The Five W's of Database Restores

The Five W's of Database Restores: "The things that need to be considered fall into five different categories: Who, What, When, Where and Why. I will discuss each one of these categories and how to use the five W's to help guide you in making the right choices when performing a database restore."

Your 2007 Head Check: Seven New Business Intelligence Gotchas

Your 2007 Head Check: Seven New Business Intelligence Gotchas: "IT is doing the wrong kind of spending. Trust me on this one: your IT management is still more focused on platforms (their cost, their maintenance, their uptime, their outsourcing) than it is on corporate data. And the quality of IT spending these days leaves a lot to be desired, with many investments focusing more on short-term fixes rather than long-term solutions. The best CIOs are those who see the rest of the company as the customer. These CIOs constantly measure and proselytize the business value of their IT initiatives. "

erp4it: DBMS configuration management

Wow some vey highly paid people agonising over this... a waste of salaries.

erp4it: DBMS configuration management: "I am in search of information specifically related to database 'instance' configuration management. Any information/opinions would be great. To be precise, what I mean by 'instance' would be the configuration of, say, Oracle 10gr2 or Sybase ASE 15 that is mounted on a host OS (e.g. on HP-UX 11.11). Let me explain: What we are being solicited for by our large user base is management (e.g. large scale global management) of the database software that is mounted on specific types of 'boxes'. "

Amazon Web Services Success Stories

These fascinate me... and these services will only drop in price over time.

Amazon Web Services Success Stories: "We have written before about the innovative Amazon Web Services Platform. This stack was officially announced by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos during the recent Web 2.0 summit and is now considered part of the core business strategy for Amazon. While analysts, competitors and Wall Street are pondering what to make of this move from a business sense, in this post we look at who is utilizing Amazon Web Services - and how. This post is based on personal communication with those people, along with the set of success stories available on the Amazon Web Services site."

More Data - Priceline's Dashboards - Editorial - CIO

More - Editorial - CIO: "Generally speaking, those 70,000 data points are monitored on a real-time IT system dashboard. The company has been testing new dashboards that offer up-to-the-second information and correlation analysis on numerous systems, including the state of the plumbing and network operations; CPU utilization; various application metrics (how much time is needed to transfer data within the system); Oracle database performance; BMC-monitored performance of things like I/O utilization; operating system paging (how much data is moving to and from the systems disks; and if the operating system is running out of RAM to work with) and a whole lot more. All those metrics (and more) are crucial to Priceline's business as illustrated by a recent Harris Interactive consumer study that found that 40 percent of online consumers will abandon their transaction (or turn to a competitor) if their initial attempt to interact with a site is foiled."

Microsoft Aims High on Data Warehouses

This has always been the #1 limiter for SQL in enterprise environments... can the hating stop? Then again, after claiming SQL can't handle larger databases, what else does the competition truly have on SQL Server?

Microsoft Aims High on Data Warehouses: "November 20, 2006 (Computerworld) --
SEATTLE -- Once characterized by its rivals as a database featherweight punching above its weight class, Microsoft Corp. last week said it plans to build two mammoth data warehouses based on its year-old SQL Server 2005 software.

At the annual conference of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) user group, Microsoft said it is designing a 270TB multinode data warehouse for a foreign government that it declined to identify. The software vendor is also working on a 162TB single-node installation for its own marketing department. "

“They can scale and handle data warehouses of any size; we know that now,” said Donald Feinberg, an analyst at Gartner Inc. “I routinely talk to SQL Server customers that have built 7TB data warehouses or Windows Datacenter [systems] with 3,000 users.”

Oracle RAC Administration - Part 9: Hands on administration

Oracle RAC Administration - Part 9: Hands on administration: "This is a typical placement error that I get on every installation. I think it may have to do with the time issue; we will come to that. If you are using an ESX server to test/develop your RAC, then the information to test and fix your time synchronization issues will certainly come very handy. "

The 30 Most Important IT Trends for 2007

Interesting list...

The 30 Most Important IT Trends for 2007: "22. The move to a new architecture marches on
23. Enterprise applications start losing their luster
24. Data quality demands attention
25. IT reluctantly embraces Web 2.0
26. IT innovation loses traction
27. Business process management services and software will frustrate users
28. For business intelligence, the best is yet to come
29. IT organizations start going green
30. Dissatisfaction with vendors is on the rise"

Mastering OLAP Reports: Parameters for Analysis Services Reporting, Pt. I

Mastering OLAP Reports: Parameters for Analysis Services Reporting, Pt. I: "One of the first things that become clear to 'early adopters' of Reporting Services is that the 'knowledgebase' for Analysis Services reporting with this tool is, to say the least, sparse. As I stated in my article, Mastering OLAP Reporting: Cascading Prompts (where I treated the subject of cascading parameters for Reporting Services 2000), the purpose of the Mastering OLAP Reporting subset of my Reporting Services series is to focus on techniques for using Reporting Services for OLAP reporting. In many cases, which I try to outline in my articles at appropriate junctures, the functionality of well-established, but expensive, solutions, such as Cognos PowerPlay, can be met in most respects by Reporting Services – at a tiny fraction of the cost. "

6 Tips for Embracing Business Intelligence

6 Tips for Embracing Business Intelligence

Jeffrey McManus: MySQL Gotchas for .NET Developers

Jeffrey McManus: MySQL Gotchas for .NET Developers: "Yet when I tell people in Silicon Valley that I'm using C# and MySQL together, they look at me like I just stepped off a flying saucer. I am here to say that using MySQL is 110% righteous on Windows and you don't have to sacrifice much of anything (including GUI tools, which were one of my big requirements) to use it.

I am going to do more to evangelize the .NET and MySQL combination because it's worked so well for us to date. To start, I'm going to describe two gotchas I've run into while developing Approver.com. Neither of these are things that I'd consider to be major problems, although they did require a bit of research and testing to figure out."

Data partitioning in SQL Server 2005 - Part III

Data partitioning is a mandatory skill in the Very Large Database game. It used to be one of the big things SQL Server lacked, but that has changed... this is a good article if you need to learn the ropes.

Data partitioning in SQL Server 2005 - Part III: "Data partitioning in SQL Server 2005 - Part III
By Muthusamy Anantha Kumar aka The MAK

In Part II of this series, we saw how to partition a table into four parts based on range of unique numbers."

Business Intelligence and the OODA Loop

Business Intelligence and the OODA Loop: "In observe, one is supposed to look for outside information about the environment, the opponent, and any specific “unfolding circumstances” that are relevant. These feed into the orient phase, where previous experiences, cultural traditions, heritage, genetics, and other factors are analyzed and synthesized in order to gain one’s bearings. The results feed back to the previous phase, but also forward to decide, where a negative outcome feeds back to observe and orient, but a positive one moves us into action. "

BI and Business Analytics Survey Results

BI and Business Analytics Survey Results: "There is a disconnect between IT and corporate executives; 73 percent of corporate influencers see BI's very positive impact compared to 55 percent of IT influencers."

The SQL Server 2005 Learning Curve Revisited: TDWI

The SQL Server 2005 Learning Curve Revisited: TDWI: "So SQL Server 2005 has a somewhat steep learning curve. (http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?ID=8219)
Big deal, say SQL Server pros: it’s well worth the wait, learning curve or no. And for some organizations, surprisingly, SQL Server 2005 has been a more or less turnkey migration experience—especially on the business intelligence (BI) front. "

Enjoy Every Sandwich : DENIED! (subtitled: using LOGON TRIGGERS with SQL Server 2005 SP2)

Enjoy Every Sandwich : DENIED! (subtitled: using LOGON TRIGGERS with SQL Server 2005 SP2): "Two of the cool new features that we talk about in Essential SQL Server 2005 and Guerrilla SQL Server 2005 are:
Data Definition Language (DDL) Triggers, which allow us to catalog code that gets fired synchronously with event that trigger it. This is useful in cases where you want to hook into the processing sequence for commands like CREATE TABLE, ALTER VIEW or DROP ASSEMBLY, potentially logging who did what or issuing a ROLLBACK to cancel that work.
EVENT NOTIFICATIONS, which route information about events asynchronously to Service Broker queue after the event has been processed. EVENT NOTIFICATIONS are available for 193 specific events, including the events we can use for DDL triggers. "

