It's amazing to think that SQLServerCentral.com has been around for 5 long years. Hard to believe that it was 5 years ago that Andy, Brian, and myself, along with a few others, started this site, began loading it with content and posting questions in the forums. In the beginning it was a blast, the 7 of us original founders hitting the forums 3 or 4 times a day, answering every question posted.
Or at least attempting to answer them. There were probably a few "I don't knows, sorry", but with 7 of us spanning different parts of SQL Server, we covered most of it. This was a similar time to now, SQL Server 2000 had been released a few months prior and everyone was busy trying to get up to speed on the new product.
It's another exciting time now with SQL Server 2005 slowly gaining momentum. I see more articles, more questions, and am learning more on a daily basis about this product and the excitement is building.
Over the years, we've written a bit about the site, there's the About page as well as one on building SQLServerCentral.com. The site has changed somewhat over the years, but there's still some of the same basic article functionality, scripts, and FAQs that were originally there.
Of course, we've also had to grow the hardware substantially. Our initial shared hosting server lasted about 12 months before we realized with 300,000 pages served a month and 30-some thousand members that we'd need to get a dedicated server. We started with one server, hosted in a friend's basement. He had the old Sprint high speed service with a 5MB pipe, a huge amount of bandwidth in 2002. That ran for a long time and we grew that to 2 servers, getting that DB/Web separation we recommend so much and actually a third server for the newsletters. At some point we realized we needed to spend the money on a real hosting service and went to ViaWest where we've been ever since.
The SQLServerCentral.com family has also grown from 2 kids (mine) to 6 among the three of us. I've changed jobs 3 times, Brian twice, while Andy has stuck it out with Hancock Information Group. We've also changed residences a few times, all the while keeping the site going despite the hectic personal lives.
Milestones
I still remember Andy proposing the idea for a book that was a collection of our best articles. I thought it was a silly idea, but he persisted and we ended up with The Best of SQLServerCentral.com. We've gone on to print 2 more and we're getting ready for a 4th volume to release at the PASS Summit in November 2006.
The PASS Summit in 2002, held in Seattle, was also a milestone for the site. We had gotten down to 3 partners by then, 18 months into the site, and Andy, Brian, and I met in person for the first time. We'd started a hobby, grown it into a business, bought out a few partners, and built a great community with many of you in 18 months and never even met. We'd talked on the phone and emailed close to daily, but it was still a great moment to meet each other for the first time. And to get together again in 2003 for the next Summit. It was also the first time we actually made any money from the site. 18 months for a busy hobby was a lot for the spouses to take, but this certainly helped keep the site going.
That Summit was a great milestone as we helped sponsor the PASS reception. If any of you were there Tuesday night, it was quite the madhouse with people in line across the ballroom and out the door, looking to get their book and shirt. Quite a few lessons learned there and our next reception in Orlando was the XBOX Contest where we gave away 5 consoles.
That was hard to top, but I think the Casino Party was a bigger hit and we're looking to do that again this year in November. So if you're looking to attend the PASS Summit in 2006, be sure you use the "SSC" source code when you register. And pass the word!
In 2003, Brian came up with the Question of the Day idea, which Andy and I didn't think much of. However that's grown and become one of the more popular sections on the site with 2000 or so of you answering them everyday. That has also grown into a series with our Two Minute SQL Server Stumpers collected into a book you can purchase and carry with you.
In 2003, there was a huge power outage in the Northeast. At that time, I was vacationing in Florida with my family and the day of the outage, I was due to meet Brian and Andy, along with their families. Kind of a large corporate retreat at the mall 🙂 While the 3 of us talked, I rocked a stroller with my sleeping daughter and our wives strolled the mall with the other kids, occupying them and getting to know each other.
I'll always remember that outage because the news interrupted our discussion. We'd been debating about a print newsletter of some sort with premium content that would be a subscription service. That discussion led to the inaugural issue of the SQL Server Standard, which is now in its 3rd year. We give this away to MCPs and PASS members, but if you don't get it, please check it out. We're very proud of it and it's a Real World magazine with new authors from the community teaching us all what they do in the real world.
Of course we realized we couldn't do it along and soon afterwards, we hired Sue, as a part time editor for the magazine. She's done a fantastic job and all of the great articles you read every other month are in a large part due to Sue.
We also succumbed to the blog phenomenon in 2005 with the introduction of the SQLServerCentral.com blogs. Some of our regular authors post there quite often and there's some great information to be found.
Of course we realize that most of you, like us, don't have time to wander through a bunch of blogs on a regular basis and check out 12 people all linking to a 13th who made the announcement of SP1 or something similar. But you're still interested in what is out there and so that led in 2004 to the start of our news service, Database Daily. We loved the name though we realized that most of you get too much mail anyway, so we sent out only a weekly newsletter.
It's been a great five years and I hope this brings back some memories for you. Things you've seen here, learned, or the interesting debates we've had.
And we're looking for more in the future. This year we have plans to start a training business in the Orlando area and look forward to helping many of you grow you SQL Server skills in person.
I've actually been writing a long story about our adventures that we hope to publish one day as a book. At about 40 page now, it's still growing and I've got some catching up to do. I go the idea from The Adventures of Mixerman, which is long, but interesting if you are interested in how music is made. Course, we can't publish it until we know the end, which hopefully won't be anytime soon.
Thanks for a great five years and we all three truly thank all of you for your support.
As a token of our appreciation, we've selected 5 random winners of a $50 Amazon Gift Certificate each. We took those people who have posted more than 100 times, since those are the folks that make this an amazing community. If you see them in the forums, send a note of congrats.
The user names are: