SQL Data Partners Podcast

Do you have any experience with [Insert random technology]?  Your heart starts to race and your palms get a little sweaty.  You don’t want to say no–we’re tech folks–we know stuff, but there are so many new things to learn!  How are you supposed to keep up with it all? In this episode, we chat with Eugene Meidinger about his thoughts on keeping up and his ideas on the most important learning components. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/07/07/keeping-up-with-technology/ and we hope to see you on the SQL trail.

When we write our queries to the database, SQL Server has to go and figure out the best way to go and bring back the data you asked for. A query plan is created to help SQL Server remember how to get the data for this query. It takes time to make these queries, so the database wants to limit the number of times it has to create the plans so it will try to reuse the plan as much as possible. Our topic for today's episode is query plan reuse and the pros and cons with this concept. We will also touch on the concept of parameter sniffing--a technique SQL Server uses to try and figure out the best values to use for the execution plan with the hopes the plan will help the most queries. Special thanks to James Youkhanis for the suggestion. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/07/04/episode-103-plan-reuse/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

One of the newer features in SQL Server is availability groups, which can help solve a number of business problems.  As administrators, availability groups introduce some complexity as we are tasked to make sure the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) can be meet for these servers.  The complexity comes because we have different instances that must work together, but they don't always see eye to eye.  In this episode, we chat with Tracy Boggiano of channeladvisor about how they go about monitoring their availability groups and the pros and cons of the out of the box tools.  Our discussion touches on process of  the availability group process and Tracy has posted her scripts on her bog for you use as you look at reviewing your environments.  I think you will enjoy this discussion. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/06/29/episode-102-monitoring-availability-groups/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

Listener Cody Ford wrote in and asked if we could share some thoughts on getting familiar with an unfamiliar database.  While we have done episodes in the past on best practices, this episode takes the approach of what we should look for on a server that is new to us--the components we should document and then review for potential updates. Do you agree with our list?  Let us know on by leaving a comment on the show notes page. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/06/07/inspect-new-database/ ‎and have fun on the SQL trail.

Something a bit strange happened in episode 100--almost like something out of the twilight zone, but don't take our word for it.  Check out our latest episode as tell some of the stories that led up today. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/06/14/episode-100-listener-qa-c144/ ‎and have fun on the SQL trail

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome) is a term coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Dr. Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes referring to high-achieving individuals marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud".  In this episode of the SQL Data Partners podcast, we take on a topic that is not technical; however, might play a very important role in some of the opportunities we take--or miss out on.  Today's guest is Mindy Curnutt, a 3x MVP and a real chance taker as she recently decided to become independently employed. In this episode we talk through the idea of imposter syndrome and give some examples of how it affects us, but we also try and tackle ways we can identify it and steps to help us overcome.  I think you are going to find this episode very interesting and we hope you enjoy it. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/06/07/episode-99-imposter-syndrome/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

In a recent SQLSaturday conference, I walked into the speakers room and asked the question--What is the first thing you change after you install SQL Server?  It was interesting to get their take on the server setup and I think you will enjoy the conversation.  There are various answers on this one but some of the speakers have mentioned stuffs like set auto grow files, SQL Prompt, SQL parameter class and max memory among others.  I would like to thank Kevin Feasel, Jonathan Stewart, Eugene Meidinger, Raymond Kim, Tracy Boggiano, Mindy Curnutt, Thomas Grohser, and Vladimir Oselsky for their suggestions.   The shownotes can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/06/01/episode-98-the-first-change/

If you have ever been responsible for a replication environment, you know what a pain that can be.  Many of the guests of the show will point out their frustration with replication and many are loathe to use it--myself included; however, there are a few brave souls out in the world who do use replication regularly--and even use it well.  Chuck Lathrope is our guest today and he talks us through some of the components of replication and why we might not need to be so skittish about this long time feature. We cover all the basics including an overview of Transactional Replication, Merge Replication, Peer-to-Peer replication and Snapshot Replication, the concept of publisher, distributor and subscriber in relation to replication.  The most important piece is Chuck gives us some good business cases for why we might use replication and I think you will find the discussion interesting.  Thanks for joining us on the SQL trail! The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/05/24/episode-97-sql-server-replication/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

Have you ever created something and wanted to share it with others with the hope they will contribute and make it better? Sites like the new defunct codeplex and GitHub are full of functionality people want to share and work with others on; however, many projects remain dormant.  What are the characteristics that create an environment where people want to contribute to your project?  Steve and I discuss a few ideas and we interview two very successful community project leaders in Brent Ozar and Chrissy LeMarie about how they got started and what it takes to put together a good community project. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/05/10/community-tools/ and have fun on the SQL trail.

Big data is term we have been hearing frequently as of late and this might cause some concern for us in the SQL Server space.  Micrsoft has introduced some new functionality to help connect different data stores with PolyBase.  We are happy to have Kevin Feasel from ChannelAdvisor back with us and  Kevin will discuss some of the basics around what PolyBase does. We’ll be discussing a lot about integrations using PolyBase specifically on Hadoop and Azure SQL Blob Storage. We also touch on some of the technologies that will be supported in the future. For those looking at implementing both structured and unstructured data stores, PolyBase will be a way to help bring these environments together. Kevin gives us a great overview and we think you will enjoy this episode. The shownotes for today’s episode is found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2017/05/03/episode-95-polybase/ and have fun on the SQL trail.