It’s that time again; SQL Saturday is coming to the Louisville, KY area July 21, 2012. The event will be held at:

The University of Louisville School of Business

2301 3rd Street

Louisville, KY 40202

If you have never been to a SQL Saturday please check it out. This is a free one day SQL Server training event for the SQL Community that focus’s on local speakers, providing a variety of high-quality technical sessions, and making it all happen through the efforts of volunteers. Check out the link below for further details and if you are feeling giddy enough ways for you to volunteer. Let’s get the word out and make this one of the best SQL Saturday’s that has come to Louisville.

http://www.sqlsaturday.com/122/eventhome.aspx

For those of you who have read my posts then you will know I am very big on Utility Databases. I like them because there is a plethora of information that can be gathered that you can trend, baseline, troubleshoot, etc.

In browsing some forums and whatnot I came across a good article regarding the data collector within SQL. I decided in some late night reading to study up on it; I found it to be something that in our line of business pretty beneficial. This component of SQL 2008 collects different data sets. I like it for many reasons; one perk that stood out to me was configuring the different types of monitors on a scheduled bases. You may ask what is the difference between this and the Utility Databases I always speak of. I am glad you asked; my Utility Databases are custom fitting to me to meet my exact needs; this data collector component comes out of the box you just have to configure it.

I’ve started utilizing both; configuring the data collector takes a matter of minutes and you can set schedules and retention periods of how long you want to keep your data. I basically set up an empty database shell; then the configuration takes care of creating the necessary stored procedures and schema to support it.  Another feature that I liked are the 3 reports that come with it out of the box – disk usage, query stats history, and server stats history. Granted all these can be gathered via scripts but why not take advantage of something already built for you.

This link by Brad McGehee provides information on how to set up and configure the Data Collector.

This link on the MSDN site will provide a basic understanding of what the Data Collector does.

After research I found that this resides best on a CMS Server if you have one. If you are unfamiliar with the CMS Server check out John Sterret’s blog. I sat on one of his sessions at PASS and really enjoyed it.

If you aren’t collecting data your missing out; if you are collecting data and aren’t using the two methodologies take some time and review them; it might just meet your needs.

Every DBA that I have ever known has his/her own tool belt. Usually a tool belt consists of tools that you are in need of while currently working on a project. I take this in a literal sense being if I am working on framing I’ll have my hammer, nails, screwdriver, drill, etc. Taking that concept into the DBA realm of things; when working on a project I still like to go in with my tool belt. I work in an environment that is generous enough to afford our team the Red Gate tool belt. In the tool belt we have such things as:

• SQL Backup
• SQL Compare
• SQL Comparison SDK
• SQL Data Compare
• SQL Data Generator
• SQL Dependency Tracker
• SQL Doc
• SQL Monitor Installer
• SQL Multi Script
• SQL Object Level Recovery Native
• SQL Packager
• SQL Prompt
• SQL Search
• SQL Source Control
• SQL Tab Magic

While all these tools are each effective in their own right I went one step further and grabbed the freebie from Red Gate called SQL Scripts Manager. I won’t go into much detail here on what SQL Scripts Manager is but I would highly recommend you check it out; in it you will find a plethora of information via scripts that you can tailor to meet your needs within your respective businesses. Authors such as Tim Ford, Gail Shaw, and Phil Factor comprise many scripts for tasks such as backups, diagnostics, DMV’s, and indexes.

Take time to check out this great tool; another instance of how great the SQL Community really is in sharing ideas and thoughts.