SQLSaturday #97 - Austin 2011 10/1/2011 12:00:00 AM SQLSaturday is a training event for SQL Server professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server. #sqlsat97 Thompson Conference Center 2405 East Campus Drive Austin TX 78705 http://www.sqlsaturday.com/images/sqlsaturday_gb_icon.png http://www.sqlsaturday.com/images/sqlsaturday_gb_image.png Conference Information general True 1 default Maps maps False 2 default Schedule of Events schedule True 3 default Sponsors List sponsorslist True 4 default Twitter twitter True 5 default Todo List todo False 6 default My Schedule myschedule True 7 default Feedback feedback False 8 default Key Events keyevents False 9 default Share share True 10 default 1428 Idera Platinum Sponsor http://www.idera.com http://www.idera.com/images/promos/Idera_60.jpg 60 170 1340 Red Gate Software Gold Sponsor http://www.red-gate.com/ http://www.sqlsaturday.com/images/resized%20-%20redgate_logo.png 60 170 1448 Microsoft UGSS Gold Sponsor https://www.technicalcommunity.com/Pages/default.aspx http://www.wesworld.net/MicrosoftUGSS.JPG 60 170 1563 Quest Software Gold Sponsor http://www.quest.com http://www.quest.com/images/common/quest_logo.gif 60 170 1387 SQLWatchmen, LLC. Silver Sponsor http://www.sqlwatchmen.com http://www.sqlwatchmen.com/images/logo.png 60 170 1388 Confio Software Silver Sponsor http://www.confio.com http://www.confio.com/images/assets/ignite_confio_logo.gif 60 170 1451 Texas Memory Systems Silver Sponsor http://www.ramsan.com http://www.wesworld.net/tms.png 60 170 1499 Dell Silver Sponsor http://www.dell.com/ http://www.wesworld.net/dell_blue_rgb_NEWBRAND.jpg 60 170 1500 Catapult Systems, Inc. Silver Sponsor https://www.catapultsystems.com http://www.wesworld.net/catapult_logo_highresolution.jpg 60 170 1571 Fusion-io Silver Sponsor https://www.fusionio.com http://www.fusionio.com/images/fusionio-logo.gif 60 170 1429 Devart Bronze Sponsor http://www.devart.com http://www.wesworld.net/Devart_logo.png 60 170 1482 CozyRoc Bronze Sponsor http://www.cozyroc.com/ http://www.cozyroc.com/sites/default/files/down/cozyroc-big.png 60 170 1337 Noel McKinney Blog Sponsor http://noelmckinney.com/ http://noelmckinney.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Noel-seated-compressed-NOTNULL-e1284844743579.jpg 40 100 1431 Shannon Lowder Blog Sponsor http://shannonlowder.com http://shannonlowder.com/wp-content/themes/vigilance_pro/images/lowder-wp-logo.png 40 100 1445 SQLvariant Blog Sponsor http://sqlvariant.com/wordpress http://sqlvariant.com/BlogSupport/Images/SQLvariant_Logo.png 40 100 5038 Joe Celko Developer Room 3 Start with the basic method for modeling a hierarchy with sets instead of mimicking pointer chains. Then we will get to some fancier tricks with the model. Finally, spend some time on data integrity. 10/1/2011 9:40:00 AM 10/1/2011 10:40:00 AM 5046 Mike Byrd Developer Room 3 Objective of session is to show with examples when and what and how and if to implement table compression. Session will review table compression as implemented for SQL Server and then dive into many examples including benchmarking. Come to the session to see the results -- they were surprising to me! 10/1/2011 3:20:00 PM 10/1/2011 4:20:00 PM 5078 Steven Ormrod DBA 2 Room 2 Losing your memory is never fun. Well, I can't help you with that, but I can help show you how SQL Server is using its memory and some things to look at with regards to performance problems. When I started as a DBA I didn't know much about SQL Server internals. I inheirited quite a few servers and they were experiencing performance problems. Over time I learned more about the internals and how to troubleshoot systems. I'll share some stories with you and talk about some of the methods I use to look at how SQL Server is using its memory. Then we'll look at some examples and demo code. 10/1/2011 9:40:00 AM 10/1/2011 10:40:00 AM 5151 Charles Joy DBA 1 Room 1 This session will explore various options for data and process management leveraging System Center Orchestrator, System Center Service Manager, PowerShell, SQL 2008 R2, SSRS, as well as other Microsoft offerings. One of the demonstrations will highlight an existing production infrastructure where managed data is remotely collected from various sources (Hyper-V, Windows Host OS, Storage, Network, and Security, even Guest Virtual Machine SQL databases), stored in SQL 2008 R2, reported via SSRS, and presented via an intranet SharePoint portal. 