I always enjoy presenting at SQLSaturday events, and meeting new people, many of which have never been to a SQLSaturday event before.

Here is the abstract of the session:

Dr. DMV’s Troubleshooting Toolkit

Dynamic Management views and functions allow you to easily see exactly what is happening inside your SQL Server instances and databases with a high level of detail. You can discover your top wait types, most CPU intensive stored procedures, find missing indexes, and identify unused indexes, to name just a few examples. This session presents, demonstrates, and explains a complete set of diagnostic DMV queries that you can easily use to detect and diagnose configuration and performance issues in your SQL Server instances and databases. This session goes into exhaustive detail on how to interpret the results of each of the diagnostic queries, including relevant background information on how to properly configure your hardware, storage subsystem, operating system, SQL Server instance, and databases in order to avoid performance and scalability issues.

In plain terms, I’ll be going through my SQL Server 2019 Diagnostic Information Queries, explaining what they mean, and how to interpret the results. This is always a lot of fun, and people seem to enjoy it. I hope I see you there!

The post Speaking at SQLSaturday Denver on October 12, 2019 appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Here are the abstracts for the three sessions:

Dr. DMV’s Troubleshooting Toolkit

Dynamic Management views and functions allow you to easily see exactly what is happening inside your SQL Server instances and databases with a high level of detail. You can discover your top wait types, most CPU intensive stored procedures, find missing indexes, and identify unused indexes, to name just a few examples. This session presents, demonstrates, and explains a complete set of diagnostic DMV queries that you can easily use to detect and diagnose configuration and performance issues in your SQL Server instances and databases. This session goes into exhaustive detail on how to interpret the results of each of the diagnostic queries, including relevant background information on how to properly configure your hardware, storage subsystem, operating system, SQL Server instance, and databases in order to avoid performance and scalability issues.

Why You Need Query Store

Have you upgraded to SQL Server 2016 or higher, but still have databases using the old Cardinality Estimator? Do you know that you have queries with inconsistent performance, but you’re just not sure how to find them, or fix them, quickly? Are you tired of flailing around in SQL Server, querying DMV after DMV to figure out the *real* problem with performance? Query Store can help. We’ll cover Query Store end-to-end in this full day workshop built using real-world examples based on customer issues resolved over the last 2+ years. You’ll understand how to configure it, what data it captures, and how to use it to analyze performance, find regressions, and force plans. The demos will teach you how to find common patterns in query performance using T-SQL, and how to understand your workload. This class is applicable for those running SQL Server 2016 or higher (or planning to upgrade), or Azure SQL Database, and will provide practical and applicable information you can use whether you’re a new or veteran DBA, a developer that has to troubleshoot query performance, or an application administrator just trying to keep the system afloat. You’ll learn how to find and leverage important information in Query Store to make solving common performance problems easier the moment you walk back into the office.

Bigger Hardware or Better Code and Design?

Whether you are running SQL Server in the cloud or on-premise, more hardware often becomes the first answer to performance problems. The cost of scaling up in effort is relatively low, especially in the cloud where changing resource sizes is only a drop down option away, but financially this can quickly become a deal breaker. Even the fastest hardware won’t keep up with bad design and coding patterns. This session will take a look at many of the new features of SQL Server and how they can best be leveraged for performance tuning your workload. From In-Memory OLTP to Columnstore Indexes, Query Store, and Extended Events, this session will guide you in finding the source of the problems, and solutions available to make your workload faster and consistently reliable. We’ll even take a look at different alternatives using older features of SQL Server that you may be leaving on the shelf that are a better fit to solving certain kinds of problems.

Erin Stellato recently wrote about the SQLskills presence at PASS Summit 2019, where both Erin and Jon have full day pre-conference workshops, and I have a half-day session during the conference. I hope to see you both at 24 Hours of PASS and at the PASS Summit 2019!

The post SQLskills at 24 Hours of PASS: Summit Preview 2019 appeared first on Glenn Berry.

My half-day session is Dr. DMV’s Troubleshooting Toolkit, and here is the abstract:

Dr. DMV’s Troubleshooting Toolkit

Dynamic Management views and functions allow you to easily see exactly what is happening inside your SQL Server instances and databases with a high level of detail. You can discover your top wait types, most CPU intensive stored procedures, find missing indexes, and identify unused indexes, to name just a few examples. This session presents, demonstrates, and explains a complete set of diagnostic DMV queries that you can easily use to detect and diagnose configuration and performance issues in your SQL Server instances and databases. This session goes into exhaustive detail on how to interpret the results of each of the diagnostic queries, including relevant background information on how to properly configure your hardware, storage subsystem, operating system, SQL Server instance, and databases in order to avoid performance and scalability issues.

This is a topic that I have presented and taught multiple times, and it is something I am quite passionate about. I use my Diagnostic Information Queries on a daily basis in my consulting work, and they are extremely useful. Having 2.5 hours to go through them gives me plenty of time to cover them in detail without having to rush through them.

My general session is Hardware 301: Choosing Database Hardware for SQL Server 2019, and here is the abstract:

Hardware 301: Choosing Database Hardware for SQL Server 2019

Microsoft made some sweeping changes to their software licensing model for SQL Server 2012; moving from socket-based licensing to core-based licensing. This new licensing model alters much of the conventional criteria for hardware selection for database servers that will be running SQL Server 2012 and newer. This change still causes a significant amount of angst, with fears of huge increases in SQL Server licensing costs compared to older versions of the product. This session will cut through the uncertainty and hype to show you how to properly evaluate and choose your database hardware for usage with SQL Server 2016 and newer. You will learn how to choose hardware for different types of workloads and how to get the best performance and scalability for the lowest licensing cost, whether you are running in a physical or virtualized environment.

I will be talking about the latest developments with AMD and Intel server processors, and how they affect you as a data professional. With the upcoming release of the AMD EPYC “Rome” server processors (which I am 100% sure will be released by early November) the landscape of the server market has drastically changed. The old guidance about always buying an Intel-based server is not going to be a slam dunk any longer. This session is relevant for all versions of SQL Server, whether you are running virtualized or not.

Hopefully I will see you at both of my sessions and at PASS in general!

The post Presenting at PASS Summit 2019 appeared first on Glenn Berry.

How do you design and implement a safe and successful migration from an older version of SQL Server to SQL Server 2017 with no data loss and virtually no downtime? What if you have a limited hardware budget for the upgrade effort and you are worried about the core-based licensing in SQL Server 2017? How can you choose your hardware wisely in light of the new licensing model? How can you convince your organization that the time is right to upgrade to SQL Server 2017? This session will cover several different methods for migrating your data to SQL Server 2017 while meeting these objectives and minimizing your hardware and licensing costs.

I will also be covering some SQL Server 2019 considerations in this session.

This is a fun session that I really enjoy presenting. I think this subject is especially relevant with the upcoming end of extended support of SQL Server 2008/SQL Server 2008 R2 and end of mainstream support for SQL Server 2014, which both happen on July 9, 2019.

I honestly believe that CY 2019 is going to be an ideal time for many organizations to migrate from legacy versions of SQL Server (SQL Server 2014 and older) to a modern version of SQL Server (SQL Server 2016 and newer).

This is because you will have the opportunity to upgrade your entire data platform stack with significant new releases, including new processor families from Intel and AMD, wider availability of Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory, a new server operating system release (Windows Server 2019), and a new SQL Server release (SQL Server 2019).

BTW, if you are going to a Tuesday pre-con session at PASS, you should strongly consider Kimberly’s Query Performance Problems from Estimates, Statistics, Heuristics, and Cardinality. I have more information about why this session will be a great choice here.

You can register for the PASS Summit 2018 here.

The post PASS Summit 2018 appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Migrating to SQL Server 2017

How do you design and implement a safe and successful migration from an older version of SQL Server to SQL Server 2017 with no data loss and virtually no downtime? What if you have a limited hardware budget for the upgrade effort and you are worried about the core-based licensing in SQL Server 2017? How can you choose your hardware wisely in light of the new licensing model? How can you convince your organization that the time is right to upgrade to SQL Server 2017? This session will cover several different methods for migrating your data to SQL Server 2017 while meeting these objectives and minimizing your hardware and licensing costs.

This is a topic that I have presented and taught multiple times, and it is something I am quite passionate about. I think it is also increasingly relevant as SQL Server 2014 will be falling out of Mainstream support on July 9, 2019, and both SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 will be falling out of Extended Support on July 9, 2019. Next July is sort of a looming deadline for many organizations!

I am also going to be doing a preview version of this session in the first slot of the next 24 Hours of PASS Summit Preview event on June 12th, 2018.

Hopefully I will see you at both events!

The post Speaking at PASS Summit 2018 appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Here are the abstracts:

Migrating to SQL Server 2017

How do you design and implement a safe and successful migration from an older version of SQL Server to SQL Server 2017 with no data loss and virtually no downtime? What if you have a limited hardware budget for the upgrade effort and you are worried about the core-based licensing in SQL Server 2017? How can you choose your hardware wisely in light of the new licensing model? How can you convince your organization that the time is right to upgrade to SQL Server 2017? This session will cover several different methods for migrating your data to SQL Server 2017 while meeting these objectives and minimizing your hardware and licensing costs. You will also learn how to help make the case that a complete data platform upgrade makes excellent sense from a business perspective. You will also learn how to do effective capacity planning for the new environment to ensure that you have the best performance possible with a manageable SQL Server 2017 licensing cost.

Improving SQL Server Performance

Has anyone ever told you that your SQL Server database or instance was running too fast? Probably not, but it is all too common to hear complaints about poor performance. As a database professional, you need to have the right tools and techniques for finding and correcting performance bottlenecks at all layers of your SQL Server instance. Starting with your hardware and storage, including virtualization, operating system considerations, instance-level configuration settings, database properties, and concluding with index and query tuning, we will cover all of the layers of common performance bottlenecks. You will learn detailed and practical information for improving SQL Server performance at every layer in the system.

My SQLskills colleague, Erin Stellato will also be at the PASS Summit 2017, presenting a pre-conference session called Solving Common Performance Problems Using Query Store on Monday, October 30, and then two regular sessions: Query Store and Automatic Tuning in SQL Server and Data Systems at Scale – A Panel Discussion on November 1 and November 2, respectively.

The PASS Summit is always a fun and useful conference, where you can connect and reconnect to people in the SQL Server Community. I hope to see you there, in my sessions and in the hallways and escalators!

Update: Just to make it easier to find, here are links to my Migrating to SQL Server 2017 session, Migrating to SQL Server 2017 demos, Improving SQL Server Performance session, and Improving SQL Server Performance demos.

The post Presenting Two Sessions at the PASS Summit 2017 in Seattle appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Now, I will have a full day to go into much more detail, without having to hurry to cover everything. I will be using the SQL Server 2016 version of the diagnostic queries, which have even more useful information, including information about many new SQL Server 2016 features. If you are on an older version of SQL Server, most of the queries will still be relevant (depending on how old of a version of SQL Server you are using).

Based on past experience and feedback, Dr. DMV has always been a very popular session that people really seem to enjoy. This all-day, expanded version is going to be really fun and useful, and I hope to see you there!

Here is the abstract for the session:

Dr. DMV: How to Use DMVs to Diagnose Performance Problems

SQL Server 2005 introduced Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) that allow you to see exactly what is happening inside your SQL Server instances and databases with much more detail than ever before. SQL Server 2016 adds even more capability in this area. You can discover your top wait types, most CPU intensive stored procedures, find missing indexes, and identify unused indexes, to name just a few examples. This session (which is applicable to SQL 2005-2016), presents and explains over seventy DMV queries that you can quickly and easily use to detect and diagnose performance issues in your environment. If you have ever been responsible for a mission critical database, you have probably been faced with a high stress, emergency situation where a database issue is causing unacceptable application performance, resulting in angry users and hovering managers and executives. If this hasn’t happened to you yet, thank your lucky stars, but start getting prepared for your time in the hot seat. This session will show you how to use DMV queries to quickly detect and diagnose the problem, starting at the server and instance level, and then progressing down to the database and object level. This session will show you how to properly analyze and interpret the results of every single query in the set, along with lots of information on how to properly configure your instance and databases.

I wanted to share a unique discount code: PRE250GB for $250.00 off of a full, three day Summit registration and a pre-conference session. This is a pretty good deal for this late in the process! This code expires at midnight, Thursday, October 13, 2016. You can register here.

The PASS Summit is always a fun and very useful and educational event. It is a great way to get to know more people in the SQL Server community and to connect with people that you may only know online. I am looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible in Seattle for PASS Summit 2016!

The post Special Discount Code for PASS Summit and Precon appeared first on Glenn Berry.

On Monday, October 24, 2016, I will be doing an all-day, Pre-Conference session on how to interpret my SQL Server diagnostic information queries. I have done many shorter versions of this session (such as 60 minutes, 75 minutes, or even a half-day) before, but I have always felt a little rushed as I went through the complete set of diagnostic queries, explaining how to interpret the results of each one, and also talking about related information that is relevant to each query.

Now, I will have a full day to go into more detail, without having to hurry to cover everything. I will be using the SQL Server 2016 version of the diagnostic queries, which have even more useful information, including information about many new SQL Server 2016 features. If you are on an older version of SQL Server, most of the queries will still be relevant (depending on how old of a version of SQL Server you are using).

Based on past experience and feedback, Dr. DMV has always been a very popular session that people really seem to enjoy. This all-day, expanded version is going to be really fun and useful, and I hope to see you there!

Dr. DMV: How to Use DMVs to Diagnose Performance Problems

SQL Server 2005 introduced Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) that allow you to see exactly what is happening inside your SQL Server instances and databases with much more detail than ever before. SQL Server 2016 adds even more capability in this area. You can discover your top wait types, most CPU intensive stored procedures, find missing indexes, and identify unused indexes, to name just a few examples. This session (which is applicable to SQL 2005-2016), presents and explains over seventy DMV queries that you can quickly and easily use to detect and diagnose performance issues in your environment. If you have ever been responsible for a mission critical database, you have probably been faced with a high stress, emergency situation where a database issue is causing unacceptable application performance, resulting in angry users and hovering managers and executives. If this hasn’t happened to you yet, thank your lucky stars, but start getting prepared for your time in the hot seat. This session will show you how to use DMV queries to quickly detect and diagnose the problem, starting at the server and instance level, and then progressing down to the database and object level. This session will show you how to properly analyze and interpret the results of every single query in the set, along with lots of information on how to properly configure your instance and databases.

This is a regular, 75 minute session that will be all new content, going into much deeper detail about the SQL Server related factors of current server hardware, and how to go about selecting the best database server hardware for your workload and budget. I want to show you how to pick hardware that gives you the best performance possible while minimizing your SQL Server license costs, saving your organization a huge amount of money!

Hardware 301: Diving Deeper into Database Hardware

Making the right hardware selection decisions is extremely important for database scalability. Having properly sized and configured hardware can both increase application performance and reduce capital expenses dramatically. Unfortunately, there are so many different choices and options available when it comes to selecting hardware and storage subsystems, it is very easy to make bad choices based on outdated conventional wisdom. This session will give you a framework for how to pick the right hardware and storage subsystem for your workload type. You will learn how to evaluate and compare key hardware components, such as processors, chipsets, and memory. You will also learn how to evaluate and compare different types of storage subsystems for various database workload types. Gain the knowledge you need to get the best performance and scalability possible from your hardware budget!

The PASS Summit is always a fun and very useful and educational event. It is a great way to get to know more people in the SQL Server community and to connect with people that you may only know online.

You can register for the PASS Summit 2016 here.

The post Speaking at PASS Summit 2016 appeared first on Glenn Berry.

The first session will be a half-day session, which will let me go into much more detail about this subject:

Dr. DMV’s Troubleshooting Toolkit

Dynamic management views (DMVs) and functions allow you to easily see exactly what is happening inside your SQL Server instances and databases, with a high level of detail. You can discover your top wait types, identify the most CPU-intensive stored procedures, find missing indexes, and identify unused indexes, to name just a few examples. This session presents, demonstrates, and explains a complete set of diagnostic DMV queries that you can easily use to detect and diagnose configuration and performance issues in your SQL Server instances and databases. This session goes into exhaustive detail about how to interpret the results of each diagnostic query, including relevant background information about how to properly configure your hardware, storage subsystem, operating system, SQL Server instance, and databases to avoid many performance and scalability issues.

I will also be doing a regular 75 minute session:

High Availability/Disaster Recovery 101

How do you design a SQL Server 2014 infrastructure to meet specific Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) service levels? There are many aspects to consider, from technology choices and licensing to policies and procedures. This session outlines and compares the various high availability and disaster recovery technologies available in SQL Server 2014, showing how you can combine them to design and build a solution to help meet your goals. This session also teaches you how to formulate policies that enable effective use of technology in your organization.

The entire SQLskills team will be speaking at PASS Summit 2015, including Paul Randal, Kimberly Tripp, Jonathan Kehayias, Erin Stellato, and Tim Radney.

Before then, I will be speaking at a number of other events, some of which will be remote and some in person.

Pittsburg SQL Server User’s Group on Jun 30 at 5PM Eastern Time                    Dr. DMV’s Troubleshooting Toolkit

Denver WIT on July 8 at 5:30PM Mountain Time                                               Dr. DMV’s Troubleshooting Toolkit

Johannesburg SQL Server User Group on July 14 at 11AM Mountain Time           Dr. DMV’s Troubleshooting Toolkit

BIG PASS User’s Group on August 11 at 7PM Pacific Time                                 Dr. DMV’s Troubleshooting Toolkit

On Friday, September 18, 2015 I will be doing a full day pre-con for SQLSaturday #441 in Denver, CO. This should be very interesting and a lot of fun.

Analyzing and Improving I/O Subsystem Performance    

SQL Server is often I/O bound, but proving it to your storage or SAN administrator can be challenging! You will learn about the different types of storage that are available for SQL Server, and how to decide what type of storage to use for different SQL Server workload and file types. You will also learn useful tips and techniques for configuring your storage for the best performance and reliability for your workload. There will be extensive coverage on how to use disk benchmark tools like CrystalDiskMark 4.0, SQLIO and Microsoft DiskSpd, so you can confidently understand the performance that your I/O subsystem can deliver. We’ll also cover methods to effectively measure and monitor your storage performance from an OS and SQL Server perspective so that you will have valuable information and evidence available the next time you have to discuss I/O performance with your storage administrator. You will also learn a number of valuable OS and SQL Server configuration settings that will help you get the best I/O performance possible from your storage subsystem. 

Finally, I’ll be speaking at the Fall 2015 SQLintersection event in Las Vegas.

The post Upcoming Speaking Engagements appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Here is the abstract for my presentation:

Hardware 201: Selecting and Sizing Database Hardware for OLTP Performance

The foundation of database performance is the underlying server hardware and storage subsystem. Even the best designed and optimized database application can be crippled by an inadequate hardware and storage infrastructure. Recent advances in new processors and chipsets, along with improvements in magnetic and SSD storage have dramatically changed the evaluation and selection process compared to the past. Many database professionals struggle to keep up with new technology and often simply let someone else make their hardware selection and sizing decisions. Unfortunately, the DBA usually gets the blame for any performance issues that crop up later. Don’t let this happen to you! This session covers current and upcoming hardware from Intel and gives you the tools and resources to make better hardware selection decisions to support SQL Server OLTP workloads.

Here is a link to the PDF version of my presentation.

I was actually a last-minute substitution speaker for this meeting, and I was happy that I could help!

We actually did get a big turnout for the event. The Denver SSUG does a good job with their meetings, and they are a lot of fun. It is always a good idea to try to attend your local user’s group meetings, since you are likely to learn something and it is a very good opportunity to network.

If you are a SQL Server UG organizer, you might be interested in knowing that SQLskills has a number of speakers that regularly do remote presentations for user groups around the world. If you are interested in having one of us speak remotely at your event, please drop an e-mail to paul@sqlskills.com

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