For the last few weeks we were in Australia, teaching classes with our sister company SQLskills.com.au. After we were done with work we headed out to Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) in the remote outback of the Northern Territories for a long weekend. We'll both be posting a bunch of photos from the trip, [...]
Paul S. Randal
In Recovery...
Video of didgeridoo player at Ayers Rock
Posted on: October 29, 2009 2:34 pm
Tracking expensive queries with extended events in SQL 2008
Posted on: October 15, 2009 4:13 pm
As part of the 2008 DBA class we're teaching down here in Melbourne, I did a demo of using predicates and file targets with extended events, so I want to blog the script for people to play with. For background info on extended events see: My TechNet Magazine article from 2008: Advanced Troubleshooting with Extended [...]
Photos from Warsaw trip in September
Posted on: October 15, 2009 1:27 pm
I've finally gotten around to tidying up and posting a bunch of photos from the second half of our trip to Europe trip in September. Warsaw's an excellent place (although we were repeatedly told that Krakow is better – we'll see when we go next time) with a lot of cool history to soak up. [...]
Things to consider when setting up database mirroring
Posted on: October 14, 2009 8:27 pm
Over the last week or so I've been helping the Product Support folks at Microsoft write a new KB article which discusses some of the things you should take into consideration when setting up database mirroring. It discusses memory, CPU, I/O bandwidth, network bandwidth, and transaction volume. One of the most interesting things it discusses [...]
Penguins, cockatoos, and other sights in Melbourne
Posted on: October 14, 2009 5:59 am
Fall really is crazy travel season for us – a week after returning from our trip to Ireland and Poland and now we're in Australia for a few weeks. This evening we went for a bird-watching walk around Albert Park with our good friend, partner, and fellow MVP Greg Linwood, who's our host while we're [...]
Which index will SQL Server use to count all rows
Posted on: October 8, 2009 3:20 pm
This is a question that came up yesterday on Twitter: will SQL Server always do a table scan to find the result of SELECT COUNT (*) FROM mytable? The answer is no. The query processor will use the index with the smallest number of pages – i.e. with the least I/O cost. Let me quickly [...]
Photos: Dublin 2009
Posted on: October 8, 2009 12:27 pm
On the last day of our week in Dublin we headed into the city centre to check out some of the sights. One of the things I always like to do in a city is find a cathedral as that's usually one of the oldest buildings and encompasses a lot of interesting history. Dublin has [...]
SQL Server MVP Deep Dives book available to order
Posted on: October 8, 2009 9:34 am
Over the last 18 months a group of SQL Server MVPs, led by Paul Nielsen and including Kimberly and I as editors, have been working on a book, responding to a challenge from Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer for MVPs to give something to the wider community than just our technical one. Now the book is available to purchase, [...]
New script: is that database REALLY in the FULL recovery mode?
Posted on: October 7, 2009 1:27 pm
One of the perennial problems facing both experienced and involuntary DBAs is how to tell whether a database is really in the FULL recovery model or not? This is complicated by the fact that when you switch a database into the FULL recovery mode, it actually behaves as if it's in the SIMPLE recovery mode [...]
What does checkpoint do for tempdb?
Posted on: October 7, 2009 11:49 am
Last week I posted in-depth about how checkpoints work and what exactly goes on (see How do checkpoints work and what gets logged). About a year ago I posted about why the buffer pool on a busy system may seem to have an inordinate amount of dirty tempdb pages in it, and now I want [...]
Australian classes start next week, and the Fall conferences
Posted on: October 7, 2009 11:33 am
We're part-way through the Fall conference season, and in the middle of teaching week 1 of the current Microsoft Certified Master – SQL class. At the weekend we head off to Australia to teach some public classes in Melbourne – last chance to sign up for them! Here's what we have coming up: October 15-16. [...]
Demo scripts from Ireland SQL Immersion Event uploaded
Posted on: October 7, 2009 10:08 am
Yes, I'm a week late (at least) uploading these, and I apologize. But better late than never! For those lucky 48 people who attended our week-long SQL class in Dublin at the end of September, I've uploaded all our demo scripts on our past conferences page. Let me know if you have any issues. Enjoy!
