training | Convergence of Data and Infrastructure

Flash sale – Discount for Chicago SQL Saturday Precon – This Afternoon Only

Events, Professional Development, SQL Server, Storage, Virtualization No Responses »

Feb 182016

I’m running a flash sale discount for my upcoming Chicago SQL Saturday Precon called ‘SQL Server Infrastructure Tuning for Availability and Performance‘ today from 1-5PM only! I’m offering a $25 discount for those that are watching Twitter and the blogosphere.

The focus of the course is to help those new to enterprise server infrastructure concepts become familiar with the function and purpose of each layer of the architecture around their databases, and how this knowledge can benefit them as data professionals. Participants will gain exposure to all layers of infrastructure and virtualization underneath SQL Server, from storage all the way through to the SQL Server instance, and will learn how to review and engineer the entire stack with a strong emphasis on SQL Server performance.

The following topics will be addressed during the course:

Datacenter Fundamentals
Infrastructure Stack Fundamentals
Storage and SAN Concepts and Design
Networking and Interconnect Topologies
Physical Server Technologies
The SQL Server Virtual Machine
High Availability and Disaster Recovery
Performance Investigation and Tuning of the Entire Stack

If you’re interested in learning more and taking advantage of this discounted training opportunity, click on over to the event page at EventBrite! This discount is just valid today 1-5PM!

SQL Cruise 2016 Wrap Up

Events, Professional Development, SQL Server, Technology No Responses »

Feb 162016

A few weeks ago a number of us embarked on this year’s SQL Cruise, this time to the Caribbean. It was absolutely amazing. Jes Borland, another cruiser and instructor, just posted a great post on what she learned on the cruise, and I thought I’d do the same.

Yes – Tim and Amy Ford put an incredible amount of work into the cruise, and it was wonderful watching it all come together. Just look at how happy they are when we all got together for the first time on board!

You can, in fact, have a serious educational experience and extreme fun at the same time on a cruise ship, with learning at all hours of the day.
Jes Borland presented two amazing sessions, presented SQL Server wait statistics in an incredibly new way that everyone understood, and got me even more excited about Extended Events than I already was! And bowling with her and the rest of the group was fun too!

You can’t escape SQL Server or Windows challenges, even on a cruise ship. I think they should have contracted any one of us for help while we were there.

Grant Fritchey presented sessions on the SQL Server 2016 Query Store and on getting ramped up with Azure SQL DB. Now I have homework!

SQL Cruisers are getting younger every year.

Jason Hall gave a great session on tempdb challenges and showed some new features within the SQL Sentry Plan Explorer!

Boats can get really large. They turn into ships at some point.

Argenis Fernandez gave an incredible talk about how to hack SQL Server, and then proceeded to scare the entire class for the rest of our professional lives.
The “Office Hours” block each day brought out some of the most honest and personal discussions that I have ever heard at a tech event. Jes hit it perfectly when she said the “How do you do *it*” discussion was all about balance. Hearing each other’s stories, goals, and personal challenges helped us learn more about each other personally and professionally, and was probably the most heart-warming personal discussion I’ve had in years.
The itineraries planned for 2017 will be amazing, and I intend to be a part of this life-changing event again. Stay tuned!

You really should be a part of this event. The training is world-class. The friendships last a lifetime. The experience is unparalleled. I’ll see you there next year!

PASS Summit 2015 Presentations

Events, Professional Development, SQL Server, Technology, User Groups, Virtualization 1 Response »

Oct 162015

I am proud to be offering several training opportunities at the upcoming PASS Summit in Seattle, WA during the week of October 26th. PASS Summit is the world’s largest and most attended conference for Microsoft SQL Server and BI professionals. This conference is fantastic, and if you are attending, check out my upcoming sessions!

The Complete Primer to SQL Server Virtualization – Preconference Training Session – 10/26 – with Jimmy May and Argenis Fernandez

Your SQL Servers are mostly virtualized at this point, but have you lost the control you used to have over the infrastructure when they were physical servers? Do your SQL Servers “feel” slower now that they are virtualized? When architected and managed with SQL Server in mind, this added layer can help to improve the SQL Server’s availability and ability to change with the business, but only when executed properly.

This all-day, interactive, and hypervisor-agnostic pre-conference session is designed to help data professionals learn more about virtualization and infrastructure. Discover how this new layer can be used to improve the management, availability, and performance of your databases. You will be exposed to all layers of virtualization underneath the SQL Server, from storage to hypervisor. Discover many useful tips and tricks to tuning the database layer to boost performance and availability.

How to Build a Virtual Test Lab for SQL Server – with Ed Leighton-Dick – 10/30

You’ve learned a lot of new techniques and concepts at the conference, and you’re excited to go home and try them out. Now what? Most of us don’t have spare servers lying around or test labs in the office that we can use to try new ideas safely, without disrupting others’ work. Virtualization provides a practical solution to this problem–and it doesn’t need to cost a lot. In this session, learn how to find the tools you need to create your own virtual test environment for SQL Server on hardware you have lying around, and discover that larger test labs for your office do not need to break the bank.

Is Independent Consulting for Me? Panel session – 10/30

Have you had dreams of striking it out on your own being an independent consultant? Have you wondered what it takes to make your dream a reality and what are common mistakes made along the way?

In this panel discussion, you hear about lessons learned, common mistakes, and challenges discovered during the panel’s transition from corporate America to independent consulting.

I can’t wait for this conference to arrive! IMHO it’s the best SQL Server conference of the year, and I’ll never miss it. I’ll see you all there!

PASS Summit Precon – The Complete Primer to SQL Server Virtualization

Cloud, Events, Professional Development, SQL Server, Storage, Technology, User Groups, Virtualization 1 Response »

Jul 102015

I am very pleased to announce that Argenis Fernandez and I will be presenting a new precon training session at this year’s PASS Summit in Seattle entitled “The Complete Primer to SQL Server Virtualization“. This all-day preconference training session is to be held on Monday, October 26th, at the Seattle Conference Center.

This interactive session is sure to be a blast! If you have a virtualized SQL Server in use today, you need to be at this training event.

Virtualization is here to stay, and learning more about the infrastructure underneath your mission-critical SQL Servers will make you a better DBA. If they are not already virtualized, it’s probable that they will be virtualized soon. The virtual infrastructure is a vital portion of the server ecosystem, and this session is designed to ramp you up so you can do everything from understand the sysadmin lingo to quickly identify and triage infrastructure issues.

(Plus, we both have quirky senses of humor and love Nerf projectiles, so you’re sure to get a laugh or two!)

Training session abstract: Your SQL Servers are mostly virtualized at this point, but have you lost the control you used to have over the infrastructure when they were physical servers? Do your SQL Servers “feel” slower now that they are virtualized? When architected and managed with SQL Server in mind, this added layer can help to improve the SQL Server’s availability and ability to change with the business, but only when executed properly.

* Virtualization and infrastructure fundamentals

* The SQL Server virtual machine (VM)

* Networking, support, and licensing

* High availability and disaster recovery

* Performance investigation and tuning of the entire stack

Register for the PASS Summit today (and do it before July 12th, when the price hikes!) and make sure to sign up for this precon! This is the best event for SQL Server practitioners, hands down, and this event is vital for the continued professional growth and efficacy in the role of a data professional.

SQL Server Virtualization for VM Admins – SQL Saturday Madison Precon

Events, Professional Development, SQL Server, User Groups, Virtualization No Responses »

Mar 132015

I am pleased to announce a brand new pre-conference training session, entitled “SQL Server Virtualization for VM Admins“, to be launched on Friday, April 10th, the day before the upcoming SQL Saturday event in Madison, Wisconsin. The price is only $100 for the entire day of training!

SQL Server professionals, now is your chance to help bridge the gap between infrastructure and data to help the business maximize your virtualized SQL Server environment. Recommend this session to your VM administrators, and then attend my session at the SQL Saturday event to learn more about how to boost the performance by “right-sizing” your SQL Server virtual machine on Saturday April 11th at 1:00pm in room 313!

Precon Abstract:

Microsoft MVP and VMware vExpert David Klee of Heraflux Technologies leads this full-day introduction to enabling and managing a virtualized SQL Server environment. The focus of the course is to help those infrastructure systems professionals who manage a business-critical virtual SQL Server environment understand the impact of SQL Server on their environments and how to better architect the platform to maximize availability and performance. Participants will gain exposure to the impact of virtualized SQL Server to all layers of virtualization underneath SQL Server, from storage to hypervisor to the SQL Server instance, and will learn how to construct the entire stack with a strong emphasis on SQL Server performance. High availability, disaster recovery, multi-tenancy, and performance tuning topics will all be explored during the session.

The following topics will be addressed during the course:

What is SQL Server?
The SQL Server Virtual Machine
Networking, Support, and Licensing
High Availability and Disaster Recovery
Performance Investigation and Tuning of the Entire Stack

Register today for this exciting event at Eventbrite! I look forward to seeing all of you at this event and at the SQL Saturday!

SQL Cruise Caribbean Is Coming Soon

Events, Professional Development, SQL Server, Technology No Responses »

Jan 122015

Want to get out of the winter blues and into some warmer weather for some deep SQL Server training? Join me on the next SQL Cruise to the Caribbean this February! This is my first SQL Cruise, and I’m really excited to go. This trip sets sail to three different Caribbean islands with four full days of education while at sea. It’s seven great days of serious education mixed with fun.

What is the cruise all about?

It’s all about education.

First and foremost, it’s a real training class! The cruise is focused on serious education. The speaker lineup this year is world-class, and I’m truly honored to be a part of it. Grant Fritchey ( b | t ), Kevin Kline ( b | t ), and Jes Borland ( b | t ) will all be there, along with Tim Ford ( b | t ), the SQL Cruise coordinator extraordinaire. These high-level courses are guaranteed to help you grow as a technology professional, both from a technical and business standpoint. I love to teach, and each session presented complements the others in ways where the teachers learn just as much as the attendees. These sessions are fantastic! Just check out the topics!

Grant Fritchey – ‘SQL Server Optimization Checklist’ & ‘Execution Plans: What Can You Do With Them’

Kevin Kline – ‘Top Tools for Tuning SQL Server’ & ‘Top Tier DBA: 7 Secrets of the World’s Best Database Administrators’

Jes Borland – ‘Understanding Restore Methods to Ensure Database Recovery’ & ‘The Efficient DBA: Automating Your Job’

and me – ‘Top Performing SQL Server Virtual Machines’ & ‘Infrastructure Tuning for SQL Server Performance’

The commitment to education is first and foremost. We want to make sure the attendees get the most out of the trip, so office hours are also held where anyone can bring technical challenges that they are facing to us and get the issue worked through with all of the instructors. I’ve heard stories of folks solving technical challenges that their organization has been battling for months during these times, saving tens of thousands of dollars in the process. I look forward to helping to tackle your challenges!

It’s all about family.

Over the last five years, my relationship with the SQL Server community has really evolved from a casual observer to where I feel that I’m part of the community now. The networking and friendships made on these cruises lasts a lifetime, and I really cannot wait to make some new memories with this group of speakers and students. It’s going to be a great trip with everyone!

It’s about the cruise itself.

We all work very hard. Being a database professional comes with a lot of stresses and challenges of the job because of the nature of what we do. You probably need a vacation. The cruise is on the Norwegian cruise lines‘ ship the Getaway, which looks amazing. It’s a great way to get out of the winter cold and into some Caribbean sun and warmth!

Join us for learning and fun

Register for the cruise today. The Caribbean cruise is almost here, and the summer cruise in the Mediterranean is going to be here before you know it. Find the cruise that best suits your vacation time and book today!

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