I want to thank the Space Coast User Group for having me over to speak on the Default Trace last night. I had a great time meeting everyone and hopefully I presented some information that they all can take back to the office and use.
Space Coast is a relatively new user group but they have good core and are an enthusiastic group. They asked good questions and 7 out of 9 (I think there were 9 I didn’t take attendance) attendees (not counting me) went to the after meeting get together at Holiday Inn.
The meeting started with some announcements and then I got to jump in and start my presentation. I started by doing some marketing for SQLSaturday #21 – Orlando and the great seminar series scheduled the week before. I then asked, “Before tonight, how many people knew that there is a trace running in SQL Server 2005/2008?” Once again the majority were not even aware it existed. We discussed what the Default Trace is, what it traces, where it is used, how to query it, and how to archive the data. I went a little longer than an hour so I’ll have to trim it a little for SQLSaturday. I’d probably grade myself a B-/B as I stumbled around as I changed applications to show code and do demos and had a couple of brain cramps. I need to practice this one a few more times. My slide deck and demo scripts are available here on SkyDrive and I have sent them to Bonnie Allard to post on the Space Coast SQL User Group web site so watch there as well.
We had some great discussions after the event about Powershell, hurricanes, software vendors, and the differences in diets around the world.