Did you know Quest LiteSpeed for SQL Server has dozens of compression and encryption options?  Not to mention which backup drives you want to use and whether to stripe or mirror them – your configuration choices can be bewildering!

LiteSpeed’s Backup Analyzer does the hard work for you by testing all the different possibilities and combinations to find the fastest and smallest backups.  Brent Ozar shows how to use it in this five-minute video.

Did you know you can query backup files without restoring them? Just open up the LiteSpeed console, point to a native or LiteSpeed backup file, and start your SELECT statements.  Brent Ozar shows you how in this five-minute tutorial video:

Over the next week, I’ll be interviewing a few Questies here on the blog. Today, it’s Ari Weil.

Pretend you’ve never met me. Introduce yourself with your name, your location, and where you’d rather be right now.

My name is Ari Weil. I currently live in West Roxbury, MA which is effectively Boston.  I’d rather be sitting on a beach near the cliffs in Netanya, Israel if I could somehow do that and my job at the same time.

What do you do at Quest, other than answer emails from me?

I’m the product manager for Quest’s SQL Server performance and capacity management products.  Product management is relatively enigmatic, but insofar as it pertains to my interpretation of the role, I am the glue between development, corporate direction, support, marketing and our customers.  I am also notorious for poking my nose into places and processes where it appears some gentle prodding is required to get things done.

How long have you been with Quest, and has your job changed along the way?

I’ve been with Quest for 5 years now.  I was originally hired on as the DB2 domain expert for Quest Software Israel (QSI) with the expectation of creating Performance Analysis for DB2.  Right when I started there was a clean room process Quest had to undertake to remove all DB2 technology from our offices so I had nothing to do until the SQL Server domain expert left QSI and I was dubbed to take over that role.  Over the course of my 3+ year tenure at QSI I ensured that Performance Analysis for SQL Server became a true SQL Server performance management product, and helped develop and nearly release Performance Analysis for DB2.  In 2008 my family and I moved to Boston so I could begin working as a Solutions Architect for our SQL Server products.  After doing that for nearly 9 months, I was asked to take over product management for Foglight Performance Analysis for SQL Server, Spotlight on SQL Server, and Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise.  Recently I was also asked to assume product management responsibility for Capacity Manager for SQL Server, and here we are.

If you could have any other profession, what would you do?

Wow, great question.  My true passion is being creative – however I can.  I love being in front of people.  I used to play piano and sax and sometimes sing for groups in Cleveland where I grew up. I love to read & write (I graduated with distinction from THE – it’s important to stress the “the” – Ohio State University’s honors program with a bachelor of arts in English with a focus on creative writing).  My dream is to find a way to write engaging fiction.  Having said that, I have a background in drawing, painting and sculpture that I pursued for a while before being convinced that it was best left as a hobby.  I’d love to go back to that when my kids are a bit older.  I also love to get my adrenaline pumping, and if I ever become financially secure, I’d like to return to one of my two athletic passions: skydiving and scuba diving as an instructor.  So, I suppose I’d like to move back to a tropical climate someday and be a tech-savvy artist who either teaches skydiving or scuba diving on the side. I see myself as over-tanned, always in a worn bathing suit and t-shirt, barefoot and happy.

Mac or PC?

Another good question.  I’m going to remain independent, just as with politics.  I love my Mac, but I’m far too used to my PC for business to contemplate fully moving to Mac.  Plus, I hate pigeonholes – one of my pet peeves.

At the end of yet another grueling 80-hour workweek at Quest, how do you unwind?

That’s easy.  Family.  It doesn’t matter what we do, I just want to be with my wife and kids (and if I could have it all, I’d like to be back with the rottweiler/golden retriever mix I had to leave in Israel, Blackie.  I miss him to bits).

When you belly up to the bar at SQL Server events, what do you order?

Either a Guinness or a neat scotch.  Depends on what type of day it’s been.

What music are you listening to right now?

Seal – trying to relax and block out the kid screaming in the seat behind me.

What’s your favorite Quest product, and why?

Performance Analysis for SQL Server because I put my heart and soul into that product for the last five years, and I honestly believe it’s the best SQL Server performance product out there by a mile.

Do you ever get tired of hearing me talk about blogs and Twitter?

HA, no.  In fact I really envy your ability to keep up with blogs (I don’t care, I’m just not at all interested in Twitter).  I know that if I didn’t have the family I’d be writing more, and it frustrates me that I haven’t found the formula for being great at my job and great at being a husband/dad while still leaving time to put together the types of articles I know I wish I could find when I’m looking for answers.

