Links to Forums and Blogs
I have a number of favourite forums and blogs that I monitor or subscribe to. I have listed a few of them here for anyone that's interested.
Forums
I think it is important to your development as a SQL Server DBA that you regularly read and contribute to a forum.There are a number of reasons for this:
- You learn new things by reading the topics;
- You learn new things by researching answers for your own contributions;
- You are voluntarily helping others. The more people doing this, the stronger the community becomes;
- Your name becomes known to more people, which increases your reputation and credibility as a knowledgeable DBA;
- You have the opportunity to link to your own website or blog, providing more visitors and increasing your page rank with Google;
- You may start to be contacted by businesses wanting to engage your services;
My preferred forum is at SQL Server Central www.sqlservercentral.com. I find the quality of posts is high, and there are a lot of very experienced contributors, so I learn from some people whilst helping others.
I have also contributed to the forum at SQL Team www.sqlteam.com, but not for a while now. I made the decision to stick with one forum, and I feel at the moment I get more out of SQL Server Central. This is purely a matter of personal preference; your mileage may vary.
Blogs
There are a lot of very clever and very experienced people working within the SQL Server field, both as DBAs and as developers. Fortunately for all of us, a significant number of these people post their thoughts, findings, and technical knowledge into the public domain in the form of blogs.A big advantage of a blog is that you can subscribe to it via an RSS feed, so you don't run the risk of missing anything interesting.
I hope that you have already subscribed to this website via my RSS feed. If not, you can do so right now. Right-click on the orange RSS button at the top of all my pages, select "Copy Shortcut" and paste it into your RSS reader. This is not a blog, but all new pages are published in the same way via this feed.
So what blogs am I currently subscribed to?
SQLBlogCasts
sqlblogcasts.com/blogs. This site, run by SQL Server MVP Tony Rogerson hosts several interesting blogs, and supports the UK SQL Server community.
Paul Randal
www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul. Paul worked at Microsoft for many years. He wrote DBCC INDEXDEFRAG and DBCC SHOWCONTIG for SQL Server 2000, and DBCC CHECKDB for SQL Server 2005. He also worked on the initial development of SQL Server 2008, specializing in the storage engine. He has now left Microsoft, and concentrates on teaching, presenting and consulting. I find his blogs the most interesting and well written of all of them, and I can't recommend them enough.
SQL Server Development Customer Advisory Team
blogs.msdn.com/sqlcat/default.aspx. Interesting, although sometimes irrelevant, posts straight from the horse's mouth.
PSS SQL Server Engineers
blogs.msdn.com/psssql/default.aspx. Essential reading. If you don't subscribe to this blog you are not taking your job seriously.
Tara Kizer
weblogs.sqlteam.com/tarad/Default.aspx. Tara doesn't post very often, but when she does it is always with something useful.
SQLBlog.com
sqlblog.com. There are blogs here by the great and the good within the SQL Server community. You can subscribe to the lot, or to individual blogs.
This is just a small selection of the blogs available, but more than enough to keep up with the latest news and information. If I come across more I will update this page, so be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed.
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