SQLvariations: SQL Server, a little PowerShell, maybe some Hyper-V Rotating Header Image

SQL Saturday

Speaking at SQL Saturday #51 in Nashville

Aug 18th, 2010
by Aaron Nelson.
Comments are off for this post

image Wow, having been an attendee at SQL Saturday #21 in October of last year (just 10 months ago) I can’t believe we’re already up to #51.  That means we’re averaging 3 a month and there’s no stopping in site; in fact Next year’s schedule is already starting to fill in.  If you’re wondering where the closest one to you is just have a look at the Map.

TailgatingI’ll be speaking at SQL Saturday #51 about PowerShell just before Allen White and our sessions cover completely different content so please come to both!  As soon as I’m done with my session I’m headed straight out the door and to the “World’s Fastest Half Mile”.  That’s right, I’m taking a 230 mile detour on my way to the night race.  There is going to be a freaking amazing amount of great speakers at this event and if you live within a 6 hour drive of Music City I Highly recommend you don’t miss one of the best lineups since SQL Saturday#33 in Charlotte. 

I always try to work in a new script into each session but I’m actually speaking 3 times in the next week so I have no idea how I’m going to come up with 3 new things so fast but I’ll try.

Here are some vital stats on the event and I hope to you’ll come heckle me in Nashville:
SQLSaturday #51 will be held on August 21st, 2010, at Nashville State Community College (120 White Bridge Road, Nashville, Tennessee, 37209). Event check-in will be at 7:30 with the sessions beginning at 8:00. Sessions will wrap up between 5:00 and 5:30.

Schedule

Start Time Business Intelligence Cafeteria Database Administration Database Development Professional Development Session Mix
08:30 AM Rafael Salas
Planning your ETL architecture with SSIS		 Thomas LaRock
DBA Survivor		 Aaron Nelson
The Dirty Dozen: PowerShell Scripts for Busy DBAs		 Allen White
XQuery Basics		 Andy Warren
Building a Professional Development Plan		 Alan Brewer
SQL Server 2008 R2 Utility and Data-tier Apps
9:45 AM Douglas McDowell
Realizing ROI for Business Intelligence Projects		   Allen White
Gather SQL Server Performance Data with PowerShell		 William Pearson
Design and Implement Like Edison!		 Stuart Ainsworth
The Social DBA: Resources for Career Building		 Andy Leonard
Database Design for Developers
11:00 AM Wayne Snyder
Information Visualization – Designing great Charts		   Jason Strate
Are You Following Your Own Best Practices?		 Hope Foley
Working with Spatial Data in SQL Server 2008 		Mark Tabladillo
Data Mining with PowerPivot 2010		 Jeremiah Peschka
Fundamentals of SQL Server Internals
12:15 PM   Kevin Kline
Keynote		        
01:00 PM Craig Utley
Analysis Services 2008 End-to-End		   Arie Jones
Monitoring Data Changes with Change Data Capture		 Jack Cannon
From Access To SQL Server*		 Jeremiah Peschka
Taking Control of Your Career		 Glenn Berry
DMV Emergency Room!
02:15 PM Jessica Moss
Make Reporting Services Work For You		   Kendra Little
Take the Awesomeness Home: the Data Collector		 Kevin Boles
Common TSQL Mistakes		 John Welch
Creating Custom Components for SSIS		 Brian Kelley
Fortress SQL Server
03:30 PM Barry Ralston
Introduction to MDX for SQL Programmers		   Thomas LaRock
What Are You Waiting For?		 Robert Cain
Data Dude – Making DB developers more productive		 Drew Minkin
Data Mining in Action: A case study		 Andy Warren
Introduction to SQL Server Statistics
4:45 PM   Experts Panel
Stump the “Experts”		        

 

SQL Saturday #40 Code and Slides

Aug 4th, 2010
by Aaron Nelson.
Comments are off for this post

IMG_1086I had a really great time at SQL Saturday #40 in South Florida. I was afraid the full day PowerShell track would really be short on attendees by the end of the day but it actually went much better than I expected! I will post a round-up here shortly but until then here are my scripts and slides from the weekend.

del.icio.us Tags: ,

I’ll be speaking at SQL Satrurday #40 in Miami

Jul 23rd, 2010
by Aaron Nelson.
Comments are off for this post

imageIt feels like forever since I spoke at a SQL Saturday!  The South Florida SQL Saturday will be help on July 31st, 2010 at Devry University – South Florida, 2300 SW 145 Ave, Miramar, FL 33027. Event checking will be at 7:30 with the Keynote beginning at 8:00 and sessions beginning at 8:30.    I can’t wait to get down there.

