Sydney SQL Server Enterprise User Group: 2 March 2011

DBD: Delivering Self-Service Managed BI with PowerPivot

 

First of all, thank you to Peter Myers for delivering an informative presentation.

A big thank you to Tony Finnemore for “minding the store” while I was abroad at the MVP Summit.

Congratulations to Ade from NPG for winning the major door prize at the last meeting, a license of the Idera SQL Admin Toolset (valued at AUD $432) that was generously provided by Idera (www.idera.com) and Tony Finnemore from SQL Tools (www.sqltools.com.au).

News

DBD: Delivering Self-Service Managed BI with PowerPivot One of the pillars of the SQL Server 2008 R2 release is Managed Self-Service BI. The SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel add-in is a key offering in this pillar, and delivers an entirely new analytic experience to Excel 2010. The add-in allows analysts to load and prepare large volumes of data from various sources to create a multidimensional model.The model can be enriched with sophisticated calculations. Then the model can then be used as the source for PivotTable and PivotChart reports. And yet that’s not the end of the story. With the SQL Server PowerPivot for SharePoint add-in, the Excel workbooks that host the PowerPivot model can be catalogued in SharePoint and exposed as a data source for other Excel and Reporting Services reports. These SharePoint hosted models can then be managed by IT with scheduled data refreshes from the originating data stores.In this session, you will be introduced to the two add-ins. An end-to-end series of theory, demonstrations and discussion will describe how you can effectively leverage the add-ins with your own analysis and reporting requirements.

Sydney SQL Server Enterprise User Group: 2 February 2011

DBA: SQL Server Myths and Misconceptions

 

Thank you to all that attended the first meeting for 2011.

It was certainly one of the most vocal sessions as people voted and debated the various “myths” about SQL Server. Hopefully the myths we confirmed or dispelled will help in both design and operational considerations.

Congratulations to Nathan for winning the major door prize at the last meeting, a license of the Idera SQL Admin Toolset (valued at AUD $432) that was generously provided by Idera (www.idera.com) and Tony Finnemore from SQL Tools (www.sqltools.com.au).

News

DBA: SQL Server Myths and Misconceptions As a DBA you have heard of plenty of myths and misconceptions about SQL Server. From how “you can improve transaction log performance with instant file initialisation” to whether “non-logged operations still exist in SQL Server”. In this session Victor Isakov will go through over 30 different myths and misconceptions about SQL Server and explain what actually happens in the background. This should be a great session to both test your SQL Server knowledge and to learn how to best administer and configure SQL Server.

Sydney SQL Server Enterprise User Group – 1st December 2010

Hi all,

I am currently in New York for work. I will be flying back to Seattle on the 1st of December. Additionally, the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts is having an Art Exhibition this week, so the venue is unavailable.

Consequently there will be no user group meeting for the month of December.

Originally I was considering having a Live Meeting session, but that will prove difficult to organise with me being on a plane. So apologies for that.

A travel tip, if you fall sick in New York do not go to the Emergency Ward in a hospital. The starting price to be seen will be USD $1,099! Go to a Duane Reade PharmacyRX where you can see a doctor for USD $130. More information can be found at www.DRwalkin.com

Otherwise, thank you for your attendance and support in 2010.

Again, I would like to thank Idera (www.idera.com) and in particular Tony Finnemore from SQL Tools (www.sqltools.com.au) for all his support and sponsorship.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year’s celebration!

I will undoubtedly see you in the New Year,

Victor

Oregon SQL Developers User Group – November 2010

Advanced Physical Database Design for SQL Server 2008

Thank you very much to Arnie Rowland for giving me the opportunity to present in a very, very wet Portland. I think I saw more rain in Seattle/Portland in 24 hours than I have in Sydney in the last 10 years. I am NOT kidding…

So a very big thank you to all attendees who showed up. Apologies about all the bad Australia jokes.

Abstract:

In this session we will cover advanced aspects of physical database design such as choice of clustered vs. non-clustered indexes, use of normalization to improve performance, partitioning as a form of indexing, things to consider when working with sparse columns, filtered indexes, indexed views, and partition-aligned indexed views. We will illustrate some of the advanced functionality available in SQL Server 2008 such as missing index DMVs and Database Engine Tuning Advisor (DETA).

Presentation:

Sydney SQL Server Enterprise User Group – November 2010

DBA: Performance Tuning and Optimization Techniques

Thank you again for such a large turnout.

Apologies about the lack of demos and/or my computer crashing during the session.

I really wanted to demonstrate RML Utilities and SQL Nexus. What I might do is demo them in future sessions in the initial 15 minute time slot reserved for case studies and vendor presentations. Or post some video demonstrations. I will keep you posted.

Congratulations to Tim Davidson for winning the major door prize at the last meeting, a license of the Idera SQL Admin Toolset (valued at AUD $432) that was generously provided by Idera (www.idera.com) and Tony Finnemore from SQL Tools (www.sqltools.com.au).

The content from this month’s meeting is posted below.

