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Congratulations to Nick Colebourn who was brave enough to take his MCM lab exam in Seattle during PASS last month (at very short notice!) and is now a Microsoft Certified Master in SQL Server!
Nick’s momentous achievement is especially exciting for us as he’s now the 5th member of our team to achieve Microsoft’s highest technical qualification for SQL Server – Coeo now has more SQL Server MCM’s than any other Microsoft customer or partner in the WORLD!
Thank you Nick, and congratulations; it’s well deserved and we’re all very proud of you!
Christian Bolton - MCA, MCM, MVP
Technical Director
http://coeo.com - SQL Server Consulting & Managed Services
You can read more about the Certified Master program on Microsoft’s website here: http://bit.ly/aOFLxm
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Huge congratulations to Gavin who became the 6th person in the WORLD outside Microsoft to qualify as a Microsoft Certified Architect in SQL Server today.
Gavin’s worked so hard for this since the start of the year and all that work culminated in a grilling 4 hour review board during the PASS summit in Seattle less than 2 weeks ago -- he received his official results last night.
To put things into perspective, there are only 25 people on the planet that are qualified to this level in SQL Server; only 6 of those don’t work for Microsoft; and 2 of those work for Coeo.
Coeo is the only partner in the UK to have an MCA in SQL Server, and now we have 2!
Well done Gavin, we’re all very proud of what you’ve achieved!
Christian Bolton - MCA, MCM, MVP
Technical Director
http://coeo.com - SQL Server Consulting & Managed Services
You can read more about the Certified Architect program on Microsoft’s website here: http://bit.ly/4ar5QP
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I’m very pleased to announce that we’ll be officially launching our new book, Professional SQL Server 2012 Internals and Troubleshooting at the PASS Summit in Seattle tomorrow.
In partnership with our great friends at SQL Sentry we’ll have most of the authors at the SQL Sentry exhibitors stand from 12:30 on 
Thursday 8th November for a book signing event which will give you a rare opportunity to meet with the authors and contributors, many of which have flown in from around the world.
SQL Sentry also have lots and lots of copies to give away for free so be sure to drop by their stand and ask about it!
If you really can’t wait or run the risk of not getting a copy then the PASS bookstore has a few copies for sale but don’t expect them to be there for long!
You can also order it from your favourite online retailer:
amazon.com: http://amzn.to/U9IlPV
barnesandnoble.com: http://bitly.com/Ux1gog
amazon.co.uk: http://bitly.com/WBJ18l
I’ll be writing a follow-up post very soon explaining why I think you should buy this book so look out for it!
Christian Bolton - MCA, MCM, MVP
Technical Director
http://coeo.com - SQL Server Consulting & Managed Services
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Microsoft have just gone public at the PASS Summit in Seattle about a new SQL Server engine that they’re working on which is optimized for high-memory servers – an in-memory OLTP database engine which is built-in to SQL Server rather than a separate entity. This means that you can move just the performance critical parts of your database to Hekaton.
The new engine really pushes the performance boundaries by eliminating as many instructions as possible:
- Main memory optimized tables which are decoupled from on-disk structures;
- Everything is lock and latch free;
- More work is pushed to compile time so your T-SQL code is compiled natively into low-level code.
We’re already working with a customer on an early adoption program so expect to hear from us on what we learn about implementing it!
Christian Bolton - MCA, MCM, MVP
Technical Director
http://coeo.com - SQL Server Consulting & Managed Services
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Somehow, I managed to miss Movember last year but this year I’m lined-up to grow an outrageous moustache for charity.
Movember is a global movement which aims to raise awareness of men’s health and supports prostate and testicular cancer initiatives. On the 1st of November hundreds of thousands of men around the
world will start a journey to grow and groom a moustache for the 30 days of November becoming walking, talking billboards for men’s health.
I’ll also be parading my Mo’s progress in Seattle next week during the SQL PASS Summit so be sure to look out for me and show some support!
If you’d like to give a donation to support this worthy cause you can visit my Mo Space by clicking on the logos where you’ll also find more details about Movember and where the money goes.
Finally, if you’re a Coeo employee, customer, or partner and you’d like to join the Coeo Mo Bro Team drop me an email and I’ll sign you up!
Thanks for your support!
Christian Bolton - MCA, MCM, MVP
Technical Director
http://coeo.com - SQL Server Consulting & Managed Services
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After a massive search for our next ‘Mission Critical SQL Server DBA’, I’m very pleased to announce that we welcomed Karl Grambow into our team this week!
Karl joins us from Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) in the UK and started his career as a SQL Server 6.5 Developer before moving quickly into the operational DBA space where he’s been ever since.
He also dabbles in .NET and SSMS-Addin development and has created a versioning tool called SQLDBControl.
Outside of work he enjoys photography and Formula 1 and has recently become a Dad for the second time (congratulations!).
Welcome Karl, we’re all looking forward to working with you!
Karl will be manning our stand at SQLBits10 this week so if you’ll be there, be sure to say come over and say hi.
Christian Bolton - MCA, MCM, MVP
Technical Director
http://coeo.com - SQL Server Consulting & Managed Services
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If you feel like you know everything there is to know about SQL Server 2008 and you wish Microsoft would just hurry up with SQL Server Denali so you can learn some new stuff, here’s something to try while you wait: troubleshooting SQL Server 2008 in Chinese:
I arrived home today to find a couple of copies of the newly translated Chinese version of Professional SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting waiting for me and I’ve been flicking through it this evening in childish awe that someone would want to go to all that trouble.
Thank you mystery translators for such an object of curiosity to decorate the Coeo office, I hope your efforts are rewarded well and it proves to be a popular read in China!
Christian Bolton – Coeo Ltd
Technical Director
Microsoft Certified Architect: SQL Server
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server
SQL Server MVP
Follow me on Twitter|Watch me at SQLBits
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I’m thrilled to announce that we’ll be giving away the entire recommended reading list for the Microsoft Certified Master on SQL Server 2008 certification to one lucky attendee at the upcoming SQLBits 8 event in Brighton between 7th and 9th April 2011.
This dream collection of books, worth the over £500, will be useful to anyone who considers SQL Server to be a significant part of their career and will provide essential preparation for anyone pursuing the certification.
If you are studying for the MCM qualification or even just thinking about it, make sure you come and visit our exhibitor stand on the 8th and 9th April to share your MCM preparation stories with us and get more details on how to enter the competition.
Click here to read more about Microsoft Certified Master- Microsoft SQL Server 2008.
Good luck!
Regards,
Christian Bolton – Coeo Ltd
Technical Director
Microsoft Certified Architect: SQL Server
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server
SQL Server MVP
Follow me on Twitter|Watch me at SQLBits
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I’m very pleased to announce that Gavin Payne starts with us today as a Senior Consultant! 
We’ve known Gavin for a while now through his work in the UK SQL Server Community and when a role came up in our consulting practice I took the opportunity to talk to him about it.
Gavin brings a broad range of experience from his recent background as a Solution Architect and has a particular interest in virtualization which is very prominent in the work that we do so we’re thrilled to have him on board.
He’s also presenting a couple of sessions at the upcoming SQLBits conference in Brighton where Coeo is once again sponsoring and exhibiting so be sure to congratulate him in person if you’re going to be there!
Gavin has a prolific online presence so be sure to subscribe to his blog and follow him on twitter!
Blog: http://blog.gavinpayneuk.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/gavinpayneuk
SQLBits: http://sqlbits.com/Speakers/Gavin_Payne
Welcome Gavin!
Christian Bolton - MCA, MCM, MVP
Technical Director
http://coeo.com - SQL Server Consulting & Managed Services
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I’ve been brushing up on sparse columns and filtered indexes recently and two resources stood out for me as indispensable so I’d thought I’d share them.
Those of you studying for Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server will no doubt have found the Readiness Videos published on TechNet and Kimberley Tripp’s (Blog|Twitter) webcast in this series on Sparse columns provides an excellent resource showing different schema designs and specifically where sparse columns fit in.
MCM Readiness Video on Sparse columns by Kimberly Tripp
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/ff977043
The second resource is a session from this years PASS Summit (2010) by Don Vilen (Twitter) called Filtered Indexes, Sparse Columns: Together, Separately (AD203).
I thought this session was great and in combination with Kimberly’s 
webcast provides the perfect background for anyone wanting to learn this topic, especially for those studying for the MCM knowledge exam.
If you attended PASS you should have a login to stream Don’s session but if not you can buy the official DVD’s from http://www.sqlpass.org The DVDs are worthy investment considering how much material you get access to!
Regards,
Christian
Christian Bolton - MCA, MCM, MVP
Technical Director
http://coeo.com - SQL Server Consulting & Managed Services
twitter: @christianbolton