This week is Thanksgiving in the United States, so I thought it fitting to write a quick blog on what I am thankful for as a DBA. These are in no particular order and feel free to respond with something you are thankful for. I’d love to hear it.
- Glenn Berry’s Diagnostic Scripts- (B|T) Used these for years. Really a great set of scripts and explanations that we all should be grateful for.
- Ola Hallengren’s (B) Maintenance scripts. Index Optimization, Backup, and Integrity Checks for all! They have become an industry standard and continue to get better and better.
- RCSI (Read Committed Snapshot Isolation) –My Readers can stop blocking Writers! Thanks to Kendra Little (B|T) for this great blog.
- SSMS Results to grid and copy with header- I do this a million and one times a day. Ctrl+Shift+C .
- Query Store – Having the plan run stats and being able to force a plan, LOVE IT! Thanks Conor Cunningham and Microsoft for that one.
- Availability Groups – Easy setup and trustworthy. And, well, I like the name better than Mirroring.
- DMV’s (Dynamic Management Views)- Show me the money! It has all the SQL Server Internals goodies, mine for the taking.
- Profiler– #ProfilerForLife nuff said, my most trusted friend.
- Columnstore Indexes – I feel the need, the need for speed! Who doesn’t like up to 10x Query Performance gains and 10x the data compression?
- Paul Randal’s Waits Library (B|T)– I can’t tell you how many times I’ve referred to this. So much useful information!
- Adam Machanic’s SP_whosisactive (B|T) – This is my GO TO, for seeing what’s actively going on, it’s the first thing I run.
- Sentry One Plan Explorer– Execution Plans on STEROIDS! Yes, please. Love the detail and ease of use.
- RedGate’s SQL Prompt- My coding is downright ugly. With a quick Ctrl+K, Ctrl+Y my code is sleek and readable. Not to mention I love the code snippets.
- Grant Fritchey’s (B|T) Execution Plans book- I can’t wait for 3rd Edition, someone took my very loved highlighted, tabbed, marked up copy. I need another!
- Power BI – It puts the slicing and dicing into the user’s hands, giving Management easy visualizations of their data for analysis. Less reports for me to write, yippie. Thank you Microsoft.
- dbatools – Great Power Shell Modules for migrating databases. No more doing it the hard way.
Last and most importantly I am grateful for #SQLFamily, Bloggers, and Twitter. I learn from you every damn day!
Happy Thanksgiving!
~Monica
