Adam Machanic

SQL Server Connections Fall 2011 - Demos

2011-11-03T20:12:00Z

Today is the last day of the annual SQL Server Connections show in Vegas, and I've just completed my third and final talk. (Now off to find a frosty beverage or two.) This year I did three sessions: SQL302: Parallelism and Performance: Are You Getting Full Return on Your CPU Investment? Over the past five years, multi-core processors have made the jump from semi-obscure to commonplace in the data center. While servers with 16, 32, or even 64 cores were once an out-of-reach choice for all except the...(read more)

Thinking Big (Adventure)

2011-10-17T16:56:00Z

If the title of this post doesn't have you scratching your head, you may have been paying very rapt attention last time you saw me speak. I love the portability of AdventureWorks and the fact that anyone can download it. Since it was released I've used it almost exclusively for demos in talks I've written. However, In recent months I've been moving away from the core tables in the database. Fact is, they're just a bit too small to show performance artifacts of parallelism, spilling to tempdb, and...(read more)

PASS Summit 2011 - Zen and the Art of Workspace Memory - Demos

2011-10-17T00:23:00Z

What a rush . Standing on the stage in an almost-full 1,000-person room, I (very) momentarily wondered what I'd been thinking when I submitted a 500-level talk for the biggest SQL Server conference in the world. But despite a rough start--my laptop crashed and I had to reboot it two minutes into the talk--I found my rhythm and the entire 90 minutes went by in a flash. I wish I'd been able to take 90 more! The scene? PASS Summit 2011 . Friday, October 14, 10:15 a.m. (Room 6E, to be exact.) The last...(read more)

SQL Saturday 89 - Atlanta GA - Materials

2011-09-24T16:57:00Z

Last Saturday, September 17, I was lucky to be able to present two sessions at an excellent SQL Saturday in the Atlanta area. The day drew a large crowd and had a great speaker lineup. All in all, a huge success, and a very well-managed event. Congratulations to the organizers! One of the highlights for me, aside from speaking, was helping out with logistics the night before and creating a cocktail for the event. Check out Audrey Hammonds's blog for details. My two sessions were: "SQL Server Parallelism...(read more)

Where Can You Find Me the Rest of This Year?

2011-08-22T00:28:00Z

Autumn is creeping inevitably closer here in the US, and that means that speaking season is about to kick into high gear. Here's my current schedule for the remainder of the year: September 8, 17:00 GMT (online) - 24 Hours of PASS webcast: "Baseline Basics or: Who Broke the Database?" In this session, excerpted from my PASS Summit precon, I'll explain the whys and hows of using baselines to assist with performance tuning. If you find yourself more often than not tuning reactively rather than proactively...(read more)

Data Education: Food For Your Brain

2011-08-16T13:20:00Z

I've written here before about Data Education , the training company I recently launched, building off my previous company Boston SQL Training. Things have moved along quickly, and I and the rest of the Data Education staff are very happy to announce a jam-packed fall and winter course roster . We'll be announcing even more classes later in the year, but I wanted to give you a run-down of what we're currently offering. (Note that several of these are currently in the Early Bird stage, which means...(read more)

A Computer Scientist Meets T-SQL

2011-08-10T00:58:00Z

There I was. A freshly printed bachelor's degree in Computer Science tucked under my arm, I walked into my First Real Job. I'd never touched the technologies I was going to work with--ASP 3.0 and SQL Server--but my employer knew that, and I figured I'd be able to pick things up relatively quickly. After all, I'd been programming since the 2nd grade, knew a number of languages (more or less), and had all of the academic background I'd ever need. I was given a quick tour of the office, oriented by...(read more)

T-SQL Tuesday #21 - A Day Late and Totally Full of It

2011-08-03T18:38:00Z

“This ugly hack is only temporary,” you think. Six months later, a coworker curses your name, sacrificing a chicken to any deity that will help expedite your getting struck down by lightning, a school bus, or both. Crap code. We’ve all seen it. We’ve all created it. We’re all guilty. Yes, even you. Sometimes our crap is purposeful—the ugly, “temporary” hack. Sometimes we produce crap because we simply don’t know any better. But there is no excuse good enough. As professionals, we must strive to rid...(read more)

Performance, Discounts, and an Excuse to Visit New York City

2011-06-02T14:21:00Z

A couple of weeks ago I announced a two-day advanced performance seminar in New York City, which will be delivered in July. This seminar will cover SQLCLR and parallelism techniques to help you take performance well beyond the levels that typical tuning exercises yield . Check out the links for more details, including a full outline. Thanks to the great response so far, we have decided to extend the early registration discount for a few more days. You have until the end of the day tomorrow, June...(read more)

Two Days of Advanced Performance Techniques - July 14-15, New York City

2011-05-18T16:19:00Z

I am pleased to announce that I will be delivering two days of training in New York City, July 14 and 15. This seminar focuses on achieving "next-level" performance--going beyond that which you can gain via normal tuning methodologies . The vehicles for this performance improvement are two technologies that I've been pushing on this blog and in other venues for a long time: SQLCLR and parallelism. The seminar will be based on the in-depth materials that I used for my full-day sessions PASS conference...(read more)

TechEd 2011 - Performance Tuning and Optimization in SQL Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server Code Named "Denali"

2011-05-18T16:05:00Z

Thanks to everyone who took the time out of their conference experience to join Mike Wachal and me for yesterday's session on SQL Server performance tuning! For those who weren't there, we focused in on troubleshooting techniques, highlighting some of the key DMVs and new Extended Events features that will help with proactive diagnosis of problems. My section, in particular, was a bit of a taste of some of the sessions I've submitted for this fall's PASS summit : I showed a brief demo of troubleshooting...(read more)

Twenty Nine Days of Activity Monitoring (A Month of Activity Monitoring, Part 30 of 30)

2011-04-30T14:00:00Z

This post is part 30 of a 30-part series about the Who is Active stored procedure. A new post will run each day during the month of April, 2011. After April all of these posts will be edited and combined into a single document to become the basis of the Who is Active documentation. Pop quiz: What happens when you promise to write 30 posts on a topic, but you don’t plan properly and lose a bit of steam toward the end? Answer: A recap post, a day or two early! Woo hoo! The month started with a few...(read more)

Access for All! (A Month of Activity Monitoring, Part 29 of 30)

2011-04-29T14:00:00Z

This post is part 29 of a 30-part series about the Who is Active stored procedure. A new post will run each day during the month of April, 2011. After April all of these posts will be edited and combined into a single document to become the basis of the Who is Active documentation. Early in the month I discussed basic security requirements for Who is Active. I mentioned the VIEW SERVER STATE permission and the fact that I consider it to be “a relatively low barrier to entry.” But what if, in your...(read more)

Who is Active's Hidden Gems (A Month of Activity Monitoring, Part 28 of 30)

2011-04-28T14:00:00Z

This post is part 28 of a 30-part series about the Who is Active stored procedure. A new post will run each day during the month of April, 2011. After April all of these posts will be edited and combined into a single document to become the basis of the Who is Active documentation. Over the past month this series has covered a lot of ground. After writing almost 30 blog posts on the stored procedure it’s interesting to look back and see the fact that it’s gotten much bigger and more complex than...(read more)

Who is Active v11.00 (A Month of Activity Monitoring, Part 27 of 30)

2011-04-27T14:00:00Z

This post is part 27 of a 30-part series about the Who is Active stored procedure. A new post will run each day during the month of April, 2011. After April all of these posts will be edited and combined into a single document to become the basis of the Who is Active documentation. Thanks to your feedback over the past month, I’ve managed to get a lot of work done on the next version of Who is Active. So much work, in fact, that I’ve finished a new major release. Click here to download Who is Active...(read more)