Search results matching tags 'Performance' and 'Speaking'

SQL Saturday #220 (Atlanta): Demos

Adam Machanic — Sat, 18 May 2013 18:33:00 GMT

Today at SQL Saturday #220 in Atlanta I presented a new brand new session, "SQL Server Query Plan Analysis: The 5 Culprits That Cause 95% of Your Performance Headaches."

This session is designed to help people quickly analyze query plans and find likely culprits without being query tuning experts; I find that in a huge number of cases the root cause of problems is one of just a few potential situations.

Thanks to everyone who joined me today for the deliveries! In addition to it being a new session this was also the first time that I've ever been asked to present the same session twice in a single day. So it was quite an experience.

The demo script is attached. As always, let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Enjoy!

Learn More About SQL Server IO and Query Tuning in These Webcasts

KKline — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 18:50:00 GMT

I'm doing two new webcasts next week on Wednesday, December 19th, one in the morning and the other after lunch.

SSDs are a Game Changer for SQL Server Storage

No, session is not exclusively about SSDs. But this is my first session on IO and storage tuning that emphasizes SSDs over hard disks. As Bob Dylan said "Times, they are a'changin'". This session on Wednesday, December 19th at 11:30 AM EST, sponsored by Astute Networks, takes you through all of the basics of storage and IO tuning, regardless of the underlying storage technology. I'll show you how SQL Server handles storage structures, how to identify IO activity on Windows and SQL Server, and best practices for minimizing IO bottlenecks. Register now for: Storage IO Best Practices for SQL Server and a New Approach to Solving Application Performance Issues.

Write Better SQL Queries

The next webcast on Wednesday, December 19th at 2 PM EST, is with me, Aaron Bertrand (Twitter | Blog) and SQLCruise Impresario & Microsoft MVP Tim Ford (Twitter | Blog) as we take you through the query tuning process, discussing important DMVs to use during query tuning, as well as demonstrating several essential query tuning techniques that every SQL developer should know. Not only are we presenting an hour of top quality technical content, we’ll also be giving away some cool prizes, including the grand prize of a paid registration for the upcoming SQLCruise Miami, a $1,395 value! Register now for: SQL Server Query Tuning Best Practices, Hosted by Kevin Kline and Aaron Bertrand with special guest Tim Ford

I hope to see you at both of these sessions next week! Best regards,

-Kev

-Follow me on Twitter!

Two New Slide Decks. Plus, the Week in Colorado.

KKline — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:03:00 GMT

I had the honor of traveling the great state of Colorado last week, speaking at the PASS chapters in Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Denver. At all three events, we had a stellar attendance and, at least in Denver, broke all the records in recent memory both in terms of overall attendance and in first-timers. Denver, in fact, was standing room only and had nearly 30 first time attendees. Great news! I also want to give a special shout-out of thanks and appreciation to Chris Shaw (Twitter | Blog) whose hard work and tenacity ensured that all of Colorado got to see me speak. From left to right, Gabriel Villa (Twitter), me, Chris Shaw, and Rebecca Mitchell (Twitter). If it weren't for Chris, I wouldn't have been there. Thanks for putting in the time, amigo!

New Slide Decks!

During the 3-day jaunt, I presented two of my more popular sessions. These are updated slide decks, in case you want to download them here:

UG - End-to-End Troubleshooting

and

UG - Top 10 SQL Server Administration Mistakes

Be sure to check in the Slides area of the website, if you want to see the links for SpeakerRate, and in the case of several of my presentations, white papers, video recordings, etc. It's the People that Matter

A Blast from the SQLPASS Past!

I've always tried to maintain the relationships I built with the founding members of the PASS board of directors. After their time on the PASS board, almost all of them have moved on from SQL Server to other adventures. Pam Smith, the first president of the organization, is now a professor. Guy Brown, the second president, is now the director of IT at his same employer, rather than just SQL Server as when he was on the PASS board. A few, such as Kurt Windisch, a former VP of PASS, and my good friend Joe Webb (Twitter | Blog), are still active in the SQL Server space. One relationship that I've enjoyed over the years is with PASS' original Microsoft liaison and now a Denver-area software entrepreneur Steve Murchie (at right) running his own healthcare IT outfit. Steve has been a source of inspiration to me and also of great advice for all things startup-related. It was great to connect with Steve and catch up on his latest doings.

I also got to enjoy an evening out with the local attendees after the Denver user group meeting. It was great to hang out with folks there. I got to meet Kevin Cox (twitter), a member of Microsoft's incredibly talented SQLCAT group, and for whom I was a technical editor on a SQL Server v6.5 book back in the Neanderthal era. That shows just how old both Kevin and I actually are. Other cool folks that I got to meet included Steve Wake, Mike Fal, Marc Beacom, Jason Kassay, Jason Horner and my ol' buddy, Kelly the Greeley Geek.

