SQLSaturday #635 - Vancouver 2017

Event Date: 08/26/2017 00:00:00

Event Location:

UBC Robson Square
800 Robson Street
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

This event has completed. All data shown below is from the historical XML public data available.

Sessions
Speakers
Sponsors

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Sessions

This is a list of sessions from the event, based on the schedule in the XML files.

Title: Oracle vs. SQL Server Indexing- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Abstract: This session is based off research performed on objects, design and code built to be as similar as possible to see how Oracle and SQL Server compare in performance, usage and storage of indices. Based off trusted measurements in each platform, we’ll dig into how the use case was built, the similarities and the differences in each. What we can admire about how each product has matured in the way of managing index data, statistics and how the optimizer hinders and enhances index availability.

Takeaways are:

Receive a strong education on platform differences between Oracle and SQL Server.
Discover hidden insight on index storage and costs.
Learn about great tips on maintaining index health and how one platform may perform better than the other and how.
Translation of common features in both platforms

Speaker(s):

Kellyn Pot’Vin-Gorman

Track and Room: DBA - C100

Title: Power BI : Dashboard in an hour

Abstract: *** Attendees must bring their own laptop.

During this one-hour session, attendees will learn how to import, transform and merge data with Power BI. They will also learn how to create and share reports and dashboards. They will also learn how to use natural language to ask questions and get answers. Finally, the will learn how to use the Power BI Mobile app to consume their reports and dashboards.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/power-bi-dashboard-in-an-hour-tickets-37301476721

This is a hands-on session for beginners. You will be invited to download Power BI Desktop (preferably before the session) at https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/desktop/ and you will be invited to create a free Power BI Service account.

Speaker(s):

Sophie Marchand

Track and Room: Power BI - C400

Title: The Science of Success: Building Faith in a Data Warehouse

Abstract: For data professionals, understanding why a modern data warehouse doesn’t get adopted immediately and broadly in an organization can be difficult. Data in your warehouse is arguably of better quality and in a more usable form than what’s in the systems you source your data from… so where does this reluctance come from, and how do you overcome it? Despite our broad expertise of data tools, the robotic consistency of the computational resources they leverage, and the immutable GIGO law - presenting a reasoned and thorough validation process often isn’t enough. Trust isn’t given instantly, it has to be earned. The strongest faith is built by participation, and repetition. Learn how to leverage your tooling expertise in SSIS and SQL to build a dead-simple framework to build faith in data. Leverage analyst and business user questions and angst into repeatable, consistent proof of correctness - that’s the science of success for a data warehouse.

Speaker(s):

Todd McDermid

Track and Room: DW/BI - C130

Title: Azure SQL Data Warehouse for the SQL Server DBA

Abstract: The power of cloud storage and compute power has made data warehousing possible for businesses of all sizes. What was once a large capital expenditure and multi-year implementation can now be deployed and ready to use within minutes and allow any organization to collect, query and discover insights from their structured data sources.

With a full T-SQL interface and compatibility with the rest of the Microsoft data stack, Azure Data Warehouse can fit transparently into your business data strategy and leverage already existing and familiar development and management skills.

In this session we will look at the main concepts of the Azure SQL Data Warehouse service, how it’s different than SQL Server and the advantages it provides to an on-premises solution.

Speaker(s):

Warner Chaves

Track and Room: DBA - C130

Title: What is new and exciting in Power BI

Abstract: With weekly and monthly releases, there are a lot of fantastic new features to explore in Power BI. In this session, we will review what’s been released lately, including the new collaboration features in the cloud-based service, the new authoring and modeling features of Power BI Desktop, extending your reach to mobile applications, new Power BI resources, and finally what’s new for developers leveraging the Power BI platform.

Speaker(s):

Charles Sterling

Track and Room: Power BI - Theatre C300

Title: Linux essential Skills for Mouse clicker DBAs

Abstract: With SQL Server almost available on Linux, seasonal SQL Server DBAs, who spent most of their work on Windows, should hone their skills on Linux.

The session will explore the essential skills needed to manage SQL server on Linux. It will also explore the most common tasks and procedures DBAs commit on Windows and their equivalents on Linux. Some troubleshooting skills on Linux will be explored, as well

Speaker(s):

Mohamed Mawla

Track and Room: DBA - C150

Title: Excel and SSIS: Better Together

Abstract: If you’ve ever used the standard Excel Source or Destination components in SSIS, you know there are some limitations. Cozyroc’s Excel Source Plus and Excel Destination Plus components remove those limitations. In addition, Cozyroc’s Excel Task enables editing of Excel files from SSIS packages. In this session, I’ll talk about the capabilities of the Cozyroc components and demonstrate how easy it is use use these components with SSIS.

Speaker(s):

Diane Schuster

Track and Room: DW/BI - C150

Title: U-SQL Killer scenarios: Custom Processing, Big Cognition, Image and JSON processing at Scale

Abstract: When analyzing big data, you often have to process data at scale that is not rectangular in nature and you would like to scale out your existing programs and cognitive algorithms to analyze your data. To address this need and make it easy for the programmer to add her domain specific code, U-SQL includes a rich extensibility model that allows you to process any kind of data, ranging from CSV files over JSON and XML to image files and add your own custom operators. In this presentation, we will provide some examples on how to use U-SQL to process interesting data formats with custom extractors and functions, including JSON, images, use U-SQL’s cognitive library and finally show how U-SQL allows you to invoke custom code written in Python and R.

Speaker(s):

Michael Rys

Track and Room: Azure - C130

Title: Back to the Future with Temporal Tables

Abstract: Back to the Future is the greatest time travel movie ever. I’ll show you how temporal tables work, in both SQL Server and Azure SQL Database, without needing a DeLorean. We cover point in time analysis, reconstructing state at any time in the past, recovering from accidental data loss, calculating trends, and my personal favourite: auditing. There’s even a bit of In-Memory OLTP. This is a demo-heavy session.

Speaker(s):

Randolph West

Track and Room: dev - C150

Title: Power BI Report Server: Self-service BI and Enterprise reporting on-premises

Abstract: Love Power BI but need an on-premises solution today? Meet Power BI Report Server – self-service analytics and enterprise reporting, all in one on-premises solution. Design beautiful, interactive reports in Power BI Desktop, publish them to Power BI Report Server, and view and interact with them in your web browser or the Power BI app on your phone. And since Power BI Report Server includes the proven enterprise reporting capabilities of SQL Server Reporting Services, it can even run your existing Reporting Services reports too. Join me for an overview of Power BI Report Server, a demo of its features in action, and what’s coming next.

Speaker(s):

Chris Finlan

Track and Room: Power BI - Theatre C300

Title: Data Visualization: How to truly tell a great story!

Abstract: We have more information available to us today than ever before. So much so that we run the risk of not being able to tell concise stories. There’s a lot more to creating that story than just getting the correct information. Come learn not just the do’s and don’ts, but the whys…

Speaker(s):

Jonathan Stewart

Track and Room: Other - C100

Title: Azure Data Technologies Overview

Abstract: With the shift to microservice architectures, gone are the days where all of an organization’s data is stored in a single, massive, relational database. We’re quickly shifting to a polyglot persistence approach for dealing with data — using separate data stores that are each best suited to the data being stored.

We’ll look at the wide variety of managed services available to store data on Microsoft Azure including the usual suspects such as SQL DB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Table Storage, and others like Cosmos DB, Redis, Search, and more. The audience will walk away with a broad understanding of Azure’s data portfolio and be able select the right tools to meet their data persistence needs.

Speaker(s):

Anthony Chu

Track and Room: Azure - Theatre C300

Title: Performance Tuning for the BI Professional

Abstract: Being a BI Professional, you need all the performance tuning the DB folks get and more. In this hour, we will go over important performance tuning tips that you can use to help make your deliverables faster and more effective. We will touch on the MSBI tools of SSIS, SSAS, SSRS and PowerBI as well as some core engine stuff.

Speaker(s):

Jonathan Stewart

Track and Room: DW/BI - C100

Title: A Deep-Dive with Azure Cosmos DB: Microsoft’s globally distributed, multi-model database

Abstract: Azure Cosmos DB is the first and only globally distributed, multi-model database system. The service is designed to allow customers to elastically and horizontally scale both throughput and storage across any number of geographical regions, it offers guaranteed less than 10 ms latencies at the 99th percentile, 99.99% high availability and five well defined consistency models to developers. It’s been powering Microsoft’s internet-scale services for years. In this session, we will cover how you can get the most out of Azure Cosmos DB by gaining a deep insight in to the system internals. From global distribution to partitioned collections to automatic indexing - this session will equip you with invaluable insight in to building blazingly fast planet-scale applications

Speaker(s):

Andrew Liu

Track and Room: Azure - Theatre C300

Title: How a traditional CMS went from on-prem SQL Server to Azure based CosmosDB, Search, Stream Analytics

Abstract: Learn the journey of an Open Source Content Management’s move from on premise to the cloud. DNN (formerly known as DotNetNuke) has traditionally been an on-premise solution on IIS and SQL Server. While building a new solution for content management we literally hit a limit with the on-premise Sql Server tools. We needed a schema free database - DocumentDB came to rescue. Find out why we didn’t go with MongoDB. We also needed search capability, where Azure Search became the tool of choice. We need logging and telemetry from our application - App Insights was chosen. We also use Event Hubs, Stream Analytics and Data Lake. I will talk about all of these here, and present you a full picture on how to build real life scalable business applications using Azure technologies. We will focus mostly on the Data aspects of the architecture in this session.

