SQL Saturday 85 Pre-Cons

We are a little over half way through the Pre Confrence Sessions for SQL Saturday 85 and I couldn't be happier.   

We are located at the Marriott in beautiful Lake Mary Florida which is just on the north end of Orlando.

Tommorrow is the big day where we will be coming to you live from the campus of Seminole State College.

The Marriott is beautiful the staff has been wonderful, and the lunch that they served was absolutely delicious.  The pictures that I'm showing were all taken by me onsite, and I'll grab a few more as this is just a beautiful location for us today.

"So Balls," you say, "How's it going?"

So as an orginizer I have spent very little time in the room with the guys today, which is bad for me, but absolutely wonderful for out attendees.  I will be trying to sneak into a room and take some notes at some point but unlike most of my blogs on events this one (unless I get some notes I can take), will be very non-technical.

So I am going to make an effort to get into each session and get some details so you know just what these experts are doing. 

BUCK WOODY

Buck has a pretty packed room but I will make it in there and do some learning.  Buck is a master at this field and the feedback I've been getting from people has been incredible.  So more on this later.  

*****Update*******

You can tell he is a Professor when he walks the room, he has a Commanding presence and a Tricksters eyes.    I liked him before I met him but seeing him in action I like Buck Woody even more.

The little bit I got to see Buck was teaching all about indexes.  Buck’s advice stay away from the hard drive as much as you can.  Sucketh Mightely is a technical term and Indexes are great for reads and Sucketh Mightely on writes.

Buck goes on to discuss Indexes and their physical B-Tree structure.  He recommends applying 3 rules to Clustered Indexes; 1. The should be Narrow, 2. They should be Unique, 3. They should be ever Increasing.  We discussed the difference between Unique Clustered Indexes, and Primary Key Clustered Indexes, and Yes there is a difference!

One of the most interesting things he said with regards to the use of Primary keys and Foreign Keys, you can have a Unique Clustered Index and a Primary Key Clustered Index that have the same constraints.  The Algebrizer will use these constraints in the same way when creating the plan to retrieve the physical data.  However, deeper in the Algebrizer process the Primary Keys and Foreign key values will assist in computations that will assist the Optimizer. 

In other words using Primary Keys & Foreign Keys can make SQL work faster for you.  You should be using them.  He waded into the Holy war that is Surrogate Key’s vs. Natural Keys.  And then he assigned the Audience some hands on in class room work, finding usage statistics and table sizes using only the Built in reports.

I’ve got more Dear Reader and an further update will be coming.  Now on to the Pragmatic Works Pre-Con.

PRAGMATIC WORKS

Don't let the picture fool you these guys are such consimate proffessionals, they work hard they play hard but when the guy with the camera isn't in the room they are all business.  Once again I'm hearing some great stuff from out attendees and I'll try to get the low-down a little later.

WRAP UP

I'll get to the wrap up a little later.  This is just the teaser for now.

Thanks,

Brad

SQL Saturday 85: Pragmatic Works ONE NIGHT ONLY

We are in the final countdown to SQL Saturday 85, and everything is starting to come together.  Yesterday we discussed the DBA Pre-Con for SQL Saturday 85.  Today we will discuss the men from Pragmatic Works and the All Day Business Intelligence Workshop.   

“So Balls,” you say, “Give me One reason that I should attend the Business Intelligence Workshop?”

I can’t give you one Dear Reader, but I can give you four.

ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCTE OUR TEAM

Mike Davis (@MikeDavisSQL | Blog) is a Sr. Consultant for Pragmatic Works.  Mike has been using SSIS to help people all over the US.  Mike has spoken at countless PASS events, and will be a speaker for the upcoming PASS Summit 2011.  Have I mentioned the books that he has written?  Also don’t miss out on his SQL Smackdown vs SSIS Session at SQL Saturday 85, how do you know you’ve got a great instructor?  When they know a technology so well they can have fun in any setting and still teach you at a deep technical level.

Bradley Schacht (@BradleySchacht| Blog) is a Consultant for Pragmatic works.  I met Brad at SQL Saturday 79 down in South Florida.  Brad has presented at multiple PASS events, Code Camps, SQL Lunch, and SQL Server User groups.  If you’ve been on BIDN.com you may have run into him helping in the forums or you may have ran into him in SQL Server Central.com.  did I mention the book that he co-wrote as well, SharePoint 2010 Business Intelligence 24-Hour Trainer. 

Kyle Walker (Blog) is a Consultant for Pragmatic Works.  Kyle has been very active in the community and is an active blogger on on BIDN.com.  Kyle has presented for the Free Webinar Series that Pragmatic Works does, WEEKLY, as well as appearing at SQL Saturdays, and SQL Server User Groups. 


And last but certainly not least is Jorge Segarra (@SQLChicken | Blog).  Jorge is a Consultant for Pragmatic Works, that means that he doesn’t just preach BI, he uses BI.  In his spare time he’s the Dean of SQL University, which assembles the experts in our field to blog in a Semester Schedule for you to learn, did I mention that he is a Microsoft MVP for SQL Server?  Perhaps we could talk about his book, THE BOOK, on Policy-Based Management for SQL Server, or that he will be writing the SQL Bible for the newest version of SQL Server Denali.


