| Title | Description | Submitter FirstName | Submitter LastName | Track |
| Demystifying MDX in Reporting Services |
As an enterprise reporting solution, Reporting Services can consume many different types of data sources, including Analysis Services cubes and PowerPivot workbooks. You can build simple reports using a graphical design interface in Reporting Services without learning the Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) language, but to fully leverage multidimensional data in your reports, you should develop a solid understanding of this language and how to structure your query to facilitate the report design process. In this session, we'll review how the graphic designer constructs an MDX query, explore ways that you might want to change the generated query, and demonstrate how to work with parameterized MDX queries. We'll also explore how to use T-SQL stored procedures to call MDX queries. |
Stacia |
Misner |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| SQL Image Wardrobe Governor: The newest feature in R2 |
Have you ever considered that your image should be part of your professional plan? Many people would be surprised at how a slight change in outward appearance can not only build confidence but also positively affect their bottom line. This session will focus on increasing professionalism and approachability in the workplace as well as boosting personal confidence. Christine will review simple ways to improve your outward appearance with help from the SQL Server Community personalities Jeremiah Peschka and Brent Ozar. They will model a variety of comfortable yet savvy fashion options you can sport to meet clients, test servers, or even belt out a tune at SQL Karaoke. |
Christine |
Valdes |
Professional Development |
| "I got promoted! Now what? |
You were a rockstar DBA. You could leap tall buildings and tune databases in a single bound. Life was grand. And then you got promoted. The skills that helped make a rockstar DBA won’t help you in management. In fact, some of those skills could actually be a hindrance. In this session we’ll discuss the new skills you’ll to hone to excel as a manager like, skills like: managing former peers, delegating to get more done, working more productively, giving effective feedback, and conducting effective meetings. |
Joe |
Webb |
Professional Development |
| “High Performance, Heterogeneous Data Integration with SSIS and CDC” |
This interactive session will explore and demonstrate Microsoft and partner technologies that enable high performance, efficient and real-time data integration using SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), working with data from Oracle, Teradata, and other heterogeneous sources. The session will demonstrate how you can leverage high-speed connectors and change-data-capture (CDC) technologies integrated with the Microsoft BI platform to enable real-time data warehousing and operational reporting, as well as to maintain data consistency between operational databases and applications. |
Melissa |
Kolodziej |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| “Table”…? No such animal (delving into Indexing and Execution Plans) |
Although the design of tables is a fundamental skill in database design, it’s important to remember that the table is merely conceptual. In this talk, Rob Farley looks at indexing techniques and shows (through reading execution plans) that tables should often be disregarded when it comes to writing and understanding queries. |
Rob |
Farley |
Application and Database Development |
| 11 Years with Performance Issues, What have I learned |
Application developers do get the job done, but they usually don't know how SQL Server works, and this causes performance issues along with other ones. This session is about introducing these concepts using cases where developers misuse queries and features from SQL Server, and discussing other effective ways to handle them. |
Nabeel |
Derhem |
Application and Database Development |
| 20 Dirty Rotten Tricks to Play On Your DBAs and DB Developers |
Are you sick and tired of your "SQL Server Gurus" pontificating about how good they are? How much they know? Never sharing any information... Don't get mad... Get even! In this informative session you will learn how to make their life a complete living hell. And by doing so, understand how SQL Server and the tools work. (Just don't try this in your production environment!) |
Victor |
Isakov |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| 3rd Key Normal Form: That's crazy talk!!! |
How did the development world conclude that an integer is the best primary key? What is 4th and 5th normal form? What has been added to SQL Server in the 2005 and 2008 to help change the way database design has evolved over the years? Can we still use a VarChar(xx) for a primary key? What is the difference between a lookup and Parent/Child relationship? What is an example of Many-To-Many? This session will go through the history of 20 year s of experience with various database designs – normalize and denormalized. The discussion will include the benefits and forward looking that should be required for using various design techniques. |
Thomas |
LeBlanc |
Application and Database Development |
| 50TB and Growing: My Experience Managing a Very Large Database. |
I thought a 2TB database was big until I found myself working for a small company in Portland, OR. When I started, the database was over 20TB, and within a year it had more than doubled in size! In this session, I will share what I have learned about working with a VLDB, and how I used small incremental changes to enable explosive growth. |
Rob |
Boek |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| A Beginners SSIS Framework |
Most developers would agree that every SSIS solution will have the same fundamental outline. A basic framework will expedite the process by handling the common tasks between the systems while allowing the developer to concentrate on the task at hand. This framework will consist of many items, including but not limited to setting up package configurations, logging, audit trails, error handling, naming standards, etc. This session will present an example framework which can be used as the basis for future SSIS Package. |
Eric |
Wisdahl |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| A Day of Doing Many Things at Once: Multitasking, Parallelism, and Process Distribution |
Today's server hardware ships with a massive amount of CPU power. While SQL Server is designed to take advantage of available resources, there are a number of options and patterns that can be used to optimize parallel processing. This full-day seminar starts with an overview of CPU scheduler internals in both Windows and SQLOS. Next, you will learn about intra-query parallelism, where larger tasks are broken into smaller pieces that can be processed simultaneously. You will come to understand how to interpret parallel query plans and wait stats, as well as best practices for parallelism settings. Finally, you will be introduced to techniques for parallel processing at the query level—patterns to help the optimizer do a better job of parallelizing your query and other options, including Service Broker and SQLCLR. After attending this seminar, you will be in total control of your CPUs, able to compel your server to use every clock tick to your end users' advantage. |
Adam |
Machanic |
Application and Database Development |
| A Message for You |
What do you get when you merge a stack and a queue? -A Stueue! Everyone needs queues. Some need stacks. If you want a quick and flexible messaging solution, complete with all the benefits that Service Broker offers, then this message is for you. This session provides a behind-the-scenes look at a stack and queue messaging service named Stueue. Stueue is a self-contained Service Broker implementation that requires little or no experience with Service Broker. After attending this session, you will have all the ingredients to make your own Stueue! |
Brian |
Duhn |
Application and Database Development |
| A PowerShell Cookbook for DBAs |
This introduction to PowerShell is different than most. Instead of starting with a full treatment of the language, you will receive a brief overview then a collection of "recipes," stand-alone PowerShell scripts that automate various administration tasks for SQL Server 2000, 2005, and 2008. You will learn by example, and quickly realize why investing a little time into learning PowerShell will make your job a great deal easier. |
Trevor |
Barkhouse |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Add It Up: Analysis Services Aggregations |
Are you looking to maximize the performance of your Analysis Services queries? This session explains what aggregations are and how they work. You’ll learn how to create aggregations, tune the aggregations based on actual usage, and design custom aggregations when necessary. You’ll discover the benefits and pitfalls of flexible aggregations, when to use rigid aggregations, and the meaning of lazy aggregation processing. You’ll dive into queries to see if aggregations are being used and learn when aggregations aren’t useful. If you thought aggregation design began and ended with the aggregation wizard, you owe it to yourself (and your cubes) to attend this session. |
Craig |
Utley |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Add Spatial Capabilities to Your .NET Apps |
Due to the pervasiveness of GPS data, today’s developers are being asked to incorporate geospatial information into their data-driven applications, often with no budget for procuring GIS software. SQL Server 2008 provides rich spatial support by means of the new Geometry and Geography data types, but some enterprises may not use SQL Server, or may be slow to upgrade their database platforms until years after a product release. There is still hope! .NET developers without access to SQL Server 2008 can still incorporate these new data types into their applications – no SQL Server required! Not only will this solve an immediate need using Microsoft-supported technology, but also provides an upgrade path to using SQL Server 2008 for more advanced querying support. In addition, developers can also utilize Virtual Earth technology to provide an interactive geocoding and visualization story to their end users. |
Jason |
Follas |
Application and Database Development |
| Administering, Maintaining, and Troubleshooting Failover Clusters |
Have you had some issues trying to deploy failover clusters? Do you need to know how to detect common issues to diagnose or prevent problems? Do you know how to properly administer and maintain a SQL Server 2005, 2008, or 2008 R2 failover cluster based on Windows Server 2008 (RTM or R2)? If you can answer yes either of the first two questions or no to the third, this session is for you. You can get a cluster configured in a relatively short amount of time, but the work does not stop there (or maybe it did if you were having issues). This session will cover how to troubleshoot a cluster both during installation and after it is in production as well as common administration techniques to keep you up and running. |
Allan |
Hirt |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Advanced Data Cleansing with SSIS |
In this session, Brian Knight will show you'll learn how to cleanse your data and apply business rules to your data in SSIS. Learn how to solve complex data problems quickly in SSIS using simple techniques in the data flow. Brian will start by showing you an easy package to bring you up to speed with SSIS. Then he'll show how to use transforms to satisfy common scenarios he sees in the industry. |
Brian |
Knight |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Advanced SQL Server Deployment Techniques for Virtualization |
Instead of deploying physical hardware for their server deployments, many companies are now turning to virtualization. Since this wave is now also affecting SQL Server deployments, DBAs need to know how to ensure their deployments will be available, scalable, and reliable. Besides covering the things to think about when deploying in a virtualized environment, this session will demonstrate how to the new SysPrep feature of SQL Server 2008 R2 with Windows SysPrep to create an image for deployment. Hyper-V's Live Migration and Vmware's vMotion will also be demonstrated to show how they fit into the availability picture for virtualized SQL Servers. |
Allan |
Hirt |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Advanced TSQL for Performance and Scalability |
Unlike many languages, SQL is a language where you don't explicitly control how the code is executed. With SQL you define intent and then the optimiser builds a query plan based on that. We will look at differing ways in which queries can be written, and how some of these can have disastrous impact on the performance and scalability of your system. We will extend this knowledge to understand how the optimiser builds a query plan and how parameters and indexes affect the query plan chosen. We will extend this knowledge to understand how the optimiser builds a query plan and how parameters and indexes affect the query plan chosen. This will give you the knowledge to know when query plan reuse is good and bad, how to avoid or benefit from parameter sniffing and ultimately write queries that perform better. After attending this course you will understand how you can write your queries and index your tables to get the best performance. |
Simon |
Sabin |
Application and Database Development |
| Advanced T-SQL: Solutions using Window Functions |
Window functions are of SQL’s greatest and most powerful querying constructs, and at the same time, underutilized. They help you address a wide variety of common querying problems in a set-based manner with great efficiency. Window functions are conceptually fairly new and require a new way of thinking. But once you gain knowledge and experience with those, they are natural and intuitive to use. This seminar helps you get over the initial barrier, get comfortable with window functions, and unleash their power to address common problems more efficiently. The seminar covers in detail window functions that are already supported by SQL Server (as of 2005, 2008, 2008 R2), like ranking calculations and window aggregate functions. The seminar also examines standard windowing functions and functionality that SQL Server doesn’t yet support, like distribution and offset functions, as well as ordering and framing options, and provides supported alternatives. |
Itzik |
Ben-Gan |
Application and Database Development |
| Agile Data Architecture for SQL Server BI/DW practitioners |
In this presentation, Jeremy will outline some ideas about how data architectures can be delivered in a fashion that meets the Agile vision. Agility is defined as responsiveness to business needs, while respecting the needs of all involved parties. In the case of data architecture, this means developers, DBAs, infrastructure staff, project managers, data analysts and business users. Many people consider the relational database as an obstacle to agility. Jeremy will prove that this is not the case by outlining a number of design, deployment and tooling patterns that support agility in MS SQL Server database solutions, with a specific focus on MS SQL Server Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence Solutions |
Jeremy |
Huppatz |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Agile Data Architecture for SQL Server DBAs |
In this presentation, Jeremy will outline some ideas about how data architectures can be delivered in a fashion that meets the Agile vision. Agility is defined as responsiveness to business needs, while respecting the needs of all involved parties. In the case of data architecture, this means developers, DBAs, infrastructure staff, project managers, data analysts and business users. Many people consider the relational database as an obstacle to agility. Jeremy will prove that this is not the case by outlining a number of design, deployment and tooling patterns that support agility in MS SQL Server database solutions, with a specific focus on MS SQL Server installation, configuration and administration. |
Jeremy |
Huppatz |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Agile Data Architecture for SQL Server Developers |
In this presentation, Jeremy will outline some ideas about how data architectures can be delivered in a fashion that meets the Agile vision. Agility is defined as responsiveness to business needs, while respecting the needs of all involved parties. In the case of data architecture, this means developers, DBAs, infrastructure staff, project managers, data analysts and business users. Many people consider the relational database as an obstacle to agility. Jeremy will prove that this is not the case by outlining a number of design, deployment and tooling patterns that support agility in MS SQL Server database solutions, with a specific focus on MS SQL Server development. |
Jeremy |
Huppatz |
Application and Database Development |
| Agile Database Development with Data Tier Applications |
In this session, you will see how to manage the SQL Server database development lifecycle in an agile environment. In this session you will learn how to manage changes to the database structure, ensuring quality through T-SQL unit testing, and how to automate building and deploying SQL Server databases. This session focuses on Data Tier Applications in SQL Server 2008 R2 and how this new deployment process can maximize productivity while minimizing mistakes. |
Peter |
Ward |
Application and Database Development |
| All About Audit |
If you've used the Audit feature before in SQL 2008, like me, you may have taken a look at it and thought "Oh, this is pretty straight foward". I don't know about you, but I was dead wrong. The Audit feature is extremely powerful, deceptively complex and potentially resource prohibitive. This session will go over the technical details of working with Audit (both Database and Server audtiting), the most likely itmes to misconfigure or under-anticipate, as well as how to properly set expectations with management as to the true cost of using the autdit feature. |
James |
Luetkehoelter |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| An Introductory Look at Execution Plans |
Execution Plans are a very powerful tool which can be used to understand what is happening within the database engine. In this introductory session, we will attempt to answer many questions, including why we would like to look at execution plans, what we should be aware of when we are looking at the plans, what types of plans there are, how and when we get the plans, how we read the plans and how we might begin to break queries represented in the execution plans down for tuning purposes. |
Eric |
Wisdahl |
Application and Database Development |
| An MDM Methodololgy with SQL Server 2008 Master Data Services |
Introduce a proven master data management methodology that shows the overall approach of mastering core data categories such as Customer data and outlines the key deliverables and artifacts of an MDM project. Also provides a detail description of the steps that must be taken to "master" a core data category such as Customer, discusses a solid framework that includes a robust participation model and depiction of business rules and workflow that must be followed. And, provides a working example that utilizes Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Master Data Services. |
Paul |
Bertucci |
Application and Database Development |
| Analysis Services Enterprise Case Studies |
The purpose of this session is to highlight issues, best practices, and lessons learned from a select group of SQL Server's Enterprise customers. For this session, we will cover: - AdCenter and their 6TB SSAS environment: two 3TB OLAP cubes - A very large beverage and bottler company and their issues (may be able to reveal name by TR10) - XBox Live and their planned petabyte warehouse and cubes that go with it; issues include distinct count, and SSD drives We will also cover in detail technical issues surrounding: - Analysis Services Scale Out Using Read-Only - Analysis Services ROLAP Case Study |
Denny |
Lee |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Analyze GPS Data with XQuery and Spatial Functions |
Many third-party devices capture location data using GPS features and store the results in an XML format. With XQuery and the spatial functions new to SQL Server 2008 it's easy to extract and use this data to analyze the data to improve your business. This session will introduce XQuery and the basic spatial functions to show you how to get better information from the devices you're using in your business already. |
Allen |
White |
Application and Database Development |
| Analyzing Social Data – Mining Tweets |
Social Web sites, like FaceBook and Tweeter, are nowadays extremely popular. The question is can we extract some interesting information from the post on social sites? Most of traffic there is meaningless anyway. However, during the session, we will show that with advanced text mining, it is possible to gather interesting information from tweets. The most impressive part of the session is the fact that we are going to mine ALL tweets IN REAL TIME, and not just sample data from the past. For this task, we are going to use only SQL Server tools. |
Dejan |
Sarka |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Applied SSIS Design Patterns, Part 2 |
"Design Patterns" is more than a trendy buzz phrase; design patterns are a way of breaking down complex development projects into manageable tasks. They lend themselves to several development methodologies and apply to SSIS development. Chances are you're using your own design patterns now! At the PASS Summit 2009, Andy Leonard demonstrated ways to use some less-deocumented features of SSIS. At the PASS Summit 2010 Andy shares more SSIS Design Patterns. This session includes patterns: - to migrate SSIS packages through your enterprise without editing connection managers; - to load data from variable-length row files; - to extend the functionality of the parent-child pattern to create SSIS execution groups. The session is designed for those with little or no exposure to design patterns or application development methodologies; but with good experience in SSIS. The goal is to introduce the science, terminology, and philosophy of design patterns to those wishing to learn more. |
Andy |
Leonard |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Auditing with a twist |
Do you have an old application that uses a database with a lot of stored procedures? Have you ever wondered how you could verify which stored procedures are actually still being used by your application? Come to this session, and we will show you how the auditing features from sql server 2008 have helped www.dba.dk (Den Blå Avis A/S) do a massive cleanup of their thousands of stored procedures. |
Martin |
Schmidt |
Application and Database Development |
| Auditing your SQL Server |
New in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition is a feature called SQL Audit. This feature allows you to record statements executed against the SQL Server at the server and database scopes, for database, schema and object classes. Unlike prior features that could be used for capturing these statements, SQL Audit allows the user, greater granularity in statements captured, multiple output targets, and the ability to capture statements previously un-captureable. In this presentation, code will be presented to setup and monitor SQL Audits along with tips and additional code to enhance your SQL Server auditing experience. |
David |
Lydston |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Automate SQL Server Administration with PowerShell |
Most administrative functions consist of repetitive sequences of tasks which just take time. PowerShell is a powerful scripting environment which allows an administrator to automate those repetitive tasks, providing better results to the organization while saving the administrator time, and ensuring that the tasks get done properly every time. This session will give an introduction to PowerShell and demonstrate a number of scripts which help SQL Server administrators effectively manage their environments. |
Allen |
White |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Automate Your DBA World With Powershell |
While SQL Server 2008 provided a myriad of tools to assist the DBA in managing large numbers of database instances, most companies do not have the funds to implement full Enterprise Edition deployments. Luckily, Microsoft has provided us with a platform to write our own custom scripts to do just about anything within our environment. This session will concentrate on showing DBAs how they can leverage Powershell to perform task automation and reporting within their database environments both large and small. |
Arie |
Jones |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Automating Routine Maintenance |
You have installed SQL Server in your environment, but now what? Unfortunately, far too many servers are neglected after SQL Server has been installed and the applications are up and running. In order to sustain a SQL Server instance that provides optimum performance, it requires constant maintenance. Luckily, you can use the same tools within SQL Server to automate maintenance tasks that you use to meet the business needs of the organization. This session will cover the tasks you need to perform in order to maintain a healthy instance of SQL Server as well as the tools you can use to automate them. |
Ken |
Simmons |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Automating SQL Buildouts with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2008 R2 |
SQL Server 2008 R2 introduced support for sysprep for a SQL Server installation. This is a big leap in manageability of virtualized SQL Server environments. Sysprep allows you to roll out a preconfigured base image for virtual servers that can be easily completed on roll-out of the image to a new virtual server. This session will demonstrate how to implement the new sysprep functionality in SQL Server 2008 R2 when partnered with Hyper-V virtual server. The session will also explore ways to automate the rollout of the process of completing the SQL Server installation as part of the rollout process. |
Robert |
Davis |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Automating SQL Server Login Administration and Compliance Audits with PowerShell |
Are your internal auditors asking that the administration of SQL Server logins be handled by a third party other than the DBAs? Is your Compliance and Audit departments asking you to determine if password policies are being enforced, who are sysadmins on your servers, who owns databases? If so, come to this session to learn how to complete these tasks quickly and efficiently using PowerShell and SQL PowerShell Extensions (SQLPSX). This automation is capable of adding or dropping logins and adding or dropping members in database or server roles on any server. Also, I will demonstrate how to automate compliance reporting via PowerShell and SMO to report on the usage of password complexity/expiration policies, database owner, sysadmin role members, and other security related information defined in the SMO object model. |
Ronald |
Dameron |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Avoid Slow SSAS Queries: MDX Query Troubleshooting |
Do you have SSAS queries that you feel should be faster? Multidimensional Expressions, or MDX, is the language used to work with Analysis Services. Similar to SQL for the relational engine, MDX is a language for queries and DDL statements on multidimensional cubes in Analysis Services. Troubleshooting slow MDX queries is often challenging because the level of support provided by the tools and the Analysis Services engine is not as mature as that found in the relational engine. This session covers the methods for examining slow queries using the SQL Profiler and Performance Monitor to determine the need for aggregations, caching problems, memory constraints, and so forth. Best practices for optimizing MDX will be examined, and various server properties will be discussed as necessary to help correct query issues. Attendees will leave armed with a practical approach to locating bottlenecks and strategies for speeding up queries. |
Craig |
Utley |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Avoiding Lawsuits: Establishing a SLA |
Most DBA's rarely establish Service Level Agreements (SLA) with the Management and if they do they sometimes just come up with some random numbers for availability. Then when at some point something goes really wrong everybody wonders why it takes so long to bring everything back online. This Session will teach you how to ask the right questions, analyze your databases and servers and generate from the gathered data a realistic SLA. |
Thomas |
Grohser |
Professional Development |
| Bad SQL |
You have heard about it. You have inherited it. Heck, you have probably even written it. Bad SQL is a fact of life for SQL Developers. See what the tools don't show you. Bad code beats good hardware any day. See exactly how Bad SQL will impact your systems. |
Geoff |
Hiten |
Application and Database Development |
| Becoming an Effective Technical Presentor |
Presenting at a user group, PASS Summit, or SQL Saturday can be a fun enjoyable event, or it can turn your belly to mush. It’s definitely a skill thats different than being alone with your code thinking through a difficult problem. In this session, I’ll share with you strategies and techniques designed to make you a more effective and confident presenter so you can enjoy the fame and the attendees can enjoy learning from your experience. |
Paul |
Nielsen |
Professional Development |
| Becoming Authority in Technical Blogging |
Social media has changed how we behave and how we document ourselves. Blogs the one of the most powerful tool for keeping diary of oneself and progress notes. If you want the world to read your blog and come back learn few tricks here. These are not the usual tricks of SEO but practically implemented and learned from experience knowledge. Many of them do not even required knowledge of web at all. For success quality content and disciplines rules along with spark of niche authenticity. Learn from the a simple man who has blogged every single day from last 3 years. |
Pinalkumar |
Dave |
Professional Development |
| Beginning Powershell for DBAs |
This workshop will give DBAs what they need to get up and running in powershell. Learn how to install and configure powershell and then move into the basics of the language. This course will assume zero knowledge of powershell and take you to the level where you’re very comfortable performing routine maintenance tasks. All major aspects of the language will be covered with a heavy concentration on SQL Server administration including gathering stats (server and DB), scripting objects, creating users in multiple DBs and multiple servers, sending well-formatted alert emails, etc. You will also learn how to automate the gathering of server specs, perform blocking analysis on multiple servers, and even BCP data in and out with dynamic powershell scripts. You should definitely walk away from this course knowing how to admin your environment with Powershell. |
Sean |
McCown |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Being Proactive: Patching and Testing Strategies for SQL Server Deployments |
Every customer has a different deployment strategy: some deploy all changes as soon as they are released, others wait years. Being on the bleeding edge can potentially be risky, but so can doing nothing. This session will discuss how to increase your availability and reliability of your SQL Server deployments (as well as future upgrades) by proactively testing and having a solid patch management strategy. You will learn how to incorporate Microsoft's lifecycle to be part of your overall deployment story. This session will also cover patch management for SQL Server 2008 failover clusters, which can get complex with more nodes and more instances. |
Allan |
Hirt |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Best Practices for Reporting Services Security |
Understanding the relationship between Reporting Services 2005 and ASP.NET, IIS, database, and Windows security is vital to establishing the appropriate security policy for your environment and configuring the report server correctly. This session starts with a review of the security architecture of Reporting Services in native and SharePoint integrated mode. This session also includes a series of practical examples that show you how to set up IIS authentication, service accounts, and Reporting Services data sources for various deployment scenarios, including single server or multiple server environments. In this session, you'll also learn about the differences in the security architecture across all versions of Reporting Services from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2008 R2. |
Stacia |
Misner |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Blazing Fast Queries: When Indexes Are Not Enough |
If you want optimum performance in SQL Server, you have to use indexes. But what if you already implemented indexes and your solution is still slow or it doesn’t scale like you want? You may have to rethink the way you write your queries. How you write your queries is directly related to how you approach and solve your business problems, and you might think that the easiest way to solve them is with a procedural, row-by-row approach. But although cursors, loops, and user-defined functions (UDFs) might seem the easiest method, this "easier" way leads to slower performance, poor scalability, and more complex code that’s bug-prone and difficult to maintain. In this session, you’ll see how to use a set-based approach to solve problems, even those that most developers think are solvable only by using a procedural approach. You'll be amazed at the boost in performance and maintainability you can give your applications! |
David |
Mauri |
Application and Database Development |
| Bringing SQL Saturday to your city |
SQL Saturdays are popping up everywhere! It only takes your own initiative to bring one home for your community. Learn what it takes to create a successful event and hear the story of SQL Saturday #31 which took place in Chicago, IL. Q&A encouraged! |
Wendy |
Pastrick |
Professional Development |
| Build Your First SSIS Package |
This highly-interactive, demo-intense presentation is for beginners and developers just getting started with SSIS. Attend and learn how to build SSIS packages from the ground up. |
Andy |
Leonard |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Building a Comprehensive Professional Development Plan |
A good professional development plan has to go far beyond ‘learning more technology’, it has to encompass the wide variety of skills you need to build the next step in your career, and it has to include a variety of learning methods. We’ll discuss how much time and money you should budget when building your plan, and how the distribution of time and money changes as your career evolves. We’ll look at the growth phases you’ll encounter, learning how you learn best, how to keep up with new technology without burning out, and even how things like blogging and Twitter can be an interesting part of your plan. |
Andy |
Warren |
Professional Development |
| Building a Cube 101 |
SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) is a powerful component of the SQL Server BI stack. Many DBAs who have used Integration Services and Reporting Services have never touched SSAS. Learn how to build a cube, why you might want to and what to do with it when it is done. |
Kathi |
Kellenberger |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Building a High Availability SQL Server 2008 R2 environment |
If you are new to SQL Server 2008 R2, you will learn how to utilize Clustering and Mirroring technologies together to achieve High Availability and minimize data loss in the event of a disaster. In this session, I will show how we minimize downtime while migrating from SQL Server 2005 Cluster to SQL 2008 R2. This session includes real life deployment and upgrade scenarios to achieve high availability and disaster recovery, the lessons learned, and the best practices. Technologies covered include Failover Clustering on Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL 2008 R2 Database Mirroring and will have quite a bit of demos. |
Ayad |
Shammout |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Building a Resume that gets noticed |
Now the job market is heating up, it is time to update your resume and make sure it gets noticed. Leave the boring objectives behind and learn what employers really care about. |
Andrea |
Allred |
Professional Development |
| Building a SQL Server 2008 R2 Cluster in 75 Minutes |
SQL Server clustering has become more "affordable" to organisations. Yet it still tends to be an underutilised technology in the field. With SQL Server 2008 R2 it is more easy than ever to utilise this important technology. In this practical session Victor Isakov (MCT/MCM/MCA) will go through the process of setting up a 3 node SQL Server 2008 R2 cluster on Windows 2008 R2. |
Victor |
Isakov |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Building a SQL Server 2008 R2 Cluster on Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V for Development/Testing Purposes |
SQL Server clustering has become more "affordable" to organisations. Yet it still tends to be an underutilised technology. How can you evaluate SQL Server clustering? How do you train your DBAs in SQL Server clustering? How do you ensure that your database solution will work as expected once deployed to a SQL Server cluster? By setting up a SQL Server cluster in a Hyper-V environment! In this practical session Victor Isakov (MCT/MCM/MCA) will go through the process of setting up a 3 node SQL Server 2008 R2 cluster in a Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V environment. |
Victor |
Isakov |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Building an ETL Automation Framework |
Data Marts and Data Warehouses are fast becoming an integral part of the critical reporting infrastructure in organizations. As a result, the ETL processes that load data into these systems become very important. They need to be robust, reliable and dependent and easily manageable. As a result, your ETL processes need proper mechanisms to handle process failures and restart, rollback, manage dependencies as well as perform data consistency check. Many of these repeatable processes for loading dimensions and fact tables can be implemented in templates to ensure consistent process and management across the entire ETL process. This session will cover the common ETL scenarios and concerns, review common processes and finally show how to implement these repeatable processes in templates that allow consistent process management across all packages and improve developer productivity. |
Rushabh |
Mehta |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Building an ETL Framework with SSIS |
SQL Server Integration Services is an excellent tool for quickly building ETL packages - so much so that many database professionals find themselves managing dozens, or even hundreds, of individual SSIS packages. With many packages to administer, monitoring and logging can be a significant burden if handled in piecemeal fashion. In this session we will explore a practical approach to building an ETL framework within SSIS to make the task of managing a large number of packages easier. We'll demonstrate methods to standardize logging and error handling, share values and objects among multiple packages, control and track package dependencies, and monitor the execution lifecycle. |
Tim |
Mitchell |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Building an SSIS Management Framework |
As more and more organizations and teams within organizations have started adopting SQL Server Integration Services for data processing and other management task automation, there is increasing need for standardization early in the process to avoid common management problems that arise from lack of standardization and good management techniques. In this session, we will help you identify areas of standardization and pitfalls that arise from lack of standards, reviews some common standardization approaches and best practices and finally walk you through a standardized template example that can be customized, deployed and used as a starting point for an SSIS project. |
Rushabh |
Mehta |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Building FILESTREAM solutions with SQL Server 2008 |
SQL Server 2008 provides the new FILESTREAM storage attribute, which stores binary data in the NTFS file system. In this session you will learn, how you can use this new storage attribute directly within T-SQL code, and how you can it from client applications through the native Win32 Streaming IO API. Furthermore you will learn about the performance inpacts and penaltis you have to worry about when using FILESTREAM in real-world applications. For very large mission-critical applications you will also see how you can combine FILESTRAM with the partition feature of SQL Server 2008. |
Klaus |
Aschenbrenner |
Application and Database Development |
| Building Hierarchy Solutions with SQL Server 2008 |
Hierarchical solutions used to be "reserved" for experts in the theory of trees and graphs. Not anymore! Learn how the new data type HIERARCHYID in SQL Server 2008 helps to simplify storage and manipulation of hierarchies. Practical examples and comparison with traditional methods like nested sets, adjacency list, and materialized path. |
Plamen |
Ratchev |
Application and Database Development |
| Building NextGen Scalable & Highly Available Architectures with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 |
This session provides an in-depth discussion on how to build a high performance, scalable architecture with SQL Server 2008 R2. The session will dive in to latest features and their specific implementation requirements. Several real-world customer reference architectures, scale-up and scale-out, will be discussed along with implementation best practices. This session focuses on scalability, HA and DR features of SQL Server 2008 R2. This session provides enhancements in SQL Server 2008 R2 and how they can be used to bring business enhancement in an enterprise database environment. Along with specific features in R2, the session will discuss a real-world implementation of R2 and the lessons learned. Topics such as database mirroring, snapshot databases, clustering, resource governance, Peer to Peer replication and other related topics will be discussed in-depth. |
Rajinder |
Gill |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Business Dashboards: Developing a Culture of Intelligent Execution |
In the current economic climate, it is more important than ever for business stakeholders to have a pulse on what is happening in their organization. Implementing an Executive Dashboard allows an organization to more effectively and efficiently execute on strategy, improve business processes and manage key company metrics proactively. |
Dan |
English |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2010 |
What’s the use of having business intelligence if you can’t make it actionable? In this session you’ll learn how to better collaborate with SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft’s BI suite. You’ll learn how PowerPivot in SharePoint will allow your users to do self-service BI. You’ll also learn how to Performance Point can help you develop scorecards and aid your users in answering questions they didn’t even know they had. |
Brian |
Knight |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Business Intelligence Olympics |
In this session, you’ll see SQL Server author titans clash in this information-packed, entertaining session. We’ll start with loading a data warehouse using SSIS co-taught by Bran Knight and another expert author. Then the two authors compete live for whose SSIS best practices reign supreme, judged by the audience members. Next, Brian and a new author will dive deep into how to build a cube on the newly loading data warehouse and then have their own competition. The third session brings reporting against the cube and data warehouse using MDX and Reporting Services with a new author competition. The final session and competition involves bringing business intelligence to your users’ front door through SharePoint 2010 and Performance Point. Each lesson is 45 minutes with a 40 minute competition that shows two sets of best practices. The audience decides who wins the Business Intelligence Olympics, Author and SQL Server MVP Brian Knight or the four all-star author and speaker expert team. |
Brian |
Knight |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Can we compare Strawberries to Oranges? How about SQL Server to Oracle? |
2 Presenters: [Sreekanth Chintala & Reinaldo Kibel] === Have you ever wondered what the competition offers? Are you curious to see how better your dB technology is? One has clustering, the other has Real Application Clusters; one has mirroring, the other has Streams; one has TDE, so does the other. Come join us and watch the dual on compare and contrast SQL Server & Oracle Features. You hope to leave the presentation with a better understanding of both sides of the features, pros and cons of each side. We hope that you will be better informed and equipped to make informed decisions when presented with both technologies. |
Reinaldo |
Kibel |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| CDC + SSIS = SCD |
Building dimensions using the Slowly changing dimension wizard in SSIS is simple and quick. However its performance and flexibility is questionable. Even further, when trying to perform incremental loads of your Dimensions using the aforementioned approach or a custom approach prior to Change Data Captured (CDC) offered certain challenges. In this session Patrick will show you how to utilize CDC and SSIS to incrementally load Type I and Type II dimensions using features that are all native to SQL Server 2008. |
Patrick |
LeBlanc |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Change Data Capture - A biggest BI feature |
CDC provides an ability to track the changes (insert/delete/Update) operations on the table. It provides a simplified approach in moving the OLTP data to OLAP and overcomes the major drawbacks faced in other techniques like replication, timestamp columns and triggers. CDC can be enabled in the database level and it can be given upto the granular table level. A capture instance will be created automatically and the changed data can be accessed through specific CDC query functions. On the background of these processes, two sql agent jobs will be created capture jobs(To capture the changed data and moved the same to CDC tables) and cleanup jobs(This will remove dthe older data from the CDC tables). |
VENKATESAN |
JAYAKANTHAM |
Application and Database Development |
| Clustering for Mere Mortals |
Windows and SQL Clustering are the fundamental technologies for Highly Available SQL infrastructures. Understanding Clustering elements and principles will give you the tools to implement Microsoft and Windows Failover Clustering in your environment. SQL 2008 (R2) and Windows 2008 (R2) make it easier than ever to build stable SQL clusters that increase system availability. |
Geoff |
Hiten |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Clustering in SQL Server |
Have you always wanted to set up a high availability SQL Server cluster but thought it was too expensive or complicated? In this session, we'll take a look at where clustering makes sense (and maybe where another approach might fit better). We'll go through a methodology on how to design and set up a cluster (from the relatively economical to mega-powerful). The session will include gotcha’s and workarounds for smoothly clustering SQL Server Integration Services. We'll also cover some tips & tricks that will keep your clusters running smoothly without constant attention from you. The session will focus on Windows Server 2008 & SQL Server 2008 functionality, but many of the features are available in previous versions. |
Ronald |
Yenko |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Collaborative Business Intelligence: Putting the Pieces Together |
As individual products, SQL Server 2008 R2, SharePoint 2010, and Excel 2010 expand your options for enabling BI in your organization, but collectively they create a solid platform for collaborative BI. Getting the configuration just right, implementing security, and knowing which tool to use for which job can be tricky. Come to this session to learn how to create a collaborative BI solution that provides a central location for administrators to organize and manage information assets and for users to locate, analyze, and personalize information available from SSAS, SSRS, PerformancePoint, PowerPivot, and other sources. In this session, we'll review the technical architecture required to support collaborative BI. We'll also compare and contrast the capabilities of each BI component to help you make an informed decision about selecting the right tools for your users. |
Stacia |
Misner |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Columnar DBMS: Data Does the Twist and Analytics Shout |
A columnar DBMS is an implementation of the relational theory, but with a twist. The data storage layer does not contain records. Due to the variable column lengths within a row, a small column with low cardinality, or variability of values, may reside completely within one block while another column with high cardinality and longer length may take a thousand blocks. In columnar, all the same data – your data – is there. It’s just organized differently and automatically, by the DBMS. Go beyond Dewitt and into the actual data pages. Learn about the columnar orientation and how it can be effective for your needs. This is the orientation of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, which will have an optional column-oriented storage layer. |
William |
McKnight |
Application and Database Development |
| Common Patterns in PowerPivot |
This session will show how to solve many common business problems in PowerPivot by using DAX. You will see a wide set of calculation patterns, which are immediately usable. Starting from simply contribution percentages, there will be a show of more advanced calculations, like ABC classification (Pareto), ranking, time-driven comparison and aggregations, distinct count measures, many-to-many relationships and much else. |
Marco |
Russo |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Common Pitfalls Loading Data in PowerPivot |
Never had problems loading data in PowerPivot? Maybe you loaded too few of them! There are several scenarios where PowerPivot will have more than one issue in loading data, as with flat files, SQL 2000 OLAP cubes or even modern SSAS OLAP cubes, or Excel files, when it comes to integration of data with other sources. During the session we will analyze common scenarios where data loading is an issue and describe how to solve them. |
Alberto |
