Happy New Year everyone! I hope the holiday season treated you well, but like everyone else, it’s time for me to roll up my sleeves and get back to things – including blogging.

This is the first of a few SQL Server failover clustering instance blog posts centered around Setup. I’ve been noticing a few things as of late and as I’m writing the new Mission Critical SQL Server 2012 book, I wanted to share some of what I found (and there will be much more detail in the book around some of these).

There’s a great new feature associated with deploying a Windows Server 2012 failover cluster (WSFC). When a WSFC is created, a corresponding Cluster Name Object (CNO) also gets created in Active Directory (AD). Similarly, when SQL Server (or any other clustered application requiring a name) gets created, it also gets an AD object called a Virtual Computer Object (VCO). These require certain rights to happen automatically, or these objects can be known as what is “pre-staged” – meaning they can be created ahead of time. I’m oversimplifying a bit just to present the general concepts to understand what I will be showing later.

The problem for AD admins is that many of them have a customized structure to place objects – like computers – into. For example, all of the SQL Servers may go in an organizational unit (OU) – think of a folder – called SQL Servers. By default, a Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2 WSFC would stick the CNO and VCO in the Computers OU. The only way to have it placed elsewhere would be to pre-stage it. In Windows Server 2012, this behavior is different. There’s a bit more intelligence behind where CNOs and VCOs get created. If you have another default OU, it will try to use that. However, even if you don’t change the default OU but you move, say, the cluster nodes into another one, it will try to create the CNO where the nodes are, and the subsequent VCOs there as well because the CNO will now be there as well. It may not be optimal for everyone but it sure is light years from where we were with Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2.

So in theory, SQL Server’s Setup – 2008 R2 or 2012 – when installing a clustered instance of SQL Server (FCI) should be able to use this properly, right? It can, but there are some slight differences to the way you did things in the past which I discovered through testing. The domain controller I used in this testing is Windows Server 2012 at a W2012 functionality level.

I have an OU named W2012 Servers (see Figure 1; for all figures in this post, click on them to make them larger). It has two computer objects in it - my nodes DENNIS and TOMMY. The WSFC administration account I will use to create the WSFC also has the requisite Create Computer Objects (CCO) right on the W2012 Servers OU – basically  the same as if I would have added it to the Computers OU.

Figure 1. AD OU with the two nodes

Then I created a WSFC named STYX as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Newly created WSFC

As expected, the CNO got added in that OU because it saw the two nodes in there. The OU now looks like Figure 3. So far, so good.

Figure 3. AD OU with the newly created WSFC in it

I then tried to install a SQL Server 2012 FCI named Equinox. Everything was great until Setup tried to bring the network name resource online. Cue sad trombone, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Equinox cannot come online.

So what’s wrong? Setup barfed before it could complete (no SQL Server Agent was created) because it couldn’t configure SQL Server itself due to not being able to come online. Remember that there are dependencies when it comes to clustered resources, and in the case of SQL Server, if the name isn’t up, neither is SQL. This can be seen in the SQL Server Setup log as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Error in Detail.txt

Now I need to figure out why this happened. Because of what I know about WSFC, I already had a suspicion it had to do with permissions or something related to the VCO. The first place I look is at the errors in Failover Cluster Manager (FCM), which is a good place to start. It aggregates the cluster related events for you. The one in Figure 6 stuck out at me like a sore thumb as root cause or close to it.

Figure 6. The error in Failover Cluster Manager

This error confirmed my suspicions. What was notable is the wording. Now, I know I had the account used to create the WSFC set up with CCO. In the past, that’s all I’ve ever needed unless I was pre-staging. That first bullet is the telling one. Remember that the STYX object was created just fine, so I had no issues. But after I created the WSFC, I did not explicitly give the CNO any additional rights on the W2012 Servers OU. Since I didn’t need to do anything like that in the past, I decided to try an experiment. Before trying to reinstall SQL Server and waste time there, I would try to cluster something as a generic applicatioon and see if I could reproduce the error. What I was trying to do was rule out SQL Server’s Setup as having a bug. Before going any further, I ran the Remove Node functionality of Setup to clean up the failed install of Equinox.

I then tried to create Notepad (yes, that Notepad) as a generic application as shown in Figure 7. The same issue happened – the network name could not come online. The error was the same. So at this point – for now anyway – I was ruling out SQL Server’s Setup. But I had to get it working. Note that in Figure 7, the Wizard calls out the fact that the WSFC detected where te VCO should probably be placed based on the location of the CNO. I did not input that. Pretty cool.

Figure 7. Creating Notepad as a "clustered" application

Based on this, I granted the CNO the CCO right on the OU to see if that would fix my issue. I then tried to create Notepad again in the WSFC. This time, it worked as shown in Figure 8. Notepad was created properly in the cluster and its associated VCO was created in the W2012 Servers OU as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 8. Successfully clustered Notepad

Figure 9. Notepad in the OU

Now that I know Notepad worked, I was going to try SQL Server. I was fairly confident I solved my issue by granting the CNO the proper rights on the OU. If it didn’t work, there was a problem with Setup itself that was probably trying to put it in the Computers OU and bypass whatever Windows behavior is. I was hoping this was not the case. Before installing SQL Server, I deleted Notepad (not from the node, just the WSFC). Fingers crossed, I reinstalled the Equinox FCI. Figures 10 and 11 tell the story.

Figure 10. Equinox FCI

Figure 11. Equinox as a VCO in the OU

Whether you are installing SQL Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2012 on a Windows Server 2012 node, as long as the permissions are right, the new VCO functionality of Windows Server 2012 works like a charm. No more Computers OU by default if Windows detects things elsewhere. Yay.

So how does this new VCO behavior work with a non-Windows Server 2012 DC? Stay tuned for a future installment of this series.

Before I wrap up this post, I wanted to point out something else I observed. After creating the FCI, FCM was showing the following in Figure 12.

Figure 12. Name resolution message

Name resolution not yet available? What? This is something I had never seen before that did go away. I’m going to do some digging into this, but what I am assuming is that DNS had not been propagated so while the object was in AD, something still wasn’t resolving. This was non fatal because it went away, but I found it interesting nonetheless.

That’s it for today, kids. Class dismissed!

Whew! I can’t believe it’s the end of November already. I’ve been on the move (quite literally) since about mid-September. It’s all been good stuff, but I’ve had very little downtime to catch my breath (always good when you’re an availability guy, right?).

My fall usually starts with the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I usually spend time with my family for one of them, so I was down in NJ for RH. I was at home for YK, and the next night, flew to Europe for SQL Rally Europe. I spent a few days outside of Paris before heading to Copenhagen. Rally was a great experience, and I delivered a pre-con and one session during the event. I flew home immediately after Rally and not only had some customer work, but was spending time preparing for the pre-con Ben and I delivered at PASS Summit 2012, as well as for the two sessions during the Summit itself (both on Friday afternoon, no less). Then I flew to Australia (via Los Angeles) where I’ve been since the 12th of November. I just delivered two weeks of training (two 4-day classes) in Brisbane and Canberra with labs. So besides preparing and delivering two pre-cons and three sessions between Rally and PASS, I was updating my SQL Server mission critical/HA course to have labs which then saw their debut these past two weeks. Oh, and I presented to the Queensland SQL Server User Group while I was in Brisbane! Needless to say, I’ve been fairly heads down in content land for the better part of the past 3 – 4 months, and I’ve still got a book to finish (yes, I am working on it – hope to have it done sometime in Q1 CY 2013 if all goes well).

As I sit here at the airport in Canberra waiting for my flight to Sydney where I’ll connect to my flight to Tokyo (vacation here I come!) where I’ll have a few days of R&R before heading home, I want to thank everyone who took the time to attend a session, pre-con, or one of the two courses I just delivered here in Australia. I am extremely grateful, humbled, honored to get these opportunities. I know not everyone does, and I do not take it for granted. I want to send a heartfelt thanks to everyone at Wardy IT in Australia  for not only giving me the opportunity here, but who also made the past few weeks a breeze and outside of doing my job, I didn’t have to stress over much else.

To be honest, I thought this trip would be more of a grind than it has been. I left Waltham on November 4. Luckily, I’ve paced myself and done all the right things where I have yet to hit the proverbial wall (although I probably just jinxed myself). I also haven’t done too much sightseeing down here in Australia – I’ve been mainly working. Whether it was tweaking content, fixing labs, stressing about lab room setups … but these are very, very first world problems. And yes, SirSQL (nee Nic Cain – blog | Twitter), I even got some sleep. I was VERY pleased with the way the labs came out and the students really seemed to love them. I will tweak them a bit before the next delivery, but a 4-day hands on beats any of the 3-day deliveries I’ve done. The feedback was almost universal in how much the labs helped tremendously and enhanced the experience. I didn’t half-ass it – I really thought about what would make a good experience for the students and that’s what I did; MOC is ain’t (sorry Microsoft!). Looks like I was spot on. It was a lot of work, but worth all of the time invested. I hope to deliver the course again soon. Where? I don’t know, but stay tuned.

If all that wasn’t enough for you, I just turned 41 this week on top of everything. What a better way to treat myself than go to arguably my favorite place on the planet to visit – Tokyo? I’m looking forward to NOT thinking about SQL Server and enjoying the sights, sounds, and well, shopping. I know Brent Ozar (personal blog | professional blog | Twitter) is cursing me right now

All of this great stuff happening to me is a far cry from where I was last fall. Just search my blog. After the death of my friend Mike, well, things just were not all honky dory for me. I had arguably my worst PASS Summit ever, and I basically went to Tokyo (right around this time, actually) to just get away and escape from all of that. A year later, I feel renewed and as crappy as all of that was to go though, it made me stronger and I appreciate what I do have even more. I guess I’ve been on a path of personal redemption that has seemingly come full circle 12 months later.

