Dec 14th 2011 – SWFSSUGS – South West Florida SQL User Group

Dec 28th 2011 – MADPASS – The Madison SQL Server Users Group

2012

Mar 22nd – Curacao SQL Server User Group

Mar 28th – Evansville SQL Server User Group

Mar 29th – EDMPASS / EDMUG User Groups

May 26th – OKPASS Okanagan PASS

After a 1 year hiatus I’ll be back at the PASS Summit this year.

Last year I was in Punta Cana during the Summit for my sister in law’s wedding.  This year I thought I had to miss the Summit AGAIN for another wedding in Punta Cana but PASS was gracious enough to move the Summit to October to accommodate me

I’m looking forward to seeing so many friendly faces that I missed out on seeing last year and catching up with what everyone has been up to.  There look to be some AMAZING sessions this year and I look forward to getting my “geek” on.

If you’re looking for me, chances are I’ll be in an Edmonton Oilers jersey of somekind so if you want to talk SQL (or hockey) come on by and say hi!

If you’d like to chat with me about this or anything else (SQL or other) please leave a comment or hit me up on my Twitter: @ColinStasiuk

Here is the session abstract: Unraveling Tangled Code – A Spellbinding Tale of Victory Over Chaos

Once upon a time, you inherited an application or a database that was filled with chaos and inconsistencies. The T-SQL code is overly complex and impossible to ken. The architecture is painful to behold, and grueling to code for. One might optimistically say that query performance is “spectacularly mediocre”. If you’re without good documentation or system architects to guide you, how do you break the curse of confusion? In this session you’ll learn several methods for conquering chaotic code, and how to seek and destroy some of the nastier coding mistakes and inefficiencies. We will break complicated queries into key pieces, turn them upside-down, and reform them into something sensible. We will vanquish major issues like data abuse and index negligence. We will restructure joins, tame subqueries, and refactor dynamic SQL. We will emerge victorious!

If you were unable to attend the Live Meeting session here is a recording of the presentation.

Big thanks to Jen for doing this for us and if you are a SQL Server presenter and have interest in doing a Live Meeting session for EDMPASS please feel free to contact me.

If you’d like to chat with me about this or anything else (SQL or other) please leave a comment or hit me up on my Twitter: @ColinStasiuk

Let’s say you’re creating a stored procedure that needs to create a #temp table that has a PRIMARY KEY.  You will want to be careful about how you create this #temp table and here is why:

Open SQL Server Management Studio and run the following command:

SELECT	GETDATE() AS 'TheDate'
INTO	#TMP1
ALTER TABLE #TMP1 ADD CONSTRAINT PK_TMP1 PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (TheDate)
GO

Now if you open a new Management Studio query window and run the exact same code (simulating what a stored procedure would do) what do you get?

Because you created your PRIMARY KEY constraint after the fact (and had to give it a name) you lose the uniqueness of the PRIMARY KEY name.

SELECT	*
FROM	tempdb.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS
WHERE	TABLE_NAME like '%#TMP1%'

So how do you get around this?

CREATE TABLE #TMP1(TheDate DATETIME PRIMARY KEY)
GO
SELECT	*
FROM	tempdb.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS
WHERE	TABLE_NAME like '%#TMP1%'

and if you run this in 3 different query windows….

 Now I used Primary Keys as my example but this same “gotcha” applies to constraints in general.  If you were to add a check constraint that validated “TheDate” and gave that check constraint a name you would run into the same “cannot create constraint… duplicate object” error. 

Moral of the story: When dealing with temporary tables in reuseable code (like stored procedures) don’t name your constraints.

And now you know….

Enjoy!! (Follow me on Twitter: @ColinStasiuk)

I’m now happy to formally announce that I’m the new Senior DBA for Invidi.

This is an exciting opportunity for me to work with a fairly young company that has grown exponentially over the last decade to be a leader in targeted television advertising and promotion.  Invidi’s technology allows television service providers to simultaneously deliver multiple and distinct commercial streams to different households or set-top boxes during a single commercial break.

