June 2009

squeaky wheel… yada, yada

Well, I guess if you complain about something long and hard enough, things happen.  Sometimes, things happen that have nothing to do with your complaining, but the coincidental correlation is so strong that your mind draws associations for it (which sometimes leads to fodder for blog posts).

BTW, sorry for not posting much lately; my personal life has gotten rather complicated lately, so I’ve been avoiding the computer after hours.

Anyway, I’ve been struggling for some time now with Visual Studio for Team Systems: Database Edition, particularly in a scrum environment, and it just seems that I’m not making much headway with it.  It’s just a foreign model of usage, and I’m still struggling with the tool. It’s kind of like learning to drive a car after driving a golf cart; the basic principles are the same, but there’s a heckuva lot more options.

Anyway, Shawn Wildermuth to my rescue; his company, Agilitrain, is hosting a series of workshops on Agile Database Techniques using Visual Studio 2008 Database Edition; I told my boss about it, and even though training money is pretty tight right now, I got approval to go within minutes (that says a lot about my boss, or it may say something about his opinion of me and the need for training).  Anyway, here’s the course description:

Agile Database Techniques

This course provides students with the knowledge and skills to properly manage the SQL Server database development lifecycle in an agile environment. The student will learn how to manage changes to the database structure, ensuring quality through T-SQL unit testing, and how to automate the building and deploying of SQL Server databases. Intended for developers and administrators already comfortable with the concepts of designing, programming, testing, and deploying SQL Server databases, this course focuses on using Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition to maximize productivity while minimizing mistakes.

Price: $1995.00 (USD)
Pricing may be different in locations outside the United States
Language(s): English
Length: 3 Days

Pre-requisites:

Before attending this course, the student should have experience developing and maintaining SQL Server 2000, 2005, or 2008 databases. It would also be beneficial if the student has worked in a team-based software development project and is familiar with their organization’s Software Development Life Cycle.

I’ve also been notified that Nob Hill Software has released their latest version of Randolph (an automatic versioning software for databases) with full support for TFS.  Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to install and test it yet (I’ve actually been working on an Analysis Services project; looks like I’m becoming a BI guy), but once I do, I’ll post a review here and at the AtlantaMDF Review site.

SQL Server 2008 Upgrade block: SQL Server Service Health Check

I’m posting this because I hope it helps someone else avoid losing several hours of work like I did yesterday.  Even though I’m a developer, I’m also the only DBA in our development group, and I was tasked with upgrading one of our dev boxes from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008. Install started OK, but got stuck during the Upgrade Rules section with the following error message:

“The SQL Server service cannot be restarted; or for a clustered instance, the SQL Server resource is not online.”

Googling the error message (or any combination of the message with “SQL Server upgrade” or “Health”) was useless.  I did find one persistent poster (BobC), who posted several versions of this issue to multiple forums until he got a lead.  If you google the rule name (Engine_SqlEngineHealthCheck), you get the following page from connect:

http://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=460288

which states that

Thank you for your report. We believe the issue you are experiencing is a result of SQL Server Upgrade requiring full Admin rights on the server, including “Debug programs” security policy.
Check to see if the server has removed the local administrator from “Debug programs” security policy. If so, adding Administrators back to the Debug Programs Group Policy should allow the upgrade to succeed.

In my case, I was attempting to do the install as a local administrator on the box, but apparently a group policy (I’m unsure if it’s the default or one of our company’s) ONLY allows Domain Administrators to have the ability to “Debug Programs”.    I had to ask for help from our network admin, who was able to grant my login FULL administrative rights on the box, and the upgrade continued.

milestones…

Sorry for the delay in this post; my family and I are planning to get away for some much-needed vacation time, and like most Americans, the week before and the week after a vacation are the busiest weeks of the year.  I’m trying to cram in as much stuff as I can before I leave, even though that’s SO NOT THE POINT of a vacation.

Anyway, I really have a lot to write about this week, but just don’t have the time.  Hopefully, I’ll cling to those ideas in the back of my skull somewhere over the next week.  There was one incident of note, however, that I’d really like to share.

I recently met another Atlanta developer by the name of Cheyenne Throckmorton; Cheyenne, like me, is interested in what we can do to build up the development communities in North Georgia, regardless of your particular technological focus.  We’ve had a couple of email conversations, and at some point, we’re probably gonna grab a burger and talk.  However, my story is not about Cheyenne; it’s about Ben Forta.

Who is Ben Forta?  Ben is a ColdFusion Evangelist for Adobe.  He’s coming to Atlanta on June 8 (the same night that my boys from AtlantaMDF meet).  Why should I, a SQL Server developer, care about a ColdFusion developer?  Well, it’s because I didn’t know he was a ColdFusion developer.  I thought he was a SQL guy (remind me to tell you my Ray Charles stories).

A long time ago, I was a struggling doctoral student in the field of Health Communication.  I had completed my coursework and was already working in the field as a research analyst (analyzing data from large samples of cancer patients and people at risk for skin cancer)  when an amazing thing happened: I failed my comprehensive exams.  Twice.   I remember sitting outside my advisor’s office to plan for my attack on the third occasion for over an hour, when I realized two things: 1) she wasn’t coming (I never heard from her again), and 2) I didn’t really like academia.   I had started down a path, and felt compelled to finish it, even though the desire had long since left me.  I decided that day I was going to make a career switch.

One of the tools for managing data we were using was Microsoft Access; I know, go ahead and laugh.  Not the most robust of databases; however, Access does provide some exposure to both Visual Basic (for Applications) and SQL.  I started looking around for Access programming jobs, and applied for the first one that sounded reasonable.  I aced the interview (those communication skills come in handy), but they also had a programming test.  I failed miserably.  I decided that I needed to do some studying (I was, after all, an ex-graduate student).  I reached out for several books to learn about programming; Ben Forta’s Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes (2nd Edition) was one of those books.   I landed a decent job shortly thereafter because of those efforts, and I feel like Forta’s guide was large part of that (I’m not saying that I became a super programmer overnight; I just worked hard and had some great foundations).  Nearly 10 years later, I’m a Data Architect, and I like what I do.

Cheyenne suggested that I send him a copy of the book, and he would get Ben to sign it.  I’ve long since lost my copy, so I ran out and bought the third edition.  I’m hoping Ben will sign it (since I’ll be away on vacation), because even though I no longer need the book, it’ll add to my collection of milestones along my path. 

Gotta run to finish packing; see you in a week.