakers (see Calling All Local Speakers) that means you!

Take a look at all the sessions submitted. The tracks are not finalized yet but so far we have sessions submitted for DBAs, Developers, BI professionals, dotNet, and an Advanced. As you can see there is something for everyone.

Cool People To Meet

For me networking is one of the best parts of any SQL Saturday event. You can catch up with old friends and meet new ones. I especially like meeting the people I have chatted with on twitter and not met in person. That’s part of what makes the SQL community so strong and always growing. You can have conversations (all be it short ones) on twitter and when you actually meet them it’s almost as if you have known them for years.

The Weather Is Fine Wish You Were

I am sure you have seen something in the news about how hot it has been and the serious drought conditions down here in Texas recently. Yes it’s true; we have many days during the summer over 100 degrees and have not had measurable rain in several months.  However, our fall weather is usually very, very nice.

The normal high temperatures for October are in the low 80s and the normal low temperatures are in the upper 50s. Our average monthly rainfall is below 4 inches. That is not too shabby when compared to other areas of the country or world for the month of October. This year will be no different it is going to be a beautiful weekend to be in Austin.

Things To Do

After getting your learn on during the day, and after you have hung out at the Networking Social post event party you can stroll along 6th street. Checkout the clubs the people and maybe, just maybe run into the world famous Leslie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Cochran).

Austin is known as the Live Music Capital of the World! Every weekend for sure and just about every week night you can find live music to your liking in Austin. Whatever you decide to do Austin has the nightlife to support it.

Vendors

Vendors are a big part of any of the SQL Saturday events and ours is no different. They support the events financially and with people. Please make it a point to visit the vendors, talk with them, and check what they have to offer, get a free pen or a splat ball, and if they are giving something away, throw your name in hat for a drawing at the end of the day. Who knows you may win something and get more than just free knowledge. I was at an event in the spring where one of the attendees won several things in a row. That could be you this time.

Final Thoughts

When you look at the wide range of session topics submitted. The speakers on the list, then networking possibilities, not to mention it is FREE, there is bound to be something for every level of experience.

If you haven’t noticed by now, I am really excited to be a part of CACTUSS and that we can give a little back to the community by SQL Saturday 97. If you are attending, find me and say hi. I’ll be the one grinning from ear to ear.

Cheers!

What It Means To Me To Be A Volunteer

Hi my name is Wes, and I am a volunteer

I am not unique. There are others like me, who give time, money or both. I am not the biggest giver. There are some who dedicate their lives to helping others. I couldn’t stop being a volunteer even if I wanted to. It is simply part of who I am.

All Shapes And Sizes

People from all walks of life are volunteers. I’ve met people who had very little in the way of material goods still giving to those who had less. I know people who have found success in the highest levels of their professions still take time to give back. Does the person who has millions of dollars and gives the same amount of time as the person who lives paycheck to paycheck valued less as a volunteer? I don’t think so. The rich person may give because he can while the poor person gives because he must, doesn’t diminish the gift.

Why People Volunteer

There are no wrong reasons for being a volunteer. I’ve had some heated debates on this one. Some people feel that if you gain materially through being a volunteer it cheapens your contribution. I personally don’t agree with that assessment. I know several people that are private consultants that give their time and money to the SQL Server community. In return they may get some business. I know some people that it is literally their job to interact with the community. I’ve heard people say things like “He gets paid to do that.” and it is true. It doesn’t change the fact that someone’s life has been enriched by their activities. We consider some paid volunteer positions noble in nature. Take teachers for example. They touch our lives in ways that just can’t be measured. A great educator can effect whole generations and have a lasting impact long after their teaching years are over. Sometimes being a volunteer is encouraged by your employer. It may be part of your improvement plan and factored into your bonuses or promotions. It doesn’t lessen your contribution to the community just because you get direct or indirect benefit from it.

Should You Volunteer?

I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know. Would I like you to give back to the community? Without a doubt I would. Should you volunteer is a personal question I can’t answer for you. I can tell you about my choices and introduce you to others that have made the choice, but I can’t choose for you. I’ll share another little secret with you, if you choose not to volunteer you aren’t a bad person. Even if you benefit from my work and don’t share in return I’m fine with that.

How Volunteerism Impacts My Life

As a life long volunteer I can say it has changed my life in many ways, none of them I regret in the least. I will say it is getting harder to give time without impacting my professional  and personal life. I try to balance my desire to be a volunteer with my duties to my family and work. It isn’t always easy. Since I’m a volunteer my wife is also a volunteer. When I am away from home she has to shoulder all the parenting duties. My son is also a volunteer. Even though he is only three he gives up time with me and does crazy things like ride in the car eight hours so he can be with me when I travel. It also diverts money away from my family. I’m not saying I’m broke or anything, but when I give money in support of the community it means that some things may get delayed at home. We may not get to save as much. Again, I’m not the only one giving in my house. My family gives when I give. Without the support of my family it would be almost impossible to be as active as I am.

Community Reactions

It always surprises me when people come up and thank me for doing what I do. Do I like the praise? You bet I do. It lifts me up and makes me want to do more and try harder. Would I still do this without the pats on the back? Yep. I’ve done a lot of volunteer work where there was zero recognition from the community. Sometimes people tell me I’m a good person for doing this when I don’t have to. What most people don’t understand is I really don’t have a choice. I have to volunteer. I can’t imagine my life without it. It may be something my parents instilled in me or a genetic defect for all I know but it is an imperative that I cannot avoid.

Final Thoughts

If you are a sufferer of chronic volunteerism I’d love to meet you and hear your story. Even better I’d like to see you write about it too. Trust me, there are people that look at me and say “I don’t know how he does it.” I then turn to someone else who does more than I do and say the exact same thing. I wonder what they are giving up to help me be a better person and what I can do to pass that on to others.

I’m A Part Of Things Greater Than Myself, The POSSE Is Here.

Something Is Missing…

Some of you know I have a deep passion for the SQL Server community. I’ve always been extremely focused on local community building. As we started really planning for our SQLSaturday (SQLSaturday #97) I started to realize there was a gap between the user group level and the national level. We initially just wanted to turn CACTUSS into a nonprofit but I’m also involved with the San Antonio community and we want to do a SQLSaturday there too. So, I talked to some people I’ve known for quite a while and started moving to form a new nonprofit organization. The Professional Organization of SQL Server Educators was conseved.

This Ain’t Gonna Be Easy.

I started digging around for how to build the company and make it not only a federal nonprofit but a state nonprofit as well.  If you have ever filed all the paperwork for a federal nonprofit you know just how big a time and money investment it really is. Again, it isn’t easy. The IRS has a lot of information. Eventually I decided to use legalzoom.com for some of the basic stuff. Luckily I have a wife who is in the legal field and is doing the bulk of the heavy lifting. The amount of information you have to put together is pretty daunting. It isn’t just a matter of filling out a form and sending it in. You have to prove that you are serving the community and make sure you have everything in place to keep the organization from being co-opted by folks who would use it for personal gain.

Why Would Anyone Do This?

Because. That’s it just because. OK, there is more to it than that. I have complained made suggestions, for the last several years about how PASS could help local chapters. After seeing what can happen when you just do what should be done, I decided to shut up and just get it done. Even if they don’t know it Steve Jones, Andy Warren, and Brian Knight are one of the real reasons I’m doing this. Every time you go to a SQLSaturday and learn something new you need to send those guys a thank you note. They didn’t wait for someone else to do it. They didn’t ask how they could monetize SQLSaturday they structured it to be supportable by the local community. They built one of the best things to ever happen to the SQL Server community.

Now What?

We keep working to get everything squared away. Am I afraid of failing? Yep, but I’m more afraid of just doing nothing.

SQLDIY: Index Usage Statistics

There are several different aspects of indexes that can be monitored via DMV’s. One the neatest things is just how much your indexes are used, how they are used or if they are used at all! I’ve put together this stored procedure to gather a ton of useful information on just how your indexes are being used. Using this information you can determine if the index in question is really needed, or if it is truly critical and shouldn’t be messed with. As will all DMV’s if your server was just rebooted you may see quite a number of unused indexes. By sampling data over time we can see when an index is actually called into use. Is it only really used once a quarter or once a year? Maybe we can disable it and then rebuild it before it is needed cutting down on maintenance and lessening the penalty for data modifications over the long term.

IsUsed – Simple, has your index ever been used.
IsExpensive – does it cost a lot to do updates or inserts into this index?

These columns all deal with how your index is accessed and updated. Is it used in a lot of scans, Maybe implying its used mostly for joins? Is it seek heavy, showing that your used are writing good WHERE clauses?

UserSeeks
UserScans
UserLookups
UserUpdates
LastUserSeek
LastUserScan
LastUserLookup
LastUserUpdate

AverageRecordSizeInBytes I look at this one to show me just how wide or narrow a particular index is. I also use it to help do detailed growth analysis, if we add X number of rows what size would the index grow too?
Series to Date SQLDIY: Manage and Monitor SQL Server Yourself

Link to the script Gather Index Usage Statistics

I’m hosting all my scripts from this series on GitHub as I do with all my open source projects.

As always, if you find any bugs please let me know and I will correct them!

SQLDIY: Index Fragmentation Levels

Indexes, indexes, indexes my kingdom for an index! Well, something like that. Indexes are the single most important structure in our relation database world. So, it is understandable that I do everything I can to gather information, monitor their health and maintain them to the best of my ability. One of the keys to index health is how badly fragmented the index is. Many people simply reindex everything on a regular schedule. While this may be fine for smaller indexes say under 50 megabytes but not so great for indexes that may be very large 400 megabytes or more. Knowing how your database is used is also needed if you are going to truly plan for the future and your index health. Is your table built with an identity for the primary key and only receives inserts? Or is it indexed on a GUID and has heavy deletes and updates? In the first case, depending on fill factor you may not need to do full reindex with a high level of frequency. In the second case, you may not be able to keep fragmentation levels under control without sacrificing the availability of your database. The problem is the larger the index the more difficult it becomes to manage from a reindexing strategy. When indexes get in the gigabyte range things like partitioning become as much a necessity for performance as well as maintenance tasks. For years I’ve written and maintained my own index maintenance scripts. Well, that all came to an end when Michelle Ufford put out her index defrag script.

Series to Date SQLDIY: Manage and Monitor SQL Server Yourself

Link to the script Index Fragmentation Levels

I’m hosting all my scripts from this series on GitHub as I do with all my open source projects.

As always, if you find any bugs please let me know and I will correct them!

Your Homework:

Index Fragmentation Findings: Part 1, The Basics Brent Ozar (blog|twitter)

Index Defrag Script v4.1 Michelle Ufford (blog|twitter)