SQLSaturday #330 - Charlotte - BI Edition 2014
Event Date: 10/04/2014 00:00:00
Event Location:
- Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC)
- 2800 Campus Ridge Road
- Charlotte, North Carolina
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Sessions
This is a list of sessions from the event, based on the schedule in the XML files.
Title: Closing the SSIS Package Management Story with BIPS
Abstract: Existing SSIS automation solutions are focused on forward-motion activities: creating packages and pushing them to the server. Little or no thought is given to the management of the packages once they are in production - tools like SQL Data Tools, BIML, and MIST offer nothing to help you understand and manage a live, money-printing ETL workflow based on SSIS packages.
BIPS is an open source project that allows you to manage a live SSIS package tree from PowerShell. It closes the automation loop, providing the ability to learn and discover the features of an existing package deployment tree as well as manipulate it. In short, the goal of BIPS brings a devops perspective to managing your SSIS packages.
In this session, you will learn how to leverage BIPS in your own environment. Specific attention will be given to searching and filtering tasks and data flows on arbitrary criteria and manipulating specific parts of the ETL workflow from the shell.
Speaker(s):
- Jim Christopher
Track and Room: Track 8 - N/A
Title: Index Tuning for the DBA
Abstract: Indexes are like a turbocharger for your queries: they help the engine process queries faster. Without having the right index strategy, you will be stuck managing a SQL Server environment that end users may constantly complain is “too slow.” How do you avoid that situation by knowing which indexes to add or which ones to remove if they are not working—especially if you are not intimate with a particular application’s database? Knowing fundamentals such as baselining performance and proactively monitoring performance are crucial for long-term index maintenance. This session will give you those fundamentals and more to enable you to implement a solid index tuning strategy for your company’s applications.
Speaker(s):
- Ben DeBow
Track and Room: Track 1 - N/A
Title: Tame Your Unruly Data…With Constraints!
Abstract: Never given time or care, never forming good relationships, becoming bloated, corrupt and rife with indistinguishable copies, and all so horrifyingly pervasive in society. But enough about the Kardashians, what about YOUR DATA? If you want to straighten it out and prevent it from going too far in the first place, this session is for you. We will cover constraint basics (not null, check, primary key/unique, foreign keys), provide standard use cases, and address misconceptions about constraint use and performance. We will also look at triggers and application logic and why these are NOT substitutes for (but can effectively complement) good constraint usage. Attendees will enjoy learning how to keep THEIR data off the tabloid page!
Speaker(s):
- Rob Volk
Track and Room: Track 2 - N/A
Title: A New Approach to Unit Testing and Integration Testing in SSIS
Abstract: Testing is critical to managing a high-quality data lifecycle. Unfortunately, SSIS has no built-in support for test authoring and the tools for relational database testing are limited. As a result, most organizations forgo automated testing and focus entirely on manual user testing, which is both expensive and often occurs too late in the process to address all of the issues discovered.
In this session, a new approach to unit testing (focusing on verifying the correctness of individual packages, tasks, or dataflows) and integration testing (focusing on validating that the data produced by an entire sequence of transformations) will be discussed. This approach uses metadata authored by analysts in Excel to automatically generate testing logic within the corresponding packages or to automatically generate standalone test packages that contain all of the necessary validation logic. All code will be shared with attendees for free and unrestricted use within their own projects.
Speaker(s):
- Scott Currie
Track and Room: Track 8 - N/A
Title: Create and Load a Staging Environment from Scratch in an Hour with Biml
Abstract: Business Intelligence Markup Language (Biml) automates your BI patterns and eliminates the manual repetition that consumes most of your SSIS development time. During this hour long presentation, Scott Currie from Varigence will use the free BIDSHelper add-in for BIDS and SSDT to introduce Biml and use to automatically generate large quantities of custom SSIS packages. The session will be largely demonstration driven, and reusable sample code will be distributed for you to use in your own projects. Using a live-typing approach, Scott will start from scratch and by the end of the session create a full-blown staging environment. This will include the creation of hundreds of target table creation scripts, data load packages, data scrubbing rules, logging, and more. The best part is that you can freely reuse the code in your own environment just by changing the connection strings - or make small changes to implement your own data load patterns.
Speaker(s):
- Scott Currie
Track and Room: Track 8 - N/A
Title: Best Practices to Deliver BI Solutions
Abstract: If your company is planning to build a data warehouse or BI solution, you need to be aware that BI projects have high failure rates. Gartner says between 70% to 80% of corporate business intelligence projects fail. And with “big data” adding more complexity you can expect even more failures. However, the major causes of these failures are well known and can be avoided by implementing a set of best practices.
I have worked on dozens of end-to-end BI projects and have seen my share of successes and failures. I will talk about the reasons BI projects fail and share best practices and lessons learned so your BI project will fall into the “successful” category.