Map pictureMax Trinidad ( blog | twitter ) has put together an entire day of PowerShell training for this event and I get to be one of the speakers!  I’ll be doing my PowerShell for Data Professionals session.  Which I am very proud to say I will be presenting  a longer and more in depth version of this session at this year’s PASS Summit, so come cathch the preview!  I’ve got a new trick to show the fine folks of South Florida and I can’t wait to get their feedback.

Besides myself the three other PowerShell speakers are going to be: Ronald Dameron ( blog | twitter ), David Corrales from Sapien, and of course Maximo Trinidad.

Here’s what that PowerShell track is going to look like:

PoSh
Ronald Dameron
Why SQL Server DBAs should learn PowerShell
Ronald Dameron
Automate ID Administration w/ PowerShell & SQLPSX
Aaron Nelson
PowerShell for the Data Professional
David Corrales
Sneak Preview: SAPIEN’s Visual PowerShell 2011
Maximo Trinidad
Working with SQL Server – SQLPS
Maximo Trinidad
Using PowerShell with SQL Server Agent

Quick Blog: Updated SQL Saturday Map

Jun 24th, 2010
by Aaron Nelson.
3 comments

It seemed like now would be a good time to update the SQL Saturday Map so here it is.  The center-left of the map is starting to fill in nicely.  I hear that California is the most people of any state in the union and yet they only have 1 SQL Saturday…  What’s up with that?  :-)

If you know of any SQL Saturdays that haven’t made this list please let me know.  Even if they are still in the discussions/planning stage I’d still like to get it on the list.

image_map

Green: held a SQL Saturday prior to 2010
Yellow: holding their first SQL Saturday in 2010 or eraly 2011
Turquoise: I’ve heard rumors over twitter…

del.icio.us Tags: ,

The Scripts

May 11th, 2010
by Aaron Nelson.
Comments are off for this post

Last week I did a podcast for geekSpeak and a similar session at SQL Saturday #38 in Jacksonville.  I’ve already blogged about most of the scripts in those sessions but here is a download of a bunch of those scripts.  I have changed them a little from the way they were written in my session so that they can run independently without worrying about whether or not you need to load a snapin or module.  If you need it to run the script, it’s in there.  Don’t forget that for all but one of them you will either need to have SSMS 2008 installed or the SQLPSX codeplex project.

If you don’t remember which script it was that you were interested in, here’s the recording of the session that I did for geekSpeak.

Enjoy!

PoSh

Oh, and don’t forget Buck Woody’s disclaimer about running scripts you find on the internet:

Script Disclaimer, for people who need to be told this sort of thing:
 
 Never trust any script, including those that you find here, until you understand exactly what it does and how it will act on your systems. Always check the script on a test system or Virtual Machine, not a production system. All scripts on this site are performed by a professional stunt driver on a closed course. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Offer good for a limited time only. Keep out of reach of small children. Do not operate heavy machinery while using this script. If you experience blurry vision, indigestion or diarrhea during the operation of this script, see a physician immediately.

 

I’ll be speaking at SQL Saturday #38 in Jacksonville

May 6th, 2010
by Aaron Nelson.
3 comments

If you didn’t make it to my webcast on MSDN’s geekSpeak yesterday you can catch me at SQL Saturday #38 in Jacksonville this weekend.  As always I’ll be including a few new scripts since the last time I gave this presentation.  There will be a lot of great speakers down in Jacksonville and the last I heard, there were over 550 people registered.

image

In addition to my PowerShell for Data Professionals session I will also be doing a presentation on using Hyper-V and SCVMM to manage your Dev and Test environments called Virtualize This! 

Oh, and please remember to bring lots of good questions.

Start Time 1202 (Auditorium) 1400 1402 1404 1406 Business Intelligence -1102
9:00 AM Plamen Ratchev Andy Warren Dean Richards Jorge Segarra Michael Antonovich Brian McDonald
  Common SQL Programming Mistakes Introduction to Statistics Tuna Helper for SQL Server DBA’s SQL University 101: Starting the SQL Journey XML 101 for the SQL Developer Introduction to SQL Server Reporting Services 2008
10:15 AM Dean Richards Jorge Segarra Jared Nielsen Brandie Tarvin Michael Antonovich Bradley Schacht
  Response Time Analysis of SQL Server Performance Policy-Based Management: Administration Made Easy SQL and SEO – Database Design and Web Marketing T-SQL 102: Aliases and Table Joins Publishing Access Applications to SharePoint Introduction to SQL Server Integration Services
11:15 AM           Michael Flora
            Mini – SSIS for the DBA
12:00 PM Rodney Landrum Timothy McAliley Eric Wisdahl Troy Gallant Jonathon Moorman Devin Knight
  Demystyfying SQL Code and Object Deployments ITIL V3 for the Database Administrator SSIS Configurations, Expressions and Constraints Introduction to Transactional Replication Basics of Sql Server Profiler Introduction to Data Warehousing
1:15 PM Aaron Nelson Steve Schneider Robby Robertson Shawn Harrison Sumeet Bansal Mike Davis
  Virtualize This! Encryption How-To 101 SSIS Deployment Strategies Using Parameters in SSRS Accelerating SQL with Solid State Technology Building your First Cube in Analysis Services 2008
2:30 PM Plamen Ratchev Jeff Cole Vikas Hawaldar Eric Wisdahl Mustika Nengah Adam Jorgensen
  Refactoring SQL for Performance Heterogeneous Data Integration with SSIS & CDC Introduction to Data Mining using SQL 2008 An Introductory Look at Execution Plans Accessing Cube using ADOMD.NET Introduction to SharePoint 2010 BI and PowerPivot
3:45 PM Jonathon Moorman Elijah Baker Aaron Nelson Shawn McGehee Eric Humphrey Brian Knight
  Everything you wanted to know about IDENTITY colum Table Partitioning: The Basics PowerShell for the Data Professional SQL Server 2008 Resource Governor  High Anxiety with ORMs Iron Chef Competition: Loading a Data Warehouse

Quick Blog: SQL Saturday Map Updated

Apr 28th, 2010
by Aaron Nelson.
1 comment

Hey folks, I did a quick update to the SQL Saturday Map.  I went ahead and color coded the cities that have already done a SQL Saturday in a previous year as Green, cities that are holding their first SQL Saturday this year as Yellow, and cities that are in discussion to hold a SQL Saturday but aren’t official yet as Turquoise.

Has anyone else noticed that despite being home to a SQL conference, Las Vegas hasn’t held one yet?  Or as Brad Shultz pointed out, San Francisco nor Silicon Valley have held one.  I wonder if there’s a Chapter in Key West?  I know there’s one in the Cayman’s; I’d love to speak there. :-)

image

I also built another map using the same colors to show where you can still catch a SQL Saturday this year.  Did you know that you can learn some PowerShell at almost every one of these events? ;-)   I will update this one later and try to include the info off the location page and things like that.

image

del.icio.us Tags: ,

Quick Blog: US Map of SQL Saturdays

Apr 27th, 2010
by Aaron Nelson.
17 comments

Just a quick post here.

Yesterday there was a discussion around the notion of SQL Saturdays hitting a saturation point.  Statements like that remind me of the guy who was the head of the patent office and said that there was nothing left to patent.  I say that because I think that if we are in fact being successful with these events, as we expand the capabilities of DBAs DBDs and BIDs around the country, we will also expand what they want to learn next.  Not to mention the value proposition that these people bring to the table at their jobs.  Who knows, maybe I’m wrong and we’ll look back at this post 4 years from now and say “wow Aaron, that was a dumb prediction wasn’t it”. 

In any event Andy Warren ( blog | twitter ) thought before we got too far into this discussion we should have a look at a map so that we’re all working from the same frame of reference.  I’m currently working on some mapping stuff that you’ll find out more about later this week so I volunteered to whip up this map.  It’s basic and shows all SQL Saturdays past and currently scheduled on the home page.  If you click on the map it will take you to a larger version of it. 

image

There looks to be a lot of open space there in the middle, plus I hear they do SQL in Canada (or at least organize events around it).

I think a city the size of Atlanta could easily handle 2 SQL Saturdays per year depending on size; and the greater L.A. area could probably handle 4 per year so long as they move it around.  What do you guys and gals think?

del.icio.us Tags: ,
← Earlier Posts Newer Posts →