SQL Azure in. Is my job out?

I have been mostly with database from the day one I had be in IT field. I worked on MS Access 97 to SQL Server 2008 until date, and wrote millions of lines of code, administered and managed databases in all environments, designed systems to provide availability, scalability and so on. So people know me as a database guy (not to boast about!) in my organization and a lighter side – my lunch box looks like a cylinder – pictorially as a database so you know now what am I talking about.

All this is momentary where people look at me for any database stuff, but some kind people who really don’t know what I am thinking when all this said around, try testing me asking what will be state of your job if  SQL Azure is going to go full cylinders and we may have loss of business and that means my job is on stake in future.  This question was asked by one of my team mates (an application technical architect), and back was the answer from me spontaneously. I replied back – What does it matter? We (DB guys) shall upgrade our knowledge on technology but the base will remain same and here is what I meant to say the “base” – as long as I (DBA’s) know how to store data, query data and protect data come whatever technology it could be a easy job to catch with technology.

Similar thoughts are reflected in Buck’s post here. It’s very coincident and my thanks to Buck for helping me to think much clearer after reading this through. Do visit the post and feel comfortable about your future.

Enjoy!

SQL University

I was going through a blog roll and realized that I should share this information. A great effort by Jorge Segarra! Visit this link if you really want to get started on SQL Server from basics.

I just hope that the series will continue.

Enjoy!

A little surprise.

I was checking my blog y’day to see what I had written the last, and when. Well I was little surprised to see my blog hits were pretty high on 8/21 and the article – Sybase to SQL Server 2005 migration had highest views. This encourages me to finish my pending series of the migration experience. So keep watching further on this topic from me. Thanks for reading my posts, and btw do comment or ask me questions.

Cheers!

Haven’t blogged for long!

Hi Folks,

It has been quite long that I had blogged and you would see such notes (maybe 3?) in my blog. Somehow, I keep pausing quite often and I hate to do this. No excuses this time, but yes it has been quite busy 3 months for me. I had been into a migration, performance assessment and tuning, database design and so on. I shall share all my experiences, learning’s and views of this 3 month journey.

It would start off like this

- Migration experiences

- Performance baseline | benchmark, and tuning

- Identifying bottlenecks and finding ways to fix

So keep a watch on what I write and I would be interested to know your comments too.

Happy reading.

INFORMATION_SCHEMA is not a valid object in AdvWorks..!?

Sometime today, I wanted to have AdventureWorks database on my new workstation SQL Server instance. So I went ahead and download AdventureWorks database installable from here and I don’t have to talk about this website. I quickly scanned through the bunch of files that were available and found what I wanted. Well, what next – downloaded 27M file and installed it, and queried my favorite query against the new database “select * from information_schema.tables”.

Woooo, I got this error and kept getting this error

Msg 208, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Invalid object name ‘information_schema.tables’.

My, my what am I into, and I was confused for few moments but didn’t panic at least . So as usual I got into digging mode to find out what is it all about. Here are the few top reasons I could think and went finding out serially (although not a big deal reasons, but these matter a lot).

- Is this object really there in the database? Yes, verified through the object explorer.

- Is the object name correct, and the schema name valid? Yes, verified through the object explorer, and common sense along with years of  experience says that this metadata view is existing.

Then why on the earth I am not able to access? Something put me thinking about the case sensitivity of the object name and yes my thinking was correct. I immediately changed the query to “select * from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES”. Viola, it works great but I thought how many queries should I keep writing to address case-sensitivity problem.  Now back to fixing mode, and the options I have are

- Write the queries which will have case sensitive object names. Not possible, and it will make me crazy.

- Change the collation of the database from case-sensitive to case-insensitive. Well not possible because there are several objects (tables, indexes,….) in the database that are dependent on this collation. If I have to change the collation then there should be changes in each object.

Oh, but, how did it happen that I have got a sample database installable which is case-sensitive  in the first place? Did I miss something while I chose the file that needs to be downloaded?

Answers to my pondering questions were straight. Yes I downloaded the installable of the case-sensitive database and also I realized I can’t change the collation too. Due to time factor and since I was running out of patience I had to drop the “wrong” database, and I had to install the “right” database in my system. Well I am happy now that I have right database up and running for me to dig on something new which I shall blog soon.

Learning lesson – look for the right database installable before getting into a “waste-of-time” mess.

Hope my experiences gives you guys an idea how my life is going on with so many (?) things happening around .

Cheers and enjoy your happenings too!

Where was I, last week?

I was out on attending Tech Ed 2009 at Hyderabad, AP, India. My feedback on the sessions is mixed, but a good and great thing that happened to me was that I could establish larger network with the SQL Server community consisting of industry experts, product teams, evangelists and others. It was a good experience where I learnt more on what is in the world of SQL Server on different topics. Soon you will see more posts on what I want you guys know about all I have learnt from the session.

So stay tuned!

Cheers!

Alas thats not it!

My blind faith on SQL Server has saved me days of blushes. In this post I had pointed out on what people are talking about SQL Server’s inability to handle requests when Windows 7 was released and while downloading. But there is a clarification from the SQL Cat Team in this post, and I am relieved to hear that it wasn’t SQL Server which failed to catch up the load instead it was Hardware..which led to the painful trauma post that issue. 

Cheers to SQL Server!

Database Glitch @ MSFT! Hmm sad…

When Windows 7 was available for download, there were issues in downloading the stuff. Why? I couldn’t believe that this could happen, and feel sad about it. Well I don’t want to talk more on this because I am a hard-core fan of SQL Server. You may want to read more on this over here.

I am back!

Hi Guys,

It has been exactly couple of months that I haven’t blogged. Well it starts of with this post, and I would like to start off with reference to this link. A good post written by Buck Woody on how project management is important for database guys like all of us.

Have a good reading!

Cheers.

Loongg time!

Hi Guys,

My apologies for not posting for a quite while. I am currently away from my home country on an interesting challenging assignment of career. I am buried on piles of information and work life. Today I somehow managed to heave a little relief. Well I am here to say a happy news that has happened in my life. My blog has been listed in SQLPass, visit here and search for my name . What makes me happy is that this blog is listed amongst the greats of SQL Server industry (not that I am claiming myself great), and its a delight to be amongst. I would like to Thank SQLPass for listing out my blog out there.

I shall keep blogging as much as possible on my experiences.

Cheers.