Something for the Weekend – SQL Server Links 02/12/11

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Interested to know which blog posts other readers have enjoyed the most? Check out My Popular Posts page which lists your favourites alongside mine. I’m often surprised by which posts generate the most traffic. Posts that I thought were literary and informational masterpieces(OK maybe not but they did seem to have potential) turned out not to be so, like the apparently not top 10 worthy The Best Database Administrators Automate Everything or the thought piece Outstanding DBAs Make Relationships a Priority. Conversely posts like My Guide to Passing MCTS Exam 70-432 proved immediate hits.

My daily commute to the office this week has been productive, knowledge packed and highly enjoyable, courtesy of those very nice folks over at Manning Publishing. I was delighted to have received a copy of the new title SQL Server MVP Deep Dives Volume 2 and I will be sharing my thoughts on the book in full with you in an upcoming post. Subscribe to the blog feed to make sure you catch it.

Will you be in town next Thursday evening? Why not join myself and other SQL server community folks for a festive tipple (or two) at the London SQL Server User Group’s Pre-Christmas get together.

Here’s your weekly roundup of SQL Server Blog Posts, News and Techie Stuff. Enjoy!

SQL Server Links

• Determining distribution of NULL values – A handy T-SQL tip from Aaron Bertrand (Blog|Twitter).
• Geek City: Growing Rows with Snapshot Isolation – An interesting look at the internal effect of enabling this isolation level from Kalen Delaney (Blog|Twitter).
• Stored Procedures with SSRS? Hmm… not so much – Having a whine about sanitization(not sanitation) this week it’s Rob Farley (Blog|Twitter).
• Using CNAMEs with clustered file share resources – Clustering master class as Denny Cherry (Blog|Twitter) shares more tips.
• Free Clustering & HA Training for Hyper-V & Private Cloud – Sounds like it has the potential to be very interesting indeed. Let me know if you attend!
• SQL Fingertips – Sharing a wholse assortment of tips this week, it’s Michael J. Swart (Blog|Twitter).
• SQL Server First Responders Kit Video – Being a DBA on the front lines of production support means you need to know your tools(I’ve worked with a few ;-)). This week Kendra Little (Blog|Twitter) shares how she manages a crisis.
• When learning database design, be careful where you learn from – Sage advice from Denny Cherry (Blog|Twitter) on why just because something works in your shop, that does not make it good design.
• Writing New Hash Functions for SQL Server – Performance tuning gold this week from Thomas Kejser of Microsoft SQLCAT (Blog).
• 3 SQL Server Book Review Short Takes – Harsh but fair? I’ll let you decide. Brent Ozar (Blog|Twitter) with his thoughts then.
• Hadoop Basics for SQL Server DBAs – An excellent introduction to this technology, courtesy of Jeremiah Peschka (Blog|Twitter). This post has uncanny timing as I’m just starting to get my hands dirty with this in my current shop. Maybe a follow up video on administration advice and performance tuning is on the cards?
• A Computed Column Defined with a User-Defined Function Might Impact Query Performance – Microsoft SQLCAT (Blog)
• Enabling Kerberos Authentication for Reporting Services – A little something for the BI DBA perhaps? A an excellent walk though then courtesy of Rob Carrol(Blog).

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