On September 30th 2014 Microsoft released service pack 4 for SQL Server 2008. This service pack contains all cumulative updates since SP3 was released as well as all updates from previous service packs. Today begins the day we should all begin testing in Dev with SP4. You can get information about this service pack and […]
What PASS is to me #sqlpass
I found out about the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) in 2008 when I attended my first PASS Community Summit “SQL Server Heroes UNITE”. For those who don’t know what the PASS Summit is, it is the largest SQL Server and BI convention in the world. A SQL Nerd Herd. While attending the PASS Community Summit […]
4 Things I Wish I Knew Sooner
I was recently called out by Tim Costello on a blog series started by Mike Walsh. http://www.interworks.com/blogs/tcostello/2014/08/27/4-things-i-wish-i-knew-sooner-bi-consultant The series calls for each blogger to list 4 things they wish they had known sooner in their career as a data geek. 1) Knowing how to query data != DBA. You will be insulted. There is a […]
An error occurred while executing batch. Error message is: Arithmetic Overflow
Recently an incident came across my desk where an end user was receiving an error trying to retrieve some records from the database. The error message the customer received was “An error occurred while executing batch. Error message is: Arithmetic Overflow”. Experience has taught me that this message is related to an invalid dataset within a […]
Microsoft SQL Server “Most Valuable Professional” MVP
Today I received an email notifying me that I have been awarded the Microsoft “MVP” award. An excerpt from Microsoft’s website states “The Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award is our way of saying thank you to exceptional, independent community leaders who share their passion, technical expertise, and real-world knowledge of Microsoft products with others.” […]
I am speaking at the PASS Summit 2014
I am super excited to announce that I have been selected to speak at the 2014 PASS Summit. This is considered the Super Bowl of SQL Server Conferences. It is the worlds largest gathering of SQL minded nerds. Consider it a SQL Server Nerd Herd. Kidding aside it is the best opportunity to learn as […]
SQL Server High Availability and Disaster Recovery Options
Working with Microsoft SQL Server for many years I have spent a lot of time discussing the importance of the availability of SQL Server databases. Questions that always come up when discussing availability of the data is “Recovery Time Objective – RTO” and “Recovery Point Objective – RPO”. Both questions are very important when determining […]
Know Backups and Know Restores – SQL Server Restores
A couple of years ago I put together a training session to demonstrate various types of backups and restores. The driving factor behind me building this session was the response I got from talking to a dozen or so DBA’s about disaster recovery. I asked how many have ever performed a restore where you had to […]