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2012: the year in books

By: Paul Randal
Posted on: December 30, 2012 1:33 pm

Back in 2009 I started posting a summary at the end of the year of what I read during the year (see my posts from 2009, 2010, 2011) and people have been enjoying it, so I present the 2012 end-of-year post. I set a moderate goal of 60 books this year and I managed 59. Next year we have a lot of travel again and so I’m going to aim for 60 books.

For the record, I read ‘real’ books – i.e. not in electronic form – I don’t like reading off a screen. Yes, I’ve seen electronic readers – we both have iPads – and I’m not interested in ever reading electronically. I also don’t ‘speed read’ – I read quickly and make lots of time for reading.

I find myself quite unable to choose a favorite book of the year, so I give you my three favorite books of the year: a tie between Lincoln by Gore Vidal, Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen, and The Bruce Trilogy by Nigel Tranter. These are superlative works of historical fiction, which is now my favorite genre.

Now the details. I enjoy putting this together as it will also serve as a record for me many years from now. I hope you get inspired to try some of these books – push yourself with new authors and very often you’ll be surprisingly pleased.

Once again I leave you with a quote that describes a big part of my psychological make-up:

In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro!

Analysis of What I Read

I read 27655 pages, or 75.8 pages a day, and a book every 6 days or so.

2012pages 2012: the year in books
2012categories 2012: the year in books

The average book length was 469 pages, 63 pages longer than last year. Quite interestingly, Fiction + Historical Fiction accounted for exactly 61% as in 2011, albeit with the amount of each reversed. I read more Photographic books too, ‘coffee-table’ books about the Arctic, underwater creatures, and travel.

The Top-10 Top-17

Well I really struggled with this again this year as I read a lot of truly *superb* books in 2012. I didn’t want to leave any out of my short list and deny you the chance of having them suggested so I present you with my top-17! If you don’t read much, at least consider looking at some of these in 2013. It’s impossible to put them into a priority order so I’ve listed them in the order I read them, along with the short Facebook review I wrote at the time.

s beneathcold 2012: the year in books #2 Beneath Cold Seas; David Hall; 160pp; Photographic; January 1; (Incredible underwater photos from the Pacific NW – makes me want to jump in a dry suit and jump in right now. I had no idea the PNW had such cool critters to see apart from Giant Pacific Octopus and Wolf Eels. I’ll be diving Puget Sound for sure this year! Strongly recommended.)

s angelsgame 2012: the year in books #5 The Angel’s Game; Carlos Ruiz Zafon; 544pp; Fiction; January 7; (Excellent labyrinthine gothic murder-mystery set in 1920s Barcelona. Has some elements of The Shadow of the Wind by Zafon that I read last year and I think this novel is even better. Excellent story and a page turner. Going to Amazon to buy his other novels now. Strongly recommended!)

s shadowcountry 2012: the year in books #7 Shadow Country; Peter Matthiessen; 912pp; Fiction; January 24; (Fantastic trilogy about E.J. Watson – a farmer/killer/desperado in Florida at the start of 1900s. Told from three viewpoints, it recounts Watson’s life as a pioneer sugar-cane grower and all the trials and tribulations that went with it – from multiple families of children to murdering farm hands to avoif paying them. It also shows the terrible way that black people were treated 100 years ago. Altogether a thrilling and educational work of historical fiction – strongly recommended.)

s mockingbird 2012: the year in books #8 To Kill a Mockingbird; Harper Lee; 336pp; Fiction; January 25; (Excellent story of racisim in a small town in southern Alabama in 1935. Told from the point of view of the 8 year old daughter of a white lawyer defending a black supposed-rapist, it follows the lead-up to the trial, the trial, and aftermath. A classic that everyone should read.)

s lincoln 2012: the year in books #15 Lincoln; Gore Vidal; 672pp; Historical Fiction; March 3; (What an utterly fabulous novel! An extremely well-done fictionalization of Lincoln’s presidency and the Civil War – reinforcing Vidal’s place as my favorite historian. The dramatis personae is complete and there are numerous rich portrayals of the eminent statesmen and generals of the day. Incredibly interesting to read about the re-forging of the Nation, even in fictional form. I cannot recommend this book enough!)

s smoke 2012: the year in books #16 River of Smoke; Amitav Ghosh; 528pp; Historical Fiction; March 10; (Amitav Ghosh is one of my favorite writers and this book was really good. It deals with the events leading up to the Chinese crackdown on opium imports in the 1830s and the start of the Opium Wars that Great Britain eventually wins.  As always, the portrayals of characters and relationships are excellent and the events historically accurate. Strongly recommended!)

s snowcrash 2012: the year in books #26 Snow Crash; Neal Stephenson; 448pp; Science Fiction; May 30; (I hadn’t read since I moved to the US in early 1999 so thought it was high time to experience it again. Awesome book, with lots of cool action and near future cyber-tech. I particularly like the one-man portable, nuclear powered, flechette gattling gun. Contains some pretty interesting ideas, based on ancient Sumerian bio-hackers figuring out how to program humans through tongues that speak directly to the brain stem. Highly recommended!)

s christsaints 2012: the year in books #27 When Christ and His Saints Slept; Sharon Kay Penman; 768pp; Historical Fiction; June 3; (A long one – 768 pages – from a new author I’ve discovered – Sharan Kay Penman. She’s a master of pithy historical fiction and I devoured this book. It deals with the 19 year struggle between King Stephen and Empress Maude after the death of Henry I in 1135, ultimately ending with the coronation of Maude’s son as Henry II. Looking forward to the other two in the trilogy – wish I’d brought them with me on this trip!)

s bodysecrets 2012: the year in books #32 Body of Secrets; James Bamford; 670pp; History; June 22; (Now I’m a US citizen I’m suddenly fascinated with the history of the country, with piles of books on Presidents, wars, commerce, and secret agencies. This is an excellent history and analysis of the NSA. After its heyday in the 40s-80s, it’s been a troubled agency trying to keep up with the Internet and diverse and numerous threats instead of just one, the old USSR. Highly recommended!)

s bringup 2012: the year in books #42 Bring Up the Bodies; Hilary Mantel; 432pp; Historical Fiction; August 14; (Really excellent sequel to Mantel’s Wolf Hall. Covers the downfall of Anne Boleyn through the eyes and thoughts of Thomas Cromwell. Masterly done – I recommend this book to any fans of historical fiction, and especially the Tudor times.)

s bruce 2012: the year in books #43 The Bruce Trilogy; Nigel Tranter; 1047pp; Historical Fiction; September 3; (Fabulous (and huge – 1047 pages) age-turner following the life of Robert the Bruce, from his early 20s to his death in his 50s. Extremely well told, with a wealth of detail, I strongly recommend this book for all fans of history! A strong candidate for my top book this year.)

s imprimatur 2012: the year in books #44 Imprimatur; Monaldi & Sorti; 640pp; Historical Fiction; September 15; (Excellent historical fiction set in Rome in 1683, during a plague outbreak. Some travelers are sequestered in an inn and several of them discover the underground labyrinth under Rome’s vias and piazzas. There follows a complicated intrigue, richly described and full of great historical detail. Definitely recommended!)

s quincunx 2012: the year in books #46 The Quincunx; Charles Palliser; 800pp; Historical Fiction; October 6; (Fabulous novel, very Dickensian in style. Full of twists, turns, and intrigues. The central character suffers a roller-coaster of hope and set backs trying to recover his inheritance. Strongly recommended.)

s 1876 2012: the year in books #47 1876; Gore Vidal; 384pp; Historical Fiction; October 14; (The 6th Vidal (RIP) book I’ve read, and the 3rd in his Narratives of Empire series. This one deals with the horribly corrupt election victory of Hayes over Tilden in the Union’s centennial year. Very well written, bringing all the characters to life splendidly. Now looking forward to reading the biography of President Grant I’ve got on the shelf. Strongly recommended!)

s empire 2012: the year in books #48 Empire; Gore Vidal; 496pp; Historical Fiction; November 8; (As with all Vidal’s novels, this one was excellent. It covers the period at the end of the 19th century, with the rise of Theodore Roosevelt and William Randolph Hearst, and the political machinations involved, following the lives of Caroline and Blaise Sanford and John Hay, Lincoln’s private secretary. Highly recommended, but read the series in order.)

s terror 2012: the year in books #55 The Terror; Dan Simmons; 955pp; Historical Fiction; December 20; (HMS Terror and HMS Erebus get icebound in the Arctic in the 1840s on Franklin’s ill-fated search for the Northwest Passage. The book follows the harrowing fate of the crews trying to survive through incredible hardships. Excellent – strongly recommended.)

s polar 2012: the year in books #57 Polar Obsession; Paul Nicklen; 240pp; Photographic; December 25; (Fabulous book of wildlife photography from the Arctic, Svalbard, South Georgia, and Antarctica. I recognized several of the Svalbard locations from our trip this summer. Really cool to see shots of narwhals above and below water, and of course the famous leopard seal encounter too! Strongly recommended!)

The Complete List

And the complete list, with links to Amazon so you can explore further.

  1. Tibet: Culture on the Edge; Phil Borges; 208pp; Photographic; January 1
  2. Beneath Cold Seas; David Hall; 160pp; Photographic; January 1
  3. Sea; Mark Laita; 200pp; Photographic; January 2
  4. Foucault’s Pendulum; Umberto Eco; 656pp; Fiction; January 6
  5. The Angel’s Game; Carlos Ruiz Zafon; 544pp; Fiction; January 7
  6. The Crusades; Thomas Asbridge; 784pp; History; January 9
  7. Shadow Country; Peter Matthiessen; 912pp; Fiction; January 24
  8. To Kill a Mockingbird; Harper Lee; 336pp; Fiction; January 25
  9. Rooftops of Tehran; Mahbod Seraji; 368pp; Fiction; January 26
  10. A Fraction of the Whole; Steve Toltz; 576pp; Fiction; January 30
  11. Descent Into Chaos; Ahmed Rashid; 544pp; Non-Fiction; February 3
  12. Ocean Soul; Brian Skerry; 264pp; Photographic; February 5
  13. Jihad; Ahmed Rashid; 288pp; Non-Fiction; February 11
  14. The Somnambulist; Jonathan Barnes; 384pp; Historical Fiction; February 19
  15. Lincoln; Gore Vidal; 672pp; Historical Fiction; March 3
  16. River of Smoke; Amitav Ghosh; 528pp; Historical Fiction; March 10
  17. The Ascent of Money; Niall Ferguson; 432pp; Non-Fiction; March 17
  18. The Hunger Games; Suzanne Collins; 384pp; Fiction; March 18
  19. Catching Fire; Suzanne Collins; 391pp; Fiction; March 21
  20. Mockingjay; Suzanne Collins; 400pp; Fiction; March 23
  21. The Burning Land; Bernard Cornwell; 370pp; Historical Fiction; March 25
  22. Death of Kings; Bernard Cornwell; 336pp; Historical Fiction; April 1
  23. The Age of Turbulence; Alan Greenspan; 544pp; Non-Fiction; May 6
  24. Gridlinked; Neal Asher; 420pp; Science Fiction; May 17
  25. Prador Moon; Neal Asher; 230pp; Science Fiction; May 26
  26. Snow Crash; Neal Stephenson; 448pp; Science Fiction; May 30
  27. When Christ and his Saints Slept; Sharon Kay Penman; 768pp; Historical Fiction; June 2
  28. The Skystone; Jack Whyte; 512pp; Historical Fiction; June 9
  29. Area 51; Annie Jacobsen; 400pp; History; June 14
  30. Shadow of the Scorpion; Neal Asher; 304pp; Science Fiction; June 16
  31. Vanishing World; Granath & Lez; 264pp; Photographic; June 17
  32. Body of Secrets; James Bamford; 670pp; History; June 22
  33. Railways; Ammonite Press; 300pp; History; June 26
  34. The Singing Sword; Jack Whyte; 560pp; Historical Fiction; July 6
  35. Adrift in Caledonia; Nick Thorpe; 352pp; Travel; July 8
  36. Time and Chance; Sharon Kay Penman; 544pp; Historical Fiction; July 12
  37. Devil’s Brood; Sharon Kay Penman; 768pp; Historical Fiction; July 18
  38. Skagboys; Irvine Welsh; 560pp; Fiction; July 28
  39. The Line of Polity; Neal Asher; 672pp; Science Fiction; July 29
  40. The Eagles’ Brood; Jack Whyte; 640pp; Historical Fiction; August 3
  41. Trainspotting; Irvine Welsh; 349pp; Fiction; August 4
  42. Bring Up The Bodies; Hilary Mantel; 432pp; Historical Fiction; August 14
  43. The Bruce Trilogy; Nigel Tranter; 1047pp; Historical Fiction; September 3
  44. Imprimatur; Monaldi & Sorti; 640pp; Historical Fiction; September 15
  45. The Acid House; Irvine Welsh; 289pp; Fiction; September 24
  46. The Quincunx; Charles Palliser; 800pp; Historical Fiction; October 6
  47. 1876; Gore Vidal; 384pp; Historical Fiction; October 14
  48. Empire; Gore Vidal; 496pp; Historical Fiction; November 8
  49. The Mongoliad: Book 1; Neal Stephenson et al; 442pp; Historical Fiction; November 21
  50. The Mongoliad: Book 2; Neal Stephenson et al; 420pp; Historical Fiction; December 2
  51. The Epic of Gilgamesh; Anonymous; 128pp; Historical Fiction; December 6
  52. The Saxon Shore; Jack Whyte; 736pp; Historical Fiction; December 13
  53. The Fort at River’s Bend; Jack Whyte; 480pp; Historical Fiction; December 15
  54. The Sorcerer: Metamorphosis; Jack Whyte; 512pp; Historical Fiction; December 17
  55. The Terror; Dan Simmons; 955pp; Historical Fiction; December 20
  56. Hubble; Devorkin & Smith; 224pp; Photographic; December 22
  57. Polar Obsession; Paul Nicklen; 240pp; Photographic; December 25
  58. Incandescence; Greg Egan; 256pp; Science Fiction; December 27
  59. Spectacular Alaska; Charles Wohlforth; 132pp; Photographic; December 28
Posted in: Books, Personal
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Importance of how often you take full backups

By: Paul Randal
Posted on: December 21, 2012 11:39 am

A couple of weeks ago I kicked off a survey asking how often you perform full backups of your databases.

Here are the results:

backupfrequency Importance of how often you take full backups

The ‘Other’ values are:

  • 20 x ‘Daily for small dbs, weekly (with daily diff) for large dbs.’
  • 16 x ‘Depends. Some daily, some weekly.’
  • 5 x ‘Daily on small, weekly on vldb, and before/after for schema, or physical changes and software upgrades.’
  • 5 x ‘Weekly and daily differential backups.’
  • 4 x ‘Every 12 hours.’
  • 2 x ‘Depends: some weekly with daily diffs an hourly transaction logs, others are daily fulls with transaction logs depending on various criticality and disk requirements.’
  • 2 x ‘Every 2 weeks.’
  • 1 x ‘Daily on system DBs; Weekly on User DBs with Differentials daily.’
  • 1 x ‘Every other day, with differentials every 8 hours.’
  • 1 x ‘It depends on size and criticality. Some are performed daily and others weekly. Diffs are performed for weekly and transaction log backups are done for both in 10 minute intervals.’
  • 1 x ‘Never I only have a test database.’
  • 1 x ‘Some servers daily, others weekly.’
  • 1 x ‘Storage snapshot every hour and weekly native.’
  • 1 x ‘We take storage snapshots every two hours.’

I’m actually a bit surprised at the results as I expected there to be a larger number for Weekly than Daily, but more frequent backups are good, if you can do them.

Example Strategies

My opinion is that performing a full backup any less frequently than once a week is dangerous – opening you up to a higher likelihood that you won’t be able to recover in the event of a disaster.

Here are two example strategies: full backup monthly on the first of the month vs. full backup weekly on Sunday morning, with two months of backups being stored in both cases. Both strategies are using daily differential backups and hourly log backups. There’s a lot of data churn across a large proportion of the database. The database size grows at 5% per month.

Now let’s look at a disaster occurring on the last day of the November 2012.

With the first strategy, we restore the full backup from November 1st, and then the differential backup from November 29th, plus log backups up to the point of the crash. The differential backup will be very large because of the data churn. If the full backup is damaged in any way, we need to go back to the full backup from October 1st, plus the differential backup from October 31st, and then all the log backups through November, as the differential backups in November are only valid on top of the full backup from November 1st. This isn’t a problem with differential backups; this is just how they work. Understand that and you’re good to go.

With the second strategy, we restore the full backup from the previous Sunday, November 25th, the differential backup from November 29th, plus log backups up to the point of the crash. In this case the differential backup will be smaller and faster to restore than the ones from the first strategy. And if the full backup is damaged, we only have to go back one week prior, to the one from Sunday 18th, then the last differential from it on November 24th, and a week of log backups. There’s clearly more flexibility with this strategy, and shorter restore times.

Summary

If you have the space, and can afford the I/O hit of performing more frequent backups, then perform full backups as frequently as you can, and make full use of differential backups to limit the restore time, instead of replaying all those operations using log backups. Yes, it’s a little bit more complicated, but you’re smart, right? Don’t let people scaremonger you away from using differential backups – they’re as easy to use as log backups as long as you understand their uses and limitations.

As I discussed in my previous blog post today (Importance of where you store your backups), it’s all about making sure you have the right backups, available quickly, to be able to restore within your downtime and data loss SLAs. When did you last check that’s possible with your environment?

This is my last technical post this year – watch out for the yearly wrap-up and books posts on December 31st. Cheers!

Posted in: Backup/Restore, Disaster Recovery
1 Comment

Importance of where you store your backups

By: Paul Randal
Posted on: December 21, 2012 6:52 am

A couple of weeks ago I kicked off a survey about where you store your backups.

Here are the results:

backuplocation Importance of where you store your backups

The’Other’ responses are:

  • 8 x ‘Stored on same SAN, different LUN as databases, with off-site copies.’
  • 6 x ‘Copy 1 stored on same SAN (1-2 days) for quick restore in non-physical disaster. Copy 2 stored on virtual tape device for longer term (30 day) storage. Copy 3 sent off-site on tape.’
  • 5 x ‘Stored on local HDD array then OS backups nightly to off-site location.’
  • 4 x ‘Stored on local SAN, replicated to remote SAN, stored to tape and then off-site.’
  • 4 x ‘Stored on SAN and then backed up to off-site storage.’
  • 4 x ‘Stored on SAN on same site, replicated to remote SAN. Also backed up from local SAN to tape.’
  • 2 x ‘Amazon S3.’
  • 1 x ‘Backed up to local Data Domain device then replicated to another Data Domain device in a remote site (no tape).’
  • 1 x ‘Certain datacenters have snapshots on Production Volumes and off-site disk backup for 3 weeks. All other centers are on-site and off-site TAPE.’
  • 1 x ‘Database dumps stored on local HDD. Dump area then backed up to tape. On weekly basis tapes are then stored in fire safe for next couple of weeks.’
  • 1 x ‘Data Domain and tape.’
  • 1 x ‘External USB hard drive.’
  • 1 x ‘Managed backup service from hosting provider.’
  • 1 x ‘Mirrored to 2 different SANs.’
  • 1 x ‘Snapshot on local SAN, replicated to remote SAN.’
  • 1 x ‘Stored locally.’
  • 1 x ‘Stored on backup database hardware via share to production server using private network connection. Backed Up to cloud nightly.’
  • 1 x ‘Stored on different SAN as databases, SAN replication to offsite SAN for DR.’
  • 1 x ‘Stored on local HDD of backup server, then tape, then off-site.’
  • 1 x ‘Stored on NAS, then on tape, then offsite.’
  • 1 x ‘Stored on SAN + replicated but also on tape and off-site.’
  • 1 x ‘Stored on Seperate SAN, mirrored to DR with monthly offsite tape backups.’

Summary

The results are very interesting, with most people storing backups locally and off-site, which is what I recommend and what I expected the results to show.

However, there’s really no right answer except that you have to have the backups to allow you to recover data within your downtime and data-loss SLAs. This doesn’t mean you have to have off-site backups, if your SLAs allow complete data loss and recreating the data from scratch.

Food for thought:

  • For those of you storing backups only on the same SAN as the databases, what’s your DR strategy if the entire SAN is corrupted or destroyed?
  • For those of you storing backups only in the local data center, what’s your DR strategy if the data center is destroyed? (It happens – fire, flood, tornado, bomb, …)
  • For those of you with backups stored off-site, how quickly can you bring the backups on-site if necessary? And what if the only data center you have is destroyed? What good are the off-site backups then?

If you can’t recreate the data completely from scratch, you must have off-site copies of your backups.

It’s not just about having good backups, and even having access to them when things go wrong, i’s also making sure that you can restore them and get back up and running within your downtime and data loss SLAs, no matter where you get the backups from.

When did you last check that’s possible for your environment?

Probably the worst DBA sin is losing a database and its backups too. IMHO there’s no excuse for that – don’t let it happen to you!

Posted in: Backup/Restore, Disaster Recovery
2 Comments

Survey: how often do you perform a full backup?

By: Paul Randal
Posted on: December 6, 2012 6:41 pm

In this survey, I'm interested in how often you perform a full database backup of your production databases. I'll editorialize the results in a week or two.



Thanks!

Posted in: Backup/Restore, Surveys
4 Comments

SQLskills holiday gift to you: all 2011 Insider videos on YouTube

By: Paul Randal
Posted on: December 4, 2012 1:57 pm

As we approach the 2012 holiday season, we want to give the SQL Server community a holiday gift to say ‘thank you’ for all your support during 2012, and what better gift than more free content?!

As many of you know, I publish a bi-weekly newsletter than contains an editorial on a SQL Server topic, a demo video, and a book review of my most recently completed book. We’ve decided to upload all the 2011 demo videos onto YouTube so everyone can watch them - nineteen videos in all totally around 3 hours of content.

Here are the details:

If you want to see the 2012 videos before next December, get all the newsletter back-issues, and follow along as the newsletters come out, just sign-up at http://www.SQLskills.com/Insider. No strings attached, no marketing or advertizing, just free content.

Happy Holidays and enjoy the videos!

Posted in: Example Scripts, General
4 Comments

Survey: where do you store your database backups?

By: Paul Randal
Posted on: December 4, 2012 10:49 am

In this survey I'd like to know where you store your SQL Server backups. If a disaster occurs, where do you get them from? It doesn't matter what method you use to create the backups (native SQL Server, 3rd-party backup solution, DPM) but we're talking about database backups here, not OS-level backups.


I'll report on the results on a couple of weeks.

Thanks!

Posted in: Backup/Restore, Surveys
2 Comments

Make life easier on yourself, get a baseline!

By: Paul Randal
Posted on: November 28, 2012 9:31 am

At the SQL Connections conference earlier this month, at the start of my talk on Making SQL Server Faster, Part 1: Simple Things, I talked about the importance of having a performance baseline so you can measure the effect of any changes made to your environment. A month ago I kicked off a survey about performance baselines, see here, to see how many of you do or do not have baselines, and why.

Here are the results:

nobaseline Make life easier on yourself, get a baseline!

The 'Other' values are:

  • 10 x "We use a performance monitoring tool to view live trends."
  • 8 x "Not enough time or resources or practical methods in place to baseline."
  • 5 x "I'm trying to create one."
  • 5 x "Not yet."
  • 3 x "We have one, but it's pretty old."
  • 2 x "New job. Created one my first week on systems I had access to. Will continue for the enterprise."
  • 2 x "Our environment is seasonal and the data volumes will be varying from year on year. Hence the baseline was not useful and sometimes the baselines pointed to a resource where it's not an issue."
  • 2 x "Too much stuff changes.
  • 1 x "Clients are not providing details as what an ideal workload is."
  • 1 x "I work for multiple companies and some of them require baselines, others do not know what baselining is. The latter is more."

yesbaseline Make life easier on yourself, get a baseline!

The 'Other' values are:

  • 10 x "All of the above."
  • 6 x "Any of the above if needed!"
  • 4 x "Checking the effect of a change to the system, Performance troubleshooting, Proactive tuning, Capacity planning."
  • 1 x "If I weren't too busy, all the above."

Information on baselines and benchmarks

(Adapted from one of my recent Insider newsletters)

One of the sentiments that we stress several times during our IE2 course on Performance Tuning is that it's far easier to troubleshoot a performance problem when you have historical data compared to when you don't. This is called having a baseline – a set of measurements of performance metrics when the overall system is performing normally (i.e. satisfactorily for users). Some examples are:

  • The I/O load during regular and peak operations, from the SQL Server and Windows perspectives
  • Buffer pool health (e.g. Page Life Expectancy and Lazywriter activity)
  • Run-time characteristics of important queries
  • Wait statistics

Having a baseline means that when performance appears to be suffering, measurements can be taken and compared against the baseline, to identify areas that have changed. This allows you to target further investigations rather than do what I call 'flailing' or 'knee-jerk' performance tuning, where you have no idea where to start or pick a random symptom and focus on that, wasting precious time.

I could write a whole bunch about baselines, how to collect them, and all kinds of other info, but Erin Stellato has just started a multi-part article series over on SQL Server Central, so I won't duplicate that. Check out her first article: Back to Basics: Capturing Baselines on Production SQL Servers. She's also just published a 3-hour online course through Pluralsight called SQL Server: Baselining and Benchmarking, with all kinds of demos and tons of practical how-to advice.

Bottom line: your performance investigations and tuning will be a LOT easier if you have a baseline to compare against. If you don't have one, get one.

Posted in: Benchmarking, Performance Tuning
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New 7.5 hour online course on logging, recovery, and the transaction log

By: Paul Randal
Posted on: November 16, 2012 3:33 pm

As you know we're recording a lot of content for Pluralsight, and they've just published my latest course today: SQL Server: Logging, Recovery, and the Transaction Log.

This is a carefully structured, 7.5 hour brain dump of everything I know about logging and recovery, which will be useful whether you're a beginner, a seasoned DBA, or you want to delve into more details. The course gives a wealth of practical, applicable knowledge that will help you avoid and recover from transaction log problems.

I can confidently say this is the most comprehensive coverage of logging and recovery that exists in the world today, and there aren't any others by someone who actually wrote code in that portion of the SQL Server Engine.

The course has 37 demos and 194 total recordings, split into the following modules:

  • Introduction
  • Understanding Logging
  • Transaction Log Architecture
  • Log Records
  • Checkpoints
  • Transaction Log Operations
  • Recovery and Crash Recovery
  • Recovery Models and Minimal Logging
  • Transaction Log Provisioning and Management
  • Transaction Log Backups
  • Corruption and Other HA/DR Topics

This means we now have 10 courses from the SQLskills team available on Pluralsight, totaling more than 40 hours of content, with several more coming online before year end and plans for another 25-30+ more courses each year going forward.

With individual subscriptions are low as US$30/month, more than 380 total IT courses, and newly introduced course transcripts and multi-language closed-captioning, Pluralsight is where it's at for online training.

Check out my new course at: SQL Server: Logging, Recovery, and the Transaction Log

I hope you like it!

Posted in: Pluralsight, Training, Transaction Log
5 Comments

Make SQLskills part of YOUR team with dedicated consulting

By: Paul Randal
Posted on: November 13, 2012 1:03 pm

We're there as part of your team when you need us, without the hassle of contracts and scoping calls. We realize that many of you want to have access to the best SQL Server resources on an ongoing basis and so we're now offering dedicated consulting through prepaid hours with a discount.

The idea is that you pre-pay a certain number of remote consulting hours that are valid for two years from the date of purchase and you can use them for consulting, architecture, design/code reviews, upgrades, migrations, hardware planning, performance tuning, health checks, 1-1 mentoring, virtualization, I/O subsystems, baselining, testing, and more, with access to the whole team. You can also convert some of the hours to onsite work or Immersion Event attendance too.

Your company benefits in multiple ways:

  • We get to know your environment and we become part of your extended team, perfect for larger enterprises with diverse consulting needs
  • Getting a discount for buying hours in bulk
  • No longer having to deal with multiple invoices and contracts with limited hours
  • Access to whoever on the team best fits your current needs

You're basically buying a practical insurance policy for your SQL Servers.

The plan has three options:

  • 100 hours pre-paid with a 7.5% discount
  • 200 hours pre-paid with a 10% discount
  • 400 hours pre-paid with a 12.5% discount

And we can discuss larger blocks of hours, as we have done with several of our enterprise clients.

You can convert some of the hours to Immersion Event registrations at the early-bird rate for the class, and you can also convert some of the hours to onsite visits. We provide guaranteed next business day response for incidents, but usually we're there helping our clients the same day. We just don't do 24-hour on-call. If you exhaust your hours, you can pre-pay some more, with the appropriate discount.

We've already signed up some of our existing customers who want no-hassle access to the best team in the business.

If you're interested in getting the same level of service, just send us an email at request@SQLskills.com!

Posted in: Consulting
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New conference for developers in December

By: Paul Randal
Posted on: November 6, 2012 2:09 pm

This isn't a SQL Server related post, but I wanted to let you know about a new conference that's starting in December. It's being run by our good friends at .NET Rocks!, SSWUG, and DevIntersection.

It's called DevIntersection and will focus on Visual Studio, ASP.NET, and Windows Azure, with cross-over into a bunch of other technologies like Windows 8, HTML, and jQuery. The speaker line-up is very impressive, with a ton of people from the industry who I know and respect.

The show is in Las Vegas from December 9-12, and early registrations by November 15th will receive a Windows 8 tablet – pretty cool!

Check it out at www.DevIntersection.com.

Posted in: Conferences
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