Speaker(s):
- James Serra
Track and Room: Track 4 - N/A
Title: On-Demand Compute and Analytics with Powershell, Hadoop and Azure
Abstract: This session will take the beginner in big data and show them how to use powershell, HDinsight and Microsoft’s Azure platform to enable on demand analytic and compute. These capabilities are critical in the modern data warehouse environment and can only be delivered by technologies working together to create an analytic fabric that the organization can use. From developers the analysts and operations folks, this session will have something for all of you.
Speaker(s):
- Adam Jorgensen
Track and Room: Track 3 - N/A
Title: BI DBA Performance Tuning
Abstract: Data Warehouses and OLTP systems are different! But there are some core concepts that we need to understand for managing and maintaining both. Do you want to know how you can load data faster, just by setting up your database correctly? Are your queries running slow? Want to understand how you can reduce locking and blocking in reporting queries? Do you have a system with views, that reference views, which reference more views? Let’s discuss some core concepts and techniques that will get you out of the slow lane and on your way to a faster Data Warehouse!
Speaker(s):
- Bradley Ball
Track and Room: Track 1 - N/A
Title: Change Data Capture Change Tracking Deep Dive
Abstract: Change Data Capture (CDC) and Change Tracking (CT) have been standard features in SQL Server for a few years now but there’s not really that much useful information out in the blogosphere about how they work under the hood. Kevin Hazzard will dig deep into the implementations of CDC and CT in SQL Server, showing you all of the parameters you can use to make these great features serve your organization well. This will be a highly-interactive, highly-entertaining session with lots of questions answered and mysteries revealed.
Speaker(s):
- Kevin Hazzard
Track and Room: Track 1 - N/A
Title: Applied Enterprise Semantic Mining
Abstract: Text mining is projected to dominate data mining, and the reasons are evident: we have more text available than numeric data. Microsoft introduced a new technology to SQL Server 2014 called Semantic Search. This session’s detailed description and demos give you important information for the enterprise implementation of Tag Index and Document Similarity Index, and will also provide a comparison between what semantic search is and what Delve does. The demos include a web-based Silverlight application, and content documents from Wikipedia. We’ll also look at strategy tips for how to best leverage the new semantic technology with existing Microsoft data mining.
Speaker(s):
- Mark Tabladillo
Track and Room: Track 4 - N/A
Title: Back(up) to Basics
Abstract: Are your databases being backed up? Are you sure? Are you sure they’re being backed up correctly? Maybe you’re an “accidental DBA” or a developer who’s not quite sure of the answers to those questions. In this session, you’ll learn what the different types of basic backups are, how to execute them, and (perhaps most importantly) how to restore from them if and when necessary.
Speaker(s):
- Ben Thul
Track and Room: Track 1 - N/A
Title: Documenting SSIS packages using XQuery
Abstract: You have been given responsibility over an SSIS package. One of the first things that you want to discover is where the data is coming from and what operations happen between the source and the target. In this session you will learn some XQuery that you can use to trace the flow of data from different sources to SQL Server. You will identify the Derived Column operations that alter the data from the source. You will see how to load XML from a file to query it.
Speaker(s):
- Russel Loski
Track and Room: Track 8 - N/A
Title: PowerBI
Abstract: Using the PowerBI components of O365 to pull in data from a variety of sources, develop new data models and create impressive data visualizations. Will cover loading data with Power Query, modelling data with Power Pivot, creating stunning, effortless reports with Power View and Power Map and using QA to search for data using natural language queries.
Speaker(s):
- Scott Holmes
Track and Room: Track 5 - N/A
Title: Hive 101
Abstract: Hive is the SQL like interface for Hadoop, aka Big Data. Hive was developed for two audiences, the newbie and, the hive developer. For the newbie almost any query will work in hive, eventually. The first part of the session will cover the differences between SQL and HQL so that anyone that has written a SQL query can start working with Hive. The second part of the session will cover the differences, at a high level, in how a traditional query engine works and how the Hive query engine works. We will discuss how the Hive query engine makes use of the distributed nature of Hadoop and what are considered best practices when writing Hive queries.
Speaker(s):
- Kevin Goode
Track and Room: Track 3 - N/A
Title: Columnstore Indexes
Abstract: Have you heard about columnstore indexes? Maybe you’ve read about it, but not yet tested it? If you’re developing or managing data warehouses, then the columnstore index is the biggest turbo button you’ll ever get for your current hardware. Learn how SQL Server stores the data differently and how it uses new access patterns to retrieve data at blazing speeds. You’ll see the difference between clustered and non-clustered columnstore indexes as well as the advantages and disadvantages of both.
Speaker(s):
- Patrick Keisler
Track and Room: Track 3 - N/A
Title: APS/PDW – Are you ready for the next generation DW solution??
Abstract: APS is the next generation platform for high performance Data warehouses. In this session we will cover, how to analyze your existing solution to see if you are ready? How to migrate an existing solution to APS? We will cover the benefits of migrating?
Speaker(s):
- Andy Isley
Track and Room: Track 5 - N/A
Title: DAX 101
Abstract: In this session, we will look at the new BI query language for PowerPivot and Tabular - DAX. This session will give you an introduction to Data Analysis eXpressions (DAX) and will provide you the necessary understanding to start using in your environment for data analysis. No prior experience with DAX is needed to attend this session.
Speaker(s):
- Damu Venkatesan
Track and Room: Track 6 - N/A
Title: Data Mining Innovation with SQL Server 2014
Abstract: This presentation includes a complex business analytics solution using elements across the Microsoft Business Intelligence technology. This talk will not have all the steps spelled out. Therefore you should prepare – for example, by looking at the SQL Server 2014 Developer Kit – since attendees will be expected to have working knowledge of SQL Server relational database, SSIS, SSAS, SSRS, SSMS and SSDT. At the end of the demonstration, you will be expected to participate in groups to promote one idea which builds on the demo, and everyone will be voting for their favorite groups. Come ready to create and celebrate your peers.
Speaker(s):
- Mark Tabladillo
Track and Room: Track 2 - N/A
Title: Introducing Azure DocumentDB
Abstract: In this session you will be introduced to Azure DocumentDB, its features and functionality, and understand when to use it for unmet needs in your environment.
Speaker(s):
- Dan Shaver
Track and Room: Track 6 - N/A
Title: Querying in the 21’st century – A window into Windowing functions
Abstract: SQL Server introduced Windowing functions in version 2005. Intended to offer the ability to work with windows of data (as a set) in SQL, they pack the power, ease of use and flexibility to query data that traditional SQL lacked (possible but complicated). 2012 rounded the capabilities and added quite a bit. In this session, we will take a look at the available features and how to apply them in practice with tons of practical examples.
Speaker(s):
- Jana Sattainathan
Track and Room: Track 2 - N/A
Title: The Data Management Discipline (with a focus on Data Warehousing)
Abstract: We begin this session with a very brief yet important framework for data management. Then we explore the different aspects of the enterprise data management discipline. Finally, we delve into the different methodologies to design a data warehouse. We will talk about the Kimball, Inmon, Data Vault methodologies. This is a high level conceptual talk (no coding) designed to help both developers and non-technical individuals to understand data management, data warehousing, and Business Intelligence disciplines.
Speaker(s):
- Joe Dib
Track and Room: Track 4 - N/A
Title: Shade Tree Mechanic’s Guide to SSAS
Abstract: This is a session for DBAs and Developers working with SSAS who are not sure what happens under the hood when it is queried, or how to tell if it’s performing at its best. This is not a session on query optimization. Rather, this session will help you better understand if you should focus on query optimization or if some basic configuration changes might provide that needed performance boost. We’ll discuss the basic architecture of SSAS and cover some of the most pertinent metrics to give you a quick and easy view into your SSAS server’s performance.
Speaker(s):
- Justin Randall
Track and Room: Track 6 - N/A
Title: Power This, Power That…Making Sense of Power BI
Abstract: With the introduction of Power BI, Microsoft has moved one step closer to its vision of self-service BI for all. But with this new offering comes a bevy of “Power” apps that are bound to confuse just about anyone. In this session, we will power through Power BI for Office 365 bringing meaning to the mess of names like Power Query, Power Map, Power Pivot and Power View and how these experiences are delivered through Microsoft Excel and Office 365. Expect to leave with the power of insight into an exciting new offering that captures the essence of self-service BI.
Speaker(s):
- Brett Tomson
Track and Room: Track 4 - N/A
Title: It’s full of Star Schemas…
Abstract: Whether you are using Excel, Tableau, PowerPivot, SSAS Multi-dimensional or Tabular, QlikView, or just plain old SQL, most of the time you will get better results in less time if you can source the data from a star schema.
In this session we will cover the core principles of a star schema dimensional data model. This will include the different types of dimension attributes, dimension hierarchies, types of fact tables, and types of measures.
Speaker(s):
- Paul Waters
Track and Room: Track 1 - N/A
Title: Building an MDM Center of Excellence with MDS and Maestro
Abstract: Learn how to build an MDM Center of Excellence with Best Practices using extensive demo. The session will including building a complete sample customer domain including data quality, merge, match and deduplication, and business workflow.
Speaker(s):
- Gene Webb
Track and Room: Track 5 - N/A
Title: What’s in the SQL Server 2014 Business Intelligence Suite?
