In our last installment , I describe the three essential skills I felt were hallmarks of the best and most successful directors that I’ve worked with.  Good directors, indeed good strategic leaders of all stripes, usually have at least one or more of these skills: strategic planning, visionary goals, and… Read more

In our last installment , I describe the three essential skills I felt were hallmarks of the best and most successful directors that I’ve worked with.  Good directors, indeed good strategic leaders of all stripes, usually have at least one or… Read more

As a busy SQL Server DBA you face an increasing number of daily challenges:
- Managing fast growing data volumes and database environments
- Diagnosing and resolving performance issues
- Effective backup and recovery
- Monitoring and tracking database changes
- Balancing current resources against future capacity needs

Inefficiencies in… Read more

Quest Software, Inc.  (QSFT 26.15, +0.68, +2.65%) today added Apache Cassandra, an open-source NoSQL database, to its list of supported NoSQL platforms with the second beta release of Toad(R) for Cloud Databases. Toad now supports data access and management for Apache Cassandra, Amazon SimpleDB, Microsoft Azure Table Services,…

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The skills that enable a person to be a top-tier database professional have very little to do with being a successful member of a board of directors. So what skills are needed for a person to be successful on a board of directors for any large organization?  Here are a… Read more

Since the release of SQL Server 2005, companies have been investing heavily in SQL Server for their business-critical applications. DBAs are now challenged with supporting ever-growing datasets and making efficient use of allocated disk space in both production and enterprise storage environments. Yet DBAs seldom have a clear picture of… Read more

This presentation will help you understand Microsoft tuning techniques. It will teach tips and tricks for making queries perform better, and how to use tools to tune SQL.

Posted March 27, 2007.

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In the past few columns, we’ve talked about how to conduct an interview and, dreadfully, how to dismiss a member of your team.  I this post I would like to discuss the whole process from the candidate’s point of view.  For the job candidate, an interview is your opportunity to… Read more

It’s not a pleasant topic to discuss.  There are typically two general scenarios for involuntary separation – layoffs and termination.  Layoffs entail a general reduction in work force due to a need to reduce expenses.  Layoffs usually imply that those it affects were dismissed through no fault of their own… Read more

Fit and Finish

Considering how expensive it is to bring on new people into your organization, it really pays dividends to make sure that any new hire is both a good fit for the technical requirements of the job as well as a good fit for the overall culture of… Read more