SQL Data Partners Podcast

Think of one big investment that will be made this year.  How will it affect you?  Perhaps there is a large server migration project or move to Azure on the books this year.  Maybe you have been given the ok to try some new feature or have been promoted and have different responsibilities.  You will make many decisions and purchase different things, but the biggest investment you should be involved in is the investment in yourself. I am joined by Bruce Van Horn, host of the Life is a marathon podcast and the person that introduced me to the E to E ratio.  The Entertainment to Education ratio is a gauge for how much of your time is spent entertaining yourself versus how much you education yourself.  We discuss how this affects your future opportunities but also how it affects your happiness. How do you keep yourself educated?  I would love to hear about it.  You can leave your comments and see the show notes for today's episode at http://sqldatapartners.com/2016/02/09/e2eratio/.

10 Feb 201629min

We each have our way of going about things–this is what makes us unique.  When it comes to getting data out of the database, many times we might think that SQL Server would go about getting data the same way we would.  If you think about scanning a Microsoft Excel document, how would you find the record you are looking for?  How does that differ from SQL Server? My guest for this episode is Brent Ozar and we chat about internals and how SQL Server processes your request and what you need to consider as SQL Server returns your result. Our show notes for today's episode are available at http://sqldatapartners.com/2016/02/03/sqlserverthinks/

3 Feb 201630min

Have you ever had a situation where performance got worse and you were sure why?  Do you keep records of when changes happen to your system?  How do we know there's a problem?  Baselines can help us out.  More often than not, tribal knowledge rules the day and if you weren't part of the tribe when the on-call pager goes off, things can be tough to figure out. My guest this episode is Erin Stellato of SQLskills and we discuss what your baseline should consist of and how you might go about capturing some of that data.  I am always interested to see how people monitor their servers and I know this episode will give you a few things to think about in your baselines. Get the show notes for today's episode at http://sqldatapartners.com/2016/01/27/baselines and I'll see you on the SQL trail.

27 Jan 201632min

Have you ever wanted a feature to help you assess the impact of future SQL Server upgrades, the impact of hardware or operating system upgrades, and for SQL Server tuning?  Well that tool has been around since 2012, but I have found that not many people have used Distributed Replay.  The level of difficulty to get this feature set up lends to the small adoption rate, but I chat with Melody Zacharias about her experience with the tools and I think it is time to give this feature a spin. You can see the show notes from today's episode at http://sqldatapartners.com/2016/01/19/distributedreplay/.  You can also let me know if you are you using Distribute Replay  What do you think the best feature is?  What is the worst thing about it?  Leave your thoughts in the comments below the show notes.  I look forward to hearing from you.

20 Jan 201631min

DevOps for the database--you have probably heard the term if you work in an organization that is deploying code on a regular basis.  The developers have this down to a science, and now it is the database's turn.  The idea of deploying code and having a certainty it will run correctly instead of crossing your fingers and hoping you don't see the red error messages has a certain appeal.  There are lots of tools out there now to help with this, but it seems like we still drag our feet. I know I did.  When I chatted with Cindy Bean from DBMaestro, I didn't have much database change automation experience.  I had exposure to source control, but DevOps seemed more than that.  After speaking with Cindy I created my first database project in Visual Studio.  I definitely get the idea and hope to implement it fully in my environment.  This episode is an introduction to the idea of database change automation and how you might get started.  You can see the shownotes from today's episode at http://sqldatapartners.com/2016/01/12/devops/

13 Jan 201626min

SQL Server 2016 has several new features and this episode explores the stretch database feature.  One of the unique attributes of this feature is that it uses both the on premise instance and the Azure platform. I chat with Anthony van Gemert, one of the product managers for stretch, about how the features works and under what scenarios organizations might use stretch technology. Are you planning to use stretch database?  Let me know via twitter.  I am @CarlosLChacon.  You can check out the show notes at http://sqldatapartners.com/2016/01/06/episode-25/

6 Jan 201632min

One of the new features being added to SQL Server 2016 is the Query Store which will allow for greater access to the performance history of your databases.  This is going to be extremely helpful when you are approached about 'What happened this morning?'  With the Query Store feature, you will now be able to provide some insight into that question. I chat with Borko Novakovic, the program manager for Query Store feature, and he shares with you, Compañeros, details about the new feature and how those interested in performance monitoring will be able to use this for their benefit.  Even if you aren't going to run SQL Server 2016 as soon as it comes out, you will find this information interesting and I hope it helps you along the SQL trail.  Have fun out there. You can find the show notes for today's episode at http://sqldatapartners.com/2015/12/29/query-store/

30 Des 201535min

If I were a betting man, I would wager your disk IO system is probably the biggest bottleneck in your SQL Server right now.  Sure, there are lots of moving pieces, but if you can tame the IO situation, you are putting yourself in the drivers seat.  So how do you go about putting together the pieces you need identify your IO constraints? I chat with Theresa Iserman, a premier support engineer at Microsoft about some of her thoughts and why IO in general is an issue.  She gives us some guidelines and even some metrics to check out.  Join us in the conversation, and I'll see you on the SQL trail . . . As always you can check out the show notes at http://sqldatapartners.com/2015/12/22/iotuning/

23 Des 201528min