The 9th SQLBits was held in Liverpool this weekend. Despite it being 226 miles away from home that was no deterant for a few days of quality SQL content, company and beer.
This was my 5th SQLBits and I volunteered to help. This meant room monitoring (helping spearkers, tidying up etc) , helping attendees (mainly find rooms) and other light duties. For me volunteering gave me a purpose between sessions. Knowing the distributed nature of my work meant I was not able to furfil purchases from the exhibiting vendors I prefered not to add myself (once again) to their mailing lists. There is also a limit to how many conference freebies even my kids would appreciate!
The volunteering meant some of my sessions were allocated for me. This was fine as volunteers had given session preferences so they wouldnt miss content they needed. Ensuring everything went smoothly was expertly organised by Annette Allen (@Mrs_Fatherjack). I'm already looking forward to SQLBits 10 and would encourage SQL Professionals to make this a regular date. As a learning and social experience, SQLBits (and the SQLBits community) rocks!
The sessions I attended this time round, were -
Performance tuning from the field
Simon Sabin
Lightning Talks
Various Speakers
Myths and Monsters of Flash
Fusion-io
Advanced SQL Server 2008 Troubleshooting
Klaus Aschenbrenner
The Art of War-Fast Track Data Warehouse & Fragmentation
James Rowland-Jones
Designing an SSIS Framework
Andy Leonard
Building a SSMS Add-in; The Agony and Ecstasy
Mark Pryce-Maher
Understanding SQL Server Execution Plans
Klaus Aschenbrenner
Through the virtual looking glass – monitoring virtualised SQL
Gavin Payne
Whats new in Denali-TSQL
Dave Ballantyne
Other SqlBits 9 Coverage :
Update, November 2011 :
The conference videos have been uploaded in record time and are now available at sqlbits.com
Showing posts with label sqlbits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sqlbits. Show all posts
Sunday, 2 October 2011
Sunday, 3 October 2010
SQLBits VII
Having gone to Wales for SQLBits 5 and London for SQLBits 6, it was time for SQLBits to head north. York was the destination for this autumninal conference for UK SQL Server professionals with the University being the venue. Once again - the venue, organisation and grub was excellent.
The training day i attended is a post on it's own, but I'll list the Friday and Saturday sessions I attended here. I'm not going to review sessions individually, as
Automating SSIS
Andre Kamman
SSIS Dataflow Performance Tuning
Jamie Thomson
TSQL Techniques - How and Why to tune a routine
Dave Ballantyne
Common Analysis Services mistakes and how to avoid them
Chris Webb
The Developer Side of the Microsoft Business Stack
Sascha Lorenz
Designing and Tuning High Speed Data Loading
Thomas Kejser
SQL Server Storage - 1,000GB level
Brent Ozar
Monitoring and Tuning Parallel Query Execution - Part II
Ramesh Meyyappan
Alice's Adventures in Reporting Services
Jennifer Stirrup
SSIS Field Notes
Darren Green
The content was great and I was once again left with wanting to try everything out. This was followed by the grim realisation that my projects would not allow me to. In the breaks and evenings it was fun to finally meet some of the bloggers and sql tweeps i've been following.
Notable mentions go to Gavin Payne (blog | twitter) , Jonathan Allen (blog | twitter) , John Sansom (blog | twitter) , Mark Blakey (blog | twitter) , Phil Nolan (blog | twitter) , Rachel Clements (blog | twitter) and a very modest bloke (and SSIS legend) Jamie Thomson (blog | twitter).
I'm linking the best of the SQLBits 7 posts.
These people have reviewed their SQLBits experiences properly...
Ashley Burton - SQLBits 7 Friday Rundown , SQLBits 7 Saturday Rundown
Jonathan Kehayias - SQLBits 7 Wrap Up
Jonathan Allen - SQLBits 7 - The Disappointment (food for thought - the cost of those that failed to turn up)
Niall Best - SQLBits 7
Richard Back - SQLBits 7 Conference Report
The training day i attended is a post on it's own, but I'll list the Friday and Saturday sessions I attended here. I'm not going to review sessions individually, as
- i don't have time
- taste is subjective
- the internet is full enough of opinions
- others will do a better job
- the videos will end up on sqlbits.com and you can review them yourself.
Friday 1st October
Automating SSIS
Andre Kamman
SSIS Dataflow Performance Tuning
Jamie Thomson
TSQL Techniques - How and Why to tune a routine
Dave Ballantyne
Common Analysis Services mistakes and how to avoid them
Chris Webb
The Developer Side of the Microsoft Business Stack
Sascha Lorenz
Saturday 2nd October
Designing and Tuning High Speed Data Loading
Thomas Kejser
SQL Server Storage - 1,000GB level
Brent Ozar
Monitoring and Tuning Parallel Query Execution - Part II
Ramesh Meyyappan
Alice's Adventures in Reporting Services
Jennifer Stirrup
SSIS Field Notes
Darren Green
The content was great and I was once again left with wanting to try everything out. This was followed by the grim realisation that my projects would not allow me to. In the breaks and evenings it was fun to finally meet some of the bloggers and sql tweeps i've been following.
Notable mentions go to Gavin Payne (blog | twitter) , Jonathan Allen (blog | twitter) , John Sansom (blog | twitter) , Mark Blakey (blog | twitter) , Phil Nolan (blog | twitter) , Rachel Clements (blog | twitter) and a very modest bloke (and SSIS legend) Jamie Thomson (blog | twitter).
Update : 04 November 2010 -
I'm linking the best of the SQLBits 7 posts.
These people have reviewed their SQLBits experiences properly...
Ashley Burton - SQLBits 7 Friday Rundown , SQLBits 7 Saturday Rundown
Jonathan Kehayias - SQLBits 7 Wrap Up
Jonathan Allen - SQLBits 7 - The Disappointment (food for thought - the cost of those that failed to turn up)
Niall Best - SQLBits 7
Richard Back - SQLBits 7 Conference Report
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
SQLBits VI
The sixth SQLBits conference was in London last Friday at Church House Conference Centre, a stones throw from Westminster.
Not being short of lieu time or holiday a Friday conference fortunately wasn't a problem for me.
The organisers had once again attracted sufficient sponsorship to keep the event free. Not only were the sessions free, but so was the food (sausage/bacon rolls for breakfast, a generous packed lunch, cakes both mid-morning and afternoon and finally pizza to accompany beer and games). Coffee to keep tired brains alert was flowing throughout the day too.
The theme for SQLBits VI was 'Performance and Scalability' and my first mission was to which sessions to attend. There were 24 sessions (6 time slots x 4 rooms) split across 3 tracks (dba, dev, bi). Given I haven't yet mastered being in 2 places at once I had to decide what to attend.
Like a festival, the headlining acts are on in different arenas at the same time. This makes deciding what to attend a little awkward. Just how do you chose? Focus on technical content you're using now?, stuff you want to use? , attend the sessions because a speaker is entertaining?
Fortunately I recalled that the SQLBits V sessions (videos | blog entry) made their way onto the website which took the pressure off. I won't really miss anything after all. With some sessions being content rich, I have found myself downloading and watching them a number of times, pausing, rewinding etc. This fact added a further tactic to assist me with my session choices, to save the 'level 400' ones for later.
In the end, I attended the following sessions (largely opting for Dev/BI choices) >
Design Patterns for SSIS Performance
Darren Green
Fast Track Foundations : Sequential IO
James Rowland-Jones | Allan Mitchell
Performance & Scalability through normalisation & set theory
Tony Rogerson
Denormalisation - Having your cake and eating it
Mark Whitehorn & Yasmeen Ahmed
Optimizing tempdb and temporary object use
Christian Bolton
Designing and Tuning High Speed Data Loading
Thomas Kejser
I enjoyed them all, and (as usual) made note of several subjects for further reading (Like my 'to-do' list needed lengthening). The first and last sessions I attended were of most immediate use for my SSIS endeavours. Like the other attendees, I'm eagerly awaiting the upload of the session videos (and not just to see if I'm in them - Hello mum!).
PS : Anyone reading this post who is thinking of coming to a SQLBits event, don't just think about it, DO IT! You'll learn nuggets of practical information in a single day direct from db/bi experts.
PPS : A big thank you to the team, the sponsors and for a certain competition prize ;)
Not being short of lieu time or holiday a Friday conference fortunately wasn't a problem for me.
The organisers had once again attracted sufficient sponsorship to keep the event free. Not only were the sessions free, but so was the food (sausage/bacon rolls for breakfast, a generous packed lunch, cakes both mid-morning and afternoon and finally pizza to accompany beer and games). Coffee to keep tired brains alert was flowing throughout the day too.
The theme for SQLBits VI was 'Performance and Scalability' and my first mission was to which sessions to attend. There were 24 sessions (6 time slots x 4 rooms) split across 3 tracks (dba, dev, bi). Given I haven't yet mastered being in 2 places at once I had to decide what to attend.
Like a festival, the headlining acts are on in different arenas at the same time. This makes deciding what to attend a little awkward. Just how do you chose? Focus on technical content you're using now?, stuff you want to use? , attend the sessions because a speaker is entertaining?
Fortunately I recalled that the SQLBits V sessions (videos | blog entry) made their way onto the website which took the pressure off. I won't really miss anything after all. With some sessions being content rich, I have found myself downloading and watching them a number of times, pausing, rewinding etc. This fact added a further tactic to assist me with my session choices, to save the 'level 400' ones for later.
In the end, I attended the following sessions (largely opting for Dev/BI choices) >
Design Patterns for SSIS Performance
Darren Green
Fast Track Foundations : Sequential IO
James Rowland-Jones | Allan Mitchell
Performance & Scalability through normalisation & set theory
Tony Rogerson
Denormalisation - Having your cake and eating it
Mark Whitehorn & Yasmeen Ahmed
Optimizing tempdb and temporary object use
Christian Bolton
Designing and Tuning High Speed Data Loading
Thomas Kejser
I enjoyed them all, and (as usual) made note of several subjects for further reading (Like my 'to-do' list needed lengthening). The first and last sessions I attended were of most immediate use for my SSIS endeavours. Like the other attendees, I'm eagerly awaiting the upload of the session videos (and not just to see if I'm in them - Hello mum!).
PS : Anyone reading this post who is thinking of coming to a SQLBits event, don't just think about it, DO IT! You'll learn nuggets of practical information in a single day direct from db/bi experts.
PPS : A big thank you to the team, the sponsors and for a certain competition prize ;)
Saturday, 21 November 2009
SQLBits V
I attended the excellent (and free) SQLBits conference this weekend.
A lot of great speakers, and an overload of information! I also got in for free on the SQL/Windows 2008 R2 day , thanks to Andrew Fryer @ Microsoft throwing a free ticket my way.
It was interesting to see the current fad that is twitter heavily in use, with attendees using the hashtag #sqlbits to provide instant feedback and meet up. Iphones and tweeting have infiltrated the sql community far more than i had realised.
I saw a range of speakers and have come away with multiple notes to add to my task list and future goals. The majority of sessions were filmed so hopefully the material will be available shortly at the sqlbits website. The speakers I saw are listed below with links to their blogs.
Keynote and Powerpivot demo
Donald Farmer
When a query plan goes wrong
Simon Sabin
SSIS in SQL Server 2008
Allan Mitchell
T-SQL Tuning
Brent Ozar
Powershell – old tricks for a new dog
Martin Bell
Optimistic Concurrency Internals
James Rowland-Jones
SQL Server optimization stuff you won’t find on Google (yet)
Andre Kamman
In addition to the SQL & BI content there were lunchtime sponsor sessions by many vendors. On both Friday and Saturday I attended 2 excellent sessions presented by Mark Whitehorn, explained much better here by Ash.
A lot of great speakers, and an overload of information! I also got in for free on the SQL/Windows 2008 R2 day , thanks to Andrew Fryer @ Microsoft throwing a free ticket my way.
It was interesting to see the current fad that is twitter heavily in use, with attendees using the hashtag #sqlbits to provide instant feedback and meet up. Iphones and tweeting have infiltrated the sql community far more than i had realised.
I saw a range of speakers and have come away with multiple notes to add to my task list and future goals. The majority of sessions were filmed so hopefully the material will be available shortly at the sqlbits website. The speakers I saw are listed below with links to their blogs.
Keynote and Powerpivot demo
Donald Farmer
When a query plan goes wrong
Simon Sabin
SSIS in SQL Server 2008
Allan Mitchell
T-SQL Tuning
Brent Ozar
Powershell – old tricks for a new dog
Martin Bell
Optimistic Concurrency Internals
James Rowland-Jones
SQL Server optimization stuff you won’t find on Google (yet)
Andre Kamman
In addition to the SQL & BI content there were lunchtime sponsor sessions by many vendors. On both Friday and Saturday I attended 2 excellent sessions presented by Mark Whitehorn, explained much better here by Ash.
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