Event Location:
University of Iowa - University Capitol Centre
201 S Clinton St
Iowa City, Iowa
Abstract:
Data systems administrators pride themselves on their ability to dig deep into the weeds of their systems and get to the root of problems. However, when it comes time to explain a complex or intermittent issue, we find that others don’t enjoy those weeds. Ever wish you could draw a better picture of what’s going on? Enter Power BI! This tool is beloved by many analysts and developers but it can transform more than just OLTP data. Attend this session to learn how you can use quick models in Power BI against administrative data such as the SSRS execution log, SQL Server Extended Events, XML JSON files, query performance data, and even those random Excel files you get from vendors. You’ll leave this session with the skills you need to survey your domain from a new angle and communicate what you learn to your organization.
Speaker(s): Gina Meronek,
Abstract:
Completing a full assessment on a SQL Server is essential to learning about not only the current state of the server, but also any area that may be impacting performance or security. If you have more than one DBA, it is also important to have all the DBA team members review the same areas when completing an assessment. During this session we will discuss when assessment are useful, what should be included in the assessment as well as how to interpret the results. We will use a SQL script that will capture all the data needed. This script will more than 88 data points, including fragmentation of indexes, performance counter values, server and database security information, queries that consume the most CPU time including execution plans as well as many other data points. This session will also cover to document your findings and recommendations.
Speaker(s): Dave Bland,
Abstract:
If you took a look at Always Encrypted in SQL Server 2016, you may have had some reservations about it. It was a great concept, but because the database engine could no longer access the data, a lot more of the data processing was pushed to the clients. For many companies, that was far from ideal. Enter SQL Server 2019. With Always Encrypted with Secure Enclaves, the benefits of Always Encrypted are retained, but the SQL Server engine gains the ability to carry out operations on the data - without the data ever leaving the server, and without decryption. How is this possible? Does it live up to its promises? Come to this session to find out and to see how to use it in your applications.
Speaker(s): Ed Leighton-Dick,
Abstract:
Your application developers benefit from Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment practices to accelerate feature deployment and catch regression issues up front, but your database deployments are still stuck in the proverbial dark ages. The build scripts might be in source control or even an SSDT project already, but deploying is still an exercise in creating the perfect script, and don't even think about making a data (or data type) change! SSDT and Azure DevOps can solve some of these problems, and even give us a window into the world of automated testing. In this talk, we will explore how to automate your database builds and deployments using SSDT and Azure DevOps, and we will explore automated testing using tSQLt and Docker. Lastly, we will check up on some tasks that you cannot (or should not) automate and talk about how to make sure your application developers are not left behind.
Speaker(s): Dan Mallott,
Abstract:
Do you have or are you developing a BI roadmap without Analysis Services? Do you write a lot of SSRS reports with SQL queries, views or stored procedures? Have you heard about Analysis Services but don't know if it's a good fit for you? Are you trying to decide whether you should go with Tabular or OLAP? Are you thinking about using Power BI? Are your business users hungry for data? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you probably need Analysis Services. In this session we will go over use cases for Analysis Services and highlight the differences and strengths of each flavor of SSAS. We will review typical BI architectures and show how adding Analysis Services can turn your report users into happy and self sufficient data analysts. If you have a data warehouse(or even if you don't) and aren't using SSAS, come learn how SSAS will make your users love you. Prerequisites: no prerequisites.
Speaker(s): Phillip Labry,
Abstract:
Social science has shown that people tend classify one another by gender, race, or other physical characteristics and instinctively react based on stereotypes and cultural norms. These automatic prejudices (often called unconscious bias) contribute to the disproportionate success of white men in STEM when compared to equally qualified women or minorities. The difference between unconscious bias and intentional discrimination is that the people that participate in it are often motivated to end these behaviors when they're brought to their attention. This discussion will cover some common patterns of unconscious bias that occur in the workplace and offer real, concrete actions to intervene as an employee, a manager, or an organization.
Speaker(s): Andrea Mascher,
Abstract:
You know how locking works in SQL Server, but now you are tasked with diagnosing and fixing deadlocks. How do you take the knowledge you have and apply it to address deadlocks in your production database? In this session, we will discuss how you can use free tools to detect and analyze deadlocks in your system. We will do a deep dive on deadlock XML with an eye toward interpreting the information automatically collected by SQL Server when the free tools fall short. Attendees will leave with the understanding they need to develop solutions to deadlocks in their systems.
Speaker(s): Jake Manske,
Abstract:
Ever considered giving a presentation of your own? Pondered how your favorite speakers got their start? Contemplated whether you could ever do that too, but were not sure where to begin? Well I say you can and will show you how to get started! In this session, I will teach you how to develop your idea and create session content, and share tips tricks that I have learned along the way. You will leave armed with a wealth of resources (and hopefully some inspiration) to venture forth and develop your first presentation.
Speaker(s): Andy Yun,
Abstract:
Have you used SSAS before? Have you created reports using T-SQL and Group by? Are you interested in or currently using Power BI? Do you you have a need for Analysis Services but don't want to have to deal with the hassle of buying and installing a server? Are you dreading having to upgrade your hardware for your current SSAS Tabular instance? Is your organization using Office 365? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might need Azure Analysis Services. The wait is over! Azure Analysis Services is the platform as a service version of the wildly popular Analysis Services Tabular product. This demo heavy session will be focused on setting up Azure Analysis Services, deploying a model, loading the model with data and finally reporting from your Azure Analysis Services instance. Prerequisites: Prior knowledge of SSAS or Power BI
Speaker(s): Phillip Labry,
Abstract:
Modern CPU architectures are complex and misunderstood, especially as they relate to SQL Server instance configuration and database usage patterns. Default values in virtualization and the SQL Server instance can cause misalignments and improper balance in the way the SQL Server lines up with the CPUs and memory, which results in an immediate (and silent) performance penalty. Come learn as we discuss topics such as physical and virtual NUMA, hyperthreading, query parallelism, public cloud CPU selection, and SQL Server instance settings, and show you how to validate your SQL Server architecture and improve the performance of your critical SQL Servers for both on-prem and cloud-based SQL Servers.
Speaker(s): David Klee,
Abstract:
Most of us have heard that using the NOLOCK hint is not recommended. But why is this? What is it about NOLOCK that sends most DBAs into a tizzy? And how about other hints such as ROWLOCK and RECOMPILE - are they OK to use? Come hear a discussion on why exactly query hints cause problems when used excessively, and watch some demos of NOLOCK craziness in action.
Speaker(s): Rick Lowe,
Abstract:
One of the best starting places for performance tuning is the execution plan. But in the real world, execution plans become complicated very quickly and it can be difficult to know where to start. This session will demonstrate how execution plans can be interpreted to explain performance, including details on how SQL Server retrieved the data.
Speaker(s): Arthur Daniels III,
Abstract:
Data breaches are now a when, not an if. Yet despite years of reading about data breaches in the news, very few companies are ready to weather the storm. This course will provide a general primer on data breach incident response and the parallels between the IT and Legal response cycles. At the end of this course, you will have the baseline knowledge of data breach responses and legal aspects your company needs to know.
Speaker(s): Wm Bruce Wray,
Abstract:
In 2018 creating a cube is one of the more common tasks in BI, however what happens when the cube you build/inherit is growing so much? This session shows how to handle tabular models of size and details the fundamental considerations required in order to allow it to continue to scale. It also delves into what to think about when moving or building your cubes in Azure.
Speaker(s): George Bryant,
Abstract:
We've all been told at some point that heaps are usually bad for select, update, and delete performance. But how bad are they really? Can they also be problematic for worloads that are _mostly_ insert? Are they always recommended for ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) operations? Does it help to create non-clustered indexes on top of heaps? For this installment of Rick's "Weird Stuff" series we will take a closer look at why heaps can cause issues and maybe see a deadlock or two.
Speaker(s): Rick Lowe,
Abstract:
New in SQL Server 2019, Accelerated Database Recovery (ADR) completely redesigns the SQL Server database engine recovery process. This allows the time spent recovering from a crash or rolling back a transaction to be greatly reduced. ADR also prevents the transaction log from growing during a long-running transaction. Join me for this session to learn about ADR architecture and to see demonstrations of what it can do.
Speaker(s): Frank Gill,
Abstract:
Azure Data Factory V2 is relatively new in Azure and has a lot of great new SSIS-like features but is it good enough to replace SSIS? In this session we will go over some of the new control flow, branching, and scheduling features in Azure Data Factory and see how to make a fully cloud capable data orchestration engine. As a bonus we'll also show how you can run SSIS packages directly in Azure!
Speaker(s): Joshuha Owen,
Abstract:
Interested in learning text mining techniques but not sure where to start? Want to learn more about SQL Saturday presentations but haven't dug into the details? This is the presentation for you! This is an introduction to text mining techniques that will use the SQL Saturday abstracts as examples. We will look at how to analyze data to find the most commonly used words and patterns and how to do sentiment analysis. Is "database" the most commonly used word in SQL Saturday abstracts? Come and find out!
Speaker(s): Lynn Ballard,
Abstract:
CosmosDB is Microsoft’s globally distributed, massively scalable, cloud based database that is hosted in AZURE. Who cares? You should if you need to support thousands of transactions a second, global distribution and redundancy, and different consistencies. Do you need to support JSON, Graph, et al? Done. Join me and see how easy it is to get started. We will set up a local instance of CosmosDB, load JSON data and build a PowerBI visualization. Along the way I’ll point out a couple of things to watch out for. At the end of the session you will then learn how, with a couple of commands, to switch your visualization to the cloud.
Speaker(s): Jim Dorame,
Abstract:
Do you spend your days slinging T-SQL code? Want to improve your T-SQL game? If you answered yes, then this session is for you. This demo-intensive session will showcase a collection of my favorite beginner and intermediate level tips and tricks. We will explore how to identify and fix some common T-SQL anti-patterns, my favorite SSMS productivity tricks, and clever solutions to some common but not easily-coded challenges. This session targets both developers and DBAs; the only prerequisites are the desire to write better T-SQL code and aim of living an easier life!
Speaker(s): Andy Yun,
Abstract:
As we all know, SQL Server loves memory and will use as much as it can get. However, when there is memory pressure we need to use our DBA skills to identify what is causing the pressure. During this session we will explore how SQL Server uses memory and how to properly configure memory settings. We will discuss the use of DMVs and other tools to help us find what is consuming the most memory and some potential solutions.
Speaker(s): Dave Bland,
Abstract:
When you're performance tuning queries that request memory grants, you want to know where, how and why the memory is granted and used in your query. In this session, we'll cover query memory grants through examples. We'll also demonstrate the problems that memory grants can cause, and a variety of solutions to use when performance tuning.
Speaker(s): Arthur Daniels III,
Abstract:
This session is an introduction to tuning backups. Learn how to take those backup jobs to disk and change them from running for hours to running in minutes. We’ll be discussing the advantages disadvantages of using the following parameters: COMPRESSION, BUFFERCOUNT, MAXTRANSFERSIZE. We’ll also be covering the concept of striping database backups.
Speaker(s): Mike Hays,
Abstract:
Think infrastructure in the cloud is still just for sysadmins? Think again! As your organization moves into the cloud, infrastructure architecture skills are more important than ever for DBAs to master. Expert knowledge of cloud-related infrastructure will help you maintain performance and availability for databases in the cloud. For example, know what an IOP is? Should you use a database-as-a-service or provision a cloud-based VM? How many compute resources does your database consume during a given day? Can you secure it properly? Come learn many of the key cloud infrastructure points that you should master as the DBA role continues to evolve!
Speaker(s): David Klee,
This is a list of speakers from the XML Guidebook records. The details and URLs were valid at the time of the event.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmallott/
Contact: https://www.danielmallott.com
Dan Mallott is a Chicago-based consultant for West Monroe Partners in their Technology Practice. His passion is for service-layer development, particularly database technologies, including Microsoft SQL Server and Apache Cassandra. Recent projects have included designing a new integration architecture for a mid-sized health insurer, designing a full technical architecture for a large health insurer, building a new member portal for a healthcare-related association, and developing threat hunting software for use by West Monroe. In his spare time, Dan can be found writing his own libraries instead of using package solutions, or on the ice as a hockey player and referee.
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sqlbek
Contact: http://sqlbek.wordpress.com
Andy Yun is a SentryOne Principal Solutions Engineer and a former Microsoft MVP. He has been working with SQL Server for nearly 20 years as both a Database Developer and Administrator. Leveraging knowledge of SQL Server Internals and extensive experience in highly transactional environments, he strives to make T-SQL leaner and meaner. Andy is extremely passionate about passing knowledge onto others, regularly speaking at User Groups, SQL Saturdays, and PASS Summit. Andy is a co-founder of the Chicago SQL Association, co-Chapter Leader of the Chicago Suburban User Group, and part of the Chicago SQL Saturday Organizing Committee.
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidaklee
Contact: http://davidklee.net
David Klee is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and VMware vExpert with a lifelong passion for technology. David spends his days focusing on the convergence of data and infrastructure as the Founder of Heraflux Technologies. His areas of expertise include cloud, virtualization, performance, and business continuity. David speaks at a number of national and regional technology related events, including PASS Summit, VMware VMworld, SQLBits, SQL Saturday events, and many SQL Server User Groups.
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/eleightondick
Contact: http://www.edleightondick.com
Ed Leighton-Dick is a Microsoft MVP, SQL Server performance and architecture specialist, and Founder/Principal Consultant of Kingfisher Technologies. He is a frequent volunteer with PASS, including current roles as a Regional Mentor, co-leader of I-380 PASS local group, and co-leader of the HA/DR virtual group. He can often be found teaching sessions at local, regional, and national events, including user groups, SQLSaturday, and PASS Summit.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuha
A Data and AI Premier Field Engineer by day and tech geek at all times. I enjoy working with data technologies as well as dabbling in other areas such as VR programming.
LinkedIn: http://http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=22766305amp;trk=tab_pro
Contact: http://skreebydba.com/
Frank Gill is a Senior Data Engineer at Concurrency With 21 years of IT experience, the first 8 as a mainframe programmer, he has developed a love of all things internal. Over the past several years, he has worked extensively with SQL Server solution in Azure, including Managed Instance. When not administering databases or geeking out on internals, Frank volunteers at the Art Institute of Chicago and reads voraciously.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynn-ballard/
Lynn Ballard grew up wanting to study killer whales in the Pacific Northwest. That changed when she took the first computer science class offered by her high school and began to see how technology would change the world. Today she is a senior database developer/administrator with Morningstar in Chicago, Illinois. She is a member of Morningstar's Women In Technology (WIT) and Chicago's SQL PASS groups. She's presented training at Morningstar, previous employers and for Chicago's SQL Saturday. She's a widowed mother of two who learned firsthand about preparing and recovering from worst case scenarios. To the great envy of many, she cures and smokes her own artisanal bacon. Don't worry...she shares with her database friends!
Contact: http://phillip.labry.com
Phillip Labry is a Senior BI Consultant and Trainer with over 20 years experience in SQL Server and over 30 in IT. He has been lucky enough to work on data projects spanning telecom, banking, retail, law enforcement, health care, insurance, financial services and energy sectors. As a national consultant he provides training and builds solutions utilizing the full MS BI stack. He is an active member of the Madison, WI PASS chapter and speaks at events in the USA and Canada.
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rick-lowe/a/228/441/
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.
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sqlbek
Contact: http://sqlbek.wordpress.com
Andy Yun is a SentryOne Principal Solutions Engineer and a former Microsoft MVP. He has been working with SQL Server for nearly 20 years as both a Database Developer and Administrator. Leveraging knowledge of SQL Server Internals and extensive experience in highly transactional environments, he strives to make T-SQL leaner and meaner. Andy is extremely passionate about passing knowledge onto others, regularly speaking at User Groups, SQL Saturdays, and PASS Summit. Andy is a co-founder of the Chicago SQL Association, co-Chapter Leader of the Chicago Suburban User Group, and part of the Chicago SQL Saturday Organizing Committee.
Contact: http://phillip.labry.com
Phillip Labry is a Senior BI Consultant and Trainer with over 20 years experience in SQL Server and over 30 in IT. He has been lucky enough to work on data projects spanning telecom, banking, retail, law enforcement, health care, insurance, financial services and energy sectors. As a national consultant he provides training and builds solutions utilizing the full MS BI stack. He is an active member of the Madison, WI PASS chapter and speaks at events in the USA and Canada.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrgbryant
George has over a decade of experience in the Business Intelligence industry and is an active member of the BI community across the Midwest. His knowledge spans multiple industries including, retail, manufacturing, finance, and medical, however recent years has seen him focus on the analytics in sports. George specializes in BI architecture and end to end development in order to deliver advanced analytics and metrics to multiple organizations across the country. In recent years George has focused on and worked primarily in the Azure cloud, utilizing both established and recent offerings.
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidaklee
Contact: http://davidklee.net
David Klee is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and VMware vExpert with a lifelong passion for technology. David spends his days focusing on the convergence of data and infrastructure as the Founder of Heraflux Technologies. His areas of expertise include cloud, virtualization, performance, and business continuity. David speaks at a number of national and regional technology related events, including PASS Summit, VMware VMworld, SQLBits, SQL Saturday events, and many SQL Server User Groups.
Andrea Mascher (she/her) leads the SQL Server DBA team at The University of Iowa (UI). In addition to her experience in the education sector, Andrea previously supported systems in the biotechnology and healthcare fields. Andrea is an advocate for gender diversity in STEM and co-founded the UI Women In Technology users group to promote a climate of inclusivity and professional growth for women and non-binary individuals in technical fields at UI. Andrea also serves as a member of the UI Council on the Status of Women. Andrea's undergraduate and graduate coursework at UI was in Computer Science, with a focus on Electronic Voting Systems and Technology Law and Policy.
Contact: https://www.DBA-Art.com
Arthur Daniels is a Premier Field Engineer (PFE) at Microsoft. He has focused on diagnosing and optimizing performance on very large databases in mission critical environments.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lowrykoz/
Lowry Kozlowski is a SR SQL DBA and SR Consultant for SWC Technology Partners. Been involved with SQL for 17 years. Co-Leader of the Chicago Suburban SQL User group. Part of the SQL Saturday team for Chicago. Love SQL, photography, solving problems and trying new food. Goal in life is to minimize off hours calls by proactive work on systems.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-bland-sql-server
Contact: https://www.davebland.com
Over 20 years of SQL Server experience that includes being a DBA, BI development and Application development using VB.NET. Dave currently is the Manager of the DBA team at Stericycle. Dave is a Friend of Red-Gate for 2019. He is a frequent presenter at SQL Saturday events and user groups around the country. Has been teaching SQL Server since version 2000 and is the SQL Server instructor at Harper College in Palatine, IL. Current certifications include: • Microsoft Certified Trainer • MCTS: SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance • MCTS: SQL Server 2008, BI Development and Maintenance • MCSA: SQL Server 2008 • MCSA: SQL Server 2016 • MCSE: SQL Server 2016 - BI • MCDBA: SQL Server 2000 • MCSD • MCSE: Data Management and Analytics
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesdorame
Contact: http://www.jamesdorame.com/
Jim Dorame has been working with SQL Server for over 20 years. Over those years he has learned a great deal from the SQL community. He has also given back to the community in the hopes that he may help someone in their career. He is always looking for something to learn and luckily Microsoft keeps adding to SQL Server.
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rick-lowe/a/228/441/
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.
Contact: https://concurrencyexchange.com
Jake has been a T-SQL developer since 2013, starting after he jumped ship from an academic life as a mathematics professor to the software industry. He focuses on solving difficult concurrency problems, large scale data warehouse ETL processes, data conversions, and understanding SQL Server optimizer behavior.
Contact: https://www.DBA-Art.com
Arthur Daniels is a Premier Field Engineer (PFE) at Microsoft. He has focused on diagnosing and optimizing performance on very large databases in mission critical environments.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wwray/
Mr. Wray is Vendor Legal Counsel for an international payments company, handling complex procurement negotiation and focusing on technology and security related aspects of the vendor on-boarding and management processes. ISC^2 CISSP certified, with Masters' Degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science, focused on Information Assurance. He worked prior as an associate at a national law firm, working within their Intellectual Property/Information Technology group. Prior to joining the legal profession, he worked for over a decade in the information technology field, focusing on development, database, and security, and taught as an adjunct professor, including courses in mathematics, computer science and information assurance.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-bland-sql-server
Contact: https://www.davebland.com
Over 20 years of SQL Server experience that includes being a DBA, BI development and Application development using VB.NET. Dave currently is the Manager of the DBA team at Stericycle. Dave is a Friend of Red-Gate for 2019. He is a frequent presenter at SQL Saturday events and user groups around the country. Has been teaching SQL Server since version 2000 and is the SQL Server instructor at Harper College in Palatine, IL. Current certifications include: • Microsoft Certified Trainer • MCTS: SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance • MCTS: SQL Server 2008, BI Development and Maintenance • MCSA: SQL Server 2008 • MCSA: SQL Server 2016 • MCSE: SQL Server 2016 - BI • MCDBA: SQL Server 2000 • MCSD • MCSE: Data Management and Analytics
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginameronek
Contact: http://ginameronek.com
Gina Meronek is a Business Intelligence, Application Architecture, and IT Management professional with 18 years of experience applying the right people and tools to produce genuinely useful technology. She is dedicated to transforming data into information that solves problems via the right system architecture and interactive data visualizations. Gina has been active in the SQL PASS Community for a number of years and is passionate about sharing knowledge with other data geeks in her community. When not glorying in all that Power BI can do, she loves reading, riding her horse, or attending theater with her husband.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-hays-21097419
Contact: http://www.thesqlreport.com/
Mike has been working with Microsoft SQL Server for the last twenty years. Currently working as a Database Administrator for a diversified energy company, he has also worked in the retail, manufacturing, banking sectors. He holds a Master’s degree in Computer Information Science from Cleveland State University. He currently resides in Ohio with his girlfriend Alexia, her two children and their dog Lanna.
The following is a list of sponsors that helped fund the event.