T-SQL Tuesday #118 – Your Fantasy SQL Feature

Andy Levy
It’s early September, which means it’s time for T-SQL Tuesday! This month’s topic comes from Kevin Chant (blog | twitter). Our mission, should we choose to accept it (click the image to see the original invite): Recently I’ve had to submit suggestions to Microsoft about Azure DevOps and SQL Server. I will admit a couple of the suggestions had certainly been in my head for a while. In fact, I wish I had suggested them sooner.

Q&A: Dealing with Thousands of Databases (Part 3)

Andy Levy
This is Part 3 in a three-part series. Please see Part 1 and Part 2 for more. What does your average day look like? I’m going to punt to my “A Day in the Life” series here. When you started, did you know what your position was going to look like 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years from then? How accurate has that been so far? I’ve only been at my current job for about 2 1/2 years, but I can speak to the shorter intervals.

Q&A: Dealing with Thousands of Databases (Part 2)

Andy Levy
This is Part 2 of a series. Please see [Part 1]/2019/09/03/qa-dealing-with-thousands-of-databases/) for the background and more. What is the most unexpected experience you’ve had in this position? I have two answers to this question. I write more dynamic SQL in any given week than I had previously in my career - all years combined! Many DBAs deal with issues around parameter sniffing and plans being stuck in cache that don’t work well for a number of their requests as a result.

Q&A: Dealing with Thousands of Databases

Andy Levy
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 (blog | twitter) asked me on Twitter recently: @ALevyInROC Have you written before about your experience managing thousands of databases by chance?

SQL Saturday Boston: I’m Speaking!

Andy Levy
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.

A Day in the Life (4/?) - August 2, 2019

Andy Levy
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.

SQL Saturday Albany Slides & Demo Code

Andy Levy
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

SQL Saturday Albany NY 2019

Andy Levy
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?

dbatools One Point OH YEAH!

Andy Levy
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.

T-SQL Tuesday #113 -A Database for the Great Outdoors

Andy Levy
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.