Virtualization – Convergence of Data and Infrastructure

PASS Summit Session – On-Prem SQL Servers, Interstellar Performance

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

May 092018

I’m very pleased to announce that one of my sessions submitted for this year’s PASS Summit in Seattle, held from November 6 to 9th, called On-Prem SQL Servers, Interstellar Performance, has been selected and one of the first sessions to be announced for the conference. On-premises virtualization is still the principal location for your organization’s mission critical SQL Servers. Even during the journey to the cloud, improving the performance while on-prem improves your life and makes your databases more efficient.

Session Abstract: Your business-critical SQL Servers should not suffer from infrastructure-related bottlenecks. When properly architected and managed, the principal bottleneck to performance of these SQL Servers should be only limited by code. However, if not properly constructed, silent and seemingly random performance killers can strike and significantly hurt your database performance. Layers like virtualization, storage, and networking can all detract from database performance, and they are tough to identify. This session is packed with many live examples of tips and tricks gained from years of experience for getting the most performance from your physical and virtual SQL Servers. The major roadblocks to performance will be discussed and the knowledge gained will help you work with your infrastructure teams so that you can optimize the system stack for performance. Tools, techniques, and processes will be demonstrated to help you measure and validate the system performance of the key components underneath your data.

Register for this amazing conference today and take advantage of the lower conference fees now before they raise the price!

PASS Summit 2017 Precon – Virtual SQL Servers: Right to Ludicrous Speed

Best Practices, Business, Cloud, Events, Performance, Professional Development, SQL Server, Storage, Technology, User Groups, Virtualization No Responses »

Sep 152017

PASS has continues to ramp up the plans for the PASS Summit in Seattle this October, and my precon session, “Virtual SQL Servers – Right to Ludicrous Speed” has a few open slots for this Tuesday session. This topic is near and dear to my heart, and I’m thrilled to be able to present to the group advanced SQL Server VM tuning techniques learned from over 17 years of performance tuning.

If any of you want to excel your DBA skills, not only for your on-premises SQL Server VMs but also your VMs in the cloud, I hope all of you can join me in what I consider the best SQL Server ecosystem conference in the world.

Session Details:

Join this full-day introduction session focused on managing and boosting the performance of a virtualized SQL Server environment. The focus of the course is to help those new to virtualization, infrastructure, and cloud-based infrastructure-as-a-service concepts to become familiar with the concept and purposes of virtualization and how it can benefit them as data professionals. Participants will gain exposure to all layers of virtualization underneath SQL Server, from storage to hypervisor to the SQL Server instance, no matter if on-premises or in the cloud, and will learn how to construct the entire stack with a strong emphasis on SQL Server performance.

Intended Audience
The intended audience of this course is information workers (both business and IT-centric) involved with architecting a virtualization strategy for SQL Server, or managing business-critical SQL Servers that have already been virtualized.

Course Topics
The following topics will be addressed during the course:
• The Physical Infrastructure Underneath the VM
• Storage and SAN Concepts and Design
• Virtualization and Infrastructure Fundamentals
• The SQL Server Virtual Machine
• Networking, Support, and Licensing
• SQL Server Infrastructure in the Cloud
• High Availability and Disaster Recovery and SQL Server
• Performance Investigation and Tuning of the Entire Stack

A working set of the screens and configuration settings referenced in the session, together with the reference slides and documentation, will be provided to attendees, for strategic reference in working with virtualized SQL Server in their own environments.

Register today! Seats are sure to fill up for these precons!

SQL Server Infrastructure and Virtualization Boot Camp

Cloud, Performance, Professional Development, SQL Server, Storage, Technology, Virtualization No Responses »

Nov 012016

I am proud to announce the availability of our new training offerings! We are launching a live web-based version of our one-day SQL Server infrastructure and virtualization master class. We are hosting an all-day training session before the end of the year to help you take advantage of quiet(er) times around the holidays. Select from one of the dates that works best for you and register today!

Tuesday, November 22nd – 10:00am to 6:30pm Eastern

Thursday, December 29th – 10:00am to 6:30pm Eastern

Looking to ramp up on the infrastructure and virtualization underneath your databases? Want to learn how to work effectively with the other silos in your IT organization? This live web-based training will help take you to the next level by understanding the architecture, performance characteristics, and performance tuning opportunities of the storage, physical server hardware, virtualization hypervisor, and VM layers underneath your critical SQL Server databases.

Microsoft MVP and VMware vExpert David Klee leads this full-day introduction to getting the most out of the infrastructure underneath your SQL Server environment. The focus of the course is to help those new to the enterprise server infrastructure concepts become familiar with 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.

Intended Audience

The intended audience of this course is information workers (both business and IT-centric) involved with architecting an enterprise IT strategy for SQL Server.

Course Topics

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

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this course, attendees will be able to:

Understand key infrastructure concepts
Determine the optimal infrastructure configuration for best performance
Review their own enterprise infrastructure for performance bottlenecks
Construct a SQL Server virtual machine template with best practices for agility and performance
Understand how and what stack metrics to benchmark and baseline to ensure proper objective performance measurement
Identify and remediate common infrastructure-related SQL Server performance killers
Understand proper capacity management techniques for long term management

Prerequisites

Attendees with the following experiences will benefit the most from this course:

Basic familiarity with the core components of a server
SQL Server installation and configuration
Exposure to SQL Server performance metric measurement and identification

Seats are limited in this training offering, so register now!

Tuesday, November 22nd – 10:00am to 6:30pm Eastern

Thursday, December 29th – 10:00am to 6:30pm Eastern

SQL Saturday Minnesota Precon 10/24 – Virtualization for SQL Server DBAs

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

Oct 132014

Coming soon is the SQL Saturday #332 in Minneapolis, MN on October 25th, with my preconference training session on Friday, October 24. I am really looking forward to attending these events!

Virtualization for SQL Server DBAs Precon

There are just a few seats left for the precon! Register today!

Session Information:

Microsoft MVP, VMware vExpert, and SQL Server performance expert David Klee leads this full-day introduction to enabling and managing a virtualized SQL Server environment. The focus of the course is to help those new to virtualization and/or infrastructure concepts to become familiar with the concept and purposes of virtualization and how it can benefit them as data professionals. Participants will gain exposure 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 the focus on SQL Server performance.

Upon completion of this course, attendees will be able to:

Understand key virtualization and cloud concepts
Determine the optimal infrastructure configuration for best performance
Construct a SQL Server virtual machine template with best practices for agility and performance
Understand how and what stack metrics to benchmark and baseline to ensure proper objective performance measurement
Identify and remediate common virtualized SQL Server performance killers
Understand proper virtualized capacity management techniques for long term management

Attendees with the following experiences will benefit the most from this course:

Basic familiarity with the core components of a server
SQL Server installation and configuration
Exposure to SQL Server performance metric measurement and identification

A working set of the screens and configuration settings referenced in the session, together with the reference slides and documentation, will be provided to attendees, for prospective reference in working with virtualized SQL Server in their own environments.

SQL Saturday

At this SQL Saturday event, I’m going to be presenting a highly interactive session called “How to Argue with your Infrastructure Admins – And Win!” at 10am in Rapson 31. I can’t wait to see you all there!

Abstract: Do you feel like you spend hours going round-and-round with your system, storage, and virtualization administrators over SQL Server best practices? Are their application-agnostic requirements hurting your SQL Server’s performance, or worse, their reliability? David Klee (@kleegeek) will discuss valuable insight into how to start and work through the common conversations with them on the SQL Server infrastructure practices that matter to you the most, and how to succeed in getting what you need while keeping everyone happy.

Session Level: Beginner

SQL Saturday #190 Denver Wrap Up

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

Sep 302013

I must admit… Denver is my favorite town in this country. The outdoor things to do, the wide variety of locals and transplants, and the thin air all are favorable to me. I’m looking to move here someday soon. With that said, this year’s SQL Saturday #190 in Denver was absolutely wonderful, and not just because I love Denver! Denver has such an incredibly strong SQL Server community, and the warmth that I received from the attendees, other speakers, volunteers, and coordinators just re-enforces my desire to relocate (the SQL Server community in my town of Omaha is stellar, but just look at those mountains!).

Golden CO

At this event, I presented an all new session entitled “Virtualizing Critical SQL Servers” that discussed how virtualization helps DBAs, how to incorporate key virtualization concepts into the daily SQL Server management routine, and how to build the SQL Server VM so you can get the most out of the environment. Most of the attendees had already virtualized most, if not all, of their SQL Servers. The comments and questions from the attendees in the packed room were very good, and I hope that this session helps tear down some of the organizational silos that we discussed and allows the teams to work more closely so that virtualization can really be embraced by the SQL Server teams and operational practices improved as a result!

The slides from my session are available for you to download here. Please feel free to download and review them, and contact me if you have any questions.

The next stop for me is Charleston’s next SQL Saturday and then the SQL PASS Summit! I look forward to seeing you all there!