SQL Server Archives - Page 3 of 9

T-SQL Tuesday #47 Your Best SQL Server SWAG

October 8, 2013 By Boris Hristov Leave a Comment

Once upon a time Microsoft released SQL Server Badges(five of them to be exact) and asked all of us(the community) to choose which ones were best describing us and our roles. If you do not remember them or you still haven’t seen them – here is a picture of how they look like.

Let’s be clear – I really, really like those and I immediately asked myself – is it possible to make those low-resolution images(they were actually really low quality!) into a real badges? I believe you can see where this is going, but before that, I want to say a huge “I am sorry” to Kendal, our host this time, because I am really about to go a bit (but just a bit) off topic. I am not going to share with you what is the best SQL Server SWAG I received, but what is the best I do give away on my sessions or during my classes.

So I decided to find a way and make this really low quality images into badges(I believe their resolution was something like 17×17 pixels?). I started searching for a company that can do the magic for me, but it was hard. For some reason, here in Sofia (our capital in Bulgaria), there are not that many companies that can help you with a request like this. Surprisingly, I found one (that already went bankrupt) that was able to help, but in order for them to be able to create badges from those .jpegs that I sent them, they needed to vectorize them first. They managed to do that and here are the results:

These are my favourite SQL Server SWAGs! It also seems that all the folks that received one from me already also like them quite a lot! I personally wear one on my bag too!

So, Kendal, thank you for hosting #47 and again – I am really sorry! I hope that the community will love those though! 🙂

Presenting at SQLSaturday #199, Sofia

October 2, 2013 By Boris Hristov 8 Comments

After being part of SQLSaturday #152 last year, this year “I will be back” presenting again, but this time I will deliver a session on Distributed Replay in SQL Server 2012! A not that well-known feature that can make your life a lot more easier if you are searching for a way to replay your application workload! SQLSaturday #199 will be held on 26th of October and if you (for some reason) are still not registered, now is a perfect time for you to do that!

Hope to see you all there!

Update: The event was just amazing and here is the slide deck from my session! What a great time on SQLSaturday #199! Thank you all for attending and expect more information (blog posts) on Distributed replay coming soon!

Replay your workload as it is your actual one! from Boris Hristov

See you soon in Italy and Ukraine!

Speculating. One more reason for the death of the MCM program.

September 18, 2013 By Boris Hristov 1 Comment

A lot has already been written about the death of the most prestigious certification program Microsoft has ever had – the Microsoft Certified Master program. However, up until now I haven’t seen anyone speculating with one more possible reason why Microsoft could have taken this decision and I want to share it with you in this blog post. This one came during a discussion with a colleagues of mine(yes, we were also discussing it!) and I believe it makes sense! Here it is:

What if Microsoft do not want to release the know-how of the products anymore? We all know from MCMs that the training they got in Redmond included very detailed and low-level stuff. I am not saying that an MCM can rewrite the software by himself, but an MCM does know a lot about how exactly the product works and I am speaking about information that is not included in books like SQL Server Internals. Now who wins from that?

Microsoft Product Support teams – if no deep knowledge is out there, customers will definitely need more of these guys.
Microsoft’s cloud platform – Azure – if no deep knowledge is out there and the customer’s solution is complex(I am talking about the future here, Azure is still not that mature), why not using Azure when the support is provided by Microsoft + that’s cloud, right – you pay for what you use!

Again – I am not saying Microsoft did kill the MCM/MCA programs because of that! I am actually expecting to see what they will release as an alternative of these two programs. However, if you ask me, it makes perfect sense this to be one of the reasons why they have taken this decision. What do you think?

HP, Sofia University and
SQL Server. 4rd year in a row!

September 14, 2013 By Boris Hristov 3 Comments

Every year as part of my work at HP we are leading a course on Administering SQL Server in the Masters degree at Sofia University. We do that because of our strong relationships with the universities in our country(yes, we teach not just in this one) and we do that because we really care about the young people and what education they get! This year will be our forth year in a row(third for me) in which I and my colleagues will help the students from the program advance their knowledge and skills in the area of databases and SQL Server. This year, as usual, we have prepared very interesting modules starting from database design and querying databases up to policy-based management and automation, so I have no doubt we are going to have an awesome time with the students again(our course is always the top rated in the whole program!). The only thing I am now waiting for is for the semester to start and I really, really want it to start as soon as possible!

Wish us good luck!

Hangout #005 What else do we want from SQL Server?

August 14, 2013 By Boris Hristov Leave a Comment

What do we want to see in SQL Server? That was the topic of SQL Server Hangout #005 that we discussed with Rob Nicholson – SQL Server DBA from Australia and a future MCSM! We have already received confirmation from @MicrosoftSQLServer on Twitter that what we talked about was “cool stuff”, so enjoy watching! Below the video you are also able to see some of the connect items that Rob was talking about during the hangout.