SQL Server Sleuth » SQLDiag

Posting My Presentations from SQLSaturday #35 – Part I

tnbarkhouse — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 05:32:01 +0000

This is a little bit embarrassing… I can’t upload the zip archive files with my presentation materials! Apparently WordPress.com, the host of this blog, does not allow zip files: Accepted Filetypes. My presentation materials include a mixture of PDF files, PowerShell and T-SQL script files, XML deadlock graph files, and a few other file types. I’ll post what I can (the PDF files), now, and then figure out a contingency plan or work-around tomorrow. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Looking Back on My PASS Presentation

tnbarkhouse — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:20:48 +0000

I delivered my "Leveraging PSSDiag/SQLDiag for Efficient Troubleshooting" presentation yesterday morning, here at the PASS Community Summit 2009 conference in Seattle, Washington. The talk went quite well—I had fun and felt like there was good interaction with the audience (including many questions during and after the talk). I also have a great sense of relief now that the presentation is complete!

Based on the great feedback that I received from my several public presentations and rehearsals, I made major changes to the talk over the last few days. I removed most of the material from the introduction and troubleshooting methodology sections, so that I could get to the demonstrations (and eye-candy) as quickly as possible. The edits made a big difference; I didn’t bore or overwhelm the audience with too much conceptual material, plus I didn’t have to race through the case study and demonstrations.

Here are a few highlights or observations:

Prior to the start of the session, my friend Tim Mitchell (blog, Twitter) made a special point to come encourage me and offer any assistance that might be needed… even though he had another session to attend!
I also appreciated the support of my friend Patrick LeBlanc (blog, Twitter), who was in the audience
There was a very good turnout, far larger than I expected. I printed out fifty copies of each handout but there were not enough to go around. I didn’t have a chance to get an exact count, but I would estimate that about seventy-five people were present!
I had a problem with one of the demonstrations (creating a SQL Server Agent alert for launching SQLDiag). I developed it against a default instance but was demonstrating it against a named instance, so the performance object name was wrong. Fortunately the audience was helpful in fixing the problem
I was actually working on addressing this problem on the flights to Seattle (by retrieving the appropriate name from the [sys].[dm_os_performance_counters] DMV), but I neglected to finish it after getting here. It will be fixed before I post the code
My other gaffe was that, early on, I decided to walk down and in front of the dais to be closer to the audience. I got over to the stairs before realizing that this just wasn’t a good idea and turned back. I’m sure that it looked awkward (and amusing)
Because of the restructuring, I was able to stop and solicit questions at several key points, which helped to draw the audience into the talk
I got to use "it depends" to answer one of the questions!
Tim Mitchell also slipped in at one point to snap a picture of me talking. I brought my camera to the session, but forgot to ask for a volunteer to use it, so I was pleasantly surprised by his thoughtfulness
I didn’t end up having time to cover the "’Strategies’ to Avoid" slide. I’ll write a blog post that explains the terms
I only had time to cover a fraction of the original material… I could teach a full-day on this topic! It’s going to be important to publish quite a few blog posts to supplement the material
Still, my main goal was realized: I managed to introduce many people to these invaluable, free tools that Microsoft’s engineers have developed (specifically PSSDiag, SQLDiag, PAL, SQL Nexus, and the RML Utilities)
I hope to hear from many audience members as they have a chance to start experimenting with these tools and leveraging them at work
There was a really good group that stayed around after the talk to ask questions
While answering those questions, the lamp in the projector blew out. I was very fortunate that it waited until after my presentation ended!
Tim Benninghoff (blog, Twitter) came up and introduced himself. We have interacted a bit on Twitter and I helped him with a PowerShell script back in May. This was great, since he was on my list of people that I was hoping to meet at the PASS conference!
Only one person was playing #SQLBingo, which was a little disappointing!
I have spoken to both Colin Stasiuk (blog, Twitter) and Greg Larsen (blog, Twitter) about delivering the talk as a webcast for their user groups (the Edmonton and Database Administration virtual chapters, respectively)

A Successful Rehearsal and Upcoming Improvements to the Presentation

tnbarkhouse — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:02:44 +0000

My rehearsal this morning went really well. Not in terms of my delivery, but rather in the great feedback that I received and my own ideas for improvement that it generated.

I want to thank Patrick LeBlanc (blog, Twitter) again for helping me to pull off the rehearsal on such short notice! I look forward to returning as a SQL Lunch presenter in the not-too-distant future.

When I gave the SQLDiag presentation on the 21st, there was good response to the recently added case study and it was suggested that I increase its role in the talk. Mike McKinney also made a great observation: I’m spending too much time describing the configuration of SQLDiag (overall, but especially before showing the end result of using it). In other words, I need to firmly establish the value of these tools before delving into the mechanics of their usage. His point made so much sense and I’m grateful for the insight.

I made a lot of changes based on those suggestions, which were put into play for the first time this morning. They made a huge difference, but it did lead to some continuity issues and glitches.

