SQLSaturday #730 - Manchester 2018
Event Date: 07/14/2018 00:00:00
Event Location:
- Business School, Manchester Metropolitan University
- All Saints Campus, Oxford Rd, Manchester
- Manchester, England, United Kingdom
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Sessions
This is a list of sessions from the event, based on the schedule in the XML files.
Title: Making your Emergency DBA Toolkit
Abstract: You’ve just been given a server that is having problems and you need to diagnose it quickly. This session will take you through designing your own toolkit to help you quickly diagnose a wide array of problems. We will walk through scripts that will help you pin point various issues quickly and efficiently. This session will take you through;
What’s on fire? – These scripts will help you diagnose what’s happening right now Specs – What hardware are you dealing with here (you’ll need to know this to make the appropriate decisions)? Settings – are the most important settings correct for your workload? Bottlenecks – We’ll see if there are any areas of the system that are throttling us. By the end of this session you should have the knowledge of what you need to do in order to start on your own kit. This kit is designed to be your lifeline to fix servers quickly and get them working.
All code we’ll go through is either provided as part of this presentation or are open source/community.
Speaker(s):
- Rich Benner
Track and Room: Database Administration Development - Theatre1
Title: SQL Server hates you(?)
Abstract: Have you had performance tank despite the code working fine in another environment? Maybe heard that some SQL is bad but not why? If so, this is the session for you! This session will start with a walkthrough of some of the basic settings in SQL Server and how they affect you as a developer. It follows with key tips on what settings to change, why some code will wreak havoc on your performance and how isolation levels matter (and why NOLOCK can be an exceptionally bad idea!) The session is led by a 20-year DBA veteran who decided to try to help developers understand performance issues by seeing things from his perspective. If you want to explore how default settings kill your performance, investigate why harmless SQL might not be quite so harmless and gain insight into how isolation levels affect function and performance, then this session will provide you with the tools to think outside the box and incorporate database engine knowledge into your developer prowess!
Speaker(s):
- Alexander Arvidsson
Track and Room: Database Development Continuous Integration - Theatre5
Title: Embedding PowerApps into a Power BI Dashboard
Abstract: PowerApps are a relatively new technology released within the Azure stack. Its primary focus is to empower technical or non-technical developers to create quick and simple custom apps. They can be used as standalone apps or embedded within websites/mobile apps. On the other hand, Power BI is now a mature product and needs little introduction.
What if we could use PowerApps and Power BI together? Can we embed a PowerApp into a Dashboard and give the end user the ability to write back data to a visual? Come along to my session to find out.
The 1-hour session includes other technologies such as Azure SQL Database, Common Data Service (CDS) and Flow. In particular, I will demonstrate how you integrate these technologies with PowerApps and Power BI. Whilst all levels of expertise are welcome, users require prior knowledge of Power BI Dashboards and PowerApps.
Speaker(s):
- Callum Green
Track and Room: Business Intelligence Data Science - Theatre3
Title: Azure Data Factory v2 – SSIS Data Flows Custom Extensibility
Abstract: Azure Data Factory version 2 (ADFv2) arrived in Sept17 with a bunch of new concepts and features to support our Azure data integration pipelines. In this session, we’ll update your ADFv1 knowledge and start to understand the true nature of scale out control flows and data flows. What’s the integration runtime? Can we easily lift and shift our beloved SSIS packages into the cloud? How do we embed expressions to achieve dynamic activity executions? Do we still need SSIS with the ADF platform as a service? The answers to all these questions and more in this demo packed session. An awareness of Azure Data Factory v1 is recommended before attending this session.
Speaker(s):
- Paul Andrew
Track and Room: Business Intelligence Data Science - Theatre3
Title: DevOps, Dev Data and the GDPR: 5 Solutions
Abstract: It’s an age-old problem: developers want prod data for dev and test purposes.
It helps them to write better code and to test it effectively. Self-service access to usable test-data aligns well with DevOps principles that encourage teams to adopt a shift-left mentality to testing.
