elsewhere

Leaving (or minimizing) Twitter

Andy Levy

Fairly short post here. Due to the recent events around Twitter (which I will not get into), I’m making an effort to reduce or completely cease my activity on that platform. My Contact page has been updated with all of the below accounts/sites.

SQL Saturday Organizer Q&A

Andy Levy
A little while ago, Ray Kim (blog | twitter) asked a few folks who organize SQL Saturday events a few questions for his blog. The results are in and he’s compiled them all into one big post. Check it out: What goes into organizing a #SQLSaturday? From the words of #SQLFamily

Appearance: Data Bits #2

Andy Levy
Last week (as I write this), Kevin Hill (blog | twitter) released the first episode of his new podcast Data Bits. I enjoyed listening to it and said “hey bud, if you need a guest sometime down the line, give me a shout!” Well, “sometime down the line” turned out to be just a few days, and we recorded on the evening of March 4th amid a little craziness in both our houses.

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

Andy Levy
I presented a few times in 2019, and I’m starting off 2020 with several as well. Here’s what’s on the schedule for Q1. 2020-01-06 Yep, ISO8601 format. That’s how I roll. - I’ll be giving a lightning talk at work titled “What Does a Database Administrator Do, Anyway?” This one isn’t open to the general public (though I might tweak it for use at community events), but The Bobs and “It Depends” both make an appearance in the deck.

Appearance: SQL Data Partners Podcast #161

Andy Levy
Carlos Chacon (twitter) was kind enough to have me back on the SQL Data Partners Podcast to talk about my experiences with managing 8000 databases on a single instance and upgrading to SQL Server 2016. He, Kevin Feasel (blog | twitter) & I had a great conversation in which I may have gushed a bit about dbatools. Then we wrapped up with the SQLFamily questions as we didn’t do them on my previous appearance last year.

Speaking: PowerHour, August 21st 2018

Andy Levy
It’s official! I will be speaking at the inaugural PowerHour online lightning demo event on Tuesday, August 21st at 2200 UTC. I’ll be demoing Better, Safer SQL Queries from PowerShell. If you’re working with SQL Server from PowerShell, either as a DBA, analyst, or anyone else running queries, you’ve probably used Invoke-SqlCmd. But depending on how you’re building your queries, this can be error-prone or a huge security exposure! With the help of the dbatools module, I’ll show you how to write and run these queries better and safer - and make them easier to work into your scripts to boot.

Appearance: SQL Data Partners Podcast

Andy Levy
A couple weeks ago Carlos L. Cachon (blog|twitter) put out a call on Twitter looking for SQL Saturday organizers to join him on the SQL Data Partners Podcast. When I signed on to record, I learned that Chris Hyde (blog|twitter) and Eugene Meindinger (blog|twitter) were joining us. I’ve met and spoken with all three previously, so it was easy talking to everyone and I thought the conversation flowed well. Check out SQL Data Partners Podcast Episode 126: SQLSaturday Edition.

How to Help with dbatools Comment-based Help

Andy Levy
I wrote a post over on the dbatools website about how to get involved with improving comment-based help Working on the CBH is a great way to get started with the dbatools project, even (especially) if you’re not a PowerShell expert or MVP-level DBA. Getting everything clean and consistent in the CBH is an important step on the road to 1.0. Along the way, you’ll pick up on how dbatools is put together, discover functions that you can use in your day-to-day work, and get a feel for PowerShell best practices.