Ferrari |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Common SQL Programming Mistakes |
Become a better SQL developer by learning the most common pitfalls in the SQL language. Both inexperienced and experienced SQL developers and DBAs can get caught by many of these. Practical examples and internal logical processing explanation will help you understand why mistakes happen and how to develop good SQL coding practices to avoid them. |
Plamen |
Ratchev |
Application and Database Development |
| Comparing PowerPivot with Analysis Services |
PowerPivot is the hot new thing that everyone's talking about. But is it the right tool for your BI project? In this session we'll look at what PowerPivot is and isn't good at, and compare it to its older brother Analysis Services. We'll see where PowerPivot scores over Analysis Services and where Analysis Services has important functionality that PowerPivot still lacks. |
Chris |
Webb |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Conducting Effective Meetings |
Ever been in a meeting that drones on and on? It starts late, runs long, and doesn’t really accomplish anything. It’s a complete waste of everyone’s time. Worse yet, since nothing was resolved you’ll have to have a follow up meeting. Argh! In this session you’ll learn some of the keys to conducting an effective meeting. You’ll gain practical tips for making your meetings more productive and dramatically improving one of the most inefficient parts of your day. |
Joe |
Webb |
Professional Development |
| Confessions of a Data Integrator: Supporting Bad Data |
As database systems become more prevalent, the need to integrate disparate data sources becomes more pressing. DBA’s and developers are often forced to support code they can’t control, and must find ways to support poorly designed relational systems. The purpose of this presentation is to explore some of those challenges and discuss possible solutions using certain "taboo" tools including string parsing, looping, and dynamic SQL. Recommended for experienced T-SQL programmers only. |
Stuart |
Ainsworth |
Application and Database Development |
| Consolidating data collection with SQLDIAG and analysing it all with SQLNexus |
SQLDIAG is a great tool that was introduced in SQL Server 2005 to help co-ordinate the collection of perfmon logs and SQLTraces as well as gathering other system data. In this session you’ll learn how to configure, customize and run SQLDIAG as well as the perfstats script from Microsoft which adds locking, blocking and wait stats to the list of collectors that SQLDIAG co-ordinates. This tool is one of the secrets of the trade for efficient data collection and this session is a must for anyone not using it extensively already. Using the output from sqldiag we'll then look at SQLNexus to analyze the results. I'll show you how to configure, run and draw conclusions from the reports created by this tool which is by far the most useful piece of software in the troubleshooting kit bag of people that have taken the time to learn it. This session is based on 2 chapters from Professional SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting. |
Christian |
Bolton |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Consolidation with SQL Server 2008 R2 |
Is your company looking to maximize its SQL Server investment, increase agility, and save money at the same time? If so, chances are you are currently or already have been thinking about consolidating existing databases and instances onto fewer physical or virtual servers. This day long session will cover the breadth of consolidation topics from how to gather information and slotting databases, to devising a consolidation architecture and administration after everything is consolidated. This session will also demostrate tools, utilities, and scripts to assist you during the entire consolidation lifecycle and discuss real world implemetations based on the experience of the presenters. |
Allan |
Hirt |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Consulting - Should I Consider It? |
There are many pros and cons that need to be weighed when considering a move into a consulting position. Do I become self-employed or should I join a firm? What is the difference between a sole proprietorship and an LLC? How can I get business? These questions will be discussed as we probe into the life of a consultant. |
Richard |
Heiges |
Professional Development |
| Convert SSIS Scripts to Custom Tasks - Live Demo Magic Show |
If you're developing and maintaining Integration Services packages, chances are you have at least one Script Task that you reuse frequently. Perhaps the script performs some file-handling, custom logging, or communication with external systems. Creating that script was quick and easy - but as it's used in more packages, adjustments quickly get out of hand. Scripts lack version control, and get copied everywhere - especially if there are multiple package developers in your organization. I feel your pain. It may be time for you to convert that Script Task into a Custom Task. Yes, a drag-and-drop Task that's easily configurable and maintainable! It isn't very hard if you can handle some .Net fill-in-the-blank coding. Here's the upside: submit your own Script Task code prior to the presentation, and it may be chosen to be converted in the live demo! You could walk away with a fully functional drag-and-drop solution to your cut-and-paste nightmare... |
Todd |
McDermid |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Create Databases: How to Configure File Groups and Files |
One big database or several small ones, one file group or multiple file groups, one data file or many. Questions that arise all the time. Hear for several kinds of workloads what is the best tradeoff and learn how to place all the data on your disks. Find also answers to questions like: Should I place my indexes in a different file group as the table, advantages of read only filegroups, …. |
Thomas |
Grohser |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Creating a BI solution from A to Z |
This workshop is aimed to all people who find themselves throwed in the big big world of Business Intelligence. Here you'll learn who to create a business intelligence solution from zero, learning what are the basic principles and different design techniques: star and snowflake schema, fact, dimensions, Inmon and Kimball will be terms with you will be familiar with after this intensive BI deep dive. Of course after having defined the Datawarehouse we'll move to show how to use Integration Services and Analysis Services to load data and empower your final users so that they will enjoy your work at its maximum and you'll love the work you have done! Everything explained will come from real-world experience, giving your not only the technical knowledge but, equally importat, the archictural vision and the best practies you have to enforce to make a BI solution a success. |
David |
Mauri |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Creating a Complete Business Continuity Plan |
SQL Server offers a variety of high availability and disaster recovery technologies. Many administrators tend to develop plans for high availability or disaster recovery without understanding the relationship between the two. Business continuity is a concept that combines both availability and disaster recovery under a single umbrella so that both plans can be written together to achieve a single goal: support of business continuance. |
Robert |
Davis |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Creating a Time Calculation Hierarchy in a Cube |
Some of the most useful BI calculations are those that allow users to view data over various time periods - Last Month, Same Month Last Year, Year To Date, etc. If you want to apply these calculations to a large number of measures at the same time, you need to create a time calculation hierarchy. The Business Intelligence Development Studio provides a wizard that will create a time calculation hierarchy for you. This session shows how to use that wizard to create a time calculation hierarchy and how to customize the code created by that wizard. This session also highlights some alternative strategies for creating a time calculation hierarchy: 1. Creating a time calculation hierarchy as a separate dimension. 2. Creating a time calculation hierarchy that will work with multiple date dimensions (Order Date, Billing Date, Shipping Date, etc.) |
Tim |
Peterson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Creating Outstanding Community Events |
Company budgets are flat, training funds are drying up, travel costs are increasing. The era of easily attending large national conferences to recharge your technical knowledge batteries is waning. Local and regional events that provide opportunities for training and information exchange are on the rise. You are involved with, or interested in, helping to facilitate a local or regional event –perhaps a SQLSaturday or Code Camp. How/What/When/Where/Who? The questions come up faster than answers. It seems all too mind-boggling, too complex and risky. Arnie has successfully facilitated user groups (Oregon SQL –developers averages ~50 in attendance), Portland Code Camp 2009 with ~420 participants, and this year’s combined Portland Code Camp and SQL Saturday which had ~850 attendees. Come hear his insights about planning, volunteers, funding, arranging content, recruiting speakers, negotiating with sponsors, and the importance of capturing data from the process to use for the next time. |
Arnie |
Rowland |
Professional Development |
| Creating Report Subscriptions in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services |
In this session, learn how to set up standard and data-driven subscriptions using Report Manager. We discuss creating file-share, email, and null subscriptions; and how to deal with potential issues with parameters and security. We also demonstrate a sophisticated Microsoft ASP.NET-based application that creates subscriptions by calling the SSRS Web Services API. |
Paul |
Litwin |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| CSI: SQL Server |
If your SQL Server was hacked, do you think would you know about it? Would you know how to discover who attacked your server? What was compromised? When? How? Thankfully most of DBAs are not fighting off criminals on daily basis, but understanding SQL Server forensics will allow you to better understand your SQL Servers and will give you the ability to answer that frequent question “What happened?” In this session, I will walk you through the process of how to determine what happened on your server without the use of expensive third-party tools, but using only features available in all editions of Windows and SQL Server. You will learn how to parse the various Windows, SQL Server and database transactional logs. We will also explore the wealth of information available within dynamic management views for clues as to what is happening on you SQL Server. |
Sarah |
Barela |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Dashboard Design Best Practices |
How can you design an effective, useful, and appealing dashboard? Many articles and books focus on the mechanics of how to choose KPIs and the various formats available for displaying data. But even the most significant information can be lost if it is not displayed in a memorable way. Is the right format for critical values a grid, a graph, a gauge, maps, diagrams, or something else? What kinds of information are best displayed in a line vs. a bar graph? Where does a scorecard fit into all of this? Since they are not static, how dashboards interact and how they fit into a larger reporting environment offer a particular design challenge. Designing the navigation across the content on each dashboard page is critical to communicating the desired message. In this session you’ll learn techniques for displaying a set of data in a dashboard for maximum impact and receive a framework for constructing dashboards from the various content types. |
Dan |
Bulos |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Data Dude - Making a database developer happier and more productive |
Whether you are a dedicated database developer, or a DBA/.Net Developer for whom database development is a secondary job, Visual Studio Database Developer edition, aka "Data Dude" can be a boon to you. In this session we'll start by reverse engineering an existing database into complete scripts to create the tables, indexes, stored procedures, and more. Deployment strategies will be covered, as well as refactoring and unit testing. Finally we'll look at the powerful data generation capabilities built into "Data Dude". |
Robert |
Cain |
Application and Database Development |
| Data Mining - Practical Applications |
While the data mining features of Analysis Services are extremely powerful, it may be difficult to determine just how these features can benefit you and your organization. This session will demonstrate practical applications of data mining while taking you through building a data mining solution from the ground up. |
Brian |
Larson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Data Mining for Decision Makers at Intel |
This session present a generic solution for communicating data-mining results to non-expert users, which was tested at Intel. Intel conducts an annual survey on work relationships and employee satisfaction, which is distributed to all firm’s employees worldwide (~83,500). This solution aims at improving different aspects of the current analysis process: a)Efficiency – no manual work, reduce time from weeks to minutes. b)Correctness – Combines a few models which generate the most interesting results c)Richness – The solution permits analysis along a greater set of dimensions d)Interpretability – A mechanism for translating the data mining output to natural language. e)Access – The solution is embedded into existing SSRS BI solutions. The solution will allow management to take actions, respond promptly to following surveys, and gain new insights. The generic nature and the high scalability of the proposed solution will permit future extensions to other business domains at Intel. |
Assaf |
Araki |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Data Mining with Analysis Services |
Modern day computing power along with SQL Server makes it possible to add sophisticated data mining models to our applications that forecast and predict, perform anomaly detection, and classify data. This presentation will demonstrate how to use Analysis Services to incorporate these complex algorithms seamlessly into your databases, from transactional processing to integration, data analysis and performance management. Attendees will be shown how to create a data mining model using SSAS, how to use SSIS to query and load mining forecasts, and a sample application that seamlessly uses the mining model. Take a step forward towards making BI pervasive in your organization by integrating data mining into your company’s applications. |
Carlos |
Bossy |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Data Mining with DMX |
This session will cover using the Data Mining features within SQL Server 2008 to extract and find information within your data. The session will cover creating Data Mining Models and will then focus on using DMX to integrate Data Mining prediction capabilities within your own applications. The session will specifically cover using the various Data Mining models available in SQL Server 2008 to implement a text mining solution for categorizing documents. |
Ashton |
Hobbs |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Data Modeling for Peformance and Scalability |
This session will cover key data modeling concepts that directly impact performance and scalability, with an emphasis on RDF and extensible data models. |
Sharon |
Bjeletich |
Application and Database Development |
| Data Modeling in the Cloud |
Many cloud platforms include data storage engines for entities containing name-value pairs, such as Windows Azure Storage's tables and Amazon Web Services' SimpleDB. In this session, you'll learn about these storage engines and the query options for Windows Azure tables and SimpleDB. You'll see the differences between the traditional relational model and these name-value entities, and understand the benefits and limitations of the more loosely structured models, including their scalability advantages. We'll consider how to partition data in these cloud storage engines, and review the data structures used by a real application. Finally, we'll compare these engines with SQL Azure, provide some criteria for choosing the storage engine for your application, and discuss application architectures that combine the best of both worlds by storing data in Windows Azure storage and metadata in SQL Azure. |
Geoff |
Snowman |
Application and Database Development |
| Data Profiling with SSIS 2008 |
Many data integration and ETL projects run over budget and past deadlines because the quality of the data was not known prior to the proposal. This session will attempt to show the users how to get to know their data better through an in depth look at the new data profiling task as well as the data profile viewer in SSIS 2008. The session will further include a short discussion on the differences between data profiling, data cleansing and data quality initiatives. |
Eric |
Wisdahl |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Data Quality - The reality of today's distributed data environment |
Before you can implement any data governance, data management or data integration project, you have to know what data you have, where it is located, how it is structured, and how it is related between systems. Understanding your existing environment is extremely useful as a first step because it provides insight into the existing environment, and allows a data modeler the ability to leverage from past experience. It also provides critical information that is required to integrate or migrate the legacy data into a new environment. The problem is that most companies don't have a good idea of their existing distributed data landscape. This lack of knowledge occurs because subject matter experts move to different projects, design specifications get lost or outdated, databases and business rules get changed without updating documentation, and mergers and acquisitions introduce massive database issues. |
Sanjay |
Shirude |
Application and Database Development |
| Data Visualization Disasters |
Bad data visualizations can mislead the consumer of your reports. Learn to avoid common reporting mistakes by deconstructing poorly designed tables, charts, graphs and dashboards in reporting services. |
Tim |
Costello |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Data Visualization Do's and Don'ts |
SQL Server 2008 R2 has expanded the data visualization capabilities in features in Reporting Services. However, the ability to present data visually does not always align with the correct use of these features. In this session, you learn not only what's new and how to best use these new features, but also how to avoid common design problems. By knowing how to apply principles of visual design, you can develop reports that communicate information clearly. |
Stacia |
Misner |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Data Warehouse Design Fundamentals: Load Audits |
Part of good Data Warehouse design is understanding what data was affected by a particular package. In this session we will look at the framework for a load audit process. This session is more demo than slide deck, so come prepared to see how SSIS is used, what columns are added to warehouse tables for audit, and how to create a repeatable audit process when building an SSIS package. When you are done with this session you will have a working knowledge of some basic SSIS concepts including variables, some basic dynamic sql, and why auditing your load is important |
Stefan |
Bauer |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Data Warehouse Design: Introduction to Dimensional Modeling |
What is the “key” to your Data Warehouse success? If you are thinking of building a warehouse, this session will take you from the basics of Data Warehouse terminology (facts, dimensions, keys, and more) all the way to an understanding of the approach to Data Warehouse schema design. Understanding this topic will position your organization with a foundation that is the “key” to a solid, flexible, high performance data warehouse that will serve your organization for many years to come. |
Stefan |
Bauer |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Data Warehouse IO – How to Maximize Your Performance |
Data Warehouse load patterns, schema design and queries are all different than OLTP systems, so shouldn’t your storage solution be different too? This session will look at both physical and logical disk layout and their effects on Data Warehouse performance. We will discuss a number of disk related technical jargon and acronyms. We will demystify some of those, understand where to look to find bottlenecks, understand your SAN and, most importantly, why you care about disk performance. To tie all of these parts together we will touch upon partitioning, compression and monitoring topics that SQL Server 2008 offers. When you are done with this session, you will be able to not only understand your SAN administrator, but they will understand you as well. You will be empowered with some recommendations for effective, real world tested, disk layouts for warehouse storage! |
Stefan |
Bauer |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Database Best Practices for the Involuntary DBA |
Are you the "SQL person" on your team? Have you become a DBA (maybe involuntarily) and you find yourself managing SQL Server databases more and more? The one thing you NEED now, to manage the system correctly is knowledge! Paul and Kimberly will run through their top-ten database maintenance recommendations with lots of tips and tricks along the way. These are distilled from almost 30 years combined experience working with SQL Server customers and are geared towards making your databases more performant, more available, and more easily managed (and to save you time!). Everything in this session will be practical and applicable to a wide variety of databases you create, implement and manage yourself, as well as third party databases you manage. Topics covered include: data and log file configuration, tempdb, backups, consistency checking, database settings, statistics, and much more! Focus will be on 2008 but we'll explain where there are key differences for 2005 as well. |
Paul |
Randal |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Database change tracking and reporting 2008 |
Change tracking is becoming a hot issue with uptime and global coordination. Here is a solution that has worked for us. See a database example and reports we have built to help with Change tracking and management. |
Andrea |
Allred |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Database Deployment in the Real World |
Deploying databases can be a difficult challenge. This session will provide a general approach to database development and database deployment that seeks to alleviate the issues around getting databases deployed. There will be general methods on display, such as the use of source control as a part of database development, and scripting methods for production deployments. There will also be specific methods using a variety of tools to meet this deployment methodology. Tools from Microsoft, such as Visual Studio and the DTA, and various 3rd party vendors will be demonstrated. The goal of the session will be to provide mechanisms for attendees to apply to their own databases in order to arrive at a safer and more reliable deployment process. |
Grant |
Fritchey |
Application and Database Development |
| Database Design Contentious Issues |
A highly interactive, physically active and popular session where attendees evaluate the options and best practices of common and advanced database design issues, such as: * Party/party role * Natural vs. surrogate keys * Nulls vs. No Nulls * SOAs, Ontologies, ESBs, New TLAs and Shoe Strings * What is Logical? What is Physical? Why Do We Care? Participants will vote on their preferred option, then the group as a whole will debate and discuss the results, along with the merits of each possible response. |
Karen |
Lopez |
Application and Database Development |
| Database Design for Developers |
This session is for software developers tasked with database development. Attend and learn about patterns and anti-patterns of database development, one method for building re-executable Transact-SQL deployment scripts, a method for using SqlCmd to deploy re-executable Transact-SQL deployment scripts, and fodder for a lively discussion about NULLs. |
Andy |
Leonard |
Application and Database Development |
| Database Design Fundamentals |
In this session I will give an overview of how to design a database, including the common normal forms and why they should matter to you if you are creating or modifying SQL Server databases. Data should be easy to work with in SQL Server if the database has been organized as close as possible to the standards of normalization that have proven for many years. Many common T-SQL programming "difficulties" are the result of struggling against the way data should be structured and can be avoided by applying the basic normalization techniques and are obvious things that you find yourself struggling with time and again (i.e. using the SUBSTRING function in a WHERE clause meaning you can't use an index efficiently). |
Louis |
Davidson |
Application and Database Development |
| Database Design Patterns |
Beyond database design fundamentals (for example, Normalization) lies the area where you have to create "real" solutions. In this session, I will cover a good number of patterns that we commonly find useful to try to apply to the problem of building a database solution. Ideas like generalization, subclassing, single table domain tables, optional data, and more will be discussed, some of them good, some not so good (don't assume which will be which), but all that are common and/or useful for your database implementations. |
Louis |
Davidson |
Application and Database Development |
| Database Design Workshop |
Database design is a seemingly natural process, lending itself to everyone trying to do it themselves, from an administrative assistant with a spreadsheet to a C# programmer with a copy of SQL Server Express. Unfortunately the finer points of excellent database design are not intuitively obvious and the difference between building a spreadsheet and a solid enterprise database is similar to the difference between building a doghouse and a 2 story house, or even the Empire State Building. In order to design a database correctly, there are several things you need to understand, including some basic understanding of relational theory, gathering and applying requirements, normalization, etc. Even then, while having the knowledge of fundamentals is more than many database designers have, it only the start. In this workshop, we will spend time covering topics but we will also get our hands dirty designing databases as a class, small groups, and individually. |
Louis |
Davidson |
Application and Database Development |
| Database Mirroring: Even More Robust in SQL Server 2008 R2 |
Database Mirroring introduced in SQL Server 2005 offers fast failover with no loss of committed data, does not require specialized hardware like a cluster and is easy to configure and manage. SQL Server 2008 brings even more reliability, supportability and performance. We'll take a look at how to set up various SQL Server mirroring configurations in a variety of production environments. The session and demos will cover tips and tricks to handle some of the details that become important when you mirror (e.g. server level scheduled jobs, SQL Server Integration Services packages, etc). |
Ronald |
Yenko |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Database Source Control - Why You Need It And How To Do It |
When a developer walks into a new development shop one of the first things that they ask is what tool is used for Source Control and where the repository lives. Unfortunately, the same is not true for Database Administrators and Developers. Database structures are source code for database administrators and should be treated with all of the care and respect that a piece of C# code would be treated. Come learn some methods for configuring database source control and how to implement the policies and procedures to make source control a success within your organization. |
Chuck |
Heinzelman |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Database System Configuration & Maintenance Best Practices |
For a consultant it is not an easy task, to tell a customer he should rebuild his server from the ground. In this Session we will cover numerous steps towards the optimal setup & configuration for a SQL Server Database Server, so when your servers grow, you can scale with confidence that you have not wasted resources at bottom level. Starting with optimal File System settings and file layout, looking at useful Server settings, the session will continue with some do's and don'ts on database settings and finish up with the most recommended maintenance routines and server alerts. |
Andreas |
Wolter |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Database Testing Overview |
Do you believe that testing software belongs in the realm of the developer? Are you confused about how to even start testing a database? Buck Woody, Microsoft's Real-World DBA will give you an overview on what levels of testing the data professional should provide, what free and not-so-free tools are available, and valuable resources for testing your database to enable a secure, reliable and high-performing back-end system for your developer's data. |
Buck |
Woody |
Application and Database Development |
| DAX vs. MDX vs. T-SQL |
As its name suggests, this session is oriented toward SQL and BI developers (for a change) instead of Excel power-users and compares DAX calculations with T-SQL and MDX expressions. The idea behind is to build a mental model of what DAX functions and their combinations actually do by finding their best analogies in other languages. Since there are more than a hundred DAX functions, session focuses on those that use relations. On one hand, they are probably the most difficult group of functions in DAX. On another, they should be the closest to SQL and BI developers’ mindset. If you’re wondering why T-SQL and MDX, the reason is simple. PowerPivot uses in-memory column-oriented relational database technology and was developed by SSAS team (together with Excel team). "Relational" means we have every reason to compare DAX with T-SQL. And since SSAS team was involved, MDX comes naturally. |
Tomislav |
Piasevoli |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| DB2 and Oracle Essentials for SQL Server Pros |
The landscape of today’s IT environments is going through a drastic change. It is becoming less common for a company to rely on a single relational database management system (RDBMS) to manage their data. It is much more common today for a DBA to be managing different RDBMS across different platforms. A DBA will most likely have knowledge of basic relational theory as well as experience with a particular RDBMS. The fundamental principles of database design and management are the same regardless of RDBMS being used. It is just a matter of picking up a solid understanding of the terminology, and nuances of the different RDBMS, to become a successful cross platform DBA. This presentation will discuss the essential architectural and management differences between SQL Server, Oracle and DB2 LUW, focusing on performance tuning including memory management, space management, and backup/recovery. |
Tim |
Fritz |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| DBA as Protector of the Data: Notes from the Field |
The DBA can be the last line of defense guarding the integrity of their company’s data. Taking this responsibility seriously will make you more successful in your job. This session will discuss how the DBA can proactively ensure the data in their transactional system is clean and correct. The presenter will take a comprehensive view of this crucial aspect of the DBA’s job, drawing on many real-life examples. The topics covered will include table design, transactions, change management, and coding standards. She will explain how these distinct topics are actually part of an integrated approach to data protection. The presenter will also describe how pessimism and vigilance can be valuable traits for a DBA. |
Denise |
McInerney |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| DBA Mythbusters |
It's amazing how many myths and misconceptions have sprung up and persisted over the years about SQL Server - after more than 10 years helping people out on forums, newsgroups, and customer engagements, Paul's heard it all. Are there really non-logged operations? Can interrupting shrinks or rebuilds cause corruption? Can you override the server's MAXDOP setting? Will the server always do a table-scan to get a row count? These are just a few of many, many myths that Paul will debunk in this fast-paced session on how SQL Server operates and should be managed and maintained. |
Paul |
Randal |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Deadlock Detection, Troubleshooting, and Prevention |
As an enterprise application grows and load increases, some concurrency issues are bound to surface. Deadlocks are one of the more aggravating of this class of problems. Fortunately, each release of SQL Server includes better tools for troubleshooting deadlocks. Trevor will provide a strong foundation on deadlocks and then demonstrate approaches for handling them in SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008/2008 R2. |
Trevor |
Barkhouse |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Death By UDF |
User Defined Functions provide several benefits that developers strive for: code encapsulation and code reuse. But they come with the likelyhood of many huge downsides: severe performance impact, concurrency issues and even incorrect results. The "cursor-under-the-covers" that improperly coded scalar UDFs can cause also don't get represented in query plans and statistics IO output either, so even developers that might use those tools would be misled. We will review the badness that comes from common UDF designs, including how to properly see what is going on. Then we will cover a few tricks that can help mitigate the issues. |
Kevin |
Boles |
Application and Database Development |
| Debugging Performance Problems in Analysis Services |
This session presents strategies for analyzing and debugging performance problems in Analysis Services. The session will show how to capture the MDX sent from a client application to the Analysis Server and how to analyze that MDX so that the performance problem can be understood and fixed. Performance problems can be addressed by redesigning the cube, creating new aggregations, or optimizing calculations - but first you have to understand what is causing the performance problem. The session will also include a listing of key Analysis Services performance tips. |
Tim |
Peterson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Deep dive Manageability features of SQL Server 2008 |
Microsoft SQL server 2008 has moved ahead, a step further to make its best impression in our islands, so called as DBA life - Maintenance, memory, security and Performance. There is a spectacular change happened in the area of Maintenance, which starts from object search in Object explorer details followed by Multi Server queries, Activity Monitor, Policy based management on multiple instances, Managing workloads priority using resource governor, granular level SQL auditing and centralized extended events collector. From memory perspective, storing the fixed length type and handling null / zeroes have changed, Row Level/Page Level/Backup compression is introduced to save more disk space. Both Cross database ownership chaining and Transparent data encryption were considered as an important security features followed by Performance data collector in the performance area. |
VENKATESAN |
JAYAKANTHAM |
Application and Database Development |
| Deep Dive Slowly Changing Dimension in SSIS and SSAS |
Slowly Changing Dimensions are common in data marts and, even if their theory is well known, implementing them in real world solution still deserve some attention. ETL code is difficult to write in a correct and optimized, we need to forget the SSIS SCD wizard and go for other advanced techniques. Moreover, when it comes to presenting SCD in an OLAP cube built with SSAS there are several techniques that might bring to a better user experience. During the session we will show different ways of handling slowly changing dimensions both from the SSIS point of view, describing in detail the patterns to use to load and re-load SCD, and from the SSAS point of view, showing different techniques to present SCD to the user in order to get the best in terms of flexibility and query time. The last topic of the session is dedicated to some of the most common errors in both modeling and implementation of slowly changing dimension. |
Alberto |
Ferrari |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Defensive T-SQL programming for concurrency |
Many T-SQL modules run correctly without concurrency, but they intermittently break when they are exposed to real life concurrency in OLTP systems. You will learn common real life scenarios when concurrency breaks T-SQL code. In addition, you will learn how to develop robust T-SQL which works correctly under concurrency. |
Alex |
Kuznetsov |
Application and Database Development |
| delete |
. |
Daniel |
Upton |
Application and Database Development |
| Delivering BI Solutions Rapidly using Vulcan |
SQL Server and SSIS are often used together to deliver the foundation of a BI solution, the data mart. However, the tools available for creating these solutions do not fully support an agile, iterative approach. This session will show how to overcome that by introducing Vulcan, an open source project started inside Microsoft (http://vulcan.codeplex.com) that provides a code focused approach for building BI solutions, like those used in traditional application development. It allows you to define the relational data marts and ETL portions of your BI solution in a common language, and seamlessly uses that information to generate the appropriate database schemas and SSIS packages. This allows BI project automation with greater ease, productivity, and maintainability, while enabling agile and large team development using the same approaches as in .NET application development. More advanced users can use the simple and unified Vulcan .NET APIs to generate database scripts and SSIS packages. |
John |
Welch |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Delivering Data Quality Business Value via Integrated SSIS/SSAS/SharePoint Architecture |
Bridgepoint Education’s new BI/Data Warehouse implements an integrated, best practices architecture that includes an automated data quality feature set. Addressing the difficult problem of data quality automation, we leveraged team experience in SQLServer database, SSIS, SSAS, and SharePoint to integrate quality event processing into the very foundation of our ETL process. Our solution allows flexible, data-driven quality screens and actions, and provides frontend data marts for access to quality-confidence metrics via SSAS Drill-through, URL, or Reporting Actions. As a result, enterprise-wide consumers of all BI information are empowered with an increased decision-support confidence in the quality of their data. |
Marc |
Alexander |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Delivering Real Time Business Intelligence with Microsoft BI |
Have you wanted to take your BI infrastructure and implementation to the next level? Do your users want their data faster, with less latency? Are you tired of telling them they have to wait 15-30 minutes (or longer) to see what their company is doing? Authors, speakers, consultants and community pillars Adam Jorgensen and Patrick Leblanc, co-Founders of SQLLunch.com, will put their decades of combined expertise to work discussing and demonstrating techniques to deliver data in real time to reporting applications and dashboards. We will cover: 1. How to design and implement your SQL Server Environment so its optimized for real time consumption. 2. How to optimize your SSIS ETL for real time delivery of data. 3. How to use advanced features of Analysis Services to keep OLAP data up to date in real time. 4. Techniques to configure PowerPivot and SharePoint implementations so they deliver data in real time. |
Adam |
Jorgensen |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Delivering World-Class Presentations – From PASS to the Boardroom |
Have you always wondered why people stand in line to see Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates speak? It’s not just because they drive the technology and innovations of tomorrow, it’s because their presentations are dynamic, down to earth and make the concepts real to their audience. You too can deliver these types of presentations. Come listen to experts lay out the plan for a successful presentation that you could deliver at a user group, conference, webinar or boardroom. Learn techniques from those who helped write them through building the SQL Server Community. This session is led by Adam Jorgensen, data systems expert and management guru with experience in major industries over his 15 years. Come learn together with your peers and experts about how to make your next presentation or talk make them sit up and take note, not sit back and snooze! |
Adam |
Jorgensen |
Professional Development |
| Deploying SQL Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster on Windows Server 2008 R2:DemoFest |
This session is all about demos - providing step-by-step instructions and best practices on how to install and configure SQL Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster on Windows Server 2008 R2 |
Edwin |
Sarmiento |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Design a Database to Monitor your Applications |
If your server is mission critical there are tools that can monitor Processors, RAM, Disks and such. If your SQL Install is mission critical there are tools that can monitor locks, deadlocks, page fragmentation and cache usage. But how do you monitor your mission critical app that was designed in house? In business today there are many home grown applications, many of these could use monitoring to help identify mission critical processes and alert if there is a problem. Of these processes many of the key indicators can be found in the database. During this session we will look at some of the key processes and look at how we can monitor these in-house developed applications. |
Chris |
Shaw |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Design and Build Your Own Data Quality Data Mart and Analysis Services 2008 Cube |
If you, BI Analyst, data modeler, cube developer or other emerging BI rock star, are ready to take center stage in your organization's long overdue data quality initiative, here’s your chance. We'll demonstrate a universal Quality-Event star schema that tracks data warehouse loads, quality-checking screen executions, and quality events (errors) according to descriptive details about each quality screen, every source field, every destination table and, of course, over time to track quality improvement. Next, we'll build a single, sophisticated Quality-Event Cube in Analysis Services 2008, using simple, drag-n-drop features. Lastly, we'll show how the cube is used to support visually-dynamic, speed-of-thought data quality analyses and decisive actions, both by data quality analysts using it to improve source data quality and, importantly, by end-users of other cubes drilling back to Quality Events to measure data quality while weighing business decisions. Steal this technology! |
Daniel |
Upton |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Design and implement a BI solution using SQLBI Methodology |
Data Warehouses have a solid foundation, with different modeling options formalized in several books and whitepapers. Nevertheless, when it comes to implement a Data Warehouse using the SQL Server suite, you have to make several decisions about technology and implementation, which are very specific to SQL Server. These decisions might cause the success or the failure of your Data Warehouse project. In this one-day long session you will learn how to design and implement a solution using SQLBI Methodology using the Microsoft stack of technologies (SQL Server, Integration Services and Analysis Services). This methodology is thought for Data Warehouse of medium-large complexity but, having a reduced overhead compared to the classical Kimball methodology, it is usable on small Data Warehouses too. The great advantages of the SQLBI Methodology are the flexibility in terms of design and maintenance. NOTE: session presented by Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari |
Marco |
Russo |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Design and Implement Like Edison! |
As the most prolific inventor in American history, Thomas Edison was a master of “Best Practices!” Edison’s creations were not just novel and commercially successful, but many launched entire new industries including electric light and power, sound recording, motion pictures and industrial cement and concrete manufacture. At the heart of Edison’s remarkable record of innovation was his categorization of the innovation process into a basic, reusable set of “competencies,” or bundles of skills that must be mastered to achieve success in a particular area of endeavor. In this session, we will look at ways that we can use many of these broad success secrets to bring powerful tools and strategies to the recurring implementation of business intelligence solutions for clients and employers. |
William |
Pearson |
Professional Development |
| Designing a BLOB Storage Strategy for Sharepoint 2010 |
Designing an appropriate BLOB storage solution is critical to building a scalable and performing Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution in Sharepoint 2010. Sharepoint 2010 with SQL Server 2008 R2 offers new functionality with Remote BLOB Storage (RBS). In this session Victor Isakov (MCT, MCM, MCA) will go through how BLOBs are stored in Sharepoint 2010 by default, the various options available to externalise BLOBs, the related performance / management considerations and the key design considerations for choosing an appropriate BLOB storage strategy. Victor Isakov is a Microsoft Certified Master and Microsoft Certified Architect who worked with Microsoft on the eBackpack solution at the Department Of Education (NSW) to build a Sharepoint 2010 solution that would scale to 1.3 million users. He has authored a number of books on SQL Server and regularly speaks at conferences internationally. |
Victor |
Isakov |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Designing a Data Mart 101 |
Business Intelligence is becoming more important as competition becomes more fierce and global. If you are a traditional DBA supporting OLTP databases, how can you begin to understand the dimensional model? This session will take you step-by-step through designing a data mart, the first stop on your journey in this exciting and growing field. |
Kathi |
Kellenberger |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Designing an Appropriate Storage Solution for Sharepoint 2010 |
The storage solution is critical to performance, administration and disaster recovery of your Sharepoint 2010 solution. In this session Victor Isakov (MCT, MCM, MCA) will go through the key design considerations, including performance, scalabity, disaster recoverability and high-availability. He will provide some practical guidance on how to configure your SQL Server environment and sharepoint databases correctly, concentrating on the content database. |
Victor |
Isakov |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Designing Reports in SQL Server 2008 R2 |
SQL Server 2008 R2 introduces a number of enhancements to the Visual Studio/BITS-based report designer as as well as the end-user targeted Report Builder. Come learn how to desgign tabular, matrix, and chart reports using these new tools. You'll learn how to create reports using both tools using the new report part gallery, sparklines and other visualizations, and lots more. |
Paul |
Litwin |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Develop T-SQL code Defensively |
The goal of defensive database programming is to produce robust database code. You will learn how to program defensively by reviewing real life examples. Also you will learn some of the most common scenarios when T-SQL code breaks because of changes in environment settings and concurrency, and how to develop T-SQL that does not break in such situations. |
Alex |
Kuznetsov |
Application and Database Development |
| Developers/DBAs….Are We Just a Commodity? |
The economy is still tight. Companies continue to reduce costs across the board. With outsourcing and off-shoring achieving success, how can today’s in-house technical staff prove his value to the business? Technical expertise is valuable to product and technical management. However, it’s the understanding of the business and his role in generating revenue that’s invaluable. This presentation explains various techniques developers and DBAs can use to increase their business savvy, proving they are providing value and not just an expense. |
Joe |
Kuemerle |
Professional Development |
| Developing a SQL Server 2008 Fast Track Data Warehouse |
This presentation allows you to learn about the Microsoft’s SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse Architecture initiative to better understand how to build, configure, load, query and maintain a SQL Server Fast Track System. During this session, you will learn the following: • Design a cost-effective, balanced system for Data Warehouse workloads • Reduce Hardware costs by using commodity reference hardware configurations • Reduce costs by leveraging prescriptive guidance and best practices for data layout, loading and management • Reduced risk by leveraging Microsoft reference tested data warehouse architectures |
Ross |
LoForte |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Developing Application Transparent Data Encryption Solution |
Data Encryption is required in many organizations; unfortunately implementing column level encryption can be complicated and costly, especially if you need to change your applications.in this session we will show how to save a lot of time and effort and implementing column level encryption without application change! The session will demonstrate a step by step how to implement an application transparent column level encryption, and will introduce the building blocks such as symmetric keys, certificates, and signed modules. We will also discuss key protection techniques, and how to protect them even from database administrators. |
Danny |
Ravid |
Application and Database Development |
| dfdf |
dfdf |
