This morning I headed over to Top Pot doughnuts to hang out with Andy Warren, Steve Jones, Bill Fellows, David Fargo, Tim Radney, and many others. It was a nice time of networking and a good small crowd. The doughnuts were good with a large and interesting selection and the coffee was good as well.
Again I was lucky to attend a pre-con today. Today I chose to attend Denali Always On by Allan Hirt. I have always gravitated toward HR and DR solutions so I’m looking forward in getting up to speed with Denali Always On. Here are a subset of my notes from the class to give you an idea of what was covered. Please note that there will not be any formatting so they may look scattered.
You can now have a TempDB local to each node. This can have better performance. Make sure the SQL Server service accounts has rights to the folder.
When going through the add node install in CTP3 it does not create the TempDB folder. You have to create it yourself manually.
As you patch nodes in your cluster, remember to remove the node you are patching as a possible owner before patching. You don’t want SQL to attempt to failover to that node in the middle of applying the patch.
You have to enable trace flag 9532 to get more than 1 availability group replica in CTP3
AG has integration with failover clustering so if you are combining them like was done with clustering and mirroring you no longer have to tweek the mirroring timeouts. An AG will not failover until the cluster completely fails, so FC is your primary HA and AG could be HA/DR.
You can take backups of the replica, but since Full Recovery mode is required you still have to take log backups of the primary or the log will grow. This has not been confirmed, but is likely the case.
First Timers Orientation
The first timers program was a great idea and as a first timer I can say that it works. The program needs some work and organization. Even the big brother/sister sponsors really didn’t know what was going on. When you entered everyone was given a sticker with a number and color. The idea was to find the person with the same number as you but the opposite color. It was a great idea to get people to meet someone new, but this process was never explained.
PASS did a really cool entrance of the first timers into the reception, but we were just told to split on one side of the room or the other and watch the video. That’s all we knew and had no idea what was going on. Rushab Mehta was doing the introduction and at the end he tells everyone to look toward the end of the room for the curtain. All of the first timers were trying to make sense out of it while turning and staring at a blank wall. It was not until the curtain opened on the other end of the room when you could hear a collective, “Ohhhh”.
The orientation was great and I definately think it should be continued, it just needs some better communication and organization. This was the launch of this new program and as with anything new there are always growing pains.
Welcome Reception and Quiz Bowl
The welcome reception was a great time of networking and an awesome opportunity to meet some amazing people. The quiz bowl was fun, but it didn’t seem like very many people were watching.
SQLServerCentral Party
This was a fun event. When you get there you get a ticket to exchange for chips. Depending on how much you win, the more tickets you get for the prize drawing at the end. I spent so much time chatting and networking with all the great people I never played a game.