Unfortunately, in the age of data breaches and the GDPR it’s simply illegal to give developers access to some types of sensitive production data.
So what do you do?
In this session I’ll talk about the GDPR, anonymisation, pseudonymisation and 5 techniques you can use to provide appropriate data that is as “production-like” as possible (within the legal and technical constraints). I’ll demo these techniques both in raw T-SQL and using some of the Microsoft and third party tools that are available to make the task easier.
After this session you’ll be equipped to discuss the problem with your colleagues in an informed manner and you’ll be able to suggest several solutions and their relative pros and cons.
Speaker(s):
- Alex Yates
Track and Room: Database Administration Development - Theatre5
Title: Modern Data Warehousing - The Lambda Approach to Azure BI
Abstract: Technology changes quickly - patterns and approaches less so. As people move towards the cloud, there are clear benefits of adopting a polyglot cloud architecture employing a range of distributed components.
This session will take you through the pattern known as the Lambda architecture, a reference pattern for building data analytics systems that can handle any combination of data velocity, variety and volume. The session will outline the set of tools and integration points that can underpin the approach. Do you design real-time reporting systems? Or crunch petabytes of data? Perhaps you are adopting a cloud architecture and just want to handle anything the future throws at you? This session is for you.
We will follow the movement of data through batch and speed layers via Azure Data Lake Store Analytics and Streaming Analytics before considering the serving layer with Azure SQL DataWarehouse and downstream reporting tools.
Speaker(s):
- Simon Whiteley
Track and Room: Business Intelligence Data Science - Theatre3
Title: Deep dive into Adaptive Query Processing
Abstract: Until SQL Server 2016, the Query Optimizer and the Execution Engine were strictly separated. The Query Optimizer produces an execution plan that, based on statistics and estimates, should be fast. That execution plan is then faithfully executed by the Execution Engine, even if reality turns out to be different from expectations.
SQL Server 2017 changes this! Three new features now allow execution plans to adapt to reality. Memory Grant Feedback increases or decreases assigned memory based on past experience. The Adaptive Join operator allows the optimizer to create two alternative plans, the best of which will be decided at execution time. And with Interleaved Execution, parts of the plan are even completely recompiled mid-execution, with much better cardinality estimates.
If you are more interested in how all this ACTUALLY works than in shiny marketing slides, come to this session. We will spend the full 60 minutes knee-deep in execution plan internals!
Speaker(s):
- Hugo Kornelis
Track and Room: Database Administration Development - Theatre4
Title: Maintenance a database project and Continuous Delivery using Microsoft Data Tools in practical terms
Abstract: A task seems to be easy. Maintenance a project of a database in the code repository, treat as master-version and do deployment evenly and frequently. Simple? Seemingly. The things become more complex as fast as an amount of objects in database growing. While instead of one database, we have over a dozen. When databases have got the references to each other. And how about dictionary tables? Where to keep them and how to script? Additional issues are coming whilst we would like to control instance-level objects. All these topics I will explain on the session focused on practical aspects of work with Microsoft Visual Studio Data Tools.
Speaker(s):
- Kamil Nowinski
Track and Room: Database Development Continuous Integration - Theatre5
Title: The productive SQL Server Professional
Abstract: Ever wanted to get things done quicker? Be more productive each day with SQL? In this demo-rich session, I will show you accumulated knowledge over the years of tips and tricks to write SQL more efficiently be more productive with the tools available, shortcuts to the everyday mundane tasks and save time. Covering some of the lesser known features of Management Studio, free tools that will assist you to get things done easier than before. An enhanced set of development/DBA tools, to analysis your SQL Server, and find out the pain points, aid quicker easier development, oh and how to teach your colleagues they should never leave their machines unlocked. This is a filled 60 minutes of things you can use daily.
