The technology books I’ve written go through a couple of edits, first by someone knowledgeable in the subject area and then by a copy editor. The copy editor will fix misspellings, awkward sentence structure, and grammar. The occasional modification alters the meaning of a sentence, but overall, I’m happy with the updates. I’ve worked on … Read more
Steve Jones (@way0utwest), Grant Fritchey (@GFritchey), and I are often asked to predict trends in technology, especially at the end of the year. This year we were asked about the kinds of challenges and trends, especially for monitoring and DevOps, that will be seen for database professionals in the near future. Just like the answer … Read more
December is often a time of reflection, and this year has been more unusual than most. It’s been another year of Zoom calls, still, there have also been signs of recovery and getting back to normal with increased travel, family reunions, the reopening of pubs and restaurants, and some in-person events. This year will also … Read more
I first touched a SQL Server instance back in 1998 during a SQL Server 6.5 course. I hadn’t planned to take the class except that the small company I worked for had a remaining credit with one of the local training organizations. My manager thought it might be a good fit for me, but I … Read more
Microsoft announced at the Ignite conference that SQL Server 2022 is on the way, and several significant new features should convince many organizations to upgrade soon after it’s available. It’s been three long years since SQL Server 2019 arrived, so these announcements are exciting to hear. Microsoft will announce details and additional features over the … Read more
Last week, Steve Jones (@way0utwest), Grant Fritchey (@GFritchey), and I spent a few days at the Redgate Headquarters in Cambridge. Meeting at the office would not be unusual except for the times that we live in right now, as we typically get there about once a quarter. This is the first time that we’ve all … Read more
Each year Redgate runs a survey to determine the state of database monitoring. This year, instead of one large report, we are publishing four insight reports, each on a different topic. The first came out this month: The real-world challenges of growing server estates. The respondents reported several trends: DBAs are managing more instances than … Read more
I recently became a certified Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO). As of today, there are less than 110,400 of us in the world. When a colleague asked me what I had learned, I prattled off the usual salient features of what it means to be a PSPO. The same evening, however, the question returned to … Read more
The 2002 movie Minority Report is about a police unit called PreCrime, which can predict when people will commit a crime so they can be arrested before it happens. Things go awry when a team member played by Tom Cruise is himself “pre-accused.” To make predictions, they use technology and the special abilities of the … Read more
I am trying so hard not to roll my eyes right now. I re-read the sentence. “Cherish criticism instead of getting offended by it!” says the feedback in bright, breezy tones with a liberal dollop of self-righteousness. Try as I might, I cannot keep the patronising tone out of my head. I give up, and … Read more
No one is good at something right when they start. When starting something new, it’s normal to feel terrified or have “imposter syndrome.” You’ll constantly be rubbing shoulders with people that are more experienced, more talented, or seemingly more confident. It takes a long, long time to get good at something. Of course, there are … Read more
It was always important to me to keep up with the latest versions of SQL Server, but especially so when I was a database administrator or consultant. I wasn’t always able to work with the new versions right away in production, but at least I had an idea about features, capabilities, and benefits. Fifteen years … Read more
I recently presented a session about DevOps for DBAs, explaining what it is and why DBAs should care. One of the comments I received was “I thought I knew what DevOps was. Thanks to your session, now I know better.” Here’s one definition of DevOps: The union of people, process, and products to enable continuous … Read more
Many of you know that Redgate purchased some of the assets of PASS, namely session recordings, domain names, and trademarks. Shortly after that purchase, we began talking about what it would take to put on an event to revive PASS Summit. The first step was to survey to find out what people liked and wanted … Read more
Everyone needs deadlines. Even the beavers. They loaf around all summer, but when they are faced with the winter deadline, they work like fury. If we didn’t have deadlines, we’d stagnate. ― Walt Disney I hate deadlines. Really. I truly hate them. The problem is: they are usually unrealistic, often not much more than a wild … Read more
I began attending PASS Summit in 2003. I had no idea that it would change the course of my career and, well, life. Becoming part of the community I found through PASS inspired me to take my career to the next level by presenting and writing. It also led to some wonderful friendships and lots … Read more
Someone recently asked me which queries are ad hoc in SQL Server. An ad hoc query is a single query not included in a stored procedure and not parameterized or prepared. Depending on the server settings, SQL Server can parameterize some statements initially written as ad hoc queries. Ad hoc doesn’t mean dynamic. Here’s a … Read more
Redgate released the 2021 State of Database DevOps Report in February, and I wrote a short article talking about the key insights from the report. More recently, I decided to take a deeper look at the data, especially how folks from different roles answered the survey questions. To simplify my analysis, I grouped respondents into … Read more
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