I'm hoping they have enough wine to go with all that cheese.

The announcements came out yesterday and I can now tell the world that I will be presenting at TechEd this year. Denny Cherry (blog | @mrdenny) and I will be doing a precon seminar at TechEd in Orlando in June. The title is “Microsoft SQL Server Performance Tuning and Optimization” and we are very excited to have this opportunity.

And apparently Microsoft is excited to have us as well, because they are also sending the two of us to Amsterdam to do a repeat performance two weeks later for TechEd Europe.

Go and get yourself registered for Orlando, Amsterdam, or both!

I’m making a list of all the things I want to see and do in Amsterdam while there, and I’m putting Van Halen at the top of the list followed by eating a raw herring while wearing wooden shoes and sitting under a windmill.

This Saturday I will be in Louisville, Kentucky, to present two sessions. One of the sessions is a joint session with Tim Chapman, and it is something brand-new that has never been seen before called “Choose Your Own Adventure: Performance Tuning“. And yeah, we are very excited to be building out a series of CYOA sessions. And since we can’t be everywhere all the time, Tim and I have asked for help from Jason Strate (blog | @stratesql) and Tim Ford (blog | @sqlagentman). The four of us are looking to give the CYOA series at various SQL Saturday events in 2012. But we really have no idea if it will work or not. This Saturday is v1.0, so if you attend please provide us some feedback.

The other session I have is one I have done before and received great reviews on:

Monitoring Databases in a Virtual Environment

Abstract: When moving databases to a virtual environment the performance metrics DBAs typically use to troubleshoot performance issues such as O/S metrics, storage configurations, CPU allocation and more become unreliable. DBAs no longer have a clear, reliable view of the factors impacting database performance. Understanding the difference between the physical and virtual server environment adds a new dimension to the DBA tasks. This presentation describes the changes that DBAs need to make in their performance and monitoring practices.

What this means: It means that when you go virtual you have an extra layer of abstraction to investigate as a possible root cause. Failure to do so will cause you to waste time when trying to resolve performance bottlenecks. Since I HATE wasting time I will walk you through some performance scenarios and help guide you to making better decisions about resolving possible performance issues.

Who should attend: Anyone running SQL Server on VMWare and is still using Task Manager to determine if there is a problem. On second thought, I don’t want you coming, you are probably going to be more trouble than you’re worth. I want people coming that have heard of vSphere, or vCenter, but don’t know the difference, or why they should care about them. I’ll make you care, I promise.

There you go, see you Saturday, I can’t wait to hear what I will say!

Sitting on the plane, just a few rows back from Mark Souza, and a few rows ahead of James Rowland-Jones as we head to Seattle for the PASS Summit. We met some else on our flight heading to the Summit as well, and I know of a few folks on other planes arriving around the same time that we will. Mark and JRJ are going to head to the Microsoft campus for some meetings and I am going to head downtown and hope to be in my hotel room by around lunchtime.

If I was a bit more organized I would have put together a Summit Preview blog post using quotes from the movie Highlander. Why that movie? Simple, because right now I feel as if this is our Quickening, where all the immortals gather to sort out who will be “the one” and win the Prize.

Well, I would use that movie except for one little detail. The SQL Community is not about one person, winning a prize for having bested all the other immortals over a thousand year battle. Instead, to me, the entire SQL Community is “the one”. And while we are still a tad shy of having been on Earth for one thousand years in many ways the kindness we show to each other and to the first timers we meet along the way seems to be a part of human nature that goes back tens of thousands of years.

You are going to hear this phrase a lot this week: This is Community. When you look around the room during the keynote it will be hard for you to feel otherwise.

To me the Summit is a lot of things: a Community, a gathering, the Quickening, a summer camp, the Super Bowl of SQL conferences, a place where I can hear many different languages being spoken, and a place where I can help make a difference.

I don’t know of any other place quite like it for SQL geeks like myself.

See you soon.

I am sitting in my usual seat (3D) flying home from the SQL Saturday event (#97) in Austin. This event has cracked my top five events for the year, despite my almost having been murdered in my motel the night before. I’m not joking. Ask anyone else who stayed there if they also felt like we were in a scene from “No Country For Old Men“. I guarantee the answer is “yes”.

I only had one talk (SQL Server Memory Management, a tune up for the same talk I am giving at PASS next week), and I only attended one talk (by Conor on the columnstore in Denali) during the day, but I met some truly wonderful people during the day of the event, as well as the night before during the speaker dinner. I think I even recorded some video that night, and will post it once I find it.

During the morning introductions Wes Brown mentioned that I had the honor of being the very first speaker to sign up for the event. I reminded Wes that he promised me bacon (which was NEVER delivered) and that’s why I came to Austin. But the truth is that I came because Wes asked. It really was that simple.

I have known Wes for a few years now, and he is one of those people on this Earth that I drop everything for when they ask for a favor. When he told me he was having an event, I didn’t hesitate to register, regardless of the bacon factor. There are times when I am simply in awe that Wes F’n Brown would even talk to me, so it is natural for me to want to serve him in any way possible. I am already counting the days until I can return to Austin.

This was a wonderful event, mostly because nobody lost their life despite the high probability for those of us at that motel. (Then again, we *were* right across from a hospital, so chances are we would have been saved, but I really don’t know). It was great to connect with some old friends as well as to make lots of new ones.

I am quite honored to be a member of this Community.

Thank you.

This Saturday I will be in Kalamazoo, which I thought was the birthplace of Derek Jeter but it turns out that he was born in New Jersey and moved to K-zoo when he was four. I am guessing that as part of the speaker dinner we will also get a tour of Jeter’s childhood home but I haven’t been able to confirm those details yet. Needless to say you can rest assured I will take pictures of the house should I get a chance.

I have two sessions lined up for Saturday. Here is what they are about:

Monitoring Databases in a Virtual Environment

Abstract: When moving databases to a virtual environment the performance metrics DBAs typically use to troubleshoot performance issues such as O/S metrics, storage configurations, CPU allocation and more become unreliable. DBAs no longer have a clear, reliable view of the factors impacting database performance. Understanding the difference between the physical and virtual server environment adds a new dimension to the DBA tasks. This presentation describes the changes that DBAs need to make in their performance and monitoring practices.

What this means: It means that when you go virtual you have an extra layer of abstraction to investigate as a possible root cause. Failure to do so will cause you to waste time when trying to resolve performance bottlenecks. I will walk you through some performance scenarios as well and help guide you to making better decisions about architecture, design, and resolving issues.

Who should attend: Anyone running SQL Server on VMWare and is still using Task Manager to determine if there is a problem. On second thought, I don’t want you coming, you are probably going to be more trouble than you’re worth. I want people coming that have heard of vSphere, or vCenter, but don’t know the difference, or why they should care about them. I also want people who have extra slices of bacon, since this talk is close to breakfast time.

Waits and Queues and You

Abstract: Many database professional have little to no understanding about how to use wait events as part of an overall performance tuning process. And yet wait events are the secret sauce that many leading experts have been using for years. Attend this talk and you will gain an understanding of the SQLOS execution model, an understanding of how to use DMVs to find out what your queries are waiting for, and why using wait events could be the best thing to happen for your career as a DBA.

What this means: I am going to explain to you how the database engine processes statements in terms of the “running-waiting-runnable” cycle. And I am going to do so by drawing comparisons between the SQLOS and to the most efficient, professional, consistent organization on Earth: the TSA.

Who should attend: Anyone that has never heard of the SQLOS, or has gone through a TSA checkpoint. But only if they don’t ask any questions because the talk is late in the day and I will likely need a nap.

There you go, see you Saturday, I can’t wait to hear what I will say!

I had a great time this past week in South Florida. First up was the PASS Board of Directors meeting on Thursday and Friday. We chose Ft. Lauderdale as the location for our meeting because it gave us all a chance to visit a SQL Saturday event, similar to what we did in Nashville last year. After getting our business done on Friday we went over to the speaker dinner where I got to meet a handful of the local user group members such as Scott Klein.

The event on Saturday was very well run and had a great facility. The best way to describe it? Think “mall food court atrium”. We had plenty of space, the vendor tables were position all around the perimeter so that the people would flow around us all day. Any time I attend a SQL Saturday event that allows for people to interact easily (like KC and the old casino) I consider it to have the makings of a great event. I’ve seen a lot of venues over the past two years and to me that is the main differentiator between them all.

