This is part one of a three-part series.

I’ve mentioned in various places, including in blog posts on occasion, that my production SQL Server instance hosts several thousand (nearly 9000 as of this writing) databases. People are usually surprised to hear this and it often leads to interesting conversation.

Jon Shaulis asked me on Twitter recently:

And I realized that I haven’t ever sat down to address this in detail. I’ve spoken about it on the SQL Data Partners Podcast and written little bits here and there on the blog in the context of “here’s something that tripped me up” but I haven’t really sat down to write specifically about the topic.

It feels like SQL Saturday Albany just wrapped up, but I have another announcement to make. I am proud to announce that I have been selected to speak at SQL Saturday Boston on September 14th, 2019. I will be presenting “Keys to a Healthy Relationship with SQL Server” at 11:15 AM.

Abstract

Developers and DBAs have had a long, sometimes strained relationship. Some developers see DBAs as roadblocks standing in the way of getting their work shipped; some DBAs see developers as agents of chaos bent on ruining their perfect database environments.

This is my fourth installment in a series responding to Steve Jones’s (blog | twitter) #SQLCareer challenge. I jotted down most of what I did through the day, filling a page and then some in a small notebook with timestamps and short reminders of what happened. For more, check out the #SQLCareer hashtag on Twitter.

Background

I bet you thought I’d forgotten all about this “project”. I decided to pick things back up on this day because I’ve been light on content lately, I had a few things going on, and keeping notes for this series strangely helps me focus on my day. As it turned out, there were a few twists in the story of my Friday.

Thanks to everyone who came out to see dbatools for the Uninitiated at SQL Saturday Albany on July 20th, 2019. I had a lot of fun sharing dbatools with you and hope you’re ready to start exploring on your own!

The slides and demo scripts are available in my GitHub repository.

If you have any questions about the session, please feel free to contact me via:

• Email
• Slack (@alevyinroc)
• Twitter

I am pleased to announce that I will be presenting at SQL Saturday #855 in Albany, NY on July 20, 2019. Join me at 2 PM in room LC05 for “dbatools for the Uninitiated”

You’ve just inherited a large SQL Server estate, and next month’s merger will double the number of instances you’re responsible for. Or maybe you have one big instance with thousands of databases on it. Are there backups? Are they good? Are your systems in good health?

Announced at DataGrillen 2019 today, the amazing dbatools PowerShell module has officially released version 1.0. This is a tremendous milestone for the best Open Source project built for data professionals.

What started out as a single PowerShell script for migrating SQL Server instances in Chrissy LeMaire’s (blog | twitter) datacenter has become the most important and comprehensive Open Source toolkit for SQL Server database administrators and developers. Whether you’re managing one server or one thousand, this module is an indispensable tool which will make your day more productive and less error-prone.

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday comes from Todd Kleinhans (blog | twitter) who wants to know what we’re doing with databases outside of work.

I’m curious- outside of work and learning, what do you personally use databases for? Tracking books you have, recipes, collections, etc? While it can be said using databases for personal use could be either overkill or a hammer in search of nails on the other hand, it is exactly what they are for- storing data.

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday comes from Shane O’Neill (blog | twitter). He starts us off with this:

Dipping into the Cookie Jar is about when the going gets tough and you don’t think you can handle anymore, then you think back about your accomplishments and take some sustenance from them. You dip back into that cookie jar and use whatever energy that provides to keep going.

So tell me about a time when you had an accomplishment that can keep you going.

Probably a bit late getting this posted but I will be speaking at the March 5, 2019 meeting of the Rochester SQL Server User group (RSVP link). I don’t have a great title or abstract for the talk (yet!), but here’s the gist:

The relationship between DBAs and developers has a long history with challenging moments. Some developers see DBAs as roadblocks. Some DBAs see developers as rogues bent on destroying the database server’s performance. I’ll be presenting both technical and non-technical tips and tricks to help build a better understanding between developers, DBAs, and SQL Server.

By now many of us have upgraded from SQL Server 2008R2 and we’re on the “regular Cumulative Updates” train now. For the rest, it’ll (hopefully) happen soon. And since we want a long runway, we’re upgrading to SQL Server 2016 or 2017. Current software! New features! Mainstream support! But…there’s a catch.

Staying current

DBAs & sysadmins don’t want to fall too far behind on patching for a variety of reasons. It used to be that monthly patch cycles were primarily for Windows Server. When we were running SQL Server 2008R2, our last significant update was years ago. SQL Server 2012 is now out of support and isn’t receiving updates very often. Point being, a SQL Server update install has been the exception, not the norm, in the patch cycle for many of us the past couple years.