Results of the 2011 PASS Board of Directors election were officially announced this morning. I want to congratulate my friends Adam Jorgensen (Blog | Twitter), Denise McInerney (Blog | Twitter), and Rob Farley (Blog | Twitter) for each being elected to a 2 year term on the Board. All three are passionate about PASS's success and will work to continue making PASS a better organization every day.

Unfortunately (for me at least) I finished outside of the top 3 and was not elected. Obviously not the result I had hoped for, but it was still a good experience for me and perhaps I'll run again in 2012.

I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to vote (whether it was for me or not). The future of PASS is in good hands with the addition of Adam, Denise, and Rob and I'm looking forward to what they help PASS accomplish in 2012.

As I write this the final hours for the 2011 PASS Board of Directors elections are ticking away. Before the results are announced to the candidates and general public I wanted to share how I thought this year's election cycle went.

Random Thoughts

• Whereas each of the last two elections had some contentious issue, this election cycle was controversy free. Kudos to the Election Review Committee for the changes that were made this year!
• Gut feel - the community at large was relatively quiet, or at least quieter than previous years. Not a bad thing, though. Maybe it's because every candidate's application was posted, because of the timing of the elections cycle (things ran later this year than usual), because there weren't any big controversies, or some combination thereof. Whatever it was, though, I don't believe there was voter apathy. The #passvotes hashtag received some good buzz on Twitter and several people did post blogs. It'll be interesting to see if the number of votes cast this year exceeds 2010.
• The NomCom's job was to vet the 6 candidates but with 3 seats open and an ideal target of 3 candidates per seat their role this year was more or less to make sure that none of the candidates were underqualified. That's not to downplay the job they did by any means - they volunteered a tremendous amount of their time and effort - but it will be very interesting (next year perhaps?) to see what happens when they have to make the really tough call at where to draw the line on who makes the slate and who doesn't.
• Many people made the comment that any combination of the 6 candidates would be a good addition to the Board. I agree - even if that means I'm not one of them.

Suggestions For Improvement

I have two suggestions for next year's elections:

• As with last year's election the NomCom produced a detailed score sheet that assessed each candidate on a variety of topics (see this link for an example of what last year's sheet looked like). These sheets were used to rank the candidates but unlike last year the detailed scores were not published nor made available to anyone outside of the NomCom. As a candidate I would like to have at least seen my own scores so I know what areas I can improve on.
• I'd like to see at least one live Q&A session with all the candidates that's moderated by PASS during the elections. If the elections run during the Summit and all the candidates are in attendance we could do something similar to the Board Q&A; otherwise we could leverage LiveMeeting and do it online.

Whether I'm elected or not, I've enjoyed the experience of running and appreciate the support I've received. The results will be announced publicly in the December 28 PASS Connector. THANK YOU to everyone who voted, and stay tuned to find out who your newest PASS Board members are!

Session evaluations from the 2011 PASS Summit have been entered, calculated, and officially released to speakers. While I didn't make it into the "best of" sessions (hey, room for improvement right?) I did improve over last year's scores.

Following a similar format from previous years, each question is rated on a scale of 1-5 (1 = Very Poor, 2 = Poor, 3 = Average, 4 = Good, 5 = Excellent) with room for additional comments should the person completing the form feel compelled to add more information about why they gave a particular score. There were also two comment-only (i.e. unrated) questions. Here's how I fared:

Working With XML In SQL Server

Level: 300
Attendance: 47
Responses: 25
Average Rating: 4.56
Overall Rank: 64 (out of 190 sessions)

1. How would you rate the Speaker’s presentation skills? 4.6
Comments:

• Kendall started off the last session of PASS with a corny SQL joke. Excellent. :) Kudos  for pointing out the insecure way of connecting to SQL and mentioning that it should never be done

2. How would you rate the Speaker’s knowledge of the subject? 4.68
Comments:

• a few questions he couldn't answer on indexes/stats

3. How would you rate the accuracy of the session title, description and experience level to the actual session? 4.64
Comments:

• too basic 100 or 200
• very good overview

4. How would you rate the quality of the presentation materials? 4.56
Comments:

• time was limited

5. Did you learn what you expected to learn? 4.32
Comments

• Exactly what I wanted! Thx!
• neutral since I'm still new to xml

6. What will you take away from this session? (comment-only question)

• Possible methods to improve currently poor XML use.
• great tips on working w/XML
• a better overview of xml-dml queries
• i want to query my execution plan DMV's using Kendal's query
• resources to obtain queries

