Recently, my boss paid for me to attend Microsoft Course 2780 Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database at Solid Quality Learning (thanks, boss!) Around 18 months ago, our department was put in charge of a SQL Server 2005 box. I've been using SQL 2005 since then which of course gave me a huge headstart in the course. Way back when, I attended the 2779 training (focused more on developers), and thought that the 2780 training would complement it and make me into a DBA :-) Well, the training is over, and I'm not a DBA, but I got a lot out of the...

I'm very fortunate to be at SQL Server 2005 training in Melbourne all week this week. Our instructor is Aussie SQL Server MVP Rob Farley who blogs at msmvps.com/blogs/robfarley/ and is unbelievably knowledgeable about the product (of course).So far I've collected 2 useful code snippets from Rob - more on useful stuff from the course later:--show all plans in the cache, courtesy Rob Farley--adding "OPTION (RECOMPILE)" means that subsequent executions --of this query aren't added to the cacheSELECT  * FROM    sys.dm_exec_cached_plans p CROSS APPLY         sys.dm_exec_sql_text(p.plan_handle) t CROSS APPLY         sys.dm_exec_query_plan(p.plan_handle) q OPTION (RECOMPILE) --comma-separated from resultset in 1 call,...

The other day I passed Microsoft Exam 70-229 Designing and Implementing Databases with Microsoft SQL Server 2000. This was the second exam on my way to world domination (and my MCAD.NET, which I first blogged about 2 years ago). Before I do the one exam remaining on XML Web Services for my MCAD, I'm thinking of taking a "side road" and doing the MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist) for SQL Server 2005. I thought I'd do this quick diversion given that I recently studied up on SQL Server (albeit 2000), MCTS requires only 1 exam, and a while back I completed...

For three days last week I attended a Microsoft training course at Dimension Data Learning Services in St. Kilda (thanks boss for paying for this!) The course was 2779 Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database. The official curriculum covered: creating databases; data types; creating tables, views, stored procedures and functions; indexes and index tuning; XML; managed code (VB.NET or C# in the database, although we didn't cover creating the code, just implementing an assembly); and Service Broker. Along with 3 days of tutorial time, we also got a huge handbook and CD with course materials. The 9 topics were delivered...