Search results matching tags 'Career' and 'Conferences'

PASS Summit 2012, Slide Decks

KKline — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 17:02:00 GMT

Ok, I have to admit the painful truth. I'm reliably slow to the finish line. This year, I got my slides into PASS HQ by the skin of my teeth, the weekend before the event was to begin. Although I could say with a straight face "I uploaded my slides!". I have to be honest that I wasn't surprised when many of my attendees said that they weren't available for download by the time my session started. OTOH, I also have to say that I really do prefer for attendees to focus on the presentation while it's being presented and that they should grab the slides afterwards. But that's just my personal preference.

Having said all of that, I'm going to post my three session slide decks here so that you can grab them in case PASS has to take a while longer to get them posted. If you don't mind, the PASS program committee has introduced a new electronic feedback system. PLEASE PROVIDE FEEDBACK!

(Click on the session title to download the zip file of the slide deck).

PASS TV - Gaining Executive Support

This brief session is all about convincing your boss to do something you want - telecommute, make a big purchase of hardware or software, bring in a consultant, and so forth. See the PASS TV schedule for other sessions.

Winning Influence in IT Teams

Abstract: Ever wanted to convince the boss to try something new, but didn't know where to start? Ever tried to lead your peers toward an innovative, fresh idea only to fail to achieve your goals? This session teaches you the eight techniques of influencing IT professionals and the means of communicating your ideas upward to management and out to teammates so that you can innovate and achieve change in your organization. You'll learn the fundamental difference between influence and authority and how you can achieve a high degree of influence without explicit authority. You'll also learn the eight techniques of influencing IT professionals, when to apply them, and how to best use them. And you'll discover the communication and procedural techniques that ensure your ideas get a hearing by bosses and peers, and how to best win support for them.

Evaluate Session

Managing SQL Server in a Virtual World

This session rocked the house! We had standing room only probably at 20 to 30 minutes before start time. Our attendance was over 500, but we probably could've filled the biggest 700+ person room. A special thanks to my friend David Klee (blog | twitter) for tag-teaming with my like mega-nerd luchadors.

Abstract: Why are so many organizations implementing VMware, and what does it mean for SQL Server DBAs? In this deep-dive session, you'll see that when configured and managed properly, SQL Server can run just as well in a virtual environment as a physical one. We'll review the benefits VMware provides, including hardware abstraction, easier failover, and simpler capacity planning. We'll also explore key tips to help administer a SQL Server instance running inside a virtual machine. You'll learn the differences in general administration, disaster recovery, and high availability on VMs; get a better understanding of activity and performance trends on VMs; and learn how to ensure effective capacity planning and optimal performance on VMs. If you’ve ever had a virtual deployment go bad, or if you’re struggling to manage the performance of virtualized SQL Servers, be sure to catch this session.

Evaluate Session

Secure Your Spot at the Nashville SQL Saturday!

KKline — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 14:50:00 GMT

PASS SQL Saturdays are free 1-day training events for IT professionals interested in Microsoft SQL Server, providing a variety of high-quality technical sessions, all happen through the efforts of local volunteers. The leadership team of the local chapter of PASS here in Nashville (Facebook | LinkedIn) have worked hard to make this year's SQL Saturday a day of great training and networking.

The local NashSQL leadership team includes yours truly (blog | twitter), Joe Webb (Twitter | Blog), Louis "Dr SQL" Davidson (Twitter | Blog), Christina Leo (blog | twitter), and Shelton Dickson (website). We also get a lot of operational help from Matt LeBlank (LinkedIn | Twitter).

We think you'll find it's a great way to spend a Saturday!

Register for the free community day with 5 concurrent tracks of hour-hour technical sessions running all day long: www.sqlsaturday.com/145/eventhome.aspx

Also, we are very pleased to announce the SQLSaturday #145 Pre-con event on Friday, October 12th. We have four paid sessions available from established industry experts. Session details are provided in the links below.

Please be aware that each Pre-con is priced at a staggeringly cheap $129.95 + $8.14 processing fee.

