Episode 258: Leave 2022 Enter 2023

As database administrators, we will all upgrade our environments at some point; however, we don't normally have the opportunity to upgrade to the next version of SQL Server before it becomes available to everyone else.  In this weeks episode of the podcast, Steve and I chat with Brian Carrig about the journey channeladvisor took to implement SQL Server 2016 in their environment, that it was like working with the SQLCAT team, and how they go about making use of some of the new features.  Brian shares with us some of the struggles they were having along with how the 2016 version helped address these issues. Brian invites everyone to upvote his connect item which you can find on the shownotes The show notes are available at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/01/11/conversionto2016/ and have fun on the SQL trail!

11 Jan 201736min

We invited Paul Turley on the show to chat with us about some of the new features in SQL Server reporting services, but were pleasantly surprised to have the conversation take a different direction.  Paul talks about some of the new training available for those interested in visualizations and why this community can be hard to define--and connect with.  There are so many visualization options and even within Microsoft we have many products that overlap in functionality.  In addition to talking about the pick list items of new features, Paul gives some guidance and why you should choose certain products and what makes good use case scenarios for some of the new features. With the new analytics features now available in SQL Server 2016 via SP1, I think there is going to be additional requirements for data professionals to provide better analytics features and this episode is a good starter for how to frame those conversations.  Show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/01/03/reporting-improvements/ and have fun on the SQL trail!

4 Jan 201745min

Availability groups provide some exciting features in mixing high availability and disaster recovery; however, from a performance consideration, there are a few drawbacks.  With the advances in SQL Server 2016, our guest Jimmy May from SanDisk, set out to test the features and see if they could get some really high performance out of an availability group with two synchronous replicas. In this episode he talks with us about some of his findings and some of the pains associated with getting there.  Show notes are available at http://sqldatapartners.com/2016/12/31/availability-group-improvements/ and have fun on the SQL trail!

31 Dec 201652min

Storage testing and validation is something what we to add under roles and responsibilities as DBAs. Every database we ever manage is going to need one, but how often do we kick the tires? Many times we’re basically told to go verify that array or we’re doing this POC, we’re testing this new storage, but are we really only testing connectivity?  In this episode of the podcast, we chat with Argenis Fernandez about how he goes about testing a SAN array and the important metrics you should consider for your storage.  If you are still using SQLIO or even Diskspeed to test the IO for your SQL Server, don't miss today's episode. The shownotes for today's episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2016/12/21/episode-75-testing-storage-devices/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

21 Dec 201649min

As the year 2016 comes to a close, Steve and I share our thoughts on our accomplishments for the year and what lies in store for 2017.

14 Dec 201629min

At some point all data administrators will have to tune their environments and there are may ways you might go about that.  In this episode, we talk with Pinal Dave about how he does performance tuning and the thought process behind the approach.

8 Dec 201647min

In the data space we're hearing a lot about dev ops, continuous integration and the programmers are getting a lot of love there with lots of tools to help them; however, if you're on the data side--not so much.  If you're running Agile in your environment and then you're trying to do data warehousing or other data development we're not quite getting the same love. Sure, there are a couple of unit testing software offerings out there, but it's a little bit cumbersome.  This episode our conversation focuses on testing automation in a business intelligence or data warehouse environment--even in an Agile system.  Our guest is Lynn Winterboer and she has some interesting thoughts at the intersection of business users, data professionals and tools.      Show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2016/12/03/episode-72-testing-automation-for-business-intelligence/

30 Nov 201645min

It is easy to feel like the odd man (or gal) out in the SQL Community.  We are constantly hearing about new features, products, and architectures and our companies may not always have the same enthusiasm when we describe what could be. This is probably even more true in the Analytics space as much of the marketing has been pointed in that direction.  Even PASS tried to create a conference just for Analytics.  While there are some amazing new technologies out there--we might--GASP--not need them in every scenario.  Our guest today is Kevin Wilkie, a BI architect with Innovative Architects and he talks to us about some of the tools he uses and spoiler--they aren't all that fancy.  He also talks with us about how he manages the tech and business users so each feels comfortable and each can get their work done.  The show notes for today's episode are at http://sqldatapartners.com/2016/11/23/BI-Tools/ and we'll see you on the SQL trail!

23 Nov 201638min