 

ONE WORD TWO SYLABLLES

These are some of the top guys in their field, covering the full Microsoft BI Stack from Beginning to End.  In a intimate setting were you will get a lot of one on one time, and the best part Dear Reader? 

When you have a group of instructors that know their material inside and out, and you have a setting like this you may learn some tips and tricks, because it is in the venues like this where you get to have the professionals go off script.  You learn what they learn.  You hear about their experiences in the field.

And maybe just maybe you find out some previews.  With Denali barrelling down upon us, and all of the major BI Initiatives that Microsoft will be offering up, this would be a good chance to ask some questions, and maybe see what our Professionals are running on thier laptops.

This is a day that you will not want to miss out on, Click Here to Sign Up for the BI Full Day Pre-con!  I hope to see you there, because this is going to be BAD@$$!

Thanks,

Brad

SQL Saturday 85: Buck Woody is a Wanted Man

Hello Dear Reader!  SQL Saturday 85 coming to you from beautiful sunny Orlando Florida is just around the corner.  What better way to start of a Saturday then starting it on Friday!

“But Balls,” you say, “How do you start a Friday on a Saturday?”

You start it off with not One, but TWO Amazing Pre-Conference Seminars.  Today we will be discussing our DBA Pre-Conference Session with Microsoft's Buck Woody.

BUCK WOODY IS A WANTED MAN

Microsoft’s Buck Woody(@buckwoody | Blog) is a wanted man.  He is a highly sought after speaker, he is a highly sought after consultant, and he is an educator in the ways of Database Information Systems, specializing in SQL Server.  He was a Microsoft MVP before he decided to go home to the mother ship and work for Microsoft as a Sr. Technology Specialist.   The man teaches Database Design for the University of Washington. 

If I wanted to go on even further I could mention the hundreds of published articles he has on SQL Server, I could name drop some of the conferences he has presented at in the past, TechEd, the PASS  Summit, or SQL Cruise just to name a few.  Perhaps I could tout his work in the SQL Community, serving as the President for the Tampa Bay SQL Server Users group for FIVE years.

Perhaps I could tell you about the prestigious places he’s worked, other than Microsoft, like when he was a contractor for NASA or the US Air Force.   Perhaps we could look at the multiple books that he has written, or the multiple certifications that he has obtained across multiple database platforms.  We could talk about his antics, his quick wit, his uncanny delivery that stems from his time in radio. 

However you want to spell it Buck Woody is a wanted man.  And I can tell you where he will be Dear Reader.  I can tell you exactly where he will be on Friday September 23^rd from 9 am until 5 pm.  And I can tell you what he will be doing as well.  He will be doing one of the things that he does the very best.  He will be teaching.  And you Dear Reader, if you are lucky enough to attend you will be learning.

And what will you be learning about Dear Reader?  We’ll let’s get that straight from Buck.

SQL SERVER PERFORMANCE TUNING USING APPLICATION PATH ANALYSIS

There are a lot of resources, products and features you can use to tune the performance of your SQL Server system. Many assume you’re familiar with 400-level concepts, others don’t consider the whole stack of the client, the network, the operating system, platform and the database server. Buck Woody, Microsoft’s real-world DBA, will explain a simple, repeatable process you can follow to tune your entire application – from the client to the server. All of the tools we’ll cover are included with Windows and SQL Server:

·         Using Windows System Monitoring Tools

·         The SQL Profiler and Server Trace

·         Database Engine Tuning Advisor

In this pre-conference session you’ll cover not only the process, but also review a real-world evaluation. You’ll take home a system and a spreadsheet you can use to monitor and tune your applications, in a simple, easy-to-understand session.

But that’s not all, he’s not just going to be teaching about the subject.  He wants to give you hands on experience with it.  Not that long ago I received this email from Buck.

“Hello – thanks for signing up for the pre-conference session on SQL Server Performance Tuning. I’ve done quite a lot of speaking and teaching, and the most informative way for us to learn together is by working through some projects during the session. If you’re able, I’d like you to bring a laptop, a copy of SQL Server 2008 (Evaluation Edition is fine, Developer Edition is best) and the AdventureWorks sample database. You can learn more about that here: http://www.informit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=sqlserver&seqNum=286

Also, feel free to bring any performance questions you have. As always, make sure you protect your company’s private information, but we’ll work through some real-world issues in class, so feel free to share what you can.

See you there!

Buck”

So you will have a full day with one of the best, brightest, and most respected in our field today.  But to add icing to the cake he wants you to bring a copy of a database and your computer so you can get some hands on training.

This isn’t just telling you what you need to do, and then you leave sitting in a situation at work thinking, “Man that Buck Woody Pre-Con was great!  Now if only I could remember what he said about that DMV!?”.  This is hands on training so you can go back to work and apply what you’ve learned right away.  Did I mention that it includes coffee, tea, and Lunch? 

Here is your chance Dear Reader, go sign up and we’ll see you there!  Click Here to Sign UP!

Thanks,

Brad