The first event I ever spoke at was SQLSaturday in Madison, Wisconsin, back in 2012. I was petrified – would anyone want to hear someone talk about normalization? Especially when that someone was pretty much unknown outside of his city? Long story short, yes, they did. I didn’t have a large crowd, but it was […]
Ed Leighton-Dick helps small and midsize businesses solve their most challenging database performance, resiliency, and data security issues at Kingfisher Data, the consulting firm he founded in 2014. He has taught thousands of people at over 200 events, including the world's largest Microsoft data platform conferences, and he has been a leader in the Microsoft data community since 2008. Microsoft has recognized Ed seven times as a Data Platform MVP for his expertise and service to the data community.
An open letter to the PASS community
PASS is our community. It may sound a little cliche in this time of election propaganda in the US, but it’s absolutely true. PASS is our community. It’s made up of data professionals from around the globe. All of us are volunteers, from the attendees to the speakers, from the chapter leaders to those that […]
SQL Sentry Plan Explorer is now free
You’ll probably hear about this from other sources, but an announcement made this morning bears repeating: One of my favorite tools, SQL Sentry’s Plan Explorer, is now completely free. I’ve used Plan Explorer since its first version. It started out as simply a better way to view execution plans: it displays the graphs in a […]
Defending your data
Which of these is more secure? It’s a trick question – the correct answer is “neither”. Both castles and vaults have their strengths. Castles are built to withstand large-scale assaults and sieges, but an individual has a good chance of getting inside. Conversely, a vault effectively protects its contents against break-ins by individuals or small groups, […]
SQLSaturday Indianapolis Wrap-Up
This weekend, I attended SQLSaturday in Indianapolis for the first time. It’s one of the larger events in the Midwest and I’ve tried to schedule it for several years, but it’s always fallen on a weekend when I couldn’t attend. This year, the date finally worked out! My presentation for this SQLSaturday was my system_health […]