SQL Stuff Learned Today

Being away from a technology as vast as SQL Server for a few years is like reacquainting with an old friend you haven't seen since childhood. Your friend has matured and added a lot of sweet features to his/her list of mad skillz. Getting back into the SQL groove in the middle of 2008 R2's lifecycle and now almost Denali isn't exactly like riding a bike, but the core passion and love for this line of work is fueling my learning and resolve to take the product serious this time. I feel like I've been given a second chance with Database Administration and I aim to invest the time to truly master it.

Speaking of Master, Kendra Little (blog|twitter) received her Microsoft Certified Master designation in SQL Server today. A very big CONGRATULATIONS to her, because it really is a big accomplishment. :)

Fellow Dallas/Fort Worth resident Sean McCown (blog|twitter) has posted couple of great articles recently from his daily experiences and highly animated conversations (smack-downs, really). From these, I learned that if full backups can be restored then ALL of the data is available regardless of source filegroups or server. Also, how to troubleshoot contention in the TempDB. Great reads; follow the post links [1], [2].

Also I learned from Books Online that if you have databases in a Simple Recovery Model, the transaction log is truncated at every checkpoint rather than after every backup like myself and a few other non-DBA types thought. This further supports the reality that changes made to a database will be absolutely lost since the last full or differential backup up to the point of failure. If the business cannot tell you how valuable their data is, then it's best to err on the side of caution and set your databases to the Full Recovery Model.

Lastly, I learned that the #sqlhelp hashtag is awesome. It's like a Bat Signal to DBAs. Pose a SQL question on Twitter with that tag and you WILL get help.

Until next time, PEACE!