Speaker(s):
- Martin Croft
Track and Room: Database Administration Development - Theatre1
Title: dbachecks - The PowerShell Module to validate your SQL Estate
Abstract: As a SQL DBA you want to know that your SQL Server Estate is compliant with the rules that you have set up. Now there is a simple method to set this up using PowerShell and you can get the results in PowerBi or a report emailed to you on a schedule. Details such as
How long since your last backup? How long since your last DBCC Check? Are your Agent Operators Correct? Is AutoClose, AutoShrink, Auto Update Stats set up correctly? Is DAC Allowed? Are your file growth settings correct, what about the number of VLFs? Is your latency, TCP Port, PS remoting as you expect? Is Page Verify, Data Purity, Compression correctly set up?
and many more checks (even your own) can be achieved using the dbachecks PowerShell module brought to you by the dbatools team.
Join one of the founders of the module, Rob Sewell MVP. and he will show you how easy it is to use this module and release time for more important things whilst keeping the confidence that your estate is as you would expect it
Speaker(s):
- Rob Sewell
Track and Room: Database Administration Development - Theatre5
Title: Harnessing Database Monitoring in a DevOps pipeline
Abstract: Showing how a Database Monitoring tool can be used in conjunction with a DevOps process can help prevent shipping performance problems to production. In this session we will be showing how you can
Use data captured from Database Monitoring tool to validate performance testing
Use a Database Monitoring tool as an input to release gates, to only release when defined performance metrics have been met.
Use VSTS extensions to visualise performance test failures
This allows us to automatically fail releases based on poor performance as captured by a baseline in downstream environments, and surface that information in the release tool so that a release manager can understand why a release in the pipeline was marked as failed. This will typically be things like, high CPU, logical IO, missing indexes, or deadlocks.
Speaker(s):
- Mark Allison
Track and Room: Database Development Continuous Integration - Theatre5
Title: PowerApps - An introduction
Abstract: In this session we’ll take a look at PowerApps, Microsoft’s SaaS application platform, designed for “Power Users” to build web based applications that can be accessed via browser, tablet and phone.
We’ll look at how we get started and the kind of things we can do in the platform and how easy it is to connect to and work with the data sets available.
We’ll look at some of the syntax in the code and how to solve various common problems
Speaker(s):
- David Morrison
Track and Room: Development and PowerShell - Theatre4
Title: Lessons learned implementing real-world Data Analytic projects
Abstract: Implementing large-scale, complex Data Analytic projects utilizing multiple technologies (AZURE SQL, Datawarehouse, Data Lake, Data Factory, PowerBI) and more is complex. Managing the teams that can deliver the complex architecture designs can quickly become a challenge, learn the key lessons from a real-world project that was delivered, avoiding problem areas that can derail such projects.
Speaker(s):
- Neil Hambly
Track and Room: Azure Cloud Data Services - Theatre3
Title: What can you do with SQL Server on Linux?
Abstract: The best RDBMS meets the best Operating System. But can you leverage all the power of SQL Server on Linux? Can you create AlwaysOn Availability Groups on Linux? Can you use Integration Service (SSIS) to exchange data ? Is Change Data Capture (CDC) available? Can you use Active Directory Authentication? You will need to attend this session to get the answers!
Speaker(s):
- Rudi Bruchez
Track and Room: Database Administration Development - Theatre1
Title: Data Classification in SQL Server and Azure SQL Database
Abstract: In this session to look at the functionality built into SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and in Azure SQL Database to classify your database. I run through the need for data classification in general and why its important for GDPR. We will run though classifying your data and how to report on it.
Speaker(s):
- Mark Pryce-Maher
Track and Room: Database Administration Development - Theatre1
Title: Cubes in the Cloud - Analysis Services in Azure
Abstract: Learn how to build and deploy cubes to Azure Analysis Services. Including partition management, scale out for performance, security, setting up the processing so that it doesn’t impact query performance, monitoring, connecting to Power BI and much more.
Speaker(s):
- Alex Whittles
Track and Room: Business Intelligence Data Science - Theatre3
Title: SQL Server Containers
Abstract: This session aims to take attendees through what containers are and what benefits they bring. After this demo based session, attendees will be able to go back to their respective companies and be able to evaluate container technology to determine whether or not it will be of benefit.