What that means is that 2 people watching the exact same program at the exact same time will have a different commercial stream that is suited to them.  Through the use of “Audience Classifiers” that take into account what they’re watching, gender, age, income, and geo-location and continual analysis of viewer behavior and click streams you will see a custom set of commercial that are focused to you and your interests. 

Pretty cool stuff

Thanks to everyone for their kind words in support of my announcement.  If you’ve reached out to me via this blog, email, facebook, or twitter I appreciate all the thoughts and comments.

Have a great day

Enjoy!! (Follow me on Twitter: @ColinStasiuk)

As of today there are still no Prometric sites in Canada that offer the exam so I’ll have to try and schedule around one of my bi-monthly trips to Redmond I guess.  I’ve been a 2008 MCITP-DBA and MCITP-DBDEV since the exams were first released so it’s been a while since I’ve had to “hit the books”.

My approach is to watch the MCM Readiness Videos and if I feel unsure about some of the subject matter of the video to then focus my efforts on that module and make sure I’m as comfortable with it as I am others.  Some topics jump out to me immediately for needing some intense reading (XML, CLR, SQL Azure, and Spatial).  These are all topics that I’d say I have an “OK” at best grasp on and to become an MCM “OK” just doesn’t cut it.

The studying, reading, etc I’ve been doing has been really fun so far…. no really it has been.  Too often I think people get into a “comfort zone” of what they know and don’t take the time to really work with and understand what they don’t know.  I definitely have been guilty in the past of not being in an “always learning” mode so this “carrot” that is being dangled in front of me (the MCM certification) is great motivation to take my skills to the next level.

There are some great blogs out there talking about the new MCM process and requirements:

 Changes to the Microsoft Certified Master of SQL Server Program – Brent Ozar

Big changes to the MCM program and how SQLskills can help you – Paul Randal

Microsoft Certified Master – SQL Server Online Training – Links and Study Aids – Paul Randal

… and of course my current playlist while working out at the gym:

The SQL Server 2008 MCM Readiness Videos – Paul Randal, Kimberly Tripp, Bob Beauchemin, and Brent Ozar

Good luck to everyone studying up!!

Enjoy!! (Follow me on Twitter: @ColinStasiuk and @Tier1OnSQL)

I just wanted to hop on quick and confirm an answer to a question I had after my session @ TechDays here in Edmonton.

Q: Can an express edition of SQL Server 2008 be used as a Central Management Server

A: Yes… wait a sec… I think so…. yes… Check my blog tomorrow and I’ll confirm 100%

I hate giving answers and then second guessing myself.  I’ve been lucky enough to always have a “Utility Instance” available to me to use as my Central Management Server that I never had to worry about it.

Yes Regis that IS my final answer… You CAN use a SQL Server 2008 Express Edition as your Central Management Server

So now the question is…. if you’re NOT using a Central Management Server and you CAN use a SQL Server 2008 Express (FREE) Edition… why aren’t you? 

Moving on…

I had the honor of being asked to do a session for Microsoft TechDays here in Edmonton.  This was a fantastic experience for me as it was the first time I presented a session to over 100 people and was mic’ed up.  I know doing a session with or without a microphone shouldn’t make a difference but it was just something else to add to the equation (not to mention working from 2 laptops (demo box and PPT box) and having to use one of those clicker thingy to go from slide to slide I’m sure that’s the technical name for it)

I had a great time and saw many EDMPASS members there as well and even saw the former SQL PASS Community Queen Blythe Morrow (she was volunteering and showing off the Microsoft Kinect games… very cool BTW)

This was the first year Microsoft TechDays came to Edmonton and from the looks of things I can’t see why they wouldn’t want to come back every year as the attendance level rocked and I’ve heard nothing but positive feedback so far.

Microsoft TechDays 2010

Enjoy!!

Fellow SQL blogger (and Canadian) Aaron Bertrand broke the news on his blog here

Link to the Service Pack

Link to the bugs that are fixed in SQL Server 2008 SP2

Note (from Aaron re: SP2) : “The Service Pack only includes the fixes that were in SP1 CU 1 through 8.  So if you have already applied CU9 or CU10, I would hold off on deploying the service pack for now, especially if you are relying on any of the fixes in either of those CUs – because there is a chance that you will lose them.”

Now before you get all Service Pack crazy… make sure to slow down, review the changes, and apply the service pack using the same change process you do for any application release.  If you don’t have a change process defined this sounds like a great time to read:

http://benchmarkitconsulting.com/colin-stasiuk/2009/11/11/i-love-fights-that-i-cant-lose-separated-environments-and-security/

Thanks for posting the news Aaron… apparently I need to update where I look for this type of info cause my usual places still don’t have anything posted about it

Enjoy!!

I’m very pleased to announce that I’ll be speaking at Tech-Days 2010 in Edmonton this year on SQL Server Administration Tips and Tricks.  Session description below…..

“As the DBA of your organization (accidental or not) it is critical that you know exactly what is going on in your SQL Server environment.  In today’s world you are being asked to manage more databases with less resources so it is important that you do your work as efficiently as possible and automate as much as you can.  We’re going to be looking at some common DBA tasks and demonstrating alternatives for not only executing those tasks but monitoring and alerting on them as well.  In this demo heavy presentation my goal is to help you understand what you need to know, show you where you need to go to get it, and provide scripts and examples on how to do it better.  If you think just because you still use SQL Server 2000 that these tips and tricks wont be for you, think again.  Although the focus of this presentation will be on tools native to SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 we will be demonstrating how to take those tools and utilize them for use with both SQL Server 2000 and 2005 as well.”

So if you’re planning on attending Tech-Days I look forward to seeing you there and getting a chance to “geek out” with you.

Enjoy!!

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/503789849

Please be sure to not only click the “Add to my calendar” but also the “Register” button so that we can plan accordingly for food and drinks. 

Date:  Jan 27th 2010
Time: 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Location: Stanley A. Milner library
Map: 7 Sir Winston Churchill Square
Meeting Room: Centennial Room – Basement Level
Speaker: Buck Woody
Topic: Improvements in SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008R2

Session Abstract:

“Come hear Buck Woody, Microsoft’s “Real World DBA”, explain the improvements in SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008R2 over SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. He’ll show you what the new features are for developers and DBA’s and a quick overview of the new Business Intelligence features. He’ll show some practical examples of the new Transact-SQL statements, management features, and data types so that you can figure out where it fits in your organization.”
Presenter Information:  Buck Woody (http://blogs.msdn.com/buckwoody/)

Buck Woody has been working with Information Technology since 1981. He has worked for the U.S. Air Force, at an IBM reseller as technical support, and for NASA as well as U.S. Space Command as an IT contractor. He has worked in most all IT positions from computer repair technician to system and database administrator, and from network technician to IT Manager and with multiple platforms as a Data Professional. He has been a DBA and Database Developer on Oracle systems running on a VAX to SQL Server and DB2 installations. Buck has a business degree and several industry certifications, including MCSE, MCDBA and Brainbench DBA. He is the author of over 400 SQL Server articles and five published SQL Server books; he is the site personality on InformIT.com’s SQL web, and was the President of the Tampa SQL User’s Group for 5 years. He was awarded the Microsoft MVP Award in 2006 for SQL Server, and started work in the SQL Server Team at Microsoft a year later. He has over twenty years extensive professional and practical experience in computer networks and database design. He also teaches a Database Design course at the University of Washington. 

Agenda:
5:00 pm – Pizza and Socializing
5:30 pm – Sponsor Presentation
5:45 pm – Feature Presentation
7:00 pm – Wrap Up and Draws

If you haven’t signed up already at EDMPASS.com please do so now to receive meeting notifications, news, and updates from EDMPASS.

Hope to see you there.

Enjoy!!