Abstract:

How do you troubleshoot performance issues in SQL Server? What is the impact on performance when using DMVs, SET options, SQL Profiler or Perfmon? In this session Victor Isakov will answer these various questions as he goes through the main tools that DBAs can use to troubleshoot performance, including SQLNexus, PAL, RML Utilities and SQLDiag. Victor will also briefly cover Performance Data Warehouse, missing indexes, query plans and the important new feature introduced in SQL Server 2008 – Extended Events.

Presentation:

News:

Sydney SQL Server Enterprise User Group – October 2010

ARC – Delivering BI to the Masses at Microsoft Using CBI – Top 10 Challenges

First and foremost a big thank you to Sanjay Soni of Microsoft for delivering a very interesting and useful presentation. The demonstrations were particularly informative and insightful.

Otherwise, thanks again to all attendees.

Congratulations to Brian from OrientCap for winning the major door prize at the last meeting, a license of the Idera SQL Admin Toolset (valued at AUD $432) that was generously provided by Idera (www.idera.com) and Tony Finnemore from SQL Tools (www.sqltools.com.au).

The content from this month’s meeting is posted below.

Presentation:

News:

Sydney SQL Server Enterprise User Group – September 2010

DBD – Change Data Capture vs Change Tracking vs SQL Audit

I hope September’s session clarified what technologies are available in SQL Server to track changes.

Thanks for all the well wishes for my birthday, it’s been a crazy 2 week of celebrations!

Congratulations to Jennifer for winning the major door prize at the last meeting, a license of the Idera SQL Admin Toolset (valued at AUD $432) that was generously provided by Idera (www.idera.com) and Tony Finnemore from SQL Tools (www.sqltools.com.au).

The content from this month’s meeting is posted below.

 

Presentation:

 

News:

Canberra SQL Server User Group – September 2010

Understanding SQL Server Memory Management

A thank you to Shaun Baggett for giving me the opportunity to present in Canberra this month.

Again, I am planning to run a customised SQL Server 2008 DBA course again, so please email me for further details if you are interested. It will cover SQL Server 2005 – SQL Server 2008 R2, and include tips / help on achieving the Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Database Administrator certification. (After all, I helped write and validate the exams.) I believe this course will be far superior to what is being offered in the “plain vanilla” courses offered by other training companies. Please contact me via victor @ sql server solutions . com . au for more information.

Here is the content from the presentation:

Change of Date / Time for September’s User Group Meeting

PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE IN BOTH THE DATE AND TIME FOR SEPTEMBER’S USER GROUP MEETING. DUE TO THE MICROSOFT PARTNER CONFERENCE AT THE GOLD COAST THE SESSION HAD TO BE RE-SCHEDULED.

I am planning to run a custom SQL Server 2008 DBA course again, so please email me for further details if you are interested. It will cover SQL Server 2005 – 2008 R2, and include tips / help on achieving the Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Database Administrator certification.

I am planning to run a customised SQL Server 2008 DBA course again, so please email me for further details if you are interested. It will cover SQL Server 2005 – SQL Server 2008 R2, and include tips / help on achieving the Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Database Administrator certification. (After all, I helped write and validate the exams.) I believe this course will be far superior to what is being offered in the “plain vanilla” courses offered by other training companies. Please contact me via victor @ sql server solutions . com . au for more information.

For the next session I thought we would cover how to track changes in SQL Server, whether it’s for audit purposes, loading data into a data warehouse, or a myriad of other reasons.

In September the Sydney SQL Server Enterprise User Group will be having a meeting as outlined below:

Date	8th September, 2010
Time	12:30
Agenda	12:30 – 13:00: Registration / Networking / Product Demonstration 13:00 – 13:15: News / Case Study 13:15 – 14:30: Presentation
Location	Sydney Mechanics’ School Arts 280 Pitt Street Sydney NSW 2000
Session	DBD: Tracking Changes – Change Data Capture vs. Change Tracking vs. SQL Audit SQL Server 2008 introduced a number of new features to help track changes in your databases: Change Tracking, Change Data Capture, and SQL Server Audit. These 3 different technologies each have their strengths and weaknesses. Consequently it is important to understand which technology is appropriate for the use case at hand. In this session, Victor Isakov will present on these various technologies and how they architecturally work to help you decide which technology to use for your database solutions. Speaker:  Victor Isakov | SQL Server Solutions

 

There will be a number of door prizes given out at this meeting.

Sydney SQL Server Enterprise User Group – August 2010

DBA: Understanding SQL Server Memory Management

Thanks again for such a good turnout, and all your positive feedback.

Understanding SQL Server’s memory management is such a complex topic, we could easily have spent half a day on it. Apologies for going over the allotted time, I know you have work to go back to.

Hopefully this will help you in your configuration and troubleshooting of SQL Server.

One clarification, each scheduler “consumes” 2MB on a x64 architecture, and 4MB on the IA architecture. (See Slide 41.)

BTW, I passed the ITIL exam!

Congratulations to David for winning the major door prize at the last meeting, a license of the Idera SQL Admin Toolset (valued at AUD $432) that was generously provided by Idera (www.idera.com) and Tony Finnemore from SQL Tools (www.sqltools.com.au).

The content from this month’s meeting is posted below.

 

Presentation:

 

News: