My Upcoming Free SQL Server Training Events

Virginians, Washingtonians, Jerseyans, lend me your ears.

I just updated my Upcoming Events page with my free seminars over the next 30 days:

August 20 – Quest Pain of the Week Webcast
Top Ten DMVs with Tim Ford

Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) offer a simple method for looking closely at your SQL Servers and accessing the information you need for better monitoring. But which ones are the most valuable? And how do you use them?

Join SQL Server DBA, Blogger, Author, and PASS Volunteer Leader Tim Ford and SQL expert Brent Ozar as they present DMVs you can easily use for:

• Gaining greater insight into your SQL Servers
• Improving the performance of your databases and their indexes
• Seeing exactly what users are doing to your SQL instances

Don’t miss this opportunity to take the mystery out of DMVs and put them to the best possible use.

You can register for the free webcast here.

August 20 – Hampton Roads SQL Server User Group – Virginia Beach, VA
Hit the Ground Running with SQL Server 2008

SQL 2008 has a lot of new features to make database administration easier – but who has the time to learn ‘em all? Brent will get you started fast with the features that give you the most bang for the buck. Attendees will learn how to use these new SQL Server 2008 features:

• Central Management Server
• Policy-Based Management
• Group Query Execute
• Resource Governor

At 6:30 PM EST, I’ll be presenting this one remotely via LiveMeeting. Click here to join the meeting, and to get the audio, call 888-373-5705 or 719-457-3840 and enter passcode 287033. If things go well, I’ll also be simulcasting the audio on my Ustream page.

September 10 – Quest Day with the Experts – Redmond, WA

The Quest Day with the Experts series is a day-long in-person event that tours around the country. On 9/10 in Redmond, my sessions will be:

Perfmon and Profiler Basics: Find The Performance You’re Leaving on the Table

These two tools are the key to successful performance tuning. Brent will show how to get started with these tools, how to slice and dice the results, and how to interpret the data to find easy ways to get more performance fast out of your existing hardware. Attendees will learn:

• How to use Perfmon to find bottlenecks
• How to use Profiler to track down the cause of problem
• How to feed these results into Microsoft tools to get performance recommendations

Pulling the Trigger: Tips and Tricks for Virtualizing SQL Server

So the sysadmins told you that they’re virtualizing your servers, and they told you to just get over your fears. In this session, we’ll talk about our real-world experiences with virtual SQL Servers and how to help the sysadmins avoid implementation mistakes that will kill SQL performance. Attendees will learn:

• How to configure CPU, memory and storage for virtual environments
• How to benchmark your servers and make sure they’ll handle your loads
• Common pitfalls like antivirus definition downloads that can cripple your servers
• What to watch for after V-day

You can register for the free in-person event in Redmond, or register for the free online seminar.

September 15 – New Jersey SQL User Group
What’s New in SQL Server 2008 R2

The latest version of SQL Server doesn’t bring dramatic changes that will rock your world, but your managers and CIOs will be asking questions about what they read in ads and whitepapers. Learn what’s coming and why management will be so interested in R2.

I’m presenting this one remotely via LiveMeeting. The meeting will start at 6pm EST, and LiveMeeting coordinates will be arriving shortly.

September 16 – Pittsburgh SQL User Group
Advanced Index Tuning

Don’t just take the word of the Index Tuning Wizard or Database Tuning Advisor: if you rely on these tools, you can actually hurt your server’s performance! In this session, Brent will arm you with the tips and tricks he’s learned over the years managing multi-terabyte data warehouses and high-performing web sites. Attendees will learn:

• How to use DMV’s to demystify what indexes you should drop or add
• How to keep your indexes healthy with proper maintenance
• How to build on the wizard’s recommendations and take even smarter actions

I’m presenting this one remotely via LiveMeeting. The meeting will start at Noon EST, and LiveMeeting coordinates will be arriving shortly.

September 18 – Quest Day with the Experts – Boston, MA

The Quest Day with the Experts series is a day-long in-person event that tours around the country. On 9/18 in Boston, my sessions will be:

Perfmon and Profiler Basics: Find The Performance You’re Leaving on the Table

These two tools are the key to successful performance tuning. Brent will show how to get started with these tools, how to slice and dice the results, and how to interpret the data to find easy ways to get more performance fast out of your existing hardware. Attendees will learn:

• How to use Perfmon to find bottlenecks
• How to use Profiler to track down the cause of problem
• How to feed these results into Microsoft tools to get performance recommendations

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
• How to use BI to write a performance report about your SQL Server

You can register for the free in-person event here, and register for the free webcast here.