Speaker(s):

Ash Prasad

Track and Room: Azure - C400

Title: Biml for Beginners: Speed Up Your SSIS Development

Abstract: Are you tired of creating and updating the same SSIS packages again and again? Is your wrist hurting from all that clicking, dragging, dropping, connecting and aligning? Do you want to take the next step and really speed up your SSIS development?

Say goodbye to repetitive work and hello to Biml, the markup language for Business Intelligence projects.

In this session we will look at the basics of Biml. First learn how to use Biml to generate SSIS packages from database metadata. Then see how you can reuse code to implement changes in multiple SSIS packages and projects with just a few clicks. Finally, we will create an example project that you can download and start with to speed up your SSIS development from day one.

Stop wasting your valuable time on doing the same things over and over and over again, and see how you can complete in a day what once took more than a week!

Speaker(s):

Cathrine Wilhelmsen

Track and Room: DW/BI - C130

Title: Cloud Data Platforms for the SQL Server DBA

Abstract: With the proliferation of both SQL and NoSQL databases, organizations can now target specific fit-for-purpose database tools for their different application needs regarding scalability, ease of use, ACID support, etc.

Platform as a Service offerings make this even easier now, enabling developers to roll out their own database infrastructure in minutes with minimal management overhead. However, this same amount of flexibility also comes with the challenges of picking the right tool, on the right provider and with the proper expectations. All of these are new challenges that are coming into the field of responsibility of the SQL DBA professional.

In this session we’ll compare the NoSQL and SQL offerings from AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, their use cases for each one based on our own client projects, and how they are different to the different SQL Server features we are familiar with.

Speaker(s):

Warner Chaves

Track and Room: DBA - C100

Title: Modern Reporting with SQL Server 2016 and 2017 Reporting Services

Abstract: The 2016 product release was a big upgrade that, once again, brought SSRS into center stage as a market-leading reporting and dashboard design tool for operational and BI reporting. The big news was that SSRS reports truly run in all modern web browsers and work on mobile devices and all desktops in a new modern web portal. The introduction of Mobile Reports, formerly known as Datazen, gives mobile device users interactive, tactile and actionable dashboard style reporting on all the popular mobile smartphones and tablets. The 2017 product brings even more goodness with the integration of Power BI Report Server, on-premises Power BI report integration in a cloud-free platform. Join Paul for a full-day pre-conference session where you will explore new capabilities and learn to integrate modern reporting into your data platform.

This session covers: • What’s new in Reporting Services 2017 (and 2016)? • Reporting Services and Power BI Report Server Architecture • Parameter improveme

Speaker(s):

Paul Turley

Track and Room: Power BI - C100

Title: Columnstore Index Primer

Abstract: Overview of Columnstore indexes introduced in SQL Server 2012 and its evolution through each release. We will explore how data is organized differently in Columnstore and its impact on query performances. We would cover some of best practices when using this new technology and pitfalls to watch out for when designing your system.

Speaker(s):

Sepand Gojgini

Track and Room: dev - C150

Title: Internet Of Things: Smart Mirror

Abstract: A look at the intersection of hardware, software, and internet. See what it takes to bring your next workshop project to life including stories about the success and failures of creating a Smart Mirror. We will take a look into hardware including that from the hardware store and the software required to make the magic happen.

Speaker(s):

Andrew Cook

Track and Room: Other - C100

Title: Using SQL Server on Amazon Web Services

Abstract: Learn how to deploy SQL Server in Amazon Web Services, either self-managed on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) or use the Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) for a managed solution. We will cover key aspects of AWS, deployment options for SQL Server, managed High Availability with RDS, and data migration.

Speaker(s):

Michael Barras

Track and Room: DBA - C130

Title: No future for the DBA

Abstract: How does the DBA evolve to look at new tools and services beyond the database? Join me to look at how hybrid solutions and the massive Azure Data Services landscape is changing the DBA. Teach yourself new tricks with Data Lake and Data Lake analytics. Query and aggregate over millions of points of data. See the power of Hybrid connectivity to deliver value and performance for reporting, BI and analytics. Bridge the world with cosmos DB and see the death of the data warehouse with Azure SQL Data Warehouse. What, a self-tuning database, maybe I should just take a longer lunch?

Speaker(s):

Andrew Boudreau

Track and Room: Other - Theatre C300

Title: Give more power to the users! - Decision Support Using Power BI

Abstract: Power BI provides analytics solutions for your whole organization. Small Businesses can profit by exposing their data, and see the impact in their clients sites. I will introduce “Oil test Systems” a small business that tests oil in trucks. It’s clients portal and the test data as other insights and recommendations, can be viewed by the clients using SharePoint 365. Performance dashboards are displayed using PowerBI, giving the business the opportunity for efficient decision making. The demo was built without code, every ITPro can do it!.

Speaker(s):

Yana Berkovich

Track and Room: Power BI - C150

Title: Introduction to Azure Data Lake and U-SQL for SQL users

Abstract: Data Lakes have become a new tool in building modern data warehouse architectures. In this presentation we will introduce Microsoft’s Azure Data Lake offering and its new big data processing language called U-SQL that makes Big Data Processing easy by combining the declarativity of SQL with the extensibility of C#. We will give you an initial introduction to U-SQL by explaining why we introduced U-SQL and showing with an example of how to analyze some tweet data with U-SQL and its extensibility capabilities and take you on an introductory tour of U-SQL that is geared towards existing SQL users.

Speaker(s):

Michael Rys

Track and Room: Azure - Theatre C300

Title: How SQL Server 2016 SP1 changes the game | Microsoft Dev Team

Abstract: Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2016 was released to the market in November. It brings lot of enhancements and value for a customer that can greatly improve their experience with SQL Server. This session will cover some of the key enhancements that will entice a customer to upgrade to SQL Server 2016. In this session, we’ll also talk about several supportability and diagnostic improvements in the database engine and high availability technologies that will help customer and the field quickly identify and resolve issues in a mission-critical environment.

Speaker(s):

Sunil Agarwal

Track and Room: DBA - Theatre C300

Title: Ask The Experts

Abstract: Experts in all the represented fields will be answering your questions in this room. First come first answered!

Speaker(s):

Ken Puls

Track and Room: Other - C400

Title: Azure DataFactory for heterogeneous Cloud sources

Abstract: Explore Usage of Azure Datafactory to mesh data from various cloud offerings such as AWS and Google Cloud. Many vendors would have more than one cloud offering and they would bring the data together. We will explore strategies to connect data from various sources, obstacles, workarounds, troubleshooting and best practices, all hands-on

Speaker(s):

Mohamed Mawla

Track and Room: Azure - C150

Title: SQL Server Containers and Clones

Abstract: “Containers and Clones for SQL Server Development and Test”

Microsoft is emphasizing the use of containers for development and test on SQL Server 2017, and new solutions from Red Gate and Windocks add support for containers and SQL Server database database cloning, for the full range of the SQL Server family. We’ll explore use of Docker based tooling for delivery of container environments, and their pros and cons. We’ll also look at SQL Server cloning, and how clones enable Dev and Test teams to work on large database environments for containers as well as existing SQL Server instances.

Speaker(s):

Paul Stanton

Track and Room: DBA - C130

Title: Why Should I Care About … Partitioned Views?

Abstract: Partitioned tables are awesome and partitioned views are dead, right? Well, sure partitioned views are not sexy but there are still plenty of applications where they are critical. And not necessarily just for standard edition who aren’t on the new service pack yet. If your data is time stamped, do you see different queries run against older data than new data? Do you with you could segment your data across multiple columns? Do you have data you need to partition horizontally? It’s possible partitioned views may still be for you. Come hear why this is still an important topic long after cargo pants and trucker hats went away … and possibly even after 2016 SP1.

Speaker(s):

Rick Lowe

Track and Room: dev - C400

Title: Using Database Replication to Make Your Oracle Data Available in SQLServer

Abstract: Learn how to use database replication tools to help “unlock” the data in your Oracle databases and make it available in SQLServer. This talk will cover the basics of database replication and how it can be used to move data between different database platforms. The talk will include a survey of available tools and methodologies and discuss the pros and cons of the various methodologies.

Speaker(s):

Clay Jackson

Track and Room: DBA - C150

Title: DAX Filters: A Quest for Clarity

Abstract: If you are working with SSAS Tabular, Power BI, or good ol’ Power Pivot for Excel, you’ve likely run into a need for DAX, the formula and query language of these tools. A very common task is to augment, override, or otherwise modify a filter context. This sounds easy enough, but if you’ve had experience beyond simple filters, the syntax and behavior may seem confusing, or worse, counter-intuitive. The purpose of this presentation is to discuss the different types of filters, their behavior, and their interactions with other DAX formulas.

Speaker(s):

Derek Rickard

Track and Room: Power BI - C130

Title: The Power of Caching

Abstract: With the right caching strategy, we can improve our database performance by reducing calls to the database. A look at how to use Redis cache with a .net web application to provide enterprise level performance. While most applications involve a database, that database becomes the bottleneck and caching can improve that bottleneck. We will look at best practices and pitfalls for using Redis cache.

Redis is an open source, in-memory data structure store, used as a database, cache and message broker.

Speaker(s):

Andrew Cook

Track and Room: dev - C400

Title: Make your data mobile with Power BI

Abstract: As amazing as our Power BI reports and dashboards are, they are designed for a full sized web page, not the smaller mobile phone screen. In this session Ken will walk through the process of taking a regular Power BI report and then optimizing both the report and dashboard for mobile consumption, all with tools built in to the Power BI ecosystem. We’ll look at changing layouts, location filtering, setting alerts, annotations and more!

Speaker(s):

Ken Puls

Track and Room: Power BI - C400

Speakers

This is a list of speakers from the XML Guidebook records. The details and URLs were valid at the time of the event.

Chris Finlan

Twitter: - @cmfinlan

LinkedIn: Chris Finlan

Contact: http://www.christopherfinlan.com

Since joining Microsoft in 2013, Chris Finlan is a leading evangelist for business intelligence. As the lead Business Intelligence Technology Solution Professional in the Mid-Atlantic Region, he was responsible for helping over 140 enterprise customers align their specific requirements to the Microsoft Cloud and Data Platform. His unique presentation style and background in “shadow IT” has made him a highly sought-after speaker for customer presentations and allows him a unique perspective on a variety of BI-related topics and trends. A Senior Program Manager on the Power BI Report Server Team, Chris has been working in the software industry for over a decade in various roles, from technical training, database administration and sales.

Mohamed Mawla

Trilingual Principal Consultant amp; Team Tech lead at a global Tech Consulting Mohamed had worked with large SQL server environments such as financials and gov of hundreds of SQL server instances and enormous amounts of data. His favorite subjects are Cloud Analytics, performance tuning, High Availability, especially Replication and Disaster recovery. Certified Google Cloud and Azure Data Engineer.

When not working, Mohamed carries his cameras and takes a trip somewhere.

Charles Sterling

Twitter: - https://twitter.com/chass

Contact: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/charles_sterling/

Charles Sterling came to Microsoft from being a marine biologist working for United States National Marine Fisheries doing marine mammal research on the Bering Sea. He started out at Microsoft supporting Excel and moved through a couple of support teams to being an escalation engineer for Microsoft SQL Server. Taking his love for customers (and diving), Chuck moved to Australia as a product manager and developer evangelist for the .NET Framework. In 2008 he moved back to Redmond as a Visual Studio community program manager and just recently moved to the Power BI team to continue his community passion and looking after the Power BI influencers and MVPs.

Mohamed Mawla

When not working, Mohamed carries his cameras and takes a trip somewhere.

Diane Schuster

LinkedIn: Diane Schuster

Diane has worked with COZYROC since 2012. She has attended numerous SQLSaturdays to shine the light on the time-saving and capability-extending components and tasks that COZYROC offers in it’s SSIS+ library. Without even having a background in databases or SQL Server, Diane successfully configures packages in live demonstrations that use COZYROC components and tasks. She believes that, if the toolkit is this easy to use for a novice, then just imagine what a SQL Server expert can do with it!

In Diane’s data networking days, Diane performed a variety of development-related and customer-facing roles for IBM, Lucent Technologies, North Carolina State University and Connectware.

Michael Rys

Twitter: - @MikeDoesBigData

Contact: http://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mrys

Michael has been doing data processing and query languages since the 1980s. He earned an M.S. (Diplom-Informatiker) and PhD in Computer Science at the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich (ETHZ) and joined Microsoft after a Post-Doc at Stanford University. Among other things he has been representing Microsoft on the XQuery and SQL design committees and has taken SQL Server beyond relational with XML, Geospatial and Semantic Search. Currently he is working on Big Data query languages such as SCOPE and U-SQL when he is not enjoying time with his family skiing, under water or at autocross.

Anthony Chu

Twitter: - @nthonyChu

LinkedIn: Anthony Chu

Contact: https://anthonychu.ca

Anthony Chu is a Cloud Developer Advocate at Microsoft. He builds cloud applications in ASP.NET and Node.js, and is currently focused on Azure Functions, Cosmos DB, Kubernetes, and Windows containers.

Derek Rickard

Twitter: - @sourcetoshare

LinkedIn: Derek Rickard

Derek Rickard is a Business Analytics professional turned Business Intelligence fanatic. He has spent the better part of his career as an analyst in the consumer packaged goods industry. Leveraging self-service and enterprise BI tools to address major business challenges for sales, marketing, operations, accounting, compliance, executives, and owners. In 2014, he started Source to Share, a consultancy dedicated to the education and facilitation of Power BI tools within organizations.

Jonathan Stewart

Twitter: - sqllocks

LinkedIn: Jonathan Stewart

Contact: https://sqllocks.net/

Jonathan Stewart is a Business Intelligence consultant specializing in data visualization, data warehousing, and data management technologies. An advocate for educating others, he is a public speaker, teacher and blogger, continually teaching people about the Microsoft BI Stack. Since 2000, he has been working in the database field with industry leaders in healthcare, manufacturing, financial, insurance and federal, state and local governments.

Jonathan is very active in the community. He has presented on SQL Server, SSIS, Reporting Services, Power BI and Business Intelligence at numerous SQLSaturday events, local user groups, and conferences throughout the United States and around the world. He participates in webcasts, podcasts, and on

Andrew Liu

Twitter: - https://twitter.com/aliuy8

LinkedIn: Andrew Liu

Contact: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/

Andrew Liu is a program manager working on Microsoft’s Azure Cosmos DB team. He’s passionate about enabling developers and businesses to deliver new experiences through a novel globally distributed multi-model database service. Prior to joining Microsoft, Andrew worked as software engineer building mission-critical infrastructure for one of the world’s largest e-commerce websites.

Ash Prasad

Twitter: - ashishprasad

LinkedIn: Ash Prasad

Contact: http://www.dnnsoftware.com/community-blog/articletype/authorview/authorid/748680

Ash Prasad has been developing software for over 20 years. He currently works as Director of Engineering at DNN Corp. (formerly known as DotNetNuke) from their Langley, BC office. The DNN platform is one of the largest open-source ASP.NET based Content Management System (CMS) around the world. Ash and his team are actively developing on cloud using Azure tools and technologies such as DocumentDB, App Insights, Search, Stream Analytics, etc. Ash is a Microsoft MVP in Visual Studio and Development Technologies. Ash can be found on twitter at @ashishprasad.

Sepand Gojgini

Twitter: - @SwissArmySQL

LinkedIn: Sepand Gojgini

Product Director at Datateam Services, 10+ years of experience designing data warehouse model and ETL engines used globally. Had a chance of working on world biggest relational Data Warehouse at Amazon managing 5+ PetaByte of data with growth 7+ TeraByte daily. Seeking to apply best software development practices to ETL development and streamlining development process.

Jonathan Stewart

Twitter: - sqllocks

LinkedIn: Jonathan Stewart

Contact: https://sqllocks.net/

Todd McDermid

Twitter: - @Todd_McDermid

LinkedIn: Todd McDermid

Contact: https://toddmcdermid.blogspot.com

Todd McDermid is a local BC developer who’s turned into a data warehouse and business intelligence evangelist. He started out programming DBase, VB6, and C# - but is now passionate about the SQL Server BI stack. He’s concentrated on using Integration Services to build the backbone of BI delivery – a dimensional warehouse. Todd has been known to blog, forum troll, code open-source extensions, and present on BI topics across the continent.

Randolph West

Twitter: - _randolph_west

LinkedIn: Randolph West

Contact: https://bornsql.ca/blog/

Randolph West (they / them), founder of Born SQL, is an independent IT consultant, speaker, Calgary PASS user group leader, Microsoft Data Platform MVP, and lead author of “SQL Server 2019 Administration Inside Out”.

Randolph specialises in SQL Server performance tuning, disaster recovery, and migrations from really old versions, with an emphasis on implementing best practices.

Randolph has presented at PASS Summit, SQLBits, SQLSaturdays, and user groups. You can also find Randolph acting and directing on screen or the stage, or annoying people on Twitter.

Do not trust Randolph around chocolate.

Rick Lowe

Twitter: - DataFLowe

LinkedIn: Rick Lowe

Contact: http://dataflowe.wordpress.com/

Rick is a Microsoft Certified Master with more than 20 years of SQL Server experience in a variety of roles. He currently lives in Washington state and works as an independent consultant providing remote performance DBA and performance tuning services for clients in the USA and Canada. His first exposure to SQL Server was as a database developer, but over time he became more and more interested in how the database engine operated… eventually specializing more on performance issues than code.

Rick will work with all things relational, but most enjoys helping smaller companies get better performance from MSSQL, as well as smoothing over relationships between DBA and development teams.

Kellyn Pot’Vin-Gorman

Twitter: - DBAKevlar

LinkedIn: Kellyn Pot’Vin-Gorman

Contact: http://dbakevlar.com

Kellyn Pot’Vin-Gorman is a member of the Oak Table Network and an Idera ACE and Oracle ACE Director alumnus. She is a Data Platform Architect in Power BI with AI in the EdTech group at Microsoft. Kellyn is known for her extensive work with multi-database platforms, DevOps, cloud migrations, virtualization, visualizations, scripting, environment optimization tuning, automation, and architecture design.

Kellyn has spoken at numerous technical conferences for Oracle, Big Data, DevOps, testing, and SQL Server. Her blog (http://dbakevlar.com) and social media activity under her handle, DBAKevlar, is well respected for her insight and content.

Andrew Cook

Twitter: - @codingwcookie

Contact: http://codingwithcookie.com

Andrew is a software development consultant in Seattle, WA focusing on development on the Microsoft Stack including Azure and Xamarin. Andrew is a Xamarin Certified Developer, Microsoft Professional and Advanced Care Paramedic.

Sophie Marchand

Twitter: - lecfomasque

LinkedIn: Sophie Marchand

Contact: http://www.lecfomasque.com/accueil-mon-cher-watson/

Instigatrice du CFO masqu#233;, Sophie Marchand est d#233;tentrice d’une M.Sc. en finance corporative, d’un titre comptable CPA, CGA et d’un titre MVP (Most valuable professional) Excel et d#39;un titre MVP Data Platform de Microsoft, et cumule de nombreuses ann#233;es d’exp#233;rience dans le milieu des affaires. Elle se sp#233;cialise particuli#232;rement en mod#233;lisation financi#232;re et en intelligence d’affaires. #192; ce titre, elle d#233;veloppe des mod#232;les financiers rigoureux, des tableaux de bord sophistiqu#233;s et des outils de gestion performants. Elle offre

Warner Chaves

Twitter: - @warchav

LinkedIn: Warner Chaves

Contact: http://sqlturbo.com

Warner is a SQL Server MCM, Data Platform MVP and Principal Consultant at Pythian, a global Canada-based company specialized in DBA services. A brief stint in .NET programming led to his early DBA formation working for enterprise customers in Hewlett-Packard ITO organization. From there he transitioned to his current position at Pythian, building and managing data solutions in many industry verticals while leading a highly talented team of Data Platform consultants.

Andrew Cook

Twitter: - @codingwcookie

Contact: http://codingwithcookie.com

Cathrine Wilhelmsen

Twitter: - @cathrinew

LinkedIn: Cathrine Wilhelmsen

Contact: https://www.cathrinewilhelmsen.net/

Cathrine loves teaching and sharing knowledge :) She is based in Norway and works as a Senior Business Intelligence Consultant in Inmeta, focusing on Data Warehousing, Data Integration, Analytics, and Reporting projects. Her core skills are Azure Data Factory, SSIS, Biml and T-SQL development, but she enjoys everything from programming to data visualization. Outside of work she’s active in the SQL Server community as a Microsoft Data Platform MVP, BimlHero Certified Expert, author, speaker, blogger, organizer and chronic volunteer.

Yana Berkovich

Twitter: - @Yana_Berkovich

LinkedIn: Yana Berkovich

Contact: http://yanaberkovich.com

A people-oriented professional, aspiring Product Manager, with 11 years of process analysis, building solutions, customization, developing, managing and training experience. Working with Power Bi, Oracle SQL and SQL server for the past few years. Data enthusiast with international experience in many companies as a BA, Team Lead and everything SharePoint Office 365.

Ken Puls

Twitter: - @kpuls

LinkedIn: Ken Puls

Contact: https://www.excelguru.ca/blog

Ken Puls, FCPA, FCMA is a Chartered Professional Accountant, author, and trainer. With over 20 years of experience as a corporate controller and business owner, he has been exposed to many business systems, databases, and analysis tools, leading to a career of building Excel and Power BI-driven applications to harness data and turn it into management information.

A Microsoft Excel/Data Platform MVP since 2006 and author of 2 books, Ken has also been recognized as a Fellow of CPA Canada.

Andrew Boudreau

Twitter: - GovBI

A long time Database guy and data geek. With over 20 years experience on the Microsoft Data Platform I have morphed from DBA to BI Architect to Data Wrangler to data scientist. I have left my DBA shell far behind and now enjoy the endless possibility of new tools and services beyond the Database box. Advanced analytics and machine learning are my new passion and love to talk data with everybody.

Ken Puls

Twitter: - @kpuls

LinkedIn: Ken Puls

Contact: https://www.excelguru.ca/blog

A Microsoft Excel/Data Platform MVP since 2006 and author of 2 books, Ken has also been recognized as a Fellow of CPA Canada.

