ONLY A COUPLE OF DAYS LEFT TO REGISTER
TSQL – For the Rest of Us
Our workshop is only a few days away now – Thursday Jan 21, 2010. The workshop is all about what you need to know to get up to speed on TSQL – from SELECT to what stored procedures are and how you create and use them, from DELETE to UPDATE to understanding views. This is a packed virtual workshop that will bring you all sorts of information. I put together a quick video introduction – it’s on the virtual workshop page. I’ll be live in the chat room too to answer questions, and you can even earn a certificate if you pass the course quiz afterward. I hope to see you there!
[Watch the Intro Video]
[Get More Information]
[Register Here]
SelectViews Show
Donald Farmer is on the show today. I sat down with him to learn about PowerPivot, the new add-in for Excel that helps you in working with information from your SQL Server in new ways… *fast and easy* ways. I had it wrong (as you’ll see in the show) – so Donald went through a demo, explained and talked through some of the amazing things they’re doing with this new tool. If you’re wondering what it’s all about – this is a great show to see with demos, explanations and a lot more. You can also sign up for next week’s FREE PowerPivot SQL Server Expo – it’ll be next Friday – you can get signed up here.
[Watch the SelectViews Show Here]
Great Design Feedback
This is amazing feedback – and I really found the approach of starting to tune the admin tasks to the application a great approach!
From Greg – "My thoughts are more about documenting and visualizing, than designing the database.
If I’m designing a database from scratch, it’s usually because I have a new application in mind that I want to write, and they usually start small-scale with a couple tables, and then start to grow as I start to conceptualize what all the app will contain.
As a couple of examples…
This is a small niche app I started on over the recent holidays – It’s to replace a web-based app, developed by somebody else, with a single db table. My version has 4 tables – small-scale stuff. Whereas, my other app that I’ve been working on for about 10 years has morphed over the years to where it has about 50 tables to support the kind of functionality needed.
So the important part for me is in starting small, and keeping the design flexible for future growth without having to re-code things due to a design that doesn’t expand easily.
But, the diagramming aspect has become increasingly important to me lately, for other reasons that you may also be interested in, as it also may relate to a recent topic – the Application DBA. The two main applications we use at work (K-12 school district) are a student system and business system, which contain multiple sub-systems, which each have their sets of tables to support them. The companies provide data dictionaries, but I really need a visual of the data relationships between tables to get a good picture of how the data relates to better understand how to troubleshoot problems in supporting the app. I don’t need a formal database diagramming app, and actually it would probably not work well for what I need, as I want to have notes, comments, etc… on it to understand, and keep track of, any adhoc bits of info I come across that may be helpful in future troubleshooting.
I use Star UML for this diagram – http://staruml.sourceforge.net/en/ – it works well for me, and is free and open source.
I also began to use it recently to diagram another aspect – backups. We’ve somewhat migrated from handling ‘backups of systems/servers’ to handling ‘backups of data related to apps’. So rather than backing up serverA, serverB, serverC, etc… We backup the data for applicationA, applicationB, applicationC, etc…
Sometimes it’s MS SQL data, mySQL data, O/S-level files, proprietary db format, and/or on a server that’s not part of the domain.
Sometimes there’s multiple types of data for an app, on different servers.
We get the data to where we need it, so it can be backed up, via various means – SQL native backup, Windows backup, Doubletake, and sometimes just good old xcopy.
I’m finding that the Star UML app above is becoming very valuable for me to keep an understanding of what’s happening, and where and how.
I don’t know if you’ve asked/covered this in the past, but I’d be interested in hearing how others backup a diverse set of data from third party and departmental apps, and how they document it in a way that makes it easy to get an overall view of what’s in place to handle it.
I also found that once I got to where it had multiple sub-sections, that’s when I started to need a visual of it to keep a good understanding of the overall view. Even as the sole developer of it, if I don’t work on a portion of it for a while, it helps to have a visual reminder of the data that’s included in the various parts at times. So the Star UML app has come in handy there, too – quick and easy way to get a visual, and if I need more info, I then just go direct to the database for details (data types, sizes, etc…)"
PowerPivot Expo – Free Event
Donald Farmer will be presenting 4 different sessions at this week’s SQL Server Expo – it’ll be all about PowerPivot. If you’re wondering what it is, how it works, what you use it for, etc – this will be an excellent event to attend. You do need to register – and time is running out!
[Get Registered Here] and we’ll see you there!