10/1/2011 10:50:00 AM 10/1/2011 11:50:00 AM 5153 Ryan Adams DBA 2 Room 2 Remember Baloo the bear from the Jungle Book? Well we are going to get down to the 'bear' necessities of mirroring and more. Mirroring can be an integral part of your high availability and disaster recovery planning. We’ll cover what mirroring is, how it can fit into an HA/DR plan, the rules surrounding its use, configuration via the GUI and T-SQL, as well as how to monitor mirroring. This presentation is designed to not only give you an overview of mirroring, but to also walk you through a basic implementation. At the end you will have learned what mirroring is, how it can fit into your environment, what business requirements it solves, and how to configure it. 10/1/2011 10:50:00 AM 10/1/2011 11:50:00 AM 5181 Joe Celko Bonus Room 5 The goal of Good SQL is to avoid procedural. The more taht can be put into declarative code, the better the optimizer can do its job. This will cover the use of CASE expressions, overlapping UNIQUE constraints, state transition constraints, and Kusnetsov's temporal constraints. 10/1/2011 2:10:00 PM 10/1/2011 3:10:00 PM 5205 Nancy Hidy Wilson DBA 2 Room 2 Technologists are overwhelmed with TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms) in their everyday life. This session will introduce several SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 features designed to make a DBA’s life easier. If you aren’t using CMS, PBM, EPM, MDW, UCP or DAC – come learn what they are and the potential benefits for managing your environment. 10/1/2011 3:20:00 PM 10/1/2011 4:20:00 PM 5243 Tim Costello BI Room 4 Synchronous and asynchronous components, memory buffers, data type choices, Oh My! Tuning the data flow is all about choices. In this session we'll walk through some of the choices that can give you the biggest performance boosts in your ssis data flow. Together we'll work through the differences between synchronous and asynchronous components. We'll highlight components that should be avoided and explore alternates that can help us create the fastest data flow possible. 10/1/2011 8:30:00 AM 10/1/2011 9:30:00 AM 5262 Thomas LaRock DBA 2 Room 2 Are you suffering from memory issues? Is your SQL Server configured for proper memory management? Attend this session and learn how to best determine if you are suffering from memory pressure, how to resolve issues that result from memory pressure, and how to properly configure your SQL Server to minimize the chance of having memory issues. 10/1/2011 8:30:00 AM 10/1/2011 9:30:00 AM 5349 Erin Welker BI Room 4 In this session, we'll walk through the steps for creating a multidimensional schema (star schema) for a subject area we're all familiar with, load the tables we create via SSIS, and build an SSAS cube to facilitate analytical analysis. The session is almost completely demo-driven, and will hopefully inspire you to go home and build your first BI solution to facilitate your own analysis. 10/1/2011 3:20:00 PM 10/1/2011 4:20:00 PM 5492 Trevor Barkhouse DBA 1 Room 1 Profiler (and its underlying subsystem, SQL Trace) is a tool for recording a SQL Server instance's activity. This diagnostic and performance data is valuable for troubleshooting and characterizing a system's workload. Like any powerful tool, misuse can be quite harmful, so great care must be exercised. This session will teach you how to efficiently configure, run, and analyze the data from traces, while minimizing the overhead of the data collection and avoiding common pitfalls. 10/1/2011 8:30:00 AM 10/1/2011 9:30:00 AM 5504 Sid Atkinson BI Room 4 Analysis Services performance troubleshooting can appear more art than science - there are no query plans to view for optimization, server configuration documentation can be sparse and getting consistent results with specific query tests does not always yield the results you desire. How can you know you can meet the SLAs for the user experience? What is the performance elbow on the number of concurrent users? Did my new aggregation or partition actually make a difference? This session will go into details on how to configure a performance monitoring environment, how to gather data and then interpret results into actionable steps, allowing attendees to answer these questions. Assumes some experience with Analysis Services and MDX 10/1/2011 2:10:00 PM 10/1/2011 3:10:00 PM 5505 Justin Mason DBA 1 Room 1 How many change scripts does it take to upgrade your database? How do you keep those scripts in-synch from version to version? I will be covering the new approach Microsoft has provided through the Visual Studio Database Project and how this can simplify development and deployment for the multiple environments in an enterprise. I'll show you how to set up a database project and create a TFS build that automates the deployment to any target environment. 10/1/2011 3:20:00 PM 10/1/2011 4:20:00 PM 5529 Tim Radney DBA 1 Room 1 TEMPDB is just for temporary data right? It is installed by default and gets recreated it time SQL is restarted so what does it matter right? WRONG. This session will give you great insight into what uses TEMPDB, why TEMPDB is important, what are some best practices for configuring TEMPDB, and how to determine if you have contention. If you have systems where TEMPDB hasn't been touched since the install, you need to attend this session. 10/1/2011 2:10:00 PM 10/1/2011 3:10:00 PM 5603 AJ Mendo DBA 1 Room 1 We'll cover the basics of setting up your CMS, including: 'What you need to consider when planning your CMS', 'How to find SQL Servers in your environment', 'How to get the servers you find into CMS' and 'How CMS can help you proactively manage your environment'. 10/1/2011 9:40:00 AM 10/1/2011 10:40:00 AM 5654 Michael Hotek Bonus Room 5 Performance tuning is something that every DBA and developer will have to do at some point. You'll find all kinds of recipes, cookbook, and processes to do performance tuning. The hardest part isn't tuning something, it is figuring out what to tune and what is worth tuning in the first place. Many people don't have the time to do performance tuning, because so much time is spent figuring out what to tune that no time is left to actually tune the code. This session will take you through all of the tools necessary to gather the data necessary to do the analysis as well as how to quickly cut through all of the background noise to zero in on the most important things that need to be tuned. 10/1/2011 8:30:00 AM 10/1/2011 9:30:00 AM 5667 Russ Loski BI Room 4 SQL Server Reporting Services provides a powerful tool to render report based on information in a database table. But in order to use this feature, you are required to purchase an Enterprise license of SQL Server. In this session, we will create an SSIS package that renders reports to the file system based on values stored in the database. 10/1/2011 1:00:00 PM 10/1/2011 2:00:00 PM 5668 Jonathan Gardner Bonus Room 5 Join Jonathan Gardner in a discussion about the project management process and how understanding the process can help increase the chances of delivering a top quality work product. Learn the questions to ask to prevent scope creep and manage stakeholders from a DBA and highly experience project manager. 10/1/2011 10:50:00 AM 10/1/2011 11:50:00 AM 5694 tjay belt DBA 2 Room 2 We often run a fine line between how much space we need, and how much space we have for our databases. Having too much drive space can be a waste of resources; however, running out of space is an obvious issue. Let’s find a way to straddle the line and determine just how much space we really need, give ourselves a bit more than that, and make it a regular process to baseline, then continue to monitor, make adjustments along the way if needed, and ultimately plan for just enough space to get us through the year on budget. We’ll talk about a stand-alone tool that I used to determine space use for baseline, continued monitoring of the space used, and ensuring we have enough but not too much space. 10/1/2011 2:10:00 PM 10/1/2011 3:10:00 PM 5706 Vicky Harp Developer Room 3 Introduced in SQL 2005, Common Table Expressions, or CTEs, are temporary result sets that offer increased flexibility in your T-SQL coding and provide a simple syntax for recusive queries. In this session for intermediate T-SQL coders, learn how to use CTEs to improve the readability and maintainability of your most complex queries. 10/1/2011 1:00:00 PM 10/1/2011 2:00:00 PM 5713 Roudy Rodarte Developer Room 3 We all know and love inner join, outer join, in and exists. But, there are a several other TSQL operators that do not get as much press as the rest. Expand your TSQL tool belt with Intersect, Except, Cross Apply, and Outer Apply. You'll get practical examples that you can use on Monday morning! 10/1/2011 2:10:00 PM 10/1/2011 3:10:00 PM 5739 David Stein Bonus Room 5 Everyone starts creating SSIS Packages the same way. We hard code connection strings, file locations, etc. Package Configurations are a powerful way to control your packages at run time. This allows you to seamlessly move packages between servers, dynamically assign data sources and destinations, cycle through data sources, and create reusable code. In this presentation, I’ll demonstrate an easy to understand three step process which you can use with all of your packages to increase your productivity in SSIS. 10/1/2011 3:20:00 PM 10/1/2011 4:20:00 PM 5740 David Stein BI Room 4 Many data professionals understand the basics of Data Warehouse design, including Dimension and Fact Tables, slowly changing Dimensions, and the use of meaningless surrogate keys. However, it isn’t until you’ve created a dimensional model and put it into production, that you realize just how much of an impact seemingly