SQLSaturday #632 - Cambridge 2017

Event Date: 09/09/2017 00:00:00

Event Location:

The Møller Centre
Churchill College, Storey’s Way, Cambridge
Cambridge, England, United Kingdom

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: Temporal Data in SQL Server

Abstract: Databases that serve business applications should often support temporal data. For example, suppose a contract with a supplier is valid for a limited time only. It can be valid from a specific point in time onward, or it can be valid for a specific time interval—from a starting time point to an ending time point. In addition, many times you need to audit all changes in one or more tables. You might also need to be able to show the state in a specific point in time, or all changes made to a table in a specific period of time. From the data integrity perspective, you might need to implement many additional temporal specific constraints. This session introduces the temporal problems, deals with solutions that go beyond SQL Server 2016 support, and shows out-of-the-box solution in SQL Server 2016, including: • Defining temporal data • Application versioned tables in SQL Server • System versioned tables in SQL Server 2016 • What kind of temporal support is still missing

Speaker(s):

Dejan Sarka

Track and Room: DEV - Horton

Title: Exploring Dark Data with SQL Server 2016 and R

Abstract: With the addition of R into SQL Server 2016, Microsoft have provided a few extra degrees of freedom for the standard SQL developer. You can now use the R language to wrangle, clean and collect external data, using libraries and functionality that simply wasn’t available to you before with regular T-SQL. Performing data enrichment at scale with SQL Server or even Microsoft R Server can provide extremely valuable new insights for your clients and start reaping the benefits of big data.

In this session, Consolidata’s Oliver Frost shows you how to develop your own application for tapping into ‘dark data’. Ollie will demonstrate how to stream live tweets, perform aggregations in R and pipe the output to a Power BI dashboard, giving you a full end-to-end experience of the importance of learning some basic R code in 2016.

This session is for anyone who is new to R and is interested in expanding their skill set beyond their comfort zone in SQL Server.

Speaker(s):

Oliver Frost

Track and Room: DEV - Devereux

Title: Azure Machine learning beyond the basics with Juypter notebooks

Abstract: Since the launch of Azure Machine Learning, there have been lots published on how to get started with AML. They look at basic regression, while regression is great, it only skims the surface of what machine learning is good at. In this session we go beyond the basics of regression and look at how we can clean and tune our model to boost its predictive performance. We will look at what you model is actually telling you and investigate how we can improve your accuracy. We will look at what algorithm works for what type of scenario, whether you’re looking to predict, classify, recommend, cluster or segment. We will also look at why they work and what they are doing and how we can tweak their parameters to boost performance of our model. This is not Machine learning out of the box, this is applied machine learning. Is this session for you? Terms like supervised, unsupervised learning, confusion matrix, area under the curve should be familiar to you.

Speaker(s):

Terry McCann

Track and Room: Cloud - Devereux

Title: Columnstore killed the OLAP-Star?

Abstract: With increasing speed in relational query execution classical analytical solutions get challenged more and more. Why loose time for processing data into multi-dimensional databases? Why analyze outdated data if you can have fresh data instead?

We are analyzing typical scenarios from classical multi-dimensional analysis like YTD calculation, DistinctCount and others in regards to their efficiency with different solution approaches: Classical multi-dimensional databases in ROLAP mode, DirectQuery, T-SQL… And we are going to show how Columnstore indexes are influencing those solutions.

Find out about advantages and disadvantages of the different solutions in regards to the problem. And maybe you will discover new approaches for your own challenges.

Speaker(s):

Niko Neugebauer

Track and Room: BI - Fairfax

Title: Big Data - Big Quality? A governance round-trip through the possibilities of the MS data platform

Abstract: In the times of data explosion, a dazzling array of information streams and unbelievable possibilities of different techniques to manage data via the Microsoft Data Platform, this session asks the question: what about data curation? We dive into the requirements of modern data governance and curation and show in examples, what the Microsoft Data Platform has to offer: Can SQL Server Master Data Service (MDS), Data Quality Services (DQS) and Integration Service (SSIS) help? Which options offers the Azure Data Catalog and how does the Microsoft Common Data Service come into play? We also look at the potential of the new integrated languages in the Data Platform like R or U-SQL. At the end of this session you will have an overview and understanding of the possibilities, that Microsoft Data Platform offers you to address your data curation requirements.

Speaker(s):

Oliver Engels

Track and Room: BI - Devereux

Title: Pro Techniques for the SSASMD Developer

Abstract: Getting the techniques in your tool belt right, makes a world of a difference. Did you ever wonder, how to deploy a cube, with minimum impact to query performance? Or how to optimize processing performance? Are you really ready to deploy when its required? Or do you get nervous every time? Attend this session to build and improve your SSAS Developer skills, by exploring: Partitioning Unit Testing Synchronization Custom Assemblies PowerShell to tie all the ends together.

Speaker(s):

Jens Vestergaard

Track and Room: BI - Lambert

Title: SQL Server and PowerShell: Let’s Get Serious

Abstract: Whether you’ve dabbled in PowerShell or wondered what all the fuss is about, make no mistake: PowerShell is something worth learning to make your life as a SQL Server professional easier. Whether you’re a DBA, a SSIS developer, or security professional, In this session you’ll see practical, real world examples of how you can blend SQL Server and PowerShell together, and not just a bunch of regular T-SQL tasks that have been made more complicated.

Speaker(s):

Drew Furgiuele

Track and Room: DBA - Devereux

Title: Kerberos for SQL Server and SharePoint the easy way

Abstract: Configuring Kerberos can be easy. Indeed, with favourable conditions and some preparation, the whole thing can be over in minutes. However, if hours later it still does not work, troubleshooting can take many days even with help of experts.

What most resources usually cover is, at best, some step by step configuration instructions for a particular architecture. Such instructions often lack explanation of why it has to be done that way in terms of the role of every step in the authentication process.

I would like to present easy to follow principles of Kerberos constrained delegation and protocol transition with handy tips and templates to get this right the first time for your particular environment. The goal is to explain the meaning of the settings in terms of the role in the Kerberos constrained delegation authentication.

This presentation covers some very useful resources to help you tame your three-headed monster. I will also do a demo of configuration and troubleshooting

Speaker(s):

Dmytro Andriychenko

Track and Room: Other - Devereux

Title: Analyzing the impact of weather on English Premier League matches in Power BI

Abstract: Have you ever wondered if there are more goals scored on a rainy day? This session shows how you can use open data sources and web pages to gather data. How you can then manipulate and extend it and finally report on it. We will look into how you can use data from open sources and combine it with data from web pages to create the dataset you need.
When we have our dataset we will manipulate and extend it using M and DAX so that we can get meaningful insights from it. We will then dive into the data to see if there is anything to report.

In this end to end Power BI Desktop demo we will use fun data that many can relate to as the English Premier League is one of the most popular football leagues in the world. The audience will take away many nuggets of information as they see how a real world example could look like. I will share all the obstacles and learning I got when creating this report reveiling both the limitation of Power BI Desktop and open data as well as its strength.

Speaker(s):

Asgeir Gunnarsson

Track and Room: BI - Cromwell

Title: DevOps for BI Workshop Part I

Abstract: This 2 hour charity minicon requires a separate registration and a small donation to charity. Registration and more details can be found through https://spssqldevops.eventbrite.co.uk

If you are releasing database changes, new reports, cubes or SSIS packages on a regular basis, you’ve probably offered up your share of blood, toil, tears and sweat on getting them delivered into production in working condition. DevOps is a way to bridge the gap between developers and IT professionals and for that we need to address the toolchain to support the practices. Microsoft offers a set of tools that’ll help you on your journey towards the end goal: Maximize predictability, efficiency, security and maintainability of operational processes.

We will in detail be looking at:

Agile Development Frame of Mind Visual Studio Online (tool) Feature/PBI/WI (concept) Team Foundation Server Code Branching (concept) Build Agents (tool) PowerShell Microsoft’s “Glue” (tool)

Speaker(s):

Jens Vestergaard

Track and Room: BI - Gell

Title: Create Stunning Visualizations with The Help of R

Abstract: R is the first choice for data scientists for a good reason: besides accessing and transforming data and applying statistical methods and models to it, it has a wide variety of possibilities to visualize data. As visual perception of data is the key to understanding data, this capability is crucial. This session will give you a broad overview over available packages and diagram types you can build with them on the one hand and a deep dive into common visualizations and their possibilities on the other hand. Impress yourself and your peers with stunning visualizations which will give you insights into data you could not achieve with other tools of Microsoft’s BI stack.

Speaker(s):

Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen

Track and Room: BA - Cromwell

Title: Scripting tabular models

Abstract: Introducing the new scripting language for tabular models. Before SQL Server 2016 tabular models was wrapped into a multidimensional constructs. TOM is the new native library for tabular - this makes it easy to maintain, modify and deploy your model.

During this session I will go through and explain some examples and best practices on generating a SSAS tabular model by using the new TOM. I will spend some time showing and explaining a real world example on pushing measure creation and changes to the key business stakeholders and to ensure quick time to market.

The last thing i will show is how you speed up your development free up up to 50% of the time you spend building tabular models with the simple and advanced features of Tabular Editor 2.0

Speaker(s):

Bent Pedersen

Track and Room: BI - Fairfax

Title: Real-Time Reporting through the medium of Dance

Abstract: The modern data warehouse proposition has to deliver data at much greater velocities than we were previously able to. This is known as the speed layer in lambda architecture parlance.

But how do you start putting a real-time streaming dashboard together? For the first time, it’s actually straightforward to achieve. This session will run through an example streaming application, taking live statistics from a dance-mat game through to a live dashboard. We’ll go from scanning log files, pushing messages to an Event Hub, through Streaming Analytics into a live PowerBI Streaming Dashboard.

This demo-heavy, practical session will tell you all you need to know to get started with real-time reporting with Microsoft Azure.

Speaker(s):

Simon Whiteley

Track and Room: Cloud - Lambert

Title: Azure Data Factory Creating Custom Activities Workshop part I

Abstract: This 2 hour charity minicon requires a separate registration and a small donation to charity. Registration and more details can be found through https://spssqladf.eventbrite.co.uk

Azure Data Factory. This is not SSIS in Azure. But it’s a start for our control flows. Let’s update our terminology and understand how to invoke our Azure data services with this new controller/conductor who wants to understand our structured datasets. Learn to create the perfect dependency driven pipeline with Azure Data Factory and allow your data to flow. What’s an activity and how do we work with time slices? Is a pipeline a pipeline? Who is this JSon person? All the answers to these questions and more in this introduction to working with Azure Data Factory. Plus, insights from a real-world case study where ADF has been used in production for a big data business intelligence solution handling log files for 1.5 billion users.

Speaker(s):

Paul Andrew

Track and Room: BI - Gell

Title: DevOps for BI Workshop Part II

Abstract: This 2 hour charity minicon requires a separate registration and a small donation to charity. Registration and more details can be found through https://spssqldevops.eventbrite.co.uk

We will in detail be looking at:

Agile Development Frame of Mind Visual Studio Online (tool) Feature/PBI/WI (concept) Team Foundation Server Code Branching (concept) Build Agents (tool) PowerShell Microsoft’s “Glue” (tool)

Speaker(s):

Jens Vestergaard

Track and Room: BI - Gell

Title: Azure Data Factory Creating Custom Activities Workshop part II

Abstract: This 2 hour charity minicon requires a separate registration and a small donation to charity. Registration and more details can be found through https://spssqladf.eventbrite.co.uk

Having covered the basics in part 1 we’ll now go beyond the Azure Data Factory basic activity types and Azure Portal wizard. Extract and load are never the hard parts of the pipeline. It is the ability to transform, manipulate and clean our data that normally requires more effort. Sadly, this task doesn’t come so naturally to Azure Data Factory, as an orchestration tool so we need to rely on its custom activities to break out the C# to perform such tasks. Using Visual Studio, we’ll look at how to do exactly that and see what’s involved in Azure to utilise this pipeline extensibility feature. What handles the compute for the compiled .Net code and how can does this get deployed by ADF? Let’s learn how to fight back against those poorly formed CSV files and what we can do if Excel files are our only data sou

Speaker(s):

Paul Andrew

Track and Room: BI - Gell

Title: Effective Unit Testing for SQL Server

Abstract: There are tools available from Microsoft, as well as from a number of third party vendors, to ease the process of integrating database unit testing into your development environments and your continuous delivery pipeline.

This session isn’t about any of those tools, but is an attempt to get back to basics - with the open source tSQLt framework - and address questions such as

Why is database unit testing difficult? What do I need to test? What do I not need to test? What does a “good” unit test look like? What tests should I be writing anwyay?

This session will incorporate real-life experiences with tSQLt, as well as lessons that can be learned from other testing framworks and other programming languages.

Speaker(s):

Gavin Campbell

Track and Room: DEV - Horton

Title: How to unlock value in your anonymized data

Abstract: So you have a few hundred million rows of customer data… Governance require you to anonymise the PPI data but how do you retain it safely and how do you unlock its value?

We dig into the magical land of “Snakes” and “Ladders” commonly used by fraud prevention agencies to unlock trend and profile analytics.

Speaker(s):

Andreas Bergstedt

Track and Room: BI - Horton

Title: What’s new in Power BI Report Server

Abstract: After years of abandon, Microsoft finally exhibited great love towards SSRS with SQL Server 2016 release. But it doesn’t stop there. There are some exciting features in the preview for the next version. In this session, Prathy will show top features of Power BI Report Server. Various ways of designing and publishing reports to SSRS web portal/Power BI Report Server using SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT), Report Builder, SQL Server Mobile Report Publisher and Power BI Desktop (Technical Preview of Power BI reports in SQL Server Reporting Services).

Speaker(s):

Prathy Kamasani

Track and Room: BI - Lambert

Title: Multi-tenant database architectures – from small scale to hyper-scale

Abstract: Need to design the database backend for a cloud application? Come and hear about different choices of multi-tenant architectures, from small scale covering tenants in the hundreds all the way up to hyper-scale supporting hundreds of thousands of tenants. We will cover the three main architectures “Separate Databases” , “Shared Database, Separate Schemas” and “Shared Database, Shared Schemas” and how they can be implemented on Azure SQL database and elastic pools. Pros and cons for security, performance and administration will be discussed in each of these architectures.

Speaker(s):

Kennie Pontoppidan

Track and Room: Cloud - Lambert

Title: So you installed R, now what? A journey through the Tidyverse

Abstract: By now, all the SQL world should have heard about the R language, especially since Microsoft is committed to integrate it into their data platform products.

So you installed the R base system and the IDE of your choice. But it’s like buying a new car - nobody is content with the standard. You know there are packages to get you started with analysis and visualization, but which ones?

A bundle called The Tidyverse comes in handy, consisting of packages mostly (co-)authored by Hadley Wickham, one of the brightest minds in the R ecosystem.

We will take a look at the most popular Tidyverse ingredients like ggplot2, dplyr and readr, and we’ll have lots of code demos on real world examples.

Speaker(s):

Thomas Hütter

Track and Room: BA - Cromwell

Title: SQL Server on Linux

Abstract: Hell frezes over… Microsoft released SQL Server on Linux in 2016. In his talk German Data Platform MVP Frank Geisler will give an overview on SQL Server on Linux. He will show how to install SQL Server on Ubuntu and give advice on how to use it. Besides this he will explain which Non-Windows based tools can be used. At the end he will show a scenario where a SQL Server is operated in a Docker Container completely without Windows Operating System on the server and on the client.

Speaker(s):

Frank Geisler

Track and Room: DBA - Cromwell

Title: SQL Storage Fundamentals for Azure IaaS

Abstract: SQL disk configuration and planning can really hurt you if you get it wrong in azure. There is a lot more to getting SQL right on Azure VMs than next-next-next.

Come along and dive deeper into azure storage for SQL. Topics covered include:

SQL storage Capacity Planning concepts
Understanding Storage Accounts, VM limits, and disk types
Understanding and planning around throttling.
Benchmarking
Optimizing SQL configuration to match Azure disk layout: o Optimal Drive configuration o TempDB o File and Filegroup layout concepts
Hitting “max” disk throughput

Speaker(s):

Bob Duffy

Track and Room: Cloud - Cromwell

Title: SQL SERVER - Next station Azure

Abstract: This session will cover the main aspects to start or migrate from an OnPremise model to one of the two architectures available in SQL Server on Azure, providing the keys to select the more suitable environment for our requirements. We will cover:

Red pill or blue pill SQL Server on Azure VM (IaaS) vs SQL Azure DB (PaaS) Which one?
Always available. High availability in Azure
Now what … Best practices and configuration connectivity.

Speaker(s):

Jose Manuel Jurado Diaz

Track and Room: Cloud - Fairfax

Title: Azure Functions and Automation: The SQL Agent in the Cloud

Abstract: Microsoft’s Platform as a Service solution, SQL Azure is a compelling solution for many who don’t want to manage their own highly available SQL implementation. SQL Azure however does not replicate all of the services of on-premesis SQL, and one of these missing is the SQL Agent. This session looks at what alternatives exist for running and managing SQL jobs in Azure without SQL agent. In particular we will focus on Azure Automation and Azure Functions. The presentation will include a brief overview of the two services and how they are applicable to SQL workloads, followed by a demo of creating and running a SQL job.

Speaker(s):

Sam Cogan

Track and Room: Cloud - Horton

Title: Database Corruption - Advanced Recovery Techniques

Abstract: Being able to monitor, diagnose and recover from Database Corruption is a critical skill for any SQL Server DBA. In this session we will walk through the techniques required to detect and repair various forms of Corruption Using a number of example corrupted database we will explore how to determine and fix corruption while avoiding some of the common mistakes. Warning: Hex Editors and DBCC Page dumps will be involved!

Speaker(s):

Patrick Flynn

Track and Room: DBA - Fairfax

Title: Bringing DevOps to the Database

Abstract: DevOps is a hot topic in today’s software development world. However most of the knowledge and experience with DevOps is based around application software and ignores the database. We will examine how the concepts and principles of DevOps can be applied to database development by looking at both automated comparison analysis as well as migration script management. Automated building, testing, and deployment of database changes will be shown.

Speaker(s):

Steve Jones

Track and Room: DEV - Cromwell

Title: An introduction to SQL Server Containers

Abstract: This session aims to give attendees an introduction into containers running SQL Server on Windows Server 2016. Attendees will be taken through the following: -

Defining what containers are (benefits and limitations) Configuring Windows Server 2016 to run containers Installing the docker engine Pulling SQL images from the docker respository Running SQL Server containers Committing new SQL Server images Exploring 3rd party options to run containers on previous versions of Windows Server (real world example)

This sessions assumes that attendees have a good background in SQL Server administration and a basic knowledge of Windows Server administration

Speaker(s):

Andrew Pruski

Track and Room: DBA - Fairfax

Title: Data Science Fundamentals

Abstract: Data scientists know the “magic” of making accurate predictions over time.

Magic is just sufficiently advanced technology, and most of a data scientist’s magic is a good process, a robust understanding of data, and the ability to sensibly apply some recipes.

Let’s go behind the curtains and see the process and the fundamentals employed in making any prediction. Learn enough to start adding magic to your own work.

Speaker(s):

Stephanie Locke

Track and Room: BA - Fairfax

Abstract: Sponsor lunchtime session Part II

Speaker(s):

Mark Broadbent

Track and Room: Sponsor - Cromwell

Title: Hiding data with SQL Server 2016

Abstract: Security is unquestionably a major priority for Microsoft. Join me in this session and see what security features Microsoft has released in SQL Server 2016. In this session you will see how Dynamic Data Masking and Row-Level Security works in on-perm and Azure environments and how to use Always Encrypted.

Speaker(s):

Ivan Campos

Track and Room: DBA - Horton

Abstract: Sponsor lunchtime session Part I

Speaker(s):

Mark Broadbent

Track and Room: Sponsor - Cromwell

Title: SQL Server and XML Query

Abstract: XML was added to the collection of SQL Server native data types in SQL Server 2005. Being a complex data type, not only is XML accompanied by a set of dedicated T-SQL functions, but also with a complete querying language. In this session you will learn about the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 implementation of the World Wide Web Consortium’s XML Query Recommendation, and learn how to compose XML data – from existing SQL Server data or simply “from scratch”, how to retrieve (relational) data from XML Documents to be used in a SQL Server database, and how to manipulate XML data using Transact-SQL and the XML Data Manipulation Language (XML DML). You’ve already mastered all the primitive SQL Server data types, why would XML be an exception?

Speaker(s):

Matija Lah

Track and Room: DEV - Lambert

Title: A Masters view on Query plans and indexing

Abstract: Do you find query optimization a mystery? This session will straighten out your question marks. You will se how queries are run, how indexes are used and get an insight into what query plans tell you. Further on you’ll be introduced to In-Memory and Column Store indexing to get a fair chance of selecting appropriate indexing for your query load.

Speaker(s):

Mikael Wedham

Track and Room: DEV - Lambert

Speakers

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

Jens Vestergaard

Twitter: - @vestergaardj

LinkedIn: Jens Vestergaard

Contact: http://www.t-sql.dk

Jens performs the traditional BI disciplines from imports in Integration Services through data consolidation in Analysis Services, to report in Power BI or Reporting Services. Jens has worked with The Stack since SQL 2000 and has a core competence in Integration Services and Analysis Services. Along with the certified skills in Microsoft SQL Server, Jens has also worked with Microsoft .Net platform for more than 15 years and currently manages a BI Platform in Azure for the CatMan Solution application(s).

Patrick Flynn

Twitter: - sqllensman

Contact: http://sqllensman.com/blog/

Patrick Flynn is a Senior Database Administrator with 10 years experience in large 24 x 7 enterprise environments. He is a certified master for SQL Server and a regular attendee of the PASS Summit.

Has presented at SQLSaturday events in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Auckland, Edmonton and Calgary, Oslo and Cambridge

Mark Broadbent

Twitter: - @retracement

LinkedIn: Mark Broadbent

Contact: http://tenbulls.co.uk

Mark Broadbent is a Data Platform MVP and SQL Server MCM with more than 20 years of experience working with SQL Server and principal of SQLCloud, a consultancy specializing in concurrency control and highly available solutions. He is the founder of the UK’s SQLSaturday Cambridge (its first and largest), SharePoint Saturday Cambridge, the Hybrid Virtual Chapter and the East Anglia SQL User Group.

Niko Neugebauer

Twitter: - NikoNeugebauer

LinkedIn: Niko Neugebauer

Contact: http://www.nikoport.com

Niko Neugebauer is a Data Platform Consultant. A SQL Server MVP with over 20 years of experience in IT, he is passionate about the Microsoft Data Platform and community. Founder of the Portuguese SQL Server User Group and the main organizer of the first SQLSaturday event outside of North America (#78 Portugal), Niko speaks regularly at events such as PASS Summit, SQLRally, SQLBits, and SQLSaturday events around the world. Niko loves sharing information and knowledge and has authored over 130 blog posts on Columnstore Indexes, and regularly contributes to the open-sourced CISL library focused on Columnstore Indexes.

Thomas Hütter

Twitter: - DerFredo

LinkedIn: Thomas Hütter

Contact: https://sqlfredo.wordpress.com/

Thomas holds a degree in Business Administration, but has been a data explorer and a developer at heart ever since the days of dBase and Turbo Pascal. He touched his first SQL Server at V6.5 and used covering indexes before they became a feature.

Thomas has been developing in Navision/Dynamics/Business Central systems for quite some time (since 2001, one year before MS acquired Navision), joined PASS in 2006 and got his hands on R in 2014 (the year before MS bought Revolution Analytics). He has worked for ISVs as well as end-user companies, as a developer, consultant, accidental DBA and is an author for data-related articles as well as a speaker at SQL events across Europe.

Jens Vestergaard

Twitter: - @vestergaardj

LinkedIn: Jens Vestergaard

Contact: http://www.t-sql.dk

Drew Furgiuele

Twitter: - pittfurg

LinkedIn: Drew Furgiuele

Contact: http://www.port1433.com

Drew Furgiuele is a senior DBA that lives in Dublin, Ohio who is passionate about SQL Server and PowerShell. He’s been working with SQL Server since 2002. When he’s not accidentally dropping tables in production, he likes writing automation scripts, blogging about SQL Server Replication, wiring electronics, playing board games, and spending time with his dog. He’s also not embarrassed by his Spotify playlists.

Stephanie Locke

Twitter: - @stefflocke

LinkedIn: Stephanie Locke

Contact: https://itsalocke.com

Steph Locke leads a life of data, coffee, books and board games. During the day, Steph runs her own consultancy helping people start doing data science. Steph enjoys being her own gal as it means she gets to spend plenty of time building communities to provide platforms for people to help each other be better with data.

Oliver Frost

Twitter: - @ConsolidataLtd

LinkedIn: Oliver Frost

I am currently working as a Data Engineer, improving the company data platform and providing the necessary resources for our data consultants. I am extremely fortunate to dabble with a number of tools including those from the Microsoft BI stack and NoSQL tech like Neo4j, R and Python. My strengths lie in integrating multiple technologies for a specific business problem.

I aim to present material that BI consultants and developers can all take away something new to apply to their own work processes. I try to apply knowledge and skills from my previous life as a neuroscientist and as a blindfolded Rubik’s Cube world record holder. I am of the belief that, one day, neuroscience and big data will come together in a big way.

Andrew Pruski

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

LinkedIn: Andrew Pruski

Contact: https://dbafromthecold.com/

SQL Server DBA with over 10 year’s experience. Originally from Wales but now living in Ireland

Paul Andrew

Twitter: - mrpaulandrew

LinkedIn: Paul Andrew

Contact: https://mrpaulandrew.com/

Paul Andrew is a principal consultant and architect, specializing in big data solutions on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. Paul’s data engineering competencies include Azure Data Factory, Data Lake, Databricks, Stream Analytics, Event Hub, IoT Hub, Functions, Automation, Logic Apps, and of course the complete SQL Server Business Intelligence stack.

He has many years’ experience working within healthcare, retail, and gaming verticals, delivering analytics using industry leading methods and technical design patterns.

Paul is a STEM ambassador and a very active member of the data platform community delivering training and technical sessions at conferences both nationally and internationally.

He is a father, husband, swimmer, cyclist, r

Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen

Twitter: - MEhrenmueller

LinkedIn: Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen

Contact: http://www.savorydata.com

Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen, as the founder of Savory Data, has a long history of providing customer solutions in the areas of data engineering, data science, and Business Intelligence. He is a certified software engineer, a graduated business educator, and professor of Databases Project Management at HTL Leonding, and is certified as an MCSE MCT. He is a published author and writes articles for well-known journals. He co-founded PASS Austria and organizes SQLSaturdays in Austria. Markus is a founding member of Power BI Usergroup Austria. Since 2017 Markus was awarded as an Microsoft Data Platform MVP.

Bent Pedersen

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

LinkedIn: Bent Pedersen

Contact: http://www.biblog.eu

Bent is a Data Platform MVP and working as Senior Business Analytics Architect at Kapacity A/S, where he have been working with enterprise customers on solutions with SSAS Tabular, SQL Server and in general Azure Data Platform services for the last years. During the past years, he concentrated on working with architecturing, devOps, Automation, testing and simplifying development processes for the Azure Data Platform.

Jens Vestergaard

Twitter: - @vestergaardj

LinkedIn: Jens Vestergaard

Contact: http://www.t-sql.dk

Mark Broadbent

Twitter: - @retracement

LinkedIn: Mark Broadbent

Contact: http://tenbulls.co.uk

Steve Jones

Twitter: - way0utwest

LinkedIn: Steve Jones

Contact: http://www.voiceofthedba.com/

Steve Jones is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP and has been working with SQL Server since version 4.2 on OS/2. After working as a DBA and developer for a variety of companies, Steve co-founded the community website SQLServerCentral.com in 2001. Since 2004, Steve has been the full-time editor of the site, ensuring it continues to be a great resource for SQL Server professionals. Over the last decade, Steve has written hundreds of articles about SQL Server for SQLServerCentral.com, SQL Server Standard magazine, SQL Server Magazine, and Database Journal.

Mikael Wedham

Twitter: - @wedham

Contact: http://www.wedham.com

Mikael Wedham is the first SQL Server MCM in Sweden and the only one who also is a Microsoft Certified Trainer. He has been paid to do things in SQL Server since 1993. His long experience makes him an appreciated speaker at events and conferences all over Europe. To be prepared for deep dives, he is also certified as an Open Water Scuba Instructor.

Oliver Engels

Twitter: - @oengels

Contact: http://www.ssis-components.net

Oliver Engels is CEO of oh22data AG, a Microsoft Gold Partner in Germany specializing in CRM and BI. His special interests are Azure, Data Governance and Integration, Visualisation Tools like SSRS, Power BI, Tableau, R, and SharePoint. He has worked with SQL Server since version 6.5 and is a founder and Board member of PASS Germany, a PASS Regional Mentor, and runs the Frankfurt PASS Local Group. For more than seven years he is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and a Microsoft pTSP.

Steve Jones

Twitter: - way0utwest

LinkedIn: Steve Jones

Contact: http://www.voiceofthedba.com/

Ivan Campos

Twitter: - WizardDBA

LinkedIn: Ivan Campos

Contact: http://wizarddba.com/

Ivan Campos is currently a database administrator in 3C Payment a fin-tech in Luxembourg. (3CPayment.com). He is Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, active speaker at local community meetings in Portugal and outside Portugal. He is the leader and one of the founders of the community based in the north of Portugal Porto.Data (www.portodata.net) and the organizer of SQLSaturday in Porto Portugal.

Asgeir Gunnarsson

Twitter: - bidgeir

LinkedIn: Asgeir Gunnarsson

Ásgeir Gunnarsson is a Data Platform MVP and Chief Consultant at Datheos in Denmark. He works on Business Intelligence solutions using the whole of the Microsoft BI stack. Ásgeir has been working in BI since 2007 both as a consultant and internal employee. Before turning to BI, Ásgeir worked as a technical trainer and currently teaches BI courses at the Continuing Education Department of the University of Iceland.

Ásgeir speaks regularly at events both domestically and internationally, and is the group leader of the Icelandic PASS Group, as well as the Icelandic Power BI User Group.

Ásgeir is passionate about data and loves solving problems with BI.

Simon Whiteley

Twitter: - MrSiWhiteley

LinkedIn: Simon Whiteley

Contact: http://blogs.adatis.co.uk/blogs/simonwhiteley/

Simon Whiteley is the Director of Engineering for Advancing Analytics Ltd and a Microsoft Data Platform MVP. Simon is a seasoned solution architect and technical lead with well over a decade of Microsoft Analytics experience. A deep techie with a focus on emerging cloud technologies and applying “big data” thinking to traditional analytics problems, Simon also has a passion for bringing it back to the high level and making sense of the bigger picture. When not tinkering with tech, Simon is a death-dodging London cyclist, a sampler of craft beers, an avid chef, and a generally nerdy person.

Dmytro Andriychenko

Twitter: - @dataunited

LinkedIn: Dmytro Andriychenko

Contact: http://www.data-united.co.uk

Dmytro Andriychenko has over 10 years of SQL Server experience working as analyst, admin, developer and designer. Dmytro is a Microsoft Certified BI Expert with plenty of experience in all components of SQL Server in a variety of business settings (Betting, Banking, Legal, NHS and Bio-Pharma). His most recent focus is on BI architecture and delivery.

Matija Lah

Twitter: - @MatijaLah

LinkedIn: Matija Lah

Contact: http://milambda.blogspot.com

Matija Lah has more than a decade of experience working with Microsoft SQL Server, mostly architecting data-centric solutions in the legal domain. His contributions to the SQL Server community have led to the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in 2007 (Data Platform), which he held until 2017. In 2008 Matija joined SolidQ as a Mentor, located in Central and Eastern Europe. He spends most of his time on projects involving advanced information management, and natural language processing.

Kennie Pontoppidan

Twitter: - @KennieNP

LinkedIn: Kennie Pontoppidan

Contact: http://www.pontop.dk/

Kennie Nybo Pontoppidan is a senior program manager in Microsoft working in the Dynamics NAV server backend team. He has worked in the dangerous field between developers, dbas, customers and project managers for many years and done his part of mistakes as a developer before that in his 15+ years in the it industry. He enjoys working with databases and really, really enjoys his daily dose of sql. Kennie has no humor.

Jose Manuel Jurado Diaz

Twitter: - jmjuradodiaz

LinkedIn: Jose Manuel Jurado Diaz

José Manuel Jurado currently works as SQL Escalation Engineer and Subject Matter Expert in Azure SQL Database at Microsoft Spain. With over 20+ years of experience in SQL Server environments (administration and database development), he is a speaker for internal events at Microsoft and for public events such as SQLSaturday, SQL Nexus, SQLBits, Pass Summit, SQL Server Konferenze, TechReady, DotNetConference, and Azure BootCamp. In the past, he worked as Project Manager for large global retail company for more than 10 years developing projects using different Microsoft Technologies.

Prathy Kamasani

Twitter: - @pkamasani

LinkedIn: Prathy Kamasani

Contact: http://prathy.com/

Prathy Kamasani is a Microsoft Valuable Professional working as an independent MSBI contractor based in London. She specialises in Power BI, SSIS, SSAS and SSRS. Prathy organisers London Power BI user group and co-organizes the London PASS Local Group. She is a regular speaker at events like SQLSaturday and local user groups.

Sam Cogan

Twitter: - samcogan

LinkedIn: Sam Cogan

Contact: https://samcogan.com

I’m a Cloud Architect and Microsoft Azure MVP, focused on providing architecture and technical solutions for cloud based SaaS projects using Azure. I’m particularly focused on areas around cloud automation and deployment, devops, configuration management, along with high performance and grid computing in the cloud. I blog about Azure and cloud related topics at samcogan.com

Terry McCann

Twitter: - @SQLShark

LinkedIn: Terry McCann

Contact: https://www.advancinganalytics.co.uk/blog

Microsoft MVP. Principal Consultant and Owner of Advancing Analytics Limited, an Advanced Analytics consultancy in the UK. Advancing Analytics helps businesses advance their analytical capabilities. Our focus is on Data Science, Data Engineering, DataOps and applied AI. Terry holds a Master’s degree in Data Science - with a focus on DataOps for Machine Learning. Speaker at conferences across the world and the host of the Data Science in Production Podcast.

Andreas Bergstedt

Twitter: - @AndreasBergstedt

LinkedIn: Andreas Bergstedt

Contact: https://blog.bi360.ml

24+ Years in the IT Sector, Last 12 years in the BI Space, Passionate about knowing and understanding data and what business actually want from their information.

Paul Andrew

Twitter: - mrpaulandrew

LinkedIn: Paul Andrew

Contact: https://mrpaulandrew.com/

He has many years’ experience working within healthcare, retail, and gaming verticals, delivering analytics using industry leading methods and technical design patterns.

Paul is a STEM ambassador and a very active member of the data platform community delivering training and technical sessions at conferences both nationally and internationally.

He is a father, husband, swimmer, cyclist, r

Bob Duffy

Twitter: - @bob_duffy

LinkedIn: Bob Duffy

Contact: http://blogs.prodata.ie/author/bob.aspx

Bob Duffy is a SQL Server MVP from Dublin, Ireland who is MCA, MCM. and Analysis Services Maestro certified.

Bob works as a Database Architect at the Prodata SQL Centre of Excellence where he specializes in business intelligence and performance tuning.

Dejan Sarka

Twitter: - DejanSarka

Contact: http://blogs.solidq.com/dsarka/Home.aspx

Dejan Sarka, MCT and Data Platform MVP, is an independent trainer and consultant that focuses on development of database and business intelligence applications. Besides projects, he spends about half of his time on training and mentoring. He is the founder of the Slovenian SQL Server and .NET Users Group. Dejan Sarka is the main author or co-author of eighteen books about databases and SQL Server. Dejan Sarka has also developed many courses and seminars for Microsoft, Radacad, SolidQ, and Pluralsight.

Niko Neugebauer

Twitter: - NikoNeugebauer

LinkedIn: Niko Neugebauer

Contact: http://www.nikoport.com

Frank Geisler

Twitter: - @Frank Geisler

LinkedIn: Frank Geisler

Contact: http://www.gdsbi.de

Frank Geisler is owner and CEO of GDS Business Intelligence GmbH. He is SQL Server MVP, MCT, MCSE – Business Intelligence, MCSE – Data Plattform and MCSE - Azure Solutions Architect. In his Job he is building Business Intelligence Systems based on Microsoft Technology, mainly on SQL Server and SharePoint.

Gavin Campbell

LinkedIn: Gavin Campbell

Contact: http://arapaima.uk

Gavin Campbell is a recovering Business Intelligence developer specialised in improving working practices in database delivery through the use of tools such as SQL Server Data Tools, tSQLt, Visual Studio Team Services, Git and Jenkins, on platforms such as AWS and Microsoft Azure, and methodologies such as Continuous Delivery and Agile.

SQLSaturday #632 - Cambridge 2017

Sessions

Title: Temporal Data in SQL Server

Title: Exploring Dark Data with SQL Server 2016 and R

Title: Azure Machine learning beyond the basics with Juypter notebooks

Title: Columnstore killed the OLAP-Star?

Title: Big Data - Big Quality? A governance round-trip through the possibilities of the MS data platform

Title: Pro Techniques for the SSASMD Developer

Title: SQL Server and PowerShell: Let’s Get Serious

Title: Kerberos for SQL Server and SharePoint the easy way

Title: Analyzing the impact of weather on English Premier League matches in Power BI

Title: DevOps for BI Workshop Part I

Title: Create Stunning Visualizations with The Help of R

Title: Scripting tabular models

Title: Real-Time Reporting through the medium of Dance

Title: Azure Data Factory Creating Custom Activities Workshop part I

Title: DevOps for BI Workshop Part II

Title: Azure Data Factory Creating Custom Activities Workshop part II

Title: Effective Unit Testing for SQL Server

Title: How to unlock value in your anonymized data

Title: What’s new in Power BI Report Server

Title: Multi-tenant database architectures – from small scale to hyper-scale

Title: So you installed R, now what? A journey through the Tidyverse

Title: SQL Server on Linux

Title: SQL Storage Fundamentals for Azure IaaS

Title: SQL SERVER - Next station Azure

Title: Azure Functions and Automation: The SQL Agent in the Cloud

Title: Database Corruption - Advanced Recovery Techniques

Title: Bringing DevOps to the Database

Title: An introduction to SQL Server Containers

Title: Data Science Fundamentals

Title: Sponsor lunchtime session Part II

Title: Hiding data with SQL Server 2016

Title: Sponsor lunchtime session Part I

Title: SQL Server and XML Query

Title: A Masters view on Query plans and indexing

Speakers

Sponsors