Amazon's Jeff Bezos Dishes The Dirt On IT 'Muck' - News by InformationWeek

The Amazon services fascinate me, and the way different companies might use these services is just beginning.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos Dishes The Dirt On IT 'Muck' - News by InformationWeek: "Bezos: You could move large pieces of infrastructure and we do have large clients using it in different ways. Xerox Global Services is an example of a very large customer with very spiky utilization, so it's an ideal service for them, because of the spikiness. It's the kind of company where they will have a customer that says, 'I have five acres of filing cabinets and I need to digitize it all, OCR it all, and then make it all searchable.' So those kinds of things are very compute intensive, but they're projects. They have a beginning and an end. And if you're Xerox Global Services, you don't necessarily want to have to carry that compute capacity to be able to do those things 24 by 7, if you're only doing it in these spikes. With the right amount of due diligence and the right amount of care and thoughtfulness, very large services could move onto this kind of infrastructure. "

Microsoft releases SQL Server SP2 preview

Microsoft releases SQL Server SP2 preview: "Microsoft yesterday released the latest Community Technology Preview (CTP) for Service Pack 2 of its SQL Server 2005 database, which will support the upcoming Windows Vista and integrate with Office 2007. "

More information in the article... link to the download is here.

Microsoft releases SQL Server SP2 preview

Microsoft releases SQL Server SP2 preview: "Microsoft yesterday released the latest Community Technology Preview (CTP) for Service Pack 2 of its SQL Server 2005 database, which will support the upcoming Windows Vista and integrate with Office 2007. "

More information in the article... link to the download is here.

Very Large Databases and High Availability Evaluating Replication Options

A nice article covering some Oracle replication options, including those offered by Oracle, Veritas, and Shareplex, which I've never heard of!

Very Large Databases and High Availability Evaluating Replication Options: "Many of the world's critical databases that support mind-boggling transactions, whether it is EBay or Amazon, employ replicated database features, such that the failure of any component of a single database, including DISK, CPU, RAM or NETWORK, will not have a catastrophic failure on the entire system. In addition to replication, systems are developed to allow in-flight transactions to be automatically reconnected to another fully replicated database management system, which is most often located at an entirely different geographical location than the primary database. However, replication involves much more than just setup, as marriage involves much more than a honeymoon to survive, and besides designing the applications for in-flight transactions requires meticulous planning. This is where third party software will come into play. In this article, let us examine available replication options that are viable for your critical database."

Rabuck: 4 Megatrends in BI

Good article... I've been talking geospatial forever, but the other "Megatrends" are very insightful.

Rabuck: 4 Megatrends in BI: "The four meagtrends in BI are: (1) Geospatial, (2) Collaborative B2B 'things', (3) the 4th Utility and (4) Media Madness."

Everything You Hate About IT—And Weren't Afraid To Say

The 2007 NWC Reader Survey - Business Strategy - Network Computing: "Vendors are overpromising and underdelivering on features and capabilities and failing to support their customers. IT pros know how to take vendor promises with a grain of salt, but when 72 percent of respondents say products aren't shipped with promised features, we've got a problem. And customer support is only mildly better. Many survey participants said first-line customer support is inadequate and vendors aren't willing to take responsibility for technical problems."

Microsoft, Novell Team in Linux Deal - Microsoft Informer - News - CIO

Microsoft, Novell Team in Linux Deal - Microsoft Informer - News - CIO: "'This is to bridge the divide between open source and proprietary source software,' Ballmer said. 'It gives customers greater flexibility in ways they have certainly been demanding.'

However, he added that the deal does not mean Microsoft is now going to be a huge Linux proponent. 'If you want something, I’m still going to tell you [to buy] Windows, Windows, Windows,' Ballmer said.

As part of the deal, Microsoft also will agree not to assert rights over patents to any software technology that might be incorporated into Suse Linux. Protected under this are individuals and noncommercial open-source developers who create code and contribute to the Suse Linux distribution, as well as developers getting paid to create code that goes into the distribution."

Chris Webb's BI Blog: Imposing Query Timeouts

Chris Webb's BI Blog: Imposing Query Timeouts: "I'm currently having an interesting email conversation about the lack of a query governor in Analysis Services and how useful it would be, and Darren Gosbell mentioned a new connection string property I wasn't aware of: timeout, which allows you to specify a timeout in seconds for your queries. To test this you'll need to open a tool which supports AS connection string properties (SQLMS doesn't) like MDX Sample app, and simply put
timeout=1
in the connection string. This means that any query which takes longer than one second to execute will fail in one second. How could I not know about something as useful as this?"

Best Practices Marketing Database Content, Part 1 Foundation for Sophisticated CRM

Best Practices Marketing Database Content, Part 1 Foundation for Sophisticated CRM: "When you do not have the budget to do everything you want, it is time for creative thinking. Successful CRM is attainable as long as you do not compromise on database content. Part 2 of this article will examine two case studies of how this was achieved. Also included will be a cautionary tale of database content that is very far from best practices."

The Art of Influence - Editorial - CIO

THis is good advice for anyone in the IT department.

The Art of Influence - Editorial - CIO: "Heintzeman's initiative to weigh in on a strategic business issue is familiar to any executive but particularly challenging for CIOs, who have little formal power, observes Susan Cramm, a former CIO of Taco Bell who is now an executive coach (and a CIO columnist). Often, a CIO's impact comes down to how good she is at convincing business leaders and end users—who don't have to listen to her—to follow a strategy that the CIO deems important. 'The ability to ‘lead from the back' becomes essential for success,' says Cramm. 'Without influence skills, CIOs are relegated to being order takers.'"

Dealing with Major Disasters and IT Failures: Why Business Intelligence Data Requires Business Systems Continuity

I think this is smart advice... it seems a rite-of-passage and requirement to truly become a senior-DBA - you have lived through a true data disaster and emerged, always just a little scathed, to tell about it. I don't think you can ever truly appreciate DR without such an experience under your belt.

Picture this - you work for a huge financial institution and all of a sudden numbers on a data warehouse just aren't adding up correctly. No problem yet... take a couple of days to restore from back up. Still no luck.. some investigation reveals some bits (yes, bits) are missing causing some numbers to be way off, due to problems with the hardrives. Trouble is, the backup media was backing up for months, these bad files... while the rot kept getting worse... What do you do?

Thats one I lived through. Quite painful, high visibility, and suddenly the spotlight of the senior leaders in the company was on us, and not in a good way. We got through it be figuring out some algorithms that could narrow done the offending data entries (using Perl) and correcting them by hand - after narrowing down about 300 records out of over 500 million. Believe me, an event like that makes you appreciate practicing "verifying your restores," something junior DBAs never seem to have time to do.

Dealing with Major Disasters and IT Failures: Why Business Intelligence Data Requires Business Systems Continuity: "I suggest another, integrated approach: that of business systems continuity. It entails a far more comprehensive and responsible perspective. While your data must be protected, you must also take steps to protect the applications on which they run, and the underlying operating system. This is a key point, and must not be overlooked: your operating system contains far more than the bits and bytes you initially installed from the CD. It contains passwords, permissions and settings that you have painstakingly implemented. Numerous patches have altered it since it was first installed on your machines. Restoring an operating system from the original disks is asking (no, make that begging) for trouble. The restore process can take hours, even days, before you are back in business. Even then, the state of your system may have been irreparably altered."

Worth it - DMReview Extended Edition

Business intelligence, data warehousing and analytics editorial from DMReview: "DMReview Extended Edition
This digital format offers more great DM Review articles, columns and other features that didn't fit within the page constraints of the magazine. The PDF Extended Edition is available for download on the 5th of each month."

THis is worth signing up.. it is a link to a PDF with several articles that didn't make the magazine. For example, this month inlcuded articles on Actionable Intelligence and Levergaing Real-Time Analytics, both subjects near and dear to a BI-wonk's heart.

Web 2.0: How High-Volume eBay Manages Its Storage

Web 2.0: How High-Volume eBay Manages Its Storage: "The ultrapopular auction/sales Web site continues its exponential growth and finds itself adding 10 terabytes of new storage every week. That's a lot of data. "