Cloud Computing

Canceling a SQL Azure Account

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 26, 2010 ⋅ 2 comments

or…not…
I wanted to cancel my account before I got hit up for “hidden charges” or something ridonkulous like that and could not find any way to cancel my subscription short of calling someone on the phone which could be my least favorite thing to do.
From what I could tell, I should be allowed to “opt-out” [...]

SQL Azure Videos

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 22, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

Since I have been railing on SQL Azure lately, I thought I could share with you some of the videos you can watch for free over at MSDN. In case you were not aware, there is a LOT of free content over at MSDN and I am trying to utilize it more and more these [...]

SQL Azure Woes

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 16, 2010 ⋅ 11 comments

I recently presented a session on SQL Azure (you can download the slide deck here). During the session we talked a lot about some of the little things I have found by simply using SQL Azure. The need for a clustered index on every table was a surprise to me when I first found out [...]

Live! Hartford SQL Server Users Group Meeting Tomorrow

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ April 6, 2010 ⋅ 2 comments

Tomorrow I will be presenting at the first ever Hartford SQL Server Users Group. The title of the talk is Cloud Computing with SQL Azure, but only because I couldn’t pull together my first choice which was “Dora the Cloud Explorer”. Sorry, but I ran out of time on that because I’ve been a little [...]

Find Tables That Are Missing a Clustered Index

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ March 31, 2010 ⋅ 6 comments

Today I had the need to find tables in a database that did not have a clustered index defined. Why would I have such a need? That’s a great question.
Anyway, I set about with a few basic questions for myself such as “Self, how many tables are there?” So I did what I normally do [...]

Cloud Computing Conference

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ March 5, 2010 ⋅ One comment

I took part in a one day conference today on cloud computing. It took place at the Harvard Club in Boston, which was an interesting choice to have the event. I had never been to the Harvard Club before, and I enjoyed the history displayed all around me. I did not wear a coat and [...]

Patching SQL Azure

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ February 24, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

When the Cloud breaks, who fixes it? Why, the people who are responsible for maintaining it, right? And that person would not be you, so why do you care? And how do you patch a cloud, anyway? What do you do when the silver lining rips apart? Oh, nevermind.
So then, when does it get patched? [...]

SQL 2008 Data Mining

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ June 11, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

I often hear people use the terms “Data Mining” and “Data Analysis” as if they are interchangeable. To me, at least, they mean two very distinct things. Hopefully this post will help to explain what I believe to be the difference in their meanings.
So, let’s say you are opening up a mine. First things first, [...]

Something Old, Something New…

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ March 16, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Something smells rotten in Denmark (it’s probably all that cheese).
This past weekend I started thinking about what it really means to have your databases hosted in the cloud. My first thought was that it struck me as being exactly the same as an Application Service Provider. I mean, MS SQL is an application, right? And you [...]

Cloud Architecture

By Thomas LaRock ⋅ November 7, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Some good info in the latest Architectural Journal about cloud computing. I especially like the concern about how your train system could be late because of a strike. Apparently, such events are common in parts of Europe.