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Author Archives: paulwinans
Solar Energy
I live in a sunny city and solar technology has come a long way. So sunny and such a long way that we can easily fit the panels to generate enough electricity to power the entire house. Then, after about 7 years, … Continue reading
Posted in Other Things
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Renaming a Cluster Resource
We recently moved the server room from in house to a data center. While power, air, security and seismic capabilities were good reasons, it had to happen because the entire company is moving out of the building! Anyway, while the VMs … Continue reading
Posted in Configuration
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Buy and Hold is not Buy and Forget
People generally like things. And thinking their things help. Is this not true? It applies to IT too, specifically regarding applications. Doesn’t more=better? If you have to configure and support all kinds of packet sniffing, email PHI inspecting, password hacker … Continue reading
Posted in Leadership
2 Comments
Using SQL To Configure Database Mirroring
We use database mirroring for replicating data from physical sql servers to the disaster recovery location; SRM is used for virtual machines. I don’t like the point and click interface though. So many screens for a pretty simple series of … Continue reading
Posted in Configuration, DBA, SQL
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The Road to Awareness (aka Event Notifications)
Getting notified of what is going on is critical to meet SLAs. Plus, who wants to be the second to know about something going on with a production sql server? No thanks. SQL Alerts serve their purpose. The cache hit ratio … Continue reading
Posted in DBA, SQL
2 Comments
Setting Up for Success
A good dba is ready for problems. A key part of being ready is making information available and no joke I like code which broadcasts what is going on. Using raiserror with nowait and 0 or 10 severity is great. Using … Continue reading
Posted in DBA
2 Comments
In The Beginning
Like everyone with taste, I love Dune. I’ve read it countless times and I am not exaggerating. Dune, like all literature, conveys philosophy; for example, one well known quote from Dune is: “A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care … Continue reading
Posted in DBA, Leadership, Metrics
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Leadership
The criteria for being a good leader, lots written about that! A good leader enables the group to make a decision thus gaining the insights of many. People won’t speak unless they feel safe and supported. Ideas need to be properly … Continue reading
Posted in DBA, Leadership, Metrics
2 Comments
Tier 1, 2 and 3
One day it hit me how unusual it was that senior level people were receiving calls from end users as part of the call rotation. (Happily for us, the dbas were not in the list.) True story: my very first job … Continue reading
Posted in Leadership
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The Code Review
At work, some years ago, I was able to implement a dba code review and practice deployment requirement for every Change Request. (A Change Request documents the proper steps have been taken so that a deployment has a good chance of success.) This was … Continue reading
Posted in DBA, SQL
2 Comments