Registrations made by August 31, 2012, will receive an EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION rate of an $99.95 + 6.49 processing fee!!!

Don't miss out on this fantastic offer! Register now: SQL Satuday #145 PreCons

A continental breakfast will be served and tea and coffee will be available throughout the day. Lunch will be provided.

A SQL Saturday in Cambridge – Buck Woody’s Ragtime Database Workshop

BuckWoody — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 20:49:00 GMT

The SQL Server community is really engaged. They are an active bunch on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, they help each other on forums, they attend conferences. But that isn’t enough interaction – the community started a grass-roots effort to hold local conferences on a Saturday. Free conferences. Odds are there’s one near you… http://www.sqlsaturday.com/default.aspx … and if not, you can start one.

Sessions at SQL Saturdays are all over the map, and there’s something for (almost) everyone, from Business Intelligence to Database Administration and Development. Some of these events have “training days” associated with them – longer, more in-depth training that has a fee. I’ve taught quite a few of these, and of course I’ve done my share of other presentations at the events as well.

I’m honored to be presenting at the Cambridge, UK SQL Saturday this year (http://www.sqlsaturday.com/162/eventhome.aspx) in September. For one thing, I used to live near there and plan to take the family with me to show them my old stomping grounds. For another, I’m excited about the sessions I get to present.

The Training Day

Friday I’ll be leading one of those training days – and I’ll be delivering a very important workshop, where I’ll cover SQL Server – all of it. OK, maybe not *all* of it, and maybe you won’t be a complete PhD after the class, but we’ll do a complete immersion in learning SQL Server as a product from the ground up. It’s a workshop format, so no sitting and listening to someone droning on and on for hours. You’ll be asked to bring a laptop, and do actual work on the product from the first few minutes of the 8-hour day to the last of the workshop. You’ll be jumping in from the very start, and in deep until the end of the day.

But wait – this is kind of a “beginner” thing, isn’t it? Shouldn’t I be doing something on the internals of the locking mechanism of the hashing system in memory on x64 architectures, with complete code diagrams? Shouldn’t you be able to snatch the T-SQL pebble from the master’s hand when you’re done, or be able to shoot the wings off of an XML fly when you’re done?

No.

We need this kind of session. For one thing, you can get that depth in other sessions. For another, we need to have a place for someone that wants to learn SQL Server but doesn’t have a lot of time to do that. We need something relatively inexpensive that a boss can send a developer, administrator or new employee to learn how to take over the SQL Server, or augment the DBA team. We need a place where good habits are formed, and where someone can branch out into a new part of technology, into one of the best places in tech to be – data.

After you’re done with this session, stick around for Saturday – now all those presentations will make more sense. And you’ll be able to network with a lot of folks that already do what you learn about on Friday, and who knows – find out where to look for work in this amazing career field.

What will you learn?

You’ll start with knowing that SQL Server is a database product by Microsoft. That’s all the pre-requisite you need, other than being the technology industry. From there we’ll cover:

The Data Professional Career
Installing, setting up and configuring the right Edition of SQL Server for the job (including SQL Azure)
Database engine fundamentals – How does the engine work, what are the components, what can you configure and tune
Transactions, Locking and Blocking
Creating and managing databases
Database options and their impact
Database Objects including Tables, Views, Stored Procedures, Functions and more
General maintenance including backups and recovery
Security fundamentals including users, roles, and object security
Performance tuning fundamentals including indexes and query research tools
Multiple resources to help you get to the next level

In 8-hours. Come ready to learn. You’ll need a laptop, and complete focus for a few hours. You’ll leave with the ability to manage and work with a SQL Server system – and you’ll learn what to do next.

Who should go?

If you’re new to Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS’s) but not technology, and you’re looking to expand your technical reach, coming from another platform (to be sure, there will be some repeat info here), want to explore a new tech career area, want to learn more about developing against an RDBMS or know someone who does.

The registration for the training day is here: https://www.regonline.co.uk/?eventID=1120017&rTypeID=242030

What else are you doing whilst (I love saying whilst) there?

