Configuring Available Memory for SQL Server Reporting Services

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UK SQL Relay 2014 Resumes Next Week

SQL Relay 2014 resumes in the UK next week. SQL Relay is a series of 1 day events that are run throughout the UK.

UK SQL Relay 2014 Plus Travel Info for London and Southampton

Throughout October, SQL Relay 2014 is taking place in the UK. If you’re unfamiliar with SQL Relay, it is a series of 1 day events that are run throughout the UK. Each event is a single track (or more in the case of London) conference, with between 50 and 200 attendees and 6-8 hour long talks by SQL Server professionals, MVPs, authors, technical experts etc.

Six of the Best: Clustered Columnstore Special

Here’s a roundup of 6 links and updates from the past month I recommend as good reading. I decided that I needed to post a list of Blogs posts, technology info and other random-but-related stuff. So I decided to limit myself to a monthly post of sharing no more than 6 articles across the web. I’m massively busy getting to grips with Clustered Columnstore indexes, as well as day to day tasks, raising a family, studying for exams etc.

SQL Supper Notes

Yesterday evening there was a very special SQL Supper hosted at the Microsoft offices in London Victoria. It was an open session with some of the Microsoft Data Platform group, Mark Souza, Nigel Ellis, Conor Cunningham, Hatay Tuna and Ewan Fairweather. So I made my way by foot from the offices here in Covent Garden to London Victoria. Although February in London is rather chilly, with a brisk walk you can make it in half an hour, plus you pass several landmarks such as the piazza at Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square (and it’s controversial 4th plinth sculpture, the Blue Hahn Cock) the Mall, Buckingham Palace and finally, Westminster Cathedral.

Last Name Change I Promise... Again...

A lesson learnt from thinking that Red Phoenix was a good site title (always Google a website name before you decide to take it on).

Six of the Best: January 2014

Here’s a roundup of 6 links and updates from the past month I recommend as good reading. I decided that I needed to post a list of Blogs posts, technology info and other random-but-related stuff. So I decided to limit myself to a monthly post of sharing no more than 6 articles across the web. Script CREATE and DROPindexes for all indexes in tables. BIDS Helper 1.6.5was released on 7th January with new features and bug fixes.

Six of the Best: November 2013

Here’s a roundup of 6 links and updates from the past month I recommend as good reading. I decided that I needed to post a list of Blogs posts, technology info and other random-but-related stuff. So I decided to limit myself to a monthly post of sharing no more than 6 articles across the web.

UK SQL Relay 2013 R2 Resumes Next Week

SQL Relay R2 2013 resumes in the UK next week. SQL Relay is a series of 1 day events that are run throughout the UK.

UK SQL Relay 2013 R2 Plus Travel Info for London and Southampton

Throughout November, SQL Relay R2 2013 is taking place in the UK. This is the 2nd series of events this year. SQL Relay is a series of 1 day events that are run throughout the UK. Each event is a single track (or more in the case of London) conference, with between 50 and 200 attendees and 6-8 hour long talks by SQL Server professionals, MVPs, authors, technical experts etc.

Six of the Best: October 2013

Here’s a roundup of 6 links and updates from the past month I recommend as good reading. I decided that I needed to post a list of Blogs posts, technology info and other random-but-related stuff. So I decided to limit myself to a monthly post of sharing no more than 6 articles across the web. Comodo Ice Dragonis a web browser that integrates with Comodo’s SecureDNS, and is very good indeed.

Six of the Best: September 2013

Here’s a roundup of 6 links and updates from the past month I recommend as good reading. I decided that I needed to post a list of Blogs posts, technology info and other random-but-related stuff. So I decided to limit myself to a monthly post of sharing no more than 6 articles across the web. The Full Story of Nokia and Microsoft - How we got here, and why Microsoft will fail with Nokia handsetsCollateral-Damage: My $.

Six of the Best: August 2013

Here’s a roundup of 6 links and updates from the past month I recommend as good reading. I decided that I needed to post a list of Blogs posts, technology info and other random-but-related stuff. So I decided to limit myself to a monthly post of sharing no more than 6 articles across the web. Determine if a computer is virtual with powershellSSD RAID Load Testing Results from a Dell PowerEdge R720Subselects And Formula Engine Caching In SSAS 2012SQL SERVER – Finding Last Backup Time for All DatabasesBug: DBCC CHECKDB data purity checks are skipped for master and modelRidiculously good acapella versions of video game songs

Six of the Best: July 2013

Here’s a roundup of 6 links and updates from the past month I recommend as good reading. I decided that I needed to post a list of Blogs posts, technology info and other random-but-related stuff. So I decided to limit myself to a monthly post of sharing no more than 6 articles across the web. Enabling OpenSource Software using Windows Server 2012 R2Architectural overview of SQL Server 2014 In Memory OLTPThe 1 Skill You Need to Succeed in ITLike it or not, Self-Service BI and Cloud BI are HereLight Completely Stopped for One MinuteFeatures Supported by the Editions of SQL Server 2014

Choosing the Right Processor for your SQL Server Workload

Last year, we planned to move our data warehouse from a 2 socket server to a 4 socket server that was left in the data centre from an abandoned project to virtualize our desktops.

My Two Cents On TFS Build Server Best Practices

Update August 2016: If you can, use the VSTS Hosted Build Service. If you can’t, then you’d be surprised to know that the Hosted Build Service uses the D2_V2. Which is 2 core, 7GB of RAM. For 1 build agent. So you know…. something to consider there….

(Update 2014: below I mention that 2GB per agent is a good starting point. This is probably not enough if you’re publishing/scripting database changes using sqlpackage.exe, particularly if one of the databases is a multipartitioned data warehouse and you plan on having multiple builds running simultaneously. I’d say 4GB, if you can afford it, per agent for this scenario).

It’s amazing how important build servers are to a team working in Scrum; the team relies on a fast build server that can build and deploy code quickly. A CI Build gives the devs feedback that the code is good to be deployed to the test environment. And the testers rely that the build deploys to the environment rapidly. If it takes 10 minutes to run a CI build and 20 minutes to deploy to a test environment, that’s half hour spent on waiting to test a new feature. Over the period of a sprint, many builds are run, which leads up to a significant amount of time waiting on builds. Invariably the developers and testers whinge that the builds are taking too long, and the boss comes up and asks you to find out why they’re taking so long and speed them up. So based on my experiences here are my thoughts on how you can check that you’ve optimized your builds and build servers as much as you can.

F# PowerPack with F# Compiler Source Drops - Download: PowerPack for FSharp 3.0 + .NET 4.x + VS2012

This is a release of the old FSharp Power Pack binaries recompiled for F# 3.0, .NET 4.0/4.5 and Silveright 5. via F# PowerPack with F# Compiler Source Drops - Download: PowerPack for FSharp 3.0 + .NET 4.x + VS2012. http://fsharppowerpack.codeplex.com/releases/view/99231 We use f# for some calcs in our software. However an old bug that once occurred in a previous version has reared it’s ugly head again. When you compile you will see this error

THE PHOENIX PROJECT

(Apologies for the name change whilst I try to settle on something I like. All the good names on Twitter and Wordpress have gone…) One name I wanted to settle on was the “Agile Administrator”. Nope, taken: that blog already exists. But whilst reading the aforementioned blog they were reviewing a book called “THE PHOENIX PROJECT: A NOVEL ABOUT IT, DEVOPS, AND HELPING YOUR BUSINESS WIN”. So I bought the book and read it.

Pre-Release Preperation

Working in an Agile environment means that we have many releases throughout the year. Despite our sprints being of the same length, there generally seems to be releases where there is a lot to of functionality, and some where not so many changes are going in. Releases tend to be a team effort here, but the overall management of the process falls to me. But no matter how regularly we deploy, or how big an impact the release will be, it always makes common sense to be diligent when preparing for a release.