Allen White

SQL Server Education, 101

Wow, it's been an incredible couple of weeks, and the end of February just jumped up and bit me on the nose!

NEVER try to teach your first SQL Server class and open a show you've directed in the same week. Both went well, mind you, and Camelot is playing to full houses, but I was physically and emotionally drained.

The class was 2780-Maintaining a MS SQL Server 2005 Database, and that went very well. I had a few weeks to prepare and run through all the labs and demos before setting foot in the classroom. Mind you, that week, the first day I arrived to be told that there were both water main and gas main breaks in front of the building, and there was no water in the building (making bathroom breaks impossible). Due to the gas main break there was no heat, in Northern Ohio, in February. I was fortunate my classroom was an inside room and it retained the heat. We started because some students were from out of town (including a woman from Ft. Lauderdale, FLORIDA!) so we decided to press on and see how long we could take it. By early afternoon all was well again, we had both water and heat. The second day of class the winter storm that blanketed the midwest to the east coast was coming on us and we were told to send everybody home by 4pm. They also told businesses as well as schools to close the following day to allow the road crews to clean up the streets. My regular employer, as well as most employers were closed the next day, but we told the students to show up by 10am. I trudged through unplowed streets to get in and got through my first class feeling like I'd accomplished something.

Also, NEVER try to teach your second SQL Server class the week after your first SQL Server class. This class was 2784-Tuning and Optimizing Queries with MS SQL Server 2005. Because of the first class, the show and the weather I never really got a chance to go through the labs for 2784. My natural enthusiasm for all things SQL Server carried me mostly through the class, and then we got to Module 6 - Locking and Concurrency. Most of my career I've worked for companies that used a lot of small databases, and never as the central OLTP application, so I don't have much experience with concurrency issues, and because I didn't have the time for the preparation I was unable to adequately answer the students' questions during the lab. It left me embarrassed and upset - I really hate to disappoint people.

One of the reasons I wanted to become a trainer was to help me learn things I don't really get a chance to work on in my everyday job. This proved true in both the 2780 and the 2784 classes. I've started to add additional monitoring procedures to all my production servers based on things I taught in the two classes. Overall, it was a great experience, and the CPLS I taught for is happy with my work, (Solutient) and is looking to schedule me for additional SQL Server classes.

It was, indeed, a learning experience.

Allen