Another friend from the user group, David Stein (blog, Twitter), provided some very detailed and helpful constructive criticism. I also received emails with good ideas from Steve Jones (blog, Twitter), Tim Mitchell (blog, Twitter), and Vic Prabhu (Twitter). The following points, which ring true, were raised by one or more of them:

I need to work on my demeanor. Apparently it takes five to ten minutes for me to warm up and start to seem comfortable and confident
I should significantly cut back the introduction section
I’m switching between windows too often, giving a choppy feel to the talk
I need to speed up/cut back on the content. I’m still running out of time long before I cover everything
I’m spending too long on the troubleshooting methodology at the expense of demonstrating the tools and techniques
I need more practice

I have blocked out at least an hour for each of the next three days for solo rehearsals. I am also making the following adjustments (some based on audience feedback, others based on my own evaluation):

I’m reducing the introduction section considerably. People can read the slides and check out this blog to learn more about me. Also, my credibility will be established by the presentation’s content (I don’t need to sell myself based on the number of instances I help support in Terremark’s Highly Managed Hosting environment). Besides, when somebody chooses to attend my session it is because they already have the presumption that my information is reliable and will hold value for them
I’m trimming down the coverage on troubleshooting methodology quite a bit. I did classify this session as being at the "intermediate" skill level—the audience members should already understand the importance of having a formal process and it will take less for them to adapt mine to their needs
The PAL demonstration will now precede working with SQL Nexus. It will flow better, plus this is actually the order I follow when applying these techniques in the field
I will work the demonstration of the RML Utilities back in and explain the way that this tool and SQL Nexus complement each other
I plan to move the "’Strategies’ to Avoid" slide to the end of the presentation. If I run out of time, it is the best material to sacrifice
I have several improvements for the case study
I am considering printing out (and distributing to the audience before the session) the three Microsoft Word documents: "Troubleshooting Methodologies," "Troubleshooting Checklist," and "Case Study"

I feel really good about giving this at PASS!

The Presentations Won’t Be Posted Until After the PASS Summit

tnbarkhouse — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:10:45 +0000

I’ve decided that the posting of my presentation materials (PowerPoint slide decks and sample code) will have to wait until I return from the 2009 PASS Community Summit. I apologize again for the delay.

As I mentioned previously, I’ve been adding to and improving the demonstrations for the SQLDiag presentation. I was satisfied with the code (in terms of functionality, it still needed polishing and testing) until last week, when I got an escalation call about end-user complaints of poor performance with a customer’s application. This type of case calls for the techniques covered in my presentation. I then realized that October has been a bit of a dry spell in terms of complex issues that merited these techniques.

I ended up seeing a number of opportunities to further automate the process, pleased with the dual benefit of 1.) helping to solve the issue for the customer and 2.) having more to share with my audiences. For example, I finally created a PowerShell script that automatically extracts a single SQLDiag data set from a 7-Zip archive and loads it into PAL and SQL Nexus. This saves an immense amount of time! The downside is that I added a significant set of new scripts that have to be refined and tested (but they are absolutely worth it!).

I have been putting the release of the presentation materials above many other tasks (including blogging, participating on forums, and many responsibilities in my personal life), which has really added to my stress level. It’s time to reprioritize… I need to enjoy some down-time with my wife, tie up a few loose ends at work, and prepare for the PASS conference. I’m sorry to postpone further, but on the other hand, the quality and quantity of deliverables will be much greater this way. I’m sure that you’ll find it worth the wait!

Expect the presentation materials the week of November 9th.

Last Minute Rehearsal

tnbarkhouse — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:57:13 +0000

My friend Patrick LeBlanc (blog, Twitter), host of SQL Lunch, has graciously agreed to help me have one last rehearsal of my "Leveraging PSSDiag/SQLDiag for Efficient Troubleshooting” presentation before delivering it at the 2009 PASS Community Summit next week. I know that this is last minute notice, but if you’re available, please join me for the Live Meeting webcast at 9:30 a.m. (CDT) tomorrow, October 30th.

NOTE: The Live Meeting is set up from 9:00 a.m. through 11:30 a.m. (CDT), however the presentation is actually from 9:30 a.m. through 10:45 a.m. From 9:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., I will be working with Patrick to work out any webcast related issues. I won’t be allowing participants in until 9:30 a.m. Please do not attempt to join the meeting until 2009-10-30T09:30:00.000-05:00!

I plan on recording the meeting, to review it and improve the presentation, but I won’t make it publicly available.

If you have trouble with the direct hyperlink, you can also start from the Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 client on your computer:

Meeting ID: HD8QCW
Location: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups

The Delay Continues…

tnbarkhouse — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:36:19 +0000

I made more progress on my presentations yesterday (on my day off), but they’re not ready to be posted yet. I apologize for the delay. I’m now targeting this coming weekend for their release.

One reason is that the demonstrations for my SQLDiag presentation are still being actively developed and tested. They’ve come a long way so far (at SQLSaturday #25 they didn’t work and at the October NTSSUG meeting they were merely adequate). Last night I decided to add scripts for creating a SQL Server Agent job and alert pair that will launch SQLDiag. I’ve mentioned this technique each time that I’ve given the presentation so I thought that it was time to include the code for doing so. It’s an important addition, but it did take a bit of time to churn out instruction-quality code.

I briefly considered posting the PowerPoint slide decks for the presentations, without the accompanying sample code, but I would hate for somebody to neglect to return and get the updates. I put a lot into the sample code and I hope that it provides great value to the audience members.

Last night, I also had to upload the final revision of my PowerPoint slide deck for the PASS Community Summit 2009. I spent quite a while tweaking the content with ideas that I’ve gotten from the last few deliveries of the material.

Finally, there are a few remaining preparations for tonight, my last scheduled presentation (before the Summit).

I’m working diligently to get everything ready for you… there’s just a great deal to do. I even passed on going to the first meeting of the DFW IT Professionals users group, despite my strong desire to attend. I decided that my commitment to those of you that have attended my presentations trumped my own enjoyment (in this case).

A Brief Delay

tnbarkhouse — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:20:46 +0000

I was hoping to knock out a few tasks over the weekend:

Send the slide decks and code for my SQLSaturday #25 presentations to Stuart Ainsworth (blog, Twitter) for posting on the SQLSaturday.com web site
Post the slide deck for last Thursday’s presentation on the NTSSUG web site
Continue refining my SQLDiag presentation for this coming Wednesday
Catch up on some blogging, including an account of my experience at SQLSaturday #25

I made some great progress on the SQLDiag presentation, but the other tasks had to give way to caring for my sick wife and fielding an inordinate number of escalation calls (it was my turn to be the on-call DBA, a duty that rotates to me every four weeks).

I haven’t forgotten these tasks… hopefully I can catch up tomorrow, since I have the day off from work. Please bear with me.

Speaking at the October GFWSSUG and NTSSUG meetings

tnbarkhouse — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:08:43 +0000

I will be delivering my Leveraging PSSDiag/SQLDiag for Efficient Troubleshooting presentation at the October meetings for the Greater Fort Worth SQL Users Group and North Texas SQL Server Users Group.

The NTSSUG meeting will be this Thursday, October 15th (6:30 p.m.), at Microsoft’s Las Colinas campus in Irving, Texas.

The GFWSSUG meeting will be on Wednesday, October 21st (6:30 p.m.), at the Freese and Nichols office in Fort Worth, Texas.

I hope to see you at either (or both)!

Dress Rehearsal for My Second SQLSaturday #25 Presentation

tnbarkhouse — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:19:49 +0000

NOTE: This post was composed on an airplane on 2009-10-09.

My "Leveraging SQLDiag for Efficient Troubleshooting" presentation is brand new, so of course it is very important practice the delivery to improve the experience for the audience. I use SQLDiag (as well as the other tools covered in the presentation*) on at least a weekly basis, but the development of the presentation and demonstrations has still involved a lot of work. As has happened with my previous two presentation topics, the development of the slide deck, sample code, and overall presentation took longer than expected. I intended to have a code freeze in-place by the end of September, but that didn’t work out.

So, I found myself in the week leading up to SQLSaturday #25 without having rehearsed in front of a technical audience. When I practiced my deadlocking presentation in preparation for SQLSaturday #17, most of my co-workers that accepted the invitation weren’t able to actually attend, and those that did had to come-and-go. I don’t fault anyone, it’s the nature of our business (being in the unit that provides direct technical support to our "highly managed hosting" customers. Anyway, I decided to go and practice in front of my good friends (and former teammates) on the development team at Usability Sciences Corporation.

The presentation had a lot of issues, but I received great feedback, especially from Brad (blog, Twitter). One of the biggest suggestions was that I limit the coverage of my troubleshooting methodology so that there is more time to focus on demonstrating the tools. I’m very glad to have the relationship with that team that allows me to take and an hour-and-a-half out of their busy development schedule to get valuable feedback on a presentation that still needs a lot of refinement and polish!

* PAL, PSSDiag, SQL Nexus, RML Utilities

Speaking at SQLSaturday #25

tnbarkhouse — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:56:22 +0000

This coming weekend, I head to Gainesville, Georgia for SQLSaturday #25. This will be my second SQLSaturday event to attend, and this time I will be presenting two sessions:

Deadlock Detection, Troubleshooting, & Prevention at 8:30 a.m.
Leveraging SQLDiag for Efficient Troubleshooting at 11:00 a.m.

The latter will be my first public delivery of that presentation, the same one that I will be giving in less than a month at the PASS Community Summit 2009! I hope to get a lot of good feedback so that I can continue to refine it.

As before, with SQLSaturday #17, a secondary reason for attending is to gain greater insight into the workings of a SQLSaturday event, in order to apply the experience to the North Texas SQLSaturday event that we are planning. I learned a great deal from a great blog post by Stuart Ainsworth (blog, Twitter), so it will be great to see him in action (he’s also the event coordinator of SQLSaturday #25).

I’m fortunate to get to travel with another friend from the user group, Tim Costello (blog, Twitter). This is going to be a fun trip!