Attendees will be taken through the following: - The definition of containers Virtual Machines vs Containers Container networking fundamentals Installing the docker engine Pulling SQL images from the docker repository Running SQL Server containers Creating custom container images Persisting data in SQL Server containers A real world implementation of containers
Speaker(s):
- Andrew Pruski
Track and Room: Database Administration Development - Theatre5
Title: Persistence is Futile - Implementing Delayed Durability in SQL Server
Abstract: The concurrency model of most Relational Database Systems are defined by the ACID properties but as they aim for ever increasing transactional throughput, those rules are bent, ignored, or even broken.
In this session, we will investigate how SQL Server implements transactional durability in order to understand how Delayed Durability bends the rules to remove transactional bottlenecks and achieve improved throughput. We will take a look at how this can be used to compliment In-Memory OLTP performance, and how it might impact or compromise other things.
Attend this session and you will be assimilated!
Speaker(s):
- Mark Broadbent
Track and Room: Database Administration Development - Theatre1
Title: SQL 2017 Graph Databases PowerBI Visualisations
Abstract: A hands on workshop where we will build two sample graph databases, then become familiar with querying Graph databases and finally visualising those with PowerBI.
There will be a GitHub folder for your to download the session content also: https://github.com/neilmillingtonmicrosoft/SQL_Graph_with_PowerBI
You will need:
- either an Azure SQL host or SQL Server (2017) running locally on your machine
- the SQL SSMS toolset, to run SQL script
- copy of the PowerBI Desktop
Speaker(s):
- Neil Millington
Track and Room: Business Intelligence Data Science - Theatre4
Title: Be a dynamic SQL dynamo!
Abstract: This session will cover the basics of dynamic SQL; how, why and when you may wish to use it with demos of use cases and scenarios where it can really save the day (trying to perform a search with a variable number of optional search terms, anyone?). We will also cover the performance and security impacts touching on the effect on query plans, index usage and security (SQL injection!) along with some best practices.
Speaker(s):
- Joanna Wolthuis
Track and Room: Database Administration Development - Theatre4
Title: Chatbots for Dummies
Abstract: The software development landscape is changing. More and more, there is an increased demand for AI and cloud solutions. As a user buying cinema tickets online, I would like to simply ask “I want to buy two cinema tickets for the movie Dunkirk, tomorrow’s viewing at 1pm” instead of manually following a pre-defined process.
In this session, we will learn how to build, debug and deploy a chatbot using the Azure Bot Service. We will enrich it using the Microsoft Cognitive suite to achieve human like interactions.
Will it pass the Turing test, no, but we can extend the bot service using Machine Learning (LUIS), APIs (Web Apps) and Worflows (Logic Apps).
Speaker(s):
- Jose Mendes
Track and Room: Business Intelligence Data Science - Theatre2
Title: An Introduction to Machine Learning with Python
Abstract: I don’t need machine learning to predict the outcome of you learning Python for Machine Learning, it will improve your career. In this session we will cover the basics of machine learning, the tools to start working with ML in Python and touch on how to deploy a model with Docker and Apache Flask.
Speaker(s):
- Terry McCann
Track and Room: Business Intelligence Data Science - Theatre4
Title: Azure Cosmos DB - What you need to know to build globally distributed apps?
Abstract: In this session let us find about (technical overview)what are the foundations and design goals of Azure CosmosDB. There are many benefits which will fit for web, mobile and globally distributed applications that need elastic scaling, high availability with a predictable performance which can elevate ease of development with NoSQL capabilities that every developer/architect/DBA should know about.
Speaker(s):
- Satya Jayanty
Track and Room: Azure Cloud Data Services - Theatre2
Title: Who’s flying the plane? What IT can learn from plane crashes
Abstract: Why do some planes with very few issues crash while a plane with no engine power can land safely on the Hudson with no loss of life?
Every company will eventually have a disaster. It’s just a matter of size and scope. This talk is a general overview of how to respond to an incident and talks about the roles of management and IT.
This is not your typical discussion of disasters focusing on how to make a backup plan or enable high availability.
I’ll touch upon what we can learn from plane crashes and how those lessons can be applied to the IT environment in general.
Speaker(s):
- Greg Moore
Track and Room: Development and PowerShell - Theatre2
Title: Planning and Deploying PowerBI Report Server – On Premise!
Abstract: This session guides you through important considerations for deploying your own Power BI Infrastructure on site. Topic covered are:
- Architecture and Scalability
- Selecting Hardware and Capacity Planning
- Service Account Planning
- Configuring and Testing Kerberos
- Configuring Office online integration
- Licensing
Speaker(s):
- Bob Duffy
Track and Room: Business Intelligence Data Science - Theatre4
Title: Documenting the data models in your SSAS and PowerBI Solutions
Abstract: Using Extended Properties you can provide data model documentation directly from your solutions for SSAS and PowerBI files. We will covere how and where you add the properties, how you can access them using PowerShell and how to extract and display them using good old SSRS.
Speaker(s):
- Steve Powell
Track and Room: Business Intelligence Data Science - Theatre2
Title: Tune the query, not the plan
Abstract: Execution plans are a great resource when trying to tune a query, but often we get hung up on trying to fix what we consider to be ‘bad’ operators, for example table scans vs clustered index scans; scans vs seeks; sort operations. In this session we will take a look at some misconceptions, step through what SQL Server is doing and see if we are actually improving the performance when we change the plan to have ‘better’ operators.
Speaker(s):
- Kevan Riley
Track and Room: Database Administration Development - Theatre1
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: Azure Cloud Data Services - Theatre2
Title: Blockchain Demystified for Business Intelligence Professionals
Abstract: Blockchain is a transformational technology with the potential to extend digital transformation beyond an organization and into the processes it shares with suppliers, customers, and partners. What is blockchain? What can it do for my organization? How can your organisation manage a blockchain implementation? How does it work in Azure? Join this session to learn about blockchain and see it in action. We will also discuss the use cases for blockchain, and whether it is here to stay.
Speaker(s):
- Jen Stirrup
Track and Room: Business Intelligence Data Science - Theatre2
Speakers
This is a list of speakers from the XML Guidebook records. The details and URLs were valid at the time of the event.
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.
Neil Hambly
Twitter: - Neil_Hambly
LinkedIn: Neil Hambly
Contact: http://dataidol.com/NeilHambly
Neil Hambly is a SQL Server consultant, founder and consultant at Datamovements, a Gold Microsoft Data Analytics Consulting company. Neil has 20+ years in a variety of SQL Server roles and is an MCT. He is a regular presenter (200+ events) at user groups, and PASS events, including PASS Summit and SQLSaturday, and many UK events (SQLBits, SQLRelay). Neil is the leader of PASS London (UK), a Professional Development VC, a Melissa Data MVP, and a SQL Cruise Technical Lead, who loves Guinness, whisky, and dancing.
Neil Millington
Twitter: - @_neilmillington
LinkedIn: Neil Millington
A Cloud Solution Architect, within Microsoft, specialising in the Azure Data Platform. Experienced with traditional datastores (e.g. SQL Server onpremise) through to its modern derivatives (SQL IaaS, SQL PaaS) and services capabale of enterprise grade scale, performance and data volumes (e.g. Azure Data Lake, CosmoSDB, SQL DW).
I spend a lot of time helping Customers migrate their onpremise datastores into a modern ‘Hybrid Cloud’ or ‘Cloud First’ environment.
Rob Sewell
Twitter: - sqldbawithbeard
LinkedIn: Rob Sewell
Contact: http://sqldbawithabeard.com
Rob was once a production SQL Server DBA, but is now generally found automating the Data Platform and providing training for clients. He has a passion for PowerShell, Data, and DevOps. He is an MVP, an officer for the DevOps PowerShell VG, and has spoken and volunteered at many PowerShell and Data events. He is a member of the committee that organises Data In Devon and the European PowerShell Conference. He is a proud supporter of the Data and PowerShell communities.
He relishes sharing and learning and can be found doing both via Twitter @sqldbawithbeard and his blog sqldbawithabeard.com. He spends most of his time looking at a screen and loves to solve problems.
Hugo Kornelis
Twitter: - Hugo_Kornelis
LinkedIn: Hugo Kornelis
Contact: http://sqlblog.com/blogs/hugo_kornelis/default.aspx
Hugo Kornelis is an established SQL Server community expert who spends a lot of time at various conferences. He is author of “the Execution Plan Reference” (sqlserverfast.com/epr), blogger, technical editor of Grant Fritchey’s “SQL Server Execution Plans, 3rd edition” and some other books, and Pluralsight author. He was awarded SQL Server MVP and Data Platform MVP 12 times (2006 - 2016, and 2019-present).
When not working for the community, he is busy at his day job: freelance database developer/consultant.
Hugo has over 20 years of SQL Server experience in various roles. He loves to write and tune complex queries, but he also has a strong database design background.
When not working for the community, he is busy at his day job: freelance database developer/consultant.
Hugo has over 20 years of SQL Server experience in various roles. He loves to write and tune complex queries, but he also has a strong database design background.
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
Jen Stirrup
Twitter: - @jenstirrup
LinkedIn: Jen Stirrup
Contact: http://www.jenstirrup.com
Jen Stirrup, Microsoft Regional Director and MVP is a well-known Business Intelligence and Data Visualization expert, author, data strategist, and Master of Business Administration (MBA) student in London. Jen leads a boutique analytics consultancy, delivering strategic advice to companies large and small.
Jen has presented in Africa, India, Europe and North America. Jen has presented at Ignite, Techorama, TechEd, PASS Summit, SQLBits, and SQLSaturday events in Europe and the US. She also delivers the MAPA Azure Architects course worldwide with Microsoft team members. Jen was also featured on the Best of PASS Summit 2015 DVD as one of the top 10 speakers. Jen also was awarded PASS prestigious PASSion Award in 2012
Mark Pryce-Maher
Twitter: - tsqltidy
Contact: http://tsqltidy.blogspot.com
Mark Pryce-Maher is an Azure SQL Data Warehouse Architect at Microsoft with lots of database /azure experience.
Emanuele Zanchettin
Twitter: - @thinkIT
LinkedIn: Emanuele Zanchettin
Emanuele Zanchettin, after studying in Computer Engineering, began his career with DB2 in the banking sector in 1998. After a few years and a change of scope of application, he encountered Access and Oracle with which he subsequently worked for several years in data access tuning and database design for new application features. Since 2007 he has also launched into the SQLServer world 2K, 2005, 2008* and 201* and more importantly, since 2011, into Azure SQL Database (SQL Azure). In order to have a greater capacity for assessment and familiarity with the various technologies that the market offers, he has deepened his knowledge to include MySQL and DocumentDB. Today Emanuele is mainly involved in IT projects and database management.
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
Greg Moore
Twitter: - @stridergdm
LinkedIn: Greg Moore
Contact: https://blog.greenms.com
Greg Moore is a graduate of RPI. There, he majored in CompSci, but probably spent as much time hiking, canoeing, caving and rock-climbing as he did studying. He started working with SQL Server 4.21a in 1995 and has survived numerous upgrades. He’s been a Director and later VP of IT at several startups including PowerOne Media, TownNews and Traffiq and now consults. These days, when he’s not busy with playing with SQL Server or spending time with his family, he can often be found underground caving or teaching cave rescue with the NCRC. While his focus is on the operations side of DBA, his interests include DR, performance and general IT problem solving. He is the author of: IT Disaster Response: Lessons Learned in the Field.
Callum Green
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/CallumGAdatis
LinkedIn: Callum Green
Contact: http://blogs.adatis.co.uk/callumgreen/
Callum is a Senior BI Consultant with Adatis Consulting, passionate about improving presentation layer architecture and finding new ways to exploit traditional warehouse structures. He has worked on many BI projects over a 9 year period, deviating from the typical Microsoft Stack and more into the Azure domain. Callum has written a number of blogs on subjects like Power BI, Power Query and the M programming language.