I’m not done for the year – I’ve got a lot of stuff I want to blog about (and some of it is even technical!) but it won’t happen until I’m back Stateside. Have a good one, kids!

Hello again everyone. It’s been quite a busy few weeks, especially with PASS Summit 2012 in Seattle last week. I wound up doing a lot of speaking – two regular sessions, a pre-con, and I was over in Redmond on Monday for something else. It was a really great Summit, and I thank everyone who came to the pre-con and the two sessions. It was nice to see such a packed house for nearly everything. Even my failover clustering session which was scheduled to be the last one on Friday had a decent turnout. No matter what the scores wind up saying (and I hope they’re good), I have no real complaints.

I’ve been in Australia for a few days adjusting to the time difference and preparing for the mission critical/HA class with Wardy IT in Brisbane and Canberra. If you’re in Australia, I hope you’ve signed up and I’ll see you there. Anyway, I’m going through the labs I’ve put together for the class and while I’ve noticed a difference visually (more  than just a command prompt) between Full and Server Core before, I’ve finally taken  the time to grab some screen captures.

As you know, since Windows Server 2008 there has been a Core variant of the operating system. This clearly continues in Windows Server 2012, but there’s an interesting twist. I’ve blogged a little about how you can switch shells between Full, MinShell, and pure Server Core. Microsoft published the important KB article “Using SQL Server in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 environments” (go bookmark it now!). It clearly states the following in terms of switching between the shells when SQL Server is installed:

… be aware that you cannot switch from Full Server to Minimal Server Interface or Server Core when one or more instances of SQL Server 2012 is installed.

To switch from Full Server to Minimal Server Interface or Server Core when one or more instances of SQL Server 2012 are installed, you must uninstall SQL Server 2012, switch modes, and then reinstall SQL Server 2012. However, you can turn on SQL Server 2012 installation prerequisites in Full Server mode, switch to Server Core mode, and then install SQL Server 2012.

Ouch! So clearly you need to choose your shell up front or else you’re going to have to uninstall and reinstall. Truth be told, I have tested and you can technically switch with SQL Server installed. There does not seem to be any issues, but this is how Microsoft has chosen to support how this will work. Also note the following in the KB:

SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 are not supported in Minimal Server Interface or Server Core modes.

So even if you could get them to work with Server Core since SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 are supported under Windows Server 2012, it doesn’t matter. If you want to use those versions of SQL Server with Windows Server 2012, you’ll need the full GUI.

Here’s a fun fact which can be shown in pictures: if you install just Windows Server 2012 Server Core, did you know the logon screen color is different? Well, it is! See the Figure 1 below – it’s a light blue/aqua/turquoise-y/cyan color.

Figure 1. Server Core Logon Screen

Figure 2 shows when you install with the full GUI you get a grey color. The color does not switch if you change shells to Server Core (or MinShell for that matter), so how you install it influences the color. Assuming you’re not color blind (and no offense to those who are), it’s an easy way to tell how your OS was installed. Neat.

Figure 2. GUI Logon Screen

Hope this helps some of you out there in your planning and deployment. This is important stuff! I’ve got a bit more to say on this topic around clusters, but that is for another post soon …

It’s the day after Sandy had its way with the Northeast, and the results are not pretty. Part of the Boardwalk in Atlantic City? Destroyed. Property damage, especially in the coastal areas of New Jersey and the immediate New York City area? Lots of it. Flooding? Yes. I could go on, but you get the point. While there are still many people here in MA and New England without power, we thankfully did not see the brunt of the storm. Luckily, both my parents and sister (and her husband) are OK in New Jersey. They are not right near Atlantic City and there’s some damage around where they both live, but all things considered, things should hopefully return to some level of normal within a few days.

The pictures of the flooding in lower Manhattan and the entire area are both riveting and devastating at the same time (look at LaGuardia airport). It’s hard not to watch. I was in NYC just a few months ago (and in some of that affected area), so it’s incredible to see. What does bother me though, are the yahoos who thought they would be OK. What part of mandatory evacuation do you not get? Before you call me unsympathetic, I do fully understand that there are people who have no ability (due to money or other reasons) to just go. I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about the yahoos you saw on Nightline or in the news who stayed in their apartment buildings to ride things out. Irene wasn’t enough for you? In this war, Mother Nature will always win. Period. Darwin in full effect.

I focused more on the human aspect in yesterday’s blog post and I think that at this time, all I can say is my prayers and thoughts go out to those affected. Today I’m going to focus on the business continuity of a catastrophic event like Sandy.

If you watched any of the coverage, you saw that a good portion of Manhattan did not have power after a point last night (and still doesn’t). Some of the outage was intentional. It was a preventative measure. You want to talk about a tough decision? That’s a disaster recovery plan in action. It’s like those movies – sacrifice one to save many. Their hope was to minimize the effect of the flooding. We’ll see in time if that was the right call. But that brings other things into focus – like the flooded data center that affected sites like Huffington Post and Gawker (not a commentary on either site, just stating facts), or the failing backup generator at NYU Langone Medical Center which forced over 200 patients to be evacuated. More on that scene in a bit …

We’ve seen a lot recently how cloud outages (*cough* EC2, and more than once *cough*) have brought many folks down, but things like generator failures and floods are a whole different level of downtime hell. In the case of the flooded data center, the flooding was causing issues in allowing the backup generators to kick in because the fuel could not be pumped (they run on gas, just incase you don’t know). Oops. It’s like I say all the time – you can only account for so much. You’re not going to get every “what if” scenario. Even backup plans fail. You still need to account for that in some way.

This brings up a whole other dimension: crumbling, old, outdated infrastructure. There’s a lot of it out there in the world (roads, bridges, etc.), and not just in computing. The focus here will be NYC. Most of the infrastructure there is old (some of it 100 or so years old). See this article, and specifically the third paragraph. The whole article is a good read. NYC learned a lot (unfortunately) from 9/11 and Irene, and I think as a country, we’re more aware after things like Katrina, but NYC is still a mess today and will be for a few days. You can’t fight Mother Nature, but you need to protect yourself better. Just look at the tunnels (cars and subway) that were flooded. That one picture with the water rushing into the station through the elevator shaft was amazing. It’s going to be days – if not weeks - before public transit service is fully operational in the greater NYC area. Once all of the saltwater is pumped out, everything needs to be inspected, repaired, and possibly replaced. Then it needs to be testing (ah, my old friend testing). That’s not only to ensure that things work, but safety. I believe something like 8,000,000 people use the MTA/PATH/LIRR/etc. every day.

Think about your current deployments and architectures, as well as your data centers. How much of it is based on older stuff that is no longer supported and you’re keeping going by spit and chewing gum? I would venture to say that everyone has some of that, even those that are fairly up to date on most things. There’s something in your infrastructure you’re worried about. You’re lying if you say otherwise. Governor Cuomo has the right idea – things are changing, so something needs to be done. You can’t rely on what worked 10 (or 100) years ago when the parameters change. Why do I talk about this? Well, according to Bloomberg, the NYU Hospital’s board of directors knew that the generators were not up to snuff even before Sandy.

<rant>

Here’s where I get angry. We’re not talking about processing orders for widgets. We’re talking literally about life and death for some if there is no electricity. When I work with customers, this is why we need to understand the effect of downtime. Architecting for avoiding death is WAY different than a missed transaction. Federal and other regulations aside for transactions in certain industries, death is no joke.

</rant>

I see this all the time with customers, too. I’m not singling anyone out, and I hear it when I speak to people at conferences, too. What happened at NYU in my opinion is NOT acceptable risk. You need to mitigate that. Use all the excuses you want – and money is usually #1, and I get things done right are not cheap – but you can’t have your cake and eat it, too, here. We all know of old SQL Server 2000 and Windows deployments because there are those apps in your data center “which just can’t be migrated/upgraded”. I call malarkey. At some point, you need to replace it. Sometimes the problem is money – going to a new version isn’t free (software cost, cost to migrate, new hardware, training on the platform). Other times no one knows much about it so they believe it’s best to leave it alone. Other times the software is no longer made and no one has spent time looking for a viable replacement. There are sometimes valid reasons not to retire a system, but everything at some point needs to have a plan to move forward. Otherwise you are so far behind you’ll never get caught up. Old is great until it breaks. Then it’s a nightmare.

Case in point, I was talking to someone recently who told me the story of one company that literally bought multiple systems and configured them the same way. As one died, they just put another into service. I believe they are down to two left, and they’re now just starting to look for a new solution. If I’m not mistaken this is a SQL Server 6.5-based application. This stuff exists, folks … and it may be in your own backyard.

Now is a great time to assess where you are in terms of disaster recovery. Let us help you.

I promised that I’d post the scripts from my Penton/SQL Server Magazine Mission Critical webcast “Index Tuning for the DBA” last week, and here they are. I also wanted to say a few words about tuning your indexes.

The common thinking for many people is, “We cannot tune the application because we do not know anything about it.” That may be true in some respect, but as I talked about in the webinar, you do have access to a large amount of great runtime and metadata available in SQL Server as well as about the application that you can get to without too much fuss. This data can then be used to better understand the application and better yet, adjust the indexing strategy. This in turn has the potential to provide significant performance gains.

Without rehashing the full webinar, let me highlight a few critical points about the strategy and answer WHY we focus on indexes and not the application code or process design.

1. Risk is a major consideration when changing any application and if you are a DBA who is supporting a system but want to make the application better, you will want to implement changes that have lower risk.
2. Effort is another major factor especially for DBAs who already do not have enough time to check off everything on their task list. Tuning code or redesigning processes requires a large amount of time and effort, especially taking into consideration the enter software development lifecycle.
3. The last one is hardware. Some people think a new, shiny server or more memory/drive space will cure everything. Sometimes it may provide relief and give you a brief respite, but in the end, the application will most likely still be sick or suffering from the same, poorly performing code. You cannot always put a band aid on a severed artery.

Adjusting the indexing strategy allows you to potentially tune and improve an application by leaps and bounds. If you follow the approach I talk about here as well as presented last week, you can slowly adjust the indexes that exist today and start to create a strategy that will allow your application to be more efficient in its data access. It is usually an iterative approach where you need to find that balance before you start to over index a system. This approach creates the indexing strategy that every highly scalable and performing application strives for. Below are what I feel are the most common types of patterns to look for in the index utilization data: 

• Unused indexes
• Duplicate indexes
• Tables without clustered indexes
• Overlapping indexes
• High scan count, higher page count
• High lookups
• Non-optimal clustered indexes
• Higher cost but used
• Over indexed table (OLTP vs OLAP)

I hope this quick refresher helps you, and thanks again for attending the online event last week. I hope to see some of you at PASS Summit next week.

It’s the week before I hit the road for PASS and Australia, and I have a visitor here in MA: Hurricane Sandy (well, the outer edge of it). Here in the Northeastern US, we get Nor’easters, but rarely events like hurricanes. Just the other week we had a magnitude 5.x earthquake. So we’re not immune to natural stuff happening, it just happens infrequently. As I’m typing this, the wind is howling outside and I’ve heard things hit my building. So there’s a pretty good chance that I may lose power at some point in the next 24 hours, so I’m trying to get as much done work-wise as I can before that happens because next week is PASS and I leave to go Down Under after that. Yes, I have spare batteries for my computer (3 to be exact) but that’s not really the point.

Sandy has virtually shut down the Northeast Corridor, one of the most densely populated areas of the USA. The storm is affecting roughly 66,000,000 people. SEPTA (Philadephia), the MBTA (Boston), and the NYC transport system – the major public transportation in those cities – are all shut down. Amtrak isn’t running, and plane flights are cancelled (although the Patriots somehow made it back home from London, but I know people stuck there … go figure). According to Yahoo, Sandy is costing us $10 billion (yes, with a b) per day. This is serious stuff, and we haven’t even gotten to the most important part.

I’ve written quite a bit on disaster recovery (D/R) over the years, and how you need to be prepared. It really is not a technical exercise to a large degree. For people, it’s making sure you can do simple things like eat, drink, and be OK until things pass and are restored (not limited to, but including losing power). That means you need things like water, non-perishable food, flashlights/lanterns, batteries, you name it. Around here, most places were sold out of D batteries by some point on Saturday afternoon – a good 2 or 3 days ago. Anyone looking last night was out of luck. A business must have similar preparations. It’s not just about recovering from a disaster. What it really is, to be honest, is business continuity. When stuff happens, you need to go on be it a minute, a day, or a week later.

It’s funny – I talk a lot with customers about how they will handle some sort of disaster or more serious outage, be it man made or natural. Most are not that concerned or can’t quantify what will happen, which surprises me given the fact that they all want to be 24×7. D/R and business continuity is very much an afterthought in most planning, but I think Sandy will hopefully change the minds of many (at least here in the Northeast). I know MANY businesses that not only don’t have D/R plans, but if they do, their data centers are mere miles apart. Granted, with the whole of the Northeast Corridor being affected here, even 400 – 500 miles may not make a difference with Sandy the way some things are going. A geographically dispersed failover cluster is not going to help you if both of your data centers are down.

Coming full circle, this all brings back Irene for me, which unfortunately took the life of my friend Mike Kenwood (just do a search here …). He made the ultimate sacrifice as an EMT, so I know all too well the impact an event like this can have. Yes, bringing back your business is important, but not if you don’t have the people to do the work. Putting systems in place won’t bring help those who are injured (or worse). If you’re a business, make sure your employees are safe. Most employers (including the Commonwealth of MA) told their employees to stay home today (unless they were essential). That was the right move; heck, one of the stats here in New England just ordered all cars off the road as of 3PM. If your people are where they need to be and come through OK, coupled with the right business continuity plans, you’ll be back up and running as soon as possible.

I’ve been a bit heartened by the fact that the various states and cities – especially the big ones – took all of this seriously. Are people going to experience damage (trees down, flooding, etc.) and power outages? You bet. But it seems like Irene taught many a lesson and that the impact felt from Sandy will be big, but it’s going to be dealt with. There was a lot of backlash after Irene (and a few other things) here in MA with regards to the power companies. Some of that was definitely justified, and it’s been nice to see e-mails from both NStar and National Grid not only telling people what’s going on, but giving tips on preparing.

If you don’t have any D/R plans, maybe Sandy has scared you into doing it. Need help? Contact us.

Stay safe, everyone. I’m hunkered down for the duration.

It’s a rainy Tuesday here in Massachusetts, but that isn’t dampening my spirits. Ben and I have quite a bit going on besides our customer work. The good news is that you can catch us live (and sometimes in person).

In a few weeks, Ben and I will be taking place in a free online event with Penton and SQL Server Pro Magazine on Thursday, October 25. The theme is Mission Critical SQL Server. The event kicks off at 11AM Eastern. I’ll be speaking starting at 12:15 (“SQL Server 2012, High Availability, and You”) and Ben at 1:45 (“Index Tuning for the DBA”). For more information and to register, click here.

Next up is PASS Summit in Seattle, WA. This is arguably one of (if not) the biggest SQL Server-based conferences in the world. Ben and I will be delivering the pre-con “Real-World System Design for the DBA: Private Cloud and SQL as a Service” (DBA-299-P) on Tuesday, November 6 (full info here). We’re really looking forward to this and hope you’ll come out.

I’ll be co-delivering a session during Summit ”The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Deploying AlwaysOn Availability Groups” (DBA-300) on Friday, November 9 at 1PM with David Smith and Mike Steineke. Hopefully most of you will be staying the whole time and not flying out early.

Last, but certainly not least, after Summit I’ll be heading to Australia to deliver two weeks of training. I’ll be in Brisbane (November 19 – 22) and Canberra (November 26 – 29). The two classes will be expanded editions of my current SQL Server high availability/disaster recovery/mission critical training with labs! Labs in a class like this are actually harder to pull off than you think, and I’m hoping next year to deliver this class elsewhere. I’m delivering the class with Wardy IT Solutions, and I’m very excited about the opportunity. It’s not too late to register (Brisbane, Canberra). For full details of the course, see this link. I really hope to see a bunch of you Down Under.

To stay up to date with where we’ll be, always have a look at our Upcoming Events page here on the site.

Hello again, everyone. I just got back from a wonderful trip to Europe where I had a blast delivering a pre-conference seminar as well as a session during SQL Rally Nordic 2012. It was a fantastic experience, and I am not only thankful to everyone who turned out, but grateful to the organizers for asking me to do it. I am always pleasantly surprised when people ask me to do things like that. If that sounds weird to you, it shouldn’t. Nothing in life is a guarantee except that at some point we’re all going to pass on. That’s about the only near universal truth there is (not trying to be a downer; it’s just a fact).

Here’s my thinking: I know I’m pretty good at what I do. I’m under zero illusion that there are people who may be smarter and/or better out there. There’s always something to learn even 20 years into a career. If I rested on my laurels, I’d be in deep, deep trouble.

However, lately it feels like some people feel slighted when they don’t get recognized and rewarded for what they do, be it a speaking a slot at something like PASS Summit or becoming an MVP. Huh? When did those things become a “After you do X, Y, and Z, you can then …” type of thing? The MVP thing has been all over Twitter and in blog posts (such as Brent Ozar’s “Congratulations, You’re an MVP! Here’s What You Need to Know“; the comments are worth reading) the past few days because we just hit the new cycle for new awardees and renewals (the cycle is quarterly). This post is not like those because I’m just reacting to some of the ugliness I’ve seen not only around the MVP thing but other things like feeling slighted that they didn’t get to speak at some event.

The speaking thing baffles me. Just because you’ve done SQL Saturdays and user groups – or even a Rally or past Summit – it’s not a guarantee of anything. I don’t care if you’ve done 5 or 50 things. I never assume I get a speaking slot anywhere, am pleasantly surprised when I do, and this coming from someone who has had one at most of the Summits for the past 10 or so years. If I didn’t get one, they didn’t like my topic and/or my abstract. It’s not a reason to get all bent out of shape, nor would I take it as a personal attack or affront. Would it be great to get better feedback on why you were rejected? Sure, but it’s not a license to say an event organizer sucks over your favorite social platform (including blogs) and stamp up and down that you “deserve it”.  Here’s another aspect you may not take into account: each year the speakers get better and better, and so do the abstracts and competition. When less than a point separates most speakers top from bottom by looking at the final eval scores, you’ve got a good thing going. You want to play in the big leagues? Swing for the fences, but don’t be shocked if you strike out.

Let’s do some math. Assume a conference has 500 submissions. In the track you submitted to, there were 180. You entered four (4) abstracts. On our first simple math problem, 4/500 = .008 – basically less than 1% of a chance you would be selected. Take that from a different angle – 4/180 = .022. So there your chances went up a little. Let’s say that track has 40 slots. That means that 140 of the 180 are gone. So you’re vying for 1 of 40, which is whittled down from the 180 candidates (40/180 = 22.22 BTW). So you’re basically looking at a one in five shot there. Bottom line here: taking any kind of personal feelings out, chances of getting selected are already tough.

The MVP discussion is a bit different because it’s a community award, so how is community participation measured? Well, it would happen in lots of ways and it’s also somewhat subjective. Being honest, for years I got sick of hearing “so you’re not an MVP?” I was first awarded my Cluster MVP status  in 2009 and have maintained it (this is year four for me). Here’s the deal: everything I did before being an MVP I’m still doing now. I didn’t change to be an MVP nor would I if it went away. I give back, and being recognized for it is great and I love the benefits, but I’m not a different person because of it. An MVP won’t turn you into the next coming of anything. While I’ve met many new folks, a lot of those who are MVPs I knew before I was one and I bet they’d still talk to me even if I lost my status, and I would talk to them, too, if they lost theirs.

For those of you who think you should be an MVP or get a slot at Summit, what will happen when that does happen? Have you thought of that? Sure, it’s nice to have goals you can check off (buying garbage bags is something you check off a list, too), but what does that get you? Will you be a fundamentally different person the next day? The day after? NO. You’re still going to be you. And that’s the point. Accolades are wonderful. I am very proud and humbled to be a Cluster MVP to be recognized for what I do, but I would still do what I do even without that. The same could be said for all of my speaking opportunities – I’m very thankful and grateful for them, but not stupid enough to think that I’m the only one people could ask. I try to stay grounded and humble. If I was whiny about stuff, do you think I’d be where I am now? Not on your life. Word spreads if people are good to work with or a nightmare. Achieving goals is absolutely a good thing – but don’t be defined by them. You’re going to fail at things in life. That’s how you build character; those are learning moments, and hopefully not defining ones in a negative way. Sometimes I learn more from things that didn’t go so hot than when things go swimmingly well.

Let me give you another real world example. It’s no secret I love the band Rush. Many fans (not me – more on that in a minute) have been aghast that for years, the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame has “snubbed” them by not nominating them. There have been petitions to get them on the list of nominees as well as call for boycotts. From my perspective, I don’t care. Most of the bands I like will probably never get into the RnRHoF. Should I stop listening to them because of it? No. This week, they made the list of nominees. Congrats to them. But now you have some of the fanbase saying that even though they’ve been nominated, that the band should snub them if elected. What? Let me clear the proverbial wax from my ears. So for years you want them to get in and now you want them to give the Hall the finger? You can’t have it both ways. Here’s what Rush had to say:

“We are honored to be among the nominees for this year’s Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame. We are especially thrilled for the many, many dedicated RUSH fans to whom this nomination is so very important.” – Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Neil Peart

Now that’s classy. Note that they basically say it means more to their fans than them (but I’m sure it means something to them, too). Rush has had many accolades in their native homeland of Canada that are much more important than the RnRHoF thing. Rush has always been a hard working band that has done what it wants to do (and if you don’t know much about them and their history, I highly suggest you watch the very well done documentary on them Beyond the Lighted Stage). They are one of the few bands still able to play major venue son their own and quite honestly, have had very little chart success in their career. They’ve been around for 40 years, are arguably as popular as ever right now.

Learn from Rush. Sure, I like their music, but they’re a great example of following your heart and that by doing your own thing and being yourself, the success and accolades will come to you. It may not be as soon as you want, though. Success should not be measured by things like speaking slots or MVP awards. I know I don’t look at them as what defines me. I am humbled by them, but not defined by them.

I think most of you know I spend a lot of time giving back (and sometimes on my own dime when I go to things like SQL Saturday) – not everything I do is paid. It’s the right thing to do. ’nuff said. However, that’s different than being asked to do a job and not get paid – well, not much anyway.

Musician/artist Amanda Palmer put up a blog post (some NSFW language in there) that is interesting. I don’t know much about her, but I do know she raised $1,200,000 (that’s $1.2 million not checking the commas …) via Kickstarter to get her album done. That came from about 25,000 people. Good for her. Maybe I should do that for my album as well as the Mission Critical SQL Server 2012 book I’m working on (that’s sarcasm by the way).

To me, it’s a bit disingenuous to put your hand out as an artiste (e added to make it sound snooty – not a typo) to fund a project, but turn around and then ask people to play virtually for free. Sure, you get a swag, some beer, and either a hug or high five. She ostensibly has a core touring band she pays to travel with her. Other musicians do things like this, but they hire, say, local orchestras or musicians for some spots. A good example was Peter Gabriel on the New Blood tour.

Speaking as a musician who has made bupkis (Yiddish word, BTW) on many a gig, what she’s doing is different. People are paying for tickets, she pays her core band – why not pay hired guns? This isn’t some local 40-something weekend warrior bunch of folks playing the neighborhood dive for some yucks. I’m sure she’s had a metric-crap ton of people e-mail her because they’re thinking, “I can claim I played with Amanda Palmer at a real gig! Woot!” And it’s for that reason they further devalue live music and musicians getting paid. Much like I would devalue my worth if I did certain things. Sometimes you need to just say no and walk away.

Someone who makes their living at a profession – musician, consultant, barista, whatever – has a right to make some scratch if it’s a professional gig they’re asked to do. Musicians have been hit hard over the past few years with less venues to play at in many cities. I know it’s that way in Boston. There are scale rates to pay musicians. Some even are in unions (not getting into a political debate about unions – don’t try; I’m not in any musician’s union for what it’s worth).

Even taking into account Amanda’s breakdown of the numbers from Kickstarter (and the breakdown done by others as well) in that UGLY discussion thread in the blog post, I have an issue with things. Yes, it’s expensive to release an album properly. Yes, it’s expensive to mount an international tour. Yes, you need to pay taxes. I’m all for an innovative different business models (and Kickstarter != charity, either; it’s real money). But pay your workers. They are not contest winners. Or do you think they are?

You could take the viewpoint that Amanda was/is essentially asking for volunteers from her fanbase. Nothing wrong with that at a 50,000 foot view really. But like a lot of other things, those who depend on playing music for a living get hurt in the process if someone’s just going to do it for free. There’s a difference between giving back and giving it away. This isn’t showing up at a gig, being friends with the band, and being asked to jam and solo on a single song. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Can’t tell you that, but there sure are a lot of opinions.

We see it in the SQL community – some choose not to go to PASS Summit because they need to or would rather make money than lose money not being at a customer that week. That’s not a bad thing, and while some may judge, it’s valid. But a lot of those people give back in other ways (blogging, etc.). So it’s not like they don’t give back, and if showing up at Summit is their only negative, you’ve got to dig more. Is it disappointing to some that X, Y, or Z isn’t there? Sure. But it’s very fundamentally different  than what’s being asked here.

Look, would I love to tour with folks like Joe Jackson or other artists I like? You bet your ass I would – SQL be damned. Heck, when I heard he was auditioning bass players for his upcoming tour (which I’m seeing next week) I knew there would be no chance in hell I would get an audition (but I e-mailed anyway in the off chance …). But I wouldn’t do it for free, that’s for sure. And I’m sure JJ compensates his musicians fairly.

As for Amanda – there’s no bad publicity, right? People are talking about her. And as PT Barnum supposedly once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

As some of you may know, Allan and I will be doing a pre-conference seminar, “Real-World System Design for the DBA: Private Cloud and SQL as a Service”, on Tuesday November 5 at PASS Summit in November. It’s a topic both of us are passionate about, and I know that Allan is looking forward to being able to talk about more than just high availability and clustering.

The abstract from PASS is a bit short. We were limited in what we could submit, so we felt it was a good idea to put a bit more description for those of you deciding on which pre-con to choose since we have received a few questions. We know we’re up against some fierce competition, not the least of which is Bob Ward from Microsoft who always does great sessions. No matter how good everyone else’s session is, you should still pick ours, of course. All kidding aside, you can’t go wrong whatever choice you make.

One thing I will say is that there will be more technical-focused content and demos than in the earlier delivery we did a few months ago before the Chicago SQL Saturday. Everyone loved that, but we’re taking it up a notch for Summit. Allan and I are talking about what to showcase for demos and have some great ideas you’ll see in November.

Below is the expanded abstract:

Performing. Agile. Available. Reliable. Easy to manage. Cost-effective.

The words above describe things we all strive for in our production environments, but often do not achieve for our SQL Server deployments and environments for one reason or another. Whatever the cause, there is always room for improvement. As your company’s business needs change, your ability to adapt while still meeting their requirements is crucial. Whether that means adopting SQL Server 2012 sooner than planned because there’s a feature such as AlwaysOn availability groups that will fit a new application’s architecture or something completely different, gone are the days of monolithic IT departments. Those that are will be left behind.

Whether you are the only DBA in a small-to-mid size organization, or one of many in a large enterprise-sized business, your role must be more than just a glorified backup operator. At the end of the day, you are providing the backbone for the applications that fuel the business – and ultimately funds your paycheck. Unfortunately, providing a database backend that is available, scalable, and reliable is easier said than done. Why?

Consider these five points:

• Many IT shops lack standards and processes, leading to reduced agility and higher costs
• Capacity planning is a constant source of pain since you may not have enough for your systems today, let alone for the future
• Servers are either over- or under-utilized, leading to both perceived and actual performance and capacity issues that are not easy to
  resolve
• There is no clear direction as to which features or technologies to use to achieve goals like availability, or when to deploy
  physical vs. virtualized servers
• Routine maintenance can be difficult, whether it is a lack of skills in house, no tools, no knowledge of the application, etc.

Every DBA should have one goal: provide high service levels as well as the agility to meet customer demands with the least amount of risk, cost, time, and effort. Standardizing your configurations and offerings is a challenge that is achievable with the right planning and knowledge of your environment. Transforming the way you work from a purely administrative focus to running your DBA services it more like a company is where the private cloud and SQL as a service (SaaS) come into play.

The private cloud is another a fancy buzzword for everything you provide now from a systems standpoint  – plumbing for the database backend. Whether you are giving them a virtual machine under a hypervisor, their own physical server, or just a database residing in a shared instance, the customer ultimately should not care as long as their needs are satisfied and you’re maintaining everything. That is SQL as a Service (SaaS). Your management has undoubtedly heard about the private cloud and things like software as a service. Why not show them you’re up to the challenge to do that for your SQL Server environment?

Join us for this special day of training where we will educate you about how to properly plan, deploy, and maintain SQL Server systems to support your company’s needs. Whether you brand your final implementation as the private cloud and/or SaaS, you’ll learn how to approach the problem whether you are using physical servers, virtualization, or a mixture of both.

Sign up today to jumpstart your future as a SQL Server professional.