500
Dev
As a database developer, your job boils down to one word: performance. And in today's multi-core-driven world, query performance is very much determined by how well you're taking advantage of the processing power at your disposal. Are your big queries using every available clock tick, or are they lagging behind? And if your queries are already going parallel, can they be rewritten for even greater speed? In this session you will learn how to take full advantage of parallelism, from a developer's point of view. After a quick terminology review and technology refresher the session will go deep, covering T-SQL patterns that allow certain queries to scale almost linearly across your multi-core CPUs. Alas, not all T-SQL queries can go parallel, so you will also learn to watch for those things that can restrict the query optimizer's decisions. Along the way you’ll learn to manipulate costs and row goals, challenge generally accepted tuning practices, and take complete control of your parallel queries.
|
400
Dev
In this session we will deep an in-depth look at some of the most common query plan operators. We'll look at what they do, how they do it and the circumstances in which they are chosen.
We will look at the good and bad aspects of each and why sometimes they aren't the right tool for the job.
Using lots of examples we'll investigate the usage and impact they have on your SQL Server.
Hopefully you'll walk away from this session with the knowledge which will give you a deeper understanding of your query plans
|
300
BI
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) 2012 includes a new database referred to as the SSIS Catalog. SSIS developers and administrators are going to spend a lot of time in here and, like any database, you need a good handle on what secrets it holds. In this session I'll take you on a demo-heavy (i.e. no slides) tour of the SSIS Catalog so you can get a handle on the sea-change this is going to bring to SSIS development.
|
300
BI
Target Audience: Developers, Analysts and decision makers
Overview: In this session I will use ‘website traffic’ subject to give you overview (5-10minutes) to an excellent self-service reporting tool Google Analytics that is available for website owners and I will show
shortcomings (from my perspective) of the tool for decisions making and present SSRS dashboards and reports that I requested and my wife Katie developed; I will present data related to our websites that allows me to make decisions and create “to do list” related to chosen decision.
What to expect? I will mainly focus on presenting data for decision making and actions that needs to be taken. So I will tell you several decisions I want to make and show you how I make the decision based on SSRS reports which will either be obvious or will require some analysis using the reports that have been specifically developed to support the process of making the right decision and once I make the decision I will show you how I use and analyze SSRS reports to create a “to do list”.
How to do it in SSRS? Although this session is to show ideas for developing dashboards and reports to support decision making based on real life example; we will provide links to our blog where we will prepare tutorials where you can learn how to develop similar dashboards and reports. At the end we will spend about 5-10 minutes to show developers how to create “sparkline” - the easy way (suitable for beginners)
We will also share our fully functional examples (rdl files 2008 R2) after the session with those attending the session.
|
500
DBA
As SQL Server professionals, we often think of memory in vague, instance-level terms: buffer pool, procedure cache, Virtual Address Space, and so on. But certain tasks require a more in-depth focus, and query tuning is one of them. Large, complex queries need memory in which to work--workspace memory--and understanding the how's, when's, and why's of this memory can help you create queries that run in seconds rather than minutes. This session will give you an in-depth understanding of how the optimizer makes its query memory decisions, with lots of tips and tricks along the way to help you guide the process for top performance. If you work with large queries and are serious about achieving scalability and consistently great performance, you owe it to yourself to attend this session.
|
200
BI
Have your data warehouse got so big that is difficult to run reports quickly? Or do your customers call you every day complaining their reports takes ages to run? Do you need to speed up the processing time of your cubes? Don't worry, in this session we will see what is Sql Server Fasttrack solution and how it can help you get the most of your hardware!
The SQL Server FastTrack References Architecture gives you the best practices for Windows, SQL Server and SAN Design configuration and reference architectures using commodity hardware from different vendors to help you create a balanced environment for your data warehouse workload up to 80TB of data.
|
300
BI
The use of BI technologies to package and deliver data to business users requires a well-maintained infrastructure to support a demanding workload. In this first of two sessions, SQL Server MVPs Denny Cherry and Stacia Misner review how the various components fit together and how decisions about where to install each component affect overall performance. We'll also discuss how day-to-day BI operations such as ETL and how to optimize data warehouse load operations.
|
300
DBA
Based on healthcheck reviews of hundreds of SQL Servers across dozens of customers, I'll talk you through the 10 most commonly made configuration and management mistakes made by action or inaction and what you can do to make sure your SQL Servers are primed for the best performance and availability that your environment is capable of providing.
|
300
DBA
In this session we will look at the features which are provided with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 as part of the "Always On" features including site to site configurations to allow of a large scale high availability solution without the need for any high end SAN storage solution.
Additionally we will be looking at the ability to have redundant servers which can be used for reporting or for taking your backups reducing the load from the production database. We will also look a unique use case using SQL Server 2012's Always On feature to scale out the reads to syncronous read only copies.
|
300
BI
Head starting to explode from all the technical information you’re absorbing? Come spend a session with us while we play games with Reporting Services…literally! Come watch and cheer as SQL Server MVP Stacia Misner is challenged by her progeny and protégé Erika Bakse to an hour of word play, all wrapped up in SQL Server Reporting Services. They’ll push the limits with what can be built in SSRS and have a stupid amount of fun while doing it. Swag, trash talk, board games and SQL…who could ask for more?
|
300
DBA
As a shared database
infrastructure in the cloud, SQL Azure provides the opportunity for creating
large workloads in a scalable and reliable environment. In this session we will
cover:
·
The considerations
you should take and describe the methodology we use to make these design
decisions.
·
When to use a single
instance, when to use federations, when to use table/blob storage to
potentially offload historical data
·
For these all
important questions we will walk through a number of examples to show how we
have made the trade-offs and why.
·
We will also cover
the techniques and methodology we use to monitor SQL Azure performance and
describe how you can leverage your on-premise skills in the cloud.
|
300
Dev
Hierarchies are the bread and butter of most business applications (departmental diagram,
product categories, sales territories, calendar, …). Markus offers insights
into best practice through typical business problems in his samples (e.g. hierarchy
through different tables, parent-child-hierarchy, datatype hierarchieID,
hierarchy as slowly changing dimension, hierarchy in LINQ and MDX, …).
|
300
Den
Always On offers a huge leap forward in terms of high availability. This sessions is a demo based introduction to the high availability changes in Denali emphasising key features and benefits.
During the demonstration we will show how to seamlessly upgrade a database from SQL 2005+ to Denali with ZERO down time and then use the Always on features to simplify reporting, availability and disaster recovery.
This session will be useful for anyone who is working in a high availability environment or currently using replication to provide reporting and looking for a neater solution.
Bob Duffy is a SQL Server MVP from Dublin, Ireland who is both MCA and MCM certified. Bob has
spent many years helping customers in Ireland with high availability planning.
|
300
BI
Reporting Services is a powerful tool that can make designing reports a snap...most of the time. But every once in a while you have to format a report very specifically, and that starts with your data query. In this session, we'll think outside the group! Learn about how to use named sets, dummy members, and other MDX tricks to craft your queries in a way that allows you to conquer the trickiest report layouts.
|
300
Dev
Once upon a time in a kingdom of darkness… SQL Server 2012 + Windows Functions… and they lived happily ever after…
This session describes the improvements in Windows Functions T-SQL support from SQL Server 2005 through SQL Server 2012. SQL Server MVP Fabiano Amorim will show many samples of how Windows Functions works and explain how they can help-us to write better, more elegant, fast, and efficient code on SQL Server. Functions like, ROW_NUMBER, RANK, DENSE_RANK, NTILE, LEAD, LAG, FIRST_VALUE, LAST_VALUE, PERCENT_RANK, CUME_DIST, OVER Clause, Frame selection and much more. After attend this session you will be able to leave the kingdom of darkness and grow old in a better world of group calculations.
|
300
DBA
At some point, you are going to need a notification system for a range of events that occur in your servers, even if it is only a warning of low disk space. I will show how you can set up temporary alerts for any WMI eventsto fit what you need. You will see how to create your own monitoring server to perform some basic alerts (low disk space - mount points too, services stops) and some specific alerts using WMI for Server Events (SQL Server Only). Alerts as if Database Mirroring State Changes, DDL modifications, Changes in the Server Configurations Settings and others. The Idea is we have a central monitoring server that recieve the events from the monitored servers in the EventViewer and the an email is send to the right people. We will see what is WMI, WMI for Server Events, WQL, Event Query Language and the cmdlet Register-WMIEvent
|
300
Dev
SQL Server 2012 brings a whole bag of new features. We'll focus on the awesome new stuff that will make your T-SQL development a breeze.
How did you do your paging so far? Got mad at the lack of proper support? Not any longer! Now there's OFFSET to help you with that
Remember when you had to do those running totals with CLR, subqueries, quirky updates or (GASP!) cursors?No more! Enter the new WINDOWING FUNCTIONS that offer a simple solution to that problem and a bunch of new possibilities.
Ever had identity problems? Let me show you the power of new SEQUENCES!
But wait, there's more! We'll even take a look at the upgraded ERROR HANDLING, new FORMATTING and CONVERTING functions, awesome METADATA DISCOVERY and more.
|
400
Dev
The addition of spatial data to SQL Server 2008 is one of the most important in terms of new clients and the introduction as a new type of application, as well as integration in line-of-business applications. But
SQL Server 2008 was just the beginning, and there are some impressive new features and performance improvements in SQL Server 2012. This talk will give you a solid grounding in spatial data and theory, introduce spatial concepts and go on to discuss the new features and performance enhancements.
|
200
Dev
Do your eyes glaze over at the mention of tuples, domains, or even basic SQL terms? Have you moved to SQL Server from MS Access, or Excel, or other non-relational database products? This session will help explain the basics of set theory and relational theory using actual Lego blocks. We will illustrate terms and concepts such as joins, unions, and set-based operations, and how you can translate them into actual SQL. If you're an absolute beginner to SQL, or feel overwhelmed by the baggage of computer data models, or would just like to play with Legos, you'll both enjoy and learn something during this session.
|
300
Den
Extended Events made its appearance in SQL Server 2008, but in SQL Server 2012, the number of lightweight events have been expanded. All of the events and fields available in SQL Profiler are now available in Extended Events as well as a graphic user interface, covering more use cases and enabling new debugging opportunities. After a quick review of how Extended Events work, I’ll cover the enhancements in detail. In addition to more events, Extended Events also exposed in the 2012 SQL Server PowerShell provider and SMO, and I’ll show working with Extended Events in PowerShell.
|
400
Den
Ever since the inception of SQL Server, its indexes have always been based on B-trees. With SQL Server 2012, that finally changes!
A new index type is introduced: the column store index. A completely different paradigm, that can offer huge performance increases for some workloads.
In this session, Hugo will give you a fascinating "under the hood" view of this new type of indexes. How are they built, how do they work, and why do they manage to have such a dramatic impact on performance? Attend this session, and you'll find out!
|
300
BI
Time Intelligence is probably the most interesting feature of any analytical solution. Computing Year To Date, Month To Date, Same Period Previous Year is quite easy in DAX but, as soon as the customer requests for time intelligence require working days evaluation, complex and custom calendar shapes, seasonal pattern recognition, the DAX formulas start to be harder to write.
In this session we are going to show how to compute classical time intelligence with the built-in DAX functions. Then, we will show some more complex time intelligence formulas that require to think out of the box, using advanced data modeling and querying techniques to produce interesting and useful formulas.
|
300
DBA
Microsoft SQL Server is easier to administrate than any other relational database on the market. But
“easier than everyone else” doesn’t mean it’s easy. And it doesn’t mean that database administration
on SQL Server is problem free. And since SQL Server is constantly growing from small, home-grown applications, many IT professionals end up encountering issues that others had tackled and solved
years ago. Why not learn from those who first blazed the trails of database administration, so that we don’t make the same mistakes over and over again. In fact, wouldn’t you like to learn about those mistakes before they ever happen?
This session will answer questions like:
- What’s the mistake most likely to cost a DBA their job?
- Why do inexperienced database administrators make their own job more difficult and less efficient?
- Where can I get time-tested scripts so I don't have to reinvent the wheel?
There is a short list of mistakes that, if you know of them in advance, will make your life much easier. These mistakes are the “low hanging fruit” of application design, development, and administration. Once you apply the lessons learned from this session, you’ll find yourself performing at a higher level of efficiency and effectiveness than before.
Prerequisites: Basic understanding of SQL Server architecture, development, design, and administration.
|
400
BI
You are designing a BI Solution and your customer ask you to keep a snapshot of the
status of all their documents (orders, insurances, contracts, bills...whatever
the word "document" may mean) for all the days of the year. They have millions of documents
and they want to have in their Data Warehouse all the data they have gathered
right from the very first operating day.
If you have 1 million of documents (on average) and you have to keep a snapshot of
them for each one of the 365 days in a year, and you have 10 year of history,
you're going to have a 3 billions table just to start with. That's a very big
and challenging number, and you may have not the option to buy a Parallel Data Warehouse.
In this session, we'll see how we can turn the usual snapshot tables into temporal
table so that we can store time intervals in order to avoid data duplication,
while keeping the Data Warehouse design usable by Analysis Services (that
doesn't know what an interval is) and optimizing it to have very good performance even on standard hardware.
The explained technique is a result of several month of research and has been
applied to the Data Warehouse of an insurance company where we had to deal with
two times the number said before.
|
300
BI
The Microsoft BI stack has a number of tools for data visualization - Excel, Power View, native Reporting Services, and Performance Point. Come see each visualization applied to the new tabular model in Analysis Services, and learn some of the trade-offs involved in including any or all of these visualizations in your BI portal.
|
400
DBA
In this demo heavy session we will discuss ways to maximize existing hardware utilization to speed up queries. We will analyze specific cases of performance issue and tune them for better CPU, Storage and Memory utilization resulting in higher performance and lower TCO.
This level 400 session is for developers and DBAs.
|
300
BI
This session will cover advanced security topics in the Analysis Services Multidimensional model, including implementing dynamic security, security on parent/child hierarchies, denying access to entire levels and dimensions, and what happens when users are members of multiple roles.
|
200
BI
PowerPivot, while being an Excel add-in, was built by the SQL team, and is one of the most powerful data integration tools in the Microsoft stack. In this session, you will learn how to combine data from web services, tables and cubes to build a powerful model, and visualise it in Excel. An introduction to Time Intelligence using DAX will lead us on to the new features in version 2, and we will move from the Date table to relationships, perspectives and KPIs.
You will also see the difference between developing in the Excel addin vs Visual Studio.
|
300
BI
The new and improved SSIS promises not only rounded edges and new icons ;-)
It has a whole lot of features to help control larger projects.It comes with a migration wizard to allow you to get up and running pretty quickly with all the new features.
But what if you have a large project and have already built a lot of DIY project management.
(error handling, running multiple packages consecutive and / or parallel etc.)I'm doing a trial migration of our datawarehouse (100+ packages, 1TB+ db size) to see what the benefits are and how easy it will be.
This session will be a walkthrough of this process and a lessons learned.
|
200
Dev
What’s going on in your physical data model? How many people can or will update it to match the reality of what’s going on in your databases? Who actually decides what goes into the database design? How do you choose your primary keys? How do you implement them? Are your datatypes the right ones for the data?
In this presentation we discuss five physical data modeling mistakes that cost you dearly: performance snags, development delays, bugs, and professional respect. Includes a slightly irreverent look the state of database design in the data profession as well as a look at how to spot them and avoid them.
Audience members will also be able to contribute their war stories of design fails, WTHs and D'ohs.
|
400
DBA
While we all know the fill factor index option when creating or rebuilding an index, few know about the huge impact a fill factor has on the performance of your machine. Most DBA's treat the fill-factor as a static server setting and "forget about it".
“What number should I set the fill-factor to?” is a very challenging question that most DBA’s should bother about. High fill-factors have high data densities, while low fill-factors can cope better with nonsequential IO. The challenge is to find a statistical model that will minimize fragmentation, optimize insert performance while reducing disk usage overhead and all this without stressing the maintenance window.
By using a different approach for specific use cases this session will give you the tools to find the most optimal fill-factor for your tables.
|
300
Dev
Creating a query plan can be a time consuming and expensive process.
To avoid repeating these potentially costly steps unnecessarily, SQL Server stores its query plans, in the plan cache where they can be reused as needed.
In this session, we’ll look at how the plan cache is
organized, what plans are saved, when plans are reused and when they are
recreated, methods for observing the contents of the plan cache, and finally,
methods for manipulating plan reuse and recreation.
|
200
BI
Have you ever had trouble finding data you needed? Or combining data from different, incompatible sources? How about sharing the results with others in a web-friendly way? If so, join us in this session to learn how Microsoft Codename “Data Explorer” can help you.
With "Data Explorer" you can:
- Identify the data you care about from the sources you work with (e.g. Excel spreadsheets, files, SQL Server databases, etc.).
- Discover relevant data and services via automatic recommendations from the Windows Azure Marketplace.
- Enrich your data by combining it and visualizing the results.
- Collaborate with your colleagues to refine the data.
- Publish the results to share them with others or power solutions.
In short, "Data Explorer" helps you harness the richness of data to generate new insights.
|
300
BI
The SQL Server 2012 release of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) includes a broad range of new features and enhancements designed to ease adoption for new users and increase productivity for experienced SSIS developers. In this demo intensive session, Matt Masson – Senior Software Development Engineer on the SSIS team – guides you through the new developer focused functionality in SQL Server 2012. We’ll look at the productivity enhancements in SQL Server Data Tools (formerly the Business Intelligence Development Studio), team development enhancements, and the new Change Data Capture (CDC) features that ship with the product. If you haven’t seen the new SSIS features in SQL Server 2012 yet, you won’t want to miss this session!
|
300
BI
Unit testing is a widely accepted best practice, yet it is
difficult to do well with SSIS packages. This session will focus on both the
practice of test driven development as it applies to SSIS, and the tools for
actually implementing it. It will cover in depth how to set up your development
environment to support test driven development and what techniques can be used
to make this practical for SSIS. You will also see how to automate the testing
of SSIS packages, using the open source ssisUnit framework. The session will cover
several of the common questions about automated unit testing, including how to
handle test data, how to set up the environment for multiple developers, how to
make tests flexible, and how to ensure that the tests remain valuable over time.
|
300
DBA
Once upon a time, somewhere in a dark, lonely data center room an SQL Server stopped talking. Nothing about it in monitoring system, except - connection lost. Ping, Telnet, Remote Login doesn't work. In the same time somewhere in the City one of the millions mobiles can't stop ringing and ringing. It's Your phone and You are DBA. It's 2AM and Disaster just began... In this session I want to discuss about best practices for surviving disaster, based on my experience in few years in data center. We will talk about more aspects which You probably know, and some about You have never think before THIS day - TheDisaster Day. I presented this session as Lightning Talks in Liverpool. Now is the time for full session.
|
200
BI
Most of us use Excel in our Daily work, but are you familiar with the Business Intelligence features in Excel? In this session we'll have a look at some of the most common BI features in Excel 2010 like: Pivot Tables and Pivot Graphs, combining these with Slicers, Dimension Search, Conditional Formatting and financial reporting with asymmetric Sets. You will learn about the limitations and best practices when it comes to use Excel as a BI analysis tool. And finally we'll see how you can build advanced free-format Excel reports using Cube functions.
|
500
DBA
Think SQL Server is magical? You're right! However, there's some sense to the magic, and that's what I'll show you in this level 500 deep dive session. Through my work in creating OrcaMDF, an open source parser for SQL Server databases, I've learned a lot of internal details for the SQL Server database file format. In this session, I will walk you through the internal storage format of MDF files, how we might go about parsing a complete database ourselves, using nothing but a hex editor. I will cover how SQL Server stores its own internal metadata about objects, how it knows where to find your data on disk, and once it finds it, how to read it. Using the knowledge from this session, you'll find it much easier to predict performance characteristics of queries since you'll know what needs to be done.
|
300
Den
Database development is complicated by nature! Database engines are stateful, so data loss is always a risk; object dependencies determine the order in which changes need to be applied and the loosely coupled nature of the SQL language can result in unexpected runtime errors. These are just a small collection of examples why database development is hard. The SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) development environment helps developers getting a better handle on database development, testing, deployment and migrations. The declarative nature lets the developer focus on the final state they want, instead of writing an imperative script on how to change the state of the database directly.
|
400
BI
In SQL Server 2012, we get strong support for data warehousing (DW). From previous versions we know
there has been a lot of effort put in DW enhancements: star join optimization through bitmap filters, known from SQL Server 2008, table partitioning and basic window functions known from SQL Server 2005, indexed views, known from SQL Server 2000, and more. In SQL Server 2012, we get advanced window functions. Besides that, we get columnstore indexes. Columnstore indexes use the VertiPaq engine, storage engine developed by the SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) team. In this session, we are going to introduce these features
and show how they can be useful in a data warehousing scenario. We are also going to explain the theoretical background for these features.
|
300
Den
We are storing more and more data FACT We have less time to move data around our environment FACT Businesses want close to real-time analytics FACT. We therefore need to plan our data movement strategy better. In this session I will show you the improvements to CDC being made in SQL Server 2012 and suggest why this is something you will want to know.
|
300
Den
In this session we will provide an overview of how the SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) can
be leveraged as a cloud development and migration tool. Learn how easy it is to
deploy an on-premise database to the cloud using SSDT and get insight into best
practices and compatibility issues when migrating from on-prem to SQL Azure. We
will also cover how SSDT integrates with the SQL Azure Management Portal,
Import/Export service, SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) by leveraging the
DACPAC schema format.
|
400
BI
Ever deployed an Analysis Services cube that worked perfectly well with one user on the
development server, only to find that it doesn’t meet the required volumes of
user concurrency?
This session focuses on tools and methodology to load test Analysis Services in highly concurrent environments. Including how to locate resource bottlenecks and the appropriate configuration settings that can help improve performance.
Sample source code will be supplied to help you load test analysis services. We will be focused on
the MOLAP engine, but techniques are equally applicable to the new tabular data model available in BISM.
|
400
DBA
A common myth claims that heaps are (mostly) evil and that every table should have a clustered index.
In this session we will explore the fine details of both heaps and clusters and see if there is indeed any truth to this myth. We will look at (semi) real-life examples and understand when and why it is best to use heaps and clusters regarding multiple aspects of performance and maintenance.
|
300
BI
The SQL Server 2012 release of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) includes a broad range of new capabilities designed to improve the deployment, management and monitoring of SSIS solutions. The core of these capabilities is the new SSIS Catalog. In this session, Matt Masson – Senior Software Development Engineer on the SSIS team – will take a deep look at the SSIS server, including its architecture, implementation and use.
|
300
Dev
SQL Server optimizer doesn't use and index seek for execution of your query although the quer is high selective? What is better, when and why: LIKE vs: SUBSTRING, IN vs. EXISTS, SUBQUERY vs. JOIN. Why you should not use the UPPER or LOWER functions? How to avoid non-SARG-able WHERE clauses? Which query takes about 3 minutes in SQL Server 2008 and only one second in SQL Server 2012?
In this session we will answer these questions and show how bad designed queries lead to poor execution plans. We will offer recommendations and tips how to avoid performance problems caused by poor query design (functions in WHERE clause, data type conversions…) and explain how local variables and parameters affect the generation of execution plan. We will discuss and compare different query approaches and operators (IN vs. EXISTS, EXISTS vs. COUNT(*), UNION vs. UNION ALL, IN vs. BETWEEN…) and give appropriate recommendations. We’ll also cover database constraints from the performance point of view.
|
200
Den
The new Business Intelligence and Data Visualisation features and functionality are key to the strategic and technical changes in SQL Server 2012. We will take a look at:
- Power View and its impact for Data Visualisation according to the principles of Stephen Few, Tufte and other data visualisation experts
- PowerPivot improvements and new features
- Reporting Services and its future in Sharepoint
Come to this session in order to 'hit the ground running' with Business Intelligence and Data Visualisation in SQL Server 2012.
|
200
Dev
There have been many TSQL enhancements added to SQL Server 2012. In this session we will take a high level look at some of these. However just as important, if not more so, is the functionality that has been lost or changed.
|
300
BI
Tabular models are in-memory databases in Analysis Services which delivers fast access to tabular model objects and data by reporting client applications.
In this session we'll understand the best practices of using this new technology. What exactly is it good for? When to use it and when NOT to? Does it replaces the good old MOLAP or should only be used on special scenarios?
How to migrate my MOLAP cubes and applications to Tabular Mode?
Security, administration other best practices if time permits.
The session is based on SSAS 2012 PoC at some large DB
|
400
Den
In 1982 the Dragon 32 entered the home computer market but unfortunately there was one small problem ...lower-case letters were almost impossible to access. Two years later, Dragon was no more.
In 2008 Microsoft released Server Core which provides a fast and streamlined (but reduced functionality) edition of Windows with minimal GUI support. As of SQL Server 2012, installation to Windows 2008R2 Core is now a supported option and will mean the biggest administrative change to a DBA since the release of SQL 2005 ...or will it?
In this session we will discuss and demonstrate:-
Configuration of the OS through Command line utilities and PowerShell
Installation of SQL Server on Server Core
Remote Administration of SQL Server and Server Core
Clustering on Server Core
Will the lack of GUI support send Server Core in the same direction as the Dragon 32 or does it spell a bright new beginning for Windows Server based computing and SQL Server?
Attend this session and this time, listen to the Dragon roar!
|
300
Den
Most servers we deploy today use a NUMA rather than an SMP mainboard architecture and while we might conceptually understand what that means we often don’t appreciate the subtle changes to how Windows and SQLOS work when they run on a NUMA architecture server. To make things even more interesting, we can deploy Soft-NUMA ourselves to request some of the behaviour changes ourselves.
This session will cover:
- what is NUMA and why it exists,
- how Windows responds to NUMA hardware
- how SQL Server 2012 changes its behaviour in the NUMA world.
We’ll then look at some of the benefits NUMA brings us and how we sometimes need to adapt our monitoring
for the NUMA world.
|
300
BI
The new BISM Tabular model in Analysis Services offers a new way to create a data model for your Business Intelligence solution. This data model has a learning curve that is better than BISM ultidimensional (formerly known as UDM) and is particularly important if you want to use new generation client tools like Power View.
In this session you will see how to create a BISM Tabular data model from scratch, providing the required metadata in order to improve user experience navigating the data model by using client tools like Excel PivotTable and Power View.
|
300
Den
In this dynamic session, Lenni will teach you the ins-and-outs of unstructured data storage and native file streaming in SQL Server 2012. Learn all about FILESTREAM, an innovative feature introduced in SQL Server 2008 that integrates the relational engine with the NTFS file system. FILESTREAM revolutionized BLOB storage in the database, and now FileTable, new in SQL Server 2012, builds on FILESTREAM to deliver a logical file system—implemented as a FILESTREAM-enabled table in your database—on top of your BLOBs. Lenni will demonstrate how to program FILESTREAM using T-SQL and, for maximum performance, using the OpenSqlFileStream API in C#.
We’ll also cover the hierarchyid data type, which casts a hierarchical structure over every FileTable, and you’ll learn how to use this data type to perform hierarchical queries and tree manipulations within the FileTable (or any table). We’ll wrap up with the full-text search improvements and new Statistical Semantic Search in SQL Server 2012 that you can leverage to get the most out of unstructured documents contained in your databases.
Attend this session, and gain a whole new perspective of BLOBs with SQL Server 2012!
|
300
Den
This session presents the approach, execution and lessons learned from the SQL Server 2012 upgrade project for Sundio Group - a leading European tour operator, based in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
The project was delivered by Sundio Group together with Coeo and assistance from Microsoft SQLCAT team through the early adoption TAP program.
This session will provide details of the approach adopted to de-risk the program, including functional and performance testing and areas where we were able to influence the SQL Server product features and design. The session will also includes details of issues encountered, lessons learned and recommendations for others considering approaching similar projects.
|
400
BI
There are many different ways of using SSIS to load dimension data into a data warehouse. For small data volumes the method may not have much impact on the performance, but for high volumes making the right choice could be critical.
This session looks at some of the different methods available to load type 2 slowly changing dimension data into a data warehouse, and compares the relative performance of these methods given different volumes of data.
We’ll also look at the impact of different storage solutions, comparing the performance difference of using FusionIO compared to traditional disks. Does the hardware platform change the design approach?
This session presents the results from my MSc dissertation investigating Type 2 SCD performance.
|
400
Den
This session will do a brief overview of Analysis Services 2012 performance topics, and drill into some common methods for investigating performance issues. The talk will be adjusted based on the audience interests.
The agenda includes:
- Tabular versus Multidimensional: a very brief overview
- Performance investigation tools: Profiler, XEvents, MDX, ETW
- Tuning Analysis Services for high end hardware
- Common pitfalls for processing performance
- Formula engine performance -- frequently asked questions/issues
- Q&A
|
300
Den
Data is the most important asset in every business. SQL 2012 introduces the new innovative Knowledge Driven Data Quality Services that allows IT and Data Users to define and use internal and external Knowledge effectively for data cleansing and validation, In this session we'll review the concepts of the new tool and demo the different solution components. DQS is an exciting new tool that provides fast benefit and empowers IT and business users to have better control on the quality of the Business Data,
|
300
DBA
We are looking at the dawn of a new workload: BigData. In this session I will talk about what BigData
is, and which BigData technologies Microsoft are working on. I will talk about how we collaborate with the HADOOP community, and where this is taking our current roadmap. I will also provide some basic introduction to Map/Reduce programming and the mindset you adopt to apply it.
One of the big questions today is: “What will HADOOP do to the world of data warehousing?”. This is
fascinating because BigData and data warehousing interact in a very interesting ways. In the second part of the session, I will share my thoughts on HADOOP’s place in the enterprise architecture.
|
400
DBA
For the most DBAs and DEVs the TempDb is a crystal ball. But the TempDb is the most critical component in a SQL Server installation and is used by your applications and also internally by SQL Server. TempDb is also one of the performance bottlenecks by design, because it is shared across the whole SQL Server instance. In this session we will take a closer look into the TempDb, how it is used by SQL Server, and how you can troubleshoot performance problems inside TempDb and how you can resolve them.
|
400
Den
This one hour session will provide insight on what to expect when deploying a highly available end to end SQL Server 2012 Business Intelligence environment as experienced from the field. As well as leveraging the SQL Server Business Intelligence skills that you possess. You will also gain an insight into the additional skills and knowledge that you will need to ensure the successful delivery of technologies such as such as PowerPivot, PowerView, SQL Server Reporting Services and SQL Server Analysis Services on a robust architecture.
|
400
Den
The Column Store Index is an
exciting new technology in SQL Server 2012. Using column stores, you can
unlock new levels of performance for data warehouses – often gaining an order
of magnitude speedup on queries. In this session, we will talk about the
design patterns you must apply to take advantage of this functionality.
We will use a real, high end
customer solution as a case study. As we dig deep into the workload, we will
show you examples of Column Store DW query plans and walk you through the
design decisions we made along the way. The ride will not be smooth, but we
hope you will learn from the challenges we faced, and the methods we used to
overcome them.
As bonus feature, we will also
look at how column stores in ROLAP cubes compare with MOLAP cubes.
|
300
BI
Users love the flexible analytics offered by OLAP cubes but they hate to wait for the data to be loaded into a traditional data warehouse. John will describe how to build an infrastructure to support real-time loading of your OLAP cubes so your user's get exactly what they want NOW.
John will present a variety of approaches, highlight some of the pitfalls and provide tips and tricks.
|
200
Dev
You're a good SQL professional – you attend conferences and webinars, you read articles and books, and you know your way around SQL Server. But sometimes – just SOMEtimes – some piece of T-SQL slips by you unnoticed, or falls out of memory. Most of us are working with at least two or three out of the last five versions of SQL Server, so who can blame us for missing a feature or two? Come and revisit old favorites, and brush up on new T-SQL features and enhancements. In this session you will see SELECT turned inside-out. You'll get really, really excited about OVER and PARTITION BY. You'll learn that Common Table Expressions are, in fact, very cool, and that FOR XML isn't as scary as it looks. What's more, we'll look and BRAND-new features like SQL Server Denali's new SEQUENCE object! This session is chock full of code examples, including before-and-after demos and how-to illustrations.
|
200
DBA
We’ll be looking into the pros and cons of moving SQL Servers into a virtual server environment. Specifically we’ll be looking into when it’s a good idea and when it’s probably not a good idea. Like all problems in the database world there are no hard set answers as to if virtualization is a good idea, but there are some times when virtualizing a SQL Server is a good idea, and can save you some money. There are some other times when you will be shooting yourself in the foot and shouldn’t. We’ll be focusing on when how to make this decision, and how to gather the metrics that you need in order to come to this decision.
|
300
Dev
There is a growing need for real-time analytics in a wide array of scenarios,
including monitoring, fraud detection, logistics, clickstream analysis, and
many others. While traditional tools like relational databases are
extraordinarily effective at storing and querying data, they have their
limitations: data have to hit disk before they are analyzed; streaming,
continuously changing data are hard to deal with; and time-series queries are
notoriously difficult to express in SQL. StreamInsight gives you a new tool,
combining powerful temporal semantics with the ability to handle high volumes
of real-time streaming data. This session will explore and demonstrate
StreamInsight, and show how it can be integrated into CLR applications to
provide real-time analytic processing.
|