TechEd North America 2009 is just a few short weeks away, and I'm really looking forward not only to the show, but also the opportunity to visit Los Angeles for the first time in several years. I'm busy putting the finishing touches on my Extended Events talk, DAT402, "Microsoft SQL Server 2008: Performance Profiling and Troubleshooting with Extended Events", and I thought I should write a quick note to anyone out there who is thinking of attending.
What's noteworthy about this talk is that the TechEd team modified the title a bit and removed the word "Advanced", but left the talk at 400-level and also left the original abstract untouched:
Imagine tracking and aggregating wait statistics at the session level
rather than the server level. Imagine seeing exactly how long each step
in your query took and figuring out the real cost of that index scan.
Imagine capturing an exception with an associated callstack--no more
guessing about exactly what component failed and why. When you're done
imagining, open your eyes and attend this session to learn all of these
techniques and more, all thanks to Extended Events (XEvents)--the
powerful new tracing infrastructure in SQL Server 2008. Designed for
DBAs and developers who already understand the basics of XEvents, this
session goes from 0 to 60 in the first few minutes. See a number of
code examples and gain an understanding of how to maximize XEvents for
performance profiling and troubleshooting purposes. If you're serious
about making your SQL Servers fly, this is one session not to be missed.
When I gave this same talk earlier this year at SQL Server Connections in Orlando, some attendees apparently didn't understand that it really is an advanced talk, and showed up without quite enough background to follow along as well as they could have. I'm hoping to minimize that phenomenon at TechEd; so please keep in mind that although I do a quick (five-minute) refresher, that's it, and Extended Events is a much bigger topic than can be fully introduced in five minutes. Once the refresher part is over I jump into four fairly intense, demo-heavy deep-dive sections, so please, if you want to get your money's worth, make sure that you read one or more of the following in the next few weeks:
Reading through these sources will give you the background so that you can focus on the performance troubleshooting aspects of the talk, rather than sitting there bogged down in the unfamiliar Extended Events syntax and terminology.
I'm looking forward to meeting some SQLblog readers at the event; if you're attending, even if you decide to skip my Extended Events talk, stop by the Database Practices TLC and say hi. Looking forward to seeing you in LA!