SQL Event for July 2014

Almost July 2014 and looking forward to what will no doubt be another great SQLBits. This time in Telford.

SQLBits XII 17th – 19th July 2014 The International Centre, Telford
http://sqlbits.com/

However before SQLBits there is another event that you can still go to if you are quick, and it is in the South West!

There are currently a few spots available to see Brent Ozar present “Are AlwaysOn Availability Groups Right for You?” in Bristol. So get in quick

Updated 2 July 2014 No places left..

http://www.sqlserverclub.co.uk/sql-server-bristol-user-group-events.aspx

SQL Events 2013 Part 2

Just to make everyone aware that SQL Relay is back in November this year. These are all day events, and well worth attending.

The link you will need is: http://www.sqlrelay.co.uk/register.html

The dates are:

WEEK 1
Mon 11 Nov Reading
Tue 12 Nov Southampton
Wed 13 Nov Cardiff
Thu 14 Nov Birmingham
Fri 15 Nov Hertfordshire

WEEK 2
Mon 25 Nov Newcastle
Tue 26 Nov Manchester
Wed 27 Nov Norwich
Thu 28 Nov Bristol
Fri 29 Nov London

 

MCM 2008 Success

I got an email from Microsoft! The lab I took on the 11th April. (Yesterday). I passed!!!

So…. a long time ago in a place….no wait…

I passed the prerequisite and then spent many days with my books and study material to pass the knowledge exam which as I said before was hard. The lab exam itself is hard. No wait it is very hard. The problem I found about the process was not really knowing what to expect with the content. Failing the lab on my first attempt gave me some pointers and areas to improve.  I guess every failure should really teach you something. If you keep doing the same thing and expecting different results… you are very much like my cat.

Anyway…I took the lab yesterday on the 11th (From my home) and on the 12th I have the result. I have passed and am very proud to count myself among fellow MCM holders. I can relax now and absorb 2012 knowledge at SQLBits.

 

SQL Events 2013

2013 is shaping up to be a good year for me getting to events, so far penciled in are SQLSaturday in Exeter and SQLBits XI in Nottingham. Hope to see lots of you there… In fact you can even register for SQLSaturday right now. So go do that.

SQLSaturday #194 8th and 9th March 2013 Exeter
http://www.sqlsaturday.com/194/eventhome.aspx

SQLBits XI 2nd to 4th May 2013 Nottingham
http://sqlbits.com/

Consultancy / Contract Work / New Certification Goal

I have over the last few months taken the decision to leave my full-time job and setup my own company. This should hopefully provide me with greater flexibility to do the things I wish to do and allow me the time to do them.

My new company was setup last week on the 13th September and I now look forward to setting and achieving several of my immediate goals. http://uk.linkedin.com/in/jongurgul

Which looking at my certification planner means that I must now look to achieve 70-448 before achieving Microsoft Certified Solution Associate 2008.

If any has missed it… Microsoft are offering second shots exams again, which means you get a second change if you fail.

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/offers/secondshot.aspx

 

Tidy Blog, lazyness and SQLBITS X

I said I would get round to moving some of the old content, and true to my word albeit several months later I have added the profiler/deadlocks posts. I know I should add new content, rather than repost older bits but I have been rather preoccupied with one thing and another.

I can tell you one reason for my rehash blog entries. That is the launch of SQL 2012 and my need to spend loads of time trying to break it find out what is new. In case any of you do not know SQL 2012 is out generally on the 1st April… yes that is right fools. (It is available on technet/msdn now!)

More exciting is that SQL BITS X as well as being excellent anyway, is also the official UK launch event. Yes I am going 🙂 well heading there friday night so I can be there nice and early for the saturday free day. Next year I am determined to get on the paid days as well!

http://www.sqlbits.com/

SQLBits X is the official UK SQL Server 2012 Technical Launch Event.
29th – 31st March 2012
Novotel London West, London

Motivation & Exams MCDBA MCITP *cough*

Motivation & Exams

I find the hardest thing to obtaining any qualification is time. Unless you are lucky enough to be studying full-time, it is obviously very probable that you like me have a full-time job as well as lots of other responsibilities.

Often when asked in the past what I would like to achieve as a SQL Server professional I would say:

“I want to gain a SQL MCDBA qualifications.”.

Well as time went on the MCDBA exams were retired, and SQL 2005 was the new product to train on along with the new MCTS and MCITP qualifications and so I then said:

“I would like to gain an MCITP”.

So I had set myself a goal to achieve an MCDBA and time had passed and I had achieved nothing. So my new goal was an MCITP SQL 2005 Database Administrator, but yes you have guessed it I did not study and time again passed by. I did however make one push to achieve it in 2007, and with the help of my then boss we purchased:

“MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exams 70-431, 70-443, 70-444): Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database Administrator Core Requirements”.

I made the mistake of not setting any deadlines for achieving these exams however and so in the middle of 2007 in June I had not taken one exam. I was disappointed with myself that I had not done more and so one evening at home I decided to book a day off work and set an exam date.

I paid for the exam and booked it for the following month, said nothing to my co-workers except that I had a day off work and waited for the date to come around (If I failed I would obviously keep this to myself :P).

In the evenings at home I studied with my book and with the help of books online, and on the 29th August 2007 I achieved an MCTS SQL2005 (Exam 70-431). (I reclaimed the money for the exam from work having passed. hehe.)

Hooray, so I had done the exam surely it would not be too long before I gain an MCITP (2 more exams at the time)

Aghh nooo, not again. Yes work pressure, time constraints, and the cat/dog ate my home work… I never sat another exam…

4 years later…yes FOUR!!!

2011

In 2011 many things had changed, but so many had stayed the same. I had changed jobs a few times, moved house and started to work with newer versions of SQL Server. I had also over the last couple of years spent more times on the SQL Server Forums.

The exams however had fallen quite a long way off my radar. I do like to evaluate where I am going in my career, and it was around this time I was feeling particularly low as I felt that I had not really achieved anything in recent times. What I mean by this is there was nothing to put on my CV except the passing of the years.

As chance would have it I woke up on the 17th February 2011 to an email from Microsoft. I had been awarded an Microsoft Community Contributor award! How cool was that? Well I think for a while it was the only thing on my mind. Not least because I had no idea what this award was. It is as I found out a peer award in the SQL Server community and many really nice people have them, so I felt very happy having found this out. (Yes, also I apologize to all those I may have bored with this…I was proud/happy. insane?)

But what did all this mean? It meant to me that perhaps I had been a little complacent with what I could achieve and so I decided to create a mini action plan.

The Plan

Well ok you got me, it was not as detailed as a plan in fact it was more of a list of things to do.

Number 1. Get more involved with the SQL Server Community… after all it is great
Number 2. Set exam goals
Number 3. Make Time …not in a science fiction type way…just find the time
Number 4. Set exam Deadlines
Number 5. Achieve! …or at the very least try!

How did it go?

First stop join twitter. Yup here is me @JonGurgul , which is rather cool thing about having a unique`ish name is that I can get in most cases the account I want. I do not post as often as some, but I do lurk.

I was really lucky with the SQL Server community because @RachelClements had already set up a group based at http://www.sqlserverclub.co.uk/ , and by a funny twist of fate the meetings were happening 5 minutes from my current work. I have been to a couple of these and met lots of SQL users and MVPs and sat though some very enjoyable talks. Plus I must mention that Rachel provides PIZZA!!! I would go just for pizza tbh.

I also created a free WordPress blog to test out how I would get on with the whole blogging thing, and enjoyed it enough to buy a real domain and setup this blog. I am not saying that this blog is great, in fact it is more of collection of things that fall out of my head. It is definitely not in the league of some bloggers, who manage to craft each of their posts. Brent Ozar continues to be one of my favourate bloggers for this very reason.

Exams:

Yes, I did it. I set myself the goal of achieving 2 x MCITP and managed to pass all the exams in 2011, with literally 10 days spare 🙂

I am now a MCITP Database Administrator 2008 & MCITP Database Developer 2008. That was 4 exams. I may have to write a follow up about what I did to pass them, but for now I will just wish you all a happy vacation.

Re-moving my blog

End of Life for the Blog

I started my blog on the 1st March 2011 and after 4 Months I have decided to stop and reconsider before it is too late. lol. Well okay yes perhaps I should say first off that I have been perfectly happy with the hosting and service at WordPress and have never had any problems.

I would have however like more control over how the blog is set up and more importantly how the links resolve back to my site and not wordpress.com.

So after some searching, reading, checking and re-reading I have selected a host for my site and installed my own WordPress installation. It may even be worth doing a blog on this because it is quite a task in itself!

I will probably just delete the old blog  as there are only a few dozens entries. I will then over a period of time revisit the old entries and try to make them better before adding them here.

New Location

http://jongurgul.wordpress.com moving to:

http://www.jongurgul.com/blog/