Voice of the DBA

Tag: travel

  • Speaking About Unstructured Data at SQL Saturday #287 – Madison

    I haven’t been to Wisconsin in a long time. Not since I was a little kid, going to visit family. However I’m heading up there next week for SQL Saturday #287 in Madison, WI. I’ll be speaking about unstructured data, basically Filestream and Filetable, giving a preview of the talk I’ll be doing at SQL Intersection in a few weeks.

    If unstructured data isn’t your thing, the schedule has a number of well known speakers coming for the event. Brent Ozar, Jes Borland, Bill Fellows, Joe Sack, Michelle Ufford, and many more covering all sorts of topics from SSIS to AlwaysOn to Powershell. You’ll have a chance to make some hard decisions during each time slow, trying to determine which sessions you’re willing to miss to see some other great presentations.

    There are also some great pre-cons available on Friday from David Klee (virtualization), Jes Borland and Ted Krueger (Tuning), and Dan English (BI). These are some of the most affordable all day training you’ll ever find, so take advantage if you can.

    If you’re anywhere in the area, which might mean almost anywhere from Minneapolis to Des Moines to Chicago, consider making the trek for a fun, informative day with the #sqlfamily. I hope to see you there.

  • Branding, Encryption, and Yoga in Cleveland

    It’s just under two weeks to SQL Saturday #241 in Cleveland. This will be my second trip of 2014 and I’m doing some planning for the trip.

    First, Yoga.

    I practice yoga every week and find it to be a good workout as well as a relaxing one. It helps with my flexibility, and since I’m having surgery in a few months, I’m trying to make sure I continue to work muscles. Erin Stellato and I started planning on a class on Friday morning, Feb 7, 2014. It’s the day before SQL Saturday, but since I’ll be in town, it’s a good choice. Erin uses the Inner Bliss Yoga studios, and if you’re interested and want some #sqlyoga, come join us. I’m not sure which class we’ll do, but we’re leaning towards the 9:15 at the River studio. Watch for me to post details on Twitter.

    After yoga (and a shower), it’s time for SQL in the City 2014. We have our first event in the US taking place on Friday, February 7, 2014 at the Holiday Inn in Westlake. It’s free to attend, but we’d like you to register so we can plan for attendees. We have a limit, so please don’t register if you don’t plan on attending. We’ll be talking about database deployment, version control, and continuous integration. It’s an interesting topic, and one that lots of people find interesting and inspiring.

    Saturday is SQL Saturday #241. The schedule has me talking Encryption first at 8:45 and Branding at 11:45am. Please feel free to come to my sessions, or check out Grant’s Statistics or Query Optimization talk. Please also feel free to say “hi” or shake our hands at anytime. My apologies in advance that I won’t make the after-party Saturday night. I need to get home to Denver, so I’ll be leaving a bit before the end of the day to catch a plane.

    If you’re in the Cleveland area, join us Friday for SQL in the City and come on Saturday for SQL Saturday #241. There are also pre-cons taking place on Friday if you don’t want to see us talk deployment and would rather hear Argenis Fernandez talk about disaster recovery or Allen White talk Powershell. They’re both great presenters and $99 is a bargain for their pre-con events.

    Hope to see you there.

  • Cleveland Rocks! (and does SQL Server)

    My first flight of 2014 will be to Cleveland to run a SQL in the City seminar and then speak at SQL Saturday #241. Both are free events, taking place on February 7th and 8th, respectively, and it’s a great chance for you to improve your SQL Server skills, network, and move your career forward.

    SQL in the City Seminar

    Grant Fritchey and I did SQL in the City seminars last year (and 4 big events) and we kick off 2014 in Cleveland. Come see our Deployment Stairway half day session on Friday, Feb 7, 2014. It’s free, but we’d like you to register.

    We’ll be presenting 3 sessions that build on one another. We’ll set the base with Version Control Systems and databases, giving you some things to think about. We then go into Automated Build and Test, essentially Continuous Integration, which is an amazing process and one you’ll want to get set up in your environment. We finish off with a look at deployments, giving you some ideas on how to smooth and automate this process.

    We’ll cap the afternoon off with a short happy hour, giving you the chance to talk to Grant and myself about anything SQL Server, or anything else.

    SQL Saturday #241

    My second time to a Cleveland SQL Saturday will be #241. I think this is their third or fourth in total, but timing hasn’t worked out well for me. However I’m excited to go back and see friends and meet some new people.

    As an added level of excitement, the T-SQL guru from SQLServerCentral, Jeff Moden, will be speaking. Come learn from one of the masters and speed up your T-SQL code.

    Of course, there will be a ton of other speakers there as well. With 7 tracks and 6 time slots, you’ve got the magic number (and answer to the universe) of sessions to choose from. Speakers from all over the country will be there and you’ll have to really think about how to spend your day.

    I have 2 sessions in the morning. I’ll be talking about encryption at 8:45 and then branding at 11:15. Learn about how to better secure your data and the options that are available for encryption in SQL Server, and then learn about how you can stand out, improve your brand, and find a fantastic job for you.

    My apologies in advance that I won’t make the after party, but my daughter has a volleyball tournament in Colorado on Sunday and I’ll have to leave a little early to catch a plane home Saturday night. However I’ll be around during the day and please feel free to say hi and introduce yourself.

    As I mentioned, both events are free, so if you’re interested in database deployment, sign up for the seminar and if you want to work with SQL Server, register for SQL Saturday.

    Pre-cons

    If you’re looking to be a better DBA and want to learn about the internals of SQL Server and how to better recovery data, think about attending the pre-con from MCM Argenis Fernandez on Friday. It’s an inexpensive training session that will teach you a lot.

    If you want to learn about Powershell, Allen White is putting on an Automation pre-con using PoSh on Friday as well. Learn how to better manage your instances with a little scripting and thought.

  • SQL in Albuquerque

    It’s a little less than two weeks until SQL Saturday #271 – Albuquerque. The second event in that great city, and the beautiful state of New Mexico. I rarely get there now that my brother moved away, but’s always neat to visit.

    I was lucky enough to get chosen to speak and attend the first event last year. When I got my acceptance, a few of us from Colorado got together and planned a #sqlski day on Friday. It worked out well and we have plans to do it again. A few less of us this year, but a few new faces as well. Some of us will be driving to Taos on Thursday night and skiing Friday before driving the rest of the way to Albuquerque.

    This event was a lot of fun last year with an amazing lineup of speakers from all over the country. It was amazing to see how many speakers came from different states, though I do prefer to see more local speakers. Perhaps we’ll inspire a few more New Mexico SQL speakers to jump into the event next year.

    In any case, we have people from Missouri (Bill Fellows), Nebraska (John Morehouse), Texas (Tim Mitchell), Utah (Pat Wright), California (Denny Cherry and Lori Edwards), North Carolina (Bill Pearson) and of course, Colorado. There are at least 13 of us coming down from the north, by my count, and a few more that might be attending.

    I’ll be talking Encryption at the first session at 8am, and from there you have a great choice of lots of other sessions.

    If you’re anywhere near Albuquerque, I’d encourage you to register and come. It will be a fun day of SQL Server learning in New Mexico.

    And it’s FREEEEEEEEE.

    If you want to ski on Friday, keep an eye on the #sqlski hashtag on twitter and we’ll let you know where we are.