David Morrison
Twitter: - @TSQLNinja
Contact: http://tsqlninja.wordpress.com
David is a senior BI consultant at Coeo. Having worked in some for of database development or another for around 14 years his areas of specialisation are sql server engine internals, tsql and query performance tuning.
David has spoken at numerous conferences including several SQLBits and SQLSaturday events as well as user group meetings. He is a a confident speaker who uses humor and a down to earth approach to make even the most technical subject matters easily attainable and engagin
Mark Allison
Twitter: - @dataguzzle
LinkedIn: Mark Allison
Contact: https://sabin.io/blog/
Mark started his career working as a DBA, mainly in the investment banking industry and as a contractor. He was awarded SQL Server MVP from 2002 to 2006, at which point having four children sapped too much time to keep it up. Mark currently works as a Data Dev Ops consultant at Sabin.IO delivering Dev Ops solutions around the Microsoft Data Platform on premise and in Azure.
Satya Jayanty
Twitter: - sqlmaster
LinkedIn: Satya Jayanty
Contact: http://www.sqlserver-qa.net
My experience surrounded with high focus on the data platform with a track record of defining strategy, designing and delivering digital transformation migrations with major enhancements to current working methods. Worked in a capacity of Head of Data Engineering, Enterprise Data Architect and Solutions
Key career accomplishment recognition as an industry expert technical excellence from the Microsoft as Data Platform Most Valuable Professional (MVP) recognition since the year 2006 (13 years as MVP and counting), which recognizes exceptional technical community leaders worldwide who actively deliver, present share their extraordinary contributions, high quality, and real-world expertise. Twitter pod (http://twitter.com/sqlmast
Kamil Nowinski
Twitter: - @NowinskiK
LinkedIn: Kamil Nowinski
Contact: https://sqlplayer.net
Blogger, speaker, #sqlfamily member. Microsoft Data Platform MVP. Data passionate, Data engineer and Architect. Over 13 years of programming and experience with SQL Server databases, he worked both as developer and administrator big databases designing systems from the scratch. Passionate about tuning database engines, code transparency and maximising performance database engine. Currently, he is expanding new horizons as a contractor in the UK market, making troubleshooting, prototyping BI and Big Data solutions, enhancing existing processes among Microsoft stuff environments, popularizing the DevOps approach and efficient solutions in the cloud. An originator of the “Ask SQL Family” podcast and founder of SQLPlayer blog.
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.
Alex Whittles
Twitter: - @PurpleFrogSys
LinkedIn: Alex Whittles
Contact: http://www.PurpleFrogSystems.com/blog
Alex is a Data Platform MVP, and is the owner and lead consultant at Purple Frog, a SQL Server Business Intelligence consultancy in the UK. He specializes in Data Warehouse modelling, ETL, Cubes, MDX amp; DAX. He#39;s a chartered engineer amp; has an MSc in Business Intelligence.
He runs the Birmingham (UK) SQL Pass chapter amp; Azure user groups, and is on the SQLBits and SQL Relay committees in the UK.
Alex is a regular speaker at global events including SQLBits, PASS Summit, SQL Relay, SQLSaturdays as well as numerous SQL Pass chapters around Europe
Steve Powell
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/stevepowellnet
LinkedIn: Steve Powell
Steve has been working with SQL server for longer than he likes to admit and developing code for longer still. He works as a BI trouble shooter for a Business Intelligence consultancy. He spends far too much time wrestling with recalcitrant servers, bad pieces of code and cursing developers who think documentation is something that happens to other people. Its the only way he can fund his sons ongoing Lego addiction and its indoor work without too much heavy lifting so its not all bad.
