2009 April | SQLRockstar

Junior DBA Interview Questions

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 30, 2009 ⋅ 9 comments

I noticed that Brent Ozar wrote a post on how to get a Junior DBA job. His post reminded me about some earlier posts I had done regarding how to do a job search as well as the interview itself. And as great as his post was, I think it was missing one particular detail [...]

Updated Rankings

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 30, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

The rankings have been updated. Enjoy.
I added two new groups because I realized it made little sense to have only the system databases listed. I mean, who has an instance without any user databases, except for a report server I guess. So, I added groups for humor and professional services. You can read all about [...]

The SQL Doctor Is In

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 29, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Denis Gobo dropped me an email the other day to mention that I should have included a book (Pro SQL Server 2008 Relational Database Design and Implementation) by Louis Davidson et al., in my Technical Library. No question this is a must read for anyone interested in database design and since Denis also offered a book [...]

Have You Heard About the Swine Flu Pandemic?

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 29, 2009 ⋅ 7 comments

I am at home today. Why? Because my son has a cough. It started on Sunday and progressed on Monday, and it sounded like the croup. Now, I am not a doctor, so we called our pediatrician who recommended that we keep an eye on him to make sure his breathing did not become too [...]

BI is Still Missing Some Intelligence

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 29, 2009 ⋅ 2 comments

I recently had the honor of attending a 2-day training session presented by Peter Myers of SolidQ. Peter is a top-notch presenter and I was impressed by how well he knew his stuff. He easily moved among definitions and terms that are quite foreign to me, such as dimensions, attributes, facts, measures, etc. More impressive [...]

Anyone Got the Time?

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 28, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Had another little note scribbled down from Peter Myers talks this week. He started asking about why he always refers to a date dimension as something different than a time dimension, and noted that some people feel comfortable interchanging the two as if they meant the same thing.
Apparently, to someone like Peter, there is a [...]

When do you need a cube?

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 28, 2009 ⋅ 7 comments

I took part in some training this week, specifically for SQL 2008 Business Intelligence. The class was taught by Peter Myers of SolidQ, and he did a wonderful job. I learned quite a bit in the first ninety minutes and could tell that Peter knows his stuff.
One little tidbit that came my way on the [...]

PASS 2009 Summit Early Bird is Ending!

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 27, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

I have been quite busy the past few weeks. So busy that I completely forgot to blog about this last Friday. Oh well, better late than never.
The early bird discount for the PASS 2009 Community Summit ends this Friday, May 1st. For a complete price breakdown, check out this page. If you (or your boss, [...]

SQL Server 2008 Audit

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 27, 2009 ⋅ One comment

I have a new article published over at Simple Talk and I wanted to drop a quick note to point you over there to check it out. It is on SQL 2008 Audit, and gives an introduction to this new feature. Feel free to leave me a comment there (or here) I would love to [...]

Plans for SSD?

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 24, 2009 ⋅ 6 comments

The question for the week is simple enough:
Are you planning to use solid state drives for your database servers in the next twelve months?
We are getting more involved with a server consolidation project here. As part of that project we are looking to build out an updated server environment. Part of that new “dream home” [...]