Welcome to 2009. Here’s a deal for you. Welcome to 2009 - where we've got a LOT of great stuff lined up for you. First of all, our "Monsters of Tech" class in Denver this coming April is still open for registration, and we've lowered the per-student price to just $2,000 for the entire week. Check out the

Reluctant DBA Part 5: Relationships So where does the "relational" part of "relational database management system" come into play? Imagine a Customers table that contains the following columns: ID Name Address We'll leave it at just those three to keep the example simple. Now imagine an Orders table: ID CustomerID OrderDate ShipAddress BillAddress Wait, why

Reluctant DBA Part 4: Normalization Normalization is a database concept that applies to database design, and not administration. However, it's pretty important to performance, so you need to know where database designers are coming from, and be able to tell when they're going too far. Briefly, normalization is the goal of eliminating redundant data in

Reluctant DBA Part 3: The Transaction Log The transaction log is at the heart of what SQL Server is all about. It's basically a list of changes that have been made to the database, with each change referred to as a transaction. This list is physically stored in a file with an .LDF filename extension, and in

Reluctant DBA Part 2: Terminology This week, let's nail down some SQL Server terminology - just to make sure we're all on the same page with what these words mean in the SQL Server universe. SQL Server is referred to as an RDBMS. What's that? A relational database management system, or RDBMS, is usually a

Reluctant DBA Part 1: Introduction This is a new biweekly series on SQL Server for the "reluctant DBA." You know who you are: A beleaguered Windows admin forced to support every random technology that crops up in your environment. SQL Server, in all its many editions, is a common foe of the Jack of All

Now With a Full Week’s Supply of Content! Beginning next week, we'll be bringing you new, fully-technical content every day of the week! Our goal is to help you learn new technologies, new tricks, and new decision-making criteria so that you can be more effective and efficient. We'll do this through short, easily-digested articles arranged in series so

SQL Server + PowerShell One of the SQL 2008 team members posts an interesting description of why they decided to add PowerShell to SQL (sort of). Check it out on his blog. He makes a good argument for why T-SQL isn't enough (although in doing so sorta contradicts their use of a mini shell),

SQL Server 2008 Express Annoys Me I'm evaluating a new software product, which runs on Win2008 and requires SQL Server. So, fine, I go to Microsoft's Web site and figure I'll grab SQL Server 2008 Express. Except that the download of that won't be available until the end of August. Oh, except that it already is,

SQL + PowerShell Update In this post, I railed against the SQL Server team for producing a closed version of Windows PowerShell to use with SQL. I think it's silly, misses the point of PowerShell completely, and honestly feels as if they've been proceeding with very little guidance from the PowerShell team - or