Brad M. McGehee is the Director of DBA Education for Red Gate Software; an accomplished Microsoft SQL Server MVP with over 14 years’ SQL Server experience, over 6 years’ training experience, and has been involved in the industry since 1982.
 
A well-respected and trusted name in SQL Server literature, Brad is the author or co-author of more than 14 technical books and over 100 published articles.
 
 
Auckland
Monday 19th
http://aucklandsql.com/Meetings/Brad-McGehee.aspx
 
DBA 101: Best Practices Every DBA Should Know
This session focuses on key fundamentals, such as: Installing & Upgrading SQL Server; SQL Server Configuration; User Data and Log File Management; Database Configuration Settings; Configuring Critical Maintenance Jobs; Setting Up Alerts for Critical Errors; Security Basics; Implementing a Backup Strategy; Creating a Disaster Recovery Plan; Testing; Monitoring; and Documentation

Wellington
Tuesday 20th
http://wellington.sqlpass.org/Home/tabid/1764/Default.aspx
 
How to Optimise tempdb Performance
DBAs often don’t spend a lot of time watching tempdb performance. They think of it as a black box that takes care of itself. What many DBAs don’t fully realize is how tempdb performance can affect SQL Server’s overall performance. In this session, we will cover how tempdb is used; tempdb internals; how to monitor tempdb; and how to optimize tempdb for best performance.

 
Christchurch
Wednesday 21st
http://www.dot.net.nz/Lists/Events%20Calendar/DispForm.aspx?ID=144
 
Want to become an exceptional DBA?
Becoming a DBA doesn’t have to be just a job; it can be a very rewarding career. While many DBAs are happy with just getting by, the Exceptional DBA is not only outstanding in their knowledge of SQL Server, they are consummate professionals who are in high demand, and command high salaries.
 

Dunedin
Thursday 22nd
http://www.dot.net.nz/Lists/Events%20Calendar/DispForm.aspx?ID=137
 
Best Practices Every SQL Server DBA Must Know 
With the continued popularity of SQL Server, more and more people are becoming SQL Server DBAs, whether they planned to or not. Many of these DBAs don’t have formal training, but are doing the best they can under the circumstances. Most of these DBAs want to do a good job, but just don’t know where to start. While Books Online is a great reference tools, it doesn’t tell someone what they need to know about commonly established best practices that experienced DBAs know by heart.
 

The AucklandSQL, Ellerslie .NET and the Auckland Connected Systems user groups would like to invite you to:

The Microsoft Sync Framework
This session will look at the prerequisites for installing and using the Microsoft Sync Framework to synchronise data between a server and occasionally-connected applications.
There are two halves to the presentation:
•Using SQL Server to automatically sync a Windows application
•Coding exception handlers and demo

Presenter:
James Hippolite – Telecom New Zealand
James is a Senior Developer for Telecom New Zealand and regular speaker for PASS and INETA. He straddles both the Web (MCPD) and Database Developer (MCITP) realms.  He is also a trainer (MCT).

Location:
Datacom Systems Ltd
210 Federal St
Auckland CBD
(map)

Date/Time:
Thursday, July 30th 2009
Food / drink available from 5:30, with the presentation kicking off after 6.

Registration:
http://www.aucklandsql.com/Meetings/The-Microsoft-Sync-Framework.aspx

Being the DBA

The involuntary DBA role
The previous DBA left and your boss decided you should cover the position. But where do you start? Which questions should you ask? What should you do first?  You don't even know what it is you don't know. We'll discuss maintenance, disaster recovery, storage, performance, and monitoring. We'll touch on many other areas as well so you'll at least have heard a bit about them and you'll know to learn more and ask questions on them.

Keeping the business running- Backup & Restore
The Backup and Restore commands are the most important SQL Server commands in a Database Administrators arsenal.  But there is more to Backup & Restore than just recovery from a system failure or user error. This session will cover some of the features and option available for not just disaster recovery, but day to day operations.

DBA 101: Common best Practices (with discussion)
As soon as you get into the office in the morning, before you've even had your first coffee, you should be thinking about on your routine.  This session cover best practices for what DBAs need to do on a day-to-day basis. This is the kind of information you won't find in most books. It is the kind of information that can only be learned on the job.

The sessions start at 6pm, and is being held at
Datacom Systems Ltd
210 Federal St
Auckland CBD

The meeting will also be available via LiveMeeting. If you can't make it in, please feel free to join us on the evening here

Food and Drink kindly provided by SQL Services Ltd will be available from 5:30pm

For registration (catering purposes) and more information, please check here

• Did you know there are 3 MCITP tracks for Microsoft SQL Server 2008?  What are they, and why should I care?  
• Did you know there are 3 MCPD tracks for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008?  What are they, and what’s the difference from MCITP?    

James is a Microsoft Certified Trainer.  He has contributed lectures on Microsoft Certification, SQL Server Reporting Services and SQL Data Services to the INETA and PASS communities.

6:00pm - Thursday 30th April

Datacom Systems Ltd
210 Federal St
Auckland CBD
Map

Food and Drink will be provided from 5:30pm.  Please feel free to contact us with any specific culinary requests

Please register here:  http://www.aucklandsql.com/Meetings/Certification.aspx

Wearing multiple hats. Being a DBA and a developer.

Dave Dustin - Wolters Kluwer Health
Given the size of many New Zealand companies and their respective IT departments, many IT professionals wear multiple hats. Dave will be giving his view of coming from the development world into the DBA role, and what it means if you need to work in both areas.  Will also demonstrate aspects of VSTS 2008: DBPro.

Open Floor - "Cloud" based data systems

With the announcement of Tabular Data Systems as an aspect of the Azure platform, the option of storing data in the cloud becomes even more interesting.
A chance to talk about news, ask / answer questions, talk about things you've discovered and share.

Refreshments provided courtesy of SQL Services Ltd.
 
We've heard your feedback, so we're going to try something a little different this time. Sushi, Subway and a wider range of drink options. Please let us know your feelings on this.

6pm, Wednesday 18th of March
Datacom Systems Ltd   <---  Note the change of venue
210 Federal St
Auckland CBD

Please register here:  http://aucklandsql.com/Meetings/March-Meeting.aspx

With Vista you can type in a command into the Start search bar (such as “cmd.exe”) and then hit CTRL-SHIFT-ENTER to have it launch with Administrative privileges.

You then have to acknowledge the launch via UAC (you do have UAC turned on right).  You can short-cut this with ALT-C for “Confirm”

Nice easy way to get Admin DOS shell.

Windows 7 changed the keyboard accelerator from ALT-C to ALT-Y (Yes)

I know it’s little, but it’s something my finger memory will need to deal with on a regular basis, swapping between the two environments

I did a nice clean install of Windows 7 yesterday.  It lasted until around lunchtime today.

Oh, don’t get me wrong.  I love 7 over Vista, and wouldn’t go back.

I finished installing all my applications I needed so I created a standard user account, added a password to the default administrator account and deleted the “admin” account I had created during installation.

WHOOPS.  It’s kind of hard to respond to a UAC prompt (yeah, like I’m going to turn that off) when you don’t have any active admin accounts left.

I tried a number of options to turn the admin account back on, but in the end, I did a reinstall.  So tonight I will be putting applications back on.

There are a few quirks I dislike about this build (7000) vs. the PDC build, but it’s a massive improvement over previous Windows OSs.

My installation of Windows Vista is now so secure, it's near impossible to do things that might hurt the machine.

Anything that would raise a UAC dialog (i.e., something that requires administrator rights) will now crash the machine forcing a reboot.

Last week I was having all sorts of problems with the video-card in my laptop.  It's a known problem with this particular model, and on Wednesday it died completely.  However, before dying, it had crashed/rebooted my laptop around 4-5 times.

This has lead to a number of errors developing in the my installation.  http.sys fails to load; UAC crashes the machine and two of the virtual machines I use for work are corrupted :-(

Once I get the morning work out of the way, I'm spending the afternoon rebuilding.