PASS Summit 2013 Archives - Glenn Berry

PASS Summit 2013 Summary

Glenn Berry — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 17:35:59 +0000

The PASS Summit 2013 was held in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is a big change from the usual location in Seattle. This new location may have been more successful in attracting what seemed to be an unusually high number of first-time attendees, which I think is a good thing. I heard fewer complaints during the week about travel time and time away from work from people who were from the east coast and from the southeast part of the United States. On the other hand, I heard a decent number of complaints about travel time and time away from work from people from other parts of the United States. Honestly, unless the PASS Summit is held in your home town, you are going to have to travel, so there is really no way to satisfy everyone regarding a location. Personally, I like Seattle, and I know my way around the downtown Seattle area pretty well, and it is easier for me to fly to Seattle, so I am perfectly happy if the Summit is in Seattle most years. Since I live near Denver, it is not really that hard for me to travel nearly anywhere in the United States.

I had a pre-con session called Scaling SQL Server 2012 on Monday, which went quite well (even though Paul Randal fired me on Twitter). Teaching/speaking all day by yourself is a lot more tiring than you might think, especially when you have a room full of smart SQL Server people in your session.

On Wednesday, I got to present Professor DMV in one of the two large ballrooms (which was also streamed on PASStv and recorded). That was a lot of fun to present to a large session, and I got a lot of questions during and after the presentation. There was also a lot of live commentary on Twitter while I was speaking. I think that most speakers appreciate when you give live Twitter commentary and feedback while they are speaking (even if they read it later). I certainly appreciate it!

On Friday, I got to present Storage Fundamentals for the DBA in one of the smaller (300 seat) rooms. I was pretty surprised to see people lined up, waiting to get into this session. That has never happened to me at the PASS Summit. I am more used to seeing people lined up waiting to get into to see people like Paul Randal or Kimberly Tripp. Later on Friday, I watched a very good session on virtualization performance from David Klee.

I think the people behind the PASS Summit 2013 did a great job of planning, organizing and running the event. This includes the PASS board members, the PASS employees, all of the PASS volunteers, and all of the other people who worked so hard to make the event a smoothly running success. I have a lot of respect for the people that do all of the work to make the PASS Summit possible each year.

It was great to see so many people that I mostly talk to online, and to meet a lot of new people in person. I had a lot of people come up to me throughout the week and thank me for the work I do on my DMV Diagnostic Information Queries, which was very gratifying. All of the demo scripts from all of the SQLskills speakers (Paul, Kimberly, Erin, Jon, and myself) are posted here.

The post PASS Summit 2013 Summary appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Scaling SQL Server 2012 Pre-Conference Session

Glenn Berry — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 03:33:32 +0000

In just a couple of weeks, I will be giving a full day pre-conference session at the SQLPASS 2013 Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. My pre-conference session will be on Monday, October 14, 2013. This pre-con’s going to be a lot of fun, and it will be a great way to kick off the SQLPASS 2013 Conference.

What you’ll learn

You’re a DBA, database developer, or system admin who must maintain a database server that is not performing and scaling well. You are not sure where the main scalability problems are or what you can do to solve them. The thought of picking out the best server and storage subsystem without making an expensive mistake makes you more than a little bit nervous.

This pre-conference session will cover the following topics and more:

Top scalability issues with SQL Server 2012
How you can postpone the scaling decision by finding and removing bottlenecks
How to use my SQL Server Diagnostic Information Queries to pinpoint performance issues
How to select and size your hardware and storage subsystem for maximum scalability
How to select hardware to get the best performance while minimizing your SQL Server 2012 licensing costs
How to use the scaling features built into SQL Server 2012 and 2014
How to scale up SQL Server 2012
How to use engineering techniques to scale out SQL Server 2012

Here is the full abstract:

Scaling SQL Server 2012

SQL Server implementations can quickly evolve and become more complex, forcing DBAs and developers to think about how they can scale their solution quickly and effectively. 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.

How much does it cost?

When you register for the PASS Summit, my “Scaling SQL Server” pre-conference session is just $395.00. If you’ve already registered for the PASS 2013 Summit, email Shannon.Cunningham@sqlpass.org to take advantage of this opportunity.

The post Scaling SQL Server 2012 Pre-Conference Session appeared first on Glenn Berry.

24 Hours of PASS: Summit Preview

Glenn Berry — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 17:26:11 +0000

I had the opportunity to present a preview session of my upcoming day-long pre con, Scaling SQL Server 2012 for the last slot of the 24 Hours of PASS: Summit Preview starting at 5:00AM Mountain Time on August 1. I think the session went pretty well, after some initial technical difficulties on my part. The session recording will be available in the next couple of weeks. I’ll update this post with the recording link once its available. In the meantime, you can download my deck here.

I also got to do a virtual session for the PASS Performance Virtual Chapter on July 25. The session recording is here. You can download my deck here.

Just in case these sessions whetted your appetite for a much deeper level of knowledge about SQL Server Hardware and how to scale SQL Server 2012, you should consider attending the upcoming two-day IEHW: Immersion Event on SQL Server Hardware course that I will be teaching in Bellevue, WA on September 18-19, 2013.

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

Speaking at PASS Summit 2013 in Charlotte

Glenn Berry — Tue, 28 May 2013 18:57:35 +0000

I found out last week that I will be presenting two sessions at the PASS Summit 2013 in Charlotte, NC. The first one will be a full-day pre-conference session on Scaling SQL Server 2012. This will be an updated and reorganized version of the preconference session that I have given this year in Lisbon Portugal, Omaha, and in Orange County.

The second presentation will be a regular, 75-minute session about the basics of storage for the DBA. I think both of these sessions will be a lot of fun! Here are the abstracts for both sessions:

Scaling SQL Server 2012

SQL Server implementations can rapidly evolve and become more complex, forcing DBAs and developers to think about how they can scale their solution quickly and effectively. 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 third-party software restrictions. As your database server nears its load capacity, what can you do? This comprehensive full-day session will give you concrete, practical advice about how to scale SQL Server. Starting with your current workload, configuration, and hardware, we’ll explore how to find and alleviate bottlenecks, whether they are workload related, configuration related, or hardware related. Next, we’ll cover how you can decide whether you should scale up or scale out your data tier. For scale-up solutions, you’ll learn how to scale up properly with nearly zero down time. And for scale-out implementations, you’ll learn about practical, production-ready techniques such as vertical partitioning, horizontal partitioning, and data-dependent routing. We’ll also cover how to use middle-tier caching and other application techniques to increase your overall scalability.

Storage Subsystem Basics for the DBA

Do you feel lost when talking to your storage administrator? Are your storage subsystems like a mysterious black box where your databases live but you can’t go visit? This session will get you up to speed with the fundamentals of storage subsystems for SQL Server. You’ll learn about the different types of storage available and how to decide which to use for different workload types. You’ll also learn useful tips and techniques for configuring your storage for the best performance and reliability. We’ll then cover methods to effectively measure and monitor your storage performance so that you’ll have valuable information and evidence available the next time you have to discuss I/O performance with your storage administrator.

There will be a large presence at PASS Summit 2013 from SQLskills, with sessions from Paul Randal, Kimberly Tripp, Jonathan Kehayias, Glenn Berry, and Erin Stellato. The PASS Summit is always a good time, since it is an event where you can make a lot of valuable connections and friendships and learn a great deal of technical content during the week.

The post Speaking at PASS Summit 2013 in Charlotte appeared first on Glenn Berry.