MSSql Alerts - More than just notifications

Monitoring MSSQL server environments can be a tedious and demanding task especially when you are dealing with various versions across multiple servers. It is impossible to dedicate resources to manually monitor each instance however MSSQL does include out of box functionality to assist called MSSQL Alerts which is also available even in older versions of MSSQL such as MSSQL server 2000. MSSQL alerts can significantly assist in letting you know when a failure is imminent or has just occurred. That is just the start though, various other event driven functionality that you would like to implement can also be achieved by the different responses available in MSSQL Alerts. Alerts can also be manipulated to run when and how you would like them to run and furthermore the data that they provide can actually be collected and used for reporting.

How The A-Team solves real world use cases

Shortly after the launch of our official blog, we made a point of blogging at least twice a week about interesting facts and ideas in the world of IT. So, to flavor it up a bit, I've decided to dedicate this week's post to my fellow team members.

Automation made easy

Ever found the need to automate certain functionality other than for integration requirements using architectures such as Biztalk server or SSIS packages. Then you would realize how cumbersome it can be setting up triggers and working with different threads.

Introducing Quartz.NET:

 “Quartz.NET is a full-featured, open source job scheduling system that can be used from smallest apps to large scale enterprise systems”

New trends in technology

While surfing the Internet and taking a look at what is new in the world of IT, I came upon an interesting new concept.

Because the information about the concept is limited, this post is going to be short. However,  these videos will give you a clear understanding about it!

Nokia released a proto-type device called the Nokia Kinetic.

Getting to the CORE of the problem

Recently I completed a migration of a SQL Server (2008 R2) onto some new hardware for a client, the SAN storage was retained as is, while the actual server was upgraded to a blade holding 64Gigs of memory and 4 of AMD`s Opteron 6276  CPU`s.  Upon logging on to the server I noticed 64 processors available to the OS and SQL – 64!

SQL Aggregation "OVER()"

Over the years I have written many stored procedures in which we had to do some sort of aggregation.

The traditional way would be to sum the value and put in a group by clause at the end of the sql statement.

I found that I landed up building monster queries in order to do something simple.

Then a couple years back I came accross the OVER clause.

We want YOU as the next M.D.

For the past few months we've been working on a concept to enrich & develop our fellow Ninja's in the most fun way possible. Introducing... (drum roll)... The Master Dev concept!

The easiest Turn you will ever make...

The developers dream is to ensure that every user always has an equal and acceptable experience when working with their creations. And one of the areas that are usually neglected is post development user manual creation. Not only is it neglected but sometimes it gets written off completely due to the extra time and resources it consumes... Well not any more....

The javascript utility on the menu today is one of the least used packages around Turn.js, it's a really small compact library which allows a developer to turn images into brilliant, cross browser compatible turning magazine pages.... Let's begin on an example...

SQL Joins Explained

Introduction
For some reason I can’t remember the different types of joins or rather what exactly the differences are, I always confuse them (I’m hoping I’m not the only one).  I’ve noticed that a graphical ilustration usually helps, so I’ve added Venn diagrams to aid in the explanation.

Spicy Windows PowerShell

In today’s business world it is important to get as much done in as little time as possible. People are finding ways to automate every repetitive task for which they’re responsible. Consistency is important when automating tasks so that every administrator on the team is equally capable of stepping in to help other team members when necessary. For more information on the background and overview of PowerShell visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell.