SQLBits 2024 is next month, and the session agenda is out, including the Microsoft-led sessions.

If you’re going to get the boss to buy you an online or in-person ticket, it’ll help if you have a specific list of sessions you wanna attend. Managers love it when you can point at each session and say, “Here’s why this is going to be useful to the business.”

If you’re focused on database performance like I am, here are the Wednesday 100-minute sessions I’d recommend putting in your agenda.

Wednesday Slot 1:

• Always On AGs with Bob Ward – Microsoft’s legendary presenter teaches architecture, licensing, monitoring, troubleshooting, and debugging.
• PostgreSQL for SQL Server Pros – overview of architecture, differences, and similarities, including Azure Database for PostgreSQL.

Wednesday Slot 2:

• Intro to Python for Data Analysis – if you work with/around data scientists and analysts, it helps to understand the tool they’re most likely using. You don’t have to be a pro at it – but you just wanna see what they’re using, and why.
• When to Avoid PaaS – your managers and developers are interested in Azure SQL DB and Amazon RDS, and for most new apps, those platform-as-a-service databases make sense. Learn when to avoid ’em. (I know a lot of you are seasoned old folks who default to avoid those databases as a service, but I’d encourage you to think the opposite way when talking to managers at least.)

Wednesday Slot 3:

• Analyzing and Resolving Deadlocks – Erland Sommarskog explains how to read the deadlock XML and what to look for.
• Where Estimates Come From – Hugo Kornelis digs into statistics, filters, and joins. Depending on which problems your developers are facing more often, that’ll drive your pick between this session and the above one. Both of ’em are useful for engine performance tuners, especially if you need to tell your manager, “Here’s an exact query I’m struggling with today, and I hope to get the answers in this session.”

Wednesday Slot 4:

• Understanding Extended Events – senior folks in the crowd will need to up their tracing game as they deal with complex real time troubleshooting in complex environments, especially AGs, Azure SQL DB, and RDS. Grant Fritchey has been an XE evangelist for years.
• Delta and Databricks vs SQL Server – I bet if you mention this session title to your manager, your manager will instantly “get” the value of a conference like this. Your manager has probably been hearing a lot about data lakes, deltas, and Databricks, even if they haven’t brought these topics to you, and your manager will recognize the value in getting someone on the team up to speed on it.

That’s a lot right there. You might want to just sit down with your manager and discuss those before you show them the monster Thursday, Friday, and Saturday session lists. If they don’t render correctly, refresh your page – it seems like the Bits navigation breaks down when you switch from day to day.

The Thurs/Fri/Sat sessions are much shorter. If you’re attending the conference in person, I would focus on picking the sessions you absolutely have to see to justify your business case to get your ticket paid for, and then budget time during the day to attend the hallway track – hanging out, meeting people, talking to presenters and Microsoft employees about business problems you’re facing.

With that in mind, I’m going to pick the 50-minute sessions that I would absolutely have to see:

• Thursday 10:10 – Azure SQL Managed Instances – Microsoft’s Niko Neugebauer and crew will “unveil the latest advancements in SQL Managed Instance, setting new standards in the industry.” Right now, most of my clients going to the cloud are still using VMs, but they’re all eyeing MIs as the option they’d rather have if a lot of limitations were removed. Staying on top of this product is important.
• Thursday 12:00 – Perfmon in the Cloud – Microsoft’s Bob Ward shows “exciting new capabilities in Azure” for monitoring. Many of my clients who go cloud are also trying to cut costs, which often means doing their own monitoring. New capabilities here are always good.
• Friday 9:00 – Managing Database Fleets in Azure PaaS – if you’re involved with a software-as-a-service app that puts each client in their own database, it can be painful to manage costs and performance. It’s also hard to find good, current information on this topic.
• Friday 10:10 – ACID in SQL Server – I’ve seen this session by Daniel Hutmacher, and even senior attendees will learn useful stuff in here. I did.
• Friday 12:00 – Managing Replication with dbatools – Replication is such a pain in the ass. It breaks. It’s always mission-critical. And even though it breaks, people want more of it. If you’re cursed into working with it, you’re going to need the best automation you can get to fix the problems faster.
• Friday 13:40 – Modern Authentication in SQL – because even if you’re not doing multi-factor authentication yet with your databases, your security team is gonna ask you to start doing it soon. The user in me loves it, but the DBA in me hates it.
• Friday 16:50 – When to Stop Tuning a Query – the abstract reminds me of one of my favorite session styles, Watch Brent Tune Queries, and I always love seeing other peoples’ takes on this. I like seeing how their brain works and how they explain the process with a single query.
• Saturday 9:00 – HADR on SQL Server on Azure VMs – like I mentioned in another session’s notes, this is the route most of my clients are taking (VMs). I always enjoy seeing Microsoft’s David Pless present, too.
• Saturday 14:10 – SQL on VM Price-Performance – also by Microsoft’s David Pless, and also covering an extremely common topic whose content changes constantly. If you’ve got Azure VMs that you set up 2-3 years ago, they’re probably a bad config choice today, and it’s time to rebuild them with the newer VM types & config options.

Doesn’t that sound amazing? The icing on the cake: coupon code Brento10 gets you 10% off your registration, too. Show your manager the sessions you wanna attend, and why, and I bet your manager will spring for the 3-day pass for £1400, down to £1260 (about $1600) with the coupon. (Saturday is free!) Register here.