I’m also pleased to be providing the keynote on Saturday. (I can’t wait to see what I’m going to say), as well as two other sessions – more on those soon. My daughter wants to be a Zoologist, so while we’re there we’ll be visiting the Zoology museum at one of the colleges, I’ll probably eat too much and potentially go punting. I’ll also mingle with you, my SQL Family, and we’ll just generally have a good time.

If you’re not busy in September, and even if you are, make plans to come check all this out. It promises to be awesome. (Americans think everything is awesome)

See you there.

ITPro, Re-architect Your Life

KKline — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:21:00 GMT

Have you ever found yourself wanting to make a major shift - in skills, in roles, in relationships? One of my good friends, Jimmy May (Blog | Twitter), accomplished a set of major career and lifestyle revisions including relocating to Redmond, taking on a huge new level of job responsibility as part of the Microsoft SQL Customer Advisory Team, and achieving the noted accreditation of Microsoft Certified Master.

Jimmy and I were chatting about undertaking major life changes like these and, as is often the case, his thoughts were too good not to share. Be sure to explore these excellent career development resources. So here were some great pointers from Jimmy:

I’ve referred you before to J.D. Meier. Incredibly powerful guy. Here are some brief yet powerful posts:
What’s the Challenge?
http://sourcesofinsight.com/2011/06/24/whats-the-challenge
101 Ways to Motivate Yourself and Others
http://sourcesofinsight.com/101-ways-to-motivate-yourself-and-others/

Want more?
30 Days of Getting Results
http://sourcesofinsight.com/30-days-of-getting-results
Take a Tour of Sources of Insight
http://sourcesofinsight.com/2011/06/21/take-a-tour-of-sources-of-insight
Still not enough? Here are his three blogs:
www.sourcesofinsight.com
www.gettingresults.com
http://blogs.msdn.com/jmeier

Let me know what other resources you enjoy for professional and career development!

And if you're really interested in developing your IT leadership and management skills, I encourage you to attend my Leadership Skills for IT Professionals seminar. I'm presenting this full-day seminar in Dallas at the SQLRally on May 8, and in Louisville at SQL Saturday 122 on June 19. Hope to see you there!

Thanks,

-Kev

-Follow me on Twitter at @KEKline

Starting this week: Dublin, Maidenhead, and London

KKline — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:18:00 GMT

This might be most most overcommitted four-week period of time ever in my life. I’m tired just thinking about it! Not only am I traveling internationally and speaking over the next few weeks, I’m also helping on two book projects, learning some new applications from Quest Software, and helping on a small Transact-SQL refactoring project.

Swag on hand? I’ve got a special printing of 500 video training DVDs for this trip:

SQL Server Training on DMVs

Performance Monitor and Wait Events

Plus, I’ll have a few posters, stickers, and other goodies. Come see me!

SQL Saturday 105; Dublin, Ireland; March 24

My maternal grandmother was first generation Irish-American and, somehow, going to Ireland feels a lot like going home to grandmom’s house. And all my Irish friends make it feel like I’m going home to see the extended family – cousins and ‘once-removed’ family types. And on top of that, we get to talk about SQL Server at SQL Saturday #105! I’ll be doing a session called “Top 10 Things Every Developer Should Know”. I’ll also be hanging out at the Quest Software booth much of the day and, just for fun, I plan on doing a completely unscripted lightning talk.

SQL Server User Group; Maidenhead, UK; March 27

From Dublin, I head over to the lovely town of Maidenhead, UK. I’ll be spending a couple days in the Quest Software office there in Maidenhead, whose SQL Server User Group is lead by fellow Questie Richard Douglas (blog | twitter). I’ll be presenting after Business Intelligence impresario Jen Stirrup (blog | twitter). Space is limited, but there are still some seats left.

I’ve already heard from other twitterati that some great Microsoft SQL Server MVPs will be attending, like Tobiasz Koprowski (Blog | Twitter). If you live in south, central England, then this is your chance! Register here: http://www.sqlserverfaq.com/events/386/Maidenhead-UG-meeting-SQLBits-Preview-Speakers-include-MVPs-Kevin-Kline-and-Jen-Stirrup.aspx.

