Reflections from CLoud Camp -- Auckland

I have attended a cloud camp that was held in Auckland on Feb 26th 2010. Here are some points sent by Ben the Cloud camp organiser.

I posted a roundup here giving my thoughts on the event. Thanks to all our sponsors who made the event possible - Gen-i, enStratus, Microsoft, salesforce, vmware, Intergen, the University of Auckland and Zendesk. Thanks also to Anne Bilek for doing a great job of helping to organise things on the ground.

Paul from Gen-i wrote an interesting post with his reflections on the event - you can read it here.

Similarly Ryan from Intergen wrote an interesting perspective here.

Finally Nigel from Microsoft filmed the Lightning Talk given by Darryl Burling - also well worth a look. click here to watch the vid.

Have you heard of Worldcard?

Worldcard is a bizcard recognition solution for iPhones. This uses a built-in camera in smartphone to capture bizcard images and has a powerful recognition function to turn business card information into contacts right away.

To know more about it.........

How to become an exceptional DBA?

Today I have attended the webinar by Brad McGehee titled 'How to become an Exceptional DBA' which was an inspirational talk about why and how you need to be exceptional. Following are the learnings from this webinar.

Characteristics of an Exceptional DBA:
Enjoy Technology, challenges, problem solving, eye for detail and embrace change, trustworthy, accept responsibility, maintain professionalism, dependable, manage time well, be patient, good listener and most of all self confident.


Honing your skills

• Having a 4 year degree differentiates you from the crowd and this degree need not be in IT or CS.
• Boosting your technical skills is a self taught process by attending seminars, conferences, code camps, online training etc.
• Mastering related technical skills like virtualisation, operating system, hardware, clustering
• Practical experience is the key to be an exceptional DBA.
• Mastering soft skills like people skills, teamwork skills, project management, leadership skills, time management, writing skills, speaking skills, knowledge of legal responsibilities. These can be done by volunteering.

Specialising as a DBA:

Choose one or more of the following:

• DBA Adminstrator
• DBA Developer
• DBA High Availability/Disaster Recovery
• DBA Database Designer/Architect
• DBA BI SSAS specialist
• DBA BI SSIS specialist
• DBA BI SSRS specialist
• DBA Trainer
• DBA Consultant

• Professional certification helps you differentiate from other DBAs
• Volunteer and participate in the SQL SERVER community. this is mainly to help yourself as participating develops your soft skills, make new contacts, increases your bdepth and breadth of knowledge, building your network etc.

Manage your internal brand

• Understand business goals of your company, and focus on how to help achieve them.
• Be a leader and take the intitiative.
• Accept responsibilty for your actions
• Have a "Get it done" attitude
• Don't abuse your power
• Actively participate and contribute in meetings
• Help others be successful
• Most importantly avoid office politics
• Be proactive by keeping all the stakeholders in the loop

Manage your online brand

• Seperate professional and personal online presence
• Don't post anything negative
• Online conducta and content should be professional, and

Last but not the least, you should take control of your career by deciding what you want from your career, set realsitic, short term goals in order to reach major milestones in your career plan. Most importantly follow through your goals.

Connecting to SQL Server via Windows PowerShell with SQL Server authentication

Here is a tip from MSSQLTIPS that shows you how to connect to powershell with sql server authentication.

Today I have attended the free webinar on T-SQL for SLQ Server from Pragmatic Works. This was a fantastic session by Patrick LeBlanc. Even though I had some experience in T-SQL I have learnt a few new things mostly the new features of SQL SERVER 2008. The recorded webinar can be viewed from the resources page and click on View Recording at the relevant webinar.

Interesting things I have learnt from this webinar are as follows:

• If you don't want to type the table names you can drag a table into the query window from the object explorer.
• If you don't want to type the field names you can expand the table and drag the columns folder into the query window from the object explorer and the list of fields of the table automatically appear in the query window.
  
  Set Identity_Insert On or OFF
  
• You can update an ID column by setting the above variable on for a specific column. But remember to set the value to Off once you have updated the ID column as this works for one table at a time.
  Example:
  SET Identity_Insert tablename ON
  Insert INTO (IDcolumn, field1, field2)
  Values(6,ssss,zzzz)
  SET Identity_Insert tablename OFF
  
  
• A very good description (illustration) of rather differnces between, Inner join, left outer join and right outer join.
• The use of output statement
• Grouping Sets feature of SQL SERVER 2008
  

Hope you also find this resource useful.

Do your backups for SQL server still exist?

Now that you have confirgured your backups on SQLSERVER, the backups themselves seem to be working, but are the files still where you think they are? How do you know they have not been moved, or worse, deleted to free up some space on your server? And when would you find out that the files were no longer there? If you are looking for the file to do a restore, and cannot find it, then it is too late.

Here is an tip from MSsqltips that shows you a simple way to check through the backup history to find the last full backup for each database and also to check that the file still exists where it is supposed to exist. Read More .............

Cloud computing Costs and ROI

I came across this video on you tube that shows how to calculate the costs and ROI for cloud computing.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing has taken the IT world by storm, quickly making its way up the list of technology buzz words - but what does the term really mean? And how will cloud computing change the way you manage and organize your digital information in the future? (Relax News)

Here is the link to an article published by The Independent on What is Cloud Computing

Here is a video published on You Tube on What is Cloud Computing?

Cloudcamp in Auckland

Today I have registered for the CLoudcamp event that is happening in Auckland. If you also want to register for the Auckland cloudcamp please go to this link.

Cloud camps are in the tradition of unconferences where anyone can put themselves forward to present a session.

CloudCamp is an unconference where early adopters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas. With the rapid change occurring in the industry, we need a place where we can meet to share our experiences, challenges and solutions. At CloudCamp, you are encouraged to share your thoughts in several open discussions, as we strive for the advancement of Cloud Computing. End users, IT professionals and vendors are all encouraged to participate.

Adding a calculated field in pivot table

The following are the steps to add a calculated field inside a pivot table in Excel

• Click on a cell inside a pivot table.
• Go the PivotTable Tools -- Options -- Click on Formula --Calculated Field
• Add the formula for the calculated field
• Click ok. This will add the calculated field to the Pivot table as well.

Upgrade plan for SQL SERVER 2008

We have to upgrade out sql server 2005 to sql server 2008 in the coming months. Here is a comprehensive article that I found on MSSQLTIPS that could be used when you plan an upgrade. Read More