Voice of the DBA

Tag: Redgate

  • SQL in the City in the fall of 2013

    This fall I’ll be attending a number of SQL in the City events in the US. Once again we have a tour, though it’s a shorter tour than the 5 events in two weeks I was on last year.

    One of my feedback items last year was that we should be able to do a SQL in the City event that’s smaller. The big events are fun and amazing, but they’re also hard to put together and expensive. I’d rather do an event for a smaller audience, and at a much lower cost, and get to do 10 of them a year.

    Someone listened to me and we ended up scheduling 5 seminar events  (2 listed for now) along with 3 big ones in the US. We held a DBA oriented event in March of this year, and a development based one in Sacramento in July. Both went over well, and we have a few more scheduled later in the year.

    SQL in the City – The DBA Team, San Diego, CA, Sept 20, 2013 – We covered a number of items in Richmond, and we’ve scheduled a few sessions on backups, monitoring, and one TBD. This will be a half day on Friday, before SQL Saturday #249 on Saturday. I’ll be speaking there as well. If you can come, register for both.

    SQL in the City – The Development Seminar, Denver, CO, Sept 27, 2013. This seminar flows well as we present talks on putting your database under version control, automating your database build and test with continuous integration and smoothing out the deployment of your application and database. I’ll actually be presenting all three talks myself as Grant is other commitments this weekend. I’ll also be at SQL Saturday #190 on Saturday in Denver.

    SQL in the City – Pasadena 2013 in Pasadena, CA, October 9, 2013. The first of our large events in the US this year. We’re back in LA, near the Red Gate office in Pasadena. We’ll have a large staff for this all day event, which should be a great time for all. We hope to see you there for a mix of administrative and development topics.

    SQL in the City – Atlanta 2013, Atlanta, GA, October 11, 2013. We’re crossing the country for a Friday event in the South. My first time speaking in Atlanta, and I’m hoping to see something in the city before I leave. This will also be a mix of administrative and development topics.

    SQL in the City – Charlotte 2013, in Charlotte, NC on October 14, 2013. This is the final stop on our 2013 large tour, with us again covering administrative and development topics. If you can’t attend the PASS Summit and you live nearby, here’s a full day of free training. If you are attending the Summit, feel free to register for this on Monday if you are in town.

    We’ve tentatively scheduled one final Stairway to Development in Washington DC in December, just before the SQL Saturday there. More details to follow soon, and there’s a chance we’ll add a sixth one as well.

    Hopefully I’ll see some of you at one of these events. Whether we’ve met before, please feel free to say hi and shake my hand.

    SITC13_Banner_300x250_Speaker

  • The Stairway to Deployment

    logoNext week I travel to Sacramento, CA for the SQL in the City Seminar – Stairway to Deployment on Friday, July 26, 2013. It’s a half day event where Grant Fritchey and I will look to lead you through the idea of implementing continuous integration and continuous deployment for databases (as well as other code).

    I have the first two talks to get you started: Team-based Version Control and Automated Build and Test. Grant will cover the Best Practices for Database Deployment and we’ll finish with a Q&A and a happy hour on us.

    We still have space, so register today if you can make it. The event is being held at the Courtyard Marriott Sacramento Midtown in The Orchid Room (4422 Y St, Sacramento, CA 95817) from 12:30-6:00pm.

    We will use some of the Red Gate tools to show you how to accomplish the tasks, but you don’t need them. The tools make the process easier, and that’s the job of our development and software tools, but really the important things to understand are the idea of automating your processes, integrating testing, and having a workflow that is constantly used, but doesn’t slow down your development process.

    Hope to see some of you there.

    Register today.

  • Two Weeks until SQL Saturday #222 in Sacramento

    It’s just two weeks until my next trip. It feels like I just got back from London, and one again I’m prepping to leave again. This is my only trip in July, which I appreciate. It’s been a busy year so far, with lots of travel for me and I am glad to have a little downtime.

    This trip is a mix of vacation and work. I’ll be heading out early as Red Gate has a mini-SQL in the City event on Friday. We’re trying to get customers to come, but if there is space next week, I’ll send out a registration link. I speak Saturday and then head back to San Francisco. My daughter is joining me on this trip, with the chance to tour the NoCal area for the first time. She was actually here with me when she was 1, but didn’t remember that trip.

    I’m presenting my talk on searching binary data, which I’ve done a few times in the last year. This one will be a look at how you get information out of office documents from within SQL Server. It’s a neat feature for the product, and I’d like to hear how people are using it. Let me know if you are, or if I convince you to try it.

    I’ve also got a joint presentation with Grant Fritchey on A Day in the Life of a DBA, showing the common problems you face and a few ways Red Gate can make your job easier.

    I’m looking forward to a Sun/Mon/Tue vacation, getting some time off and recharging before I have a busy fall with the US SQL in the City tour.

  • SQL in the City 2013

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    Last week was the opening of a new SQL in the City season for Red Gate Software. Once again, for the third year in a row, we had our first event of the year in London. We had a new venue, and only one day this year, but it was sold out completely, with well over 400 people commuting to the middle of London on a Friday morning. I was lucky enough to attend, though my name being listed next to 4 of the talks probably ensure I had an admission ;). This was one of the busier events for me, slightly compounded by the fact that I arrived in London about 20 hours before the event and left the next morning.

    It was quite a bit of fun see lots of familiar faces and meet a number of new ones. I had some interesting questions posed to me, and I think I was able to answer, or get someone else to answer all of them. Sometimes it’s more important to be able to do the latter, since SQL Server has grown in breadth and depth, as well as sheer numbers of versions to the point where no one can keep everything straight. We encourage networking at SQL in the City, as do many other events, and you should take advantage of the time to meet a few new people, and renew old acquaintances as well. You never know when you’ll need to ask someone a question, and a personal contact might get you an answer quicker.

    The event ran smooth (Thanks, Annabel and Carly), as they all have over the last few years. This year we tried something a little different, focusing the morning on development topics and the afternoon on administration items. I liked that split, and I liked the flow in the morning between three sessions that built on each other to tell a continuous story moving from development, to testing, to deployment. Deployment is an important topic of conversation at Red Gate these days, and we hope that you find it to be important in your organization as well.

    Our tour is a little shorter this year when it comes to the US, with three dates in the fall: Pasadena, Atlanta, and Charlotte. I know many of you were hoping we’d come to your city, and we might in the future. We are bringing smaller events, 40-50 person, half day seminars to a few SQL Saturdays later this year. If you’d like to have us come early to your location and speak at a SQL Saturday, let us know. It’s Grant and I doing most of the work, so we have a limited number of slots available, but feel free to voice your opinion to our Community group at Red Gate.

    We like these events, and love the chance to speak with the community and customers, and plan on continuing them for the foreseeable future. I expect that we’ll bring more events to locations outside the US, and I look forward to meeting more of you all around the world at a SQL in the City near you.

    Steve Jones

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