7. What would you change to improve the overall quality of this session? (comment-only question)

• correct the level
• would like to see a few more of the "cool" examples that were at the end (eg querying for showplans)
• Put this session before the 500-level session on performance tuning XML usuage
• Not a thing
• 90 minute

 

Paging DR Availability, You're Wanted In The Recovery Room

Level: 200
Attendance: 61
Responses: 42
Average Rating: 4.36
Overall Rank: 124 (out of 190 sessions)

1. How would you rate the Speaker’s presentation skills? 4.4
Comments:

• Flowed well and handled questions gracefully.
• Good, but more dynamic.
• Thorough explanations.
• Speaks a little too fast for me.
• Very easy to understand and open to answering questions.
• Applause at the end is a good sign. Humor, self-deprecating - clear, funny and smart. (Note from me: Thanks!)

2. How would you rate the Speaker’s knowledge of the subject? 4.6
Comments:

• Knows his stuff :)
• Very good knowledge of the topic - was able to answer most questions.
• Very good.

3. How would you rate the accuracy of the session title, description and experience level to the actual session? 4.29
Comments:

• Hoped for more concreate guide for DR vs. HA.
• Should describe this as a high level overview.
• This was more of a HA class than DR while still very good, title was a little misleading.
• Might have been 100 level.

4. How would you rate the quality of the presentation materials? 4.31
Comments:

• More examples.

5. Did you learn what you expected to learn? 4.19
Comments:

• Well presented @ SQL DBA!
• Not what was expected.
• Doing this stuff, but needed "this is what to do!" :)
• Speaker broke down technologies.
• Learned about replication.
• Was hoping for more in depth info but speaker warned us at beginning it was an overview.

6. What will you take away from this session? (comment-only question)

• There is no single solution Even though there are many options avaiable
• Ideas about different types of disaster recovery.
• Better understanding of HQ and HR concepts.
• A good idea of the various strategies I can use in my shop.
• HA vs. DR. Good score card.
• Given me a better understanding of how I can back-up and keep our data current.
• More knowledge and points to take back and improve.
• Good info on which strategy to use when and why.
• Understanding difference between HA/DR.
• Different DR technologies - will implement database mirroring with in the next month.
• Very good overview of a topic a lot of people mess up: HA vs. DR.
• Excellent score card!!!
• Good overview of techniques and strategies.
• The info on transactional replication was really helpful.
• A better sense of what's available out there.

7. What would you change to improve the overall quality of this session? (comment-only question)

• Nothing.  Good job.
• A couple demos (mirroring, t-log shipping) would have been nice.
• Less time spent on the "basics" that are well known. Hoped for more info on using combinations of the technologies - clustering with mirroring.
• Class focused on clustering over DR.
• None, other than to check slides before presentation. (Me: Yep, I had a typo in one of my slides. My fault!)
• Add multi site clustering info.
• More time.
• Demo some types of recovery mirror, etc.
• It's skimming the surface.  Learned stuff, but was surprised at how much of it i know.

 

Conclusion

One thing I've learned after presenting at three Summits is that I'm not going to over-analyze the results. I'll leave it at this: I didn't bomb my presentations and I improved over last year's scores so I'm happy. There are a few things I'll tweak to both sessions to make them better, and some of the comments confirm that I could easily turn the HA\DR presentation into a day-long precon (something I've been kicking around for a while now).

I'd like to thank everyone who attended my sessions and took the time to provide honest feedback. I'm happy to have been given the opportunity to present at the Summit and am looking forward to next year!

One of the requirements for the PASS Board of Directors application was a collection of recommendations - 3 from volunteers, 3 public, 1 personal, and 1 work-related. Every candidate's application is available for review (here's mine) with some minor amount of information redacted. One such section was for the volunteer recommendations and for me that means the recommendation from my friend Andy Warren (Blog | Twitter).

With permission from both Andy and the Nomination Committee I'm posting his recommendation here:

To: PASS Nominating Committee

Subject: Letter of Recommendation for Kendal Van Dyke for the PASS Board of Directors

I was introduced to Kendal in 2007 and soon after he agreed to do a presentation for the just re-launched oPASS chapter. Since then he’s gone on to speak at many other chapter meetings and SQLSaturday events, and has been selected twice to speak at the PASS Summit. He’s a confident and capable presenter.

He’s done more than just speak at events. He’s been active in growing oPASS and early this year launched our second Orlando chapter, MagicPASS. He was also a key member of the SQLRally team, taking ownership of the local side of marketing and also leading a networking ‘speed dating’ session as part of the event. He’s well known on Twitter, blogs on a recurring basis, and has built a substantial network in the community.

Kendal has all the personal attributes I look for in a candidate. He’s a good listener, willing to work hard, willing to take criticism, understands that not all decisions are perfect and that not all decisions will be popular, and he has no agenda other than to give back. He’s spent time with me discussing how the Board works and why we made some of our decisions, and I know he has spoken with others about this as well.

Kendal is a PASS success story. We held events that opened doors for him, and as a result he’s had a lot of opportunities to grow. I think highly of Kendal, and I believe he would do well on the Board if elected.

Regards,

Andy Warren

Director, PASS

Voting for the 2011 PASS Board of Directors elections started earlier this week and if you were a PASS member in good standing as of June 1 you should have received an email with a link to cast your vote. If you've already voted - thank you! If you're undecided I'd encourage you to visit the election site, read each candidates' background and platform, and if you still have questions post them on the discussion forum. All the candidates, myself included, are monitoring the forum and will usually answer within 24 hours.

So why should you vote? Besides being easy - just a few clicks and you're done - you are helping decide who you want to lead a growing international organization that can impact your day-to-day professional life. If you've ever been to a SQLSaturday, SQLRally, Summit, user group meeting, a virtual chapter meeting, or 24 Hours of PASS you have been part of a PASS event. It takes a strong leadership team to help make all of those events happen, and by voting you're adding your input on who you think will best be able to continue to provide that leadership.

If you haven't received an email with a link to vote, please visit the election website and look for the link in the lower right corner to contact PASS HQ and let them know.

Voting is open through December 20. I hope you take the time to make your voice heard and cast your vote!

Database Mirroring is a popular high availability solution and low-cost alternative to clustering, especially for smaller shops who can't afford the costs associated with SANs and Windows Server Enterprise or for smaller installations where clustering is simply overkill.

I recently set up mirroring for servers in a Windows workgroup and I had a few struggles getting it to work correctly. I did eventually get it running and wanted to share two things in particular that you might find helpful if you find yourself in a similar situation.

SQL Service Accounts

Because a workgroup isn't part of a domain any account that SQL is run as on a machine in a workgroup is a non-domain account. Books Online states "If you run SQL Server under a non-domain account, you must use certificates" for configuring mirroring. However, that's not entirely accurate - unless you have a specific need for certificates you don't have to use them.

The solution is simple - use local machine accounts with the same username and password for each SQL instance that will participate in mirroring.

Let's pretend you have two servers named serverA and serverB that will participate in mirroring and the SQL Service on each server uses a local machine account named sqlservice. When you configure mirroring and use the Database Mirroring Security Wizard you'll want to make sure to pay attention to the part where you specify the service accounts. If serverA is going to be the Principal and serverB the Mirror you'll want to put serverB in the Principal and serverA in the Mirror on this screen:

Although this seems backwards from what you might think at first don't worry - when the wizard completes it will actually create the login for serverA on serverA and the login for serverB on serverB. This is because the wizard creates mirroring endpoints on each server and grants CONNECT access to the service account from the other partner. In this example since serverA is the Principal the wizard will use the credentials you entered for the Mirror (serverA\sqlservice) to create a login on the Principal (serverA) and the credentials you entered for the Principal (serverB\sqlservice) to create a login on the Mirror (serverB).

The simplified reason this approach works is because when a connection is established from serverA to serverB the credentials supplied from serverA match the local machine account on serverB and access is granted - No certificates required!

Fully Qualified Domain Names

Books Online indicates that while you can use a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for server network addresses you can also use IP addresses. Windows workgroups don't have the concept of a FQDN so I went with IP addresses and everything appeared to work…until I tested failover. Failover to the mirror worked great except that the apps on the web servers using the SQL native client (configured with the right connection string parameters) wouldn't talk to the mirror. On top of that, after failover the mirror would lose connectivity to the witness and if I rebooted the principal all the databases on the mirror would go into recovery mode. Talk about a demo that didn't go over so well!

Digging around in the Windows event log on the mirror turned up this error:

Database mirroring connection error 4 'An error occurred while receiving data: '64(The specified network name is no longer available.)'.' for 'TCP://[SERVERNAME]:5022'.

where [SERVERNAME] is the name of the mirror. It turns out Adam Machanic (Blog | Twitter) had the same issue and fixed it by switching to FQDN. The problem? In a workgroup there are no FQDNs and trying to enter just a machine name in the mirroring wizard results in an error.

The solution? Add "fake" FQDN entries to the Windows hosts file (usually located in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\) on the principal, mirror, witness, and web servers, then rebuild mirroring using the "fake" FQDNs.

Conclusion

I hope my pain becomes your gain should you ever find yourself having to set up database mirroring in a Windows Workgroup!

I had my telephone interview for the PASS Board of Directors this afternoon and I'm cautiously optimistic that I did well enough to make it on the final slate. We had an hour booked but ended up only taking 30 minutes - I'm not sure if that's good, bad, or just is what it is. I prepared by brushing up on the PASS Bylaws and 2011 & 2012 budget (available on the governance section of the PASS website) which certainly helped with some of the questions I was asked. Overall I think I did OK; I'll find out for sure November 18 when all the candidates are notified of their rankings.

In the interest of full disclosure I'll point out that I know everyone on the Nomination Committee at some professional or personal level, though I suspect that's the case for most of the other candidates as well. That said, I'm confident that they'll be able to put relationships aside to provide a fair assessment of all the candidates. It's not an easy task, especially if it means there's a potential for delivering disappointing news to someone you know.

With the interview over I've done everything I can to make it onto the ballot. Make it or not, I'm satisfied with the changes in the process made by the Election Review Committee earlier this year. Hopefully that means PASS election controversy is a thing of the past!

If you read this week's onnector email you may have noticed that I'm one of the six candidates who have applied for the PASS Board of Directors this year. Campaigning hasn't officially started yet - the Nomination Committee is still in the review process - but I'd like to at least share a little bit more about who I am and why I made the decision to apply.

Meet Me

Born, raised, and still a Florida native, I graduated with a degree in Computer Science from Florida State University in 1999. I started working as a VB 6 developer where I was first exposed to SQL Server 7.0. It didn't take long before I shifted from writing VB to writing TSQL. The more I learned, the more I got hooked, and from that point on I've always considered myself a DBA. Over the years I've managed both servers and people and learned a ton both technically and professionally.

Married for 12 years, my wife (also a Florida native, a rarity these days!) and I have been blessed with 3 kids. I'm a huge space geek and living in Orlando - just 45 minutes from Kennedy Space Center - helps feed my hobby. When I'm not in front of a computer or chasing rockets I'm either busy doing something PASS related or helping out with Cub Scouts where my wife and I run our son's Webelos den.

Now that you know more about me...

Why I Want To Serve On The PASS Board

Going back about six years ago, I had no idea who or what PASS was except that their logo was on the SQL 2005 system views poster from SQL Server Magazine. In 2006 I moved to Orlando and a coworker introduced me to Andy Warren (Blog | Twitter). That introduction opened the door to start attending OPASS, speaking, and blogging. Between then and now I went from being a consumer - your everyday average DBA who gets the job done - to being a contributor by speaking at SQLSaturdays, User Groups, and the PASS Summit, starting a User Group (MagicPASS), helping plan a brand new conference (SQLRally) bearing the PASS brand, and most recently was recognized as a Microsoft MVP.

Along the way I've had the chance to open doors for people in the same way that Andy opened the door for me. There is an incredible sense of pride and fulfillment in seeing the same spark ignite in someone the way it did for me. PASS has been an enabler for me to get where I am today and I feel like I'm ready to pay it forward by helping to give as many other people those same opportunities as I can. So with that in mind I'm running to help carry the torch forward - to help PASS do what it does even better.

What's Next

If you haven't visited the 2011 election portal yet I encourage you to do so. Between now and November 22 everyone who submitted an application has to complete a personal interview. Once the interviews are done the Nomination Committee will recommend a slate of candidates to the current Board of Directors. Upon approving the slate campaigning and voting is scheduled to run from December 6-20 and the election results will be announced on December 28.

I hope that you pay attention to the elections and cast your vote when it comes time!

The 2011 PASS Summit is in the rear view mirror (has it really been almost three weeks now?)...and as always what an incredible week it was! Here were some of the highlights of the week for me:

The People

The number of old friends and new people I see at the Summit every year is at the top of the experience list for me. There's simply no other time or place where so many SQL people from all walks of life are gathered together. DBAs tend to be few in number at most shops so when we all get together at the Summit it's a great opportunity to talk shop, share stories, and build valuable friendships.  I was hard pressed to go anywhere without running into someone I knew from a SQLSaturday, user group meeting, previous Summit, or who I've gotten to know on Twitter. The running joke is that it takes you 30 minutes to go 50 feet at the Summit, but it's really not a joke; with that many people there it's easy to get wrapped up in an engaging conversation with someone and lose track of time.

The Sessions

I was privileged to be selected to deliver two sessions this year and really enjoyed giving both of them. I didn't count how many people came to each (hoping that the program committee will be able to provide that when all the session evals have been tabulated) but the rooms were 3\4 full for each session so I know I had a decent turnout for both. I received positive comments from people after both so I think I did OK...but like all the other speakers I'm anxious to see the evals.

The Announcements

To me announcements  are like getting presents at Christmas - you know they're coming, don't always know what they are, and most of the time you're really excited about what you discover. There were no shortage of announcements from Microsoft at this year's Summit: the SQL 2012 name and launch date, the new features for working with Hadoop (including a Windows based Hadoop distribution), an ODBC Linux drive, a new SQL Azure CTP, and Power View (aka "Crescent").

Not to be left out, Red Gate launched one of the coolest contests I've ever seen: DBA in Space. I grew up a space geek so you'd better believe I'm excited about the chance to win a suborbital flight!

The Donations

Last year I left the Summit with mixed feelings - one of the reasons being that I saw a lot of homeless and needy people around downtown. I committed to doing something to try and help in some small way this year and the result was SQLGive, a campaign to collect toiletries and clothes. With help from Chris Shaw (Blog | Twitter) we were able to set up collection bins at vendors' booths in the expo hall on Wednesday & Thursday and at the bookstore on Friday. Thanks to the generosity of many attendees we had close to 50 lbs. of soap, shampoo, toothpaste, socks, gloves, and even some food that were donated to Seattle's Union Gospel Mission.

I want to thank Idera, Quest, Perpetual Technologies, SSWUG, and SQLSentry again for letting us put collection bins at their booths. I also want to thank Tom Roush for his help delivering everything to the UGM dropoff point. I think the best way to relay the appreciation that people feel from receiving even a small amount of help is the story that Tom shared with me afterwards:

When I went there to drop the things off – there was a guy standing out there who helped me to get the stuff into the place - he looked nice, clean shaven, and I asked, "do you work here?" – he laughed, said no, then helped me get the stuff in. Later, he wanted me to know how much it meant for me to have asked that question.  Seems he'd only been off the streets less than a week, and was just amazed, and obviously touched, that I'd think he was a "regular" person.

The End

OK so this wasn't a highlight, but it could be next year. I don't like how the Summit ends; There's so much excitement at the beginning but barely a whimper at the end. On any other night it's easy to find a group of people to go to dinner with, hang out with, etc...yet I had a hard time finding people to go to dinner with on Friday night. I think we need some kind of closing event as a way for people who are still there to say goodbye to everyone and end on a high note.

I'd like to see everyone get together in the dining hall for some final words from the PASS president and a champagne toast to say goodbye. Maybe next year I'll convince someone to give this a try. :-)

Final Thoughts

The Summit is one of the highlights of my year. I meet so many people and learn so much that I don't want it to end. I'm already excited about the 2012 Summit, and I hope that you are too!

Since announcing #SQLGive earlier this week I'm happy to report that two additional vendors have agreed to host dropoff boxes at their booths - Idera and Quest Software. Here's the full list of where can drop off your donations:

• Perpetual Technologies - Booth #516
• SQLSentry - Booth #512
• Idera - Booth #221
• Quest Software - Booth #502

...and in case you don't know what SQLGive is you can read all about it here.

See you at the Summit next week!