S3OLV update and Reminder

by Jason Brimhall
Categories: News, Professional, SSC, SSSOLV
Tags: , , ,
Comments: No Comments
Published on: January 9, 2012

We are now just a few days away from our first meeting of 2012.  We have some good content lined up.  Check it out here.

I am looking forward to the presentation on XML and would really love to be able to bring Josh back to finish out the series.  Let’s show him a lot of support as he has put a lot of effort into making this presentation series.  I know because I have been hounding him about it.

In other news, we have received the PASS 2011 Summit DVDs.  There is a lot of cool content.  We plan on making these DVDs available to the group shortly.  These DVDs contain all of the main conference sessions.  They will prove to be an invaluable resource (much like every other year).

We have also talked in the past of getting a newsletter together.  As an interim step, we created the S3OLV Journal paper.li newsletter.  We are getting closer to having a mechanism in place to send out newsletters to the group.  Stay tuned – this should be happening in the near future.

Meme Monday January 2012

by Jason Brimhall
Categories: Meme Monday, News, Professional, SSC, SSSOLV
Tags: , ,
Comments: No Comments
Published on: January 9, 2012

Meme Monday was pushed back this month to the second Monday of the month.  That is a good thing or maybe a bad thing or maybe a non-discussion at all.  I guess it really depends on the person.  For me, I would have been rushing the post so I am fine with.  Oh wait, I sit here on the first Monday writing my post anyway.

Tom LaRock has asked us to write about what we plan to do for #sqlfamily in 2012.  I am somewhat prepared for this topic already.  I had been giving it some thought over the past couple of weeks.  I was even thinking of incorporating some of that into my Goals post for 2012 (assuming I get it done this year).

So, without further ado and without going to great detail, here is what I had been planning for the upcoming year and to describe in greater detail in my goals post.

1.  More SSRS and SSIS blog posts.  It seems that these have been somewhat popular in the past.  In addition, I have several posts lined up that I have been planning to write.  Some will be multi-part series, and others just a single post series.

2.  Present at least once per quarter throughout 2012.  I think this is attainable and I hope to add a few presentations to the bag.

3.  I really want to help organize an event.  This will take a lot more time and be a little more difficult based on event location relative to where I live – but I am hoping to get it done.

4.  I plan on maintaining the other activities such as UG help, forum help, twitter (when I can) help, articles, and blog posts.

 

That pretty much sums it up for what I hope to do for #sqlfamily in 2012.  What are you planning to do?

Thoughts on SSSOLV December Meeting

by Jason Brimhall
Categories: News, Professional, SSC, SSSOLV
Tags: , , ,
Comments: No Comments
Published on: December 30, 2011

This is very late – I know.  The meeting was held on December 8, 2011 and I haven’t yet shared my recap/thoughts about the meeting.

We hold the SQL Server Society of Las Vegas user group meeting on the second Thursday of every month.  We have decided to hold the meeting as both a physical and a virtual meeting.  This decision was made to try and encourage better attendance and to allow people like myself to attend and participate.  Since I moved back to Utah and am trying to continue to help the group thrive – it has been helpful to have the virtual meetings.

But let me share another reason that I like to do it virtually.  Having lived in Las Vegas, it seems that a lot of the membership end up working during the meeting.  I know there were several times that I had to work during the meeting.  I know several people have expressed that concern to me as well.  By having the virtual meeting, they can sometimes join the meeting while fulfilling work duties.

As the announcement for the December meeting showed, I had the opportunity to present a new topic that I have been working on a lot of late.  The topic was on getting better functionality out of SSRS reports for mere DBAs such as myself.  I talked on topics that I needed to figure out in order to meet business requirements.

Some of the items touched included dynamic sorting and dynamic grouping.  These dynamic abilities were setup in a fashion that multiple reports could use the same datasets and tables within a database.  Furthermore, changing the sort or group would be as simple as changing a value in a table rather than editing the rdl and uploading the changes into SSRS.  This was all included in the demos.

Unfortunately, I focused too much on getting demos done.  I still need to go back and flesh out the slide-deck.  Yeah, I did a no-no.  I gave the presentation without a slide-deck.  It is far better to have the deck available to help control the flow of the presentation.  I’ll get that fixed.  You can see the presentation (gaffs included) here.

In addition to this presentation, I have been planning on writing up a few articles/blogs to also detail the various topics covered during the presentation.  Those should be out soon.

January 2012 Las Vegas SQL UG

by Jason Brimhall
Categories: News, Professional, SSC, SSSOLV
Tags: , ,
Comments: No Comments
Published on: December 30, 2011

This month I am attempting to get a jump on things a bit.  I am hoping to get the info out in a more timely fashion throughout this new year for the User Group meetings for S3OLV.

Out with the old and in with the new.  Let’s ring in the New Year for the Las Vegas SQL User Group together and with a bang.

Helping us will be Joshua Lewis as he presents the first part in his three part series on XML.

XML for the DBA – A Series (part 1)

XML has been a feature available in SQL Server for a long time, but the capabilities were limited, and it was never very easy to use.  This was always a huge disappointment to me, because XML in itself should be any DBA’s best friend when it is used properly. What we typically see in applications is not the prettiest example of XML;  it is typically used by developers to accomplish things very quickly when it comes to data.

For the most part, XML is a heap of data that can get very large, doesn’t store well, and isn’t easily indexed.

But consider this:  What if a very data-centric person were the one dictating the XML (like a DBA)?  XML, when used properly, can be a very powerful tool in data storage and presentation.

About Josh

Joshua is a Database Professional, with over 10 years’ experience in Configuration / Administration of Data Infrastructures, Performance tuning, Development, and Business Intelligence Architecture, using Microsoft’s suite of SQL Server Products.

Over the years, and in varied industries, he has supported and optimized large DataCenters, developed multiple ETL platforms for handling client eligibility / enrollment / claims, and designed security policies and procedures to meet various industry security certifications (Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and CISP).

Currently, Joshua is expanding his knowledge and skills to .NET, building Value-Add interfaces and integrations to SQL Server and Integration Services through the use of SQL-CLR and Custom SSIS Components.

 

LiveMeeting Information:

Attendee URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/UserGroups/join?id=GW2GD2&role=attend

Meeting ID:  GW2GD2

December Recap

by Jason Brimhall
Categories: News, Professional, SSC, SSSOLV
Tags: ,
Comments: No Comments
Published on: December 29, 2011

The past few months I have been pretty busy.  December is no exception to that.  Between normal work, moonlighting as a general contractor on my own basement, and trying to keep up with my family – it almost seems like the month has barely even been a blink.

Other than the highlights of the holidays and finishing a room in the basement, I did have some SQL related highlights.

The first highlight came with notice of having won a contest – yay.  I entered into the SafePeak performance story contest back in September.  The contest closed out in November and the winners announced the first part of December (maybe the end of November).

For that contest, I submitted this story.  In that story, I showed how duplicated business logic can prove detrimental to query performance.  By deduping the business logic, I was able to realize a significant performance gain.

As a reward for winning that contest, I received an IPAD2.  That prize came the week just before Christmas.  Now, we use the IPAD as an extra incentive with the children for improved behavior (they really like the IPAD).

The other highlight came at the beginning of the month when I presented a new topic for the S3OLV User Group.  That new topic was on SSRS and customizing Sorts, Groupings, Display Order of Columns, and a few other tricks.  The custom sorts, groupings etc can all be driven based on parameters and prompts.

It was a pretty decent presentation.  The demos worked relatively well.  There didn’t seem to be any hiccoughs with technology.  I do wish more people had attended – but we are working on that.  I plan on sharing a few articles about the very topics discussed during that presentation.

I like presenting and think I need to find more opportunities to do that during the upcoming year.  Let’s hope I actually publish my goals this upcoming year (unlike 2011 where I started writing out my goals and the post remains unpublished).

«page 3 of 54»
Calendar
February 2012
M T W T F S S
« Jan    
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
272829  
Follow me on Google+
Jason Brimhall

In 246 people's circles

Add to circlesi
Content
Categories

Categories

Popular Posts

Popular Posts

Blogroll

Blogroll

Now Reading

Now Reading

Planned books:

Current books:

  • ChiRunning: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running

    ChiRunning: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running by Danny Dreyer, Katherine Dreyer

  • Advanced Marathoning – 2nd Edition

    Advanced Marathoning – 2nd Edition by Peter Pfitzinger, Scott Douglas

  • SQL Server MVP Deep Dives

    SQL Server MVP Deep Dives by Nielsen Paul, Delaney Kalen, Machanic Adam, Tripp Kimberly, Randal Paul, Low Greg

  • A World Without Heroes (Beyonders)

    A World Without Heroes (Beyonders) by Brandon Mull

Recent books:

View full Library

SQLHelp

SQLHelp


Recent Posts
  • System Base Tables by Jason Brimhall

    On January 19th, I published a post about the Dedicated Administrator Connection.  I spoke very briefly of the system base tables in that article.  Today, I want to dive into these tables a little bit more. First, let’s get the Microsoft definition for these tables.  ”System base tables are the [...]

  • Slammer, Alive...Barely by Jason Brimhall

    Slammer By now you must have heard of the SQL Slammer worm.  It was quite an infectious little nuisance.  The harm it caused came largely due to unpatched, unprotected SQL Servers. We are now 9 years out from the initial discovery of this worm.  The worm has made its way [...]

  • S3OLV February 2012 by Jason Brimhall

    Do you recognize this person?   If you are from the Colorado Springs area, you probably do.  This is:       Troy Ketsdever (twitter) Troy will be presenting to the Las Vegas SQL User Group on February 9, 2012 @ 6:30 Pacific.  Here is his bio: Troy Ketsdever is [...]

  • S3OLV - Jan 2012 Meeting Recap by Jason Brimhall

    Last week (Jan 12, 2012), we held the user group meeting for the SQL Server Society of Las Vegas (a.k.a S3OLV or SSSOLV). Presenting at that meeting was Josh Lewis (Twitter).  Josh presented on a pretty tough topic in my opinion.  He chose to present to us the topic of [...]

  • Dedicated Administrator Connection by Jason Brimhall

    Recently you may have read my article about some hidden functions in SQL Server.  In that article you learned that those functions were in some DMOs and that you could get at them through the resource database. Today I found myself learning more about the resource database.  Due to what [...]

  • Blackout by Jason Brimhall

    What more can I say.  I disagree with the kind of legislation that is being presented via SOPA and PIPA. In support of the community, my site will be dark 18 Jan 2012 between 10:30 and 21:30 GMT-8. Normal services will return after that.   You can see support of [...]

  • A Trio of Functions by Jason Brimhall

    I found myself perusing an execution plan the other day.  I know, big surprise there.  This execution plan showed me some interesting things I had never really paid much attention to in the past.  When I started paying attention to these things, I found myself jumping down a rabbit hole. [...]

  • Meme15 Twitter by Jason Brimhall

    Twitter and Your Career With the new blog party on the block, we have Jason Strate (blog | twitter) asking us this month these two questions: Why should average Jane or Joe professional consider using twitter? What benefit have you seen in your career because of twitter? But first, a [...]

  • Missing Indexes by Jason Brimhall

    SQL Server has means built into it to track possible missing indexes.  This used to be found through the use of the Index Tuning Wizard.  The process has improved over time (you can sort of see that from my April Fools post). As luck would have it, I was recently [...]

  • TSQL Tuesday #26 or #23 - I… by Jason Brimhall

    The first opportunity of this New Year to participate in TSQLTuesday, we have been invited by David Howard (blog) to take a second shot at a previous TSQLTuesday. This second shot is giving me fits.  I have no clue if it is TSQLTuesday 26 or if it is TSQLTuesday 23. [...]

Categories
Recent Comments
  • Jason Brimhall about Slammer, Alive...Barely
    As a follow-up to this, I have monitored my logs throughout the day and continue to see various different hosts ...
  • Jason Brimhall about Missing Indexes
    Yes - that would definitely be an issue. Thanks for getting back on it.
  • david about Missing Indexes
    I found that the problem was related to the database being in compatibility mode 80. It works fine for compatibility ...
  • Jason Brimhall about Missing Indexes
    I created the script on 2008 R2. Are you using the script as is, or did you modify? ...
  • David about Missing Indexes
    does this only apply to SQL 2005? I get an error on SQL 2008 R2: Msg 102, Level 15, State ...
  • Jason Brimhall about Missing Indexes
    Yes. The higher the value, the more likely the index would be of benefit to you.
  • Neil about Missing Indexes
    A quick question about the Impact column. I just want to check that the higher the number, the better ...
  • Steve Jones about Daemon
    Excellent books. The first is better than the second, but the second has some good philisophical/thinking areas. If you haven't read ...
  • Dugi about Filtering in SSMS
    Hi Jason, this is very nice possibility in SSMS! Most of the DB Developers didn't know about it, I'm talking for ...
  • Jason Brimhall about Database Data and Log Size Info
    D'oh. I didn't even think of the funky naming conventions out there. I will fix that.
Welcome , today is Saturday, February 4, 2012