Abstract: The Microsoft SQL Server business intelligence suite contains many tools to help in your data warehousing. Deciding which on to use can be confusing if you’re first learning the toolset. This session will provide an overview of each tool in the business intelligence suite in SQL Server 2014 and explain when you would use each one. Soon, you too can answer the question of what is in the SQL Server 2014 Business Intelligence Suite!
Speaker(s):
- Jessica Moss
Track and Room: Track 4 - N/A
Title: Cloudy with a Chance of Data
Abstract: Cloud, Cloud, Cloud. Microsoft is “all in”. CxOs love the idea of renting compute resources. You know this is where our profession is headed, but when and how fast. When should you jump on board? The good news is cloud will not eliminate or even reduce the need for IT and Data professionals. The bad news is our world and our profession is changing. Adapt or be left behind. Come see what Microsoft Azure has to offer Data Professionals.
Speaker(s):
- Geoff Hiten
Track and Room: Track 5 - N/A
Title: Launching your career in data management
Abstract: Maybe you are a student thinking about what comes next, or a professional looking for a change. Either way, if you’re interested in joining the ranks of data management professionals, it will help to know a few things.
We’ll cover some real world basics to help get your foot in the door: 1.) Finding companies that hire interns or entry level positions, and getting an interview 2.) What hiring managers are really looking for when hiring for entry level positions 3.) The first 90 days 4.) Getting noticed at the office 5.) Your ongoing commitment to an ever evolving (and rewarding) career path
Speaker(s):
- Jason Hall
Track and Room: Track 7 - N/A
Title: All Your HBase Are Belong To Us- an intro to HBase
Abstract: Join us as we take a tour of Microsoft Azure’s HDInsight HBase offering. We will introduce the main HBase features, as well as the HDInsight HBase preview service hosted in Microsoft Azure. Apache HBase is an open-source “big data” database that can hold billions of rows and millions of columns. It is a distributed, versioned, non-relational database. Presented by Bill Carroll and Jason Howell from the Microsoft Big Data support team.
Speaker(s):
- Jason Howell
Track and Room: Track 3 - N/A
Title: Show me whatcha workin’ with: Big Data Edition
Abstract: Congratulations. You’ve setup your Big Data environment with all the fun toys. You have Pig, Sqoop, and Hive all on your Hadoop cluster. You even got your data flowing in there properly. Now what? In this session we’re gonna go over Data Mining tools to help you gain some insight from your data. Then, to bring it all together, we’ll go over some easy ways to use common tools to show off all of this Big Data of yours, using tools that most have access to.
Speaker(s):
- Josh Luedeman
Track and Room: Track 3 - N/A
Title: The 20-Minute Tabular Model
Abstract: The Tabular model is still the new kid on the block in Analysis Services 2012. Based on xVelocity, a new highly compressed in-memory technology, Tabular models promise considerable performance improvements over Multidimensional models in many scenarios. But, as is the case with any new technology, there are certain limitations of which to be aware. Join me in this introductory-level session focusing on how Tabular fits into the Microsoft BI stack, the major factors to consider when choosing between Tabular and Multidimensional technologies, and finally a live demo where we’ll build a basic Tabular model in visual studio.
Speaker(s):
- Bill Anton
Track and Room: Track 6 - N/A
Title: Source Control with MSBI Solutions
Abstract: You may not know it, but if you are building MSBI solutions then you are writing code. Treat your BI code like the first-class citizen that it is and protect it with Source Control. Come learn why Source Control matters and how you can reap the benefits with no additional money out of your software budget.
Speaker(s):
- Bryant Byrd
Track and Room: Track 7 - N/A
Title: Introduction to SQL Server 2014 AlwaysOn Solutions
Abstract: For your mission critical application, you need to implement a high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) solution using SQL Server 2014 AlwaysOn technologies. There is a lot of documentation but it is very confusing and don’t know where to start. In this session, we will introduce you to SQL Server 2014 AlwaysOn technologies and explain the concepts that you need to implement a HA/DR solution using SQL Server 2014 AlwaysOn.
Speaker(s):
- Uttam Parui
Track and Room: Track 2 - N/A
Title: Your Best Interview Ever
Abstract: Presented by Chris Skorlinski with a collection of tips from 20 years of interviewing new hire candidates at Microsoft. He’ll cover techniques for building your résumé and key strategies during interviews, whether via phone, Skype, or in-person, to increase your chances for a new job and a new adventure.
Speaker(s):
- Chris Skorlinski
Track and Room: Track 7 - N/A
Title: BIML–Step by Step
Abstract: BIML–Business Intelligence Markup Language is your key to faster development of SSIS Packages. This session will guide you through an introduction to BIML. We’ll explore the capabilities of BIML and BIMLScript, available through the free Codeplex BIDSHelper download. We’ll move through basic syntax of plain BIML, and progress to BIMLScript, which enables exponentially faster development of SSIS packages.
Speaker(s):
- Julie Smith
Track and Room: Track 8 - N/A
Title: From Zero to Hero - Designing and Deploying Dynamic Reports Using SSRS
Abstract: This session provides an introduction to Reporting Services for report developers who have no prior experience with the product by explaining design elements of SQL Server 2014 Reporting Services such as tablixes, maps and charts to create dynamic reports. We will also discuss the differences of report design applications including SQL Server Data Tools (previously BIDS) and Report Builder and use each application to deploy reports that every user will love.
Speaker(s):
- Josh Gerszewski
Track and Room: Track 5 - N/A
Title: SQL server data tools
Abstract: This session covers basic functionalities of SQL Server data tools. Learn how to create the SQL Server Database Project, import existing database objects, design new objects, add pre and post deployment scripts. And how to use SqlPackage.exe command line utility to publish a database.
Speaker(s):
- Prabhaker Potharaju
Track and Room: Track 2 - N/A
Title: Introduction to Microsoft Azure Machine Learning
Abstract: The session will cover an introduction to using Microsoft Azure Machine Learning (MAML). We will cover some basics of machine learning using MAML which will include the MAML studio used to create, evaluate, and run machine learning experiments. We will also publish an experiment as a web service which can be used by your application. To learn more about MAML visit http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/services/machine-learning/
Speaker(s):
- Bill Carroll
Track and Room: Track 6 - 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.
Jason Hall
Twitter: - @SQLSaurus
LinkedIn: Jason Hall
Contact: http://blogs.sqlsentry.com/jasonhall
Jason Hall (@SQLSaurus) leads SentryOne’s Product Management team, which is responsible for managing product design, development and delivery.
Jason has worked in varied technology roles for over 20 years and holds industry certifications including MCSE (legacy), MCSD, MCTS, MCPD, and PMC-III.
Paul Waters
Twitter: - @pswaters
LinkedIn: Paul Waters
Paul has over 20 years of experience working in IT-related fields. Over the past 15 years, he has focused on Business Intelligence. Paul was the Technical Editor for the book quot;Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services Problem-Design-Solutionquot; and contributed to the Wrox book quot;Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Recipes: for Designing Expert Reports.quot;
Damu Venkatesan
Twitter: - @vdamu
LinkedIn: Damu Venkatesan
Damu Venkatesan is a Business Intelligence Consultant with over 25 years of IT experience including architecting and implementing BI/DW solutions using Microsoft SQL Server, PDW, SSIS, SSAS, SSRS, and Power BI. He has been speaking at many SQLSaturdays and user groups on data analytics and is actively involved in the Atlanta SQL community for several years. He has successfully delivered several BI/DW solutions and data migrations to various clients. He is also currently serving as President of DAMA Georgia chapter in Atlanta. He is the co-organizer of BI SQLSaturday in Atlanta.
Jessica Moss
Twitter: - @jessicammoss
Contact: http://www.jessicammoss.com
Jessica M. Moss is a well-known architect, speaker, author, and Microsoft MVP of SQL Server Business Intelligence. Jessica#39;s expertise includes data warehouse modeling, Integration Services ETL, Analysis Services semantic modeling, Reporting Services report design, and helping customers across industries successfully implement and enhance their BI solutions. She enjoys sharing her knowledge with the SQL community and has co-authored numerous technical books.
Ben DeBow
Contact: http://www.sqlha.com/blog/
Ben DeBow is a MDCBA, MCSE and MCITP focused on SQL Server consolidations, data architecture and performance tuning for organizations both large and small. Ben specializes in solving diverse and complex data and infrastructure challenges for large, global environments. Ben is a longtime member of the SQL community, volunteering the last 8 years as a SQLPass committee member, trainer and SQLPass presenter. Besides his work as a consultant, Ben is a cyclist, avid traveler and photographer.
Uttam Parui
Uttam Parui is currently a Senior Premier Field Engineer at Microsoft. He has worked with SQL Server for over 16 years and joined Microsoft 14 years ago. In his role, he delivers SQL Server consulting and support to designated strategic customers. He is the co-author for “Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Bible (Wiley Publishing Inc.)” and main technical reviewer for “Pro SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering (Apress)”.
Mark Tabladillo
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/MarkTabNet
LinkedIn: Mark Tabladillo
Contact: http://marktab.net
Mark Tabladillo Ph.D. works for Microsoft as a Cloud Solution Architect for the US CTO Customer Success Team. He has a science doctorate from Georgia Tech. Based in Atlanta, GA, Mark provides cloud enterprise solutions for companies in the US for Microsoft’s strategic clients. He is a chapter leader for the PASS Data Science virtual chapter.
James Serra
Twitter: - www.twitter.com/JamesSerra
LinkedIn: James Serra
Contact: http://www.JamesSerra.com
James Serra is a big data and data warehousing solution architect at Microsoft. He is a thought leader in the use and application of Big Data and advanced analytics. Previously, James was an independent consultant working as a Data Warehouse/Business Intelligence architect and developer. He is a prior SQL Server MVP with over 35 years of IT experience. James is a popular blogger (JamesSerra.com) and speaker. He is the author of the book “Reporting with Microsoft SQL Server 2012”.
Kevin Goode
Twitter: - @goodesql
Contact: http://www.goodesql.com
Kevin Goode is an MCSE, MCSD, and MCDBA. Currently, he is the Senior Data Architect for Inmar Inc. Kevin has over 12 years SQL Server experience starting with 6.5 and 15 years of IT experience. He has worked in many industries including manufacturing, distribution and logistics, financial services, IT outsourcing and has worked for several fortune 500 companies. His specialties include SQL Server development, Performance Tuning, Business Intelligence, and ETL.
Bradley Ball
Twitter: - @SQLBalls
LinkedIn: Bradley Ball
Contact: http://www.sqlballs.com
Bradley Ball is a Sr. Azure Engineer for Microsoft, and former Data Platform MVP. During his IT career Bradley has spent 8 years working as a Defense contractor for clients such as the U.S. Army and The Executive Office of the President of the United States, and the former Data Platform Practice Manager for Pragmatic Works Consulting. He has presented at SQLSaturdays, SSUG’s, SQL Rally, DevConnections, SQLBits, SQL Live 360, and the PASS Summit. Bradley can be found blogging on http://www.SQLBalls.com
Scott Holmes
I have been working with SQL Server for over 16 years and have specialized in the Business Intelligence area for the last 5. I have been with Microsoft on the SQL Server team since 2005, first in Support and currently as a Premiere Field Engineer. Prior to Microsoft, I cut my SQL teeth with a developer in New Jersey that produces a warehouse management solution (real warehouses, not data warehouses :) )
Scott Currie
Twitter: - @scottcurrie
LinkedIn: Scott Currie
Scott Currie is the founder and CEO of Varigence, Inc. Scott has led the development at Varigence of the Business Intelligence Markup Language (Biml) and Mist IDE. Before founding Varigence, Scott worked at Microsoft for seven years on the .NET Framework, Visual Studio, the C++ compiler, various customer connection initiatives, and internal BI/DW projects.
Kevin Hazzard
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/KevinHazzard
LinkedIn: Kevin Hazzard
Contact: http://www.linchpinpeople.com/blog/
Kevin Hazzard is a Partner at Linchpin People LLC, leaders in the data integration and database wellness space. He was a long-time Microsoft MVP and the author of a book entitled Metaprogramming in .NET. Kevin also serves as an elected member of his local School Board and dedicates most of his non-professional time promoting public education.
Julie Smith
Twitter: - @juliechix
LinkedIn: Julie Smith
Contact: http://datachix.com
Julie Smith is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and a BI consultant for Innovative Architects in Atlanta, GA. She#39;s implemented increasingly complex Business Intelligence solutions for over a decade at various organizations. She#39;s also worn many other database “hats” in her career – production DBA and database developer–but data integration and BI are her true passions. Julie holds a BA from the University of South Carolina. She and Audrey Hammonds co-created The Datachix.com blog.
Adam Jorgensen
Twitter: - wadamj
LinkedIn: Adam Jorgensen
Contact: http://www.pragmaticworks.com
As President of Pragmatic Works Consulting Adam drives market strategy, sales, partnerships, implementation and thought leadership. He has over 15 years of experience helping companies use their data to fuel their growth. Adam has been wowing audiences around the world for over a decade. He has delivered hundreds of sessions, published over a dozen books and hundreds of online videos and webinars on data and cloud topics. His passion is growing companies and mentoring leaders and companies to help them achieve their dreams.
Jim Christopher
Twitter: - twitter.com/beefarino
LinkedIn: Jim Christopher
Contact: http://www.beefycode.com
Jim gained 18 years of professional experience developing complex software projects in highly regulated industries, including education, gaming, and defense. His professional drive is designing software, systems, and user experiences for automation, a theme that has earned him a Microsoft MVP for PowerShell (2011-2016). Jim is a frequent speaker at technical user groups and conferences. He is currently Curriculum Director at Pluralsight.
Bill Carroll
Bill has worked for 15 years at Microsoft in Charlotte NC. He has spent the majority of his career supporting Microsoft SQL Server. He has recently transitioned to supporting Microsoft Azure HDInsight and Microsoft Azure Machine Learning.
