Voice of the DBA

Tag: SQL Saturday

  • Off to the Richmond User Group, a Red Gate Experiment and SQL Saturday #187

    This weekend is SQL Saturday #187 in Richmond, VA. Today’s a travel day for me, as I head out early because Red Gate Software is sponsoring a half day event tomorrow, Friday, where myself and Grant Fritchey (b | t) will be speaking. This is an experiment for us, and I’m hoping it goes well. If so, you might find us doing a number of these events around the country.

    Today I travel, speaking on encryption at the Richmond SQL Server Users Group, then tomorrow at our Red Gate event, and Saturday at SQL Saturday. Then two days off, hanging with my brother, his wife, and my nephews in Maryland before coming back next week.

    A busy few days. Four different talks, on four subjects. Fortunately I’ve been rehearsing this week.

    Hope to see some of you there.

  • A Learning Experiment at SQL Saturday #187– Richmond

    dbateamlogoIn a little over a week, SQL Saturday #187 takes place in Richmond, VA. I’m looking forward to going back as I attended school not too far from there (Charlottesville), and even worked on the West side of Richmond for a time. My brother lives in MD and my mother in Virginia Beach, so it’s a good time for an extended weekend visiting family.

    However I’m also extending my trip before the weekend. Red Gate Software is experimenting with a short learning seminar on Friday. After last year’s SQL in the City, large events with hundreds of people, we’re trying something new again this year. We have a free half day set of talks scheduled on Friday, from 1-5, given by Grant Fritchey and myself. We’ll each give two talks, with networking time in between. We are planning on covering four topics:

    • Core Monitoring
    • SQL Server Backup
    • Database Corruption
    • Indexing

    It will be an interesting day as Grant and I have been working on our talks, trying to make them interesting to the attendees. We are linking the content to Red Gate tools, but don’t worry, these aren’t infomercials. We are delivering valuable information to help you in your job, whether you use Red Gate tools or not.

    Afterwards we’ll have a short happy hour as well before we start prepping for the Saturday event.

    You can register today, and there are still a few slots left, but this will be a small event, so my apologies if you can’t get in.

    Saturday is the SQL Saturday event at the University of Richmond campus. There’s a great lineup of speakers from the Virginia area and beyond for you. If you can come, it’s a free day of SQL Server information and training with tons of networking opportunities.

    Come join me if you can.

  • SQL Saturday #183 Albuquerque – Wrap Up

    This past weekend was the first SQL Saturday in New Mexico. I had written about our trip down last week, with a few fellow Coloradan’s that were speaking at the event. We drove to Taos on Thursday and stayed the night. Friday we skiied, and had a great time. The weather was great, and the snow was nice.

    Photo Feb 08, 9 59 58 AM

    Despite a mix of abilities and technologies, we had a fun riding the slopes and chatting on the lift rides up.

    Photo Feb 08, 10 42 12 AMPhoto Feb 08, 10 42 14 AM

    We even got a few tricks from Reeves Smith and Jason Horner.

    Jason Horner

     

    Reeves Smith

    Five of us skiied, with one non-skier diligently reviewing his presentation in the lodge. At the end of the day, we lined up for a picture before starting our drive.

    Photo Feb 08, 6 44 51 PM

    Friday night we drove down to Albuquerque, arriving around 5:30 or so. After a quick stop at our hotel, we headed over to the speaker dinner. It was held at a very popular local restaurant, and we had a large table reserved.

    ‘There were a lot of speakers, including quite a few from Utah and Colorado. By my count there were 3 people from UT and 11 from Colorado. On one hand I’m thrilled that neighboring states were coming out to support the event. On the other, I wish more New Mexico speakers were featured.

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    We left a little early and headed back to the hotel. I had work to do on Database Weekly and a few others riding with me wanted to review presentations. As much as speakers try to be prepared and ready for events, many of us still need to review and double check our slides and code the night before. Always glad to see people taking time to ensure they will deliver a good talk to attendees.

    We arrived early on Saturday morning, easily finding the event with plenty of signage out front. This SQL Saturday was being held at a New Horizons training center, with classrooms in use for the talks. There were 5 or 6 vendors, set up in the hallways and it was good to see people supporting the vendors and talking with them.

    I went to one of the first sessions, Todd Kleinhans’ talk on building a SQL Server 2012 Lab. I was slightly late, and when I walked in, Todd was showing the finished lab. He had in his VMWare Workstation program

    • A Windows Server 2012 Golden Master VM
    • A Windows Server 2012 Core Golden Master VM
    • A Domain Controller VM
    • 4 SQL Server VMs

    As I sat there, Todd deleted all the VMs and then proceeded to delete the virtual disks from the file system. I was impressed that he was ready to do this and start out with nothing in a 75 minute session. Especially when we were 15 minutes in.

    From there Todd proceeded to install Windows Server 2012 twice (one GUI, one Core) and set them up, snapshotting them installs 5 times for the other VMs. Over the next 30 minutes he rebuilt his lap, although he stopped short of installing SQL Server due to time.

    Photo Feb 09, 8 20 59 AM

    It was an impressive presentation and one I think many of you would benefit from. I hope he gets the chance to deliver this at the PASS Summit and a few other places this year.

    The event ran very smoothly. There was always coffee, water, soda, and some snack in the small kitchen. Lunch was boxed, and there was plenty of food in there. I had some great chats with various people in the hallways throughout the day. I had the chance to catch up with Sri Sridharan and chat about events and some strategy for the future. It was good to laugh and joke with some of the speakers through out the day, and I even sat in on another session in the afternoon, learning more about columnstore indexes from Carlos Bossy.

    The end of the day had everyone gathered in one large room for lots of thanks, applause, and prizes. I got a panorama shot of the closing below.

    Photo Feb 09, 5 21 42 PM

    The people in Albuquerque were very nice and a number of them came to the after party. While some of the Saturday night gatherings are mainly speakers and organizers, this had a good group of attendees that had the chance to network with speakers and each other.

    Saturday night had me back in Taos and Sunday was an easy drive home.

    Overall this was a very well run event, and very smooth. It’s a testament to the hard work and preparation of the Albuquerque SQL Server User Group, and also the hard work by Karla Landrum of PASS. People had a good day, they learned a few thing, and the people I asked about the event told me they thought it was a great day of training and networking.

    I really enjoyed the event in Albuquerque, and I’m hoping there is another one in the future I can attend.

  • SQL and Skiing – SQL Saturday #183

    This weekend of SQL Saturday #183 in Albuquerque, NM. It’s the first SQL Saturday in that state, and it’s a relatively short drive from Colorado. Six hours from my house, S of Denver, and a nice city. My brother used to live there, and I made a few trips to see him.

    I’m looking forward to going back, but not to tour the city. I’m sure that would be fun, but there’s a side diversion between Denver and Abuquerque:  Taos.

    Taos, NM has two ski resorts nearby: Taos Ski Valley and Angel Fire. I’ve never been to either of them, and I’d like to see what it’s like to ski in New Mexico. A few of my fellow Coloradans feel the same way and we’ve organized a bit of a caravan trip.

    Two or three of us are planning to drive Thursday night with two or three passengers, for a total of 5 or 6. We’ll ski Friday and then continue down to Albuquerque for the speaker event Friday night and SQL Saturday #183 on Saturday. A few of us will then go back to Taos on Saturday. Whether we will ski on Sunday depends on how these older bodies feel.

    I love the SQL Saturday events, and think they’re a great chance to teach people things, learn things, and give vendors a chance to meet potential customers face to face. However the networking is one of the best opportunities that I’ve seen from these events. The chance to meet other SQL Server professionals, find out what they are doing, learn about new features, functions, applications and opportunities is amazing.

    The chance to bond and make a new friend or acquaintance is one you shouldn’t pass up. You never know when you network might help you, and there are plenty of companies that view networks as more important than recruiters.

    I’m looking forward to some networking on the drive, getting to better know the people I’ve met at many local events. I’m also looking forward to speaking on Branding at the event and meeting even more SQL Server pros from New Mexico.

    If you get the chance to attend an event, it’s worth your time if you meet people and talk with them. I encourage you to try this in the future, especially at a SQL Saturday. Talk to people in sessions, between them, or even later at the after party.