Tag Archives: sqlpass

Things I am reading about PASS Member Summit 2010

Posted on October 28, 2010 by | 1 comment

The following are a few blog posts I am reading lately on the interwebz.  This is going to be short and sweet.  The following posts are all based on the PASS Member Summit coming up in one week. If your are new to the PASS Member Summit like me I suggest you check them out.

  • 2-Weeks to PASS Summit 2010 Countdown – This is a great five part series going over stuff you need to know if you are making your first trip on out to the PASS Member Summit. Jason Strate did a great job on this series.
  • 2010 PASS Summit Preview – Back to School – Tom LaRock gives a preview to this years Summit by throwing in his experience and lessons learned from the previous Summit sessions.
  • PASS 2010 on a Budget – Yes, this is a shameless plug to my blog.  It includes how I am getting there and includes how I plan to only spend five dollars for a round-trip to and from the Airport.
  • PASS Summit 2010 Preview – Todd McDermid explains why you shouldn’t eat alone, why everyone should have business cards, and how to start a conversation with strangers.
  • PASS Summit MVP Birds of a Feather Lunch – Mike Walsh does a good job breaking down what the MVP Lunch is all about.  It’s a great way to meet an MVP and join an ad-hoc conversation during lunch over several topics you use in your shop.
  • How MidnightDBA will Rock the 2010 Member Summit – Jen builds a good list of places and times where you can bump into her.  This is actually a cool list of general events going on so if you looking to meet a lot of cool kids I think its safe to follow her schedule.

    [Update Nov 3rd 2010]

  • Why I am paying my own way to PASS Member Summit 2010 – David does a great job explaining why you should take care of your own professional development.  I am actually following his advice and paying for myself to attend this years Summit.
  • More PASS Summit tips for First Timers – Kendal Van Dyke does a great job of explaining what first times like myself should expect during the Summit.  Check his blog out as there are several post including one that explains how you can join in on the fun if your not in Seattle.
  • Top 10 PASS Summit tips – Brian Garraty lists several good tips that can be used by all attendes.  I really like the walking tour tip.  Hopefully I will get some time to do this.

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Recap: #24hop (24hrs of PASS) – Day One

Posted on September 16, 2010 by | Leave a comment

I am very happy that the committee behind #24HOP made two decisions.  One they decided to split the 24 hours into two days.  This is huge for people in the USA as we don’t have to pull all nighters.  Second, I am very glad day one fell on a Wednesday.  Why would I be exited it falls on a Wednesday?  I am excited because it is no pants Wednesday.  No pants Wednesday  means I don’t work on Wednesday’s so its very easy to attend sessions.

Day Two

If you didn’t catch it in the first paragraph there is a day two.  That’s right peeps you can still signup and attend some great sessions.  If you need some help picking a session or two I wish I could attend the ones listed below.

The following is a short review of the sessions I attended on September 15th 2010.

Gather SQL Server Performance Data with PowerShell

Allen White (Blog | @SQLRunr) showed a very slick way to automate the process of collecting WMI counters and save them in a database.  This alone was very slick but to add the icing on the cake he also showed the crowd how to build reports that work inside of SSMS.

My eyes were opened up wide when I saw how easy it was to do WMI and SQL calls with PowerShell.  I will defiantly check out http://powershell.com in the near future to get my learn on.

It looks like Allen has a great PreCon session for the SQL PASS Member Summit 2010 lined up that will get you well on your way with automating your DBA tasks.

Hardware 201: Selecting and Sizing Database Hardware for OLTP Performance

Glen Berry (Blog | @GlenAllenBerry) ran through tons of statistics behind selecting CPU’s, Memory and Disk’s for your new database servers.  I have to be honest quite a bit of this was over my head but below are a few items that stuck.

  • Optimize your hardware purchases to take advantage of your SQL and Windows Server editions
  • Don’t go cheap on CPU’s. You rarely upgrade the CPU unlike RAM or disks.
  • Xeon X5680 and Xeon X7560 were recommended CPU’s
  • SSD (solid state drives) are good for random writes (user data files) not sequential writes (log files)
  • 10K drives = 100 IOPS
  • 15K drives = 150 IOPS
  • Make sure High Performance is enable in power settings on your servers

Identifying Costly Queries

Grant Fritchey (Blog | @GFritchey) showed us several different tools you can leverage to identify costly queries.  He showed us how to setup SQL Profiler using stored procedures to lessen the load on your production boxes.  Grant also showed me a new tool I haven’t used before. This was the SQL RML Utility tool that can be helpful show how long a query really took.  Grant also showed us server DMV’s that can be used to get real-time understanding costly queries.

For some samples and resources used in the demo check out his resources blog page.

How to Rock Your Presentations

Douglas McDowell (Web | @douglasmcdowell) delivered the most important session for me.  This year I started to focus more on giving back to the community through technical presentations.  I am always looking for some tips that will improve my presentations.  The following were a few tips I plan to implement on my current presentation schedule.

  • Treat presentations like a development project
  • Storyboard each topic
  • Build an outline
  • Make sure to add RM, WIIFM and KWUC to all presentations.

You can find more in his PowerPoint presentation at http://downloads.solidq.com/DMcDowell/RockPASS_DMcDowell.zip

Conclusion

This was another great day of #24HOP.  The best part is it continues today.  The sad part is I will miss out on the sessions.  If you catch them and have good notes.  Please add them as a comment or blog them so the unlucky ones can check out the info.

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Upcoming Speaking Engagements

Posted on September 14, 2010 by | 3 comments

With football season starting I thought I would share some travel dates.  If you are at any of the following events please don’t be shy and say hi.  I look forward to hitting the road and making some new friends as I continue to connect, share and learn.

Sept 18th : Reston, VA
Microsoft Regional Leadership Summit (Non speaking)

Oct 16th : Pittsburgh, PA
Pgh.NET Code Camp 2010.2 (SQL Server 2008 for Developers)

Oct 23rd : Dallas, TX
SQL Saturday #56 BI Edition (Submitted: SQL Server 2008 for Developers)

Nov 8th – 12th : Seattle, WA
SQL Server PASS Member Summit (Submitted Chalk Talk – SQL Server 2008 for Developers)

Nov 19th : Pipestown, WV
AITP Region 18 Fall Conference

Jan 29th : Houston, TX
SQL Saturday #57  (Submitted  SQL Server 2008 for Developers)

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SQL PASS Summit 2010 on a Budget

Posted on August 26, 2010 by | 3 comments

The following is some information I would like to share with the community about how I plan to travel to Seattle for the SQL Server Pass Summit.  Please take my information with a grain of salt because this is the first time I am attending.  Everything below comes from research and tweets. If you are a regular please leave comments so others can see your travel tips.

Summit 2010

PASS%20Summit%20Banner%20300x300
Can we fast forward to November?

The SQL PASS Summit 2010 is the best opportunity for SQL Server DBA’s to connect, share and learn. Your first obstacle towards getting into the Summit is to well pay for general admission to the summit. You basically have two options here, either you pay the general admission fee (this is what I am doing this year) or you can get someone to sponsor you. A great option here would be your employer. Your employer also isn’t your only option for sponsorship. Speaking of getting someone else to sponsor you MSSQLTIPS and Idera is currently looking to send someone to PASS.  Give it a shot it could be you!

If you are paying for yourself you will want to pay ASAP because PASS has a sliding scale.  Just like many other conferences there is a price before sessions are announced and different prices as you get closer to the event.  You want to avoid paying at the door because the price is usually a lot more.

The following are some links that will help you save some money on attending the 2010 Summit.

How do I get there?

How you get to the PASS Summit will depend on your location and its distance to Seattle.  I  live in Wheeling, WV which is an easy hour drive to Pittsburgh so I will be flying.  If you are also flying you might want to checkout bing.com and setup email alerts to track the change in flight prices.  At this time I see that there are round-trip flights under $300 from Pittsburgh.

In order to travel through the Seattle Metro area check out the public transportation system.  It looks like they have bus, and a monorail.  The Seattle Center Monorail can take you from the airport to downtown for $5.00 round-trip.

Where Should I stay?

The PASS website recommends the following two hotels.

Looking at bing.com and  traveladvisor.com I found a few hotels within a miles of the convention center under $100 per night.  If you are trying to stretch your money I would recommend checking them out.

Do you have any friends that are attending PASS? If so, you might want to recommend sharing a room. This is a great way for you to split the costs of a hotel room.

Where should I eat?

If you are attending the Summit there is good news. Breakfast and Lunch is included daily. This means you will only have to worry about dinner.   There will also be some evening events where you might be able to snag a bite to eat.  On Monday night you can attend the PASS Summit 2010 Welcome Reception.  On Tuesday night you can also attend the Exhibitor Reception.

Another thought towards saving some $$ on dinner is to talk it up with the vendors.  They are there to get to know you and see if their products can solve your problems.  If your team has a budget for SQL tools (I really hope your team does) I bet you could convince a vendor to take you out to dinner.  Even if you don’t have a budget for SQL Tools I bet you could convince some vendors to take you out to dinner.  Remember most people in sales try to build relationships before they sell you on a product or idea.

Can you buy me a drink?

I never really was a big fan of beer and alcohol until I started my career in Information Technology (we will leave the company name out of this story). There were several internal functions to attend for networking and they all had beer.  I quickly noticed that all the bigwigs always had a beer in their hands. Being fresh out of college I followed suite and soon fell in love with beer (a trip with the wife to tour Samuel Adams in Boston also helped).

Anyways back to saving money. If you like to grab a drink (I defiantly fall into this category) it looks like its cheaper to go away from the convention center.

According to @SQLDBA its cheaper to go to the Tap House across the street from the convention center. If you also like to sample local beer the Rock Bottom Brewery is another  recommended place within walking distance from downtown.

What are your travel plans?

PASS Summit vets what am I missing? How else can people save some $$ on their quest to their first Summit conference? Let us know we are all looking forward to your recommendations.

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