We didn't have the balloons, but we did have tables for folks to sit at.

I was originally scheduled to do two talks but about a week before the event I was asked if I could do a third talk because someone had backed out. Naturally I said yes as it gave me the chance to try out a brand new talk regarding database monitoring in a virtual environment. After my first talk of the day I went back to the Confio table and heard Scott make the following announcement:

“Is there anyone willing to speak right now? We had a speaker no-show and there is a group in the room waiting.”

I quickly said “yes”, followed by “what should I talk about”. The Quest rep at the table next to me said “I think you should talk about Foglight for the next hour” which was his way of telling me that he really doesn’t know me. I agreed to talk about Foglight and had to ask him three times if he really wanted that. Eventually he looked at me and said he would pay me to NOT talk for the next hour.

I went into the room and told everyone that I wasn’t the guy they were expecting to see and that if they had a second option they wanted to attend they should go to that one because I didn’t have any presentation materials. Then I asked what the session was supposed to be about and they told me SQL Server Audit. As it happens, I did some talks on SQL Server Audit as recently as 16 months ago, so I told them I would go see if I did have some slides. I came back with my laptop five minutes later and sure enough I had some slides. About a dozen people stuck around to listen to me talk about SQL Server Audit despite not having prepared anything for them.

I got through that talk OK, the best parts had to be me looking at a slide and saying “I have no idea what this is for”. Most of those slides were pictures that had helped to enhance my story, but I had long forgotten the story. My favorite slide had to be the one that just said “DEMO”, which took me by surprise. I think I managed to get through the demo of SQL Server Audit anyway, but the fact that each slide was like Christmas morning was an interesting experience.

So I ended up doing four sessions on the day, was able to stay around for the vendor drawing, and then boarded my flight home. I got in about 1AM and slept for most of the day on Sunday.

And if you pressed me for a ranking, I would tell you that SQL Saturday #79 has entered my Top Five Favorite SQL Saturday events of all time.

Great job to everyone that made it happen.

I have no idea if those two items are related or not but I felt it warrants mentioning.

Anyway, this Saturday I will be in South Florida, which is apparently the new name for Miami. No, I don’t know how or why we need to call it “South Florida”, but if they really wanted me to visit more often they would call it “North Cuba, serve me pork sandwiches, cut power to my hotel room every few hours, and give me fantastic healthcare.

I have three (!) sessions lined up for Saturday. That is officially a record for me, I have never done three sessions at one event before. I usually only submit one session for consideration because I don’t like to take away a speaking slot from someone else that needs the chance to speak and grow their presentation skills. Not that I don’t need the same help, I just have many more opportunities than most. I happened to submit two this time, then a third, only had two of those accepted, and then when someone backed out I was asked to step in. So, there you go, you’ll have three chances to hear me go on and on about the topics below:

SQL Server Memory Management

Abstract: Are you suffering from memory issues? Is your SQL Server configured for proper memory management? Attend this session and learn how to best determine if you are suffering from memory pressure, how to resolve issues that result from memory pressure, and how to properly configure your SQL Server to minimize the chance of having memory issues.

What this means: I come across MANY customers and clients that are seeing memory pressure but have little understanding of how a few simple configuration changes can make a big difference when it comes to SQL Server memory management.

Who should attend: Anyone that is running Win2003, 32-bit version, with 4GB of RAM, is expected to be attending this session. And I *know* there are more of you out there than would care to admit to this, just like the masses that are still running SQL 2000. Others that should attend are people who are unfamiliar with terms like VAS and VMM, or how memory pressure can be external or internal.

Monitoring Databases in a Virtual Environment

Abstract: When moving databases to a virtual environment the performance metrics DBAs typically use to troubleshoot performance issues such as O/S metrics, storage configurations, CPU allocation and more become unreliable. DBAs no longer have a clear, reliable view of the factors impacting database performance. Understanding the difference between the physical and virtual server environment adds a new dimension to the DBA tasks. This presentation describes the changes that DBAs need to make in their performance and monitoring practices.

What this means: It means that when you go virtual you have an extra layer of abstraction to investigate as a possible root cause. Failure to do so will cause you to waste time when trying to resolve performance bottlenecks. I will walk you through some performance scenarios as well and help guide you to making better decisions about architecture, design, and resolving issues.

Who should attend: Anyone running SQL Server on VMWare and is still using Task Manager to determine if there is a problem. On second thought, I don’t want you coming, you are probably going to be more trouble than you’re worth. I want people coming that have heard of vSphere, or vCenter, but don’t know the difference, or why they should care about them. I also want people who have extra slices of bacon, since this talk is close to lunchtime.

Waits and Queues and You

Abstract: Many database professional have little to no understanding about how to use wait events as part of an overall performance tuning process. And yet wait events are the secret sauce that many leading experts have been using for years. Attend this talk and you will gain an understanding of the SQLOS execution model, an understanding of how to use DMVs to find out what your queries are waiting for, and why using wait events could be the best thing to happen for your career as a DBA.

What this means: I am going to explain to you how the database engine processes statements in terms of the “running-waiting-runnable” cycle. And I am going to do so by drawing comparisons between the SQLOS and to the most efficient, professional, consistent organization on Earth: the TSA.

Who should attend: Anyone that has never heard of the SQLOS, or has gone through a TSA checkpoint. But only if they don’t ask any questions because I need to make a flight home immediately after finishing this talk.

There you go, see you Saturday, I can’t wait to hear what I will say!

Today is the fifth and final preview for my sessions at the upcoming SQL Excursions in Napa. A quick recap of the previous four:

1. Query Performance Tuning Made Easy
2. SQL Server Memory Management
3. Powershell
4. Resource Governor

I like lists. I like lists a lot. I use lists frequently. I like them so much I started keeping a list of the top SQL bloggers (a list which is, in my opinion, nothing scientific, so please NO WAGERING). So when Denny asked me if I wanted to do a session on the next version of SQL Server (code named ‘Denali’), I jumped at the chance.

But instead of just doing a highlight of some new items, or a Top Ten list, I thought I would do something a little bit edgier, you know, like counting UP TO ELEVEN. That’s right, in Napa I am going to share with you my Top Eleven Favorite New Things in SQL11!

Abstract:

I will list, and discuss, my favorite top eleven new things in SQL 11.

What this really means:

You’ll see a list of eleven items, hear me say their names out loud, and we will walk through examples of each while discussing their usage in various scenarios.

Three things you will learn:

1. You’ll actually learn 11 things.
2. Unless you already knew some of them, like contained databases, in which case you’ll learn slightly less than 11 things.
3. Chances are it will be more than three things, though.

It’s like going to camp. We’ll even tell scary stories around a campfire at night.

Following the posts from Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, today I will continue with a preview of the sessions I will be giving at the upcoming SQL Excursions event in Napa.

OK, let’s talk Resource Governor!

Abstract:

As more and more shops look to consolidate their systems (and database servers) it is becoming increasingly important to ensure that performance remains consistent. One way to achieve that consistency is through the use of Resource Governor. Introduced with SQL 2008, this feature allows for you to better manage the workload on your database server.

What this really means:

I’ll show you how to use Resource Governor and discuss various scenarios where the use of Resource Governor would be warranted.

Three things you will learn:

1. How to configure Resource Governor resource pools, workload groups, and classifier functions.
2. How to best determine Resource Governor requirements.
3. How to monitor Resource Governor usage and statistics.

It’s like going to camp. We’ll even tell scary stories around a campfire at night.

Continuing from Monday and Tuesday, today I offer details on another of the sessions I will be presenting while in Napa. Today I will go over some of the details regarding my session on Powershell.

Abstract:

Powershell is everywhere. You hear it mentioned as a solution to just about every problem imaginable. And yet you haven’t taken the time to learn enough about Powershell to get started using it. Leave this session with enough knowledge to get started using Powershell right away.

What this really means:

I am going to show you how to use Powershell to perform your scripting needs. We will go over what tools you can use to create scripts, how to deploy scripts, and go through various scenarios to help you understand when to best use Powershell.

Three things you will learn:

1. How to perform standard DBA tasks using Powershell
2. How to manage your enterprise using Powershell
3. How to use Powershell to create reports

It’s like going to camp. We’ll even tell scary stories around a campfire at night.