Trent |
Hightower |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Different Use Cases for Using SSDs with SQL Server |
Everyone's talking about SSDs, but have you actually seen them being used in production environments. You still have the problem of SSDs being more expensive and having less capacity than normal storage. In this practical session Victor Isakov (MCT, MCM, MCA) with go through your different considerations and then demonstrate different use cases of how you could SSDs to maximise performance on his computer. |
Victor |
Isakov |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Dimensional Modeling Fundamentals |
A well designed dimensional model provides the best performing, most flexible, and most easily understood data architecture for the DW/BI system. The dimensional model underlies every successful Microsoft-based DW/BI project. This is true both for the relational platform, leveraging the Star Join optimization in SQL Server 2008 database engine, and for Analysis Services which was fundamentally re-architected in 2005 to support true dimensional models. This session covers the key concepts in dimensional modeling, including facts, dimensions, change-tracking with slowly changing dimensions, junk dimensions, mini dimensions, and bridge tables. We look at examples of each concept, and of several dimensional models for different business functions and industries. We’ll also explore the primary differences between 3rd normal form models and dimensional models. |
Warren |
Thornthwaite |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Disaster Recovery (without hot failovers) |
Has your DR site been cut by budget cutting? Are you still being asked to provide a strong DR plan without the extra equipment? What if you only have one machine go down? We will demonstrate how we quickly bring back up our SQL Server environment. |
Andrea |
Allred |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Disaster Recovery Workshop |
Are you really ready for a disaster? Have you faced one? If you haven't, you've missed out on one of the most valuable learning situations a DBA can face. This workshop will do nothing but cause disaster after disaster, forcing us to really use the backup/recovery features available and work with log shipping, clustering and database mirroring. We will not only focus on making these features work, but also resetting them and (every so cruelly) forcing them to fail outright. This workshop isn't just around what how these technologies work or are setup, but how to work with them in the worst possible scenarios. |
James |
Luetkehoelter |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| DMV Emergency Room! |
If you have ever been responsible for a mission critical database, you have probably been faced with a high stress, emergency situation where a database issue is causing unacceptable application performance, resulting in angry users and hovering managers and executives. If this hasn't happened to you yet, thank your lucky stars, but start getting prepared for your time in the hot seat. This session will show you how to use DMV queries to quickly detect and diagnose the problem, starting at the server and instance level, and then progessing down to the database and object level. Based on the initial assessment of the problem, different types of DMV queries will help you narrow down and identify the problem. This session will show you how to assemble and use an emergency DMV toolkit that you can use to save the day the next time a sick database shows up on your watch in the Database ER! |
Glenn |
Berry |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| DMV's as a Shortcut to Procedure Tuning |
Dynamic Management Views (DMV) expose a wealth of information to the database administrator. However, they also expose information that is vital to the database developer. More often than not people gather performance metrics through server side traces. This session will show how to gather information from the DMVs for currently executing, and recently executed queries. The session will demonstrate combining this information with other DMVs to get more intersting information such as the query plan and query text. I'll show where you can get aggregate information for the queries in cache to determine which queries are being frequently accessed or using the most resources. I'll show how to determine which indexes are being used in your system and which are not. All of this will be focused, not on the DBA, but on the query writer, the developer or database developer that needs information to tune and troubleshoot data access. |
Grant |
Fritchey |
Application and Database Development |
| Do It Right: Best Practices for Analysis Services 2005 and 2008 |
Are you seeking practical, in-depth technical advice for building a BI solution using SSAS? Analysis Services changed tremendously with the advent of SQL Server 2005. It introduced a new way of building dimensions and cubes that required a new way of modeling the solution. This session examines the best practices for properly designing cubes for performance and usability. It discusses some high-level topics but also looks at advanced topics such as alternative approaches to many-to-many dimensions, SCOPE statements, aggregation design, scalability issues, processing techniques, server properties, and more. Craig Utley has been working with Microsoft’s BI products for 11 years and is a former Program Manager with the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT), where he worked with some of the largest SSAS installations worldwide. In this session he brings his experience with complex SSAS projects and presents best practices uncovered as companies deploy and use Analysis Services. |
Craig |
Utley |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Documenting Your Microsoft Business Intelligence Solution |
Having implemented Business Intelligence solutions for over fifteen years, I have found documentation to be a task too often resisted until late in the project, when it is hastily and incompletely prepared in hectic remaining hours. Because the integrated Microsoft BI solution comprises multiple application layers, it is frequently challenging to generate cohesive documentation about the solution as a whole in a single, unified document. In this presentation I will share approaches and tools that I have come to use successfully in assembling documentation that “covers all the bases” and imparts detailed, useful information to members of operations once the solution has been placed into production, to developers throughout the enterprise who seek to enhance or otherwise modify an existing solution (or as a starting point for a new project), to business users throughout the organization who need to understand how various components of the solution work, and other potential audiences. |
William |
Pearson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Dogs and Cats living together! My developers want to query my Cube? |
The data that can be delivered with cubes is increasing in organizations and many organizations now want to integrate that information into their Line of Business applications. So your developers are now asking how do I get access to the information and how do I keep it secure? If that describes you, then this session is for you. We will drive down into the different options such as ADOMD.Net and Stored Procedures and technologies that you have available to you and go through the pros and cons of each in a demo-filled session. Secondly and most importantly we will talk about how you keep this information secure. |
Andrew |
Karcher |
Application and Database Development |
| Don't trust your gut .... Predictive Analytics for IT to the rescue |
We will look at the evolving market for Predictive Analytics to manage the IT environment. Predictive Analytics solutions have been used routinely in the BI (Business Intelligence) space to allow customers to make use of their valuable transactional sales and customer relationship data to help predict future trends for the business or to target areas of improvement and opportunities for additional revenue growth. Similar concepts can be applied to IT performance metrics. Predictive Analytics for IT solutions take previously collected data as a starting point and then allows its user to forecast future resource needs, identify potential performance bottleneck and provides a flexible “what if” analysis engine to determine the impact of certain changes before making the change. The presentation will focus on: 1. History of Performance Analytics for IT 2. The major types of solutions offered 3. pro’s and con’s of each 4. Comparison of Predictive Analytics solutions vs Benchmarking |
Brian |
Doyle |
Application and Database Development |
| Don't Wait Consolidate |
This session is intended for both decesion makers and SQL-Server DBA's. Does SQL Servers suddently appears all over your organization and are you thinking about consolidating? More and more are talking about consolidation and especially to virtualize, but beware it can become a very expensive experience in licenses to Microsoft. I will try to give my recipe on how to consolidate your SQL Server environment. - Do you know all your servers? - Do you know the amount of resources they use? - Are you in control of versions? - Are you in control of access to the databases? - Are you in control of the developers? Per Andersen from the insurance agency IF, will give a brief description of how they have consolidated nearly 180 SQL Servers to 20 in one year |
Jesper |
Johansen |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION WITH NON-TECHNICAL COLLEAGUES |
If you’re like many SQL Server professionals, communicating with non-technical colleagues can present a variety of challenges, especially if you need to give project updates, detail procedures, share information, correct mistakes, or explain why a process does or doesn’t work. No matter where you work or in what capacity, you will come in contact with many coworkers whose communication styles are different from your own. In this interactive workshop you will learn how to get your points across more effectively to your non-technical colleagues. Take-aways include: • Determining your personal communication style • Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the four communication styles • Adapting and expanding your communication style • Creating a communication strategy for specific colleagues. Each workshop attendee will receive an autographed copy of Don’s book, "Speaking Your Mind in 101 Difficult Situations." |
Don |
Gabor |
Professional Development |
| Eliminating Downtime with SQL 2008 failover patching |
In this session, we will demonstrate the latest capabilities of SQL 2008 clustering that enable a dramatic reduction in database downtime during patching events. We will also discuss best practices and methods to automate failover patching to ensure success and minimize complexity. |
Robert |
Gardos |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Embracing the CLR |
When you mention CLR does your DBA run screaming from the room? Have you considered using the CLR but are intimidated by .Net and how foreign it seems compared to T-SQL? Have you ever thought that working with strings and dates in T-SQL is needlessly difficult and painful? This session will help demystify CLR integration, show you how to expose basic CLR functionality to your database, demonstrate how to get large performance gains from very little CLR code and give you the information and evidence you need to convince your DBA that the CLR is not inherently evil, and in the right circumstance, is the best solution to a problem. |
Kevin |
Goode |
Application and Database Development |
| Empower Users of PerformancePoint Services for SharePoint With a Knowledge of Basic MDX |
A knowledge of MDX is not a requirement for a PerformancePoint user - but a basic knowledge of MDX can enhance their work in a number of ways. MDX can be used to create customized sets in PerformancePoint. The MDX used in the source for scorecards can be modified. MDX sets can be used to link scorecards, reports, and filters. This session is aimed at showing you how you can give PerformancePoint Services users a knowledge of the MDX they need to create the scorecards and dashboards they want to create. It addresses the following issues: 1. What is MDX and how can it help me build more powerful PerformancePoint solutions? 2. What do I need to know to use MDX in PerformancePoint? 3. How can I develop and test snippets of MDX to use in PerformancePoint solutions? 4. How can I teach others about MDX so that all our users can make the most effective possible use of PerformancePoint? |
Tim |
Peterson |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Empower your users with an OUTSTANDING Time Dimension |
Every data mart and data warehouse needs a time dimension to use in date related business analysis. We will review some of the techniques that experience BI developers use to create exciting time dimensions that help users perform usual and unusual business analytics. The additional attributes will allow end users your cubes to calculate averages, accumulated measures, growth and other calculated measures. |
Javier |
Loria |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Empowering End Users with Report Builder and Report Models |
With the introduction of Report Builder in Reporting Services 2005, end users were given the tools to create self-service Reporting Services reports quickly and easily. Report Models make the whole process possible allowing users with little or no knowledge of SQL the ability to develop a wide array of reporting solutions. Just how to create and deploy Report Models and consume these models remains a mystery for many. In this session we will discuss concepts of the Report Model including Entities, Attributes, Roles and other components. We will discuss organization and security within the Report Model to protect data and create a logical view for the business. Then we will cover the methods for creation of an over an existing database and modify them to support specific needs. Once we deploy the Report Model we will build reports and see how the evolution of the Report Builder has enhanced the self-service reporting experience. |
John |
Racer |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Empowering Your Users With Report Models |
Who really knows your data better: You or the marketing manager that spends a lot of time tracking sales from yesterday, last week, etc? How much quicker could that marketing manager get the information she needs if she could create her own reports? With the power of Report Models, she could do just that without having to write a single SQL statement. This presentation will discuss how to create, maintain and secure SSRS Report Models. It will also show some tips and tricks learned through real-world experience implementing and supporting report models for clients. |
Mark |
Vaillancourt |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Enabling Business Intelligence for the Masses |
Join Peter Myers as he presents the know-how required to enable Business Intelligence (BI) through SQL Server 2008 R2 and Office 2010. The sole focus of this seminar is how to empower business users by providing them data sources, permissions and applications – effectively enabling self-service BI. The first half of the seminar will introduce attendees to Excel 2010 and how it can be used as a rich BI client to support interactive analysis. Additionally, they will learn how the SQL Server PowerPivot add-in for Excel extends the analytic capabilities to integrate large volumes of disparate data. The afternoon will introduce authoring reports using Report Builder. Following this, the remainder of the day will be spent introducing the BI capabilities of SharePoint 2010. Specifically, topics will cover Excel Services, the SQL Server PowerPivot add-in for SharePoint, and delivering the monitoring and analytic capabilities of PerformancePoint Services through interactive dashboards. |
Peter |
Myers |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Encryption in SQL Server |
Learn to protect data in your application by leveraging the built in encryption functionality in SQL Server 2005/2008 by taking a brownfield application and bringing it up to modern standards. Topics covered will include column level data encryption, providing lookups of encrypted data, basics of key management and the transparent data encryption capabilities of SQL Server 2008. |
Joe |
Kuemerle |
Application and Database Development |
| Encryption: The Outer Limits |
SQL Server 2008 encryption includes a great set of tools that can aid in the protection of your sensitive data. You just have to keep in mind that SQL Server's encryption features have practical limitations (both physical and logical) that need to be considered before implementing a solution. In this session we'll discuss how you can keep DBAs out of your encrypted data, perform efficient searches of encrypted data, hash and encrypt large object (LOB) data, and work around other limitations of SQL Server 2008 encryption. |
Michael |
Coles |
Application and Database Development |
| End-to-End PerformancePoint Services 2010 |
SharePoint Server 2010 PerformancePoint Services is the next generation performance management application from Microsoft. The upcoming release extends the capabilities of PerformancePoint Server 2007 to a new level providing deep integration with SharePoint, new data visualizations and greater control over the definition of dashboard items. It continues to deliver a design environment targeted at power users for developing and deploying sophisticated Key Performance Indicator (KPI), scorecard, report and dashboard definitions. The session will commence with a brief overview of what is new, enhanced and removed. It will then introduce the seven elements and their relationships to each another. Demonstrations will include developing items of each element type to produce and deploy a multi-page dashboard. |
Peter |
Myers |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Energizing the Next Generation: Encouraging and Inspiring Young Women to Choose Tech Careers |
The number of girls and women choosing technical careers has been decreasing. As women who remain in those careers and the men who work with them, we can just look around our work environment and see that the men greatly out-number the women when it comes to hi-tech jobs. It is important that we all work together to inspire the girls and women in our lives to consider technical careers. Women bring a different, and necessary, perspective to the technical jobs they hold. From participation in organized programs to informally supporting female co-workers, there are many ways to make a difference. Join the discussion and learn how to encourage and inspire the women in your life to join the technical venue. This session will be led by members of the PASS Women in Technology Virtual Chapter. It will be a continuation of the discussion initiated at last year's WIT luncheon. All are welcome. |
Meredith |
Ryan-Smith |
Professional Development |
| Enforcing Compliance With Policy-Based Management |
As the demand for data keeps growing and security and compliance keep tightening, the role of the DBA has become an increasingly critical part of maintaining compliance within the organization. This session will cover real world examples you can use with Policy-Based Management to ensure you have the proper server configuration and security settings in place along with the appropriate encryption and auditing options for your environment. |
Ken |
Simmons |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Enhance the Value of Your Microsoft BI Solution with Local Cube Files |
Local cubes are files that contain all or a portion of a Microsoft Analysis Server cube. You can browse a local cube in the same way you browse an Analysis Server cube. But local cube files are portable. You can take them with you on your laptop. You can give them to users who aren't connected to your server. You can use them to create a demo of a BI system that is still being designed. Techniques for optimizing local cubes will be demonstrated, such as: 1. Creating customized local cube files with data designed for each individual user. 2. Creating smaller and faster local cubes by removing unused members. 3. Creating specialized local cubes that have data designed to answer specific business questions. 4. Using formulas to slice the data in a local cube. |
Nathan |
Peterson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Enhanced Parallel Framework in SSIS |
SSIS is a powerful tool that has many inherent features, one of which is parallel execution. With little coaxing you can run dozens of threads wihthin a single package and also realize very poor performance. In this session the attendees will learn how parallelism works within SSIS, the concept of 'Silos', advanced techniques to improve parallel flat file ingestion, and an advanced parallel framework which prevents 'Silos' and improves overall parallel efficiency. |
Josef |
Richberg |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Enhancements in SQL Server 2008 SSMS – An insight view from Developer and DBA perspective |
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is much more impressive due to its enhanced GUI and lots of integrated features associated with SSMS for the developer and DBA’s. From the developer perspective the improvements starts with awesome intellisense followed by debugging option, customized results pane, customised reports for the objects, Listing past errors, manage spatial index and other enhanced options in database diagram, Change data capture, Plan guides, Table partitioning/Change in Open table/top records options/ Launching power shell/Database mirroring/Log shipping/Database encryptions were launched from the SSMS GUI itself. For DBA’s, Profiler from activity Monitor, reset pwd option for Admin, Extract Query /Formatted XML from Showplan, Missing index hints from execution plan, Performance reports, Multi-Server Query, Data collector set in profiler, Database audit specification, shrinkfile option, facets/policies |
VENKATESAN |
JAYAKANTHAM |
Application and Database Development |
| Enriching the Design of a SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services UDM |
In the most basic way, the Unified Dimensional Model (UDM) combines the best aspects of traditional OLAP analysis and relational reporting. In doing so it presents a "single version of the truth" that can satisfy multidimensional analysis and relationship reporting. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The UDM can also define server-side calculations, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), actions, perspectives, and translations to provide a richer experience than just querying for results from a database. So beyond storing your data, the UDM can store information about how our data is represented and how it should be delivered and presented to the business user. In this session, discover through theory, demonstration, and best practices discussion, how to enrich the design of the UDM beyond the data itself. |
Peter |
Myers |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Enterprise Class Analysis Services Development |
SSAS is one of the most popular tools for OLAP, but many organizations experience challenges when attempting to use their standard development best practices with the tool. This session will cover many topics around enterprise development practices for SSAS, including how to effectively use source control with multiple developers, enable robust automated build/deployment strategies, implement usage monitoring and tracking solutions, and support unit testing for SSAS solutions. |
David |
Darden |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Enterprise SQL Server administration with Windows PowerShell |
Building SQL Server Infrastructure with Windows PowerShell. Session illustrates automation of Installation, Maintenance and Monitoring of the SQL Server plant. |
Ananthakumar |
Muthusamy |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Essential DBA Skills: Introduction to the SQL Server Profiler |
One of the most powerful tools at the disposal of the DBA is the SQL Server Profiler. It allows the DBA to capture over 180 internal events, and up to 64 pieces of data for each event. The tool provides a remarkable view inside the internal workings of SQL Server, which can be very useful when troubleshooting SQL Server performance problems. In this introductory session, which is designed for attendees with little or no experience using the SQL Server Profiler, you will learn the fundamentals of how to use this powerful tool, including: Pros and cons of using Profiler, how to create Profiler traces, how to select events and data columns, how to capture data, how to view data, Profiler best practices, and a very brief introduction on how to analyze the data. This session is filled with demonstrations, and assumes attendees already understand the fundamentals of how SQL Server works. |
Brad |
Mcgehee |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Essential Foundations of a Microsoft Business Intelligence Architecture |
SQL Server allows you to build an information-centric organization by creating a bona fide Business Intelligence foundation, giving your users instantaneous insight into the status of the business, all powerful ad-hoc reporting capabilities, dynamic analytical capabilities, and forecasts that make your psychic jealous. It's an understatement to say this requires really good data and terrific data structures, but few Business Intelligence Architects would rate their organization's architecture as satisfactory. In this session, Carlos Bossy will discuss how to use SSIS to implement integration, metadata and transformations, SSAS for ad-hoc and predictive analytics, and SSRS to provide users the ability to develop their own reports. You will leave this session with a firm grasp of the keys to building a robust data architecture that achieves successful Business Intelligence. |
Carlos |
Bossy |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| ETL from the Trenches: Using SSIS in the Real World |
Sure you've read the SSIS books. And sure you've seen a lot of SSIS presentations. But how do you put it all together to create a solid ETL framework for loading your data warehouse environment? In this (updated for 2010) session, we'll look at the ins and outs of a real-world ETL environment built using SSIS. We'll discuss the ETL design patterns used to handle a multi-tiered data warehouse environment with multiple data sources, different loading schedules, and different data transformation requirements. We'll also discuss how the development team responsible for the ETL environment at the Department of Veterans Affairs handles package auditing and logging, team development, package testing, and automated deployments. |
Dave |
Fackler |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| ETL With SSIS |
SQL Server MVP Andy Leonard spends a day walking you through creating an ETL Solution in SSIS to load a Relational Data Warehouse. Topics include: - A Brief SSIS Refresher: Business Intelligence Developer Studio - Relational Data Warehouse Design Concepts: Dimensions and Facts - The Dimension - The Date Dimension - The Fact - Externalized Metadata - Logging - Execution Strategy - Monitoring and Maintenance |
Andy |
Leonard |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| ETL with SSIS Bootcamp |
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) has provided an enterprise platform for ETL for more than 5 years now. Nearly any ETL scenario can be handled by SSIS and this seminar explores many of those scenarios through demo-intensive, interactive mini case studies. In this day-long session by SSIS expert and author Brian Knight, you will spend the first hour catching up on what you may have been missing with SSIS in SQL Server 2005 and 2008. Then, the seminar rapidly progresses into much more advanced topics like how to load a data warehouse and advanced ways to log errors and handle events. Brian also covers best practices for the enterprise in package configuration, parallelism in SSIS, and hidden switches for performance for speed and administration. The content moves quickly through the SSIS concepts and depicts common scenarios that new and experienced SSIS developers run into. You will walk away confident in how to achieve success with SSIS. |
Brian |
Knight |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| ETL: The Linchpin for the Complete Data Warehouse |
The ETL application is the unloved--and often mistreated--workhorse of the data warehouse / business intelligence system. But the design and smooth operation of the ETL system is second only to the data model in its impact on the acceptability and performance of your BI system. In this session we describe: - The Kimball Method recommended architecture for an ETL system on the SQL Server 2008 R2 platform - ETL team composition, skills, and management , and how to most effectively use external resources - Different styles of ETL development within SSIS, and how to decide which style works best for your team |
Joy |
Mundy |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Excel Has Never Been the Same with Self-Service Analytics on SQL Server 2008 R2 |
We have to admit that Excel is the most popular data visualization tool there is. In this session, we'll look at using Excel to gather data from different data sources, model that data, and then use it as a source for pivot-table and pivot-chart analysis - all in the context of self-service analytics in SQL Server 2008 R2. We'll also look at some of the new analysis features available in Excel 2010, including slicers, improved charting, and improved pivot-table functionality |
Edwin |
Sarmiento |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Expand your SSIS Toolbox |
Despite the large number of Tasks and Components shipped in SSIS, a common complaint from ETL developers is that certain capabilities just aren't there. The only way of addressing those issues seems to be resorting to Scripts and diving into unfamiliar .Net code. But there is an alternative! Microsoft exposed an API to developers that allows them to extend SSIS by creating custom Tasks, Components and more. Once installed, these elements function just like standard parts of SSIS - but encapsulate that "missing" functionality you've been looking for. Take a tour of some of the most popular and useful extensions available for SSIS, and find out where to go to find more - usually for free. |
Todd |
McDermid |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Expanding Million Node Hierarchies Like Never Before |
Hierarchies always seem to end up using RBAR (Row By Agonizing Row) methods to build them or use them. Even the new HierarchyID data type requires RBAR for sub-tree moves. Once built, many hierarchical structures require rather complex code to use and maintain the hierarchical data. The “Nested Set” method solves a lot of those problems but has its own maintenance problems to contend with. This “Developer-to-Developer” session quickly introduces the attendee to the 3 basic hierarchical structures, the advantages and disadvantages of each at the code level, and how to build each structure using typical/classic T-SQL methods. After a brief review of the advantages of the Nested Set method, a new very high performance method for creating Nested Sets from the Adjacency List model is demonstrated and culminates in a surprise ending; a new set based method for using the Adjacency List model to quickly resolve the 4 most frequently asked questions of a million node hierarchical structure. |
Jeff |
Moden |
Application and Database Development |
| Exploring the SSIS API |
Almost everyone who builds and maintains SSIS packages does so with the graphical designer tools within BIDS. But did you know you can create, configure, execute, and monitor packages completely within .NET code? With complete control over the dynamic properties within SSIS, you can create, execute, and destroy SSIS objects on the fly, build a reusable template framework for creating new packages, inject objects into existing packages, and various other tasks that would be difficult to accomplish simply by using the BIDS package designer. In this session, we’ll explore the SSIS API namespace to review the objects and actions available therein. We’ll also look at a few practical examples where introducing the SSIS API into your environment can make your job as a DBA or BI developer a little easier. |
Tim |
Mitchell |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Exporing the DAC and everyone's favorite feature the DACPAC |
Data Tier Applications or DACs (yes we know that DAC doesn't stand for Data Tier Application, but there already was a DTA) are a new way to think about and manage your databases. Instead of thinking of a database as just a database you can now manage your databases as applications setting usage thresholds based on the application needs for alerting and monitoring. Along with this comes the DACPACs. The DACPACs is designed to provide developers with a quick and easy way to deploy applications into production without the need of the DBA, or when there is a DBA to give the DBA a simple change script which can then be used to push the Data Tier Application into Production. In this session we'll demo the Data Tier Appliation, the DACPAC and talk about the pros, cons and shortcomings. |
Denny |
Cherry |
Application and Database Development |
| Expressions, Package Configurations and Precedence Constraints |
This session will look in depth at some of the more powerful aspects of Integrations Services: Expressions, Package Configurations, and Precedence Constraints. A short tutorial will show the users how to build up a package structure to allow logging to a remote location determined through configurations as well as capturing errors and data exceptions, destroying the exception file if no data exceptions are present and emailing a configurable user if any errors or data exceptions are found. |
Eric |
Wisdahl |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Extended Events, Work Smarter Not Harder |
Often, as DBAs, we are presented with the prospect of resolving performance issues. Consider a situation where Bob the Developer shows up at your desk accusing the server of inadequacies and expecting resolution. A couple weeks of digging through log files and traces and you are able to identify code that Bob the Developer deployed that was the root of the problem. What if there was a way to do this type of performance tuning before Bob the Developer shows up and before Sue the User figures out there are performance issues? In this session we’ll take a look at Extended Events, which is one of the newer SQL Server monitoring platforms, and how you can leverage it in every day scenarios. We’ll discuss the ins and outs of how to get detailed information on the errors and events that occur within SQL Server and how to understand the information. With just a few T-SQL statements, issues that could take weeks to research can be investigated in minutes. |
Jason |
Strate |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Extending SSIS With Scripts |
Ever needed to manipulate your data in ways that the built-in SSIS components just don't support? SSIS allows you to extend your data flow and control flow with the power of .NET to transform your data with the skill of a pro. With the help of several custom examples in this session, attendees will learn to use SSIS scripting to increase performance and solve complex ETL problems. |
Michael |
Coles |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Extreme Database Designs |
Beyond the common relational database lie designs only whispered about in dark alleyways - designs that make rational DBAs cringe - No SQL, EAV, ORM, and others better left unnamed. To paraphrase Young Frankenstein, “You’ve given the beast an abnormal brain.” You can ignore the stench of the beast and hope it goes away, or face your fears and master the dark side. In this session, I’ll share the research I’ve done in the past few years working with nonstandard designs – injecting them with data integrity, ease of query, and performance: Agenda: • Next-Gen Design Principles • Practical EAV (w/ integrity and normal SQL queries) • Temporal Data • Multiple Perspective Data • Object/Relational Data (classes, objects, attributes, associations, and perspectives all with inheritance) • Data Policies You’ll leave with several working proof-of-concept databases. However, some of the code I’ll demo will be production, proprietary application code that leverages the proof-of-concept code. |
Paul |
Nielsen |
Application and Database Development |
| Extreme Reporting Services 2008 R2 |
Without getting reporting right most systems are doomed. Learn the best techniques from Angry Koala and http://reportsurfer.com including * sparklines * dynamic reports * turn 3 reports into 300 The main demo, "cube surfer", is an SSRS built OLAP browser featured in the "SQL Server Reporting Services Recipes" book. "I was very impressed with cube surfer. In a small format it packs a huge amount of information and features. Unlike many reports which tends to combined too many type of visualisation, making them hard to read, this one uses a simple consistent chart visualization. But it is done in a very impressive and effective way. I was also very impressed with the interactivity that is available in the report, where over 6 or 7 dimensions can be changed on 4 axis without ever having to run the query again thus making the changes close to real time. It is a truly amazing, and very useful, usage of the new SSRS tablix and chart controls; - Thierry D'Hers Product Manager SSRS |
Grant |
Paisley |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Extreme scaling with SQL Azure |
SQL Azure is Microsoft’s new strategy for storing your data in the cloud, but what to do when you exceed the 10/50GB limit. This is where sharding or partitioning comes into play – this session shows you how it can be done in an OLTP system and show you some of the common pitfalls of SQL azure as we have discoverd in analyzing SQL Azure as an alternative to onsite SQL Server instances at different clients. |
Martin |
Schmidt |
Application and Database Development |
| Faceted search on OLAP cubes |
Faceted search, also known as faceted navigation or faceted browsing, is a technique for filtering a collection based on its categories and their values. Facets gained their popularity on Internet, web shops in particular, because they provided better and more intuitive navigation than other approaches. Two classic ones, text search and navigational browsing, can be found in almost any OLAP client today. In order to find a certain member, users can perform a search for part of its name or navigate by expanding the nodes of an user hierarchy. This session deals with another possibility. It demonstrates how faceted browsing can be implemented in components targeting Analysis Services cubes and discusses what advantages this might bring. Demo covers DW/cube design and MDX query templates. More information about the topic can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faceted_search. |
Tomislav |
Piasevoli |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Failure is not an option loading a data ware house from a distributed 24x7 OLTP system |
Loading your Data ware house with consistent data from a very dynamic and distributed 24x7 OLTP system can be challenging especially if you should keep the impact on the source system to a minimum. See how combining a few very old but powerful features of SQL Server can solve all you problems |
Thomas |
Grohser |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Fast Track Foundations: Get Serious about Sequential I/O |
"Fast Track" is much more than a white paper. It is real. It changes and challenges how you think about deploying SQL Server and opens the gateway to the world of data warehouse appliance computing. Have you struggled working out what hardware to buy for your Data Warehouse project? Have you ever had problems scaling your data warehouse? Has anyone told you that adding a non-clustered index maybe a bad idea? Have you ever wanted guidance on how best to load your data warehouse? These are the questions that Fast Track aims to answer. But How does Fast Track achieve this? What features of SQL Server 2008 are being used? What is going on under the hood of SQL? Come to the session! We'll dive deep into the internals of the Fast Track Solution both from a hardware and software perspective to clearly demonstrate how a Fast Track deployment would greatly enhance your next Data Warehousing project. There will also be live demonstrations from a fully operational Fast Track Data Warehouse! |
James |
Rowland-Jones |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Faster is Better: Real-World Query Performance Tuning |
When you're in the database trenches, the name of the game is results—identifying, analyzing, and fixing performance issues as quickly as possible. Tuning can be done from any number of angles, and this full-day seminar will evaluate the most granular level: individual queries. The day will begin with a discussion of key monitoring metrics and tools for identifying problem queries. Next, since problem queries must be fixed, the seminar will delve into advanced tuning methodologies: evaluating query plans to find the bottleneck, query patterns (and antipatterns), indexing strategies, and—as a last resort—query hints. The day will close with a look at how improperly written application code can make even your fastest queries crawl. Examples will be shown using ADO.NET but apply to any common data library. After attending this seminar, you will have a solid set of tools at your disposal and an understanding of exactly how to find and fix the toughest query performance problems. |
Adam |
Machanic |
Application and Database Development |
| FILESTREAM - Where is the FILE and how does it STREAM? |
FILESTREAM is one of the most discussed features of SQL Server. This session focuses on some of the hidden (or less known) aspects of the FILESTREAM feature and explains how to create client applications that can take advantage of the streaming feature. |
Jacob |
Sebastian |
Application and Database Development |
| Filtered Indexes, Sparse Columns: Together, Separately |
SQL Server 2008 introduced Filtered Indexes and Sparse Columns. Although they are perhaps especially powerful when used together, they also can be used independently. This session covers the basics and then dives into the areas where they work well—and not so well—both together and separately. |
Don |
Vilen |
Application and Database Development |
| First at Job - I know all about Indexes - Really! |
There is always something new and every expert begin somewhere. On the job of performance tuning there are few basic techniques to be learned! Learn about practice usage of Index and find the answers to following questions. 1) Can a query running in 0 milliseconds be improved? 2) How to remove the keylookup and get best out of cover index? 3) Does order matters in WHERE, SELECT or INDEX? 4) Learn about heap, clustered index and nonclustered keeping performance in focus? 5) How index affects the implementation of the joins? 6) How much percentages of performance improvement Filtered Index can give? 7) Invisible to T-SQL Query Functions and its solutions And many more… This session is essentially game where attendees play along with presenter to tune the presented query using the rules of indexes. This will kind of very unique session which will help attendees to gain knowledge what they really want for practical implementation of the index. |
Pinalkumar |
Dave |
Application and Database Development |
| Fixing Denny’s Query (using advanced T-SQL techniques) |
The conversation between Rob Farley (SQL MVP from Australia) and Denny Cherry (SQL MVP from the US) went like this: RF: “Do you want me to take a look at your query, Denny?” DC: “Sure. Here’s the T-SQL and the .sqlplan” RF: “Whoa! Some query!” DC: “Yeah, I didn’t write it.” RF: “Sure. I believe you. Anyway, this thing in the query is causing that ugly thing in the plan? Let me explain why using some other examples… (repeat x15)” DC: “Wow. This should be a session at PASS!” RF: “Session? Mate, we covered complex nested joins, join simplification, procedural functions, SARGability, execution plan reading, complex sorting, ORs, effective Dynamic SQL, GROUP BY v DISTINCT, unique indexes, temporary tables, and more. This isn’t a session, this is a pre-con!” |
Rob |
Farley |
Application and Database Development |
| Flush With Cache: What Really Happens Before That Query Runs |
When we discuss performance tuning, we often focus on how to make query execution more efficient, and with good cause since execution is the single most important piece of performance tuning on SQL Server. However, query execution can only begin once query parsing, optimization, compilation and caching have occurred. These steps are generally less well-understood than execution, but can also have a significant effect on the overall performance of your SQL Server. This session will look at the work SQL Server has to do to produce that executable query plan, as well as choices we can make as database developers that affect the pre-execution stages of query processing. After this session, you should have an understanding of ways to reduce the amount of "grunt work" that SQL Server has to do before it can get down to the business of actually running a query. |
Chris |
Leonard |
Application and Database Development |
| Fraud Detection – Notes from Field |
One of the most popular uses of Data Mining is fraud detection. Card issuers, banks, insurances and other financial institutes are always interested to detect frauds in advance, before customers do. In this session, we are going to discuss how to implement a fraud detection solution. You will learn how to prepare data, which algorithms to use, and how to measure results. |
Dejan |
Sarka |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| From Performance Dashboard(2005) to Performance Data Warehouse(2008) in 60 minutes |
Microsoft is the leader in providing better analysis tools to DBAs for free. With SQL Server 2005 SP2, they gave us Performance Dashboard which is used daily where I work. In 2008, they have listened to DBAs request for a data warehouse of performance data – Performance Data Warehouse (PDW). Performance Dashboard gave us the last 15 minutes, and now we get as much performance data as we need. THANKS Microsoft!!! |
Thomas |
LeBlanc |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Gather SQL Server Performance Data with PowerShell |
We all know how important it is to keep a baseline of performance metrics that allow us to know when something is wrong and help us to track it down and fix the problem. We don't always know how to do this easily and consistently. This session will walk you through a series of PowerShell scripts you can schedule which will capture the most important data and a set of reports to show you how to use that data to keep your server running smoothly. |
Allen |
White |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Get a good start on you’re Consolidation project. |
Consolidation of SQL Server infrastructure has become increasingly popular. This is true from both a technological and financial perspective, may it be through virtualization, instance concentration or in building SQL Server hotel environments. But how should one get started, what is the scope, and most important how to come up with a design to match toughs requirements? Come and find out about the tools and techniques that were used to achieve a 76 % reduction in SQL Server installations that was ranging over 200 physical machines. This success was made possible by building Solid SQL Server 2008 clustered hotels, and without using any form of virtualization! |
Raoul |
Illyés |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Get your SSAS in Gear: Best Practices for Performance Tuning Analysis Services 2008 |
Could your cube processing use some acceleration? Do your ad-hoc SSAS queries perform slower than you would like? Let industry expert Adam Jorgensen, President of Pragmatic Works and SQL Server expert for over 15 years show you the best ways to troubleshoot, optimize and accelerate your SSAS queries. We will cover using all the SQL Server and Windows Server tools to dig in and find the problems with your SSAS processing and query performance. This session will cover: 1. Best design practices to avoid bottlenecks 2. Profiler techniques and Perfmon methodologies to find and resolve bottlenecks 3. Interpreting output and system behavior to point to root cause 4. Understanding the underlying SSAS architecture to help root our performance problems This is a very interactive session with lots of discussion and live demos so come and learn with Adam and get your SSAS in gear while learning how to keep it in gear! |
Adam |
Jorgensen |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Getting a Grip – Adventures in Multi-Server Management |
Today’s SQL Server environments have seen an explosion of databases without a similar increase in DBAs. This change has allowed management of non-mission-critical databases to interfere with mission-critical databases. Beginning with SQL Server 2008, a number of tools were introduced to help you take better control of your SQL Server environment and deal with “database sprawl.” Some of these tools include the advent of Policy Based Management to the addition of the Utility Control Point, in SQL Server 2008 R2. In this session, we’ll take a look at the tools already at your disposal and some free CodePlex tools that you can use to get a grip on your SQL Server environment. |
Jason |
Strate |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Getting Out from Behind the Curtain - The New DBA |
The days of hiding amongst rows of servers, focusing purely on operational tasks are quickly coming to an end. This presentation will provide a high level overview of how to boost your value to your organization by automating the mundane operational tasks and focusing on supporting new development. Topics covered will include tools and techniques available for automation, integration with development teams, relationship management and even a little Twitter for good measure. |
David |
Levy |
Professional Development |
| Getting practical with Extended Events |
Extended Events (or Xevent for short) has been available since the first release of SQL Server 2008. Even though being a highly versatile feature, available in most editions of SQL Server including express it is still unknown to most of us. Come and witness the true power of Xevent and how it will change the way you do things when it comes to: Performance Tuning (It is time to stop guessing, Time based n-tier tracing at full speed!) What just happed? (No more hide and seek, a hole new way in doing trouble shooting.) Resource consumption (How to build an invocing system based on Xevent.) |
Raoul |
Illyés |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Getting SAN admins good metrics to set up LUN's which maximize SQL Server performance |
There is typically an ocean of divide between the metrics SAN administrators require in order to set up LUN’s on their SAN’s and the information DBA’s typically have at their disposal. Many of the performance books and online articles try to equate OS counters directly to IO/sec; however as this talk will demonstrate certain statistical and mathematical formulae need to be used in order to get this right. This session describes exactly what to gather and then using sampling statistical techniques as well as Fourier transform equations in Excel, it will be shown just how to convert the gathered metrics into average and peak loads understandable in SAN parlance telling the SAN administrator exactly what needs to be planned for. Finally it will be shown exactly how to measure seemingly under-performing SAN’s in order to derive the precise amount by which they are under-performing. |
Brett |
Hawton |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Getting SQL Service Broker Up and Running |
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and 2008 include a fantastic feature that few people understand or use. That feature is the Microsoft SQL Server Service Broker. The SQL Service Broker is one of the least used features within the database engine, and that lack of use is simply from last of knowledge about the feature. In this session we’ll dig into how to configure the service broker for not only intra-database message queuing, but database to database queuing as well as server to server database queuing. We will also dig into a real life scenario where the SQL Server Service Broker was used to do ETL from an OLTP database to an OLAP database in near real time for near real time reporting. By the end of this session you'll understand where SQL Service Broker is the right fit to be used, and you'll hopefully be ready to deploy it within your environment. |
Denny |
Cherry |
Application and Database Development |
| Getting Started In Blogging And Technical Speaking |
Are you thinking of starting a blog? Or are you interested in presenting at events like SQL Saturday and the PASS Summit but not sure how to get in the game? Don’t let uncertainty keep you from contributing – the SQL Server community needs you! This interactive session will explore reasons for blogging and speaking and offer advice on topic selection, improving writing and speaking skills, seeking out places to write and speak, and things to (and not to) do to once you get started. |
Kendal |
Van Dyke |
Professional Development |
| Getting Started in IT Consulting |
Do you have the expressed goal or the suppressed desire to become an independent consultant? Think it’s too risky? Don’t know where to start? In this session, I’ll help you create a clear transition strategy to go from full-time employee to full-time independent IT consultant with a minimum of risk along the way. |
Joe |
Webb |
Professional Development |
| Getting Started with SQL Server Utility in SQL Server 2008 R2 |
SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition includes a new feature called SQL Server Utility, which allows you manage and monitor up to 25 instances of SQL Server 2008 R2 from a single Utility Control Point (UCP). SQL Server Utility allows you to automatically gather and store historical data on CPU usage and disk space usage for these managed instances. You can set policies that can notify you about over-utilization of these resources by instance. This session shows you how to create a UCP and enroll managed instances for monitoring. It also shows you how to set policies to improve your management capabilities with SQL Server Utility. |
Glenn |
Berry |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Getting To Know Your Indexes |
Without proper indexing SQL Server can be hard pressed to create efficient and performant execution plans. Dynamic Management Views (DMV) and system views provide a slew of information about indexes that can be used to analyze indexes within SQL Server. In this session we’ll go under the hood of SQL Server to look at DMVs and system views to know what indexes you have, should have, and how they feel about the way applications are treating them. |
Jason |
Strate |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Handling Advanced Data Warehouse Scenarios in SSIS |
So you’ve used SSIS to populate a simple star schema data mart, and everybody’s happy. But now you have new requirements that need more advanced data warehouse approaches, like late arriving dimensions, bridge tables, parent child dimensions, and Type 3 or Type 6 slowly changing dimensions (SCD). This session will present some common patterns for handling these scenarios in a scalable, efficient way in SSIS. You’ll learn when to use each advanced approach and the pros and cons associated with each pattern. You will learn how to implement these patterns in SSIS, and how to tune them for high performance. |
John |
Welch |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Handling FILESTREAM in SQL Server 2008 R2 |
SQL Server 2008 introduced the concept of the FILESTREAM support. Most DBAs whom have been around for a while have in one instance or another supported streaming applications by use of the VARBINARY(MAX) datatype in order to store file information within the database architecture. However, this has drastic limitations as the RDBMS are not typically set up to deal with data that is not accessible in terms of pages and extents. FILESTREAM support adds a new paradigm to the database platform by marrying the database system with the NTFS file system in order to overcome these old obstacles. In this session, we will delve into FILESTREAM support, Remote Blog Storage, what it takes to implement, and some of the extremely cool things that you can do with this new power. |
Arie |
Jones |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Hardware 201: Selecting and Sizing Database Hardware for OLTP Performance |
The foundation of database performance is the underlying server hardware and storage subsystem. Even the best designed and optimized database application can be crippled by an inadequate hardware and storage infrastructure. Recent advances in new processors and chipsets, along with improvements in magnetic and SSD storage have dramatically changed the evaluation and selection process compared to the past. Many database professionals struggle to keep up with new technology and often simply let someone else make their hardware selection and sizing decisions. Unfortunately, the DBA usually gets the blame for any performance issues that crop up later. Don't let this happen to you! This session covers current and upcoming hardware from both Intel and AMD and gives you the tools and resources to make better hardware selection decisions to support SQL Server OLTP workloads. |
Glenn |
Berry |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Have you been deploying SSIS with Powershell or are you just happy to see me? |
Managing SSIS packages in large environments can be a real challenge. This session will show you how to deploy, transfer, monitor, standardize, and automate your SSIS package environment using Powershell. You’ll learn how to keep packages on data marts in perfect synch with each other, deploy packages to multiple servers, consolidate packages to a single server, enforce naming and security standards, and much more. The session starts with the basics and builds up to a final script that gives you a completely automated hands-off solution for deploying any package to any server in your organization. You will honestly be wondering how you ever got by without this. |
Sean |
McCown |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Head in the Clouds--Virtualization and Cloud Technologies |
A discussion of Virtualization and Cloud Computing Technologies. Hear of SQL Azure? Learn all of the details of SQL Azure, and how to interact and code against it. Wonder what happens when your servers get virtualized? Wondering about how to increase availability? The questions and more will be answered in this presentation. |
Joseph |
D'Antoni |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Heaps of Trouble, Clusters of Glory - A Look At Index Internals |
Indexes are a crucial component of SQL Server, especially in performance tuning, yet many DBA's don't fully understand how indexes work. In this in-depth session, Michelle will examine the anatomy of indexes, from how they're stored to how they get fragmented. And to make our inner geeks happy, she'll look at page data to show you what's happening behind the scenes. Topics covered will include index structure, fragmentation and defragmentation, index partitioning, and index filtering. If you've ever wondered just *what* goes on in an index, don't miss this session! |
Michelle |
Ufford |
Application and Database Development |
| Help Me Help You: Keys to successfully supporting third-party databases |
Do you support a vendor database on one of your SQL Server instances? Is your company planning to deploy a new application that requires a vendor-supplied database on one of your SQL Server instances? Do you want to improve an existing relationship with one of your vendors? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then attend this session to see how to avoid problems and create successful implementations when deploying a third-party database. For the past 7 years, Erin has worked for a software vendor that has deployed their database thousands of times, and has helped DBAs with little to no experience install and configure these solutions. In this session we will examine the vendor-customer relationship from both perspectives, and cover topics ranging from installation requirements, security, troubleshooting performance issues and understanding vendor “best practices.” We will discuss what DBAs can do, and what vendors can do, to contribute to a successful relationship. |
Erin |
Stellato |
Professional Development |
| Help! I’m a new DBA, Where Do I Start?! |
You've always wanted to get promoted into the DBA position. The good news is you got it - the bad news is you have no idea what to do first. What's important, what's not a big deal, and what can get you fired if you're not careful? If your answer wasn’t, “update my resume”, then this session is a good start. We’ll chat about a natural priority for the overwhelming flood waiting in our offices. By focusing on a few words ending in “ity” we’ll realize what is most important. Through the interaction, examples and demos you’ll leave feeling ready to attack your environment. Be warned – along the way to knowing where to start, you may get that feeling in your stomach that makes you logon to the VPN to check a few things out. |
Mike |
Walsh |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Hey Ma, Watch This: Useless and Dangerous Stunts |
If you want useful stuff, go to another session. If you’re looking for things to do on your production server, you’re in the wrong place. In this presentation, Brent will be running around with scissors, doing all kinds of oddball T-SQL stunts that have no business in the business world. If you’re the kind of person who loves using a number after the GO statement (like GO 10), then you’ll love this session. |
Brent |
Ozar |
Application and Database Development |
| High availability features in SQL Server 2008 world |
Maintaining high available data is always a challenging area for the DBA’s. Logging each transaction with full recovery model is the first step in the area of high availability. From the entire database perspective, mirrored/incremental/transactional log backups, Database snapshots, Log shipping, transactional replication, Database mirroring, Failover clustering will play a very major role. Entry of Instant file initialization. Proactive I/O subsystem corruption check, address index fragmentation checks, online memory / CPU additions, resource governor, Change data capture and backup compression techniques introduced in SQL Server 2008 were considered as an important milestone in the field of high availability. |
VENKATESAN |
JAYAKANTHAM |
Application and Database Development |
| High Performance Batch Processing in SQL |
Achieving high performance for 1 user is no use to anyone. We need to develop systems that scale to multi users. To achieve this you need to reduce contention. Unfortunately many batch processing scenarios are just that operations that run on a batch and as such impose locks of locks and seriously impact contention. The reason they operate on a batch is to obtain ultimate performance doing an operation one by one just doesn’t scale. To reduce contention but still achieve high performance batch processes you need to do things in parallel. Service broker enables you to have your batch process work in parallel and too boot it's transactional, which means if everything falls over you can easily restart. In this session we will look at how you can turn your batch processes that used to block and cause contention into parallel operations that ensure that your users aren’t affected by the batch process running. |
Simon |
Sabin |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| High Performance Functions |
The use of functions are something that, we are taught in our first programming lesson, are good development practice, to encapsulate common code and ensure code reuse. In this session we will look at the different ways you can write functions in SQL Server and importantly look at the performance and pitfalls of each option. Unfortunately the use of functions in SQL Server can seriously damage you performance. In this session we will look at why functions are used and how you can get round the limitations of the current implementation of functions and still maintain performance. This session is essential for anyone using functions in batch type scenarios such as reports, ETL and batch processing. After this session you will see how you can increase your query performance 100 fold by employing some simple practices. |
Simon |
Sabin |
Application and Database Development |
| High-Performance Dimension Loading with SSIS |
SQL Server Integration Services ships with the SCD Wizard for loading data warehouse dimension tables. It's a tool that's very easy to use... but isn't very scalable or flexible. If you need faster performance for larger dimensions, have change tracking requirements the Wizard can't handle, or don't appreciate the design experience - you need another option. This session will walk you through three options to build on. You'll learn how to "roll your own" SCD data flow using standard components. You'll understand out how to use SQL 2008's new MERGE statement to process SCDs right in T-SQL. You'll see how the Kimball Method SCD component encapsulates flexible SCD logic into a single component. All three methods have their strengths and weaknesses, appealling to different "personalities" of BI developer. The good news is that all those options can outperform the Wizard if you're willing to trade a little extra development time, memory, or I/O for that gain. |
Todd |
McDermid |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Hinting the Query Optimizer |
Hints are a powerful tool which allows you to take explicit control over the execution plan of a query. But since they let you to override the job of the Query Optimizer they need to be used with caution and only as a last resort when no other solution is available. This session will show both why you should not use hints and how to use them properly when no other option is available. Learn about the technical challenges that query optimizers still face today even after more than 30 years of optimization research and see what to do in cases where, because of these limitations, you may not be getting a good execution plan. Hints restrict the choices available to the Query Optimizer so it is always recommended to use the least restrictive hint to leave the more possible choices still open. The most important hints that can impact your execution plan will be covered in this session. Finally, learn how to apply hints without changing your queries or your application. |
Benjamin |
Nevarez |
Application and Database Development |
| How and When to Use Indexed Views |
Indexed views are an often misunderstood and underused feature of SQL Server that more DBAs should learn to master. Essentially, an indexed view is a standard view that has been materialized (made physical) by adding a unique clustered index to it. When used appropriately, they can greatly speed query performance. In this session you will learn the features and benefits of using indexed views, learn where indexed views work best, learn how to create indexed views, and review indexed view best practices. This session is filled with demonstrations, and assumes attendees have a basic foundation of DBA knowledge, including Transact-SQL. After attending the session, attendees will be able to return to work and immediately put what they have learned into practice. |
Brad |
Mcgehee |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| How Quantum Entanglement will utterly transform both SQL replication and database security over the next few years. |
Quantum entanglement and SQL Server databases…what on earth could they possibly have in common! In a fascinating talk co-presented by Dr. Pavlos Vranas of the Directorate of Advanced Technologies at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab and who has twice been winner of the Gordon Bell prize for supercomputing , we explore recent developments in commercializing quantum entanglement into devices which can greatly boost data replication by many orders of magnitude as well as once and for all guarantee un-crackable encryption. We give the audience a mesmerizing look into the world of quantum computing and show how quantum entanglement devices currently being brought onto the commercial market will rapidly transform replication, encryption and other areas of database computing in the next few years. |
Brett |
Hawton |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| How SSDs are Tearing Down Walls Between DBAs and Storage Teams |
Solid state disks (SSDs) are having a profound impact on the IT world. In this session we will explore the reasons that storage has evolved to be separately managed in a large IT organization and why SSDs don’t necessarily fit this model. The basic features and performance metrics for storage will be presented with some historical background to explain how storage has gotten to where it is today. This will be tied into the primary concerns DBAs have towards storage: price and performance. A quick introduction to SSDs will be presented explaining the basic features and architecture of an enterprise SSD. After this session you will be armed with the tools needed to see if SSDs should be used with your database and understand how to deploy SSDs with SQL Server while satisfying traditional storage management concerns. |
Jamon |
Bowen |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| How to become a SQL Server community celebrity? |
How do people become SQL Server Gurus? Is it a special gift or can it be achieved by anyone? If you want to become a “SQL Server celebrity”, you’ll get the recipe in this session. We will analyze the way to the top of some of the leading SQL Server professionals. From organizing user groups to publishing books, we will go through all the steps needed for you to become a well known expert in your field. |
Meir |
Dudai |
Professional Development |
| How to do an Index Review |
Did you know that SQL Server 2005+ keeps query execution statistics, index usage statistics and even missing index statistics? Learn how to access this information and use it to help you make good decisions about what your database really needs in terms of indexes in a lot less time than you might think an index review should take. There are several DMVs (dynamic management views) to look at which reveal a lot about your database and how you can improve its performance. |
Michael |
DeFehr |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| How to Get the Most Out of the Maintenance Plan Wizard |
Many non-DBAs and novice DBAs take advantage of SQL Server’s Maintenance Plan Wizard in order to create SQL Server database maintenance plans. If used properly, the Maintenance Plan Wizard can be an easy way for less experienced DBAs to help maintain their SQL Server databases. On the other hand, if the Wizard is used improperly (and unfortunately, the Wizard doesn’t prevent DBAs from making mistakes), database performance and uptime can be put at risk. In this session, attendees will learn, step-by-step, exactly how to use the Wizard in order to create a maintenance plan that will enhance the performance and uptime of their SQL Server databases. Every step, and every option, will be thoroughly explained in detail, providing the DBA with the information they need to create a maintenance plan that will work well for their environment. This session is filled with demonstrations, and assumes attendees have little or no practical experience with the Maintenance Plan Wizard. |
Brad |
Mcgehee |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| How to Optimize tempdb Performance |
DBAs often don’t spend a lot of time watching tempdb performance. They think of it as a black box that takes care of itself. What many DBAs don’t fully realize is how tempdb performance can affect SQL Server’s overall performance. This is especially true in SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008, which uses tempdb much more than previous versions. In this session you will learn: What Objects are Stored in tempdb; How tempdb Works Internally; Different Types of tempdb Problems; How to Monitor tempdb; and Ways to Optimize tempdb Performance. This session is targeted towards those DBAs who want to learn how tempdb works, and how to optimize its performance. It is assumed that attendees have a basic foundation of DBA knowledge. After attending the session, attendees will be able to return to work and immediately put what they have learned into practice. |
Brad |
Mcgehee |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| How to rapidly identify and resolve performance problems on SQL Server using mathematical techniques invented to model nuclear chain-reactions |
The books on SQL Server performance run to hundreds of pages & are vague on how, exactly, to pin down performance problems. Likewise the many white papers & other articles on the subject do not give definitive step by step instructions on how performance problems are rapidly exposed. We take the audience (using actual servers experiencing performance problems ) through the steps used to rapidly identify & resolve performance problems. No matter if the performance is caused by configuration, hardware or software problems, problems outside of the server (such as SAN & network) or problems caused by some rogue snippet of TSQL, these steps will rapidly uncover just where the problem lies & the steps needed to resolve it. These techniques use the little known (in DBA circles) practice of using Monte-Carlo simulations & Ricci-flow in order to rapidly move through a flowchart-like list of causes in order to arrive at the precise solution no matter where the underlying condition exists. |
Brett |
Hawton |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| How to securely monitor and control your SQL Server from an iPhone (or other mobile device). |
How wonderful it would be if whilst sitting at Starbucks we could be alerted to a problem (say a backup failure) and using just our iPhones (or other mobile device), be able to correct the problem and restart the backup with just a few taps. The audience is taken through the steps necessary to rapidly set up securely monitoring and controlling any number of SQL Servers all from a mobile phone. This method doesn't require the opening of firewalls, the changing of permissions or any VPN techniques whatsoever. It gives the DBA ultimate flexibility in monitoring and controlling their SQL Servers from any location. |
Brett |
Hawton |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| How to setup your performance baseline in less than 5 minutes |
In this presentation you will get the skills and the templates to set up a performance baseline for all sql servers you have. You will see how comfortable and even fast you will get an overview about your sql installations. You will not be angry about missing tools - all you need is already on board. After this session you have the knowledge what to collect and why it is a good idea having all this performance data handy and when the time is coming to deep dive into the performance issues. |
Ralf |
Dietrich |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| How to use database mail feature in SQL Server 2000 itself |
Describe a method by which we could use database mail feature (introduced in SQL Server 2005) in SQL Server 2000 itself |
Mohammed |
Moinudheen |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| How To Write an Abstract with Ooomph In Less Than 1000 Characters |
My friend Adam Machanic argues that 1000 characters isn't enough, but really - who could say that this abstract doesn't have OOOMPH in a sly kind way? |
Andy |
Warren |
Professional Development |
| I am a DBA – Why should I care about SQL Server 2008 R2? |
Most presentations about SQL Server 2008 R2 focus on features such as Reporting Services now being able to use maps, sparklines, data bars and indicators to depict data; or how PowerPivot can be used to assemble and create relationships in large amounts of data from different sources. In this session we will not even mention Business Intelligence - this session is designed to show DBA’s why SQL Server 2008 R2 is in no way a minor release for the database engine. Peter Ward will introduce a number of new features that have been introduced in SQL Server 2008 R2 for the DBA, including improvements in locking and merging partitions as well as the new Unicode compression. So if lifting the hood on the database engine is your thing then this is the session for you. |
Peter |
Ward |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Iceberg, Dead Ahead! |
What does a plane crash have to do with technical skills? You might be surprised… There are many lessons to be learned from disasters and our response to them. Most accidents are caused not by a single factor, but by a series of seemingly-small missteps. It’s the same in our offices: carelessness or complacency can lead to a resume-altering disaster. Even if a freak accident occurs, training and preparation can make a difference in the outcome. In this session we’ll dig deep into some real-life disasters and see what lessons we can take back to our day jobs. We’ll explore corollaries between the news stories and those heart-pumping times when our cubes are filled with VPs and CIOs. Fasten your seatbelts as Mike Walsh takes us on a journey through the headlines in search of a healthy respect for the unexpected. |
Mike |
Walsh |
Professional Development |
| Identifying and Fixing Performance Problems using Execution Plans |
This session will demonstrate how SQL Server execution plans can be used to identify problems with the database design, or the TSQL code, and address those problems. The session takes the user through various common issues such as poor or missing indexes, badly written code and generally bad query performance, demonstrating how to identify the issues involved using execution plans. The session will then demonstrate different methods for addressing the issues and show how the fixed query's execution plans differ. Multiple methods for accessing execution plans including graphical, DMV's, and trace events are demonstrated. All this is meant to lay a foundation for a general troubleshooting approach to empower the attendee to make their own queries run faster and more consistently. |
Grant |
Fritchey |
Application and Database Development |
| Impact of in-memory ad-hoc data analysis tools |
With increasing pressure on businesses to make technology faster, simpler and productive – there are two fast emerging trends that the business intelligence and data warehouse space is witnessing globally. Aimed at speeding up implementations and extend self service capabilities, companies today are fast turning to in-memory technology as an alternative to traditional disk based storage. In-memory technology also plays a huge role in improving data warehouse performance, an ideal solution for unpredictable and ad hoc queries against large data sets. As a result, there is a renewed trend towards ad-hoc data analysis tools -- particularly among power users and business analysts. In this session, we will take a closer look at the impact these tools can have, usage scenario trends and the impact of these trends on core IT principals of proper data architecture and governance as well as best practices that organizations can embrace to ensure compliance with the core IT principals. |
Rushabh |
Mehta |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Implementing a Data Cleansing Component for SSIS |
The application of standard data cleansing routines is a best practice to ensure consistency across data integrated from multiple systems. Examples of data cleansing include translation of NULL values to defaults, trimming string values, and consistent formatting for textual data such as telephone and social security numbers. While these routines can be implemented using standard SSIS components, the resulting logic must be duplicated for each source and column which creates a development and maintenance burden. This session will walk through the process of creating common data cleansing routines in a custom component, enabling code reuse with minimal effort across many packages. Best practices for component development will be a focus throughout the session. |
John |
Welch |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Implementing ETL Processes with SSIS |
When you create a data warehouse, you spend most of the development time for the implementation of the ETL process (Extract, Transform, Load). During the ETL process you move data from various source systems to your central data warehouse where you structure it for queries issued by information workers through business intelligence tools. But how you can concrete implement a robust, scalable, and performant ETL processs with SSIS? In this session you will see some best practices how you can build an ETL process and how you can enhance it during the development time very easily. Furthermore you will see how you can use the partitioning feature of SQL Server 2008 transparently in your ETL process for the management of very large database tables. |
Klaus |
Aschenbrenner |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Implementing Reporting Services in SharePoint Integrated Mode |
Reporting Services is a powerful tool for building and deploying reports. But, what happens when you need more than just reports? If you need to build a content sharing portal along with your reporting solution SharePoint integration might be for you. Come learn about how to successfully implement Reporting Services in SharePoint integrated mode and some of the pitfalls that you might run into along the way. |
Chuck |
Heinzelman |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Incorporating Syndicated Data into your Information Management environment |
A significant amount of valuable data is being produced outside of the traditional IT environment. Information Management is increasingly turning its focus to input that comes from outside of the company, such as data from D&B, Acxiom, InfoUSA and many other places, including the web itself. However, you don't want to make business moves based on the assumption that the external data is 100 percent correct. Generalizations to balance the breadth and quality of the data are made throughout the process of obtaining the data, making this an imperfect science. This seminar will help you consider the tradeoffs that the data vendor has made in their consolidations (in breadth, depth and accuracy), how to architect for and wisely use external data. The speaker has just completed a major project dealing with these issues and is excited to share the difficult lessons. He'll be showing exactly how the data was acquired, understood, modeled and used to full benefit. |
William |
McKnight |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Index Age 3 - Performance Of The Filtered |
From “Index Age 1,” we know the ins and outs of clustered and nonclustered indexes. Then, “Index Age 2: The Included” introduced covering indexes. And as Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel, continues to try to catch a nut, we move further along in our understanding of indexes by exploring filtered indexes. When are they useful? Or could we end up stepping into traps just like Scrat? Sit back and relax in this session and watch as we look at some gotchas. |
Bodo Michael |
Danitz |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Indexed Views in BI |
Indexed views appear to be an almost magically simple solution to data summarization in a BI environment, but there is a labyrinthine series of hidden pitfalls to navigate. Finding deterministic solutions, avoiding self-joins, and watching for expensive updates is only the beginning. We'll look at locking challenges with ETLs, development and build issues, and when to avoid indexed views altogether. This session will map out the maze, allowing you to make real use of indexed views to enhance your BI application. |
Paul |
Atkinson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Indexes Battle |
In this session there will be delivered a detailed analisys of the impact of different types of indexes on different SQL Server platforms between 2000 and 2008R2. |
Niko |
Neugebauer |
Application and Database Development |
| Indexing Strategies that work: Covering - Concepts, Concerns, Costs |
In my highly rated spotlight session at PASS 2009, I spent only 90 minutes on this incredibly important topic and I could have done many more demos. This year, we’re going to spend the entire day focusing on the concepts, concerns and costs associated with the single most important tuning feature in indexing strategies: covering. Do you really know when and how to use this appropriately? Do you know what features provide covering options? Indexing is by far the most important aspect to database performance and health. But, do you have the right indexes? And, how are these indexes being used? This will be a demo packed session with numerous examples so that your indexing strategies come together for the best balance. In addition to looking at which indexes work for what types of queries, we'll look at the DMVs that can help us better understand where to look but we’ll also get insight into the pitfalls of these tools. DBAs, Devs and DB Architects can all benefit from this workshop. |
Kimberly |
Tripp |
Application and Database Development |
| Information Visualization - What no one ever taught you about charts, graphs, and tables! |
This session will provide you with some surprising and interesting insights into how dashboards should be designed. Called Information Visualization, there is a whole line of thinking which maps how the brain interprets what the eyes see. We will translate this into best (and worst) practices related to visualization in dashboard, scorecard, table, and report design. Both funny and informative, you will probably learn, as I did, that you have been designing your dashboards/scorecards and reports badly. We are going to take a visualization test, and learn how to convey information in a clearer, better way. You will be surprised. Join me - this session is going to be hoot! |
Wayne |
Snyder |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Inside DAX |
DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) is the language for the definition of calculation expressions in PowerPivot. It has syntax similar to Excel, but it also offers a set of features that are specific to PowerPivot. In this session we will see how DAX works, starting with a fast introduction of the syntax elements and spending most of the time understanding how evaluation context works, looking at both row context and filter context. This knowledge is fundamental to build more complex calculation and also to understand performance implications of different ways of writing DAX expressions to get the same results. |
Marco |
Russo |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Inside the SQL Server 2008 Data Collector |
The SQL Server 2008 Data Collector provides some low overhead data collection functionality to store performance and diagnostics historic information of your SQL Server instances. See how you can use this information to troubleshoot problems and to provide trend analysis for the performance of your SQL Server instance. In addition to show the basics and architecture of the new Data Collector, this session focuses on the predefined system data collection sets that are provided by SQL Server 2008 that automatically collect data from the disk usage, instance activity, and queries statistics. You will learn about the Disk Usage collection set, which gathers statistics regarding the growth of the data and transaction log database files; explore the Server Activity collection set which focus on the server activity and resources utilization; and learn about the Query Statistics collection set which collects data regarding the queries running in your instance. |
Benjamin |
Nevarez |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Insights into SQL Server 2008R2 StreamInsight |
Brand new to SQL Server 2008R2 is StreamInsight. StreamInsight is both an engine, designed to handle high throughput data stream and a .Net library to allow you to work with this data in a familiar way. In this session we'll look at how to setup adapters, then pull and filter data using LINQ. We'll cover deployment strategies, and finally look at management tools around StreamInsight. |
Robert |
Cain |
Application and Database Development |
| Insights into SQL Server 2008R2 StreamInsight |
Brand new to SQL Server 2008R2 is StreamInsight. StreamInsight is both an engine, designed to handle high throughput data stream and a .Net library to allow you to work with this data in a familiar way. In this session we'll look at how to setup adapters, then pull and filter data using LINQ. We'll cover deployment strategies, and finally look at management tools around StreamInsight. |
Robert |
Cain |
Application and Database Development |
| Instrumenting, Monitoring and Auditing of SSIS ETL Solutions |
Have you ever been struck by the lack of detailed logging available within SSIS packages? If the answer to this question is yes, then you are probably a seasoned Business Intelligence solutions builder. The packages that make up your solutions probably contain extra code to facilitate effective monitoring, control and profileing. However, increasingly, SSIS is being used to unify data found on disparate yet related transactional systems. The batch processes that perform this activity thus become a vital part of the information processing ecosystem. These need to be monitored and profiled in the same way as formal BI solutions but often the resources available are much more meager. What do you do when something goes wrong and the functionality of the packages is not transparent via internal state reporting. This session will introduce you to an improved version of DTExec that can reveal the internal activity of packages without having to make any changes to the packages themselves. |
David |
Mauri |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Introducing Attribute Discretization in Analysis Services |
Attribute discretization is an oft-overlooked feature in Analysis Services that allows us to automatically create a manageable number of groups of attribute values that are clearly separated by boundaries. We can use discretization as a means of grouping contiguous values into sets of discrete values, via a system-generated collection of consecutive dimension members known as member groups. Discretization can help us to make it easier for information consumers to work with large numbers of possible attribute member values. In this session, we will discuss the varied options, the design (and other) considerations involved in the discretization of attributes, and best practices surrounding the use of this capability. Our focus will be upon the general exploitation of discretization to provide consumer-friendly support for the selection and delivery of enterprise data. |
William |
Pearson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Introducing the New Features in Reporting Services 2008 R2 |
There are numerous new features in Reporting Services as part of the upcoming SQL Server 2008 R2 release. In this session, all new features will be introduced with specific focus on several of the most notable. These will include the new data visualizations, comprised of data bars, sparklines, indicators and maps. Next, an exploration of shared components that promote “grab and go” report design. Finally, an introduction to the ATOM data feeds. |
Peter |
Myers |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Introduction to Analysis Services: OR How to do everything wrong and Still provide business value |
This presentation will introduce Analysis Services using a real life business case and an honest exposition of how to get through the learning curve with SQL Analysis Services. Along the way we will derive a fairly complete list of worst practices for Analysis Services development. Armed with the list of worst practices and the insight gained from the live examples, attendees will have a much better idea of how, and how not, to use Analysis Services. They will also have a new insight for times they may be able to use Analysis Services that they may not have thought of previously. |
Stuart |
Johnson |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Introduction to BI, a smart first step |
This session is aimed for those professionals who never had the chance to work on Business Intelligence solutions, and want to understand the concepts behind it. Theory and explanation on the complete cycle will be accompanied by a simple yet complete demo to ensure getting the attendance on the right track for the BI world. |
Nabeel |
Derhem |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Introduction to defensive database programming |
The goal of defensive database programming is to produce robust database code.The attendees will learn how to program defensively by reviewing several simple real life examples. Also the attendees will learn some of the most common scenarios when T-SQL code breaks because of changes in other database objects and environment settings, and how to develop T-SQL that does not break in such situations. |
Alex |
Kuznetsov |
Application and Database Development |
| Introduction to Master Data Services |
For years the expression 'a single version of the truth' has been the ultimate goal of Business Intelligence implementations. Starting with SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server Master Data Services is Microsoft’s new platform for Master Data Management. These new features will provide you with the tools to make your data warehouse the authoritative view of customers, products and other key information. This session will show how to use this new technology and the business reasons for doing so. |
Carlos |
Bossy |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Introduction to MDX for BI Developers |
Many BI Developers create dimensions and cubes without knowing much about MDX. But there is a certain amount of MDX knowledge that is absolutely essential so that cubes can display the information required by a business. This session focuses on teaching the MDX that is needed to create calculated measures and calculated sets. This is an introductory look at MDX, considering what every BI developer should know and be able to do with MDX. Not every BI developer needs to be able to write MDX queries. But every developer should understand the MDX code needed to create calculated measures and named sets. After completing this session, you’ll be able to begin harnessing the power of MDX to give your business the information it needs. |
Nathan |
Peterson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Introduction to MDX for T-SQL Programmers |
Analysis Services is the data store of choice for Microsoft's BI platform. just as T-SQL is the language of data query and manipulation for the relational database, Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) is the language of SQL Server Analysis Services. This session is intended to jump-start the T-SQL programmer's understanding of MDX. |
Barry |
Ralston |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Introduction to performance tuning |
The performance of the database is critical to the performance of most database applications. In this seminar we introduce you to how to improve the performance of your database server. We start my looking at the ways in which you can analyse performance so that you can identify problem areas. We then move on to look at how you resolve your performance problems by tuning your query, adding indexes Topics covered 1. Performance analysis using Perfmon and Profiler 2. Looking at resource utilisation 3. Reducing IO and CPU 4. Query plans, storage and join operators 5. Indexes Why attend? Database performance is crucial for any application. Identifying the performance problem is the first step and then being able to resolve the problem is the second. This course gives you an introduction to both of these enabling you to make a head start in improving your database performance |
Simon |
Sabin |
Application and Database Development |
| Introduction to Query Tuning |
Just what does SQL server do when it runs a query, anyway? We will go over the basics of query plans, query IO statistics and profiler output as tools for tuning a query. We will look at what considerations to make when deciding whether to create an index and what it means to INCLUDE a column. This is an introductory talk that will demystify some of these topics and open you up to the world of performance tuning |
Michael |
DeFehr |
Application and Database Development |
| Introduction to SQL Server Encryption |
SQL Server 2008 encryption consists of a powerful set of tools to help you secure your data in the database. Whether you want to transparently encrypt an entire database at once or individual columns of a table, SQL Server has you covered. This session will cover the basics of SQL Server encryption, including asymmetric encryption, symmetric encryption, Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), Extensible Key Management (EKM), and encryption key management techniques. Attendees will learn how to use all of SQL Server's built-in encryption tools, including a discussion of where encryption fits into a comprehensive security strategy. |
Michael |
Coles |
Application and Database Development |
| Introduction to SQL Server Integration Services |
SQL Server Integration Services is Microsoft's powerful tool for doing ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) in the Business Intelligence arena. In this introductory course you will get up to speed on the basic tools of ETL and learn how to leverage SSIS not just for Business Intelligence but for tasks such as data conversion and exporting data to files. |
Robert |
Cain |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Introduction to SQL Server Profiler |
The SQL Server is a powerful, but underused tool. Often developers and some DBAs don’t realize the potential the tool has to offer. In this session I will show you how to use the tool to identify poor performing queries. I will also details steps that can be used to identify blocking and deadlocking. Finally, I will provide sample scripts and methods that can be used to proactively monitor your SQL Server for inefficient queries and stored procedures. |
Patrick |
LeBlanc |
Professional Development |
| Introduction to SQL Server Statistics |
Statistics are a key part of getting solid and repeatable performance and is easily just as important as having good indexes. Whether you're a DBA or trying to get by without one, this session will give you the information you need to know including how to create, manage, troubleshoot, and more! |
Andy |
Warren |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Introduction To Transactional Replication |
This introduction to transactional replication is for DBAs with little or no experience with the technology. We’ll look at when and why you may want to use replication, learn about the fundamentals of how it works, walk through setting up a simple replication topology between two servers, and cover the basics of monitoring replication performance. |
Kendal |
Van Dyke |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Iron Chef Competition: Business Intelligence Edition |
In this fun and informational session, you'll see a battle between two business intelligence heavyweights, attempting to load and report against the perfect data warehouse with today’s secret ingredient. You'll see varying architectures and best practices from each of the contestants and you decide who wins the Iron Chef competition. You’ll learn varying patterns in loading a data warehouse, reporting against it and cubing architectures. |
Brian |
Knight |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Is the Management Job the Right Move for You? If So, How to Become a Highly Effective IT Manager |
The management job is not necessarily a good or right move for every professional DBA. This session will first offer you some assessments about whether or not moving into management is the right thing for you. If you want to make the move, the speaker will share with you his years of management experience on how to become a highly effective manager, especially in the areas of hiring of good DBAs, motivation, project management and conflict resolutions. SQL Server has grown into an enterprise database platform. It’s common to see medium-to-large size companies using multiple RDBMS such as SQL Server, DB2, Oracle, Informix and Sybase. Many companies suffer from the organizational problems about the DBAs using different database platforms don’t work together as a cohesive team. The speaker will share his experience with you in managing multiple RDBMS and a strong DBA group. |
Alex |
Cheng |
Professional Development |
| It’s a function of thinking out of the box |
Developing efficient and effective SQL queries has always provided a challenge to those in the SQL Server world. The good news is that this presentation is designed to demonstrate new & exciting techniques to ensure that queries are effective in delivering necessary data to end clients AND yet efficient in the data delivery process. In this hands on presentation we'll look at using SQL Server Data Access Layers (customized SQL user functions) to ensure that all queries are optimized and ready to be utilized via any developed front end. Through the usage and interpretation of execution plans, we shall compare many conventionally designed queries with queries that have been converted into Data Access Layer form. Providing end customers with efficient and effective Data Access Layer queries plays a important part in ensuring that our client base has the necessary tools to extract their data,and in doing so, we ensure that the server resources are utilized in the most optimal manner. |
Steve |
Simon |
Application and Database Development |
| JumpStart Dashboarding with PerformancePoint |
Reporting and analytics are a key focus to getting insight into our organization. In this session we will go over the PerformancePoint product, explain what it provides, what it can do, and how you can leverage and incorporate this into your existing SharePoint environment to enable and empower your end-users. |
Dan |
English |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Just Say "No" to Geographic Spatial Indexes |
One criticism of the spatial functions found in SQL 2008 is the speed of geographic indexes when used to solve common problems such as what properties are found in a given area, or what areas contain a given property. At higher volumes, query times may be too slow to be practical for supporting a number of simultaneous users online, especially when trying to identify a few thousand rows out of several million. While the use of geometric indexes results in the fastest speed, it can also result in a small amount of false positives and false negatives when compared to a purely geographic solution. However, for those who wish to avoid this by using conventional SQL indexing, the speed of higher volume geographic queries can be improved without resorting to geometry. This presentation will discuss a methodology for speeding up large volume geographic queries. |
Bob |
Hovious |
Application and Database Development |
| Justifying and Implementing Master Data Management for the Enterprise |
Master data refers to the significant entities of the organization where there is considerable interest in and potential controversy over the build of an enterprise view. Many companies today are codifying efforts to focus on master sets for customer, product, supplier, and other subjects. This is being done to gain efficiencies and direct or indirect bottom-line company improvement. This session will discuss what MDM is, how it is architected into information management environments, and how to outline the business case. The best approach is demonstrating the proposed economic payback of MDM, which requires the translation of efforts into anticipated cash flow. This experience-based session will organize those justification efforts into a structure to demonstrate payback. This session is recommended for shops in learning and justifying modes with MDM. The framework will help you appropriately champion MDM and get it moving to the benefit of the organization. |
William |
McKnight |
Application and Database Development |
| Keep up 99.99% High Availability and Disaster Recovery using SQL Server technologies |
Achieving maximum availability and near immediate recovery from a disaster is essential for maintaining our revenue stream. Service Management principles must be worked hard to eliminate all single points of failure in architecture, and developed procedures for patching servers, upgrading software, and implementing application changes that preserve high availability. Based on these efforts, you can achieve 99.99 percent uptime, including both planned and unplanned downtime. This session covers the decisions and procedures that are employed to maintain maximum availability with minimal downtime. This information will be of interest to senior IT managers, project leads, architects, and database administrators (DBAs). All the content is presented from my own experience and industry best practices, it will sum up a great deal of procedures to achieve high availability and disaster recovery |
Satya |
Jayanty |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Keeping SQL Enterprise Search Out of the Lurch |
IDC estimates that the digital universe will grow fivefold from 2008 to 2012. With the staggering volume of business-critical data, companies need to quickly find information within their databases. As databases grow exponentially in size and as SQL queries become more complex, current search solutions struggle to meet these needs, leaving enterprise search in the lurch. This session will address the ever-changing database environment with a specific focus on the challenge of managing an abundance of data. Ken will provide real-life examples of how information technology professionals can quickly access and use information from large sets of structured and unstructured data sets all across an enterprise. |
Ken |
Ebert |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Kickin' the Tires with PerformancePoint - Tips/Tricks |
In this session we will go beyond the basics of PerformancePoint. You have seen or heard about how to create a scorecard and report. Now find out how you can take it to the next level and relate the items and enhance the cube to provide additional capabilities and insights to your end-users. |
Dan |
English |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Kimball Approach Dimensional Modeling Across SQL Server and SSAS |
A well designed dimensional model provides the foundation for every successful Microsoft-based DW/BI project; both for the relational platform, and in Analysis Services. This session shows how a dimensional model moves from a logical design into the physical relational platform, then to the analysis services engine, and finally out to the user and report interface. This session starts with a brief review of the core concepts and design patterns of dimensional modeling. We then interactively design a logical dimensional model to capture a real-world business event. Next we will convert that logical model into a physical, relational dimensional model. From there, we will examine how to transpose that model into the Analysis Services environment. We’ll also talk about why this two-tier data architecture with the dimensional model in both the RDBMS and in SSAS is mandatory for long term success. |
Warren |
Thornthwaite |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Know they Report Server! |
How much do you know about what your report server is doing? Are you able to who's running what reports when? Their costs? How about who has access to what reports or folders? Or if you have a server farm, where is most of the work going? Can you intepret the esoteric log files? Better yet, do you know how to correlate that information with activity recorded in the ReportServer database? This session will focus on the massive amount of information available from the ReportServer database, how to properly access it/manipulate it (a straight SQL query isn't a great idea) and the various tools available to expose ReportServer information. This session will include mostly demonstration and sample code to really learn about your installation. |
James |
Luetkehoelter |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Know Thyself, Know Thy Customer |
We all know what a customer is. Or do we? This session will focus on customer interactions, customer analysis, and customer satisfaction. Along the way, we'll really take an in-depth look at what a customer is and how a customer is served. |
Charles "Chuck" |
Hawkins |
Professional Development |
| Know, Be Known or Perish |
As IT personnel we tend to get boxed in or stranded on our own little islands. Not many people know of us; not just within our own organization but in professional circles too. With this presentation I aspire to bring out the possibilities and avenues whereby IT Staff(mainly DBAs) can: o Market their own self internally o Send out periodic updates o Declare mini victories and successes o If you work late in the night, let all pertinent people know. o Give technical/business presentations o Automate o Network with their internal peers and other professionals in the outside world o Keep that resume updated and handy all the time o Volunteer your time outside of office o Use tools like Linked IN, Facebook, judiciously and extensively o Don’t forget to attend that Old Job Reunion o Stay in touch o Presentation Track o Professional development o Prerequisites o Open to anyone who is not doing well or wants to excel in his/her job o Audience Level o Any level |
Paresh |
Motiwala |
Professional Development |
| Large Scale Master Data Management |
Most Master Data Management systems manage tens of millions of entities and consume a few hundred gigabytes of storage. What happens when your master data contains billions of entities and consumes tens of tarabytes of storage? How do you scale MDM to satisfy requirements of that scale? This talk will present an architecture that allows SQL Server to form the core of a highly reliable, highly scalable Master Data Management system. |
Roger |
Wolter |
Application and Database Development |
| Learn how to charge more money! |
Why are you still charging $10/hour after 10 years, whilst they guy next to you is charging $100/hour after 3 years? In this session Victor Isakov (MCT, MCM, MCA) will discuss strategies in professional development, networking and reputation building that will enable you to progress as a SQL Server expert and enhance your reputation, thus enabling you to charge more and select your gigs. Show me the money!!! |
Victor |
Isakov |
Professional Development |
| Lessons Learned: Building the World’s Largest Sharepoint 2010 Site |
How would you build the world's largest Sharepoint 2010 solution, that would scale to over 1.3 million users? How many Requests Per Second (RPS) would it need to service? How many Web Front Ends (WFEs) would you use? How many SQL Server instances? How many content databases? What hardware would you use? What disaster recovery and high-availability solutions? In this session Victor Isakov (MCT, MCM, MCA) will go through these critical design considerations. Victor Isakov is a Microsoft Certified Master and Microsoft Certified Architect who worked with Microsoft on the eBackpack solution at the Department Of Education (NSW) to build a Sharepoint 2010 solution that would scale to 1.3 million users. He has authored a number of books on SQL Server and regularly speaks at conferences internationally. |
Victor |
Isakov |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Leveraging the Microsoft BI Toolset to Monitor Performance |
There are many different pieces in the Microsoft BI toolset. In this session, we will take a look at all of the different pieces and utilize each of them to create a unified dashboard, where each component is being leveraged. The tools that will be utilized during this session will include SQL Server 2008, SSRS 2008, SSAS 2008, Excel 2007, Excel Services, PPS 2007, Dashboard Designer, SharePoint Server 2007 and more. |
Dan |
English |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Loading and Backing Up SQL Azure Databases |
SQL Azure provides high availability by maintaining multiple copies of your database, but that doesn't mean that you should just trust Azure and assume your data is safe. If your data is mission critical, you should maintain a backup outside the Azure infrastructure. The database is also vulnerable to administration errors. If you accidentally truncate a table in your production database, that change will immediately be copied to all replicas, and there is no way to recover that table. In this session, you'll see how to use SSIS and BCP to back up a SQL Azure database. We'll also demonstrate processes you can use to move data from an on-premise database to SQL Azure. Finally, we'll discuss procedures for migrating your database from staging to production, to avoid the risks associated with implementing DDL directly in your production database. |
Geoff |
Snowman |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Locking and Blocking and Versions, Oh My |
Failing to design an application with concurrency in mind, and failure to test an application with the maximum number of expected simultaneous users is one of the main causes of poor application performance. SQL Server offers two methods for an application to provide data consistency: Pessimistic and Optimistic Concurrency Control. In this seminar we’ll discuss what consistency might mean to your applications, and describe the details of how each of the concurrency models works internally. We’ll examine the costs and trade-offs between the two concurrency models that SQL Server 2008 supports through different transaction isolation levels. Finally, we’ll examine the tools available for analyzing and troubleshooting locking problems, including metadata views and the Management Data Warehouse. |
Kalen |
Delaney |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Locking and Blocking and Versions, Oh My! |
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Elena |
Sebastiano |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Making Integration Services Work With the World's #1 Database - Excel! |
Like it or lump it, an overwhelming amount of business-critical information is collected and managed inside Excel. Despite the tabular appearance and apparent structure of an Excel spreadsheet, consuming that data in Integration Services can be an adventure in unstructured data integration. Lessons learned through hard experience, discussion, and blog/forum trolling are going to be presented to clarify what is and is not practically achievable with Excel from SSIS. Best practices with regards to 64 bits, data types, use of sheets within a workbook, range selection, formulas, macros, and scripts will be discussed. Before you open up the Pandora's box of Excel, come to this session to understand its capabilities and limitations - and leave with best practices you can use right away. |
Todd |
McDermid |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Making Life Easy for You & Your End Users with Report Parts Gallery and Report Builder 3.0 |
The new features of Microsoft SQL Server Report Builder 3.0 and the Report Parts Gallery are a significant step forward in enabling collaboration between developers and end users in creating and maintaining reports. Developers can focus their efforts on building a set of standard report components and example templates. The end users can then assemble their own reports using these 'Standard' components together with their own report parts modelled after the example templates. In this session we’ll focus on best practices for building and using Report Parts, efficient use of parameters to make Report Parts more flexible, naming conventions to make finding Parts easy, and leveraging SharePoint workflow to ensure report parts are reviewed and approved before released for general use. |
Richard |
Pope |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Making SQL Server Extended Events Work for You |
SQL Server Extended Events, new functionality to SQL Server 2008, is a general event handling system. Event Tracing for Windows® (ETW) is a general-purpose, high-speed tracing facility provided by the operating system. Together ETW and Extended Events can be correlated to allow for complex diagnostic analysis and performance troubleshooting. This session will introduce Extended Events, discussing them and showing how to set up sessions and use the technology. Examples will be shown for troubleshooting deadlocks using Extended Events alone and troubleshooting excessive CPU usage using Extended Events correlated with ETW. |
Charles "Chuck" |
Hawkins |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Manage your SQL Servers the SMART way. |
DBAs are challenged with managing large number of SQL Servers. This session will focus on key SQL Server 2008 R2 improvements in the areas of management. The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Manageability features include: policy-based management, storage optimization, resource governance, and automating administrative tasks. Session focuses on how to - work with the various Management tools, Manage database data file and log file, and implement database maintenance plans, Design and implement efficient backup and restore strategies, Understand and manage the configuration options, Understand and manage TempDB contention, Use new Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 features to manage Instances and Databases, Setup policies and verify existing servers for compliance using Policy-based Management, Implement workload governance in Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Automate various administrative tasks using Database Maintenance Plans and SQL Server Agent, Monitor the health of Microsoft SQL Server 2008. |
Rajinder |
Gill |
Application and Database Development |
| Management tools in SQL Server 2008 |
SQL Server 2008 provides numerous tools to manager the server/database. Introduction of Activity monitor impressed the users at a very higher level. Object searching through simple GUI, Managing multiple server/instances through multi-server queries, managing workloads through resource governor, PDE to collect the performance details, Sql server audit, profiler with enhanced features, Policy management, Log shipping, Database mirroring and launching of power shell with enhanced features. |
VENKATESAN |
JAYAKANTHAM |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Managing a 0 Downtime Shop |
Data is becoming more and more critical with the needs of business every day. Technology has enabled businesses to have a global reach much easier than ever before. With the growing needs to increase revenue every avenue will be explored. The outcome of this growth is the need for your database to be online with no downtime if any at all. This session is designed to visit the issues of managing a database that is online around the clock and maintenance time is scarce. |
Chris |
Shaw |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Managing the Disruption: Transitioning to Solid-State Technologies in a Microsoft SQL Server Environment |
Server-deployed solid-state is transforming the way that enterprise database systems are architected. But as solid-state technologies are being deployed in more and more Microsoft SQL Server environments, many IT administrators are still concerned getting down to brass tacks and are seeking answers for how to deploy this disruptive technology in the most effective manner possible. Sumeet Bansal, Principal Solutions Architect for Fusion-io, will offer IT administrators tips and strategies for changing their thinking from a shared storage model to a shared nothing model, offering detailed technical guidance on how to set up your databases for maximum efficiency (with minimum disruption), addressing topics such as high availability, scalability, maintenance, business continuity and reliability. With this talk, Bansal aims to ease IT administrators’ transition to a high density, server-bound, solid-state world. |
robert |
brumfield |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Managing Your Career-Getting, Keeping Great Jobs! |
How to get a job, keep your job and build a long lasting career. This presentation is focused towards early and mid-career professionals. This will cover the overall hiring process and a little bit of career development. I will discuss how to apply for jobs, how to work with recruiters, common corporate interviewing techniques, and lastly a little bit of salary negotiations. I will begin by covering some tips on keeping your resume up to date and how to fine tune it for a specific opportunity. Additionally, I will discuss how once in a job, the best way to handle development and career planning, and the importance of having a 5 and 10 year plan for your career. Next I will discuss recruiters, and how to work with them. Finding a good recruiter and holding on to them. This will then move on to interviewing--basics, preparation like what to wear, sending thank you notes and emails post interview. I will discuss a bit about techniques and styles for phone interviews. |
Joseph |
D'Antoni |
Professional Development |
| Managing Your Database Schema With Visual Studio 2010 Database Projects |
Most developers agree that the database is the most important component in a typical application, yet the processes for managing changes to database objects as part of the development cycle are often rudimentary or inexistent. In this session Rafael explains how you can use Visual Studio database projects to have better control over your database development cycle and reduce the risk and complexity involved in managing schema changes, testing and deployment. He will talk about the pros and cons he has experienced when using VS DB projects in his last projects, and will highlight some of the improvements available in the latest version of the tool (Visual Studio 2010). This session showcases VS 2010, but most the content remains relevant to the previous version - VSDB 2008 GDR2. |
Rafael |
Salas |
Application and Database Development |
| Managing Your Manager |
Is your boss crazy? Perhaps your manager just does not understand what it is you do? In an ideal world, your skills and competence would be enough to succeed at your company, but unfortunately that is rarely enough to get ahead. We often have to fight for basic resources to accomplish our jobs and battle personal frustrations when our work is seemingly unappreciated. In this session, you will learn communication techniques to make the most effective arguments to gain management’s support and resources to complete your projects and meet your goals. Discover how understanding your boss’s priorities, strength and weaknesses will allow you to market yourself in a more positive light. Finally, we will discuss techniques for coping with difficult people and situations while still focusing on your own professional goals. |
Sarah |
Barela |
Professional Development |
| Master Data Management – Merging from Multiple Sources |
In an enterprise, merging master data, like customer data, from multiple sources is a common problem. Typically, you d not have a single, i.e. the same key identifying a customer in different sources. You have to match data based on similarity of strings, like names and addresses. In this session, we are going to check how different algorithms for comparing strings included in SQL Server 2008 R2 work. We are going to use Soundex Transact-SQL function, three different algorithms that come in R2 with Master Data Services (Levenshtein, Jaccard and Jaro-Winkler), Fuzzy Lookup transformation from Integration Services, and even create additional CLR function with Simil algorithm. In addition, we are going to show an algorithm that helps you merging only data that changed from last merging – a very important algorithm if you have to do merging on daily basis when data changes in different sources continuously. |
Dejan |
Sarka |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Master Data Services in action |
Come to this session to see Master Data Services in action. Here we'll create a MDS solution from scratch, learning all the concepts that lies behind a MDS solution. After having defined and create a MDS model we'll load data into MDS, validate it with the aid of Business Rules, publish it and integrate it with custom application using batches and the exposed Web Service. |
David |
Mauri |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Master Data Services: Fixing Data before ETL |
What is Master Data Services, and why should you care? Is it part of the data warehouse, part of the transaction system, or something else entirely? In this session we describe: - SQL Server 2008 R2 Master Data Services overview - The role of master data management within the Kimball Method architecture - What Master Data Services can add to your overall information delivery architecture… and what it costs - How the design of your BI solution changes with the addition of Master Data Services. |
Joy |
Mundy |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Mastering SQL Server Evils |
Learn from the Masters about some of the really bad things so many people do to their SQL Servers, and the good things true Padawans should do instead. |
Cindy |
Gross |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Maximizing the Power of your Data Through PowerPivot |
PowerPivot is a powerful resource in the hands of end users. At the same time, managing how the users access data can be challenging. The users have a wide variety of data sources from which to choose and a row count that is only limited by the memory on their machine. Two of the most widely desired data sources for PowerPivot are Reporting Services and Atom feeds. In this session we will discuss the when, the how, and the why of accessing these data sources. We will show how to leverage Reporting Services to minimize utilization loads and manage security. We will also explore how to create a simple Atom feed and review the key steps in testing and deploying the feed so that it seamlessly integrates with PowerPivot. Finally, we will recommend an approach for feeding PowerPivot in a Microsoft shop. |
Greg |
Laymon |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Maximizing your Marketability in the IT Workplace |
In today's economy competition for jobs can be tough. IT Professionals need every advantage they can get when competing for that dream job. In this session you'll learn simple, but effective techniques for enhancing your stature as a professional and maximizing your marketability. |
Robert |
Cain |
Professional Development |
| MDX - 50 Functions in 60 Minutes |
MDX has a large number of functions that enable you to create the exact calculations and sets that you need. This fast-moving presentation will show you how to use 50 of these functions - and there will be time for questions at the end. Here are a sampling of the functions that will be covered - Lag, Lead, ParallelPeriod, Descendants, Ancestor, Filter, Order, Generate, Exists, Crossjoin, Union, Except, Intersect, TopCount, BottomCount, Subset, Avg, Median, and LinkMember. |
Nathan |
Peterson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| MDX Query Performance Tuning |
In order to get top performance from SSAS, it is necessary to have a good knowledge of the behavior of the internal engine of SSAS which copmutes MDX queries. Moreover, the design of the OLAP cube needs to follow some best practices in order to make the MDX query processor work best. What can we do if an MDX query is slow? And, is it really slow or it is already working at its best? Is it able to scale well as the database size grows? From where do we start to analyze the performance of an OLAP cube? This sessions will give answers to all these questions, by performing a deep analysis of the internals of SSAS, partitioning, aggregation design and the analysis of events generated by SSAS during the query resolution. Moreover, we will describe cache usage, block computations and show some best practices on how to write efficient MDX queries that will make SSAS work at top performances. |
Alberto |
Ferrari |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Measure Up – Using Performance Point 2010 to Measure your Business Performance |
Business users, especially in today’s economic climate) are always asking questions such as, “How are my sales performing?” and “Are my departments reaching their goals?”. Measuring the performance of any business is the key tool that is going to differentiate a successful business from a failing one. This session is going to start by reviewing the key elements that go into defining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and then how we can build them in Performance Point from a multitude of data sources such as Analysis Services, Excel, and SQL Databases. We will then use our KPIs to build Scorecards and Dashboards in Performance Point, building a full featured Performance Portal for your business users. By the end of the session you will understand how to build a portal for your users to allow them to objectively measure business performance. |
Andrew |
Karcher |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Merge SQL Statement - An insight view |
Merge statement- An atomic conditional statement for insert,update and delete statement. This statement will be very useful to write complicated logics involved multiple tables. This presentation includes Conditions in writing Merge statement, merge statement along with top clause and output clauses, Using merge in SSIS, mandatory nature of merge sql, In depth details on incremental updates of fact and slowly changing dimensions with Merge statement. |
VENKATESAN |
JAYAKANTHAM |
Application and Database Development |
| Migrate Data with PowerShell and SQL Server |
There's a ton of data generated by applications and stand-alone devices which you can use in your applications, but getting it to SQL Server can be a challenge. PowerShell incorporates many different ways of importing and exporting data, including cmdlets for CSV and XML files, and fully supports ADO.NET. This session will walk through the varieties of external data and how you can use PowerShell to easily get the data inserted into SQL Server so you can make the best use of it. |
Allen |
White |
Application and Database Development |
| Monitor Your Business with PerformancePoint Services Monitoring and Analytics |
Is your business looking to deliver better information by implementing scorecards, dashboards, and analytic reports? PerformancePoint Services (PPS) allows businesses to easily deliver content from their data warehouses to a wide variety of users throughout the organization. The Monitoring server enables businesses to create powerful, intuitive scorecards that focus on anything from the entire enterprise to an individual employee’s goals. Analytics provides tools for users to perform in-depth analysis of the data in the warehouse. Learn how to create interactive scorecards and analytic reports and deliver these items to users at all levels of your business. |
Craig |
Utley |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Monitoring Cube Performance and Usage |
To detect possible performance and service level issues with Analysis Services (SSAS), it is important to understand how it interacts with the operating system. In fact, resources consumed by Analysis Services are controlled by the operating system and this session will show what counters to monitor (and how to do it) for getting memory, CPU and I/O consumption made by SSAS. Then, there will be a description of specific tools like SQL Server Profiler, ASTrace, Activity Viewer and MDX Studio, which will be used both alone and integrated with operating system counters. This session content is based on a chapter of the book Expert Cube Development with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services, written by Marco Russo, Alberto Ferrari and Chris Webb. |
Marco |
Russo |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Monitoring Data Changes the Microsoft Way with Change Data Capture |
Most modern enterprise database environments require some measure of auditing their data. Previously, the DBA would need to put together a complicated web of triggers and history tables in order to properly track data changes. Now in SQL Server 2008, Change Data Capture allows the DBA to readily enact a very straight-forward method for tracking the changes and understanding easily how they took place. In this session, we will examine how to set-up, configure, use, and administer the Change Data Capture process in your environment. |
Arie |
Jones |
Application and Database Development |
| Multi server management with enterprise policies, for the large enterprise |
This session will introduce you to the challenges of managing SQL Server sites with multiple high volume nodes and strict requirements to enforcing company rules. The session will focus on how to make management of your servers a walk in the park using principles enforced by policies and rules specific for your organization. The session will be demo heavy and will present custom aswell as build in tools used to support and enforce your business and infrastructure rules. |
Jesper |
Johansen |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Multi-Server Management with UCP, MDW, and PBM |
Many of us are managing multiple servers, with multiple instances and many databases. SQL Server provides some great tools for dealing with your installations, but much of the data that is generated is still distributed across your servers. If you have problems getting a comprehensive snapshot of your environment, this session is for you. Come see how to use system data collectors and user-defined data collectors to centralize all of that data onto your Utility Control Point and use that data to build dashboards. |
Chuck |
Heinzelman |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| My SQL Server is slow, where do I start? |
The masters will take you though the steps of getting the most out of your SQL Server instances. If you want to learn great tips for configuration, tuning, and troubleshooting SQL Server performance, this is the session for you! |
Cindy |
Gross |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| NETWORKING TO BUILD BUSINESS CONTACTS |
Learn to network and make professional connections that will pay off for years to come from best-selling author, communications trainer and “small talk” expert, Don Gabor. Using demonstrations, exercises, role plays, and coaching that focus on networking at breakfast, lunch, between sessions and at the evening reception Don will guide you step-by-step through the networking process. By practicing confidence-boosting skills, tips and strategies you’ll see that connecting with your colleagues is easy, fun and profitable! Take-aways include: • Using body language to build instant rapport • Introducing yourself and remembering names • Breaking the ice & keeping the conversation going • Transitioning from topic to topic • Ending conversations and working the room • Following up and building business relationships Each workshop attendee will receive an autographed copy of Don’s best-selling book, How to Start a Conversation and Make Friends. |
Don |
Gabor |
Professional Development |
| Non-Traditional ETLs |
What do you do when a traditional ETL no longer suits your needs? SSIS is powerful, ubiquitous, and just one of many ways to populate a data warehouse. Come explore different ETL strategies to conquer increasingly common situations. Leverage your service-oriented architecture using Service Broker or Biztalk server or stop time using snapshots. Make your BI data more current or spread the workload using replication. Enhance your existing SSIS-based ETL with a hybrid approach that works for you. We will compare performance, concurrency, and points of failure to help you make real-world design decisions. |
Paul |
Atkinson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Notes from the Field, PerformancePoint Services 2010 |
This session will share with attendees the features, nuances and workarounds resulting from the use of the latest release of PerformancePoint Services. This will include changes to Dashboard Designer, the impact of PerformancePoint dashboard elements as first-class SharePoint webparts and changes to Analytic Charts and Grids. |
Barry |
Ralston |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Not-So-Scary Transactional Replication |
Replication 101 - learn the difference between Publications, Subscriptions and Articles. Take the building blocks of replication and set up a replication schema between two or more servers with a single publisher. Then, add in the tools to effectively monitor your replicated enviroment to mimize downtime and bottlenecks. |
Wendy |
Pastrick |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Object Relational Mappers Aren’t *Necessarily* Evil |
Object Relational Mappers (ORMs) are a tool often praised by developers and despised by DBAs. I'll show that, like most tools, ORMs have their place if used responsibly. They can also get out of hand if they are trusted to always do the right thing. I will demonstrate usage of the most common ORMs for .NET and how each can go awry as well as how to monitor each for proper usage. This will not be a validation or admonishment of their usage; simply a look at their advantages and how to overcome some of their disadvantages. |
Eric |
Humphrey |
Application and Database Development |
| Off and Running with PowerPivot for Excel 2010 |
PowerPivot is an exciting new technology from Microsoft that will allow users to leverage their data to answer many of their business questions. Commonly referred to as "Self Service Business Intelligence", PowerPivot consists of two components, PowerPivot for Excel 2010 and PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010. This presentation will provide an overview of both components then dig deeper into PowerPivot for Excel 2010. Multiple demos illustrate everything from importing data to creating pivot tables and charts, as well as using techniques such as filters and calculated columns. |
Robert |
Cain |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Optimising Querying for Reporting |
Writing reporting queries is very different to writing queries for OLTP style systems. You are often dealing with large amounts of data and varying parameter sets. This session is based on years of experience working with reporting off databases with gigabytes of data and tables with millions of rows. We will cover the how parallelism is good and bad for your queries, how you can control it and what you need to do to ensure that you don’t block parallelism. We will cover how parameterisation and query plan reuse can be your friend but also your enemy due to things like parameter sniffing. Finally we will cover the different join strategies that can greatly impact the performance of your reporting queries. After this session understand how parallelism affects your queries. When and where you want query plan reuse and how to deal with very large tables. |
Simon |
Sabin |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Optimize Dimension Design for Usability, Performance and Maintenance |
A dimension in Analysis Services has to be designed carefully. Design decisions have consequences in usability, performance and maintenance and it is important to take the right decision upfront. Once a dimension is in production and reports are created, many possible changes would break existing reports and this is the main reason to keep an suboptimal design in production. In this session you will discover how to model attributes, attribute relationships and user hierarchies to create a state-of-the-art dimension that will offer the best performance and usability experience. |
Marco |
Russo |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Optimize your reporting abilities with SSRS and Data Access Layers |
With increasing data retention periods and volumes of data, (especially in these troubled financial times), producing efficient queries and reports has gone from a nice to have, to a necessity. This hands-on presentation will show the user how we have managed to improve our reporting efficiencies by creating ‘data access layers’ (which are actively used with SQL Server Reporting Services). This has empowered our business community with the ability to extract their data from our warehouses in a fraction of the times known in past. This is achieved via a series of “well thought out” T-SQL functions which have been created and tuned to ensure optimal efficiency and effectiveness. The attendee with be shown (through a series of examples a few examples of poorly performing queries and reports), how we have managed to rework the underlying infrastructure via our data access layers to improve report response times. |
Steve |
Simon |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Optimizing High Volume ETL |
In situations where high volume ETL presents performance challenges, most common response is custom development, as RDBMS and ETL tools are considered as bottlenecks. This is akin to re-inventing the wheel. ETL tools have been evolving over the years, but still not trusted in such situations to deliver the goods. This is often a very costly solution (time, resources, complexity, maintenance etc.). Are there better ways to architect the whole ETL process to extract optimum performance? How can the existing SSIS / SQL Server stack be leveraged to deliver the goods? |
AJAY |
KUMAR |
Professional Development |
| Optimizing tempdb and temporary object use |
This session will cover how and why you should configure tempdb, how to troubleshoot tempdb issues, and how to detect, resolve, and mitigate allocation contention issues by creating multiple data files, optimizing temporary object reuse, and using trace flag 1118. |
Christian |
Bolton |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Panel Discussion: SQL vs. NoSQL: Where's the Beef? |
Much has been written recently about the simple structured data storage concept referred to as 'NoSQL' as a solution for high-performance very large data (VLDB) environments. While NoSQL is often considered not 'relational', weak in consistency, and typically doesn't engage in the common concept of 'transactions', its usage has exploded in environments handling extreme amounts of data. Digg uses NoSQL to handle ~3 terabytes of data, Facebook handles ~50 terabytes, eBay handles ~2 petabytes. So what is the draw? Why do adherents tout NoSQL as their best alternatives. What problems are solved best with NoSQL, and what problems are best solved with a typical RDBMS. Come and hear the panelists discuss the pros and cons of NoSQL solutions, and be prepared to discuss your experiences with VLDB high performance data environments. How does a typical RDBMS serve you that simple structured storage cannot? How has NoSQL saved your bacon? What are your opinions for or against RDBMS or NoSQL? |
Arnie |
Rowland |
Application and Database Development |
| Partitioning Tables Views and Indexed Views |
Partitioning techniques in SQL Server help the developer and DBA manage large quantities of data and improve query performance in a variety of situations. This presentation demonstrates the techniques used for - Partitioned Tables - Partitioned Views - Partition aligned Indexed Views Reasons for partitioning in both OLTP and data warehouse applications will be disused along with these topics: - Partitioning Basics - Hash Partitioning - Partition Elimination in the Query Engine - Aligned vs. unaligned indexes - Index Views Basic - Index placement in Aligned and unaligned partitioning The topics include features from SQL Server 2000, 2005 and new features from 2008. Come learn about these powerful schema design techniques. |
Andrew |
Novick |
Application and Database Development |
| Performance Assessment - a Methodology |
Most of us know about the key items to measure when facing a performance issue, the Permon counters, the DM views, etc. What I've routinely found is that many in the position to resolve a performance issue either aren't clear on how to put it all together, how they interact or how to get all players on board (it could always be an application issue, an issue with SQL Server itself, or a hardware issue). The key is to thinking about performance in terms of triangles? What exactly does that mean - you'll have to attend to find out. While this session will cover technical items involved in performance monitoring/troubleshooting, the focus will be on how to put it all together, and how to avoid the most common mistakes when identifying an issue. |
James |
Luetkehoelter |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Performance Tuning 202: Symptoms vs Root Cause |
Taken performance tuning 101? Know the common stuff like Perfmon, SQL Trace and getting used to DMVs? Even impressed friends and family with (mostly correct) explanations of a few of the several hundred waitstats but still feel something is missing? Feel like groundhog day at work, solving the same performance problems day after day? Performance tuning is a tough subject. Many experts charge lots of money to perform tasks that either make no sense or look so easy you think your pet Capuchin monkey can do it. The results are almost as varied as the methods. A few work great, others leave the system with more problems than before they started. What next? This session will dissect some real life performance tuning cases by and identify common mistakes, why some remedies actually work while others fizzle after a while and why some solutions end up creating more problems. Most of all, we will learn to identify and fix root causes and instead of chasing symptoms endlessly. |
Joe |
Yong |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Performance Tuning for Race Car Drivers |
Times are tough even for the best drivers: Helio Castroneves is dancing for money and Danica Patrick is doing ads for what appears to be an adult services company. Maybe it’s time to switch careers, and Brent has just the thing. Use your hard-earned knowledge of high speeds, million-dollar hardware and surviving disastrous crashes to become a SQL Server performance tuner! In this session, Brent will show you why Colin Chapman and Enzo Ferrari would have used index tuning, database mirroring, and other tools that can give you an edge. |
Brent |
Ozar |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Performance Tuning Reporting Services reports that use Analysis Services datasource |
It's very easy to build Reporting Services reports on top of your Analysis Services cube. Unfortunately, it's all too common that these reports perform badly and need tuning. In this session we'll look at how we can tune the MDX that is automatically generated, as well as the cube itself, to improve the performance of these reports. |
Chris |
Webb |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Performance Tuning SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) |
In this demo-rich presentation, Brian and Devin Knight show you some of the common and not so common ways to tune SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). Learn how to tune and implement parallelism the data flow using some of the advanced SSIS options and how to avoid common SSIS mistakes. See how to measure performance and how to keep SSIS from monopolizing your server's resourcing. Lastly, information about how to do ETL in a data warehousing fast track reference architecture to load terabytes of data in hours, not days. |
Brian |
Knight |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Performance Tuning with the Plan Cache |
The plan cache in SQL Server 2005 and 2008 has a wealth of information available to assist DBA's in performance tuning. This session will show how to query the plan cache to find plan information and then how to parse the XML plans contained in the cache to identify missing indexes by query, high cost parallel queries with high usage counts, implicit column conversions caused by data type mismatches, and other interesting information about how queries have executed in the system. |
Jonathan |
Kehayias |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| PHP and SQL Server - Open Source meets Enterprise Database |
PHP is one of the most popular web scripting languages today. Major sites such as DIGG, WordPress, and Facebook use PHP. Thanks to Microsoft's new PHP Driver for SQL Server, your organization can utilize the quick development time of PHP and still have the power and reliability of SQL Server for the backend database. In this session we'll look at how to leverage your PHP knowledge to use the PHP libraries to work with SQL Server to execute queries, stored procedures, and more. |
Robert |
Cain |
Application and Database Development |
| PHP and SQL Server - Open Source meets Enterprise Database |
PHP is one of the most popular web scripting languages today. Major sites such as DIGG, WordPress, and Facebook use PHP. Thanks to Microsoft's new PHP Driver for SQL Server, your organization can utilize the quick development time of PHP and still have the power and reliability of SQL Server for the backend database. In this session we'll look at how to leverage your PHP knowledge to use the PHP libraries to work with SQL Server to execute queries, stored procedures, and more. As if that weren't enough, we'll also touch on the open source project to call SQL Server Reporting Services reports from PHP. |
Robert |
Cain |
Application and Database Development |
| Physical Join Operators |
SQL Server implements three different physical operators to perform joins. In this session, we will examine how each of these operators works, including its advantages and challenges. Using real life examples, we will better understand the logic behind the optimizer’s decisions on which operator to use for various joins. Finally, we will learn how to avoid some common join related pitfalls and how to get better performance from our queries. |
Ami |
Levin |
Application and Database Development |
| Planning your ETL architecture with SSIS |
The complexity and importance of Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) projects are often underestimated, and the consequences of a poorly planned and executed ETL project will inevitably lead to maintenance nightmares, low reliability of the system, or worse yet, to the failure of the project. In this session, we will use ETL best practices to make a requirements checklist you can use in your next ETL implementation, and will demonstrate how you can use SSIS to implement and meet such requirements. If you already learned the basics about SSIS and now want to take your ETL solutions to the next level, or if you became an SSIS developer/architect by accident and wonder what do you need to succeed , then this is the right session for you. |
Rafael |
Salas |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Policy based management in SQL Server 2008 |
Microsft introduced an innovative feature on enforcing policies on the SQL Server instances. This enables us to maintain the stardards in an organised manner. SQL 2008 provides inbuilt policies and enable us to create our own customised policies. Creating/Using the facets and incorporating conditions form a policy object. Policies can be used on the multiple instances. It can be executed through on demand/schedule/change prevent and change log only. |
VENKATESAN |
JAYAKANTHAM |
Application and Database Development |
| PowerPivot for FDM’s |
PowerPivot is a new feature in SQL Server 2008 R2 that brings knowledge-sharing and management to the world of self-service Business Intelligence. Allowing the business to concentrate on the analysis and presentation of data, in order to meet their immediate needs. In this session which has been designed for Financial Decision Makers (FDM’s) you will find-out how easy it is to manipulate data to deliver business insight. Attendees will gain the ability to generate rich and interactive analysis tools in hours rather than weeks providing a way to achieve deeper business insight and shorter decision cycles. |
Peter |
Ward |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| PowerPivot for SharePoint Power Hour…so powerful its 75min |
This session provides digs deep into PowerPivot for SharePoint Best Practices that accumulated from customer deployments. Based on the original "A Preview to PowerPivot Best Practices", this session has been updated to also include end-to-end capacity planning, security, and more focus on the Claims Token/Topology issues surrounding PowerPivot for SharePoint deployments. |
Denny |
