SQL Server Cruiser

So very recently our team had a lunch meeting presentation as we sometimes do where a person will give a presentation on a topic. This day Charlie gave a presentation on LINQ to entities. You can see the camtasia video here . LINQ stands for Language Integrated Query. LINQ is very powerful and I like many things it offers. After meeting discussion turned to why developers write their own queries inside their applications (a.k.a. embedded sql). Developers and DBA's will clash over why you should/should not put sql in the application. The developers point of view: I don't need a DBA or SQL Developer to complete my application. I just need a connection to the database and I'm golden. Writing stored procedures and waiting for the DBA slows me down. I have deadlines! Understanding the program is much easier if all the code is in one place and not spread to the sql server. The DBA's point of view: SQL in the application requires the connection to have direct access to every t...

User groups, special classes, informal meetings, etc and this topic comes up more often than not. What is really surprising is the tentative answers that are given. Simply stated people want to know how to troubleshoot a problem. Isn't there a basic set of steps, bullet points, something to help me troubleshoot any kind of problem on my server? Instead of beating around the bush and saying "it depends on the problem" I will attempt to tackle this head on. New DBA's or accidental DBA's may not have all the knowledge that is needed to identify and fix a problem. However, the knowledge is simple enough to explain and fumble through your first few times. What you need to know: Activity Monitor DMV's (Dynamic Management Views) Query Execution Plan T-Sql knowledge Performance Monitor (a.k.a. PerfMon) Windows event viewer If you don't know these things not to worry. We will go over them, what they do, and how you should use them. Look for more on this soon!