All kinds of webcasts and presentations coming up in the next couple of weeks:
May 14 – Quest Pain of the Week Webcast:
Developing Something for Nothing
Join SQL Server expert Brent Ozar and SQL Server developer Jeremiah Peschka in this webcast, as they discuss the free tools available to you to build solid, robust applications for free. They will cover:
- SQL Server Express Edition – the free version of SQL Server
- SQL Server Management Studio Express – the free way to manage your Express Edition instances
- Toad® Freeware – the free Toad resource to manage your SQL Servers (including Express) as well as your MySQL instances
Don’t miss the overview of the free tools you can’t afford to ignore in tough economic times! In this presentation, you’ll see how to improve your productivity with an intuitive, graphical tool that will satisfy your growing SQL Server development needs. Register for the free webcast.
May 14 – Columbus, OH PASS Chapter
Using Cloud-Based BI to Interpret Perfmon & Profiler Results
After learning how to use Perfmon and Profiler to gather performance statistics about your SQL Server, it still takes a lot of time to interpret those results and figure out what’s going on. Microsoft’s SQL Server Data Mining team has built a free cloud-based data mining tool for Excel that can help slice and dice mountains of data and help you make sense of it all.
Even if you’re not ready for BI in the cloud, you can use this same type of tool in combination with a local SQL Server Analysis Services instance. Wait! Don’t freak out – it’s much easier than you think, and you never have to leave the comforting environment of Excel. Even if this doesn’t sound like fun to you, you might want to learn about it because mid-level managers in your company might want to use this technique to analyze sales or customer data.
Attendees will learn how to install & configure data mining in Excel, how to analyze Perfmon data to break the server’s load into categories, and how to use BI to write a performance report about your SQL Server.
This one will be presented remotely, and we’ll tweet out links as we get closer to the presentation.
May 19 – PASS Application Development SIG – Online
Rolling Your Own Replication
SQL Server’s built-in replication has made great strides in the last couple of versions, but what if it’s still not enough? One team needed more flexibility, easier administration and higher scalability, so they built their own solution instead. Brent Ozar will discuss how the system was designed, the pros and cons, and how you can build a similar solution for your own needs. He’ll explain some of the lessons learned in scaling this out to thousands of remote SQL Servers.
The meeting starts at 1pm. You can watch the webcast online, and for the audio, call 1-866-379-8990, passcode 6489756. After joining, please mute your phone.
May 19 – IndyPASS – Indianapolis, IN
SAN Multipathing: You CAN Get There From Here
SANs are expensive pieces of hardware that offer a lot of performance and failure protection. The key is multipathing, yet DBAs rarely get exposed to it. Brent knows firsthand: he managed data warehouses and SAN storage, and was able to wring much more performance out of his SANs when he learned multipathing. He’ll explain the basics of multipathing, how to test for failover protection, and how to configure your storage to get the most performance possible from your investment.
The meeting is at 3500 DePauw Blvd., Pyramid #3 – Lower Level, Indianapolis, IN 46268. I’ll be doing this one online via my Ustream channel if all goes well. More info via Twitter on the day of the presentation.
May 27 – Converging Paths of SQL and SharePoint
Microsoft Office, Victoria London
I’m not doing this one myself, but whenever Quest does a SharePoint/SQL event, it’s always very popular so I thought I’d mention it here. This will be a full day-long seminar with sessions on:
- The SQL Server –SharePoint connection
- Creating a scalable and resilient architecture
- DBAs as SharePoint Administrators
- Understanding and managing SharePoint
The speakers include:
- Andrew Fryer, SQL Server Evangelist, Microsoft
- Viral Tapara, SharePoint Evangelist, Microsoft
- Christian Bolton, SQL Server MVP and Director/Database Architect, Coeo Ltd.
- Doug Davis, Director of Product Management, SharePoint, Quest Software
- Iain Kick, SQL Server Systems Consultant, Quest Software
You can register for the day-long seminar here, and it’ll be available as a webcast too.
