Bob Pusateri

Bob Pusateri is a Microsoft Certified Master of SQL Server, speaker, blogger, volunteer, and author who loves finding new and exciting ways to break and fix things. He works as a consultant and architect, specializing in data, virtualization, and cloud technologies.

PASS Summit 2018 Session Feedback

 PASS Summit  No Responses »
Dec 062018
 

Another PASS Summit has come and gone, and as always I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to attend and speak! Thank you to everyone who attended my sessions, and an extra-special thank you to those of you who took the time to fill out session evaluations. Speakers are always looking to improve their craft, and the best way to do so is with candid feedback from attendees. Your constructive comments and criticism really do matter!

Now that the session evaluations have been returned, I wanted to share the comments I received.

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I Did Not Do Well In College

 Personal  2 Responses »
Nov 292018
 

I was going through some papers the other day and came across my undergraduate transcript, something I haven’t laid eyes on in probably a decade. Reading through it was a humbling trip down memory lane. In the 12 years since I’ve graduated, I clearly remember (more like mis-remember) doing better in some courses than I actually did. Also, I have no excuse for my sub-par performance in some classes. But I have no regrets, as this is absolutely a part of what brought me to where I am today. Want to see what I mean? Read below and I’ll take you through my transcript.

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Speaking in Boston in December!

 Speaking  No Responses »
Nov 282018
 

I’m very happy to be travelling to the Boston area in a few weeks! I will be speaking at the New England SQL User Group, which meets in Burlington, Massachusetts, on Wednesday December 12, 2018.

I will be delivering my session Locks, Blocks, and Snapshots: Maximizing Database Concurrency. This takes a look at SQL Server’s available isolation levels, what they are, how they differ, and why the default setting of “read committed” may not be appropriate for your workload. I’ll also have some demonstrations that show how different isolation levels can determine not only the performance, but also the result set returned by a query. And on top of that, I’m going to make it all entertaining as well!

I’m really looking forward to this presentation (and also to grabbing some great chowder while in town!) and I hope you can join us on Wednesday, December 12. You can register and find further details here!

Azure Cosmos DB 30 Day Trial: The Gift That Keeps On Giving!

 Cosmos DB  No Responses »
Nov 272018
 

With the holiday season upon us, it’s important to remember that it is always better to give than to receive. This year, the Azure Cosmos DB team is doing just that, and giving us a ton – in the form of the Cosmos DB 30 day trial. But this isn’t just a single 30 day trial, it’s renewable unlimited times!

Now you can create a Cosmos DB container and make use of any Azure Cosmos DB features you like (including geo-replication to up to 3 regions) for 30 days for free. Once the trial ends, your database will be deleted, however you can immediately create another trial, re-load your data, and get back to experimenting and learning Cosmos DB!

Azure Cosmos DB has long offered the desktop emulator, which is great for getting familiar with the APIs and doing basic development, but there comes a point where the real cloud-based product is necessary to continue learning. And now you don’t even need to pull out your credit card to get access to the Cosmos DB service!

In short, the emulator is a great way to start, but if you’d like to get a feel for Cosmos DB in the cloud, make use of the 30 day trial. And if you need more than 30 days, sign up for it over and over again! For detailed instructions on how to sign up for the 30 day trial, see the announcement blog post.

Farewell etaoin shrdlu

 Off Topic  No Responses »
Nov 202018
 

While browsing Reddit last night, I came across Farewell etaoin shrdlu, a 30 minute documentary showing the last day the New York Times used hot metal typesetting to print their paper, which was July 2, 1978.

I’ve long been fascinated by Linotype machines, which cast molded lead “slugs” for a line of type. They’re extremely mechanical and really fun to watch. There are many videos to be found on YouTube detailing how they work. This particular documentary doesn’t go into great detail, but gives the basics. It also shows the entire process – how text goes from the Linotype machine all the way to a printing press.

At the end of the video they show the new computerized process that’s replacing hot metal type. This is equally fascinating. And it’s by no means fully computerized – these were the days where “cut” and “paste” involved knives and glue…

So if you’re finding yourself with some time to kill (and with it being Thanksgiving week in the US, there’s bound to be a lot of time to be killed) give this a watch. It makes me thankful to live and work in the era of computing that I do. Room-sized computers must have been incredibly impressive. Same goes for the “disk packs that can hold 8 million words each!” as mentioned in the video, but I’m quite happy to be where we are now. And I can only imagine that at the tail end of my career, the systems I’m working on now will seem just as ancient.

 

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