Sql Data Partners Podcast

User: What was that record before it was updated? Me: I don't know.  Maybe I could restore a backup? User: Really? You have to do all that? It is just one record. Me: (under my breath) Yes, a record YOU updated. If you have ever had a conversation like this you know how difficult it can be to implement auditing of records as they change.  With temporal tables, a new feature, we have the ability to track point in time information about a record without the huge expense of setting up auditing and tracking.  While you won't want to use this on every table, when there are tables with sensitive data you want to audit from time to time, this feature will come in handy.  We are happy to have Randolph back on the program with us to talk about this new feature. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/07/25/episode-106-temporal-tables/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

How can you tell when a change is enough of a change?  How do you know you didn’t make too big of a change?  Steve and I discuss some thoughts around what you might look for when you make certain changes.  Some of the components we cover include Max degree of parallelism, cxpackets, virtual log files, the number of log files for a database, backup retention and memory. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/07/18/enough/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

Do you have any experience with [Insert random technology]?  Your heart starts to race and your palms get a little sweaty.  You don’t want to say no–we’re tech folks–we know stuff, but there are so many new things to learn!  How are you supposed to keep up with it all? In this episode, we chat with Eugene Meidinger about his thoughts on keeping up and his ideas on the most important learning components. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/07/07/keeping-up-with-technology/ and we hope to see you on the SQL trail.

When we write our queries to the database, SQL Server has to go and figure out the best way to go and bring back the data you asked for. A query plan is created to help SQL Server remember how to get the data for this query. It takes time to make these queries, so the database wants to limit the number of times it has to create the plans so it will try to reuse the plan as much as possible. Our topic for today's episode is query plan reuse and the pros and cons with this concept. We will also touch on the concept of parameter sniffing--a technique SQL Server uses to try and figure out the best values to use for the execution plan with the hopes the plan will help the most queries. Special thanks to James Youkhanis for the suggestion. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/07/04/episode-103-plan-reuse/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

One of the newer features in SQL Server is availability groups, which can help solve a number of business problems.  As administrators, availability groups introduce some complexity as we are tasked to make sure the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) can be meet for these servers.  The complexity comes because we have different instances that must work together, but they don't always see eye to eye.  In this episode, we chat with Tracy Boggiano of channeladvisor about how they go about monitoring their availability groups and the pros and cons of the out of the box tools.  Our discussion touches on process of  the availability group process and Tracy has posted her scripts on her bog for you use as you look at reviewing your environments.  I think you will enjoy this discussion. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/06/29/episode-102-monitoring-availability-groups/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

Listener Cody Ford wrote in and asked if we could share some thoughts on getting familiar with an unfamiliar database.  While we have done episodes in the past on best practices, this episode takes the approach of what we should look for on a server that is new to us--the components we should document and then review for potential updates. Do you agree with our list?  Let us know on by leaving a comment on the show notes page. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/06/07/inspect-new-database/ ‎and have fun on the SQL trail.

Something a bit strange happened in episode 100--almost like something out of the twilight zone, but don't take our word for it.  Check out our latest episode as tell some of the stories that led up today. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/06/14/episode-100-listener-qa-c144/ ‎and have fun on the SQL trail

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome) is a term coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Dr. Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes referring to high-achieving individuals marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud".  In this episode of the SQL Data Partners podcast, we take on a topic that is not technical; however, might play a very important role in some of the opportunities we take--or miss out on.  Today's guest is Mindy Curnutt, a 3x MVP and a real chance taker as she recently decided to become independently employed. In this episode we talk through the idea of imposter syndrome and give some examples of how it affects us, but we also try and tackle ways we can identify it and steps to help us overcome.  I think you are going to find this episode very interesting and we hope you enjoy it. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/06/07/episode-99-imposter-syndrome/ an

In a recent SQLSaturday conference, I walked into the speakers room and asked the question--What is the first thing you change after you install SQL Server?  It was interesting to get their take on the server setup and I think you will enjoy the conversation.  There are various answers on this one but some of the speakers have mentioned stuffs like set auto grow files, SQL Prompt, SQL parameter class and max memory among others.  I would like to thank Kevin Feasel, Jonathan Stewart, Eugene Meidinger, Raymond Kim, Tracy Boggiano, Mindy Curnutt, Thomas Grohser, and Vladimir Oselsky for their suggestions.   The shownotes can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/06/01/episode-98-the-first-change/

If you have ever been responsible for a replication environment, you know what a pain that can be.  Many of the guests of the show will point out their frustration with replication and many are loathe to use it--myself included; however, there are a few brave souls out in the world who do use replication regularly--and even use it well.  Chuck Lathrope is our guest today and he talks us through some of the components of replication and why we might not need to be so skittish about this long time feature. We cover all the basics including an overview of Transactional Replication, Merge Replication, Peer-to-Peer replication and Snapshot Replication, the concept of publisher, distributor and subscriber in relation to replication.  The most important piece is Chuck gives us some good business cases for why we might use replication and I think you will find the discussion interesting.  Thanks for joining us on the SQL trail! The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/05/24/episod

Have you ever created something and wanted to share it with others with the hope they will contribute and make it better? Sites like the new defunct codeplex and GitHub are full of functionality people want to share and work with others on; however, many projects remain dormant.  What are the characteristics that create an environment where people want to contribute to your project?  Steve and I discuss a few ideas and we interview two very successful community project leaders in Brent Ozar and Chrissy LeMarie about how they got started and what it takes to put together a good community project. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/05/10/community-tools/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

Big data is term we have been hearing frequently as of late and this might cause some concern for us in the SQL Server space.  Micrsoft has introduced some new functionality to help connect different data stores with PolyBase.  We are happy to have Kevin Feasel from ChannelAdvisor back with us and  Kevin will discuss some of the basics around what PolyBase does. We’ll be discussing a lot about integrations using PolyBase specifically on Hadoop and Azure SQL Blob Storage. We also touch on some of the technologies that will be supported in the future. For those looking at implementing both structured and unstructured data stores, PolyBase will be a way to help bring these environments together. Kevin gives us a great overview and we think you will enjoy this episode. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/05/03/episode-95-polybase/ and have fun on the SQL trail. 

There are lots of reporting options and I watch SQL Server move up the Gartner magic quantrant, I saw another reporting tool moving up as well--Qlik.  In this episode we will start by sharing information about Qlik, what it is and some background in the event it gets adopted at your company. Today we are delighted to have Michael Armentrout as our guest. Michael is a Microsoft SQL Server DBA as well as the developer of QlikView and we discuss the fundamentals of QlikView such as the associative model, in-memory, compression and sharing among others. Also we will hear from Michael the difference between QlikView and QlikSense, and some of the “competitors”. Michael share some of his thoughts on using the technology and how it is different from the traditional Microsoft stack.  We think you will find it interesting. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/04/27/qlik/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

We all make them and sometimes it can be painful.  Making and sharing mistakes is one of the most powerful tools for learning; However, most of us do all they can to avoid and hide those mistakes.  In this episode, Steve and I talk about making mistakes and share some thoughts around how we might improve how to respond when we don't do something quite right. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/04/25/episode-93-making-mistakes/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

At one time there were two different products named SSDT and that was confusing for lots of folks. and we’re pleased to have Kevin Cunnane, the program manager for SSDT, as our guest.  We wanted to ask him about some of the new database features in Visual Studio and what kind of problems they are looking to solve. We think it is awesome the Microsoft folks will take some time our there their schedules to talk with us and we think you will this episode an interesting discussion on the future of database tooling. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/04/18/episode-92-ssdt/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

We all want an easy button.  It is human nature.  We heard quite a bit about how easy PowerShell will make everything, but for those of us who aren't programmers, it can be a bit intimidating to get started.  Luckily for us, we have what is shaping up to be the closest thing to an easy button for DBAs I have found for PowerShell tools from the folks at dbatools.io.  We invite some of the team to chat with us about their tool, how they got started and the types of problems they are looking to solve. In this episode, Chrissy will be talking about how DBA Tools started from just being a simple migration tool until it became a useful tool solving various SQL related issues.  The team will discuss the other various situations where DBA Tools can really be helpful and how they manage contributions from over 30 people which leads us to talk about GitHub, the open source community, and their experiences in updating versions of DBA Tools and how they encourage contributors in the project. Chrissy, Rob, Constantine, an

DBCC CheckDB.  It is a simple command, but one that can cause database contention, dba stress, confusing results, dba elation, and everything in between.  At one time we will all have to face the results of having a corruption issue and we’re delighted to have Sean McCown with us again to discuss the ins and outs of the issues of this command. If you can remember, Sean was our guest in Episode 41. He is an SQL Server MVP with more than 15 years experience. We talk with Sean about how frequent issues we have with maintenance like we often we should run CheckDB on our databases or what happens when I can only check one database during my window. While we don't end up discussing the command as much, we definitely review all aspects of making sure it can run in ALL environments. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/04/05/dbcc-checkdb/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

One of the neat benefits of putting the podcast together is talking to a wide spectrum of folks with varied backgrounds.  As we get more feedback from listeners, the idea of the Lone DBA emerged.  The Lone DBA is someone who is the only person responsible for database administration at their company.  These tasks may have been assigned or they may have simply been required to help support an application.  Steve and I thought we should explore this a bit and to help give us some context, we invited Monica Rathbun to chat with us about some of the challenges she’s faced. Besides the challenges, Monica shares tactics and techniques to juggle many tasks while being a lone DBA. This includes using social media as a way of building connections with different experts, getting the right tools for the organization’s needs and making your boss your supporter. Have your own perspective on this?  Let us know in the show notes for the episode. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/0

Why can't we just get along? There can be a real love/hate relationship between those of us with data responsibilities and those who are responsible for SharePoint environments.  We want to provide good service to those environments, but there are SO MANY things we can't do on a SharePoint database.  To see how the other half lives, we invited Todd Klindt onto the program to give us his thoughts on how we can all get along a bit better. Because Todd suggests the “SQL and SharePoint communities should understand each other a little better”, we will try to tackle some of the obstacles the teams face so you can be better armed to support your SharePoint team. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/02/08/episode-88-sharepoint/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

Why do some features get all the fun?  I would like to be a fly on the wall at some of the Microsoft feature development meetings. There are many very cool features that didn't get quite enough love to get the adoption they deserve.  In this episode we are talking about Resource Governor and before you roll your eyes, you may be interested to know some of the side benefits of using the feature.  We are joined by Mark Wilkinson from channeladvisor to give us an overview of the feature and how they use it to manage SQL resources and workloads. One interesting story is how their team won the query challenge last PASS summit using Resource Governor so it is pretty powerful. Mark will also share his experiences using Resource Governor in different working environments. He will also be discussing the basics and tips about building the classifier function of Resource Governor. Furthermore, we will go through setting up I/O caps, resource pools and workloads, and the NUMA node affinity. The shownotes for today’s epis