Once upon a time, in a blog post far, far away, I started talking about auditing in SQL Server.  And I told you all about how to use SQL Audit to monitor what’s going on in your databases.  Remember that?  If you do, you might also recall that I… Read more

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend SQLSkills IE1 class in Tampa. Fortunate to have an employer willing to send me to that kind of training, but also because Tampa in February is way better than Cleveland in February. Not that I really got to… Read more

Last month I mentioned that I’d like to start including Oracle stuff on this blog.  I’m getting back into that world again as part of the new job, and this blog has always been, first and foremost, a way for me to document and share what I’m learning.  Now I… Read more

So, you may have noticed that things have been a little quiet around here of late.  Sorry about that, I’ve kind of been dropping the ball when it comes to blogging.

So where have I been?  Well, back in October I left my job of 12 years to move on… Read more

On the fourth Wednesday of each month, the Women in Technology Virtual Chapter of PASS has its monthly conference call to discuss and plan upcoming WIT activities, be it SQL Saturday WIT panels or the WIT luncheon at the annual PASS Summit. To help promote women in technology, I’m declaring… Read more

On the fourth Wednesday of each month, the Women in Technology Virtual Chapter of PASS has its monthly conference call to discuss and plan upcoming WIT activities, be it SQL Saturday WIT panels or the WIT luncheon at the annual PASS Summit. To help promote women in technology, I’m declaring… Read more

One thing I failed to touch on during my series on SQL Audit was the use of user-defined events in audits. This was brought to my attention in a comment by one of my readers. He was trying to make use of user-defined events and was having a problem getting… Read more

This past weekend I made the drive from Cleveland to Pittsburgh to attend SQLSaturday #171.  They picked the perfect time of year to host this event, the leaves changing color made for a really pretty drive.

The Event

The weekend started with the speaker dinner, held inside the Rivers Casino.… Read more

On the fourth Wednesday of each month, the Women in Technology Virtual Chapter of PASS has its monthly conference call to discuss and plan upcoming WIT activities, be it SQL Saturday WIT panels or the WIT luncheon at the annual PASS Summit.  To help promote women in technology, I’m declaring… Read more

Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of using PowerShell to parse the Windows event logs and possibly adding that to my Inventory scripts. I like the idea of pulling out the important errors and messages into a central place for easy viewing/reporting. Depending on what platform you’re running… Read more

If you’re planning on being in the Kalamazoo, MI area this weekend, or just feel like taking a road trip, come on out to SQLSaturday #160 at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.  There are some fantastic speakers lined up, including Brent Ozar, Jeff Moden, Eddie Wuerch (giving a 2-part series on… Read more

Date: October 6, 2012

Title: Searching for the Holy Grail of DDL Auditing

Abstract:

Who altered this view and how? When was that index created? What happened to my stored procedure? From SQL Trace to SQL Audit and everything in between, we’ll explore various methods of auditing events in SQL… Read more

This is it, ladies and gentlemen.  One last post and I promise I won’t mention the word audit for at least a week.
Before we begin, let’s take a moment to recap what we’ve covered so far:

• SQLAudit 101 – Creating a basic audit
• SQLAudit 102 – Reading audit output

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SQLSaturday #164 is in the books and the months of work and planning that went into putting this event together really paid off.  This was my first foray into the planning aspect of such an event and it was quite a learning experience.  Putting together a SQLSaturday is hard work!… Read more

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Today we’re going to go over some very basic scripts to create, drop, and copy SQL Audit objects using Powershell and SMO. Managing SQL Audit objects via PowerShell is actually pretty simple, even for a newbie like me. And I’m proud to say that these might be the first PowerShell… Read more

Date: September 22, 2012

Title: So I started this blog…now what?

Abstract:

Ever thought about trying your hand at blogging? Or maybe you’ve started a blog but struggle with what to write about. We’ll take a beginner’s look at blogging and examine what makes a great blog, finding topics, finding… Read more

Welcome back, folks!

Ok so, now that we’ve covered the basics of creating a SQL Audit and viewing the output, let’s put the pieces together to form a complete solution. As with any implementation, the key to success lies in careful planning. Before we take off running, we need… Read more

Last time we went over the basics of creating a SQL Audit. Now obviously once you’ve gotten your audit in place, you’re going to want to look at the output once in a while, right? Right. So that’s what we’re going to go over today.

If you’re using the default… Read more

Date: August 18, 2012

Session 1

Title: So I started this blog…now what?

Abstract:

Ever thought about trying your hand at blogging? Or maybe you’ve started a blog but struggle with what to write about. We’ll take a beginner’s look at blogging and examine what makes a great blog, finding… Read more