trivial mistakes can make. They can hobble performance, allow inaccuracy, and perhaps worst of all, inhibit adoption and usage of the new system. Learn how to avoid many common mistakes, from someone who’s made them and then found ways to correct them. 10/1/2011 9:40:00 AM 10/1/2011 10:40:00 AM 5742 Sean McCown DBA 2 Room 2 Have you ever gotten tired of your 1TB database taking 4+ hrs to backup? Are you sick of having your users breathe down your neck for 2hrs because it’s taking too long to restore a DB? Well now you don’t have to worry about that anymore. I’m going to show you some little known tricks, methods, and trace flags you can use to tune your backups just like you would a query. Backups actually have kind of an execution plan that you can access if you know how, and knowing how to get the individual portions of your backup process down will allow you to knock 80% and even more off of your backup and restore time. I’m not holding anything back in this session. This is a method I’ve used for 15yrs to tune my backups. 10/1/2011 1:00:00 PM 10/1/2011 2:00:00 PM 5746 Jennifer McCown Developer Room 3 It’s impossible to follow every best practice all the time. “Code sins” are those things we do to our code that are either so horrendous that they can’t be borne, or that have such tremendous consequences that your stored procedures wish they’d never been created. Attendees will hear about the most common code sins that make code difficult to read, support, run and extend, and practical strategies for reversing the trend. 10/1/2011 8:30:00 AM 10/1/2011 9:30:00 AM 5748 Jennifer McCown Bonus Room 5 You’re a good SQL professional – you attend conferences and webinars, you read articles and books, and you know your way around SQL Server. But sometimes – just SOMEtimes – some piece of T-SQL slips by you unnoticed, or falls out of memory. Most of us are working with at least two or three out of the last five versions of SQL Server, so who can blame us for missing a feature or two? Come and revisit old favorites, and brush up on new T-SQL features and enhancements. In this session you will see SELECT turned inside-out. You’ll get really, really excited about OVER and PARTITION BY. You’ll learn that Common Table Expressions are, in fact, very cool, and that FOR XML isn’t as scary as it looks. This session is chock full of code examples. 10/1/2011 1:00:00 PM 10/1/2011 2:00:00 PM 5749 Russell Johnson Developer Room 3 Do you have a highly visible online application where you cannot sustain a database outage? How do you handle the planned outages needed for basic maintenance such as patching? In this session I will share some methods utilizing SQL Server features to provide 100% up-time. We will also discuss issues with using clusters as part of an uptime strategy. Finally we will spend some time discussing how Denali can help improve this up-time by utilizing “Always On” features. 10/1/2011 10:50:00 AM 10/1/2011 11:50:00 AM 5771 Jim Murphy DBA 1 Room 1 In the past, High Availability and Disaster Recovery (HADR) had many limitations. Clustering and Mirroring are great, but the mirror/secondary database is not very usable since it is not online. Finally, AlwaysOn solves this limitation by merging both multi-node Clustering and mirroring. Denali AlwaysOn also allows the secondary database to remain ONLINE, so we can use it for reporting purposes without resorting to a Snapshot! Come see this lively session with extensive demos of setting up, configuring and testing AlwaysOn. We'll also test automatic ConnectionString fail-over using a real web app to see how well that feature works. 10/1/2011 1:00:00 PM 10/1/2011 2:00:00 PM 5781 Conor Cunningham BI Room 4 One of the most talked about features slated for the next release of SQL Server, a whole new way of storing data, speeding up some queries ten fold. Come listen to Conor Cunningham talk about this new feature. 10/1/2011 10:50:00 AM 10/1/2011 11:50:00 AM 5790 Reinaldo Kibel Bonus Room 5 In this session you will learn from one of the largest deployments of Microsoft SQL Server with over 5000 servers. Join the experts from Dell Services to learn how, when, and what to do when faced with the question “what is the best virtualization solution to save money on database infrastructure?” Virtualization is knocking on every ones door, including DBAs. Recent economic challenges have forced us all to do more with less. You will learn how we managed our internal consolidation efforts. We will cover the best practices for configuring the database engine, Analysis Services and Reporting Services. We also touch on the best practices on virtualization, consolidation and achieving up to 100 to 1 reduction in SQL Servers. 10/1/2011 9:40:00 AM 10/1/2011 10:40:00 AM