Lee |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| PowerPivot to SAP Connectivity |
Provide the different options on how to get PowerPivot to connect to a SAP system. The issues range from licensing issues to technical incompatibilities. We will discuss them within the context of how the MS SAP system is using PowerPivot to solve their problems. |
Denny |
Lee |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| PowerPivot, Lets Get Started with a Personal Learning Environment |
The speaker, a working consultant in Business Intelligence for the last 20 years, will share the past nine months of experience in using the newest release of SharePoint, SQL and Office to meet client BI needs. Specifically, this session is intended to assist attendees in planning and creating a PowerPivot for SharePoint personal development environment outside the Microsoft-provided Hyper-V images. |
Barry |
Ralston |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| PowerPivot: advanced data modeling |
During this session we are going to analyze common business problems that require and avanced usage of DAX functions and data modeling. Examples include banding of price in ranges, advanced simulation with the usage of many to many relationships, usage of dynamic sets in PowerPivot and many other examples, all taken from budgeting common problems. |
Alberto |
Ferrari |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| PowerPivot: Experience from the Field |
In this session Peter Myers will share with you his experience of how PowerPivot has been successfully implemented by several large organizations. The session will commence with discussion about common data-related challenges and will explain how they can be solved using PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint. The experience, theory and demonstrations will convey best practices and methodologies, together with tips and tricks to help you get the most out of this new SQL Server capability. This session is not an introduction to PowerPivot. It is targeted at a broad audience including business users, DBAs, developers, IT managers and solutions architects. |
Peter |
Myers |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| PowerShell 2.0 Beyond the Basics |
You’ve learned the basics of PowerShell now in this session we’ll dive a little deeper into PowerShell 2.0 so that you can customize it for your environment. We’ll take a look at advanced functions, event logging and error handling. We’ll then put everything together in a nice package by creating our own module and then deploy that module to profiles across our entire environment. |
Aaron |
Nelson |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Powershell for complete beginners: Part 2 |
You can’t learn something as complex as Powershell in a single hour so we’re going to have another one right away. This class picks up where Part 1 left off and continues with more SQL Server administration tasks. This session will delve more into the day-to-day tasks that will make your life as a DBA much easier and allow you to go to lunch on time. |
Sean |
McCown |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Powershell for complete beginners: Part 1 |
Have you been wanting to learn powershell but don’t know where to get started, or even why you should bother? This is where you start. Here I’ll show you what powershell is, what it’s all about, how the language is organized, and how to do some real work in SQL Server. Come see why the world is so excited about Powershell and join the club of the DBAs who work faster and smarter. After this session you won’t be a Powershell guru, but you will be able to understand blog examples and continue your learning from other resources. Don’t put off Powershell any longer. |
Sean |
McCown |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Practical Performance Monitoring & Troubleshooting |
This session focuses on the most practical aspects of troubleshooting performance problems related to SQL Server. This will start with an overview of the core aspects of SQL Server and its environment and how they all play together in terms of performance. We will then cover various techniques for narrowing down the bottlenecks affecting performance. From there we will drill down into each type of bottleneck and investigate ways to address the problems affecting performance. Area’s to be covered include but are not limited to: Storage & I/O, Memory, CPU, Tempdb, Plan Reuse, Query optimization, Indexes, file & wait stats and more. The session will include lots of demos with code that can be easily utilized in your own SQL Server environment. |
Andrew |
Kelly |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Practical performance tuning in 75 minutes |
Will be presenting practicle methods to validate performance of any SQL server(2005/2008) by using combination of DMV's, system objects. Will show hands-on quick and practical troubleshooting without using profiler to quickly identify and eliminate performance issues on production servers and allows to have high uptime |
Prakash |
Heda |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Practical Performance Tuning Mini-marathon. |
This session will consist of a series of progressively increasing difficulty T-SQL real-life coding challenges. We will investigate potential solutions to each challenge and explore the pros and cons of each one. This session is a high-speed, in-depth race of extreme optimization techniques - not for the faint of heart... |
Ami |
Levin |
Application and Database Development |
| Preparing for Your Next Job |
Most database professionals don’t look for a new job until they are either not happy with their current employment, or they have recently become unemployed. That however is the worst time to start getting your information in order. During this session we will discuss what you should be doing on a regular basis, rather than waiting for a job changing event to dust off you resume. Understanding that the competition is growing for each database role out is the first step in ensuring that you remain marketable. |
Chris |
Shaw |
Professional Development |
| Presentation Best Practices: How to Rock Non-Technical Presentations |
You may own the room for technical presentations while falling short every time you have to… present a budget request to the head of finance, or petition for headcount to your division VP, or win the confidence of a new client. Persuasive public speaking skills are critical for survival and success in the workplace. Attend this session to understand how deliver gripping presentations that create urgency for a focused message that your entire audience understands, relates to and remembers. Consideration will be given for general public speaking best practices as well as effective use of PowerPoint and other aids for non-technical presentations. |
Douglas |
McDowell |
Professional Development |
| Presentation Best Practices: How to Rock Technical Presentations |
Just because you’re a technical rock star doesn’t mean your technical presentation is going to rock. This session is for veteran presenters as well as first-timers, offering prescriptive guidance and best practices for structuring, building and delivering a compelling technical session every time. Consideration will be given for effective use of PowerPoint, presentation differences for audience/venue (small, large, virtual, non-native language) and preparing/executing great demonstrations. |
Douglas |
McDowell |
Professional Development |
| Processing Flat Files with SSIS |
When doing data integration, a common requirement is to work with flat files, whether for importing data into a system from an external source, or to export it to provide to other systems. SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) supports flat files, but there can be a number of challenges when working with them. This is particularly true if your flat files have multiple data formats contained in a single file, the data has complex formatting, or the files have inconsistent formatting. This session will help you to be more efficient when working with these types of files. You’ll learn to handle missing delimiters in the files, and parsing files that have multiple data formats. You’ll also see how to produce complex output formats, like headers and footers that contain summary information. It will also include a number of tips to make working with flat files easier. |
John |
Welch |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Programmatically administering/executing SSRS using the Reporting Services APIs |
An often overlooked feature of SSRS is the ability to use the Reporting Services APIs for both SSRS administration and executing reports. In this demo filled session, we will explore the two main Reporting Services APIs the tasks that can be accomplished using them. First we will take a look at the Administration API by deploying reports, creating subscriptions, and snapshots. Once we have done all of our administrative work we will explore the Report Execution API and see how we can execute reports, provide parameters, and export the report results to all the report output formats. We will use a problem/resolution approach to this session that will allow us to see all these features in the demos. |
Andrew |
Karcher |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Programming SQL Server Reporting Services |
In this session, you’ll learn how to programmatically manipulate SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (SSRS) (and SSRS 2008 R2) and integrate SSRS into your ASP.NET applications by employing URL Access, Report Viewer controls, and the Reporting Services Web Services. Finally, you’ll learn how to extend reporting services by calling custom .NET assemblies from your SSRS reports. |
Paul |
Litwin |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Protect Your Sensitive Data Through Data De-Identification |
The purpose of this session is to share with you about my company’s success in de-identifying sensitive personal information (SPI) data in all pre-production environments. Having the databases in pre-production environments refreshed from production offers many advantages. Among them are the complexity of production systems is readily available for development efforts and quicker response to solve production problems. However, the big downside is the exposure of production data. This session is to show how we use a third-party software product to develop a large-scale Data De-identification system, which consistently masks the SPI data (social security number, name, bank account number, routing number, etc.) with the same de-identified values on the tables across multiple database platforms such as SQL Server, DB2, Oracle and Informix. This session, with live demo, will be valuable to you if your company or clients wants to protect sensitive data on the tables across multiple DBMS. |
Alex |
Cheng |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Putting the Business in Business Intelligence – Using Business Requirements to Drive DW/BI System Development |
It doesn't matter how good your tools are if you are working on the wrong problems. Defining business requirements helps you identify the right problems. Business requirements drive all major design and development tasks in a DW/BI system, including the data model, the ETL system, and the BI applications. The more you understand the business needs for information, the better you can apply your technical skills and the more likely you will be to succeed. We'll start by defining business requirements and the role they play in the overall DW/BI Lifecycle context. We next cover a powerful technique for working with senior management to prioritize the business requirements so you know where to start. We'll also cover some of the pitfalls to avoid along the way. The session is designed for everyone on the DW/BI project team, and concentrates on the practical steps and techniques required to capture business requirements, build strong business partnerships, and deliver real business value. |
Warren |
Thornthwaite |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Quantitative Analysis of SQL Server Error Logs |
The SQL Server error log is essential for administering SQL Server, especially when troubleshooting. Unfortunately the error log has existed in its current form, a flat text file, for at least seventeen years. Parameters are combined with message templates and the resulting strings are written to the log file. These entries are useful for review by administrators, but are not suitable for automatic processing (categorization, summarization, or trending). Regular expressions enable extraction of data from the logs; however most administrators do not think the benefit is worth the effort. A newly developed, open-source tool (a PowerShell snap-in), lets you decompose error log contents into each entry's message ID and a delimited list of message parameters. In this atomic state, you can perform quantitative analysis of the error log data. I will demonstrate the PowerShell Cmdlets, analyze data in the new format, and then discuss the algorithm for decomposing error log entries. |
Trevor |
Barkhouse |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Query Hints: The Jekyll and Hyde of T-SQL Development |
Dealing with the SQL Server optimizer can be maddening at times. One moment it will take a seemingly impossible query and make it run in no time flat. At other times, the optimizer will insist on a poor plan even though a much better alternative is available. What should you do when the optimizer won't behave? One option we have available is the use of query hints. While almost everyone agrees that query hints should be avoided whenever possible, there are some situations that make this difficult to achieve. Sometimes the judicious use of a query hint can save the day, but since hints are a taboo subject, we do not discuss them as much as we should. In this session, Chris Leonard will examine many commonly-used query hints in detail, and will also discuss alternatives that can help you avoid the unnecessary use of query hints. Along the way, he will touch on many aspects of performance tuning that affect the need for query hints and their effectiveness. |
Chris |
Leonard |
Application and Database Development |
| Query Tuning Tips |
Given a SQL Server querying problem there’s much that you can do to enable a good performing solution. Tuning involves arranging an optimal physical environment, e.g., by creating supporting indexes, as well as writing the query in a way that it would get an optimal execution plan. Many factors can affect the efficiency of the solution including the availability of indexes, data distribution and density, and others. In different scenarios, a different solution could be the most efficient for the same querying problem. Query tuning could be considered an art. This session will provide various tips to do efficient query tuning and demonstrate those through specific tuning examples. |
Itzik |
Ben-Gan |
Application and Database Development |
| Ramp-Up Your Presentations! |
Whether you are presenting a project status report to a small group of co-workers, a technical presentation to a user group, or even your debut presentation to the PASS Community Summit or other large conference, you feel your voice cracking or your knees shaking -because your confidence is just not quite supporting you. Learn how to get and keep the audience's attention. Hear proven methods for keeping the presentation, and the audience, on topic, and engaged. Arnie will discuss how to get and stay organized, how to understand and engage the audience, how to present yourself naturally, how to communicate your passion about the topic, and how to succeed as an outstanding presenter. Come prepared to be invigorated, ready to take on new insights, and leave enthused and ready to present! |
Arnie |
Rowland |
Professional Development |
| Real Time Data Distribution approaches to solve your company's thirst |
Show how to decided what Microsoft SQL Server 2008 data distribution technique to use for different company needs. This will include a formal 5-step process for determining "what" data you need to distribute, "where" that data needs to go, and "how" that data is best distributed. This will include data replication, database mirroring, database snapshots, integration services, and other data delivery methods. Also will feature several popular strategic data architectures that are driving many fortune 500 company's major thirst for information to their users (the masses) such as real time ODS (operational data stores), Web Services (data services), and others. |
Paul |
Bertucci |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Real World Analysis Services Stored Procedures |
Analysis Services stored procedures (ASSP) are nothing like the stored procedures you create for your SQL Server databases. Not much is written about this feature, so you might wonder whether you need to bother with them at all. Put simply, you can simplify your MDX queries, combine cube data with relational data, or personalize calculations for specific users–just to name a few possibilities with a little C# (or VB) code and MDX. Come to this session to learn some practical ways you can take advantage of Analysis Services stored procedures. |
Stacia |
Misner |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Realizing ROI for Business Intelligence Projects |
Business Intelligence (BI) is IT that IT should never pay for; it should always be aligned and driven by the business. Statistics for failed data warehousing and BI projects are discouraging, but you can prevent this in your organization. In this session we cover how to assess and agree on realistic return on investment (ROI) calculations before, during and after a BI project in addition to other critical considerations that will assure your BI project remains focused on the needs for all stakeholders. |
Douglas |
McDowell |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Refactoring SQL for Performance |
Many people live by the motto "If it's not broken, don’t fix it". But if you believe that you are missing all enhancements introduced in newer versions of SQL Server (2005/2008). These new features can help you develop better solutions with improved performance, scalability, and maintainability. Learn how to craft a better query using the new MERGE statement, ranking functions, and more. See practical examples with tips and tricks. |
Plamen |
Ratchev |
Application and Database Development |
| Remote BLOB Storage: The Questions and the Answers |
Relational databases have always had issues with storing BLOBs. With SQL Server 2008 R2 BLOB data can be externalised to remote storage, such as to NASs, SANs or even the cloud. This ability is key in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and other document centric database solutions (such as Sharepoint). In this session Victor Isakov (MCT, MCM, MCA) will present the RBS architecture, performance and disaster recovery considerations, the questions you should be asking, and offer some answers. He will present some real-world metrics on the difference that externalising BLOBs can make. |
Victor |
Isakov |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Replicating Data Between Oracle and SQL Server 2008 |
Getting the data from one system to another can present challenges and time delays, especially in a multi-platform, multi-database environments. In this session, learn key considerations and setup examples for implementing an Oracle-to-SQL Server replication scenario and how you can perform point-in-time and continuous near-real time data replication between Oracle databases and SQL Server databases. |
Edwin |
Sarmiento |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Report Builder 3 What's in it for You |
With SQL Server 2008 R2, Reporting Services and the new Report Builder 3.0 will introduce many new capabilities. In this fast-paced, demo-intensive session you will see how the new visualization techniques, especially the new map control can be used for a completely new way of looking at data and make your creativity room, together with the news sparkline, data bar and indicator controls. A special highlight will be an implementation of dynamic zooming in & out on maps without losing focus. Other things to watch in action are the new Lookup-Functions, Aggregates of Aggregates, rendering-format dependent layout and valuable Report Server improvements such as report parts, shared datasets. If you want to find out what the new release of Reporting Services holds in store for you, you won't want to miss this session. |
Andreas |
Wolter |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Reporting Services 2008, Picking the Right Chart for the Job |
When you want a chart, are you unsure how to best display your data? 2008 offers some new chart features that make it easier and harder at the same time to pick. Learn what the most popular charts are and how they work in 2008. |
Andrea |
Allred |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Reporting Services Performance, Design and Integration Tips |
One of the first two Reporting Services MVPs, Bruce Loehle-Conger will draw upon the many years of newsgroup support and his own work in Reporting Services to cover performance, design and integration issues. Bruce has developed reports to run against SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008, In-SQL (real time control database) and Sybase data. This breadth of experience guarantees that you will learn something new. |
Bruce |
Loehle-Conger |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Reports for the Open Source World - SQL Server Reporting Services for PHP |
This year Microsoft is rolling out new libraries for using PHP with SQL Server. A new open source project allows developers to use the rich reporting environment of SQL Server Reporting Services with the quick development time of PHP. In this session we'll build on your PHP knowledge and look at how to launch an SSRS report from within a PHP web app, including passing parameters from the PHP environment into your SSRS report. |
Robert |
Cain |
Application and Database Development |
| RESTful Data |
REST is an architectural style that allows for a layered, scalable, and cacheable enterprise information system. With WCF Data Services, a database can be surfaced to a service as a REST-style resource collection that is addressable with natural URIs and can be interacted with using the usual HTTP verbs: GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. This session will describe OData (the Open Data Protocol), the benefits it conveys, and its uses. Then we will set up a data service using an existing database that developers would then access rather than accessing the database directly. |
Chris |
Eargle |
Application and Database Development |
| Right and wrong data types |
In this session the aspects of choosing the wrong/right data types will be covered. There will be a number of the concrete practical examples with analysis of the impact on the performance of the right/wrong data types. |
Niko |
Neugebauer |
Application and Database Development |
| RML Utilities: What's up with that Instance? |
While RML isn’t the Royal Marine Laboratory supplying James Bond with way cool gadgets to diagnose his SQL Server performance, it may as well be since so few DBAs know about RML and it does indeed supply some amazing info to diagnose your SQL Server performance. Microsoft Support (CSS, formerly PSS) has made available a utility to do an analysis of a trace file. This session will go through an explanation of how to use this utility and interpret the results. RML Utilities can answer questions about where the most resources are being consumed, queries that are responsible for heavy usage, changes in plans during trace and if queries are running slow in comparison to other traces. |
Thomas |
LeBlanc |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Rock Solid Leadership - A 5-Step Leadership Self Development Plan |
Leadership development is an on-going process and is critical to the short and long term success of the leader and their organization. However, with busy schedules, crucial deadlines and tight budgets, formal leadership development training is often minimized. A leadership self development plan is a viable solution and is essential for all leaders to grow and develop professionally. Additionally, stronger leadership results in an organization that will outperform their competition in the long term. This session will teach participants how to design a leadership self development plan which is practical and affordable to implement. We will identify relevant leadership competencies, different ways to measure performance, leverage technology and introduce new tools and techniques for optimal results. |
Randy |
Goruk |
Professional Development |
| Running SQL Server jobs using a proxy account |
In most companies, roles and responsibilities are clearly defined for the various teams, whether it is the database team, application team or the development team. In some cases, the application team might own a number of jobs but they may not have direct access or the high level privileges required to run it on the server. They would mostly depend on the database administrators to run the job and share with them the output file or error message in case the job fails. We could overcome these kinds of situations and help these teams to work independently without too much of hand holding from the system or database administrators by making use of the proxy account concept in SQL Server. |
Mohammed |
Moinudheen |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SA or Bust - a practical look into setting the rights just right. |
There are a lot of security settings in SQL Server. It’s gotten a lot better, no longer do you need sa rights to use perfmon for instance like it was the case in SQL Server 2000. But what rights do you give to developers ? And can they get some more on their own dev server ? What do you need to run/manage packages, jobs, cubes and reports. This is not a summary on what kind of rights are available, that's what books online is for. But I'll show you what I do on development, test and production systems and what works for me and what doesn't. (Not everything I as easy to set, I need a trick here and there.) |
André |
Kamman |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Scaleout scenarios with Service Broker |
SQL Server 2008 provides a lot of scaleout technologies. In combination with Service Broker you can build message-based applications that can be scaled out to any required workload and size. In this session you will learn the basics of scaleout technologies available in SQL Server 2008 and in Service Broker. We’ll cover in detail: *) Scaling out with Service Broker *) Load Balancing *) Routing *) Service Broker message forwarders *) Broker Configuration Notice Service |
Klaus |
Aschenbrenner |
Application and Database Development |
| Scaling Out SQL Azure |
In this presentation we will provide architecture solutions and samples about how to scale out databases in the cloud with SQL Azure. We will also cover how to implement hybrid cloud database arquitectures with on premises servers. |
Eduardo |
Castro |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Scripting in SSIS |
SQL Server Integration Services is a powerful tool, but there are times when its baked-in components don't provide the functionality or flexibility required for difficult or unusual ETL tasks. In this session, we'll look at the Script Task and the Script Component tools within SSIS and how they can be leveraged to overcome these ETL challenges. We’ll review the basics of introducing scripts into an SSIS package, and will demonstrate several practical examples of how the Script Task and Script Component can make difficult tasks easier. |
Tim |
Mitchell |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Searching Unstructured Text Data - SQL Server Full Text Searching for DBAs and Developers |
Users have become accustomed to the simple interfaces of search engines such as Microsoft BING and Google. They want to be able to enter key words and have their applications sift through vast quantities of text to get results quickly. Did you know that you can give your users that search ability? SQL Server Full Text Searching is the key. And it's as easy as 1-2-3! Come and learn the how to setup and use full text searching with SQL Server. Chock full of demonstrations this session will start with setting up full text searching on the database and end with issuing a full text query from within a WPF .Net application. |
Robert |
Cain |
Application and Database Development |
| Securing SQL Server from Inside-Attacks |
In this presentation Ralf Dietrich and Andreas Wolter will assume the role of the DBA/DBDev and an external consultant. Playing through different scenarios, the external consultant will resort to all kinds of tricks to access data in a supposedly properly arranged database environment, which was actually not intended by the DBA/DBDev. Of course, he will then have the chance to fix this gap. The match is repeated on different levels with different scenarios until a desirable condition is reached. This session holds in store surprising insights even for experienced administrators, covering topics from schema ownership implication to best practices for user-permissions, while administrators may still allow the external consultants to do all necessary work. |
Andreas |
Wolter |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Securing SQL Server from inside-attacks |
In this presentation Ralf Dietrich and Andreas Wolter will assume the role of the DBA/DBDev and an external consultant. Playing through different scenarios, the external consultant will resort to all kinds of tricks to access data in a supposedly properly arranged database environment, which was actually not intended by the DBA/DBDev. Of course, he will then have the chance to fix this gap. The match is repeated on different levels with different scenarios until a desirable condition is reached. This session holds in store surprising insights even for experienced administrators, covering topics from schema ownership implication to best practices for user-permissions, while administrators may still allow the external consultants to do all necessary work. |
Ralf |
Dietrich |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Seeking SQL Server Secrets |
Many experienced DBAs are aware that there are many undocumented commands and traceflags in SQL Server, and some DBAs may even keep track of all references to such options whenever they read about them in an article or blog posts, or hear about them at a conference. In this session, I’ll not only tell you about some of my favorite undocumented features, I’ll also tell you some of my tricks for discovering more undocumented secrets. |
Kalen |
Delaney |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Serious solutions to complex data challenges |
As any seasoned T-SQL developer can attest, there is no way of avoiding complex challenges when it comes to handling hierarchical data,especially with regards complex calculations, complex inheritance and scenarios where recursion techniques are the only viable solution. This intermediate level hands-on presentations will show the attendee how to handle such scenarios, utilizing several techniques including : -recursion via stored procedures and memory tables - recursive T-SQL code using memory TABLEs as custom stacks, - recursive techniques utilizing Common Table Expressions (CTE’s) The discussion will include numerous practical examples and will compare and contrast each methodology, showing the benefits and drawbacks, in addition to showing the challenges that we encountered along the way. As with most challenges, it’s a matter of being innovative and providing end users with ‘smart’ and dynamic solutions that ensure that we are all able to achieve our respective corporate goals. |
Steve |
Simon |
Application and Database Development |
| Service Broker in the Real World |
Service Broker is a largely unknown, and sometimes misunderstood, capability within the SQL Server product. This session will discuss some of the techniques used to successfully implement two very different Service Broker projects. How Service Broker’s strengths (and weaknesses) impacted those projects. Advanced troubleshooting, and design considerations when using Service Broker will also be discussed. |
Matt |
Eddinger |
Application and Database Development |
| Service Broker: Message in a bottle |
Service Broker provides several new key features for building SOA applications directly with SQL Server 2008. This "No slides – just code" session shows you, in just 75 minutes, how to build an SOA-based, secure, reliable, and distributed messaging application with SQL Server 2008 Service Broker from scratch. In this session you will see: *) The core architectural concepts behind Service Broker *) How you can do SOA with Service Broker – a practical approach *) Routing between several SQL Server instances *) Implementing reliable messaging *) Securing a Service Broker conversation between you and your trading partners *) Using managed code in Service Broker applications |
Klaus |
Aschenbrenner |
Application and Database Development |
| Session Title (test) |
abstract |
Andy |
Toth |
Application and Database Development |
| Sharding Strategies for SQL Azure |
SQL Azure databases are limited in size. Microsoft is increasing the maximum size from 10GB to 50 GB, but that is still inadequate for some applications. If your data is larger than 50 GB, one possible approach is to break your data into smaller working databases called shards. In this session, we'll consider strategies for scaling out SQL Azure by sharding, and describe options for locally caching the shard table in a web role instance. A sample application that uses a sharded database will be demonstrated, and we'll take a look at some sample code for managing database instances and selecting the correct shard for CRUD operations. Alternative strategies, such as storing data in Azure Storage tables and storing metadata in SQL Azure, will also be discussed. |
Geoff |
Snowman |
Application and Database Development |
| Should you build your database for now or the future |
Are you looking to develop a database system or you want to review and redesign your existing one then this session is for you. The panel of industry experts including MVPs and hopefull SQLCAT team members will discuss the different options for developing a database system, and importantly its future. Do you build the system for 1 years growth, 5 years or 10 years. This question is one that most people find difficult to answer and often there is more than one. Building for performance, and scalability requires a crystal ball this discussion will talk about the architectures, development practices and administration practices to help you answer this question. Often it’s a question of cost and time, in the discussion we will cover these areas. With database systems there is no one answer this session should give you many answers and hopefully the one that fits your system and your business. |
Simon |
Sabin |
Application and Database Development |
| Slay the Development Dragon: Source Control for the Out-of-Control Shop |
Do your coworkers test code against the production server? Do you have 300 files on your hard drive labeled "USP_insertData 1.0.sql" and "USP_insertData 1.2.sql"? You're not alone. This session is a workshop on how to lead an unstructured IT shop into the happy lands of solid development processes and source control. Attendees will learn why process and source control are important, and walk through a case study of setting up a repository, scripting database objects with Powershell, and orchestrating the migration to a better way to code. |
Jennifer |
McCown |
Application and Database Development |
| Slowly-evolving facts: enhancing BI performance with compact storage |
With the familiar task of loading a fact table day after day sometimes comes the burden of storing identical or nearly identical facts - facts that slowly evolve (e.g., snapshots of measure-based data such as inventory or accounts receivable). While disk space is relatively cheap, rapidly growing data can hurt data retrieval speed. Storing this data redundantly each day isn't the only way: we will examine strategies to improve data warehouse performance with compact storage while handling challenges such as out of order data, ETL performance, and indexing strategies. |
Paul |
Atkinson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| So Happy Together - Tips for Getting the Most from SSRS in SP Integrated Mode |
Operating Reporting Services in SharePoint integrated mode adds a number of features to the SSRS environment. Learn why your organization should consider running in SP integrated mode or if your organization is already using SP integrated mode, make sure you are getting the most out of this environment. |
Brian |
Larson |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| So You Inherited The DBA Position; Now What? |
The veteran DBA left and your boss decided you should become the new DBA. And now you've come to the Summit to learn everything you can about SQL Server so you can be a great DBA. But where do you start? Which questions should you ask? You don't even know what it is you don't know. This is the session for you! Of course one session can't cover everything, but we'll hit the major areas of SQL Server so you'll at least have a basic understanding of the breadth of SQL Server. We'll discuss correctness, concurrency, maintenance, replication, high availability and disaster recovery, storage, performance, and monitoring. We'll touch on many other areas so you'll at least have heard a bit about them and you'll know to learn more and ask questions on them. It'll take more than just this session to be able to answer your customer's questions, but at least you'll have a chance at understanding the questions, and you'll be able to follow along in some of the other in-depth sessions at the Summit. |
Don |
Vilen |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| So You're Moving to SQL Server - Tips and Tricks for the New SQL Server DBA |
As more and more enterprises adopt SQL Server, many DBAs are either moving from a different database platform to SQL Server or are managing both SQL Server and other databases. Having been a DBA already, you don’t need to know what your duties and responsibilities are – but you do need to know how to carry out those duties and responsibilities in SQL Server. Come learn – among other things – how to back up databases, reorganize indexes and monitor performance within SQL Server. |
Chuck |
Heinzelman |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Social and Not so Social Networking for the DBA |
Should you be networking? In this session we'll talk about why you should be building a network now, how to build it, and how to keep track of and quantify your network. Along the way we'll talk about the most common social networks, why you should consider blogging, and some exercises you can do to strengthen your networking skills. |
Andy |
Warren |
Professional Development |
| Source Control for DBA's |
Source control systems have been successfully used for years by developers for collaborating without colliding. Todays DBA's must work closely with development teams to ensure that the solutions created are optimal. We will review the outlines of various source control platforms including Microsoft Team Foundation Server, Subversion and Mercurial and how to interact with them. The second half of the session will be an overview and discussion of techniques and practices to provide database versioning and how to ensure that every build of the application is able to have a matching version of the database. |
Joe |
Kuemerle |
Application and Database Development |
| Spatial Data |
A 1 hour overview of spatial data and methods using real world examples. This will be tied to new reporting services enhancements in R2 |
michael |
moen |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Spatial data in SQL Server 2008 and SQL 2008 R2: A real world application |
In this session we will review how the new spatial data types, allowed a financial organization improve geo-marketing decisions. Attendees will learn how to create, manipulate and query geographic and geometric data stored in the database using the appropriate data types and their associated functions, We will show how to build spatial business logic that effectively uses the new abilities of the database and we will generate appealing reports and applications. |
Javier |
Loria |
Application and Database Development |
| Spatial Data: The Business Case |
We've all seen the cool presentations showing all the pizza joints near the conference center or all the bicycle shops on a biking route, but what's the case for spatial data and business? This session sets out to show how spatial data can be of interest to almost any business that has more than one location to worry about. Are weather events or natural disasters affecting your locations? Without the ability to precisely map them, how can you know? Is your new building on a flood plain? If you're planning a visit to a customer, are there other customers near by that you could also visit? The session focuses on a business case for using spatial data, but it also shows some of the technical means that spatial data can use to solve those cases using the spatial data type, Microsoft Bing Maps and Reporting Services. |
Grant |
Fritchey |
Professional Development |
| Speed Phreakery Demystified |
The Speed Phreak T-SQL competition from Simple-Talk pits world class gurus in a crazy race to the finish. But what about the rest of us with less than world class skills? Simple-Talk has asked Kathi Kellenberger to explain the winning solutions to their challenges to the rest of the world. One interesting theme has emerged from the challenges: the winning solutions are set based and not cursor based. Learn how to start with a cursor based solution and end up with lean, mean set based code. |
Kathi |
Kellenberger |
Application and Database Development |
| Spiffy New Features in SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services |
SQL Server 2008 R2 brought with it many improvements in Reporting Services. In this session we'll highlight some of the most useful, including combining data from multiple datasets, data synchronization, and report parts. We'll also look at new data visualizations such as Data Bars, Spark Lines, and Indicators. |
Robert |
Cain |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Spread the good word!!.. Get your Mining Model Predictions out to those that really count!! |
Over the past 18 months, financial and portfolio management firms have been badly hit by depressed markets and poor economic conditions. Portfolio values have dropped which lead to severe losses, risk exposure and considerable client liability. We like many firms have gone through the ’teething process’ with regards to data mining model predictions and have now taken our systems from the prototype stage to our “shop floor”. Obtaining our Mining Model Predictions is only a part of the story; our main challenge has been to get the “good word” out to senior management so that THEY can take the necessary steps required for us to meet our mission statement. This beginners to intermediate level presentation will show the attendee how we utilize SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 to generate “jaw dropping “ reports, which assist our Risk Management decision makers in implementing the decisions critical to our industry, as a part of our ongoing efforts to manage our own risk exposure. |
Steve |
Simon |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| SQL 2008 R2 how to manage CPU’s, Cores and CPU Groups |
See how to combine several SQL Server features like backup, log shipping, database mirroring, Replication and more to build an zero data loss, high available infrastructure that scales up from normal every day workloads to 450.000+ TSQL statements per second. You will learn (step by step) how to archive zero data loss, high availability and performance. The session will show you also with code samples and a demo how to overcome some limitations of database mirroring to make 99,99% availability happen in a 24x7 environment and fulfill the SLA. |
Thomas |
Grohser |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL 201: Stored Procedures, Functions, and Triggers |
Arnie will demonstrate how to create rock solid and efficient T-SQL stored procedures, functions, and triggers. He will demonstrate the ‘best’ way to handle input and output parameters, how to deal with return parameters, how to make sure that errors are properly handled. Sometimes overlooked, yet simple coding can make the difference between ‘mostly OK’ and ‘without a doubt’ confidence levels in your SQL code objects. Just one tip from this packed session will make your PASS Community Summit experience worthwhile. Don’t miss it! |
Arnie |
Rowland |
Application and Database Development |
| SQL Azure – How and When? |
If your company is not ready to make the move to SQL Azure then how can you prepare your environment for an easier transition? What questions need to be answered before you make the move to SQL Azure? What needs to change in your environment before SQL Azure can become a reality? This session provides you with the blueprints on how you can prepare your environment for a smooth transition to SQL Azure and answers many of the fundamental questions about SQL Azure. |
ben |
debow |
Application and Database Development |
| SQL Azure Basics |
SQL Azure is Microsoft's relational database offering in the cloud. While it's similar to SQL Server 2008 there are enough differences that it's important to understand what you can and cannot do with SQL Azure. This presentation gets you comfortable with SQL Azure and understand how it can best be used. Topics: - Signing up for SQL Azure - Managing the SQL Azure Firewall - Creating a database, users and tables - Differences from other SQL Server 2008 editions - Moving schema and data up and down from the cloud - Getting the right connection string from the Azure UI - Checking Usage and Billing information - Connecting to SQL Azure - Data Access with OData |
Andrew |
Novick |
Application and Database Development |
| SQL Certifications: How to Earn your MCITP and Build an Online Presence |
The MCTS and MCITP certifications for database administration, development, and business intelligence can demonstrate your knowledge and investment in your profession to your current and prospective employers. Working towards earning certifications is also a great opportunity to build your online presence. In this session you will learn what certifications are available and how to prepare for the exams. We will discuss how to use the learning process to establish an online presence. By including online blogs in your study guide and creating your own blog, you will establish valuable connections. As you integrate short writing assignments into your study plan, you will also create a library which demonstrates your skills and knoweldge to employers and fully complements your certification. Together these will move your career forward. Take home all the material you need to get started! |
Kendra |
Little |
Professional Development |
| SQL Server 2008 Database Internals |
Do you already wanted to know how SQL Server 2008 stores a database file physically on the hard drive? In this session you will learn the internal structure of a SQL Server 2008 database file, and how SQL Server stores tables and indices internally in the file system. Furthermore you will see the DBCC T-SQL command in action, with which you can analyze the internal storage format of your database files. All these information from this session helps you in your next database design to get out the last percent of performance from your new database solution. |
Klaus |
Aschenbrenner |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL Server 2008 R2 Hotlap |
The SQL Server 2008 R2 Hot Lap is a quick and concise way of finding out what is new in SQL Server 2008 R2 and how these changes will improve database operations, developer efficiency and enable self-service Business Intelligence solutions. The Hot Lap workshop focuses on the most important new features of SQL Server 2008 R2. |
Peter |
Ward |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| SQL Server 2008 R2 scalability and performance enhancements, notes from field |
SQL Server 2008 R2 elevates the scalability and performance enhancements in the SQL Server Database Engine that include filtered indexes and statistics, new table and query hints, and new query performance and processing features, a minor version upgrade. In this session we will go through the detailed feature enhancement and notes from field to apply the features effectively. |
Satya |
Jayanty |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight |
Microsoft StreamInsight is a new platform inside SQL Server 2008 R2, with which you can analyze data streams from external sources in real-time. This concept is referred to as CEP - Complex Event Processing. Typical data streams are available in finance applications, web analytic tools, or also in industrial environments where events are produced for the monitoring of big hardware-devices. In this session you will learn how you can use StreamInsight in your own applications, how you develop with StreamInsight und how you can extend StreamInsight based applications with your own adapters. |
Klaus |
Aschenbrenner |
Application and Database Development |
| SQL Server 2008 R2 Utility Control Point vs. Management Data warehouse - Technical Shootout |
This session will kick off with an overview of the two core SQL Server 2008 R2 manageability features 'Utility Control Point and Management Data warehouse'. The session then turns its attention by conducting a deep dive comparison between the two management capabilities helping you understand the key differences and how to leverage them within your SQL Server infrastructure. The session will conclude with live demonstrations and best practices learned from customer deployments. |
Farzan |
Ratistari |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL Server 2008 Spatial Data and Location-Aware Applications |
Support for spatial data is one of the most exciting new features in SQL Server 2008 and R2 with more enhancements planned. Spatial data support is an enabling technology for an expanding type of application, the location-aware application. Specialists have been using spatial data for a long time, but the spatial data types in SQL Server make this functionality available to every application and every database programmer. In this seminar, I'll cover implementing and using SQL Server 2008 spatial data, indexes, and programming location-aware applications. Topics include: -Using spatial data in line-of-business applications -Why are there two spatial data types? -The SQL Server spatial data library - static methods, instance methods and properties -Indexing spatial data -Spatial ETL - Acquiring and importing spatial data -Using SQL Server spatial libraries from client and middle-tier -Geocoding addresses -Using SQL Server spatial data with Reporting Services and the Bing map control |
Bob |
Beauchemin |
Application and Database Development |
| SQL Server Backup and Data Compression 101 |
In this session I will explain SQL Server Data compression (Page and Row), provide scripts and tips that will help you identity the compression state that should be configured in your Warehouse environment and also provide demo scripts showing you how to configure compression at the Table and Index level. In addition, I will also explain how you can use SQL Server to perform compressed backups. |
Patrick |
LeBlanc |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL Server Configuration Best Practices |
There is simply no substitute for proper planning when it comes to deploying and configuring a SQL Server instance. Do you know what options you should change or set when configuring a SQL Server instance? Do you also know why? If not you are certainly not alone. This session will cover the best practices for the key areas regarding the configuration of the SQL Server instance and the underlying server. The topics will include but are not limited to the OS, Hardware, SQL Server Instance and even the Database. Keeping these best practices in mind from the beginning will help to ensure your databases will be scalable and perform at their best. |
Andrew |
Kelly |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL Server Configuration Options |
When is the last time you looked at all the new SQL Server configuration options? Do you know what 'enable_force_flush' does? Or more importantly when to enable it? In this session Victor Isakov (MCT, MCM, MCA) will go through these more "exotic" configuration options, explain what they do and discuss where you might want to take advantage of them |
Victor |
Isakov |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL Server Consolidation and Virtualization |
With today's more powerful hardware and the heat/space issues each new machine creates in your machine room, there are many advantages to utilizing your hardware to its fullest ability (mainly, cost savings). Rather than having many of those machines spending most of their time converting electricity into fan noise, we'll look at two cost-saving approaches - consolidating databases together on instances/machines and virtualization with SQL Server. You need to look carefully before leaping to avoid performance pitfalls associated with blindly grouping different applications on the same hardware. We'll go through techniques that will help you find a balance of acceptable performance at the most effective cost. |
Ronald |
Yenko |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL Server Database Mirroring Deep Dive |
Database mirroring is a valuable HA technology that can be an important component in your overall HA/DR solution. This session will cover how to effectively integrate database mirroring, fail-over clustering, log shipping and database snapshots to build a robust HA/DR solution that can meet your recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) requirements. This session goes far beyond the basics, showing you how to programmatically set up, maintain and monitor database mirroring for maximum performance and reliability. Mirroring multiple databases on the same instance can be challenging from an administrative perspective, so this session has specific tips and techniques to automate this process, with practical techniques, scripts and tips to help you take advantage of database mirroring as part of an effective HA/DR strategy. |
Glenn |
Berry |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL Server Development Best Practices |
As a developer you’ll surely need to create a database table or write a SQL query for your application. Even if you’re using an ORM tool like the Entity Framework or NHibernate, knowing how to write good SQL code can help you to understand if queries generated by them will perform well, guarantying that you application will perform well in any situation. In this session I’ll show you the best practices that every developer should know, from creating tables to writing query that run faster. I’ve been a developer for many years and I still enjoy writing good .NET OO code, and I’ve learned that a good application needs a good database and good queries to be really successful. Come to this session to learn all the tricks that will help you to avoid performance problems right from the beginning, avoiding common mistakes and performance killer errors. |
David |
Mauri |
Application and Database Development |
| SQL Server Development Standards – Working Session |
Development standards can be good for a SQL Server shop. I've posted my personal development standards on CodePlex.com. In this session I'll ask you to participate in a critique of the standards and together we’ll create a better standards document. Whether you agree with every point of not, you can use this standard as a beginning for your shop’s SQL Server development standard document. |
Paul |
Nielsen |
Application and Database Development |
| SQL Server Disaster Recovery Within a Budget |
Many companies invest a significant amount of time and money in to their disaster recovery facilities and see very little return on that investment. With some careful planning and using Microsoft SQL Server and the Microsoft platforms, you may have the opportunity to offer sufficient Business Continuity coverage at a significant cost savings to your company. We'll look at how you can use technologies such as log shipping, database mirroring, and server virtualization to mitigate risk for your company and be your CFO's hero at the same time. |
Ronald |
Yenko |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL server Installation / Upgrades |
Installing SQL Server is simplified by Microsoft in SQL server 2008. This session deals with the installation options available in SQL Server2008, how to upgrade the existing version of SQL Server to higher version of SQL Server, What's the Prerequisites for the installation, Pre-Post checks after installation, Maintenance tools to resolve major issues with installation, How to install SQL Server failover cluster installation and Installation based on existing configuration file. |
VENKATESAN |
JAYAKANTHAM |
Application and Database Development |
| SQL Server Installation Best Practices |
Are you new to installing SQL Server or want to insure that you give the proper installation specifications to your system administrator? SQL Server is notoriously easy to install, but will it be as secure and easy to maintain by accepting the installation defaults as you desire? This session will focus on the decision points required before, during, and after an installation – from choosing an edition to setting security and adjusting configuration options post-install. Unattended installs for the enterprise environment will be advocated. The focus will be on installing SQL Server 2008 R2 Database Engine, but will also point out installation differences between SQL 2005, SQL 2008 and SQL 2008 R2. Cluster installations will NOT be discussed. Attendees will leave this session with a checklist of items to consider for their own installations. |
Nancy |
Wilson |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL Server Locking & Blocking Made Simple |
A good working knowledge of how SQL Server makes use of locking and transaction isolation levels can go a long way toward improving an application’s performance. In this session, we will explore SQL Server’s locking methodology and discover techniques for enhancing query response times. |
Joe |
Webb |
Application and Database Development |
| SQL Server Parallel Processing: Internals, Options, and Best Practices |
Over the past five years, multi-core processors have made the jump from obscure to commonplace. While servers with as many as 64 cores were once out-of-reach, today we expect such specifications in even lower-end models. Are you getting everything out of the wealth of power at your disposal? SQL Server automatically handles many of the parallel processing details, but DBAs need to consider a number of things to take full advantage. In this session, you will lern how and why SQL Server processes queries in parallel, with examples to help identify the parallel queries and see what they're doing. You will learn the various methods of controlling parallelism: configuration options, the Resource Governor, and query-level hints. The session will conclude with a study of real-world cases and a discussion of how the servers were configured to maximize CPU utilization. The information you take from this session will enable you to evaluate and improve the state of parallelism on your servers. |
Adam |
Machanic |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL Server Performance to the Max: The Art and Science of Manhandling Parallelism |
As a database developer, your job boils down to one word: performance. And in today's multi-core-driven world, query performance is very much determined by how well you're taking advantage of the processing power at your disposal. This means parallelism--and if your queries are already going parallel, can they be rewritten for even greater speed? In this session you will learn how to take full advantage of parallelism, from a developer's point of view. After a quick terminology review and technology refresher the session will go deep, covering T-SQL patterns that allow certain queries to scale almost linearly across your multi-core CPUs. Alas, not all T-SQL queries can go parallel, so you will also learn to watch for those things that can restrict the query optimizer's decisions. Finally, you will identify the answer for the most stubborn queries: A quick hit of .NET magic, delivered via a SQLCLR library, can save the day and deliver data on time and before your users revolt. |
Adam |
Machanic |
Application and Database Development |
| SQL Server Query Tuning |
If you have a database driven application which reacts very slowly when the data increases, then you are right in this session! In this session you will learn, how you can tune SQL Server Queries with the information available inside an execution plan. You will see how SQL Server retrieves data from the database file, how SQL Server can join resultsets, and how you can react with indices if you are in performance troubles. *) JOIN techniques used by SQL Server *) Table/Index scan vs. Index Seek *) Avoiding Bookmark-Lookups *) Index Usage |
Klaus |
Aschenbrenner |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL Server Replication Demystified |
Replication is often one of those black box features where if you are using the wizard in a standard implementation then you are fine. Yet, what do you do when you have to do something like transactional replication across non-trusted domains. In this session, we will discuss the internals of replication, how it works, and what you can do to manage your implementations more effectively by understanding what going on underneath the covers |
Arie |
Jones |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2 Unleashed! |
SQL Server Reporting Services has been around for a number of years now and the 2008 R2 release provides DBAs and Developers with a truly enterprise class reporting platform. If your company has not embraced Reporting Services fully yet then now is the time! Come and see how to install, configure, and administer the Reporting Services environment as well as how to develop and deploy your own reporting solutions. |
Arie |
Jones |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| SQL Server Upgrade: 2000 - 2005 - 2008: Notes & Best Practices from field |
In this session we will cover SQL Server Upgrade options, methodology, tools and planning, technical and non-technical considerations along with common issues, myths and mistakes. Also coverage towards the exhaustive list of all upgrade issues with an end-to-end coverage or in-depth drilldown of all SQL Server 2005 & 2008 features. A pre-requisite from the attendee is operational familiarity with SQL Server 2000/2005 along with basic knowledge of SQL Server 2008 |
Satya |
Jayanty |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL University 101: Intro to SQL Server |
In this session Jorge Segarra will start at ground-level tasks that all database professionals should know. This session is aimed at entry level folks but everyone is welcome to attend to sharpen up their basic skills and maybe even learn how to teach these basics to YOUR junior DBAs! We will cover topics such as History (of SQL Server), Anatomy (of a database), Engineering (tools of the trade), Social Studies (networking) and Athletics (practice makes perfect). Sharpen your pencils and enroll in SQLU today! |
Jorge |
Segarra |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL University 201: Managing SQL Server |
Continuing our education in SQL University, this session teaches the basics of managing a SQL Server environment. We’ll be covering topics such as backup and recovery, maintenance, troubleshooting, and virtualization. |
Jorge |
Segarra |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQL Workload Collection and Analysis – a Gateway to Performance Optimizations |
By characterizing and analyzing a production SQL workload, a DBA gains insight of transaction volumes, peak and seasonal patterns, I/O requirements, transaction arrival rate and response times, and other facts. With this information, you can define your specific tuning strategy for optimizing queries, indexes, table partitions, or upgrading system resources required. Joshua will explain the techniques of workload definitions, collections, and detailed workload analysis. He will show you an automate process that systematically pinpoints issues in the SQL objects and system resource imbalances. This process is a sure way to educate yourself and improve your system. |
Joshua |
Jin |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SQLaaS: Implementing SQL Server in a utility model |
A SQL Server as a Service(SQLaaS) in a utility computing model can be a robust platform providing self service provisioning, better utilization of hardware and power, lower administrative overhead and chargeback capabilities. It can allow your internal and external customers to forget about the database and focus on developing and deploying apps that add value to your core business. In this session, we will cover key benefits of offering the DB in a utility computing model which could be part of your larger SOA strategy. Next, we will look at some key considerations from the DBA and IT decision maker’s perspective that will drive the infrastructure design. Several different architectures will be discussed along with their business driven considerations. We will look at SQL Server 2008 r2 features that are well suited for a utility model as well as SQL Server vNext and 3rd party tools. Lastly, we will look at areas that may require custom development to meet your specific needs. |
Jason |
Massie |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| SSIS Components or Plain Old T-SQL: Which Is Better? |
SQL Server Integration Services includes many useful components for transforming and loading data, but some of these tools can be costly in terms of system resources. In this session, we will compare several SSIS components with similar T-SQL relational queries and discuss the merits of each method with regard to hardware resources, design and implementation effort, and administrative overhead. |
Tim |
Mitchell |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| SSIS Deployment - Secrets revealed... |
In this session, we will dive into the "nuts and bolts" of SSIS deployment best practices. As a development platform, SSIS has quickly become one of the gold standards in the ETL industry. However, when it comes to deployment and maintenance, many developers still struggle with the infrastructure aspect of this excellent platform. We will look into the variety of ways the SSIS platform enables BI administrators and developers to profile, maintain and monitor their SSIS deployments. Specifically, we will into the following topics: 1. Package templates and how best to utilize them. 2. SSIS Logging options. 3. Unlocking the power of configuration files. 4. Recoverability hidden gems in the SSIS product, such as restarting failed packages and recovery options. 5. SSIS installation and scalability best practices. This session is anything but an academic discussion. We will include many demos that will clearly link theory with practice. |
Yaniv |
Mor |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Standardize your SSRS Environment – Standards, Templates and Guidelines, Oh My! |
A common theme among many SSRS environments is that they have grown very organically and often have little standards for report development. In this session we will quickly cover the benefits that you can achieve by having standards in place. We will then delve into techniques that you can use such as Template Reports, Custom DLLs, and interfacing with reports programmatically, that you can use to standardize your reports. Lastly, we will talk about some strategies for migrating from a non-standard environment to a standard environment. |
Andrew |
Karcher |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Standardizing and Centralizing Report Design Techniques |
Due to their popularity, Reporting Services solutions are doomed to keep expanding. There are few ready-made possibilities for attaining a uniform appearance of reports. This presentation will identify various possibilities and their limitations in keeping the design consistent. A highlight will be the central implementation of design alterations and automatic adjustment of the appearance of the reports live in production. Learn how to save time when styling your report using BIDS so you can concentrate on the data and calculations. We will also take a look at some the new features of Reporting Services 2008 R2 that can be used for certain scenarions. |
Andreas |
Wolter |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Starting with More than a Blank Page: Using an Industry Standard Data Model |
Have you ever considered using pre-existing pattern models to jump start your database projects? Have you considered purchasing proprietary models? Did you know that there are hundreds of models available to you for free or for minimal cost? In this presentation, Karen discusses some of the benefits and gotchas of working with acquired models - industry standard models, patterns, and other universal model concepts. This session includes topics such as: * The costs, benefits, and risks of working with industry standard data models * The benefits of using industry standards in your package acquisition projects * Choosing the right process * Myths in working with pattern models * 10 Tips for successfully working with third party models * What you should know before committing to project plans and estimates * Lessons Learned * Resources |
Karen |
Lopez |
Application and Database Development |
| Storage and Virtualization for the DBA |
This session will be a two part session in which we will be focusing on two of the biggest topics in the DBA field, how to properly design your storage and virtualization solutions. Storage can be one of the biggest bottlenecks when it comes to database performance. It’s also one of the hardest places to troubleshoot performance issues because storage engineers and database administrators often do not get along. We’ll be digging into LUNs, HBAs, the fabric, as well as the storage itself. In the second half of the day we'll be looking into the pros and cons of moving SQL Servers into a virtual environment. Specifically we’ll be looking into when it’s a good idea and when it’s probably not a good idea. Like everything in the database world there are no hard set answers as to if virtualization is a good idea or not. We'll look into how tie the virtual platforms to the storage array so that you can maximize the storage performance for your SQL Servers and the virtual environment. |
Denny |
Cherry |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| StreamInsight - introduction and code walkthrough |
StreamInsight is one of the new features of SQL Server 2008 R2. It's a platform for Complex Event Processing (CEP) that enables processing of high speed event streams using familiar tools such as Visual Studio, C# and LINQ. CEP is a technology that is increasingly used for algorithmic trading, targeted ads at websites and real-time Business Intelligence. In this session, you will get a 60 minutes introduction to how StreamInsight works and a demo of how to build an application that handles data in near real-time from sources such as Twitter, Facebook and financial markets. |
Johan |
Åhlén |
Application and Database Development |
| Successful Agile BI/DW Development in a Waterfall World |
BI/Data Warehouse challenges you every step of the way: from technical skills and intimately understanding your organization’s heart, to building BI in ways that resonate with its culture. This case study shows how we combined Agile BI development with traditional Waterfall project management to deliver successful BI at Bridgepoint Education. We examine friction points where Agile and Waterfall rub uncomfortably against each other, and describe resolution of conflicts. You will learn how to socialize Agile techniques, package Agile sprint deliverables for enterprise release, and recognize when Agile is interfacing poorly with your organization. We also describe using Agile proof-of-concept sprints to establish the best practices ETL framework that every data warehouse needs. The Bridgepoint BI effort integrated the SQL Server BI stack with SharePoint, and exploited Team Foundation Server for database and ETL source management. |
John |
Baughn |
Professional Development |
| Successful Data Quality Automation by Integrating Microsoft BI Stack with SharePoint |
In today's BI-driven world, simply logging data quality errors to generic tables during ETL no longer qualifies as acceptable “Data Quality.” In this session you will learn how Bridgepoint Education has integrated SharePoint and SSIS into a sustainable, dynamic best in class solution, using ideas pioneered by Ralph Kimball and Jack Olson. This session explains automated warehouse methods for screening data values and controlling resulting actions (pass-through, edit, delete, or roll-back). Topics include our automated, non-disruptive technique for specifying new quality screens for data warehouse loading, and for populating a front-end quality metrics data mart for presentation to Business Quality Analysts. |
Ben |
Sullins |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Supercharging Performance Management: A Data Model Approach |
Creating Performance Management applications by layering a query or analysis tool with conditional formatting on top of a Data Warehouse is tempting, but limits scalability and flexibility. Driving the Performance Management logic into the data model supercharges your application. Performance Management requires the incorporation of targets such as budgets, plans, forecasts, or benchmarks. Targets bring new challenges to the data model. Targets can vary in granularity and targets expressed as percentages can’t be aggregated. Scoring KPIs also has challenges. What is the right scoring approach to use? How do you implement a scoring algorithm in the data layer so that scorecards can be easily produced in Excel, SSRS, or PerformancePoint? In this session we’ll examine each of these issues, along with techniques to architect and design a Performance Management application that is useful, stable, and scalable in both volume and complexity. |
Dan |
Bulos |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Support SQL Server in no time! |
Is your application optimized and written for a specific database product? Does your application need to support multiple database products? At eClinicalWorks, our application was originally written, optimized and deployed for another database product. We were later required to support SQL Server in addition to our existing database. This session will walk you through how we were able to leverage Java's JDBC in order to accomplish this in 4 months with minimal code rewrite. Attendees will also learn some tips and tricks on to handle ongoing development and deployment challenges such as the differences in SQL Syntax and data types. |
Bharat |
Satyanarayan |
Application and Database Development |
| Tackling Difficult Replication Problems |
Managing transactional replication, especially for high volume and large databases, presents many challenges: how to design it, how to keep it in sync, monitoring it for latency issues and how to troubleshoot error messages are a few of the challenges we have faced with the 100 databases we replicate to over 300 subscribers. An unexpected large transaction can mean hours of latency if not detected and managed in a timely manner. You will learn how to detect and resolve that latency, balance a large number of publishers on one distributor and troubleshoot replication errors. Using custom stored procedures, managing identity columns on subscribers and constraints on subscribers will also be covered. In addition, you will find out how and when to use a Publisher-Subscriber to move to a new environment, while maintaining your current transactional application, to upgrade from one version of SQL Server to another or to move from one location to another, with little or no downtime. |
Danette |
Riviello |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Take Control with Resource Governor and Policy Based Management |
A large majority of a modern DBA's workload consists of managing their policies and resources on their system in order to ensure that they are being followed and resources are accessible when needed. SQL Server 2008 provides both Policy Based Management(PBM) and Resource Governor, which allows the DBA to discretely manage system policies and resources in a very structured way. In this session, we will show you how to configure, monitor, and administer these features to help lower your anxiety levels while increasing your system’s availability. |
Arie |
Jones |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Take the Awesomeness Home: How You Can Use Data Collection to Capture the Information You Need |
Conferences provide unique insight into how to query and interpret your SQL Servers' performance, configuration, and needs. But there is a problem for the DBA: how do we quickly apply our new knowledge and scripts to every single production server? How do we collect the data we need regularly, so it's available when we need it, and we can query which instances need the most attention? How can we easily create reports proving the return on our investment in this knowledge? In this session, attendees will learn to set up performance data collection with the SQL 2008 Management Data Warehouse (MDW). We will demonstrate how fast it is to create and configure custom data collections, giving examples from simple to complex scripts. Attendees will also learn how data collection can collect application-specific metrics. This is the tool you need to automate collection for the awesome insights you've learned at the conference! |
Kendra |
Little |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Take Your Career to the Next Level |
You need a career plan. You're good at what you do, you like working with technology, but you're not sure you have the right tools and techniques to progress in your own organization, move to another one, or even start your own gig. Come hear Microsoft's "Real World DBA", Buck Woody, explain what you need to do to take your career to the next level. Buck has over 27 years in the tech industry, and has progressed from working with computer hardware and software to management and even at NASA and now for Microsoft. He'll explain what you need to do to evaluate where you are, what your final goals are and the free and not-so-free steps you need to do to get there. |
Buck |
Woody |
Professional Development |
| Taking Advantage of Linked Reports |
Linked Reports is an often-overlooked but powerful feature of Reporting Services. You will learn how to use this feature to attain row-level security with a single report. During this sesison, Paul will take it a step further and demonstrate an ASP.NET application that uses the SSRS web service to create dozens of linked reports with the click of a button. |
Paul |
Litwin |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Tales from the Trenches: GUIDs – Use, Abuse and How to Move Forward |
Since the addition of the GUID (Microsoft’s implementation of the UUID), my life as a consultant and "tuner" has been busy. I’ve seen databases designed with GUID keys run fairly well with small workloads but completely fall over and fail because they just cannot scale. And, I know why GUIDs are chosen – it simplifies the handling of parent/child rows in your batches so you can reduce round-trips or avoid dealing with identity values. And, yes, sometimes it's even for distributed databases and/or security that GUIDs are chosen. I'm not entirely against ever using a GUID but overusing and abusing GUIDs just has to be stopped! Please, please, please let me give you better solutions and explanations on how to deal with your parent/child rows, round-trips and clustering keys! Come to this session and you’ll really understand the *true* cost of GUIDs? We’ll look at programming, storage, maintenance, and above all – performance; I think you’ll be surprised at how much these really cost! |
Kimberly |
Tripp |
Application and Database Development |
| Taming an Out of Control Environment |
See what we have done at Rio Tinto. In this session we will cover building a catalog including servers, databases and encrypted SQL user passwords. We will clean up orphaned users and get grip on who has access and why. We will also set up alerts to notify us of system issues, backup failures and disk space needs. |
Andrea |
Allred |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Teach an Old Dog New Tricks: Hook Up Master/Target Servers with the CMS |
The Master/Target server feature for MultiServer Administration has been around the block a few times since SQL 7. In this session we bring it back into fashion by matching it up with its new partner in crime: the Central Management Server(CMS). In this session you will learn how to configure Master(MSX) and Target(TSX) servers, and how to make your MSX server also a CMS. Then we'll demo how the magic happens: design and deploy a comprehensive database maintenance solution using job subscriptions with your Master server, and query environment status and configuration using your CMS. You will learn how to uniformly implement your maintenance jobs, as well as tips and tricks for both features. This is the solution you need to configure checkdb, reindex, backup, and statistics maintenance jobs and certify they have succeeded! |
Kendra |
Little |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Technical Leadership for the Database Professional |
Most IT leaders earned their promotion on the basis of their technical competency, not their leadership skills. Technical leaders rarely step into leadership in possession of the complex mix of skills that engenders their success and the success of their teams. This one day seminar will not fully train technology professionals in every aspect of every leadership category. (The MBA degree, for example, typical takes three years to earn). However, it will equip attendees with the training and reference material to further develop their leadership potential and achieve excellent results, both for themselves and for their teams. |
Kevin |
Kline |
Professional Development |
| Temporal Data in SQL |
Most programmers do not know how to model temporal dat in SQL; this is a look at the basic ISO model and some coding tricks |
Joe |
Celko |
Application and Database Development |
| Temporal Database Design |
There are two kinds of temporal changes: Transaction Date and Valid Date. Let's say your maiden name was Jonson, but it was misspelled in the database as Johnson. Fixing the typo would be a Transaction Date change. On your wedding day, you change your last name to Kennedy - that's a Valid Date change, because the correct value was Jonson before the wedding date and the correct value is Kennedy after the wedding date. Designing a temporal database is a challenge – designing a database and abstraction layer that can be queried as of any prior date. In this session I’ll explore the problem space, share some practical design and T-SQL techniques to develop valid date temporal databases, and explain how to use AutoAudit (free utility on CodePlex.com) to solve the transaction date temporal problem – with normal, straight, out of the box, no tricks, T-SQL. |
Paul |
Nielsen |
Application and Database Development |
| test |
test |
Elena |
Sebastiano |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| test |
trest |
Allen |
Kinsel |
Application and Database Development |
| Test Driven Database Development with tSQLt |
Automated unit testing, especially in the form of test driven development (TDD), has demonstrated improvements in quality when used in traditional object-oriented programming environments. However, adoption of TDD in database programming has been low. This is in part because of the difficulty of isolating units to test due to database constraints and the level of familiarity of SQL programmers with TDD techniques. In this session we will discuss tSQLt, a unit testing framework for SQL Server. We will show how it helps to isolate the code under test and provide examples of how to test drive database design. |
Dennis |
Lloyd Jr |
Application and Database Development |
| Testing Database Projects with Visual Studio 2010 |
Visual Studio 2010 has advanced the possibilities for testing database code. Through the combination of data generation capabilities, unit tests and test management it is now possible to build regression testing into the database development process. This presentation starts with the traditional testing methods that are more casual and often repeatable only with manual action. We then move in to Visual Studio’s capabilities as part of the Database edition also known as the "Data Dude". In particular how tests and tests projects are created and organized and how the new test management tools can be used to run separate lists of tests. Also covered will be using the data generation capabilities to set up tests. |
Andrew |
Novick |
Application and Database Development |
| The "Numbers" or "Tally" Table: What it is and how it replaces a loop. |
There are dozens of things we do in T-SQL which require some type of iteration. "Iteration" means "counters", "loops" and recursion to most people. To those well versed in the “Black Arts” of high performance "Set-based" programming, it means a "Numbers" or "Tally" Table, instead. This “Developer-to-Developer” session starts with the basics of how SQL Server can be tricked into counting faster than you can imagine, how that simple act of counting replaces slothful loops and other forms of “RBAR”, and provides a substantial introduction to “set based thinking”. Code to generate a permanent Tally Table and a refined CTE version of the Tally Table will be demonstrated and compared to a While loop for performance and ease of coding. The session is filled with code demos of how the Tally Table can be used to replace certain While Loops and also includes tips on using CROSS APPLY and INLINE TABLE VALUED FUNCTIONS (iTVFs) to make application of the Tally Table run even faster. |
Jeff |
Moden |
Application and Database Development |
| The 5-minute SQL Server healthcheck |
Learn how to quickly evaluate the basic health of your SQL Server environment. |
Christian |
Bolton |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| The Art and Science of Making Great Technical Presentations |
Have you considered speaking at your local user group, a SQLSaturday, or even a major technical conference? What’s stopping you? Don’t know where to begin? The thought of getting in front of scores of people a bit unnerving? What topic? How many slides? How many demos? Having great technical skills isn’t enough anymore. The most sought after people in the industry also have great presentation skills. In this session we’ll discuss how to put together an effect and engaging technical presentation. We’ll learn techniques and strategies that will help to give you confidence as you tell your story to peers, colleagues, and even industry experts. |
Joe |
Webb |
Professional Development |
| The Art of Indexing |
Creating indexes can be one of the most useful performance gains you can add to your database. However, having too many indexes can hurt performance as well as require additional space and maintenance time. The introduction of Dynamic Management Views has made indexing easier; however, there are still many tactics you need to be aware of when applying indexes. This session will cover strategies such as discovering and applying missing indexes, finding and removing overlapping indexes, and indentifying rarely used indexes that are expensive to maintain. |
Ken |
Simmons |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| The Blackhat DBA |
Follow the blackhat DBA through a day of administration tasks as he punishes his company and co-workers for minor infractions by using his knowledge of SQL Server for evil. This is a fun way to learn some excellent powershell tricks as well as a wide range of other administration topics. You’ll walk away with a good understanding of how to perform both common and uncommon tasks with efficiency and speed so you can get back to your busy day. |
Sean |
McCown |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| The Data Warehouse: Your Business Intelligence Foundation |
Many DBAs are thrust into a data warehouse project with little training and no experience, or they are forced to take over the existing Data Warehouse. Designing or fixing a Data Warehouse model that supports the full range of BI functions can be a challenge for the OLTP DBA. This session will reveal the essential components that you should put in place for a successful implementation, including concepts such as the Importance of Transformation, Redundancy and why Reuse can be Detrimental, and one of his favorite topics, Ease of Query. Additionally, the significance of Integration, Metadata, and Governance towards creating a rock-solid, sometimes brilliant, foundation for your Business Intelligence Data Architecture will be presented. |
Carlos |
Bossy |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| The Decoder Ring for Data Warehousing / Business Intelligence with SQL Server |
Business Intelligence is one of the hot job skills for 2009/2010. DBAs and Database Developers are being asked to implement databases with non-traditional design, and are having a lot of new vocabulary thrown their way. In this talk you will learn the concepts behind building and designing data warehouses, and cut through the buzz words so you will walk away with a clear understanding of what words like dimensions, facts, and measures mean. |
Robert |
Cain |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| The Dirty Dozen: PowerShell Scripts for the Busy DBA |
You’ve heard it said, “If you have to do it twice, automate it.” That’s great advice and PowerShell provides a simple but extremely powerful way to do it. PowerShell is the future of Windows scripting. Cut the learning curve and get a real handle on this powerful automation tool. This session walks you through a dozen scripts to simplify and easily automate time-consuming and tedious elements of your day to day job. This isn’t stuff you’ll use SOMEDAY, these are scripts you can use when you get home tonight. Harness the power of Power Shell to easily find Servers short on space. Script out tables and constraints across all of your databases at once. Backup databases and restore them to a different environment. These tricks and many others will allow PowerShell to simplify your job like no other tool. |
Aaron |
Nelson |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| The DW/BI System Lifecycle Overview – the Kimball Approach |
Many DW/BI systems struggle and die because the development team was unaware of the range and magnitude of tasks required for success. This session describes the Kimball approach from the best selling Data Warehouse Toolkit book. The lifecycle starts by identifying business opportunities from across the organization and works with senior management to prioritize these opportunities. The lifecycle then focuses on the top business priority across the three tracks: technical, data and applications, which make up the core of the design and development effort. After deployment of the first iteration, the process loops back to the beginning based on the next priority opportunity and its associated source data set. You can’t manage or participate in a project effectively if you don’t know what needs to happen in each step, and what the resulting deliverables and dependencies are. You definitely won’t be successful if you leave out any significant element of the overall lifecycle. |
Warren |
Thornthwaite |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| The Incredible Shrinking Execution Plan |
Come one, come all… Be amazed at the giant query that can shrink into a tiny plan… Be shocked! Be awed! … The Query Optimizer is a powerful thing, and understanding some of the ways it handles objects such as CTEs, views, stored procedures and functions can impact the way your query runs. In this session, MVP Rob Farley will demonstrate ways that the Database Engine can simplify queries, and how you can leverage this in your database implementation. No slides here – just lots of queries and plans. |
Rob |
Farley |
Application and Database Development |
| The Less Traveled Paths of Asynchronous Messaging |
In this session we will learn how to utilize SQL Server Service Broker infrastructure using some 'out of the box' thinking. We will refresh our memory regarding SB terms and objects and explore some real life examples of creative usages for this powerful infrastructure. We will learn what additional benefits SQL 2008 SB offers and how to use it wisely. |
Ami |
Levin |
Application and Database Development |
| The Pareto Principle for Performance Tuning |
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This principle works not only in economics but most important it works for software optimization. By fixing the top 20% of the most reported bugs, Microsoft noticed that 80% of the errors and crashes would be solved. This session concentrates on identifying the top 20% performance problems of your database server with the help of Dynamic Management Views and Functions and Extended Events. It also presents several approaches in solving the most common performance problems. |
Cristian |
Lefter |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| The Power of Spatial Visualization |
When your business users are trying to analyze the world around them, raw text and numbers never tell the whole story. Spatial data visualization, when done right, is a much more powerful and compelling tool for business analysis. Whether you're calculating your exposure to natural disasters, planning a targeted marketing campaign, or trying to help your favorite politician get elected to office, spatial visualization can help you begin thinking about your data in new and exciting ways. In this session attendees will learn how to use SQL Server spatial data types to support powerful visualization tools like Reporting Services and Bing Maps. |
Michael |
Coles |
Application and Database Development |
| The PowerShell Cookbook for the DBA |
The best DBAs work hard so that they don’t have to, well, work hard. In this session, we’ll discuss how you can use the PowerShell cmdlets and snap-ins to create scripts that automate the more mundane tasks in your role as a DBA or developer. We’ll create scripts that check the status of SQLAgent jobs, verify the configuration of your servers, and retrieves information from your SQL Server database. You can even store your results in a database table if you’d like. This session is mostly demos with only a few PowerPoint slides to get us started. |
Joe |
Webb |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| The Slip Stream Install |
Understanding a slip stream install and when to use it can be an important factor in saving you time, money and frustration. In this session we will walk through the steps based on recommendations from Microsoft on the best way to create the Slip Stream install package, and then actually installing from that package. |
Chris |
Shaw |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| The Social DBA: Resources for Career Building |
Careers in Information Technology (including database professionals) are often viewed as solitary endeavours pursued by hunched-over people in darkened cubicles; the focus of this presentation is to provide the audience with an exposure to a rich social environment of other database professional, including social media, face-to-face interactions, and how (and why) to step into the conversation. |
Stuart |
Ainsworth |
Professional Development |
| There's more to know about storage? |
That's right there is. As a followup session to the "Storage for the DBA" session which I gave last year at PASS, this time we will broaden the look to cover some of the different options that different storage providers are using to design their storage; as well and the pros and cons for each of these. From there we'll move into some of the more advanced features you can use with with storage arrays that turn them from the large JBOD that most people think of them into advanced storage devices worth every penny that they cost. |
Denny |
Cherry |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Thinking outside the Tablix: Creative Uses of Reporting Services |
Reporting Services is a powerful tool for creating business charts and reports. That power can be harnessed for a number of non-traditional uses as well. These include menuing, capturing user input, generating mail merge documents, and more. This session will expand your horizons; allowing you to use Reporting Services in new and creative ways. |
Brian |
Larson |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Throw Away the Crystal Ball: Data Mining in the Real World |
Data mining is one of the key hidden gems inside of Analysis Services but has a steep learning curve for most. In this session, you’ll learn how to create a data mining model to predict who is the best customer for you and learn how to use other algorithms to spend your marketing model wisely. You’ll also learn how to integrate data mining into your application. |
Brian |
Knight |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Tips and Tricks in Analysis Services |
Want to learn more about Analysis Services and MDX? This session covers numerous features in Analysis Services 2005 and 2008 including dimension/cube design, measure expressions, MDX scripting and the Business Intelligence Wizard. It is all tied together to discuss and apply the options available for currency conversion. Leave the session understanding some of the nuances of Analysis Services to get the most out of your OLAP implementation. |
Christian |
Wade |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| To OData or Not to OData |
The Open Data Protocol is an open, RESTful protocol that utilizes existing standards such as HTTP, AtomPub, XML, and JSON. A service using OData is resource-oriented by its nature, contrasting it with the operation-based, RPC-styled services typified by SOAP. There is a movement toward RESTful services, but care must be taken to identify whether a service should be designed resource or operation oriented. Participants will also learn the advantages of the OData protocol and other RESTful implementations. |
Chris |
Eargle |
Application and Database Development |
| To virtualize or not to virtualize? |
The virtualization revolution has reached SQL server, in this session we will cover virtualization advantages and disadvantages, focus on high availability solutions with virtualization, discuss differences between leading Virtualization solutions Hyper-V & VMware, and show what key factors are deciding what workloads and architectures will benefit from virtualization and which workloads will not. |
Danny |
Ravid |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Top 10 Query Optimizer Topics for Better Query Performance |
This session will show you how a better understanding on how the Query Optimizer works can help you to improve the performance of your queries. I will show you the top 10 Query Optimizer topics that can give you the more benefit by focusing both on the concepts and practical solutions. The SQL Server Query Optimizer is a cost-based optimizer which job is to analyze the possible execution plans for a query, estimate the cost of these plans and select the one with the lowest cost. So a better knowledge on how the Query Optimizer works can help both database developers and administrators to get better performance from their databases. Several areas of the query processor will be covered, everything from troubleshooting query performance problems and identifying what information the Query Optimizer needs to do a better job to the extreme cases where, because of the its limitations, the Query Optimizer may not give you a good plan and you may need to take a different approach. |
Benjamin |
Nevarez |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Tracking Waits with Extended Events in SQL Server 2008 |
Starting with SQL 2008 there is a new feature called Extended Events which every DBA and Developer should become familiar with. Extended Events allow us to monitor and troubleshoot in ways not possible with previous methods while incurring less overhead on the server. Come see how we can utilize this new feature to tracks waits all the way down to the query level with minimal overhead. We will also cover the common waits found in most SQL Server instances and discuss ways to avoid or address them. |
Andrew |
Kelly |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Transactional Replication: Beyond The Basics |
Transactional replication can support synchronizing from as few as a hundred to as many as hundreds of millions or more of changes a day across multiple servers. However, replication is more than clicking your way through wizards; Monitoring and tuning are required to achieve optimal performance and the number of processes involved increase the likelihood that problems can (and usually will) occur. This session is for DBA already familiar with the basics of transactional replication and looking to go beyond the setup wizards to gain a deeper understanding of the technology. We'll cover monitoring techniques, calibrating performance, and troubleshooting common replication problems plus share some tricks and tips gleaned from years of experience working with high volume, multiple datacenter topologies. |
Kendal |
Van Dyke |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Transactions: Isolation and Concurrency. |
