high availability Archives - Page 3 of 7

July 23, 2015

Lots Of Upcoming Training and Speaking – Come See Me!

Happy Thursday, everyone! If you haven’t noticed, I have been pretty silent on the blog front. I am heads down writing the book (which is coming along nicely) as well as doing customer work. Fingers crossed, the book will be done before Summit. I will get back to a more normal blogging schedule when the book is done. Also, be sure to check out Max’s blog posts as he is now also regularly blogging here on the site.

It hasn’t been all book writing and customer work, though. Today I updated our Training and Events section with lots of new stuff. I am pretty excited, but it also means that I will be on the road from late September until early December. The things I do for you guys 🙂

First up is my 4-day Mission Critical SQL Server class in London via Technitrain from September 28 – October 1. As with all my 4-day deliveries, there are lots of hands on labs (bring your own device, though!). This has been on the books for quite some time. I love London, and my class in 2014 was a blast. I expect this delivery and the students to be the same. I may also be doing something else that week … stay tuned!

I will only be home a few days before heading down to Orlando (a place I *clearly* hate if you know me at all – Disney here I come!) for SQL Saturday 442. On Thursday, October 8, I will be doing a brand new preconference session entitled “Planning Highly Available SQL Server Deployments in a Cloudy, Virtualized World“. This is a “normal” precon, meaning there are no labs like some of my other precons. This helps to keep the price down while I get to deliver a really fun – and timely – topic. On the Saturday of the event, I will be delivering the talk What’s New for High Availability in SQL Server 2016 and Windows Server 2016 – another new one I am putting together.

The next thing on the books is the big kahuna – PASS Summit 2015. I am honored to once again be doing a preconference before Summit. This year I will be delivering “Advanced SQL Server Availability Architectures and Deployments“. I could have done the safe thing and just submitted an updated version of what I did last year. Why rest on your laurels? Don’t get me wrong – having 100 people doing labs at the same time was amazing, but been, there, done that. How could I kick it up a notch? Do something more difficult! Everyone gets their own lab environment (i.e. multiple VMs) that they connect to via a browser pm a device they bring with them. I am finalizing what the labs look like right now and will be building the VMs in the next month. I truly believe for topics like this you need to touch and feel. No hands on makes advanced topics more difficult to learn. Space is limited and I expect another sold out session, so register early. Don’t miss the PASS Summit 2015 Speaker Q&A I did for the precon posted up at the Summit site.

During Summit, I was asked to participate in the panel discussion “Will the DBA Job of the Future Still Involve DBAs?“. That should be a lively panel. For the third year in a row, SQLHA will have a booth (this year once again with Denny Cherry & Associates) called Consultant’s Corner. Drop by to say hello to Max or myself – we’ll both be there. Unlike last year where I was juggling speaking as well as the MVP Summit over in Redmond, I will be in the booth quite a bit this year.

Finally, I am very excited to be returning to Australia for two weeks. The last time I was there was 2013. WardyIT is once again bringing me back as part of their Platinum Training series. I will be delivering my 4-day Mission Critical SQL Server Workshop in Brisbane (November 24 – 27) and Canberra (November 30 – December 3). Every time I go to Australia it is two different cities; the last time I did this combination was in 2012. The last time I was in Brisbane I also spoke at the user group, so we’ll see what happens.

As an aside, both the London and Australia deliveries of the Mission Critical SQL Server class will also be the first time that I will be rolling in some 2016 (both SQL Server and Windows Server) content formally into the curriculm where it is appropriate. My classes are always evolving.

Whew! Are you tired from looking at my schedule yet? I know I’ll be hitting at least Platinum on American with all of those miles in the air. And if all of this was not enough, there are a few other things in the works which are not quite ready to be announced yet. As soon as they are, they will be on the events page.

June 11, 2015

Features Should Not Dictate Mission Critical System Designs

I was working up a new presentation for the upcoming 24 Hours of PASS on mission critical system design (a bit more on that later) when one of those puzzles of life we all have cooking away on the back burners of the mind suddenly snapped into focus. The story of that puzzle goes a little something like this…

The development team ships a great feature called ladders for changing those light bulbs in high ceilings. They also have a fashionable feature called yellow polka dot cloth, which is just perfect for those retro 70s swimming trunks and bikinis that are all the rage. And they put in a cleverly-engineered tricycle feature loved by our active 4 year olds. Nothing at all wrong here.