On top of that, long-time SQL Server MVP and all-around awesome guy Steve Jones (Twitter | Blog) visited. I kept him out way too late that night which, to be honest, isn't usually my style. But the good conversation propelled us on past midnight.

The Good Folks at SQL Server Professional and Windows IT Professional Magazines

I've written for SQL Server Professional (formerly the artist known as "SQLMag") in some form or another starting from my first cover article for them way back in the mid 1990's. My Tool Time column has been going strong there since, oh, around 2006 iirc. For most of the time I've known the folks at SQLMag, they were located in Loveland, CO but they were able to move to some incredibly nice digs just up the road in Fort Collins. In all the many years, I've written for them, I'd never been to their offices - until now. It was great to visit and break bread with Megan (to my right), Blair (across), and Jaylee (across and to my right)!

I've always supported SQLMag and encourage you to subscribe. On top of the goodness already in the digital magazine, there are some neat developments coming down the pipeline with SQLMag which I think we'll all enjoy. Be sure to subscribe today! (You can click the badge on the left or simply go to http://www.sqlmag.com).

What's Next?

My current travel schedule is pinned up on this blog post HERE. However, I also know of a couple on-line appearances and probably a trip between the long gap between now and my next in-person appearance at the Orlando SQL Saturday at the end of September, where I'll also be teaching a pre-conference seminar (register HERE for the seminar).

SSWUG

The first on-line event to note is my a presentation by SSWUG of my Leadership Skills for IT Professionals video series, starting on August 24th. Sign up using the hyperlink (note that a video plays immediately upon loading the webpage, in case you want to be ready to pause or stop it). You can also buy a DVD set of the 14 hours of leadership training content.

24HOP - The 24 Hours of PASS Event

I'll also be speaking on the topic of influence in the next 24 Hours of PASS coming up on September 20th and 21st. Registration for the twenty-four hours of around the clock presentations is completely free and well worth your time. Check the schedule for the event and register! Even if you can only watch one or two sessions (or even zero sessions), be sure to register so that you'll automatically be notified when the sessions become available as streaming media.

Enjoy!

-Kev

-Follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook

SQL Server Performance Tuning and Optimization in Jacksonville, FL on April 27th

KKline — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:15:00 GMT

One last reminder - If you're interested in learning more about troubleshooting and optimizing SQL Server performance, please consider coming to the full-day seminar I'll be giving this Friday. Full details are here: http://sqlperftuning.eventbrite.com/. We'll be working some exercises, so bring your laptop with an instance of SQL Server 2008 (or later) running on it. It'll be fun!

I also encourage you to come on down to SQL Saturday 130 the following day - whether there's an official registration for you or not. (But don't tell 'em I said that). :^)

Come by the booth for a visit. I'll be hanging out most of the day and have some nice swag to give away.

Enjoy,

-Kev

Follow me on Twitter!

Speaking in Raleigh NC 9-20-2011

Andrew Kelly — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:54:05 GMT

If you are in the area I will be speaking at the Triangle SQL Server Users Group meeting on Tuesday the 20th of September 2011. The session is on TempDB Best Practices and all of the details for the topic, directions etc. can be found here. Be sure to register so they have enough food.

Thanks and hope to see you all there,

Andy

Speaking at the Charlotte Users Group

Andrew Kelly — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 00:33:55 GMT

I will be giving a presentation in between Earthquakes and Hurricanes in Charlotte NC. this Wednesday the 31st of August on Understanding Indexes in SQL Server 2008. If you are in the area please drop by and say hello. You can find out more information and register for the event here.

Andy

Where Can You Find Me the Rest of This Year?

Adam Machanic — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:28:00 GMT

Autumn is creeping inevitably closer here in the US, and that means that speaking season is about to kick into high gear. Here's my current schedule for the remainder of the year:

September 8, 17:00 GMT (online) - 24 Hours of PASS webcast: "Baseline Basics or: Who Broke the Database?"

In this session, excerpted from my PASS Summit precon, I'll explain the whys and hows of using baselines to assist with performance tuning. If you find yourself more often than not tuning reactively rather than proactively, this session is for you. This is a free webcast, so why not join in?

September 8, 18:30 EDT (Waltham, MA) - New England SQL Server Users Group: "Windowing Functions in SQL Server 2008, Denali, and Beyond"

Two in one day! This session will kick off the 2011/2012 New England SQL Server season, and will cover what are (in my ever-so-humble opinion) the most important T-SQL enhancements in the past three versions of SQL Server: windowing function enhancements. I'll discuss what's there in today's shipping versions, and the new and incredibly powerful functionality that Denali brings to the table. If you're in the Boston area, don't miss it!

September 17 (Atlanta, GA) - SQL Saturday #89: (Two Talks)

After the great time I had at this year's TechEd show in Atlanta I could hardly wait to get back. Luckily, the fantastic SQL Server community in the Atlanta area scheduled this event, which gave me the perfect excuse to pack my bags for a return trip. The speaker lineup for this event is rock-solid, and I'll be contributing with two talks: my introductory dive into SQL Server parallelism, and an overview of my 15 favorite activity monitoring dynamic management objects. This should be a great event by anyone's standards, and it's free, so if you live nearby you have literally no excuse not to attend.

October 11, 08:30 PDT (Seattle, WA) - PASS Community Summit Pre-Conference Seminar: No More Guessing! An Enlightened Approach to Performance Troubleshooting

No more guessing! It's not just a catchphrase; it's a way of life. When faced with performance problems we have a choice: we can either run around panicking, wasting everyone's time (including our own), or we can use the huge amount of information at our disposal to figure out what's actually wrong and fix it. As the calm and collected type, I prefer the second option, and so should you. If you'll be attending the PASS conference, join me on Tuesday to learn how you, too, can quickly and accurately pinpoint the root cause of your performance issues.

October 12-14 (Seattle, WA) - PASS Community Summit Spotlight Session: Query Tuning Mastery: Zen and the Art of Workspace Memory

Your query is running, and it needs to sort some data. Or to hash some data. Or to perform a parallel operation. These things take memory, and as any SQL Server professional knows, in the world of SQL Server memory is worth much, much more than its weight in gold (even given today's hugely-inflated prices). Attend this session to learn the ins and outs of workspace memory: what it is, why it's needed, where the memory comes from, and most importantly, how to control it to make certain queries faster and other queries not have to wait as long. Workspace memory tuning is a mostly untapped performance opportunity that many DBAs can heavily benefit from learning how to leverage.

November 1-3 (Las Vegas, NV) - SQL Server Connections: (Three Talks)

My final speaking engagement of the year will be at the always-fun SQL Server Connections show in Vegas. (It's in Vegas! How could it not be fun?!) I'll be doing three talks during the course of the show: An introductory talk on my favorite topic the past couple of years, parallelism in SQL Server; a much more advanced parallelism talk to build on that one; and a talk on the various dynamic management objects that can be used in the quest for ultimate SQL Server performance. Save a spot for me at the poker table!

I'm really looking forward to these events. If you're going to be there let me know in the comments, and/or feel free to find me at any of the shows and say hi. (Buying me a drink or two wouldn't hurt either.) See you there!

Practical Performance Monitoring and Tuning

Andrew Kelly — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 20:54:33 GMT

My next performance class will be in San Francisco, CA on May 9th thru the 11th. I haven’t been to San Francisco in about 10 years and I am looking forward to getting back there. The material is a bit refined over the first class and I added a few more real world examples so it should be a fun and educational 3 days. If you want to spend a few days with me in San Fran have a look here for more details:

Practical Performance Monitoring and Tuning

Andy

Practical Performance Monitoring and Tuning Event

Andrew Kelly — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 14:30:21 GMT

For any of you who may be interested or know of someone in the market for a performance Monitoring and Tuning class I have just the ticket for you. It’s a 3 day event that will be held in Atlanta Ga. on January 25th to the 27th 2011. For those of you that know me or have been to my sessions you realize I like to provide more than just classroom theory and like to teach real world and above all practical methodology when it comes to performance in SQL Server. This class covers all the essentials when it comes to getting a handle on your environment and determining how to address the issues and problems that you find. I am looking forward to a fun and informative class and hope to see you there. More details and registration can be found here:

Practical Performance Monitoring and Tuning

Andrew J. Kelly

New on KEK.com - Presentation: SQL Server for Oracle DBAs

KKline — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:23:00 GMT

Back in late May, my pal Buck Woody (blog | twitter) and I presented SQL Server for the Oracle DBA. Buck played Jerry Lewis' role, while I played the straight man a la Dean Martin. You can see the recording and slide deck here. Since both Buck and I spent a considerable number of years working on Oracle, we felt like we had pretty good legs to stand on doing this presentation. Here's the abstract:

In enterprise IT, database professionals face a mixed-bag of platforms within their environments -- and the overlapping duties that go along with them. Whether you like it or not, you get asked to support Microsoft SQL Server operations even though you're an Oracle DBA.

In this instructive webcast, experts from Microsoft and Quest with years of experience in both platforms will discuss the biggest issues and areas of interest for Oracle DBAs who need to work on Microsoft SQL Server. You'll learn their tips and tricks for efficiency and gain a deeper understanding of SQL Server to help you add more value than ever to your organization.

Of course, there are always questions and we aim to please. Here are the transcripts of the Q&A chat session (below) that accompanies the presentation. The only editing I did was ... [READ MORE]