Over the next week, I’ll be interviewing a few Questies here on the blog.  Today, it’s Andy Grant.

Pretend you’ve never met me. Introduce yourself with your name, your location, and where you’d rather be right now.

My name is Andy Grant, I’m located in San Francisco, CA and I would much, much rather be in Costa Rica right now.

What do you do at Quest, other than answer emails from me?

Currently, I’m the product manager for LiteSpeed for SQL Server / village idiot.

How long have you been with Quest, and has your job changed along the way?

On paper I’ve been with Quest for almost nine years – it’s amazing to write that.  What I mean by ‘on paper’ is that I was actually part of an acquisition by Quest in 2003 of the former company that I worked for called Leccotech.  I’d been there since early 2001 and my coworkers and myself were grandfathered in as Quest employees.  At Leccotech I had been a sales person and pre-sales engineer for a software product that eventually became the SQL Xpert technology in our Oracle and SQL Server offerings of Toad, Spotlight and Performance Analysis.  During and after the integration process I worked strictly in the role of pre-sales engineer actually focusing on Performance Analysis for SQL Server.  At one point at the end of 2003 an opportunity arose to join a newly created product marketing team with a group of really great and exceptionally bright folks and I decided to try a change.  From then on I have been fortunate enough to have my hands in marketing everything for Quest from freeware to enterprise product offerings as well as bring our SQL Server community initiatives to maturity.  So much fun.  Recently, I was offered and took the role of product manager for our LiteSpeed for SQL Server product and am now able to fuse my marketing and technical experience into evolving our very successful SQL Server backup and recovery offerings.  Never a dull moment!

If you could have any other profession, what would you do?

A surf instructor in Tahiti.

Mac or PC?

I go both ways.

At the end of yet another grueling 80-hour workweek at Quest, how do you unwind?

I’m a huge fan of ‘barley and hops’ therapy after a long work week, for sure.

When you belly up to the bar at SQL Server events, what do you order?

I’m a beer man, but was recently introduced to Firefly vodka – a vodka that is flavored like sweet iced tea.  Sound gross? Not so fast!  Mix it with some lemonade and it makes one helluva Arnold Palmer.  As a southerner living on the west coast, I really miss my sweet tea and this stuff is tasty!!!

What music are you listening to right now?

I created a station on Pandora for music similar to that of MGMT and it is awesome.

What’s your favorite Quest product, and why?

LiteSpeed for SQL Server – I’m the PM!

Do you ever get tired of hearing me talk about blogs and Twitter?

Never, I learn something almost every time.

Over the next week, I’ll be interviewing a few Questies here on the blog.

Heather Eichman

The first victim: Heather Eichman.  I have a special place in my heart for Heather because she’s the one who got me my job here at Quest.

Pretend you’ve never met me.  Introduce yourself with your name, your location, and where you’d rather be right now.

Hi Brent, I’m Heather. I’m in the UK at the moment in the Quest office in Maidenhead. It’s raining – shocking, I know. I would rather be on a boat out in the Mediterranean or something – in the sunshine.

What do you do at Quest, other than answer emails from me?

I answer emails from other people.   Basically, I communicate to the BU and the local Sales and Marketing teams in Europe on behalf of each other, and I work with those teams to help them put together marketing strategies that either leverage what we have available or create new ones using local experts, partners, customer advocates, etc. I do a lot of meet-and-greet, glad handing, and getting external people more involved in working with and evangelizing Quest.

How long have you been with Quest, and has your job changed along the way?

In this run I’ve been here for 3 ½ years – and was here for another 2 ½ before that, with a little break in between. I started in Marketing programs, moved into campaign management, then product marketing management, now i’m just “Europe person”… can’t really say there was THAT much difference between the first three roles, but it has changed quite a bit since the “Europe person” thing – for obvious reasons.

If you could have any other profession, what would you do?

I would probably want to be a chef and master sommelier.

Mac or PC?

Don’t mind. I’m not very computery. Ask me the same question about cars or shoes and you’ll definitely have my attention.

At the end of yet another grueling 80-hour workweek at Quest, how do you unwind?

Wine and whine. Kidding. I just got a bike, so i ride around a bit. That will work until it starts raining more. Anything outside is a good unwinder for me.

When you belly up to the bar at SQL Server events, what do you order?

I’m usually good for a G&T or two or four. (This is not painting a good picture. I’ll stop talking about booze now.)

What music are you listening to right now?

The Script. They’re an Irish band. New to me. I like them a lot.

What’s your favorite Quest product, and why?

LiteSpeed. I’ve spent the most time on it and take it somewhat personally even though I don’t use it.

Do you ever get tired of hearing me talk about blogs and Twitter?

What? Sorry, I wasn’t listening…

I love this time of year; not just the onset of Autumn, and for San Francisco that means a lifting of the Summer fog and sunny days, but also the start of Strategic Planning season for the following year.
Every year it’s great to take stock of where we are at; to hold conversations with stakeholders as varied as development leads, product managers, sales managers, customers, prospects, support; and then to make decisions ranging from minor tweaks of products, marketing and sales approach to major overhauls of strategy.
We are in an interesting time, no doubt about it, and that’s why this year, more than any other year, I am even more excited for this season. We are brainstorming some ideas, from the mundane to the bonkers, but everything’s on the table, people are pushing the envelope, we’re listening to each other, and that bodes well for the year to come.

Hello! As the new PM for LiteSpeed for SQL Server, I’m extremely happy to be here on this blog. While I catch up on all things backup and recovery for SQL Server, one thing has become clear. DBA’s don’t seem to like doing differential backups. From what I gather from numerous customer calls, it seems that the current process for establishing a backup process that includes diff’s and then ensuring these diff’s work according to the predefined schedule and escalation rules is a huge pain in the a**. Well, that’s actually great to hear, believe it or not. Why? Because our advanced compression technology for managing differentials fully automates the process of performing diff’s and enforces contingencies for the differential process so that both size and dates of diff’s have an impact on when the next full will take place. We’ll be providing much more around this advanced compression as we just released 5.1.1 and are hard at work on 5.2.
Thanks! Andy Grant

Thanks for visiting our product community site. As I type this first post I am sitting with one of our development teams in Madison, WI, learning the ropes a bit in my new role.

What is my new role? I am now responsible for both product management and marketing for all our SQL Server products at Quest. Until recently I was responsible for only the marketing aspects of our portfolio, so I am on quite the learning curve. In some ways this blog is our first order of business. We have heard consistently from you, our customers, that you love our products (thank you for that), but that you want to know more about them. Our products tend to be extremely feature rich and can do a lot. In this blog and throughout this community site in general we want to help you get more out of the tools you have invested in. Want to know how or whether it’s possible to do something in one of our tools? Want to communicate directly with the product managers for our products?  Got a recommendation for a feature enhancement you would like to see? This site’s the place for you.

Our team consists of some passionate, dedicated individuals:

Performance Management Products (Spotlight, Foglight Performance Analysis, Capacity Manager) – Ari Weil. Ari has had a wide range of responsibilities since joining Quest. He was initially one of the developers working on Performance Analysis for SQL Server, then moved to the US and became a Systems Consultant, then last year he took over product management responsibilities for our performance management portfolio. You can contact Ari via the forums here or email him directly: ariel.weil@quest.com.

Backup and Recovery (LiteSpeed) – Andy Grant. Like Ari Andy has worn loads of hats over the years, which makes him perfectly suited to the product management world. He has been a sales rep, an SC, and a product marketing manager. Andy was also responsible for founding our general knowledge base site, http://sqlserverpedia.com. More on that later. Andy’s email address is andy.grant@quest.com.

Development and Administration (Toad for SQL Server and Change Director) – David Gugick. David joined Quest from Imceda, where he was the original founder and development lead on a product called Coefficient. In addition for being the driving force for the products in parentheses he works closely with our CTO, Douglas Chrystall, as an architect across our database managment products.

Product Marketing – Heather Eichman. Last year Heather moved to our UK office and is now responsible for our marketing strategy in Europe, as well as overseeing our customer advisory board, and programs based here in North America. Heather’s a great person to know if you would like to do any writing or presenting on SQL Server or are interested in joining our customer advisory board, and you can contact her at heather.eichman@quest.com.

Community Advocate and SQL Server Evangelist – Brent Ozar. Brent probably needs no introduction, but just in case, here we go. Brent joined Quest in 2008, having been a customer of ours before that as a SQL Server DBA. Brent is now the driving force behind our community initiatives, at SQLServerPedia and spends most of his time educating people about SQL Server, either through his writings or presentations. He is Editor-in-Chief of SQLServerPedia and oversees the editorial board. If you would like to get involved in the community there are so many ways to contact Brent, including telepathy sometimes. Feel free to contact him at brent.ozar@quest.com.

Community Site development – Brett Epps. Brett is currently an undergraduate at University of Madison, and is the lead developer on both this site and SQLServerPedia. Got an idea for making our sites better, contact brett.epps@quest.com.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be highlighting some of our developers and other people that are an integral part of our team, but for now I’ll sign off – please feel free to contact me directly at christian.hasker@quest.com.