Rudi Bruchez
Twitter: - nepasderanger
LinkedIn: Rudi Bruchez
Contact: http://www.babaluga.com/
(same as before)
Kevan Riley
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/kevriley
LinkedIn: Kevan Riley
Contact: https://www.rileywaterhouse.co.uk/blog
Kevan Riley (MCSE: Data Management and Analytics) has been working with SQL Server since 1999 in a variety of DBA and DB developer roles. He now works as a freelance SQL Server Consultant in the UK and is no more happier than when knee-deep in performance tuning. He can be often found contributing at ask.sqlservercentral.com and getting involved with the SQL community at UK user groups, SQLSaturdays, SQLBits and SQL Relay.
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
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.
Ust Oldfield
Twitter: - @uoldfield
LinkedIn: Ust Oldfield
Contact: http://blogs.adatis.co.uk/ustoldfield/
Ust is a BI Consultant with Adatis. He has many years of experience in the world of BI, Analytics and general data wrangling. He’s a keen diver of data lakes; an architect of data; governor of information; and explorer of new technology and practices.
Alexander Arvidsson
Twitter: - arcticdba
LinkedIn: Alexander Arvidsson
Contact: http://www.arcticdba.se
Alexander is a principal solutions architect at Atea in Linköping, Sweden. Nobody really knows what it means to be a principal solutions architect, but he spends his days helping clients of all shapes and sizes to take better care of their data.
He has spent the last 23 years toying with databases and related infrastructure services such as storage, networking and virtualization, occasionally emerging from the technical darkness to attend a Star Wars convention somewhere in the world.
He is a frequent international speaker, a Data Platform MVP, podcaster, blogger and a Microsoft Certified Trainer, focusing on SQL Server, the Azure data stack and Power BI.
Alex Yates
Twitter: - @alexyates
LinkedIn: Alex Yates
Contact: http://www.workingwithdevs.com
Alex Yates has been helping organisations to apply DevOps principles to relational database development and deployment since 2010. He’s most proud of helping Skyscanner develop the ability to deploy 95 times a day. Originally for Redgate, later for DLM Consultants, Alex has worked with clients on every continent except Antarctica – so he’s keen to meet anyone who researches penguins.
A keen community member, he co-organises SQL Relay, is the founder of www.SpeakingMentors.com and has been recognised as a Microsoft Data Platform MVP since 2017.
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.
Joanna Wolthuis
Twitter: - ochthenoodle
LinkedIn: Joanna Wolthuis
Joanna Wolthuis is an independent contractor specialising in T-SQL database development and reporting using SSRS and Excel based solutions for the last 8 years. She is passionate about data and learning everything about anything. Aside from SQL Joanna enjoys traveling, nice food and attempting to be an acrobat (not at the same time!).
Rich Benner
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/RichBennerSQL
LinkedIn: Rich Benner
Contact: https://richbenner.com
A performance tuning DBA that loves optimising SQL Servers. I’ve had enough poorly servers thrown at me that I’ve gotten pretty good at fixing them quickly.
Martin Croft
Twitter: - @MartinCroft
LinkedIn: Martin Croft
Contact: https://blog.sqlserversolutions.co.uk/
Martin Croft Data consultant from SQL Server Solutions Martin Croft is a time served SQL developer / DBA contractor / consultant who has worked with SQL Server since SQL 6.5, having attending the user groups for many years he wanted to (try) and give something back for all the things he’s have picked up from the sessions he’s seen and share things people find useful (hopefully). Martin is a co-organiser of the Manchester Data platform PASS user group and SQLSaturday Manchester, SQL bits helper and regular nice all-round nice guy (his mum said).
Jose Mendes
Twitter: - ZeMiguelMendes
LinkedIn: Jose Mendes
Contact: http://blogs.adatis.co.uk/josemendes/
A Principal Data Analytics Consultant working for Adatis Consulting with experience in delivering Microsoft Azure/ SQL Data Analytics solutions. Presented for the first time in 2017 and since then has been blogging and speaking about the Bot Framework, Power BI, Data Lakes, Databricks and other cool Azure services. Co-organizer of the Surrey Data Platform Group.
Sponsors
The following is a list of sponsors that helped fund the event: