K. Brian Kelley - Databases, Infrastructure, and Security

August Charlotte SQL Server User Group Meeting Announcement

bkelley — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:56:00 GMT

The Charlotte SQL Server User Group meeting will be held online on August 20th at 12 Noon (EDT). They'll have as the speaker SQL Server MVP Brad McGehee. From the front page:

Don't miss our August 20th online meeting with renowned SQL Server MVP, Brad McGehee. Brad is an experienced DBA and noted founder of SQL-Server-Performance.com. His topic will be "Introducing the SQL Server 2008 Performance Data Collector."

If you are interested in attending, please confirm your attendance with Peter Shire, president of the Charlotte SQL Server User Group.

[OFF-TOPIC] "Geek" Comics I Follow

bkelley — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:08:00 GMT

Like a lot of folks my age (in their 30s), I grew up on comics, both comic strips in the newspaper and comic book magazines. Here are the "geek" comics I follow nowadays on-line:

I used to follow the Heroes Happen Here {Comic Series}, but that one is done. If you're reading this and follow a different one that is a good stress reliever for you, post it in the comics. I'm looking for others. As far as non-geek, I also get Snoopy, Dilbert, and B.C.

Microsoft Events in August for Columbia, SC

bkelley — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:47:00 GMT

The following events are for August 21, 2008, in downtown Columbia, SC.

Morning - Momentum: IT Execs
Morning - TechNet: Vista, PowerShell, Group Policy
Afternoon - MSDN: WPF, Vista (for Developers), Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
Afternoon - TS2: Partners

SQL Server 2008 RTM - Community Thoughts & Resources

bkelley — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:29:00 GMT

As has widely been announced in the SQL Server community, SQL Server 2008 has RTM'ed. It's now available for download from MSDN and TechNet. Here are some readings from around the community:

Check Authentication Scheme (Kerberos) on SQL Server 2005

bkelley — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:02:00 GMT

I had to redo SPNs today because we swapped out service accounts on some of our non-production SQL Servers. I wanted to verify that connections in bound were being made with Kerberos. If you've ever dealt with this, if the SPNs are wrong you usually get an SSPI error, but just to be safe, I wanted positive confirmation that the connection was Kerberos. Here's the quick and dirty query to show the connections and the mode by which they are connecting:

SELECT
       s.session_id
    , c.connect_time
    , s.login_time
    , c.protocol_type
    , c.auth_scheme
    , s.host_name
    , s.program_name
FROM sys.dm_exec_sessions s
JOIN sys.dm_exec_connections c
    ON s.session_id = c.session_id

If you have a lot of connections you'll probably want to filter by host_name or by the login, but I didn't have a need to for what I was doing.

Free SQL Sticker from Paul Nielsen

bkelley — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 02:49:00 GMT

A little while ago Paul Nielsen tweeted about having free Euro-style SQL stickers. All one had to do was email him with your snail mail address and he'd send him your way. He's still offering to send out free stickers. If you are interested, you can see what one looks like at his web site:

SQL Server Bible

He announced in the latest SQL Server Bible eNewsletter (you can sign up for it at his web site) that you can get your very own sticker by emailing him at pauln {at} sqlserverbible {dot} com. He sent me two stickers which came in last week. One went on the back of my wife's van. Put it on right before church this past Sunday. There's probably two in our church that would get it, but still. Speaking of which, this is what he's written on his home page about the sticker:

cool, vinyl sticker, suitable for a notebook lid. want one?

The other one did fit perfectly on the cover of my Dell XPS laptop, which I happened to get in white. So now instead of a Dell logo, you see SQL. Looks great! Get your sticker before he runs out!

EDIT: As a follow-up, Paul has written a blog post about it. He asks that you put "Euro SQL Sticker" as the subject of the email.

Great Read on the Difficulty of Computer Security

bkelley — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:05:00 GMT

The SANS Internet Storm Center has a great handler post about working at the Abuse department for an ISP:

Securing a Network - Lessons Learned

The handler, Deborah Hale goes into detail about some of the issues faced. Things like end users not having up-to-date antivirus, mail servers getting blacklisted and then it be a tedious process to get them unblocked, to the insecurity of small business customers without full-time IT staff and the risks they pose. Loved the point about reviewing logs (point #1). Often in security your logs are your best friend.

You Hired Good People, Right?

bkelley — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 16:33:00 GMT

In the current issue of Redmond magazine there's an interesting story in the Never Again column. It's titled:

Listen to the People You Hire

The situation is one that's familiar to a lot of IT folks, there's a problem, they've got a reasonable solution, but management feels that an outside opinion needs to be brought in to bring light to the situation. The third party comes in, offers the same opinion that the in-place IT folks have been stating all along, and then proceeds to offer their own services to fix the problem. They then come in, the solution delivered isn't right, and the existing IT staff is left to pick up the pieces. Meanwhile, the consultants have exited with a sizable chunk of money... more than if the IT personnel had been allowed to solve the solution in the first place.

I'm not against consultants or consulting. When needed expertise is lacking within an organization, such as when a company is gearing up on a new technology, bringing in knowledgable consultants to help implement the solution and provide training and education makes a lot of sense. Another case is when there's a particularly challenging problem that for a regular IT staff that simply requires a domain expert, a good consultant can mean success. And finally there are cases where consultants can be brought in to augment staff, if the situation permits it and would actually benefit from such a move (see Brook's Law), to provide additional workers to complete a project.

The article naturally heaps the blame on the consulting solution and in the situation described with the facts presented, I would have to agree. However, the concluding shot was this:

The bottom line is that if you don't trust your network administrators and heed what they're telling you, you need to hire new ones.

Based on how the article read out, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The problem wasn't that the network folks were untrustworthy. They were. The problem was that management didn't trust them. Hiring new network administrators wouldn't have solved the issue. Management had to learn to trust the people it had employed. Given that, I would amend the final line to read something like this:

The bottom line is that you should trust your network administrators and heed what they're telling you unless they've given you reason not to. If they have, you need to hire new ones.

If you've hired good people, trust them and invest in them. This gives them a reason to care about the organization and about the job they do. Often they can save the organization money and pain if they are worth their salt. If they aren't trustworthy, they're going to cost everyone in the long run, so you need to replace them. And by the way, trustworthy people are going to know when they need help. And they won't be disagreeable to bringing folks in. After all, they care about the organization they work for and understand that they are valued and respected.

Nmap 4.68 Available

bkelley — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:04:00 GMT

The network scanner Nmap has a new version out, 4.68. The GUI interface (Zenmap) which comes with the Windows installer version is pretty sharp. A lot of changes in this version.

I just did a test run and it correctly identified OS and services on the boxes I just hit against. Used Zenmap and while it is a simple and straight-forward interface, it works.

Members speaking at User Groups

bkelley — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:13:00 GMT

The Midlands PASS chapter is approaching two years old. We've had some great speakers from the outside like MVPs Brian Knight, John Welch, and Wayne Snyder. We've got another great one coming with Darren Herbold next week. One area we've really struggled is getting users to speak. I've spoken a few times, I was able to invite my friend Jeremy Brown down from Charlotte, and we've had Paul Shearer and the ACS crew speak twice. Other than that, though, we've not been able to get interest from the group in presenting.

Chris Randall's twitter post about stirring up interest is what stirred up this blog post. A user group is probably one of the safest place to break into presenting. The folks there know you and hopefully (if it's a healthy group) want to see you succeed. So it's a little less nerve racking that a venue where you know few, if any, in the audience. Andy Warren and I talked about this issue at the SQL Saturday in Jacksonville. He's worked to try and train up some speakers within his community. We've offered to do the same, but so far, no takers. If anyone has any ideas for encouraging home-grown speakers, I'm all ears.

Microsoft Has a New Testing Mechanism - Not a Sim

bkelley — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:26:00 GMT

It looks like Microsoft is working with Prometric to put out a different way of testing for certification. Basically, it's an emulation, there are tasks to complete, and the emulation grades based on how well the tasks are completed when all is said and done. This is different than from what Microsoft calls a simulation where there's only a limited number of paths. Having seen the various Cisco router/switch "sims" I guess those are better described as emulations, especially the more robust ones where you can set up several switches and routers and issue almost the entire set of IOS commands. But in any case, it sounds like a step in the right direction. More here:

Performance Based Testing Pilot

The pilot is just that: a pilot. It's not a beta exam, there's no score, it's to test out how well the new mechanism works. However, the first 3000 folks to participate will get an exam voucher out of the deal. One proviso, the pilot is based on simulating Windows Server 2008 Active Directory configuration.

Reminder - Midlands PASS August Meeting

bkelley — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:34:00 GMT

Speaker: Darren Herbold

Midlands PASS Chapter - August 7, 2008 Meeting

The Midlands PASS chapter will hold our normally scheduled meeting on Thursday, August 7, 2008, to host Darren Herbold of Pragmatic Works Consulting and contributing author of the forthcoming Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services from Wrox (Darren is on the far right). Darren will be giving a presentation on SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services. The meeting will once again be held at Training Concepts off of Berryhill Road. We will begin our meet and greet time at 6:15 PM as usual and start the presentation between 6:30 and 6:45 PM.

Please feel free to forward this to anyone who you think would be interested in attending. If you plan on attending, please RSVP by sending an email to kbriankelley {at} acm {dot} org as soon as possible so we can ensure we have enough space and food. If you have time to help with setup, please email me and we’ll plug you in!

Darren’s Bio:

Darren Herbold, MCDBA, MCSE is a principal consultant at Pragmatic Works Consulting who is passionate about delivering business value to his clients. He has expertise in Business Intelligence, Database Administration, and .Net Software Development. Darren has developed a robust .Net application development framework and a code-generation tool that saves clients an average of 30-40% off of development and maintenance time. Darren has also created BI and software solutions for clients such as Microsoft, Post Properties, and University of South Florida.

Panel Interview Part III Posted

bkelley — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:57:00 GMT

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, Part III of the SQL Server panel interview has been posted on-line. A name I left off the original post who was on the panel (which I'll go back and edit):

Brent Ozar

A couple of community comments:

StatisticsIO.com (Jason Massie): More SQL experts than you can shake a stick at
BrentOzar.com (Brent Ozar, one of the panelists): 8 DBAs talk about their jobs

SQL Server Panel Interview

bkelley — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:20:00 GMT

I was asked by Odin Jobs to participate in an email interview on SQL Server. Joining me on the panel were:

Odin Jobs has done this before with PHP. The first couple of posts are here:

Here are the questions they asked:

How and when were you introduced to SQL Server?
What is the most stressful part of your job when working with SQL Server?
Production DBA, Development DBA and SQL Server Developer – Are these roles inter-changeable or do you think that each role is specialized, that there is little chance of crossover?
Name 2 exciting, new SQL Server features either in SQL Server 2008 or is upcoming.
What do you recommend to others for keeping track of whats happening in SQL Server?
Whats a SQL Server MVP and what does it take to become one?
Whats the next logical career step for you?
Why would you recommend SQL Server vis-a-vis other databases?

One I really strugged on is #6. It's easy to explain what an MVP is, but how you become one isn't something that's really well defined. Steve Jones wrote an editorial about this and Andy Warren has blogged about the subject as well. Steve wasn't exactly sure what were the exact criteria which led to his selection as an MVP. Andy pointed out that he thinks the selection bar is pretty high and his current work and life isn't conducive to meeting the requirements, especially if it's based on things like # of messages in forums and the like. I'm in the same boat as Andy. My work, home life, and ministry have always meant I can't spend as much time in the community as I'd like meaning I don't ever expect to meet the criteria to be selected as one. Having a third child, becoming a children's minister and now a junior high youth pastor, and taking on greater responsibilities at work means my free time has shrunk drastically. And I know that as much as I love being a part of the community, I wouldn't change the other aspects of my life. They are too important, especially family and ministry.

The other one I struggled on was #7. I think my answer gives that away. I sit more on the server and security side than a strictly SQL Server side nowadays but I enjoy all three aspects. But I also have enjoyed being a developer, which is what I started as 20 years ago at the ripe old age of 14. When I get time to write code, I do. But that time has become less and less nowadays. So I'm kind of like a kid in a candy store. I can go and do any aspect of it, but charting a career path involving all those areas is nigh impossible.

Midlands PASS August Meeting

bkelley — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:29:00 GMT

Speaker: Darren Herbold

Midlands PASS Chapter - August 7, 2008 Meeting

Darren’s Bio: