SQLSaturday #212 - Redmond 2013
Event Date: 05/18/2013 00:00:00
Event Location:
- The MIXER building
- 15255 NE 40th Street
- Redmond, Washington
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Sessions
This is a list of sessions from the event, based on the schedule in the XML files.
Title: Data Profiling Using SSIS Data Profiling Task
Abstract:
This session will be exploring the SSIS Data Profiling task to quickly analyze your data. I will be reviewing the different profiles available, and explaining the limitations of the Data Profiling task. I will be showing you how to use the different profiles to help you identify candidate keys, null value counts by column, dependencies between columns, length distribution, data format, etc.
I will be performing a number of Data Profiling task demos that demonstrate how to use and configure the different profiles. Knowing how to use Data Profiling and interpreting the output helps you quickly determine how best to migrate newly received data into your environment.
I will also be showing you how to use the Data Profiling task output to control your SSIS data flow. Additionally I will also be showing you how you can store profiling output in SQL Server, so you can produce trend reports based on profile output information.
Speaker(s):
- Greg Larsen
Track and Room: Capitol Hill - N/A
Title: Measuring BI Adoption: Dog Food Is Good For You
Abstract: The most elegant solution in the world is a waste of money effort if your users don’t actually use it. Just deploying to Prod isn’t enough. And simply asking your users if they like it (of if they’ll sign off on UAT) isn’t sufficient. Come on! We’re data-people! We need proof! Proactively capturing usage information is a great way to measure user adoption prove to your users management that your solution is delivering a return on their investment. Or if things are bad, understand who’s using it who’s not to help target your marketing training efforts enhancement cycles.
This session will focus on how to eat our own dog food measure the performance of our BI solutions. We’ll focus on gathering usage stats for solutions across the core MSBI Stack (Relational DB, SSIS, SSRS, SSAS). We’ll use out-of-the-box log data, server-side traces DMVs to capture these data points. Then we’ll look at ways to present this data back to stakeholders in scorecard format.
Speaker(s):
- Brent Greenwood
Track and Room: Capitol Hill - N/A
Title: SQLCAT: Big Data – All Abuzz About Hive
Abstract: Got a bee in your bonnet about simplifying access to Hadoop data? Want to cross-pollinate your existing SQL skills into the world of Big Data? Join this session to see how to become the Queen Bee of your Hadoop world with Hive and gain Business Intelligence insights with HiveQL filters and joins of HDFS datasets. We’ll navigate through the honeycomb to see how HiveQL generates MapReduce code and outputs files to answer your questions about your Big Data. After this session, you’ll be able to democratize access to Big Data using familiar tools such as Excel and a SQL-like language without having to write MapReduce jobs. You’ll also understand Hive basics, uses, strengths, and limitations and be able to determine if/when to use Hive.
Speaker(s):
- Dipti Sangani
Track and Room: Pioneer Square - N/A
Title: Lean BI Solutions w PowerPivot, Tabular a Mullet
Abstract: Business in the front. Party in the Back. The Mullet strikes a nice balance between “Classy” “Outlaw”. By applying this model to BI, we’ll uncover ways to deliver solutions faster more efficiently through Lean practices. This session is for anyone who needs to satisfy demanding customers that aren’t quite sure what they want, but they need it NOW or they’ll lose that critical deal the world will end! We’ll focus on sequencing deliverables and using PowerPivot prototypes that can be promoted to an AS Tabular model if/when needed. This process aims to minimize rework while striking a balance between delivering value fast with initial “Cowboy” efforts, and incrementally building a responsible, scalable, maintainable architecture.
Speaker(s):
- Brent Greenwood
Track and Room: Capitol Hill - N/A
Title: Store This! Why storage matters when virtualizing SQL Server
Abstract: Microsoft SQL Server has become one of the most commonly virtualized applications. In fact, a 2012 VMware customer survey found that 52% of all SQL Server instances were virtualized, up from only 43% in 2010. Since there are multiple types of storage and various protocols that storage can be presented to the guest virtual machine, it is important that DBA’s understand where the database and log files should reside for the best possible performance and ease of management. In this session you will learn the benefits of a properly configured data management architecture for virtualized SQL Server environments which will provide easier failover, hardware abstraction and simpler capacity planning. We will also demonstrate multiple ways to configure SQL Server storage in a virtual environment as well as best practices, caveats, and performance tips.
Speaker(s):
- Pat Sinthusan
Track and Room: Queen Anne - N/A
Title: Data Quality Services Approach to Cleansing
Abstract: Learn about Microsoft’s Data Quality Services (DQS), what it is and how it works. You will discover how DQS sets itself apart from conventional data cleansing routines and go through examples on how to begin your own Data Quality Project. What really makes DQS unique and powerful is its ability to access shared knowledge, so we will show you how to access and use this shared knowledge to your benefit.
Speaker(s):
- Joseph Verftido
Track and Room: Pioneer Square - N/A
Title: Windows Azure SQL Database - your cloud database
Abstract: This session will take an exploratory look at Microsoft’s cloud-based relational database offering. We’ll lift the hood and look at its many benefits and features, and how it easily fills the need for a highly available and scalable database service in the cloud. We’ll discuss how the database formally known as SQL Azure helps ease provisioning and deployment, and how Microsoft takes care of the physical administration so that developers and DBA’s alike can focus on the aspects of their job they really care about.
Speaker(s):
- Scott Klein
Track and Room: Pioneer Square - N/A
Title: Unleashing Common Table Expressions in SQL Server
Abstract: Have you ever wanted to create a recursive query, but didn’t see how to do it. With the Common Table Expressions class you will learn everything needed to start using CTE’s for recursive queries, as temporary views, and to use the result set multiple times in the same query. Learn how simplify query syntax using CTE’s. One of the most overlooked features of SQL Server is the CTE which not only simplifies the query, but gives you the ability to do things that would otherwise be impossible (or at least very challenging) with SQL Server. Learn how recursive CTE’s perform better than other methods to create hierarchical results. See how CTE’s compare to SQL Server 2012 offset and fetch paging techniques.
Speaker(s):
- Steve Stedman
Track and Room: Montlake - N/A
Title: But it worked great in Dev! Perfomance for Devs
Abstract: If you’ve ever found yourself stating the above, this session is for you. For many developers, writing T-SQL that works is not the challenge. But too often, functional T-SQL is not the same as good T-SQL. In this session, we will examine why “SQL that works” is not good enough. Understanding indexes, exectuion plans, sargability, and more are all critical to writing good T-SQL. We will also examine several real-world examples of T-SQL that “worked great in dev” but caused major issues when it hit production.
Speaker(s):
- Randy Knight
Track and Room: Montlake - N/A
Title: SQL 2012 Error Handling. Pick your Destiny
Abstract: Gone are all the spaghetti errors of past versions of SQL. For example did you know that BEGIN TRAN…COMMIT TRAN is not enough to make everything work together? People are often shocked when they see the demo in this talk where the first statement fails and all others statements still commit. This can still happen to you in SQL 2012 if you are not aware of the options. In fact did you know that when SQL encounters an error of Severity 11 (or higher), there a 4 different ways it can react? Learn how to predict the Error Action and control it. This is possible with or without structured error handling. See both ways to control the outcome to the way you want it.
Speaker(s):
- Rick Morelan
Track and Room: Montlake - N/A
Title: Executing SSIS Packages using SQL Server Agent
Abstract: This presentation introduces SQL Server Agent job options that are avialable for packages that are deployed to the new SSIS 2012 server. I’ll also review known solutions for troubleshooting packages that don’t run when called from a job step, and show how to use the Log File Viewer and SSIS Catalog reports to troubleshoot.
Speaker(s):
- Carla Sabotta
Track and Room: Capitol Hill - N/A
Title: Why I Won’t Be Hiring You
Abstract: You’re a DBA or SQL Developer and you are looking for a new gig. You’ve trawled the job sites, found a position I am hiring for, and decided that it is the job for you. You spruce up your resume and send it in, hoping for the best.
In this session I will go over some critical mistakes that will prevent you from getting a job, such as:
- Why your resume is an instant turn-off
- That thing you said on the phone screen that was flat out wrong
- Why the in-person interviewer took an immediate dislike to you
Speaker(s):
- Nicholas Cain
Track and Room: Queen Anne - N/A
Title: AlwaysOn - Finally, A usable ‘mirror’!
Abstract: In the past, High Availability and Disaster Recovery (HADR) had many limitations. Clustering and Mirroring are great, but the mirror/secondary database is not very usable since it is not online. Finally, AlwaysOn solves this limitation by merging both multi-node Clustering and mirroring. AlwaysOn also allows the secondary database to remain ONLINE, so we can use it for reporting purposes without resorting to a Snapshot! Come see this lively session with extensive demos of setting up, configuring and testing AlwaysOn. We’ll also test automatic fail-over using a real web app to see how well this feature works.
Speaker(s):
- Jim Murphy
Track and Room: Pioneer Square - N/A
Title: Lean and Mean: Running SQL on Windows Server Core
Abstract: Do you consider the Windows GUI to be a waste of resources? Starting with SQL Server 2012, you can run on top of Windows Server Core 2008 R2 or 2012. In this session we will discuss installation and management of SQL Server on Windows Server Core, along with lots of tips and tricks.
Speaker(s):
- Argenis Fernandez
Track and Room: Pioneer Square - N/A
Title: Machine Learning for Mere Mortals
Abstract: Machine learning is the science of building predictive models from available data, in order to predict the behavior of new data. It is the practice of getting computers to act without being explicitly programmed.
ML is widely used in web search (Google, Bing), recommendation engines (Netflix and Amazon), computational vision (self-driving cars), and natural language processing (Google Translate, auto-grading essays).
This will be a gentle introduction into the world of machine learning. We will cover common techniques such as clustering, supervised vs unsupervised learning, and learning at scale. Finally, we’ll explore some examples of machine learning in the real world.
Speaker(s):
- Dev Nambi
Track and Room: Montlake - N/A
Title: SRS Report Builder for Business Intelligence
Abstract: Learn how easy it is to utilize the free download from Microsoft that allows users to create maps, charts, dashboard objects and reports against any kind of data easily without having to use Visual Studio. See how SQL Report Builder makes creating executive dashboards easy!
Speaker(s):
- David Eichner
Track and Room: Capitol Hill - N/A
Title: Adventures in Table Partitioning
Abstract: This talk presents a number of table partitioning scenarios, showing issues and stratgies for solutions. We’ll cover topics such as partition naming conventions, disk storage, filegroup management, and techniques for expanding partition ranges.
Speaker(s):
- Ron Talmage
Track and Room: Montlake - N/A
Title: Deconstructing SQL Server’s Change Data Capture
Abstract: Understanding how CDC works sets you up to make an informed decision about whether to use it or one of the alternatives. If you choose to use it, this will also help you understand how to work with it.
From this session, you will learn about the basics of CDC, how Microsoft implemented it, and the performance implications for a transactional workload.
Speaker(s):
- Rob Garrison
Track and Room: Queen Anne - N/A
Speakers
This is a list of speakers from the XML Guidebook records. The details and URLs were valid at the time of the event.
Greg Larsen
Contact: http://www.sqlserverexamples.com
Greg Larsen has been working with SQL Server since version 6.5. He works for the State of Washington and does part-time consulting for DesignMind, a San Francisco–based consulting company. Greg has written over 175 articles related to SQL Server. He manages the website www.sqlserverexamples.com. Greg is also an adjunct professor at South Puget Sound Community College. He has been an MVP since 2009. In his spare time, he races and cruises on his sailboat.
Dev Nambi
Twitter: - @DevNambi
LinkedIn: Dev Nambi
Contact: http://devnambi.com
Dev Nambi is a data scientist and aspiring polymath. He uses curiosity, math, and code to solve problems. Dev currently works in the University of Washington#39;s Enterprise Data amp; Analytics group.
Rick Morelan
Rick has worked more than 12 years at Microsoft and has attained over 30 Microsoft technical including certifications in applications, networking, databases and .NET development (MCDBA, MCTS, MCITP, MCAD, MOE, MCSE, MCSE+I). He has also provided training for NW University, Volt Technical Education, The DigiGirlz, and Microsoft. Rick is the Author of the 5 volume SQL Joes 2 Pros book series.
Scott Klein
Twitter: - SQLScott
Contact: http://aka.ms/sqlscott
Scott Klein is a senior consultant with SQL Solutions Group with over two decades of experience working with Microsoft SQL Server. Prior to SSG, Scott spent almost 10 years at Microsoft, traveling the globe as a technical evangelist training and speaking about SQL Server and Microsoft’s Azure data services. Scott’s recent focus has been on advanced analytics, including big data and IoT, providing real-world training to help bring intelligence to your data. Scott has authored several books focusing on data and data analytics. Scott is continuously striving and looking for ways to help developers and companies grok the wonderful world of data.
Joseph Verftido
Twitter: - /melissadata
LinkedIn: Joseph Verftido
Contact: http://blog.melissadata.com/data-quality-authority/
A Data Quality Analyst at Melissa Data, Joseph has worked with numerous clients in understanding their business needs for data quality, analyzing their architecture and environment, and recommending strategic solutions to successfully integrate data quality within their infrastructure. He gives frequent webinars for implementing different techniques for data quality and also manages the MVP Program – a network that provides resources to community leaders, speakers, consultants and other experts.
Brent Greenwood
Twitter: - @YoungMSQL
LinkedIn: Brent Greenwood
Contact: http://brentgreenwood.blogspot.com/
Brent Greenwood, MS, MCITP, CBIP, is a PowerPivot junkie and long-time Microsoft BI Pro with 13+ years of experience in the data analysis, data warehousing, and business intelligence crafts. He’s delivered solutions and worn lots of different hats in a variety of verticals, including Investment Management, Brokerage, Insurance Services, Healthcare, and Higher Education. Most importantly, Brent is a cycling enthusiast and loves riding and building prototypes with AdventureWorks cycling data.
Ron Talmage
Contact: http://www.solidq.com
Ron Talmage is a database consultant living in Seattle. He is a Mentor and Co-Founder of SolidQ, a SQL Server MVP, PASS Regional Mentor, and Chapter Leader of the Seattle are (PNWSQL) SQL Server User Group. He’s been active in the SQL Server world since 4.21a days, and has authored numerous articles and white papers
Dipti Sangani
Steve Stedman
Twitter: - @sqlemt
LinkedIn: Steve Stedman
Contact: http://SteveStedman.com
Steve Stedman is the Leader of a PASS Local Group in Bellingham WA USA. Steve runs his own SQL consulting firm Stedman Solutions, LLC. He has 29 years of programming and SQL experience. He has written the book on SQL Common Table Expressions. He teaches, speaks at conferences, writes, and has taught SQL server classes at Western Washington University. Steve has previously spoken at PASS Summit, TechEd, DevTeach Vancouver, many SQLSaturdays, and more.
Randy Knight
Twitter: - randy_knight
LinkedIn: Randy Knight
Contact: http://www.sqlsolutionsgroup.com/blog
Randy Knight is a data professional who has worked with Microsoft technology for over 25 years, focusing on SQL Server since 1997. He has worked in a variety of settings, including 6 years as a database architect for match.com. In 2010, he founded SQL Server Solutions Group LLC, a boutique SQL Server consultancy. A Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) in SQL Server, he speaks often at events all over the country including the PASS Summit, SQLIntersections, and numerous SQLSaturday and User Groups.
Argenis Fernandez
Twitter: - DBArgenis
LinkedIn: Argenis Fernandez
Contact: http://blog.purestorage.com/author/argenisfernandez/
Argenis is a Principal Architect at Pure Storage. He works with customers around the world to make sure they don’t have to worry much about their infrastructure for Data. He is a former Data Platform MVP, former VMware vExpert, Microsoft Certified Master, and more recently worked in the Microsoft Azure Data/SQL Server engineering team as a Principal PM in the Tiger team.
Brent Greenwood
Twitter: - @YoungMSQL
LinkedIn: Brent Greenwood
Contact: http://brentgreenwood.blogspot.com/
Brent Greenwood, MS, MCITP, CBIP, is a PowerPivot junkie and long-time Microsoft BI Pro with 13+ years of experience in the data analysis, data warehousing, and business intelligence crafts. He’s delivered solutions and worn lots of different hats in a variety of verticals, including Investment Management, Brokerage, Insurance Services, Healthcare, and Higher Education. Most importantly, Brent is a cycling enthusiast and loves riding and building prototypes with AdventureWorks cycling data.
Rob Garrison
Contact: http://persistencevision.blogspot.com/
Rob is a Data Architect working for Fiserv in Portland, Oregon. He has over twenty years of IT experience, with most of that time focused on transactional SQL Server. He has a number of articles published and speaks regularly at user groups and other events.
Jim Murphy
Twitter: - http://www.twitter.com/sqlmurph
LinkedIn: Jim Murphy
Contact: http://sqlwatchmen.com/blogs/jim/
Jim Murphy has been using Microsoft SQL Server since version 6.0 back in the 90#39;s. He is the CEO of SQLWatchmen, LLC., a managed DBA service provider. He runs the Austin SQL Server User Group: CACTUSS Central. He has been a professional DBA and developer for over 25 years and has run a consulting company full time since 2001.
Carla Sabotta
Twitter: - @sabotta
LinkedIn: Carla Sabotta
Carla Sabotta is a writer for Microsoft SQL Server. She writes articles for Books Online as well as creates video tutorials and samples.
Pat Sinthusan
Contact: https://communities.netapp.com/
Pat Sinthusan is currently working for NetApp as a Reference Architect responsible for validating new SQL Server Solutions on the NetApp storage platform. In the past, he worked as a Sr. Database Administrator for 15 years with Hasbro and the City of Seattle. Pat has designed and implemented database infrastructures for the entire range of environments (development and production) using various storage technologies, and he#39;s been working with SQL Server since 4.21B.
Nicholas Cain
Contact: http://sirsql.net
Nicholas Cain is a Microsoft Certified Master with over 12 years of enterprise database administration experience. He has worked with all versions of SQL Server since 7.0 in critical highly available production environments. He has not hired dozens of DBAs over the last few years.
David Eichner
Twitter: - @ICANSoftware
LinkedIn: David Eichner
David Eichner is a licensed CPA and is also CEO of ICAN Software Corporation, a Microsoft Dynamics amp; Acumatica ERP partner firm that sell and implements ERP and CRM software, develops software solutions and provides technology consulting. He is the host of a radio show called Business In The Cloud that airs weekly on KLAY 1180AM. He is skilled in building integrated cloud app solutions. His career spans more than 20 years in various technical/managerial positions within industries as diverse as military service, engineering/construction, municipal government, consulting and certified public accounting. Additionally, he holds various national certificates in technology (MCDBA, MCSE, CNE, CITP, Dynamics CRM and ERP, Acumatica CRM and ERP)
Sponsors
The following is a list of sponsors that helped fund the event: