My own notes shared

I’m big fan of OneNote.

Over the past couple of decades I’ve worked through many, many issues with the SQL Server stack in the real world and I’ve usually recorded my learnings/fixes/work-a-arounds in OneNote.

So I thought I’d share those learnings in the hope I’ll help others avoid re-inventing the wheel.

I can’t promise my posts will be pretty but hopefully they’re clear and practical.

Big Data, NoSQL, Graph, Document, Key-Value, etc, etc, etc

All these data technologies can do amazing things that relational engines struggle with but lets be honest: the vast majority of all data workloads are still SQL.

Me

My formative years were as a SQL Server DBA and then trainer.

Training was great – I loved sharing and explaining. I was lucky enough to work with the UK’s first SQL Server MVP and learnt the SQL Server 7 engine inside out. Whilst being a trainer I never had that Sunday night feeling.

Then I spent +15 years as a freelance Data Warehouse Architect. I’ve lead technical data teams in almost every sector from Software to Banking to NGOs to Telecoms to Start-ups. For most of those +15 years I had that Sunday night feeling.

Then in late 2017 I took the opportunity to join Microsoft as a Data Platform Architect. Initially I worked in technical pre-sales then after a couple of years switched to post-sales. I’m lucky enough to work with some of Microsoft’s largest & most demanding customers, helping them to deliver using the Microsoft Data Platform whether that’s leveraging their investment in on-premise SQL Server or to take advantage of the new opportunities presented by Azure.

Since joining MS I’ve never once had that Sunday night feeling.