Thursday, August 12, 2010

24 Hours of PASS: Summit Preview

Hi Guys,

I am sure you would have attended 24 hours of PASS last time. They are coming up with another 24 hour event in September (15 & 16).

Here are the excerpts from PASS.

Join an exceptional lineup of SQL Server and BI experts from around the world as they present a sneak peek of PASS Summit 2010 in 24 free live webcasts September 15-16.


This installment of 24 Hours of PASS delivers the hottest SQL Server and BI content directly to your computer – with a twist. Instead of running continuously for 24 hours, the September event divides the webcasts across 2 days, with each day beginning at 12:00 GMT (UTC). Check out what time it starts in your neck of the woods.

Dig into Data Warehousing, MDX, KPIs, and DTS-to-SSIS migration. Learn best practices for sizing database hardware and performance tuning. Get an in-depth look at PowerShell, storage for the DBA, and the latest T-SQL enhancements. And see how to manage teams, make your presentations rock, prepare for your next job, and more.

Click here to register

Here are the details about all sessions:

  • Session 01: Peter Ward - I AM A DBA – WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT SQL SERVER 2008 R2? SQL Server 2008 R2 isn't a minor release for the Database Engine. We’ll look many new R2 features for the DBA, including improvements in locking and merging partitions and Unicode compression.
  • Session 02: Allen White - GATHER SQL SERVER PERFORMANCE DATA WITH POWERSHELL. Keeping a performance metrics baseline lets you know when you really have a problem. We'll build a PowerShell script to gather metrics from SQL Server and a report to easily monitor your systems.
  • Session 03: Craig Utley - WHY DATA WAREHOUSING PROJECTS FAIL (AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT). Data warehousing projects, like many large IT projects, have high failure rates. Learn the main reasons behind these failures and how to succeed in overcoming the obstacles.
  • Session 04: Glenn Berry - HARDWARE 201: SELECTING AND SIZING DATABASE HARDWARE FOR OLTP PERFORMANCE. This session covers current and upcoming hardware from Intel and AMD and gives you the resources to make better hardware-selection decisions to support SQL Server OLTP workloads.
  • Session 05: Andy Leonard - MANAGING TEAMS. Are you a member of a team of database pros? Are you part of a developer team? Do you manage or lead a team? Andy Leonard shares experiences, war stories, and lessons learned from years of managing and leading teams.
  • Session 06: Ken Simmons - ENFORCING COMPLIANCE WITH POLICY-BASED MANAGEMENT. Learn specific ways you can use Policy-Based Management to help enforce proper server configuration, security, auditing, and encryption as well as creating Alerts to notify you when violations occur.
  • Session 07: Stacia Misner - INTRO TO MDX. Learn how to perform many calculations easier and faster with MDX than T-SQL, how to think about multidimensional space, how to create basic queries, which functions to learn first, and how to construct useful calculations.
  • Session 08: Kalen Delaney - ISOLATION VS CONCURRENCY: WHAT ARE THE CHOICES? In this presentation, we’ll look at the relationship between isolation level and concurrency models to see how the various isolation levels work in either an optimistic or pessimistic manner.
  • Session 09: Grant Fritchey - IDENTIFYING COSTLY QUERIES. Before you dive into query execution plans, you need to identify the queries and procedures that are causing your system the most pain. In this session, learn several useful ways to gather metrics on query performance.
  • Session 10: Douglas McDowell - HOW TO ROCK YOUR PRESENTATIONS. Just because you’re a technical rock star doesn’t mean your technical presentation is going to rock. Learn best practices for structuring, building and delivering a compelling presentation every time.
  • Session 11: Paul Nielsen - EXTREAME DATABASE DESIGN. Push the data modeling envelope with advanced EAV, temporal attributes, class inheritance, domain classes, decorator classes, and transparent data overlays using patterns that are easy to query with normal SQL.
  • Session 12: Peter Myers - DELIVERING KPIs WITH ANALYSIS SERVICES. See how Key Performance Indicators are defined in SSAS cubes and made available for reporting, where the KPI sources its target data, and how to use the new Excel 2010 What-If Analysis feature to collect data.
  • Session 13: Brian Knight - UPGRADING DTS PACKAGES TO SSIS. In this level-200 session, see why you should upgrade from DTS to SSIS, options for converting, how to add value to packages during the conversion process, and how to assess the scope of the project (time, costs).
  • Session 14: Kevin Goode - STATISTICS: HOW TO PROVE EVERYTHING BUT THE TRUTH. Statistics are a key component of tuning SQL Server. This session examines the internals of statistics and explains what ones are available, how they’re used, and what causes them to be recomputed.
  • Session 15: Marco Russo - SQLBI METHODOLOGY. SQLBI Methodology is a design and implementation guide to model and build a BI solution using SQL Server, Integration Services and Analysis Services, providing greater flexibility in terms of design and maintenance.
  • Session 16: Chris Shaw - PREPARING FOR YOUR NEXT JOB. Review interviews I’ve conducted and the mistakes that inspired me to continue looking for the right candidate. The goal of this session is to learn from others’ mistakes so that we can put our best foot forward.
  • Session 17: Denny Cherry - STORAGE FOR THE DBA. Storage is one of the biggest pain points in SQL Server performance. After this session, you will understand how to talk to your storage admin to get the best performance from your storage environment.
  • Session 18: Klaus Aschenbrenner - SQL Server 2008 R2 STREAMINSIGHT. Learn how to use Microsoft’s new complex event-processing runtime to analyze large data streams in real time and how to develop with StreamInsight and extend StreamInsight-based apps with your own adapters.
  • Session 19: Jen McCown - T-SQL BRUSH-UP: THE BEST THINGS YOU FORGOT YOU KNEW. You're a good SQL Server pro, but sometimes a piece of T-SQL falls out of memory. Revisit old favorites and brush up on new and improved T-SQL features like MERGE, OVER, and PARTITION BY.
  • Session 20: Brad McGehee - AUTOMATE YOUR DATABASE MAINTENANCE USING OLA HALLENGREN’S FREE SCRIPT. See how to implement Ola Hallengren’s free database maintenance script, which makes it easy for all DBAs—novice or experienced—to perform optimal database maintenance.
  • Session 21: Kevin Kline - RELATIONAL DATABASE DESIGN FOR UTTER NEWBIES. Investing a little time and effort into your design early will yield big benefits by providing a database that is self-documenting, easy to maintain and alter, and provides high-quality data.
  • Session 22: Adam Jorgensen - ZERO TO CUBE: FAST TRACK TO ANALYSIS SERVICES DEVELOPMENT. Come get hands-on with Analysis Services as we build a fully functional OLAP cube in 1 hour with all the bells and whistles. Even experienced SSAS developers will learn something!
  • Session 23: Louis Davidson - TOP 10 DESIGN MISTAKES. People do a lot of really stupid things in the name of "getting it done" (I’m not immune myself). The list we’ll cover in this session is simply the 10 most heinous database design mistakes that come up often in the real world.
  • Session 24: Rob Farley - UNDERSTANDING SARGABILITY TO MAKE YOUR QUERIES RUN FASTER. SARGability, the ability to search through an index for a value, is often misunderstood—especially in regard to joins—leading to queries that don’t run as well as they should.
Register Now.

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