SQLBits; London, UK; March 29 – 31

This is the official launch event for SQL Server 2012! This is your chance to get the best and biggest dose of SQL Server 2012 training for quite some time. The free training day event is sold out. However, some of the training day seminars have open seats, including my seminar Leadership Skills for the Database Professional. This seminar distills the years of formal training and hard-won experience I’ve accumulated throughout my career starting as a developer leading a small team, through the founding and early startup years of PASS, into my later years leading a large, multi-national development organization. You’ll learn all the skills that are crucial for you to make the leap (and it’s a big one) from full-time technologist to a leader and manager of people.

And we’ll be hosting our popular SQL trivia quize and IT Horror Stories sessions as well. So be sure to plan on grabbing your lunch and heading into our fun lunch-time sessions!

I hope to see you at one of these upcoming events! Cheers,

-Kevin

-Follow me on Twitter

Big Data and the Cloud - More Hype or a Real Workload?

BuckWoody — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:57:36 GMT

Last week Microsoft announced several new offerings for “Big Data” - and since I’m a stickler for definitions, I wanted to make sure I understood what that really means. What is “Big Data”? What size hard drive is that? After all, my laptop has 1TB of storage - is my laptop “Big Data”?

There are actually a few definitions for this term, most notably those involving the “Four V’s” Volume, Velocity, Variety and Variability. Others disagree with this definition. I tend to try and get things into their simplest form, so I’m using this definition for myself:

Big data is defined as a large set of computationally expensive data that is worked on simultaneously.

Let me flesh that out a little. To be sure, “Big Data” has a larger size than say a few megabytes. The reason this is important is that it takes special hardware to be able to move large sets of data around, store it, process it and so on. (large set)

If you store a LOT of data, but only use a small portion of it at a time, that really isn’t super-hard to do. It’s mainly a storage issue at that point. But, if you do need to work with a large portion of the data at one time, then the memory, CPU and transfer components of the system have to adapt to be responsive - new ways to work with that data (game theory, knot-algorithms, map-reduce, etc.) need to be brought into play. (computationally expensive)

Once that data is loaded into the processing area (memory or whatever other mechanism is used) it must be worked on in parallel to come back in a reasonable time. You have two options here - you can scale the system up with more internal hardware (CPU’s, memory and so on) or you can scale it out to have multiple systems work on it at the same time using paradigms such as map/reduce and so on. Actually, when you lay this out in an architecture diagram, scale up or out doesn’t actually change the logical structure of the process - in scale out the network becomes the bus, and the nodes become more RAM and computing power. Of course, there are changes in code for how you stitch the workload back together. (worked on simultaneously)

So back to the original question. Is Big Data, as I have defined it here, a workload for Windows and SQL Azure? Absolutely! In fact, it’s probably one of the main workloads, and I believe it represents the latest, and perhaps also the earliest frontier of computing. Jim Gray, a former researcher here at Microsoft and a hero of mine, was working on this very topic. I believe as he did - all computing is simply an interface over data.

Microsoft has multiple offerings on the topic of Big Data. In posts that follow from myself and my co-workers, we’ll explore when and where you use each one. Whether you are a data professional or a developer, this is the new frontier - don’t wait to educate yourself on how to leverage Big Data for your organization.

Hadoop on Windows Azure and SQL Server - Microsoft’s partnership to include Hadoop workloads on Windows Azure and SQL Server/Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW)

LINQ to HPC - Microsoft’s High-Performance Computing SKU of HPC is now in Azure

Windows Azure Table Storage - A key/value pair type storage with full partitioning that is immediately consistent, able to handle huge loads of data and works with any REST-compatible language

Other offerings - Including the new Data Explorer, Project Daytona (with a Big Data Toolkit for Scientists and researchers), Power View and more.

The era of Big Data is here. And you can use Windows and SQL Azure to bring it to your organization.

Here, There, and Everywhere; Speaking in Fall 2011, Part 1

KKline — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:33:00 GMT

The last quarter of the year is usually my busiest due to the fantastic PASS Summit and SQLBits events. The fall looks a little different ... BECAUSE IT WILL BE EVEN BUSIER! Here's a rundown of where I'll be this fall through mid-October:

BASTA! SQLCON.NET

September 26 to 29; Mainz, Germany

This big developer and admin conference runs from September 26 to 29 in Mainz, Germany. I'll be delivering at least one session and hobnobbing with Quest customers, friends, and in a very weird twist, my oldest daughter Emily, who will be in the Rhineland at the exact same time on a graduation present I'd been planning for her since graduation in June.

SQLBits - Query Across the Mercy

September 29 to October 1; Liverpool, United Kingdom

One of my favorite conferences of the year! The organizers are great. The speakers are great! The attendees are great!! The venues are great!!! The lunches are ... um ... adequate. I'm doing all an new session on SQL Injection attack, this time with LOTS of demos kindly written by an attendee at one of my sessions in Cologne. He like the session so much, he decided to build demos to go along with it. (Thanks again, Volker!) And if you've attended before, you know how much fun our now traditional IT Horror Stories and IT Bingo Trivia sessions are. Make plans to attend these standing-room only sessions, before the fire marshal kicks us all out of the room for overfilling it.

The PASS Summit

Seriously. This is the one. If you can attend only one SQL Server training and community event in a given year, this is the one. Over 150 sessions and pre-conference seminars. Most everyone who is on the list of "who's who" in the world of SQL Server and Microsoft-related data management and development will be in attendance. And a large number of the Microsoft R&D team that builds, documents, and supports SQL Server will also be there.

Plus, more details to come on these events: Netherlands SQL Saturday, Belgium SQL Server Days, and SQLRally Nordic.

I hope to see you there in person!

-Kevin

-Follow me on Twitter!

How I Prepare For Presentations, And My Speaking Schedule For This Quarter

BuckWoody — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:04:45 GMT

I do a little speaking here and there and I’ve been asked about the method I use to get ready for a talk. I thought I might share the method I use, although as you read through this remember that not everyone has the same style, processes and procedures they use. As long as you feel prepared when you speak and the audience learns something from you, you’re doing it right. Still and all, it can be useful to see what someone else does to tune your process even further. Whatever makes your speaking better helps us all, including me, as I sit through quite a few presentations myself.

I do several types of presentations, from working with my direct clients at Microsoft in a very targeted and interactive discussion all the way to a full semester of classes at the University of Washington that lasts for several weeks. I also speak at technical events, and in all of these the audience size an participation levels vary. Even so, I still follow roughly the same process:

Develop The Concepts
Create Animations
Develop A Slide-A-Day
Practice
Tuning And Feedback

Develop The Concepts

When I’m asked to speak on a topic, I try and boil that down to one over-riding goal, such as “The listener should know how large-scale data sets can be handled”. Then I do a work-back outline of how that would happen - introduction, terms, define the problem, explain the options, provide specifics, detail references might be one example. Then I try to make that even tighter, until I start losing fidelity in the talk.

This is where the duration of the talk and the audience makeup is most critical. The shorter the period of time I have to talk, the lower I set the goal. I’ve seen people try to cram a complex set of information in an hour, complete with demos. At the end I certainly have an exposure to the information, but I don’t know that I have retained it. I would rather the speaker focus on one specific part of that deep topic or simply provide an overview and then point me to relevant resources I can study in detail later.

The key is what the audience retains when the talk is over. If they think “wow - that speaker is really smart” that’s actually a failure. They should think “wow - I’m really smart, and now I know how to do that thing the speaker talked about”.

Each of these concepts then becomes a logical flow of mini-goals, and many times, these map to a slide or whiteboard graphic.

Create Animations

It doesn’t matter what tool you use - somehow you need to convey your information to the audience. In some cases, I can draw “word pictures” simply by talking, but technical topics often lead themselves to graphics. I’ve used whiteboards, Power Point (don’t make that face) and even Microsoft Paint with a Wacom Tablet. I try to show a start-to-finish process, or layer components to slowly cement in the listener’s mind what I want them to know.

The rule of thumb I use is to show one piece of a system at a time, to show a larger more complex whole. To show how that system interacts with another, I use animations. All of these are done as simply as possible, using the least flashy animation I can. Any technology I use should be to get the point across, not to show how many fonts and explosions I can cram onto a screen.

I find that almost every concept I developed in the previous step warrants it’s own slide or drawing. If I have too many, say more than 8 or so for a one-hour presentation, then I have too many concepts for a single presentation, or I’m making it too complex. If I have lots of lists on the screen and not many graphics, then I’m reading notes and not setting up a dialog with the audience. Creating a graphic per concept keeps me from many of these errors.

Develop A Slide-A-Day

Speaking isn’t my full-time job, so I have lots of “real” work to do. So after I’ve gotten the concepts down and turned them in to graphics, I take one slide each day when I can and work through the detail of the concept I’m talking about. If I’m using Power Point, I use the “Notes” view to put down the text I want to cover, the references I find on the web, in magazines and books, and the other speakers I credit during the presentation. I give that out electronically after the presentation, since I don’t want people focusing on my notes while I’m talking - I would much rather they listen carefully and take their own notes. Even so, sometimes there are processes or procedures that I need to show. When I don’t show it on the screen, I show it in the Notes view. If I’m using some other medium like a whiteboard, I usually blog the information and then show the link to my blog.

Practice

This is probably the most skipped step I see in new presenters. Yes, you have to sit in front of a mirror. Really. And yes, you have to say what you’re going to say, and time yourself. Really. It feel awkward, and it should. And you need to do this. Really.

I use the “Presenter View” in Power Point. It has the slides (so that you can see the next one coming), the Notes you made, and a timer. It’s a great tool even if you aren’t going to use Power Point in your talk.

But you have to practice. I try to practice my talk at least five times. Interestingly, this isn’t so I’ll say the same thing the same way every time. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It helps me feel more confident in the information, and allows me to “wander” slightly during the talk and be more dynamic, because I know what I need to get across - I’ve practiced it.

Tuning And Feedback

If time permits, I try to deliver the talk at work or to my wife. I give the audience a feedback sheet with what I want to know, so that they will be critical without being mean. I try to do this with as many different audiences as I can. Based on what I hear back, I may adjust or tune a section to ensure that I get the information across.

So what’s on that sheet? Well, things like “How was the speed? Did it seem like I knew what I was talking about” and so on - but there’s one part that is pretty interesting. I give them a test. I make questions that I should answer during the talk, and at the end I hand out the paper and see if they get those answers. If they don’t it’s my fault. End of story. I either picked people that don’t care about the topic, or don’t listen, or who aren’t interested in helping me. All of those are my bad. If I do an effective presentation, I move the knowledge of the topic from my head to theirs. That’s success.

Speaking Schedule

If you’re interested in seeing the result of this preparation style, I ‘d love to have you join me. I enjoy meeting the folks that read this blog, so if you’re near any of these events then stop by and say hello!

09/23-24/2011 - Orlando, Florida

SQL Saturday 85 - http://www.sqlsaturday.com/85/eventhome.aspx

I have two presentations at this event:

SQL Server Performance Tuning Using Application Path Analysis

There are a lot of resources, products and features you can use to tune the performance of your SQL Server system. Many assume you’re familiar with 400-level concepts, others don’t consider the whole stack of the client, the network, the operating system, platform and the database server. Buck Woody, Microsoft’s real-world DBA, will explain a simple, repeatable process you can follow to tune your entire application – from the client to the server. All of the tools we’ll cover are included with Windows and SQL Server:

In this pre-conference session you’ll cover not only the process, but also review a real-world evaluation. You’ll take home a system and a spreadsheet you can use to monitor and tune your applications, in a simple, easy-to-understand session.

The Saturday event is:

Cloud Computing De-mystified

The cloud! Move everything to the cloud! No, wait, the cloud is awful! Don’t move anything to the cloud! Wait – what’s “the cloud”? Buck Woody, Microsoft’s “Real World DBA” will show you how to figure out where your data should live, based on actual decision points. You’ll learn about Windows and SQL Azure, and when it makes sense to put data locally or remotely.

10/08/2011 - Portland, Oregon

SQL Saturday 92 - http://www.sqlsaturday.com/92/eventhome.aspx

Hybrid Database Systems

With so much interest in Cloud technology, where does it really fit in, and what is the role of the DBA and Database Developer? What is available in SQL Azure, as it compares to SQL Server? Can you leave some data on-premise, and put other data in the cloud? Buck shows you the ins and outs of SQL Azure, how to connect to it, manage it, what the limitations are, and real-world examples of architectures that work.

10/11-14/2011 - Seattle, Washington

Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) Conference - http://www.sqlpass.org/Events/PASSSummit.aspx

Beyond the Hype - Hybrid Solutions for On-Premise and In-Cloud Database Applications

Despite all the hype, it’s rare for a business to actually “move” an application directly to the cloud. The cost, risk and effort aren’t usually worth the benefit of what you gain. Security considerations, performance, and control are just a few of the reasons that many applications need to stay in your datacenter. But there are times when including a function from the cloud makes a ton of business sense, either to extend part of your internal applications to remote workers, customers or partners, or to act as a HA/DR solution.

In this session, Buck Woody (Microsoft Senior Technology Specialist on Distributed Computing) will talk about how you can embrace Cloud on Your Terms through SQL Server Code Name "Denali" and Windows and SQL Azure architectures, and the considerations for creating a hybrid architecture across on-premise databases and cloud technologies. You’ll learn:

How to create a decision matrix for which elements can be extended to the cloud

A Windows and SQL Azure technology overview, code name Juneau, and DAC Fx

Component options for hybrid solutions, including:

SharePoint

Biztalk

.NET applications

Non-Microsoft languages and technologies

Other RDBMS’s

You’ll receive references, whitepapers and other resources you can use to evaluate your own architectures to see how you can use a secure, high-performance system that expands and contracts as needed.

10/11/2011 - 12/14/2011 - Seattle, Washington

University of Washington - http://faculty.washington.edu/woodyg/

SQL Server Essentials

This course will introduce the student to Microsoft’s SQL Server database management system. Topics included are relational database concepts for production database applications, SQL programming, and SQL Server tools. This course will introduce advanced topics -- at an overview level -- that will be presented in more detail in subsequent courses. The course involves instruction, course studies, and a project that will be completed from requirements to delivery.

During the course you will design a relational database structure from a set of business requirements, developing a graphical Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD), writing Transact-SQL code for the creation of all database tables, views, stored procedures, security, indexes and maintenance scripts for a sample system. Your final project will be the entire system creation, delivered as a series of scripts, along with the ERD and pertinent conceptual documents in a SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) Solution.

Head in the Clouds–Eyes on the Books

BuckWoody — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:43:00 GMT

I normally post technical topics here on this blog, but I’m extending this post a bit to include a little professional development. Don’t worry; there’s some tech (and Distributed Computing tech, no less) in this post as well.

I recently presented a few sessions on a “SQL Cruise” to Alaska (more on that here) and one of those sessions was on professional development. As part of that, I had everyone do some exercises on career building, and we created some deliverables we would be accountable to each other on. After all, one of my favorite business quotes (my version, others have said something similar) is:

What gets measured gets done.

One of the deliverables was to establish our career goal(s) for the next year, and then come up with a list of 12 books that would help us get there. We promised to read one book per month, and report back on our blogs a review of the book and how it applies to the career. So in no particular order, here is my list – I’m telling you all, so call me on it if I don’t post a review on one of them. I reserve the right to change my list as I learn more, but 12 books is the rule:

Programming Windows Azure by Siriram Krishnan: Learning about how to select applications suitable for Distributed Technology. (June )
Rhetoric, by Aristotle: I read this long ago, but I would like to re-read it to learn how to more clearly formulate my arguments and help my writing skills to improve. (July)
Favorite Folktales from Around the World, by Jane Yolen: Storytelling is at the heart of presenting well. ( August )
Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely: Understanding the actions of others is key to my success. ( September )
The Cloud of Unknowing, Anonymous: The role of faith in life. ( October )
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott: I’ve heard a lot about this, and I’m not even sure I agree with it. But I want to see what it says about collaborative efforts and how I can leverage them. ( November )
Think Stats: In my studies of "Big Data", the skill I find missing most of the time is Statistics - as part of the "Data Scientist" role I'm investigating, this is part of a kit you can get from O'Reilly. I actually replaced another book with this one. ( December )
The Elements of Persuasion by Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman: Another "storytelling" book. ( January )
Designing Data Visualizations by Noah Iliinsky and Julie Steele: Part of my "Big Data" focus. ( February )
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick: This is a book I've heard a lot about, and it's in a similar vein as GEB, one of my favorite books. ( March )
Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform: Using Microsoft products to solve a given problem. It includes Cloud strategies as well. ( April )
20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. Let's see. ( May )

As part of keeping each other accountable, I hereby tag a few of my fellow travellers – and you, of course, are invited to play along. Link back to this blog post and put your link in the comments below if you want us to follow your journey:

Tim Ford: http://thesqlagentman.com/
John Halunen:
Dev Nambi: www.devnambi.com
Grant Fritchey: http://www.scarydba.com/

Leadership, Management, and SQLRally

KKline — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:55:00 GMT

Transparency - A Great Leadership Quality

I've always appreciated how Andy Warren (blog| twitter) operates in the most transparent manner, especially as it relates to his role as a director for the Professional Association for SQL Server. For example, Andy's latest blog post about prepping for the SQLRally, to kick off in less than 30 days, is insightful and gives you a good idea of the sort of work a strong director for PASS needs to put in. I also enjoy how Andy more or less thinks out loud and offers you the chance to provide your input. In that latest blog post, he was mulling different after hours entertainment options, giving you a chance to pipe up with your opinion if you had one.

Learn from My Mistakes

Times running out for the early registration discount. Save $50 by registering before the end of the week! And while you're at it, register for my full day, pre-conference seminar on learning leadership and management skills especially tailored for the IT professional. Here's a quick run-down of the topics we'll cover in my pre-con:

Earning the respect of your team
A deep understand of effectively motivating technology professionals
Specific skills to lead database professionals competently that broadly fall into the categories of:
- Coaching team members to effectively meet goals and deadlines
- Facilitating change and navigating organizational disruptions
- Promoting communication within the team and with management
- Keeping teams and projects on task and within scope
- Dealing with difficult team members
- Practicing good team time management techniques

Read all about the goals of the session here. If you're coming to my session, I'd love to hear your thoughts ahead of time about challenges you're facing!

Personal Experience, Personnel Experience

Also, just a word about my bona fides. I've had a lot of leadership and management training over the years, but like many professionals I consider my on-the-job experiences to be the most valuable. On the education side of the equation, I received a bachelor's degree in the school of management back in the 1980's. I've also gone through the Center for Creative Leadership's leadership training curriculum, the Blessing and White Management Training curriculum, and SmithBucklin's not-for-profit governance and organizational strategy training curriculum. On the experience side of the equation, I led small dev and admin teams of 3-7 people starting way back in the early 1990's. In the late 1990's, I started taking a more strategic direction with my skills as the manager of information architecture at the firm where I worked as well as taking a role as one of the founding directors of PASS. In the early 2000's, I joined Quest Software as our initial SQL Server product architect and spent several years leading the team to a over 50 individuals in a half dozen teams in as many disparate locations around the world.

A Few Words About Community from SQLBits8

The more I go, the more reasons I find to go back to the SQLBits conferences held around the UK. The starting image isn't very flattering, but here's a fun little interview put together by Andrew Fryer of Microsoft: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4EjZ-FutLQ Enjoy! -Kev Twitter at kekline More content at http://KevinEKline.com