Voice of the DBA

Tag: SQL Bits

  • The SQL Bits Schedule

    I’ll be speaking this week at SQL Bits XIV in London. I’ve got two sessions, and please feel free to come watch if you’re interested. Here are my topics and times:

    • Thursday, Mar 5, 2014: Branding Yourself for a Dream Job, 4:00pm-5:00pm
    • Friday, Mar 6, 2015: Get Testing with tSQLt, 5:00pm-6:00pm

    I usually wander into sessions as I have time, but I do like to look over the schedule and see if there is anything interesting I want to see. I’ll arrive Thur morning and then have Friday and Saturday as well at the event.

    I have a wide variety of interests, though I’m leaning more towards development practices lately. I don’t see much on Thursday that interests me, or that I haven’t seen already. I may wander in and out of talks to see what strikes my interest.

    Friday

    The Developer Side of Monitoring looks interesting to me. I tend to use SQL Monitor, but it would be good to know if there are things I might do to extend how we use Monitor in our environment.

    Lessons learned from the cloud might be interesting as well. I can’t decide if I think the cloud is great, or a mess. Perhaps I’ll get something from this one. I also will try to see either Temporal Databases or Deep into Isolation Levels. I met Boris last month in Germany, so I would like to see him speak.

    Saturday

    No speaking for me Saturday, which means the chance to meet people and also wander around. There is another tSQLt talk in the morning, so I’ll go see if I can learn something from someone else doing database testing.

    I’d like to learn more about Columnstore and Parameter sniffing, so those talks are on my list. I do like to see how people scale systems, and Bob Duffy is entertaining, so I might go catch part of his DVD Store talk. I’ll probably duck out early, because CI is a good topic for me and there’s one on CI for SSRS.

    The afternoon will probably have me a bit worn out, but I’d like to see an FTS session with Dejan or maybe I’ll critique Reeves in his Biml talk. I’m not sure if I’ll catch any of the last sessions, though lightning talks can be fun, so maybe I’ll wander in there before I head to the airport.

    Quick Trip

    Three days at Bits, a first for me, though I’ll be coming and leaving right away. I’m off to Dublin for a couple talks next week.

  • 10 days, 3 cities, 4 talks, 6 flights and 6 hotels

    I’m off today for Europe, on the longest trip I’ve taken for Red Gate. It’s stretching me a bit, but it should be fun. It will be a whirlwind as well. I’m flying to London (2 flights) and then driving to Cambridge for a couple days (1 hotel) at the Red Gate office. Then I head back down to London on a bus for SQL Bits (3 days, 2 hotels).

    On Saturday, I return to Heathrow (1 hotel) as I have an early Sunday flight (1 plane) to Dublin. There I get a day off, and I booked my hotel (1 hotel) near some of Dublin’s sights. I’m hoping for good weather to rent a bike and wander around. It’s only one day, and them I move (1 hotel) near the DLM Workshop seminar that I’ll be delivering in Dublin on Tuesday, along with a visit to the user group there.

    Then I head back to London (1 flight) early Wednesday morning, changing planes and heading back to the US (2 flights) and home.

    It’s a bit of a crazy trip, and with my costume for the event at SQL Bits, I’ll be checking a larger bag than I ‘m usually do.

    I’m looking forward to it, and while I’m sure I’ll be tired, it will be great to see so many #sqlfamily in the UK.

  • SQL Bits XIV

    I’m heading back to London for SQL Bits XIV in March. This is my favorite conference, and I’m excited and honored to be selected to present.

    This year the conference goes to four days, and it’s an amazing set of sessions being offered at a very reasonable price. You can get a full day of expert level training on Wednesday and Thursday if you like. Friday is very low cost, and Saturday is free. Thursday also has a few side sessions if you’d like to attend a variety of different things during the day.

    I’ll be presenting Thur afternoon and Friday afternoon if you’d like to see me, but please feel free to stop my, shake my hand, and say hi at any time. I should be at the venue early Thur and the rest of the conference until Sat late afternoon. My sessions hare:

    • Branding Yourself for a Dream Job – Thur, 4:00pm
    • Get Testing with tSQLt – Friday, 5:00pm.

    That doesn’t leave me a lot of time for Friday night’s preparations, so perhaps I’ll preview my costume early.

    Superheroes

    One of the best parts of SQL Bits is that there is a themed party every Friday night, and everyone’s invited to have fun. I participated in the medieval theme a few years ago, but wasn’t ready for Steampunk last fall.

    However I’m ready for 2015. I’ve ordered a costume, with time to change something if things aren’t fitting properly.

    I’m excited to see what people choose, and it should be great fun in London this March.

    This really is a great event. Lots to learn, lots of fun, and a casual atmosphere that I rarely see elsewhere. I thank the SQL Bits team for their hospitality and I look forward to another first class event.

  • Apologies to my CI for Databases Attendees

    I have to apologize to everyone that attended my Continuous Integration for Databases talk at SQL Bits. I ran over, a few demos didn’t work, and my machine flaked more than expected. I know those things happen, but I still need to apologize.

    While there were problems with my demos, I should have moved on and gone through things a little quicker as well. I could have cut out, or cut down a few concepts, to get through things quicker. The session is really built for 75 minutes, but that’s no excuse. I need a 60 minute, smoothly delivered, version.

    I also should have run through everything completely after some changes at Red Gate. I only set up part of it, which was a mistake. I don’t know if I’d have caught anything, but I might have.

    I’ll work on getting some video and written content of the presentation up here, and hopefully that will help you understand the concepts, and perhaps start to implement CI with your own databases.