I hope you’ve had a great week!
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I recently received a goody bag, along with an award from those really nice folk at Quest Software and I have to say I’m chuffed to bits. I want to say a humongous thank you to Quest and Ian Kick(@iainkick) at SQL Server Pedia, as well as each and every one of you that voted for me. This was the first year the competition ran and I think it’s a fantastic way to grow our community. You guys are the reason I write, blog and share all things SQL Server and your support really means a great deal to me so thank you! In case you missed it first time around here’s our winning post in the Professional Development category 10 Character Traits of Outstanding DBA’s.
- “SQL Server Pedia Award Winning Trophy”

Here’s your weekly roundup of SQL Server Blog Posts, News and Techie Stuff. Enjoy!
SQL Server Links
- Windows Instant File Initialization and SQL Server – This is a feature that every single DBA should be using in their environment. Glenn Berry explains why.
- Scaling up or scaling out? – This is easily my favourite post this week. I can’t emphasise enough just how much valuable information and experience is jam packed into this single post from Bren Ozar. Really good stuff.
- Unbelievable tale of disaster and recovery – This tale is nothing short of impressive. Who said that Developers could not make good DBA’s? Story shared courtesy of Paul Randal.
- SQL Server and the “Lock pages in memory” Right in Windows Server – Yet another “essential” SQL Server configuration setting, laid bare by Glenn Berry.
- Can You Dig It? – Find Estimated Cost – An interesting look at query cost estimation values as a performance tuning approach here from Jason Strate.
- SQL SERVER – Guest Post – Jonathan Kehayias – Wait Type – Day 16 of 28 – Guest posting on Pinal Dave’s blog, it’s a fantastic performance tuning case story here shared by Jonathan Kehayias. JK “really” knows his stuff when it comes to performance analysis so you’d be a fool to miss this.
- The results are in: What Tech Companies Are Doing it Right? – Some very interesting results here collated by Jen McCown and everyone’s favourite rock star (after Def Leppard) Thomas LaRock also added to the discussions by Worshipping Our Dark Overlords. As an aside, I’ve only just recently discovered the podcasts that the MidnightDBA’s have on their site and I gotta say that I’ve been missing out!
- How to Generate Automatic DUMP of SQL Server 2008 Instance on a cluster – More technical how to tips from my chums over on the SQL Server Replication Team blog.
- Searching Inside Strings: CPU is Eight Times Worse For Unicode Strings – Another fantastic post from Micahael J Swart, this week a nice technical walkthrough looking at the cpu performance implications of string searching unicode data.
- Another Super Bowl, Another 27K TPS – This was a very interesting post from Michelle Ufford but it seem to have vanished. Michelle what gives? I will leave the link in case it makes a return.
- Are int joins faster than string joins? – Another excellent walk through from Gail Shaw.
- More Running with Scissors: Corrupting your Database with 823 Errors – If you like breaking stuff then you’ll love this post from Kendra Litte.
- Database Restores – Where’s my Transaction Log Backup? – Jeremiah Peschka discusses.
UK SQL Server Upcoming Events
- What are the Crappy Code Games – Who can enter?
- SQLBits 8 – 7th – 9th April – Europe’s biggest SQL Server event will be at he seaside this time around.
UK SQL Server User Groups
- MANCHESTER – Wed 2 Mar – Presentation by Atul Thakor on “LINQ and what it does” and a “Journey into Indexes” with David Betteridge at the new location – COOP Manchester
- LONDON – Wed Mar 02 – London SQL Server User Group with Neil Hambly on XQuery fundementals and Dave Ballantyne on re-engineering for faster performance.
- LEEDS – Thu 3 Mar- Leeds UG meeting with Anthony Brown and David Betteridge talking on SQL Server Replication and Index Internals – Thursday night meeting
- SOUTHAMPTON – Wed 9 Mar – Gavin Payne speaking on different replication services SQL Server offers, primary and secondary design goals of each and considerations for deployment and in-life management.
- BIRMINGHAM – Thur 10 Mar – Allan Mitchell and Neil Hambly – Covering StreamInsight (Complex event Processing and Event Stream Processing) and an introduction to Service Broker
- CARDIFF – Thur 24 Mar – Cardiff User Group with RedGate SQL Monitor, Alex Whittles on using SSRS, DMVs & spatial data to visualise SSAS cube structures, also Chalk and Talk on HA/DR/Scaling with Tony Rogerson
- EDINGBURGH – Thur 31 Mar – Scottish Area User Group Meeting – April
- SOUTHAMPTON – Wed 4 April – User group evening of Neil Hambly.
- LEEDS – Wed 11 May – Leeds UG meeting – Resource Govenor and Policy Based Management with Chris Testa-O’Neill
- SOUTHAMPTON – Wed 11 May – User group evening of TBA.
- MANCHESTER – Thu 12 May – Planning for Stored Procedures with Munsoor Negyal and another speaker- Thursday night meeting at BSS
- SOUTHAMPTON – Wed 8 Jun – User group evening of TBA.
Misc Technology Posts
- The Importance of Net Neutrality
- Barack Obama ‘friends’ Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
- Scientists build the world’s first anti-laser
That’s it for this week. What was your favourite post?
If I’ve missed anything that you think deserves a mention then be sure to let me know! You can leave your comments below, send me an email and find me on Twitter(@JohnSansom).