In this session we will revisit ANSI/ISO definitions of transaction isolation levels and their potential effects on the application. We will learn how SQL Server complies (or not?) with these definitions and peek 'under the SQL Server hood' to see how these are implemented. We will understand how and when to use each isolation level to meet application needs and performance requirements. |
Ami |
Levin |
Application and Database Development |
| Troubleshooting 101: Gain the edge |
What are the basic skills that are needed to be a great problem solver? What are the best ways to identify the issue and solve it? When there are problems, do you want to run and hide? This session provides proven methods for troubleshooting in real, complex environments and will allow you to understand all of the steps to effectively troubleshoot in your company. |
ben |
debow |
Professional Development |
| Troubleshooting and Performance Tuning Microsoft SQL Server with Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) |
This full day seminar will teach you introductory, intermediate, and advanced techniques for troubleshooting (including detecting, diagnosing, and resolving problems) and performance tuning (discovering sub-optimal performance and making SQL Server faster) using SQL Server's built-in Dynamic Management Views (DMVs). |
Kevin |
Kline |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Troubleshooting Parallelism Problems in SQL Server |
There are a lot of myths and misconceptions about how parallelism works in SQL Server and more importantly how to troubleshoot and solve parallelism problems. CXPACKET waits are not necessarily bad! In this session Victor Isakov (MCT, MCM, MCA) will cover how parallelism works, before presenting how to detect, troubleshoot and solve parallelism problems. |
Victor |
Isakov |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| T-SQL Brush-up: The Best Things You Forgot You Knew About SQL Code |
You're a good SQL professional - you attend conferences and webinars, you read articles and books, you know your way around SQL Server. But sometimes - just SOMEtimes - some piece of T-SQL slips by you unnoticed, or falls out of memory. Come and revisit old favorites, and brush up on new T-SQL features and enhancements like MERGE, OVER, and PARTITION BY. This session is chock full of code examples, including before-and-after demos and how-to illustrations. |
Jennifer |
McCown |
Application and Database Development |
| T-SQL Code Sins: The Worst Things We Do to Code, and Why |
It's impossible to follow every best practice all the time. "Code sins" are those things we do to our code that are either so horrendous that they can't be borne, or that have such tremendous consequences that your stored procedures wish they'd never been created. Attendees will hear about the most common code sins that make code difficult to read, support, run and extend, and practical strategies for reversing the trend. |
Jennifer |
McCown |
Application and Database Development |
| T-SQL Development: Bullet-dodging and spoon-bending |
Did you think you could dodge bullets with SQL server? Well if you learn some of these techniques, you won’t have to. Learn some of the things you never thought you could do with SQL server – Recursive CTE’s, Composable DML, The MERGE statement, efficient string splitting and concatenation and Row Numbering. |
Michael |
DeFehr |
Application and Database Development |
| T-SQL Enhancements in SQL Server 2008 |
T-SQL has reached a new level in its evolution! SQL Server 2008 adds an array of T-SQL enhancements to help building better solutions. Practical review of new features and constructs including MERGE, table valued parameters, new data types (Date and Time related, FILESTREAM, HIERARCHYID), table value constructors, sparse columns, filtered indexes, delighters, and more. |
Plamen |
Ratchev |
Application and Database Development |
| T-SQL Improvements in SQL Server 2008 |
Lot of T-SQL Improvements was introduced in SQL Server 2008. Improvements start from the very basic level of inline variable declaration to handling spatial data. Introduction to compound assignment operators, row constructors, Composable DML, enhancements in Convert operator, New DMO’s for finding object dependencies, conditional Merge operator, Output clause to get the Magic table after merging the data, Grouping sets with cube and rollup, Grouping ID, New data types includes temporal, spatial and Hierarchical data and full text services. |
VENKATESAN |
JAYAKANTHAM |
Application and Database Development |
| T-SQL Patterns and Anti-Patterns |
This session will cover some of the common patterns and anti-patterns that we see within SQL Server and how we can use some of the new features within SQL Server 2008 and T-SQL to better implement proper patterns while avoiding some of the common anti-patterns. The session will point out some of the most well know anti-patterns we see within SQL Server 2008 and how to avoid or eliminate those anti-patterns by using new T-SQL features like output results, merge statement, over clause, etc. |
Ashton |
Hobbs |
Application and Database Development |
| T-SQL Power! The OVER Clause: Your Key to No-Sweat Problem Solving |
Have you ever stared at a convoluted requirement, unsure of how to get there with T-SQL? Have you ever spent three days working on a complex query, wondering if there might be a better way? Good news: The OVER clause, first introduced in SQL Server 2005, can be used to easily solve a number of problems that were previously seemingly impossible. In this session you will learn to leverage aggregations and windowing operations to gain insight without losing information. Several demos will be shown to highlight the utility of the OVER clause for solving difficult--yet common--query problems, including custom paging schemes, data de-duplication, "top-N" problems, and complex statistical calculations. You will also learn how to creatively apply the feature to help with performance optimization of certain classes of tough queries. If you're tired of writing queries that just don't seem good enough, attend this session to get to the next level. |
Adam |
Machanic |
Application and Database Development |
| T-SQL programming for concurrency |
Many T-SQL modules run correctly without concurrency, but intermittently break when they are exposed to real life concurrency in OLTP systems. The attendees will learn common scenarios when concurrency breaks our code. In addition, the attendees will learn how to develop robust T-SQL which works correctly under concurrency. |
Alex |
Kuznetsov |
Application and Database Development |
| Tuning Best Practices for Development and QA |
A huge number of projects rely on developers whose expertise lie outside of the database, such as Java development. For these developers, SQL may be a performance weak spot in the application code. When writing applications code with performance in mind, what strategies can be used to help the developers write and verify efficient SQL? Find out in this talk. These same strategies, if clearly and simply implemented, can also be used by QA to validate the performance of the application. DBAs and managers can also implement these strategies in the overall application development lifecycle to help the QA and development teams. |
Scott |
Walz |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Tuples, Sets and Members: Understanding the Basics of MDX |
You may be comfortable using the Reporting Services graphical MDX query designer, but to truly unlock the power of Analysis Services you need to be able to code your own MDX queries. The hardest part of this process can be understanding the basics. This session will provide a solid understanding of what makes up an MDX query and will give you the tools and confidence you need to create your own custom queries. |
Brian |
Larson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Understanding performance when your database is on a SAN |
When you want to understand disk performance, and your database is on a SAN, what do you do? Many DBAs use counters from Performance Monitor. Some DBAs rely on their SAN Administrator to provide that information, and don't use Performance Monitor at all. Erin Stellato and Jim Dimmick will discuss why you should use both methods, present ways for overlaying the metrics captured, and explain differences you might see between server and SAN data. Erin has over four years of experience troubleshooting database performance issues, and Jim has installed and deployed SAN solutions for more than 10 years. Together they will detail the entire I/O pathway from the database server back over the SAN to the disks, explain potential bottlenecks along the way, and present considerations when planning for capacity and performance. SAN solutions from EMC and HP will be discussed at a high-level and differences between the solutions (e.g. caching and RAID options) will be noted as well. |
Erin |
Stellato |
Application and Database Development |
| Understanding SARGability (to make your queries run faster) |
There’s so much more to SARGability than people think, and people can often miss out on significant performance benefits by not appreciating this. SARGable means Search ARGument Able and relates to the ability to search through an index for a value. Unfortunately many database professionals don’t really understand it – especially in regard to joins – leading to queries which don’t run as well as they should. This is a talk involving lots of demos, showing plenty of queries and execution plans. |
Rob |
Farley |
Application and Database Development |
| Understanding SQL Server Execution Plans |
Do you know SQL Server Execution Plans? Yes! - and can you read/analyze them? No... For the beginner it is not very easy to understand and explain execution plans generated by SQL Server for your queries. Therefore this session gives you a good overview and understanding about SQL Server execution plans and how you can read them without reading through complete books. In this session you will see the basic constructs of an execution plan, and how SQL Server uses them to translate your SQL based query to an internal format which is executed by the execution engine of SQL Server. After attending this session you are able to understand and analyze execution plans generated by your queries, and how you can tune them with the adoption of additional indices. Finally you will also see which additional information about your queries an execution plan will expose to you. |
Klaus |
Aschenbrenner |
Application and Database Development |
| Understanding SQL Server Execution Plans |
Execution plans are one of the best tools to use to tune your queries. In this session you will learn how to read and interpret execution plans so that you can better understand how your queries are executing and how you can better figure out ways to optimize them. Learn what to look for in an execution plan to optimize your queries and how to translate these findings into an action plan to achieve better performance. This session will show you how to detect bottlenecks in your queries and tune your applications for better performance. Learn about the most common operators that are used when investigating query plans and cover functions like scans, seeks, bookmark lookups, joins, aggregations, unions, updates, and parallelism. Finally see how you can control the behavior of the Query Optimizer by using hints. |
Benjamin |
Nevarez |
Application and Database Development |
| Understanding the MDX Script |
Every Analysis Services cube has an MDX Script which contains the definition of calculations, the definition of named sets, and other code that affects the functionality of the cube. This presentation introduces all the capabilities of the MDX script and shows you how you can enhance your cubes by modifying the MDX script. |
Nathan |
Peterson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Understanding XQuery |
XML data type is available from SQL Server 2005, and XML support is even enhanced in SQL Server 2008. However, there are not many DBAs and database developers using all of the XML possibilities in SQL Server. One of the obstacles for broader usage might be XQuery, the XML query language, which is not well known in relational community. In this session, we are going to explain basic XQuery structures and data types. After that, we are going to move to slightly more advanced topics, like using FLWOR expressions. We are going to show how you can iterate through XML nodes and even join two or more XML instances, and finally how you can design the returned XML instance. |
Dejan |
Sarka |
Application and Database Development |
| Universal calculations in MDX |
Among many of its functions, MDX language has one special, but rarely used function - Axis() function. Using that function it is possible to create calculations which don't reference any particular dimension/hierarchy in a cube though work correctly for any of them. These calculations can be used in any MDX query or report and are therefore named "universal". This session explains the principles behind these calculations and the techniques how to achieve them. It also explains how they work starting from a simple example and continuing with more advanced ones. Before the final conclusion is made, various approaches and techniques are being analyzed and compared. |
Tomislav |
Piasevoli |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Upgrade and Migrate your SQL Server with Just Minutes of Down Time. |
When you are on the most recent version of SQL Server, many tasks are just that much easier. Help is easier to find, recent articles and blog posts most likely apply to you and you can take full advantage of all the new features. In this session we will address the challenges of upgrading or migrating your SQL Servers to new hardware. In this case study based session, this real life example with show how I moved a VLDB with less than 15 minutes of downtime. In this session we will review not only the technical options that you must evaluate but the most important aspect of your database move; the end users. We will discuss how to provide information to each group so you have a company standing behind you in support as you migrate. This case study included a Version upgrade and a Hardware upgrade during the same outage. |
Chris |
Shaw |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Use PowerShell to Get the Most out of SQL Server |
PowerShell is the new scripting environment from Microsoft for managing server environments. Because PowerShell supports the .Net Framework, accessing SQL Server in a scripting environment is easier than ever before. Whether you need to access data or manage SQL Server, PowerShell makes it possible. This session will give an introduction to PowerShell, explain the basic ADO.Net objects required to connect with SQL Server, and demonstrate accessing SQL Server from PowerShell scripts, both from a data and a management perspective. |
Allen |
White |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Using Filtered Indexes in SQL Server 2008 |
This session will introduce to the attendee to the new Filtered Indexes feature available within SQL Server 2008. Filtered indexes provide a great means to handle data and queries where only a particular subset of data is needed and can provide a huge performance gain when used properly. This session will also cover how to properly gauge when a Filtered Index is helping by delving into the specific DMVs related to Filtered Indexes. |
Ashton |
Hobbs |
Application and Database Development |
| Using SQL Server BI to Manage System Capacities in a Hosting Environment at Intel |
At Intel IT, one of challenges is to manage and report virtual server performance and capacities by applications, by organizations, and across geo. We will explain how we overcome this challenge by utilizing SQL Server 2008 BI capacities. In this case study session, will share our designs of ETL system, dimensional model, and reporting layer. We will cover how we use BI performance data to report overall and detailed capacities in the virtual hosting environment; also how we use the BI data to manage Virtual Machines to achieve optimal performance in production. |
Joshua |
Jin |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Using SQL Server Compact Edition in Your Applications |
SQL Server Compact Edition is a lightweight, versatile database for use in both mobile and client side applications. The entire database engine can be distributed right with your program, does not require special admin privileges to install, and can even be created from scratch within your code. This session will cover creating and using SQL Server Compact Edition databases, using tools like ADO.NET and LINQToSQL. Examples in C# will show you how to use SQL Server's distant cousin, SQL Server Compact Edition in your applications. |
Robert |
Cain |
Application and Database Development |
| Using SQL Server Reporting Services in Local Mode |
Did you know that you don't have to have a SQL Server to use SQL Server Reporting Services? Learn how to leverage the power of reporting services from within your own .Net applications without having to have SQL Server installed. Create attractive, powerful reports and display them from your own .Net program. |
Robert |
Cain |
Application and Database Development |
| Using the SSIS Fuzzy Lookup to process large sets of data, Or How to catch a terrorist. |
Recent events have highlighted the need to be able to search large lists of messy data and find potentially close matches for decision makers. This presentation will show how the SQL Server SSIS Fuzzy Lookup transform can be used to rapidly show what passengers on a fictional flight may be on the no fly list. Using a list of ~ 500,000 names (an emulated no fly list) and a list of several hundred potential passengers for a flight we will build an SSIS package to show all names that are close matches on our no fly list. To complete the delivery of this information, we’ll use SSIS as a data source for a Reporting Services report to display the results in a web browser. Some additional business uses for this transform will be shown as well. |
Stuart |
Johnson |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Using the Sync Framework to Synchronize Mobile Devices with SQL Azure |
SQL Azure can solve complex network connectivity and security issues when used as a data distribution hub for mobile applications, and the Microsoft Sync Framework can synchronize SQL Azure with an occasionally-connected mobile application. In this session, you'll see the complete life cycle of data flowing through a sales order application running on mobile laptops. The demonstration will include pushing catalog data from an on-premise database to SQL Azure using SSIS, syncing the catalog data to the sales people's laptops via Sync Framework, taking orders while disconnected, syncing orders back to SQL Azure, then bringing orders back to the on-premise ERP system via SSIS. |
Geoff |
Snowman |
Application and Database Development |
| Using XML to Query Execution Plans |
SQL Server stores its execution plans as XML in dynamic management views. The execution plans are a gold mine of information. From the whether or not the execution plan will rely on parallelism to what columns are requiring a key lookup after a non-clustered index seek. Through a the use of XML this information can be available at your fingertips to help determine the value and impact of an index and guide you in improving the performance of your SQL Server databases. In this session we’ll look at how you can begin to understand and query the structure of the execution plans in the procedure cache. Also, we’ll review how to uncover some potential performance issues that may be lurking in your SQL Server. |
Jason |
Strate |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Virtualization and SAN Basics for DBAs |
These two technologies can make a very big – and very bad – difference in how your SQL Server performs. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get the real, honest lowdown from a virtualization administrator, a SAN administrator, and a DBA? Wouldn’t it be even better if one person had done all three, and could give you the pros and cons of each point of view? That person is Brent Ozar, a Microsoft Certified Master who’s been there and done that. |
Brent |
Ozar |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Virtualization or Consolidation? How much data can you fit into one server? |
Join Dell Services – Database Practice experts to learn how, when, and what is the best virtualization solution to save money on the database infrastructure? What are the best practices to consider for database engine and SSAS and SSRS? Virtualization is knocking on everyone’s door. How do you manage performance on a shared server? How much data can you load on a server? Present economic challenges have forced us all to do more with less. For over 10 years MS SQL had had the ability to add up to 16 instances on a single server. There was one simple challenge: one rogue application could take the whole server down. With the advent of SQL 2008 R2 & UCP & MSM this problem disappeared. I will share with you lessons learned from one of the largest implementations of SQL Server with over 5000 servers. How do you consolidate them? What should you take into consideration? Best practices on virtualization and consolidation when up to 100 SQL servers are replaced by one. |
Reinaldo |
Kibel |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Virtualize This! |
With the list of features of SQL Server growing constantly the need to sandbox and test drive features in a separate environment that can communicate with but not interfere with your existing environment has become vital. With System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) setting up consistent test, dev, and even sandbox environments can happen minutes instead of hours AND be consistent with previous/ existing environments. In this session we will focus on Microsoft Virtualization solutions that you can leverage starting with your desktop/laptop and extending to your server environments. Even if you aren’t going to be doing the virtualization yourself it’s good to know what your options are. |
Aaron |
Nelson |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Visualize your data on Maps and Charts: SSRS 2008 R2 |
SSRS 2008 R2 has many exciting features. You can show your business data on Maps, and use sparklines, data bars & indicators to produce outstanding reports. Publish to a report gallery so that end-users can easily create reports in couple of easy steps. I will demo these and other enhancements. |
Sunil |
Kadimdiwan |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| VS Database Developer aka "Data Dude" - Making a database developer happier and more productive |
Whether you are a dedicated database developer, or a DBA/.Net Developer for whom database development is a secondary job, Visual Studio Database Developer edition, aka "Data Dude" can be a boon to you. In this session we'll start by reverse engineering an existing database into complete scripts to create the tables, indexes, stored procedures, and more. Deployment strategies will be covered, as well as refactoring and unit testing. Finally we'll look at the powerful data generation capabilities built into "Data Dude". |
Robert |
Cain |
Application and Database Development |
| Warehouse Design: Is Your Data Ready For Your Users? |
Is all of the data you load from your source systems clean? Even if you handle unknown values, and invalid ranges in your load, it is important to validate the “business values” in the data you just loaded. Are you marketing to someone that is now eight? Are you counting sales from states you don’t have customers in? There is a lot of “valid” data in our source systems that can lead you to invalid business decisions. This session is more demo than slide deck, so come prepared to look at some SQL. We will be building a mechanism to allow you to add validations, dynamically control which ones run, and produce exception reporting for the data you just loaded. |
Stefan |
Bauer |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| What Every DBA Should Know About Sharepoint 2010 |
Sharepoint is becoming more ubiquitous in both the enterprise and SME market as a core business application. With Sharepoint 2010 Microsoft has re-engineered Sharepoint 2010 so as to leverage SQL Server 2008 R2's capabilities. Consequently is more important than ever for DBAs to be cognisant of Sharepoint's architecture and how to best provision, configure and manage the SQL Server infrastructure for Sharepoint. In this session Victor Isakov (MCT, MCM, MCA) will present the Sharepoint 2010 architecture and considerations that every DBA should know, including capacity planning, performance management, configuration, disaster recovery and high availability. |
Victor |
Isakov |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| What Happened? Auditing, Tracking, and Change Monitoring Technologies in SQL Server 2008 |
Regulatory bodies...end-users...your boss. They all want answers. Many questions are easy enough to deal with: "Did someone drop my view?" Others are a bit trickier: "What was the previous value of this row?" And some are seemingly impossible: "Who selected the data from this table over the past week?" For many DBAs, the answer to some or all of these questions is often "Umm..." But don't blame yourself; getting this information in SQL Server has never been easy—until now. SQL Server 2008 ships with new features designed to help you track and report on what happened, who did it, and when. In this session, you will learn about Change Tracking, Change Data Capture, and SQL Server Audit. Each provides a distinct set of capabilities and has specific strengths and weaknesses. Looking at all three in turn, you will see how they work and where you can leverage them in your SQL Server infrastructure. If you're used to saying "Umm..." get ready to say "I'll be right back with the answer." |
Adam |
Machanic |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| What is MS Sync. Framework |
Microsoft Sync Framework is a comprehensive synchronization platform that enables collaboration and offline access for applications, services and devices. It features technologies and tools that enable roaming, sharing, and taking data offline. Using Microsoft Sync Framework, developers can build sync ecosystems that integrate any application, with any data from any store using any protocol over any network. In this presentation I will introduce you to this new platform and we will take a look at how it's works and how you can integrate this in your applications. |
Jean-Rene |
Roy |
Application and Database Development |
| What is SQL Server Service broker (SSB)? |
What is SQL Server Service broker (SSB)? What does it do? Which version of SQL Server can use SSB? What kind of application can use this? Does it scale between servers? Why use SSB over MSMQ? What are the advantages and disadvantages of SSB over MSMQ, BizTalk and WSE and WCF? Is it complicated to use SSB? This session will answer all the questions. |
Jean-Rene |
Roy |
Application and Database Development |
| What’s New in Reporting Services 2008 and 2008 R2? |
The enhancements made to Reporting Services in SQL Server 2008 R2 further extend the dramatic improvements that came along with the third-version release of SQL Server 2008 in August of 2008. While Microsoft considers the SQL Server 2008 R2 release a “minor upgrade” of the SQL Server 2008 release, the latest release offers many new features designed to extend and improve the development of reporting solutions. With its most recent release, Reporting Services has, indeed, reached the maturity of a powerful, enterprise-ready reporting application. In this presentation, we will examine the significant enhancements and new features introduced in SQL Server 2008, and then focus upon what’s new in SQL Server 2008 R2. Moreover, we will discuss changes that might break scripts, applications and functionalities based upon earlier versions, which we might encounter in attempting to upgrade. Finally, we will also touch upon the use of the Upgrade Advisor to help our organizations to prepare. |
William |
Pearson |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| What's new in SQL Server 2008 R2 |
With SQL Server 2008 R2 Microsoft releases a new version of SQL Server. But what are the new features of this R2 release, and how you can use them in your day-to-day life? This session gives you an overview about the various new technologies/features available in SQL Server 2008 R2 and how you can use them in your applications/solutions: *) PowerPivot - use Excel 2010 as your primary Business Intelligence Tool *) StreamInsight - realtime data analysis with SQL Server 2008 R2 *) Application- and Multi-Server Management *) Master Data Services *) SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse - what is it really |
Klaus |
Aschenbrenner |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| When a query plan goes wrong |
Walking is not the best means of getting from London to Paris. However it is a good choice when getting to Big Ben from Buckingham Palace. Imagine the scenario where you can only choose one means of travel and use that for all journeys. This is what you get with a Query Plan in SQL Server resulting in some queries being very quick but some taking a very long time or not even completing. In this session we will look at the situations where Query Plans go wrong, looking at data distributions, statistics, potential areas for poor estimations, parameter sniffing and query plan reuse. And looking at the solutions to ensure you don’t get bad plans, including query options, query hints, parameter choices and plan guides After the session you will be able to understand when and where query plans can go wrong and importantly how you can ensure you avoid having bad plans whilst maintaining good practice with plan reuse. |
Simon |
Sabin |
Application and Database Development |
| Where are my keys? Natural, Surrogate, Artificial and more |
In this session we will revisit some of the fundamental design principals of relational databases - normalization rules, key selection, and the controversies associated with these issues from a practical perspective. We will consider the benefits and challenges of using different types of keys from multiple aspects: data consistency, application development and of course, performance. |
Ami |
Levin |
Application and Database Development |
| Where Are My Reports? Managing Reporting Services |
Reporting Services has quickly become and enterprise class report delivery system. As such, user adoption can grow quite rapidly and before you know it higher usage can bring the Report Server to its knees. This is why monitoring and maintaining reporting services from the beginning is important part of any deployment. Since the introduction in SQL Server 2000 many changes to the engine and user interface have been designed to help improve this management and administration. In this session we will cover common scenarios for monitoring reporting services performance, tracking down performance issues and troubleshooting errors. We will also review solutions to improve performance in the report execution and engine configuration. Finally, we will discuss techniques to scale up and scale out to distribute load and isolate various forms of activity. |
John |
Racer |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Where Do You Want To Go Tomorrow? |
You dress differently for a wedding than you do for baseball game, right? …Right? Even with mundane, everyday tasks like getting dressed, your future destination has an impact on your current behavior. Whether you realize it or not, even the simple act of getting dressed in the morning involves a little planning. Doesn’t your professional future deserve some planning, too? This presentation will discuss the power of Professional Development Plans and the building of your very own brand through blogging, presenting and effective use of social media like Twitter. I will show you how you can use all of the above to take ownership of your future and turn your job into a career. |
Mark |
Vaillancourt |
Professional Development |
| Where the bl**dy h*** are you? (Spatial Data Visualisation) |
Ok, so this wasn’t the best advert for Australian tourism, but it is a question often asked by data applications. We understood spatial data in SQL Server 2008, and we love the map functionality in SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services. But if you have a pile of addresses, how can you convert that into data that you can map? And how do you make a map that lets you zoom in and out? In this talk, Rob Farley looks at how to handle shape files in Report Builder 3.0, the Bing Maps functionality for searching for addresses and displaying a map, and how this can tie into the spatial types we’ve been seeing for the last couple of years. It may also include a venture into the world of Live Labs Pivot, investigating new and interesting ways to display your data. |
Rob |
Farley |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Whiteboarding Normalization |
You’ve heard that normalization eliminates redundant data, and that’s true, but normalization also makes it easier to deliver information to the end user – really! Walking through some real-life production examples (Laboratory and Fund Agreement) I’ll start with a little theory, mix in some keys, add a few constraint, and you’ll see exactly how powerful normalization can be. The databases will be diagrammed and scripted out with primary, alternate and foreign keys, defaults, constraints and to Null or Not to Null. Some cool examples will be used to show just how powerful normalization can be and what SQL Server 2005/2008 features can enhance the delivery of information to the end user. |
Thomas |
LeBlanc |
Application and Database Development |
| Who Says Word-Of-Mouth Marketing Is Just For Products and Services? It's For Your Career |
Whether you're a consultant, an employee, a newbie in the industry or a job hunter, learn the secrets of powerful brands being applied to grow your career. And, yes, every one is a marketer |
Edwin |
Sarmiento |
Professional Development |
| Why Being Likeable Is Good For Your Career |
If you try to recall somebody who has made a difference in your life, it's probably someone you like a lot more than the rest. In this session, learn how being likeable can help you go further in your career and be successful in life |
Edwin |
Sarmiento |
Professional Development |
| Why Data Warehousing Projects Fail (And What You Can Do About It) |
Is your organization planning to build a data warehouse or BI solution? Data warehousing projects, like many large IT projects, have high failure rates. While the exact rate of failure for data warehousing projects is difficult to pin down, the causes of these failures fall into a small number of categories. It is obviously possible to successfully complete a data warehousing project and deliver value to the business. Craig Utley has seen Microsoft BI solutions in various states of completeness at over 30 companies worldwide and has seen some awesome successes and some spectacular failures. This session addresses the reasons data warehousing projects fail and how you can succeed in overcoming these obstacles. |
Craig |
Utley |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Why DBAs Should Learn PowerShell |
I will detail my reasoning why a DBA would benefit from learning PowerShell. I will demonstrate how a DBA can use PowerShell in conjunction with SQL, WMI, and SMO to automate repetitive tasks and better manage their workload. |
Ronald |
Dameron |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Why Giving Back To The Community Matters To Your Career |
As Database Professionals, we are stuck in our desks fighting fires on a daily basis that we sometimes forget there is a bigger community out there waiting for us to discover. In this session, learn the value of getting plugged in to the technical communities and how you can leverage your involvement to grow your career |
Edwin |
Sarmiento |
Professional Development |
| Why SSIS configuration is Rocket science! |
Learning SQL Server Integration Service (SSIS) is not that difficult but the deployment in production is. Why? Because SSIS package Configurations is Rocket Science. This session will present many examples of SSIS configuration and show you the pit fall, tips and tricks and best practices for SSIS. This session is not just for the DBA but also for the developers. Attending this session can save you many frustrations. You need to see it. |
Jean-Rene |
Roy |
Application and Database Development |
| Why Table-Valued-Parameters and ADO is a bad combination |
Table-Valued-Parameters has been sold as an efficient way to pass larger sets of data from your application to your database. Have you ever taken a look at the database when using TVP from your application. This session will demonstrate why the applications loves TVP and why the database hate it. And at last we will show you what features of ADO.NET and SQL Server will actually outperform TVP and in what cases it will. Expect a demo-heavy presentation with lots of investigation of what actually happens in the database when using higher level features from ADO.NET. |
Martin |
Schmidt |
Application and Database Development |
| Why Windows PowerShell Is A Must for the SQL Server DBA |
Windows PowerShell is becoming the scripting language of choice for managing Microsoft servers and workstations. And while T-SQL is still the scripting language for DBAs to administer and manage SQL Server, there are tons of stuff that can be easily done with Windows PowerShell. In this session, learn Windows PowerShell from the ground up and how you can use it with SQL Server Management Objects (SMO) to administer and manage a SQL Server instance. |
Edwin |
Sarmiento |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Why Your Organization Needs to Use More MDX |
MDX is the querying language for multidimensional databases. It is similar to SQL, but has some unique characteristics. Many organizations are not using Analysis Services to its full potential because developers and users have a limited understanding of MDX. This session explains where and how your organization will benefit from learning and using more MDX. This session will show you the power of MDX. |
Tim |
Peterson |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Wine.com Case Study |
Sumeet Bansal, Principal Solutions Architect for Fusion-io, will share with the audience of the conference how e-tailer Wine.com used solid-state technologies to transition to a “Shared Nothing” architecture, developing the an extremely cost-effective alternative to “Shared Memory” or “Shared Disks.” Using this approach, Wine.com managed to: --Shorten average SQL transaction to 88mS from 345mS! --Achieve full Database backups reduce to 6 minutes from 2 hours! --Shrink full Database restores to 15 minutes from 3 hours! --500mS transactions in a 1 hour window drops to 163 from 3011! --100 invoice post batch processing finish in 10 seconds from 2 minutes! --Elimination of 3rd party key customer queries taking 6 hours! Throughout the course of the discussion, Bansal will also highlight practical guidance on the items of efficiency, high availability and performance. |
robert |
brumfield |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| Women in Technology: Five Key Considerations |
Most women working in technology keep a low profile, rarely standing out, rarely pushing the extra effort that typically denotes excellence. Women are constantly juggling to find the balance between career and family –with added complexity when children are involved. Come and learn about the five essential career considerations for Women in Technology. Understanding and applying these considerations can help you get to the next level of excellence in your career. Men who understand these considerations can better support the women members of their teams. I will share some of my own experiences, challenges, and lessons learned as I have learned how to balance career, family, and life in general. |
Sopheap |
Suy |
Professional Development |
| Working with Report Builder 3.0 |
Report Builder 3.0 that ships with SQL Server 2008 R2 is the next generation report authoring tools targeted at business users. As a stand-alone Windows application, it provides a rich report authoring environment that delivers numerous capabilities to accelerate report authoring, including wizards, the Report Gallery (to embed report parts), and shared datasets. In this session, you will learn how to design reports using Report Builder 3.0, and how to leverage the new functionality in your report designs. This session is relevant to those already familiar with Report Builder 2.0 and Report Designer. For those with experience authoring reports with Report Designer, this session will contrast the different report authoring environments. It will also demonstrate how familiar Report Designer functionality is surfaced in Report Builder 3.0. |
Peter |
Myers |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Writing SQL Server database applications and stored procedures for best performance |
In a database-centric application, whether the application performs well is usually highly dependent on whether the database code performs well. At the same time, we’re moving from traditional data access techniques like ODBC and ADO.NET to database code generation and object-relational mapping layers such as the ADO.NET Entity Framework. This gives application developers a choice of putting database code in stored procedures, using SQL code in applications, or using LINQ and having your SQL generated for you. In this one-day seminar I’m going to cover how knowing how the SQL query processor, plan caching, and parameter processing works can vastly change your application’s database performance. You have control of this performance no matter how you choose to access SQL Server and covers performance issues both inside and outside the server. I’ll use real-world examples illustrating methods to improve database code performance regardless of how the data access layer is structured. |
Bob |
Beauchemin |
Application and Database Development |
| Writing Technical Articles |
Have you ever wondered what it is like to write articles for SQLServerCentral or SQL Magazine or even write a book? Learn what it takes to become an author in the SQL Server community. |
Kathi |
Kellenberger |
Professional Development |
| XML DML Cookery Show |
XQuery is fun, powerful and inevitable if you deal with XML within your SQL Server Databases. You may use XQuery to pull information out of your XML columns or to modify the content of XML documents. In this session, we will examine different ways of performing XML DML operations - inserting, updating or deleting elements and attributes, moving elements around or completely restructuring the XML document- on XML variables or columns. |
Jacob |
Sebastian |
Application and Database Development |
| XML in SQL Server. Why bother? |
Many of the Developers and DBAs have the XML syndrome. We can’t blame them because XML document are not simple. But what most Developers and DBA don’t know is how SQL Server can help you overcome the XML syndrome. XML is here to say, we will need to save some XML in the database more often than ever. This session will cover usable scenarios when using Xpath, Xquery the XML type in SQL server and the XSD. We will look at the different tools available in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and Visual Studio (VS). This is the chance to bring the DBA and Developer to the same level in using XML in SQL Server. |
Jean-Rene |
Roy |
Application and Database Development |
| XML master class – using XML with SQL Server |
This seminar we will cover the end to end story of processing XML with SQL Server. We will start by looking at how you can get XML into SQLServer showing how each of the different load mechanisms SSIS,SQLXMLBULKLOAD, OPENXML and XQuery, can be used. We will look at how we can manipulate that XML and even generate our own XML. This section will look at the use of XML indexes, highlighting where they are and are not useful. Finally we will look into how you get XML data out of your database. Many systems require that you send them XML documents, these can be generated in the middle tier but this can be cumbersome, it is very simple to achieve in a set based approach SQL Server. We will highlight the advantages and disadvantages of using XML at each stage along with the options available to you. Focusing on supportability, performance and extensibility. We will also highlight how to use namespaces, most examples skip over this area. |
Simon |
Sabin |
Application and Database Development |
| XML Schema Collections in 60 minutes |
XML Schema Collections look very complecated to many people. However, if approached correctly, creating and using XML schema collections could be much simpler in most common scenarios. This session focuses on explaining the basics of building XML Schema Collections and helping you to get started with XML Schema collections. |
Jacob |
Sebastian |
Application and Database Development |
| XML3T - Tips, Tricks and Traps |
This session focus on discussing a number of Tips and Tricks that will be helpful for people who deal with XML within SQL Server. We will talk about XML Data Type, FOR XML, XML Schema Collections, XQuery and XML Indexes. In addition, we will also see some of the "Traps" that you should be careful about while dealing with XML |
Jacob |
Sebastian |
Application and Database Development |
| You Got XML In My Database? What's Up With That? |
A brief presentation exploring the marriage of XML and relational databases, including when it works and when it doesn't. Coverage will include an overview of four of the five basic xQuery functions supported by SQL Server 2005+, a couple of use case scenarios, and some tips on how to improve performance using design techniques. |
Stuart |
Ainsworth |
Application and Database Development |
| Your poor man's SQL Server Log Shipping |
Who ever said SQL Server Express cannot be configured for log shipping? In this session, learn how to extend your disaster recovery plan to configure log shipping on line-of-business application databases that are running on top of SQL Server Express |
Edwin |
Sarmiento |
Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment |
| You're Not Attractive - But Your Presentations Can Be |
Come hear Buck Woody (Microsoft's Real World DBA) and Brent Ozar (SQL Server Certified Master) explain how they make high scores at presentations. It's not luck, charm or (surprisingly) good looks - there are tips and tricks you can use to make your own presentations rock. With Buck and Brent in the same room it's much like Forest's Box of Chocolates, but you're sure to learn more about presentation techniques that you can extract into your own style. |
Brent |
Ozar |
Professional Development |
| Zero to BI with SQL Server 2008 R2 |
Join Peter Myers as he presents the know-how required to deliver state-of-the-art integrated reporting, analytic and performance management solutions using SQL Server Business Intelligence (BI). This preconference seminar will introduce the three BI services of SQL Server 2008 R2: Integration Services, Analysis Services and Reporting Services. It will include numerous demonstrations to emphasize how to effectively produce and deliver back-end BI solutions. Topics covered will include data warehouse design and business cases to support their design. This will be followed by common design approaches to cleanse and transform data to populate data warehouse structures using Integration Services. Analysis Services topics will include dimension and cube design, and data mining. Data mining will be used to create models that permit the exploration of data patterns and support predictive analytics. Finally, reporting Services topics will include report authoring, management and delivery. |
Peter |
Myers |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Zero to Corporate Reporting with SQL Server Reporting Services |
This one day seminar aims to educate and excite attendees about the capabilities, features and potential of SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services. Reporting Services delivers a complete platform for authoring, managing and delivering reports. The platform provides the capability to manage catalogued reports, to deliver ad hoc authoring capabilities to business users, and to the developer, the opportunity to embed reports and reporting functionality into their applications. In this seminar attendees will learn end-to-end how this can all be achieved. Be warned! This seminar is densely packed with theory, real world examples and numerous practical demonstrations. Fortunately, it is presented in a way that is easy to understand and that strives to demystify how reporting can be delivered. By the end of the seminar attendees can reasonably expect to be both inspired and empowered to implement their own reporting solutions. |
Peter |
Myers |
BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics |
| Zero to Cube: Fast Track to Analysis Services Development |
This session is a SQL Saturday legend! Have you wanted to start using Analysis Services to deliver self-service BI to your end users? Have you started a cube project but have trouble using additional functionality like Actions, KPI’s and others? This session is a great all hands on experience where we build a fully functional cube in one hour with all the bells and whistles. This session is ALL demo and very interactive to make sure everyone gets the information and has a good time! Even experienced SSAS developers will learn from Adam Jorgensen, BI Expert and SQL Server pro for more than 15 years. This session will cover: 1. Best practices for database design to support good cube functionality 2. Major components of an Analysis Services project 3. Best practices for building your first cube 4. Tips and Tricks for making the process simple and repeatable 5. How to best handle adding advanced functionality to your cube 6. Reporting on your cube from multiple sources |
Adam |
Jorgensen |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
| Zero to OLAP Cubes with SQL Server Analysis Services |
This one day seminar aims to educate and excite attendees about the capabilities, features and potential of SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services to deliver OLAP cubes. Analysis Service’s OLAP component can present users with a Unified Dimensional Model (UDM) that is designed for rapid ad hoc information retrieval. A well designed UDM becomes an important corner stone for delivering Business Intelligence (BI), and in particular for delivering data to non-technical users through Excel, Reporting Services, PowerPivot, SharePoint and PerformancePoint Services. In this seminar attendees will learn how a basic UDM can be designed and developed. They will then learn how it can be enriched to encapsulate business rules and calculations, and advanced BI features including KPIs and actions. By the end of the seminar attendees can reasonably expect to be both inspired and empowered to implement their own robust analytic solutions. |
Peter |
Myers |
BI Architecture, Development and Administration Topics |
