The SQL UPDATE Statement

This post is actually going to be a copy/paste job from a comment I left on Colin Stasiuk’s (Twitter | Blog) post encouraging his user group, EDMPASS (Edmonton chapter of SQL PASS user group), to jump on the Twitter bandwagon before their next meeting for hockey tickets. In his post Colin asks his members to join Twitter, if they haven’t already, follow at least 10 SQL Tweeps, and share a story of a positive experience they had with fellow SQL Tweeps. In the past year I’ve come to find that Twitter has become an invaluable tool for me professionally as I can get many quick answers and sometimes (as you’ll see below) even more complicated issues resolved. Without further ado here’s my tale:

Get yourself some #SQLHelp

Brent Ozar (@Brento) and Aaron Nelson (@sqlvariant) were talking discussing on Twitter the creation of dedicated hashtag for those who need help with SQL Server issues.  As Brent is known for doing, he magically whipped up a blog post on the matter explaining how this new hashtag, #SQLHELP, should be used. I highly recommend you head over to Brent’s blog and read up on how to use #SQLHelp. I’ve found Twitter to be an invaluable tool for getting quick responses to any SQL (and non-SQL as well) questions I have. If anything this should be a great hashtag to search on and show to management as a good business-value for Twitter in the workplace!

Good day students! Unfortunately your professor who was supposed to cover indexes (that’s a pun, you’ll learn why in the following lessons) fell ill so we had to call in a guest professor. I’m honored to introduce to you professor Gail Shaw (Blog | Interview)! Gail has written a series of articles on indexes at SQLServerCentral.com. In order to read these articles you will have to create an account, don’t worry it’s free and HIGHLY recommended as SQL Server Central has some of the best SQL material around!

So without further ado, here are your indexing lessons for the week:

Introduction to Indexes

The Clustered Index

The Non-Clustered Index

Supplemental indexing material:

Additional Indexing articles by Gail Shaw (from her blog) Recommended Reading

Index Primer-Just what statistics are Kept? (author: Josef Richberg)

A big “thank you” again to Gail for giving us permission to add her work to the SQL University curriculum! Don’t forget to head over to the basketball court and let coach Tom Larock help you put your newfound skills to the test.

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First off I apologize wholeheartedly about the lateness of this post. Turns out I have a day job as well (go figure!). Anyhow thus far we’ve talked about the past in the history of SQL Server, we’ve discussed the present state of affairs in PASS and the events currently going on in the state of SQL Server knowledge and development, and now we’re going to discuss the future and that future is you!

Ok that last line came off a bit hokey but seriously folks, you really ARE the future of SQL Server and PASS. This year we’ve seen some great strides with PASS with the re-branding and refocusing of the Virtual Chapters. The Virtual Chapters, as was mentioned in the last article, are chapters that meet online and are focused on several aspects of SQL Server such as Administration, Application Development, Women in Technology, Virtualization, etc. Another thing that we learned through recent PASS elections campaign madness process is just how passionate we can be about our organization. We’ve also seen the passion from members come forth in form of blog posts such as Brent Ozar’s post ‘What Community Means to Me‘.

Getting Involved

But that covers how others feel and contribute, how do you fit in? Well first off get involved! Be it something as small as communicating with others via your social network of choice (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) start connecting with other SQL professionals. I know, for me, the relationships I’ve fostered via Twitter have been invaluable for me. I’ve found that not only it pays off for day to day questions but it also makes it much easier to transition to meeting folks “in meatspace” such as PASS Summit, SQLSaturday or user group events. Which brings me to my next point, local user groups are great resources. You can check the PASS Chapters website to see the list of the official PASS chapters all over the world. For those not familiar with user groups, these are groups that meet on a regular basis (typically about once a month) and they share information and network on particular topics. In our case we have user groups that are SQL Server focused (database administrators, developers, architects, etc.) as well as groups dedicated to SQL Server Business Intelligence. Attending user groups is a fantastic way to arm yourself with knowledge for free (as well as food and swag, hehe) as at these meetings the usual meeting structure includes having someone come in and speak on a particular topic to the group. In addition to the learning you get from these presentations you can get so much more by networking with your fellow SQL peers. This is a fantastic way to solve real-world problems as others in your field share problems and solutions they’re working on or have come across. No matter what your level of SQL expertise be it someone who has never even opened SQL Server before or someone who has been working with the product for 10+ years I highly encourage you to participate in your local user groups.

If there is no chapter in your area you can set one up yourself. Worried you need to be a SQL guru to do so? Let me alleviate your worries and tell you you don’t. One of the best stories I heard this year came from Bonnie Allard ( Twitter | LinkedIn), the chapter leader of the Spacecoast SQL Server User group. Bonnie actually came into SQL Server with no prior experience so in order to learn it she setup her own test systems at home and just kept playing with the product to get herself familiarized with it. After attending a SQLSaturday event, Bonnie decided to setup a SQL User group in her area (they are located in Melbourne, Florida) as the next closest group was Orlando which was over an hour away. Although the group is small Bonnie has shown great dedication to her craft, PASS and the SQL Community as a whole. If you are interested in setting up a group contact your local Regional Mentor to get started. You can find the regional mentors by clicking on your respective region on the Chapters page. If you have any questions you can contact Blythe Morrow (Email), the Communities coordinator for PASS Headquarters, and she’ll connect you to the proper folks.

Volunteer Work

So we’ve talked about PASS as a whole as well as the local level branches of PASS in local user groups but how else can you continue to pitch in? Well PASS is a global organization and they are always in need of good volunteers to pitch in be it something as simple as helping them put together a PowerPoint for a keynote or as much as volunteering at the Summit to help guide attendees around. Volunteers are the lifeline of PASS and so they can always use as many as possible to help out! If you’re interested in volunteering check out the Volunteers page at the PASS website or contact Blythe Morrow  for more opportunities.

Just Do It!

Bottom line is you don’t need to be a Super person with 100+ titles to be involved. Best way to get started is to just do it! Many of the SQL experts you see in the community started off just like you. One of the greatest things about being part of the PASS and SQL community is that you get so much more in return the more you put in to it. So get out there and volunteer, speak, blog, tweet, whatever as long as you get involved! Maybe I’ll see you at the Summit next year and you can relay your own story of how you setup a new PASS chapter or how you got involved with PASS, I’d love to hear them all.

Update: Jeremiah Peschka (Blog | Twitter), PASS Board Member and all-around awesome guy, just posted a blog about volunteering with PASS which you should definitely check out.

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Well last week was rather hectic and with all the PASS Summit madness one thing seems to have been lost in the mix: The PASS Log Reader Awards!

For those not familiar with this contest you can read the official announcements of the contest here (Brent Ozar’s post), here (Andy Warren’s post), and here (Jeremiah Peschka’s post). Don’t worry, I’ll wait until you come back. You back? Cool. Alright now that you know what it’s all about let’s talk about the exciting part: the winners! Yup, last week at the beginning of the week the winners were announced. Now thanks to the magic of the interwebs and copy/paste feature here are the results (courtesy of Brent Ozar)

Best Blog Series (Multiple Posts):

• Winner: Kendal Van Dyke for Disk Performance Hands-On Series (Blog – RSS – @SQLDBA)
• Runner-Up: Tie:
  Aaron Alton for SSMS Series (Blog – RSS – @AaronTheHobt)
  Aaron Bertrand for Bad Habits to Kick Series (Blog – RSS – @AaronBertrand)

Best Business Intelligence Blog Post:

• Winner: Chris Webb for Implementing SSRS Drilldowns (Blog – RSS)
• Runner-Up: Michelle Ufford for Using Variables in SSIS (Blog – RSS – @SQLFool)

Best New Blog:

• Winner (Tie):
  Aaron Alton for The Hobt (Blog – RSS – @AaronTheHobt)
  Michelle Ufford for SQLFool (Blog – RSS – @SQLFool)
• Runner-Up: Jorge Segarra for SQLChicken (Blog – RSS – @SQLChicken)

Best Professional Development Blog Post:

• Winner: Kendal Van Dyke for Off-Hours Work Guide for Managers (Blog – RSS – @SQLDBA)
• Runner-Up: Sean McCown for Landing That Job (Blog – RSS – @MidnightDBA)

Best T-SQL Blog Post:

• Winner: Aaron Bertrand for Stored Procedures Best Practices Checklist (Blog – RSS – @AaronBertrand)
• Runner-Up: Grant Fritchey for Unpacking the View (Blog – RSS – @GFritchey)

Best Unusual Blog Post:

• Winner: Alex Kuznetsov for Reproducing Deadlocks with One Table (Blog – RSS)
• Runner-Up: John Magnabosco for Encrypting Large Values (Blog – RSS)

So first off big congratulations not only to all the winners but anyone and everyone that submitted entries! Thank you all so much for your blogging efforts, keep it up. I’m also very honored to have been named a runner up in the New Blog category. I’d like to thank all 12 of you who read this blog as well as Brent, Andy and Jeremiah for putting this together. I highly recommend you check out all of the blogs listed above as they are clearly of high quality so make sure you check them out.

In addition to this great contest you should also check out PASS board member Tom LaRock’s Blogger Rankings to keep up with the cream of the SQL crop in the blogging community.

On one final note there was an entry I personally should have won an award for most creative posting of all time (queue Kanye) and this was David Stein’s (Twitter | Blog) entry “Encylopedia Brown and the Case of Data Corruption“. If you haven’t read it go read it right now as its (as Tom LaRock/Brent Ozar would say) pure liquid awesome.