Yet many times I arrive onsite to help a new customer with their mission critical system only to find that they’ve currently got a three wheeled, yellow polka dot, monster truck jacked up on stilts. I always used to wonder just how on earth they ever got to this point.

Now, thanks to last week’s epiphany, I finally understand. There is a natural tendency of humans to map what they need to what they have – regardless of any actual correlation between the two. There’s probably a law of needs way down the list about this already, and if not there should be because it really is true.

I guess this was correct in most natural situations. If a caveman needed a weapon to fight off a sabertooth tiger, picking one that was close at hand would be a critical survival skill. Clearly this is no time to start with a blank page and work through exactly what the best weapon would be to kill a huge, hungry cat that is looking at you like you are the answer to all his culinary dreams.

But therein lies the real moral of the story, and it’s just as true for DBAs.

Under pressure you’ll have to take the existing features which are, after all, designed to implement high availability and disaster recovery. The funny thing is that this is relative cheap and fast, but just always seems to fit like that sweater your aunt knitted you for Christmas – one sleeve too short, one too long, a bit tight around the neck, and never draping just right.

The features that ship in the product are great. However, chances are that if you sat down and wrote out real wants and needs for your particular applications and environment you would find that those existing features can get you only part of the way to success. Suddenly the gaps that you never saw when you just implemented HA/DR features become all too noticeable. The plan becomes a bit more complex and you wind up using a feature for this, part of a feature for that, writing some scripts over here, and adding a bit of custom hardware over there. It starts to be, well, work. But now the solution fits. It just feels right and does what it should when it should.

Of course, some knowledge always helps, and I mentioned that I was working on a new session for 24 Hours of PASS called “The Art and the Science of Designing a Mission Critical SQL Server Solution”. If you’ve ever thought about taking out that blank page and starting from scratch, I believe you’ll find it gives you some fresh new ideas and a nice starting point.

I hope some of you will join me there on Wednesday, June 24^th at 8PM Pacific/11PM Eastern. Alternatively, feel free to try to fend off that big cat with a convenient tree branch – but we both know down deep that it’s probably going to end with one very happy feline.

If I’ve achieved nothing else, I hope you take away that what you really need is rarely what you have conveniently at hand and that you must actively resist human nature to see that this is the case.

May 21, 2015

Mission Critical SQL Server Book Update – May, 2015

UPDATE – December, 2016 – see this blog post

These days, one of the things everyone asks me is related to the book – mainly “How is it coming?” – a nice way of asking “Is it done yet?” It’s been awhile since the last update, and I figured it is time for a new one. If you are subscribed to the pre-release content, look for new chapters starting the week of May 25 (next week). Everyone who is not subscribed will need to wait for the final, completed book. There is a chance I may decide to put a few preview chapters up, but only when some more hit the pre-release folks; it is only fair.

So why the delay? Writing a book and publishing it on your own is much harder. My previous books were all done through a publisher who had editors and other bits of infrastructure I do not have at my fingertips. For the most part, I am a single threaded, one man show on the production of this book.

When I put the book up for preorder in July of 2013, I had an idea what I was signing myself for because I had written books before. Writing and publishing – especially self-publishing – is a whole different ball game if you want to do it right and not just dump raw Word files into the world and call it a book.

The good news is that I recently found an editor so the book will have a nice level of spit and polish. I’ve worked with her in the past, and am looking forward to seeing what she delivers. Having said that, primary writing and reviews must be completed before I can turn it over to her.

The only thing I can equate this to is when I scored a friend’s musical in the mid-1990s. I had played in tons of pit bands going back to when I started playing bass in 1980, so I figured, “How hard could this be?” Oh, how naïve I was. Between learning the scoring program, writing and arranging for multiple instruments, rehearsals, corrections – you name it. This was not a one day or one week process. I learned a lot, but it was very painful. Arranging got a lot easier after that, and so, too, will any future projects I do in the self-publishing arena.

Add to that my normal day job (consulting, training, as well as running SQLHA with Max), presenting, eating, sleeping, and trying to live my life somewhere in there along with the writing – oy! There just is only so much time and energy I have. However, I do believe all of these things play into one reason I believe that my books have been well received in the past. I bring real world perspective and experience to the table. If I am not doing this stuff for real, it’s just lab work.

For example, Max and I spent the better part of last year working with a large customer on a virtualized SQL Server project which also leveraged quite a few new storage and networking technologies not usually used with SQL Server. What was gained there will be filtered into the book, so you will be getting a lot better content than if I was not also actively doing consulting projects.

In more good news, I have pretty much cleared the decks for the next month or two to get all of the primary writing completed. Chapters need to be reviewed, and then reviewer feedback and corrections incorporated. Once all of the chapters are done, they will be handed off to the editor. Last but not least, all of the final formatting needs to be finished on the edited chapters. This is the entire book process in a nutshell.

Below are some specific questions that I want to address now because I have been asked from time to time. I have also updated the FAQ accordingly.

What content/chapters will the book contain?

While it may change a little, this is the near-final chapter list with my working (read: not final) titles:

Basics of Availability
Data Center Principles
Brief Intro to the SQL Server HA Features
Windows
Networking Part 1
Networking Part 2
Storage Part 1
Storage Part 2
Security
WSFC
Quorum Part 1
Quorum Part 2
Planning FCIs
FCI 2008 R2
FCI 2012
FCI 2014
Scripting Installations
Planning AGs
Implementing AGs
Cluster Admin/Troubleshooting
Backups Part 1
Backups Part 2
Admin/Monitoring
Planning Highly Available Upgrades
Solutions
Building Your Own Virtualized Test Environment

As you can tell, this is quite a bit of content. Right now the book will weigh in somewhere between 1000 and 1500 pages in Word prior to any formatting. Many of these chapters are in process, so those of you that have seen the updates may have only seen a few chapters but a lot of these are in various states of completion. If you are subscribed to the pre-release content, you’ll see all of this content soon.

When will the book truly be done?

From a timing perspective, assuming no issues or problems, primary writing should be done by July, edits by late August/early September, and then onto formatting. It really should be released on or before PASS Summit 2015. That is what I am working towards, and I see no reason that cannot be achieved.

I know people have been waiting patiently for Mission Critical SQL Server. My mistake in hindsight was putting it up so soon for preorder and not anticipating some of the roadblocks that popped up since putting it up for sale. I know that now, and will never repeat that again. For that, I apologize and I do believe the wait will be worth it.

I paid forever and a day ago – where is my money?

No one has asked, but I’m being forthcoming here – it’s sitting in a bank account earmarked for paying book costs. It’s not long gone. I made sure this happened for a very good reason. I need to pay people like editors 🙂

I subscribed to get updates to the book once it is released – will I still get them?

Yes! Needless to say, I’ll make sure you are taken care of. See the next question for a touch more detail, too.

If you preorder with updates on or before May 31, 2015, look for an e-mail from me soon. Anyone preordering with the updates option post-June 1, 2015, will get updates for the specified term – one year post-book release.

Will you do anything for people who purchased Mission Critical SQL Server a long time ago and have been waiting patiently?

Yes! I’m figuring out what that will be. This is different than the post-release updates. But the same rules will generally apply: pre-May 31, 2015 and post-May 31, 2015. I do appreciate your patience, and trust me, no one wants this done more than me because it is a big thing on my plate. There are other things I’d like to do which cannot get done until the book is complete.

When you first announced the book, you said it would cover through SQL Server 2012. What about 2014 and 2016 now that they are out or announced? How about Windows Server 2016?

Here is even better news. With the book being delayed, SQL Server 2014 is now included in this version. I will touch on a few 2016 (SQL Server and Windows things) but the first updates to the book will arguably be SQL Server 2016 and Windows Server 2016. Once those are released, I’ll examine what needs to be updated or added, and go from there. It is too soon to tell.

Any current discounts?

Yes. 20% until May 31, 2015 off of anything in the store. Code to be entered at checkout: MAY31

March 12, 2015

Upcoming SQL Server Training Events

2015 is shaping up to be a busy year for training, and we’re not half way through yet. I thought I would highlight what is coming up – especially so you could take advantage of the best discounts. All of my classes have hands on labs (bring your own device, details sent after you register), as there is no better way to learn than getting that experience. It is not all talking head (or in this case, Allan).

More dates are hopefully coming – stay tuned! Hope to see you in one of the classes.

March

My 4-day Mission Critical SQL Server class in Philadelphia is in a few weeks. Until 3/15 (this upcoming Monday), you can still get $500 off of the price. Don’t miss this opportunity! It’s going to be a great class.

May

I am teaching my 1-day availability groups class – The Good, Bad, and Ugly of AlwaysOn Availability Groups on 5/29 in New York City. This is one of the official pre-conference sessions for SQL Saturday NYC on 5/30. Until 5/1, there is a $200 discount.

September

The 4-day Mission Critical SQL Server class returns to London. This delivery is put on via Technitrain, and currently has a 100 pound discount until June 1. Click on the link for more info and to register.

October 18, 2013

Even If You Are Prepared, *&%$ Happens

Good morning from the last day of PASS Summit here in Charlotte, NC. All in all, it’s been a great week but it has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for me. Why? Let me explain.

I got in on Sunday and we had our first company meeting with Max on board. Since Ben lives around here, it made a lot of sense to do it pre-Summit. After we were done and I was in the hotel room, I went to tidy up some things in VMs I had done for demos as well as for the upcoming Australia classes in a few weeks. I was going to hand off the drives here since the guys from WardyIT were going to be at Summit. So far so good.

Then I plugged in the drive – a Mushkin 480GB mSATA SSD in an external USB 3.0 enclosure.

Dead.

I discovered this late Sunday night and did all I thought of to try to resuscitate it. I made sure it wasn’t my computing devices, since I had a new Samsung 840 EVO 1TB SSD (nice drive BTW – super fast) in an external enclosure as well as the two external Touro 500GB 7200rpm drives to give to Wardy and a Patriot Supersonic 256GB Magnum USB 3.0 flash drive. All said and done, 2.75TB of external storage, and 1.25 in my machines for a total of 4.0TB of storage (most of which is full at this point, sad to say). The VMs I needed were only on that SSD which worked fine the day before. I powered down, unplugged, and just put it in my bag.

What did I do? Well, after a few hours of trying, I went to bed. I knew deep down that the next few days were going to be long, so some sleep would be needed. I got up around 9AM on Monday and started redoing all of the VMs I needed for my pre-conference session on Tuesday. We also had a SQLHA party Monday night, which given where I was, turned out to be a bit problematic personally. I did show up for a bit (Ben and Max were there, so it was OK). I finally stopped working on VMs at 6:30 Tuesday morning, got showered, delivered my pre-con, and just collapsed after. When all was said and done, I was up for approximately 36 hours. On Wednesday morning, I got up and worked until about 4:20 in the afternoon for my 4:45PM spotlight session. On Thursday morning, luckily the Patriot had older versions of the lab VMs and I just used those to do what I needed to do to hand off the Touro drives to Wardy last night.

They say never let them see you sweat, and that is exactly what I did. I sucked it up and got stuff done. Needless to say, I have not been at the convention center too much nor did I go to the NASCAR party last night. I came back to my hotel and just went to sleep.

Before I left on Sunday morning, I (ironically) made a backup of my main laptop (I’ll be on the road quite a bit the next few weeks so it’s always good to do something like that before) and I’ve never had an external SSD die like that on me. I did not think that roughly one day later I’d be looking at having to redo nearly 4 days worth of work, but that is where I wound up.

This does beg the question – how much redundancy do you need when it comes to things like backups? Up until now, I’ve never really had an issue on the road. Now? It has me thinking quite a bit about my demo situation. I was lucky I had that new Samsung drive to be able to rebuild things otherwise I would have been doing a bit of a song and dance both on Tuesday and Wednesday. So I did have the right tools with me, thankfully.

I’ll just chalk this one up to *&%$ happens since in all my years of doing demos, I’ve never had a massive hardware failure like this. I’ll see when the scores are tallied, but I felt really good about my pre-con and the Troubleshooting Clusters session (which was also rebroadcast on PASStv). I may wind up doing the Troubleshooting Clusters session again at some point since it was a lot of fun to do. I am thankful for everyone who came out to both.

Oh yeah, and we had a booth (Consultant’s Corner – #129) down on the exhibition floor with two others (Denny Cherry and Linchpin People). Luckily Ben and Max picked up the slack since when I wasn’t presenting, I was back in the hotel reviving VMs. I will be down there for a bit today, so stop by and say hello. I should be there later in the AM until the exhibition hall closes.

That’s been my week here at Summit. Net positive, but definitely some hard lessons learned. I hope you filled out your evals and left feedback – good or bad (and if bad, constructive) – so I can improve the next time out. See you at an event soon!

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