Brett Tomson
Brett Tomson is the owner of Beam Consulting as well as a Mentor with SolidQ specializing in delivering solutions using the Microsoft Business Intelligence stack and related .NET technologies. He is an accomplished architect and developer of large-scale enterprise systems as well as an author and mentor to others. Brett has been using SQL Server actively for the past 15 years and is the founder and Chapter Leader of the Triangle SQL Server User Group located in Raleigh, NC.
Mark Tabladillo
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/MarkTabNet
LinkedIn: Mark Tabladillo
Contact: http://marktab.net
Mark Tabladillo Ph.D. works for Microsoft as a Cloud Solution Architect for the US CTO Customer Success Team. He has a science doctorate from Georgia Tech. Based in Atlanta, GA, Mark provides cloud enterprise solutions for companies in the US for Microsoft’s strategic clients. He is a chapter leader for the PASS Data Science virtual chapter.
Joe Dib
Joe is passionate about data! He spent his career, so far, manipulating data, working with databases, leading projects and managing (really mentoring) people. Joe has worked on all phases of Business Intelligence (BI) and Data Warehousing (DW) life cycle. He enjoys speaking (and teaching) on DW/BI strategic level topics as well as covering deep technical solutions. He has used various database platforms, many design methodologies, and different business intelligence tools.
Dan Shaver
Contact: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bigdatasupport/
Dan recently transitioned to the HDINSIGHT/NoSQL support team at Microsoft after spending 15 years supporting SQL Server.
Patrick Keisler
I’m a husband, a father, an Atlanta Braves fan, and oh yeah…I’m also a Microsoft SQL Server database administrator for a major investment bank, Wells Fargo Securities. I have over 10 years of DBA experience and have gained considerable knowledge in SQL Server by supporting hundreds of applications ranging from high-volume trading applications to large data warehouses.
Gene Webb
Twitter: - None
LinkedIn: Gene Webb
Contact: http://None
Gene Webb is a Regional Sales Executive with The Profisee Group based in Alpharetta Georgia. Profisee is the successor to Stratature the company that built Master Data Services (MDS) and sold the product to Microsoft in 2007. Profisee focuses around Master Data Management (MDM) and as a Gold ISV provides solution sets built on MDS and the Microsoft Stack. Gene spent 7 years working at Microsoft as a SQL Server and Developer Tools solution specialist and an ISV Developer Evangelist.
Geoff Hiten
Twitter: - SQLCraftsman
LinkedIn: Geoff Hiten
Geoff Hiten is a Technical Solutions Professional at Microsoft. Geoff began working with SQL Server in 1992 with version 4.2 and has used every version since. He specializes in highly available SQL systems, performance tuning, and systems migration. Geoff is heavily involved in the Microsoft SQL Server Community and was initially awarded MVP status in 2004. Geoff was appointed in 2011 to fill an interim Director position at the National PASS organization.
Andy Isley
Architect for Microsoft APS COE. Andy has 18 years of experience designing, managing and implementing data warehouses. I have implemented data warehouses from small 5 GB to 100/s TB.
His primary focus is business requirements, dimensional modeling, technical architecture designs, ETL design and implementation, reporting and analytics, and production support.
Andy has helped the develop best practices for implementing APS/PDW.
Josh Luedeman
Twitter: - http://www.twitter.com/joshluedeman
LinkedIn: Josh Luedeman
Contact: http://www.joshluedeman.com
Josh is a Sr FastTrack Engineer with the FastTrack team in the Azure Engineering Group at Microsoft. Josh focuses on Microsoft’s Cloud Scale Analytics Solutions in Azure using products like HDInsight, Data Lake, Data Factory, and DataBricks. He has worked in IT for over 10 years holding positions in Application Support, Database Administration, and Business Intelligence, in industries like Higher Education, Consulting, Manufacturing, and Software Development.
Prabhaker Potharaju
Prabhaker Potharaju is a Senior Consultant at Microsoft and has been with Microsoft for almost 19+ years with experience in Business Intelligence, Database Development and Administration, and Application Development using Microsoft technologies. He has extensive understanding of SQL Server internal architecture, performance tuning, as well as data implementation and maintenance of high availability, disaster recovery, and high performance OLTP and OLAP systems. Also has experience on Public and Private cloud platforms, Hybrid IT and delivering SQL Azure offerings.
Ben Thul
Twitter: - @spartansql
Contact: http://www.spartansql.com
Born naked and defenseless, he overcame these obstacles to become a mender of broken things, seeker of magic rings, and occasional watcher of slow pings.
Bryant Byrd
Twitter: - @BryantEByrd
LinkedIn: Bryant Byrd
Contact: http://biadmin.com
Bryant Byrd currently works for Eastman Chemical Company as their Business Intelligence Systems Administrator (AKA BI DBA); He doesn’t like the term “DBA” for this role because there is so much more to it than traditional relational database management.
Bryant has worked with Microsoft SQL Server since 6.0, first as a database developer and gradually working his way into database administration. In 2009 he started working with Analysis Services and now enjoys working across the entire MSBI stack.
Josh Gerszewski
Josh is a Microsoft Support Escalation Engineer with a focus in SQL Server Business Intelligence areas such as Master Data Services, Data Quality Services and Reporting Services. He is based in Charlotte and has over 10 years of SQL Server experience.
Russel Loski
Twitter: - sqlmovers
LinkedIn: Russel Loski
Contact: http://www.sqlmovers.com
Russ Loski is a SQL Server BI Developer based in Dallas-Fort Worth. He current works as a Data Analytics Engineer for Navisite, a remote managed IT services company. Twenty years ago, he began working with SQL Server 6.5. He has since continued to develop applications connected to all of the versions of SQL Server. He has worked with clients in industries from insurance to healthcare, from movie theaters to American football. Russ is a regular speaker at SQLSaturday events, as well as the SQL Server Users Groups in the North Texas region. Russ likes working with data in various shapes.
Rob Volk
Twitter: - sql_r
LinkedIn: Rob Volk
Contact: http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/robv/
Rob Volk is a SQL Server DBA in the Metro Atlanta area since 2001. He also moderates and answers the forums on SQLTeam.com. While an old-time cranky DBA, he no longer considers quot;business intelligencequot; an oxymoron or quot;the cloudquot; as merely atmospheric moisture, and is delightedly dipping his toes into both of these new oceans, and loves to do things in new and and unusual ways.
Jason Howell
Contact: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bigdatasupport/
Jason Howell has worked for 13 years at Microsoft in Charlotte, NC supporting Hadoop, other NoSQL and Big Data technologies, SQL Server and BI topics. He helps run the monthly Charlotte SQL Server User Group meetings, and has presented at the User Group, SQLSaturdays, and PASS Summits as well.
Justin Randall
Twitter: - jh_randall
LinkedIn: Justin Randall
Contact: http://blogs.sqlsentry.com/justinrandall
Justin Randall is a Senior Consultant at SQL Sentry, LLC. He has over 30 years of data management experience in a variety of roles from Enterprise Data Modeler to DBA, supporting development in DB2, Sybase, and SQL Server. Justin frequently speaks at SQL Server User Group meetings and SQLSaturdays, and has presented at several SQLintersection conferences. His current professional interests are SQL Server performance monitoring and tuning, and career development.
Jana Sattainathan
Twitter: - www.twitter.com/SQLJana
LinkedIn: Jana Sattainathan
Contact: http://www.sqljana.wordpress.com
Jana works as a Senior Oracle and SQL Server DBA at SCOR, a leading Reinsurance company in the world. He has spent most of his professional life around databases. At work, he has automated most aspects of his job using PowerShell.
Most recently, he created PowerPump, a “PowerShell Database Copy Server” for his company to copy 50 billion rows (> 20 TB,) from 4000+ of Oracle/SQL Server tables on a recurring basis to SQL Server targets for migration/testing. He has also fully automated the database deployment which supports all components of SQL Server and Oracle using PowerShell (with about 150 functions) that is tracked extensively.
Scott Currie
Twitter: - @scottcurrie
LinkedIn: Scott Currie
Scott Currie is the founder and CEO of Varigence, Inc. Scott has led the development at Varigence of the Business Intelligence Markup Language (Biml) and Mist IDE. Before founding Varigence, Scott worked at Microsoft for seven years on the .NET Framework, Visual Studio, the C++ compiler, various customer connection initiatives, and internal BI/DW projects.
Bill Anton
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/SQLbyoBI
LinkedIn: Bill Anton
Contact: http://byobi.com/blog/
Bill Anton is an expert in Analysis Services and an experienced data warehouse practitioner. In 2013, he founded Opifex Solutions, a consulting firm with deep expertise in enterprise-scale architecture, design, and performance optimization of Analysis Services and Power BI solutions. He loves eating and spends most of his free time convincing his beloved wife to adopt more golden retrievers.
Chris Skorlinski
Chris Skorlinski has been with Microsoft for 17 years. He is a Support Escalation Engineer at the Microsoft Charlotte NC office specializing in performance tuning and troubleshooting Replication. His is a contributor to SQLShare.com training as well as his own BLOGs on Replication Performance at http://blogs.msdn.com/ReplTalk/. #160;
Sponsors
The following is a list of sponsors that helped fund the event: