SQLSaturday Archives - Glenn Berry

Speaking at SQLSaturday Denver on October 12, 2019

Glenn Berry — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 21:44:28 +0000

I’ll be presenting Dr. DMV’s Troubleshooting Toolkit at SQLSaturday Denver on October 12, 2019. This free event will be held at University of Denver – Sturm Hall, 2040 S Race St, Denver, Colorado, 80210. My session is at 10:15AM.

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!

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SQLSaturday Oregon

Glenn Berry — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 15:18:58 +0000

I will be delivering a full day pre-con session called Migrating to SQL Server 2017 on November 2, 2018 in Portland, OR. Here is the abstract:

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.

The early-bird price for this is $149.00 until October 21, 2018. You can register for this session here.

I will also be presenting High Availability/Disaster Recovery 101 at the actual SQLSaturday Oregon event on November 3, 2018. Here is the abstract:

How do you design a SQL Server 2017 infrastructure in order 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 HA/DR technologies available in SQL Server 2017, showing how you can combine them to design and build a solution to help meet your HA/DR goals. This session also teaches you how to formulate policies that enable effective use of technology in your organization.

You can register for SQLSaturday Oregon here.

SQLSaturday Oregon is one of the larger SQLSaturday events in the United States, and they have a great roster of speakers this year. Portland is a fun city with a lot of good breweries and tap rooms…

I hope to see you there!

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Analyzing I/O Performance from SQLSaturday #300

Glenn Berry — Thu, 18 Sep 2014 21:37:31 +0000

I had the opportunity to present Analyzing I/O Performance at SQLSaturday #300 in Kansas City, MO on September 13, 2014. I think the session went well, judging by the amount and type of questions that I got during and after the presentation, along with the written feedback forms that I read afterwards.

The overall event was well-run, and well-attended, with some good barbeque for lunch. I have a lot of respect for the organizers and volunteers for SQLSaturday events.

You can get a PDF version of my deck here, and the queries that I ran here.

One side benefit of this event was a chance to drive my red Tesla back and forth between Parker, CO and Kansas City, MO, using the free Tesla Supercharger network (and a 50 amp circuit at my sister’s house in Topeka, KS). I talk a little about this trip in these two blog posts:

Tesla Road Trip to SQLSaturday #300 in Kansas City

Tesla Model S Road Trip Results

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SQLSaturday #201 Slide Decks

Glenn Berry — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:43:02 +0000

I had the chance to give two presentations at SQLSaturday #201 in Huntington Beach, CA on April 20, 2013. The first one was Dr. DMV and the second one was Hardware 201: Selecting Database Hardware. Just in case you have any problem getting the decks from the SQLSaturday web site, I have links to the downloads below:

Dr DMV: How to Use Dynamic Management Views

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 2008 R2 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 Server 2005 through 2012), presents and explains over fifty DMV queries that you can quickly and easily use to detect and diagnose performance issues in your environment.

Hardware 201: Selecting Database Hardware

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. Don’t let this happen to you! This session covers current and upcoming hardware from both Intel and AMD.

I also want to thank the organizers, volunteers, and other speakers for putting on a great event!

The post SQLSaturday #201 Slide Decks appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Speaking at SQLSaturday #201 in Orange County on April 19-20

Glenn Berry — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 22:43:41 +0000

I will be speaking on both Friday and Saturday (April 19-20) at SQLSaturday #201 in Orange County, California. I will be delivering a full day pre-con on Friday, and then doing both Hardware 201 and Dr. DMV on Saturday. Here is the abstract for my pre-con:

Scaling SQL Server 2012

How can you scale SQL Server 2012? Scaling up is relatively easy (but can be expensive), while scaling out requires significant engineering time and effort. If you suggest hardware upgrades you may be accused of simply “throwing hardware at the problem”, and if you try to scale out, you may be thwarted by a lack of development resources or 3rd party software restrictions. As your database server nears its load capacity, what can you do? This session gives you concrete, practical advice on how to deal with this situation. Starting with your present workload, configuration and hardware, we will explore how to find and alleviate bottlenecks, whether they are workload related, configuration related, or hardware related. Next, we will cover how you can decide whether you should scale up or scale out your data tier. Once that decision is made, you will learn how to scale up properly, with nearly zero down-time. If you decide to scale out, you will learn about practical, production-ready techniques such as vertical partitioning, horizontal partitioning, and data dependent routing. We will also cover how to use middle-tier caching and other application techniques to increase your overall scalability.

You can register for my pre-con here.

Here are the sessions that I will present on Saturday:

Hardware 201: Selecting Database Hardware

Dr. DMV: How to Use Dynamic Management Views

I actually went to college at U.C. Irvine, and I spent several years living in the area later. I hope to see a lot of people at this event!

The post Speaking at SQLSaturday #201 in Orange County on April 19-20 appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Speaking at SQLSaturday #197 in Omaha on April 5-6

Glenn Berry — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 23:32:05 +0000

I will be speaking on both Friday and Saturday (April 5-6) at SQLSaturday #197 in Omaha, Nebraska. I will be delivering a full day pre-con on Friday, and then doing Hardware 201 on Saturday. Here is the abstract for my pre-con:

Scaling SQL Server 2012

You can get a copy of the flyer for both pre-cons here: SQL Saturday #197 Pre-Cons

Here is the session I will present on Saturday:

Hardware 201: Selecting Database Hardware

My friend and SQLskills colleague, Joe Sack will also be speaking at SQLSaturday #197. I hope to see a lot of people at this event!

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Speaking at SQLSaturday #188 in Lisbon, Portugal

Glenn Berry — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:51:07 +0000

I have the opportunity to present a full-day preconference session on Friday, March 15, 2013, and then present two regular sessions on Saturday, March 16, 2013 at SQLSaturday #188 in Lisbon, Portugal. This is the first time I have spoken at a SQLSaturday outside of the United States, and I am really looking forward to it! This never would have happened without the enthusiasm of fellow SQL MVP Niko Neugebauer, who is a good friend and an all-around good guy!

SQLskills is a sponsor of SQLSaturday #188, and we will be giving away a certificate for a $500.00 discount on a future SQLskills Immersion Event class at the SQLSaturday event.

Here is the preconference session on Friday:

Scaling SQL Server 2012

Here are the two regular sessions on Saturday:

Hardware 201: Selecting Database Hardware

Dr. DMV: How to Use Dynamic Management Views

This SQLSaturday should be a lot of fun, and I hope that I see a lot of people there!

The post Speaking at SQLSaturday #188 in Lisbon, Portugal appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Speaking at SQLSaturday #145 in Nashville, TN on October 13

Glenn Berry — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 17:58:53 +0000

I will be travelling to Nashville, TN to speak at SQLSaturday #145 on October 13, 2012. I will be presenting Hardware 301: Diving Deeper into Database Hardware. Here is the abstract:

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 outmoded 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 different database workload types. This session will give you the knowledge you need to make sure you get the best performance and scalability possible from your hardware budget!

SQL Saturdays are free events that are always a lot of fun. You will get a good mix of speakers, from nationally known, veteran speakers to people who may be speaking at their first event. That is one of the purposes of the SQL Saturday system, to give speaking opportunities to lesser known people in the SQL Server community. Whenever I talk to people at SQL Saturday events, everyone seems to be enjoying themselves and getting a lot of value from giving up part of their weekend. None of that would be possible without the event organizers, sponsors, volunteers, and speakers who give their time and effort to make these events possible.

I hope to see a lot of people in Nashville!

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