Warner Chaves

Twitter: - @warchav

LinkedIn: Warner Chaves

Contact: http://sqlturbo.com

Michael Rys

Twitter: - @MikeDoesBigData

Contact: http://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mrys

Sunil Agarwal

A seasoned professional with 30+ years of industry experience in databases, Sunil has worked as a lead developer for relational database engine solutions, as a tool designer for backup and restore technologies and as a development manager for B2B commerce and e-learning solutions. He has been in his role as a Principal Program Manager for SQL Server for the last 12+ years. Sunil has authored many technical white papers and blogs, and has co-authored two books on SQL Server and has presented database technologies in numerous national and international conferences. He enjoys teaching and has taught introductory programming courses at the University of Rhode Island and the University of Colorado.

Paul Turley

Twitter: - paul_turley

LinkedIn: Paul Turley

Contact: http://www.sqlserverbiblog.com

Paul is a Principal Consultant for Pragmatic Works, a Mentor and Microsoft Data Platform MVP. He consults, writes, speaks, teaches blogs about business intelligence and reporting solutions. He works with companies around the world to model data, visualize and deliver critical information to make informed business decisions; using the Microsoft data platform and business analytics tools. He is a Director of the Oregon Data Community PASS chapter user group, the author and lead author of Professional SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services and 14 other titles from Wrox Microsoft Press. He holds several certifications including MCSE for the Data Platform and BI.

Clay Jackson

Twitter: - n7qnm

Clay Jackson is a Database Sales Engineer for Quest, specializing in Database Performance Management and Replication Tools. Prior to joining Quest, Jackson was the DBA Manager at Darigold. He also spent over 10 years managing Oracle, SQLServer and DB2 databases and DBAs at Washington Mutual and was employee number 66 at Microsoft, spending time in Product Support, MIS and OS/2 Development. While at WaMu, Jackson was the Enterprise Database Compliance Officer, with responsibility for Database Security and Disaster Recovery. He also worked at Microsoft and Starbucks, is a CISM, and has a Masters in Software Engineering from Seattle University.

Paul Stanton

Twitter: - https://twitter.com/Paul_E_Stanton

LinkedIn: Paul Stanton

Contact: https://www.windocks.com/blog-2

Co-founder of Windocks, Paul is a former Microsoft engineer who is focused on delivering solutions for SQL Server development and test, including SQL Server containers and database cloning.

Michael Barras

LinkedIn: Michael Barras

Michael Barras is a Senior Database Engineer with the Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) where he gets to help drive feature development, serve as a database subject matter expert, and work directly with customers to get the most out of RDS. Michael joined Amazon in 2010 and spent six years scaling for explosive growth as a Senior DBA in Amazon Kindle. Before that he fought dinosaurs and championed relational databases at the University of Texas at Austin.

SQLSaturday #635 - Vancouver 2017

Sessions

Title: Oracle vs. SQL Server Indexing- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Title: Power BI : Dashboard in an hour

Title: The Science of Success: Building Faith in a Data Warehouse

Title: Azure SQL Data Warehouse for the SQL Server DBA

Title: What is new and exciting in Power BI

Title: Linux essential Skills for Mouse clicker DBAs

Title: Excel and SSIS: Better Together

Title: U-SQL Killer scenarios: Custom Processing, Big Cognition, Image and JSON processing at Scale

Title: Back to the Future with Temporal Tables

Title: Power BI Report Server: Self-service BI and Enterprise reporting on-premises

Title: Data Visualization: How to truly tell a great story!

Title: Azure Data Technologies Overview

Title: Performance Tuning for the BI Professional

Title: A Deep-Dive with Azure Cosmos DB: Microsoft’s globally distributed, multi-model database

Title: How a traditional CMS went from on-prem SQL Server to Azure based CosmosDB, Search, Stream Analytics

Title: Biml for Beginners: Speed Up Your SSIS Development

Title: Cloud Data Platforms for the SQL Server DBA

Title: Modern Reporting with SQL Server 2016 and 2017 Reporting Services

Title: Columnstore Index Primer

Title: Internet Of Things: Smart Mirror

Title: Using SQL Server on Amazon Web Services

Title: No future for the DBA

Title: Give more power to the users! - Decision Support Using Power BI

Title: Introduction to Azure Data Lake and U-SQL for SQL users

Title: How SQL Server 2016 SP1 changes the game | Microsoft Dev Team

Title: Ask The Experts

Title: Azure DataFactory for heterogeneous Cloud sources

Title: SQL Server Containers and Clones

Title: Why Should I Care About … Partitioned Views?

Title: Using Database Replication to Make Your Oracle Data Available in SQLServer

Title: DAX Filters: A Quest for Clarity

Title: The Power of Caching

Title: Make your data mobile with Power BI

Speakers

Sponsors