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Free Full-Day Training Event: Community Day 2010!

May 11, 2010 in Events | No comments

Now that the calendar has been filled and the registration opened, it’s time for another free event announcement: Community Day 2010!

A total of 14 different Belgian User Groups focused on Microsoft technology will be delivering sessions all day long, a total of 24. The SQLUG will deliver two sessions.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up for a full day of free training!

And if you’re a LinkedIn user, don’t forget to add the event to your list: Community Day 2010 on LinkedIn. Ow, and post a comment here if you’re going. I’d like to find out if any Belgians are actually reading this (most of my visitors are from the US).

As for the food department: there won’t be any French (French??) fries this year. I wonder what they’ve got for us this time. Me personally I wouldn’t mind if the “fritkot” was replaced with a Burger King “fetchpoint”. Okay, it’s probably not as healthy as some other choices, but who cares at that stage? All we want is food and the requirements are: good taste, and plenty of it! After all, we’re still in a movie theatre, which is not really the place to go to when you’re on a health trip. We’ll eat a piece of fruit when we get back home. But I wouldn’t say no to a good glass of freshly squeezed OJ in the morning, followed by a croissant and a strong coffee

Practical event details
Location: Utopolis Mechelen (Map)
Address: Spuibeekstraat 5 2800 Mechelen
Event date: Thursday June 24th
Start & end time: 8.30 – 18.30

Social
Community Day on Twitter: #comday2010

Need more info? Click here.

Happy learning, and see you there!

Valentino.

Tags: Community Event, SQLUG

Free SQLUG Event: SCOM 2007 R2 And Managing SQL Server

May 6, 2010 in Events | No comments

No excuses for not attending if you’re a SQL Server DBA, system administrator or just interested in the subject. It’s a free training event, it’s presented by Ricardo Noulez and it’s taking place in the Microsoft offices in Zaventem.

When?

Thursday, April 20th, 2010

Where?

Microsoft België
Corporate Village
Leonardo Da Vincilaan 3
1935 Zaventem

More info

Managing SQL Server requires insight in the state and performance of the underlying infrastructure, OS and individual SQL components.

System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 cannot only give you that insight, but it can be reused in a broader application/service monitoring view.
This session focuses on the out-of-the-box capabilities of System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 but also shows you how a distributed application can easily reuse these capabilities to provide an extra step in monitoring.

About Ricardo Noulez

Ricardo Noulez is a Senior Consultant at Microsoft Consulting Services in the Benelux. Been with Microsoft since January 2002 as a subject matter expert in Microsoft Operations Manager (now System Center Operations Manager) and Systems Management Server (System Center Configuration Manager). Ricardo has a great focus around the System Center product family and he is currently expanding his horizons towards the System Center Service Manager product. He is always interested in finding ways to improve the way that customers manage their IT environment and has certifications and great affinity with ITIL good practices and the MOF framework to help them achieve this. In the first third of his 18 year career, Ricardo was a developer but gradually converted himself to Systems Management and IT operations. This gives him a broad understanding in the different needs and view-points of all technical players that make IT ideas come true.

Click here for more info or here to register!

See you there,

Valentino

Tags: Community Event, data, SQLUG

Another 24 Hours Of PASS

April 28, 2010 in Events | No comments

Just like last year, PASS will organize another 24 hours of PASS virtual conference. If you’re not familiar with this, it’s 24 hours of free SQL Server-related training. Each session takes one hour, making 24 sessions in total.

I think the most difficult part of attending this event is combining it with your job/family. Last year I was lucky: I happened to have a day off and at home we didn’t have anything big planned, so I was able to pick up a few sessions. This year I’m not having any holidays in that period so I’ll need to filter quite well. Or be lucky with the timing. Which doesn’t seem to be the case: it’s a Wednesday and Wednesday means I go swimming with our oldest daughter in the evening.

So, hopefully the videos are available for download afterwards, then I’ll have something to watch on the train commuting to work.

The event will take place on May 19th, 2010, starting at 12:00 GMT (UTC).

Obviously, the focus will be on the newly released R2. So what are you waiting for? Go register before it’s sold out, it’s free!

What sessions am I interested in?

Session 05 (BI) – Start time 16:00 GMT
Implementing MDM Using SQL Server 2008 R2 Master Data Services
Presenter: Rushabh Mehta

Session 06 (DBA) – Start time 17:00 GMT
What’s Really Happening on Your Server? 15 Powerful SQL Server Dynamic Management Objects
Presenter: Adam Machanic

Session 10 (DBA) – Start time 21:00 GMT
Using Data Compression with SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2
Presenter: Maciej Pilecki

Session 11 (BI) – Start time 22:00 GMT
Easier than Ever Report Authoring in SSRS 2008 R2
Presenter: Jessica M. Moss

Session 12 (Dev) – Start time 23:00 GMT
High Performance Functions
Presenter: Simon Sabin

Session 15 (BI) – Start time 02:00 GMT
Producing Dashboards with PerformancePoint Services
Presenter: Peter Myers

Session 16 (BI) – Start time 03:00 GMT
Reporting Services Enhancements in SQL Server 2008
Presenter: Greg Low

Session 24 (DBA) – Start time: 11:00 GMT
BLITZ! 60 Minute Server Takeovers
Presenter: Brent Ozar

72 Hours Of PASS

Or better, that’s what the European PASS Conference stands for. I went there last week and had a great time! I met some friends over there, was able to put a face to some names which I already knew through the almighty internet, and had a chat with people I never met before. Really good experience.

And that’s not all of course, I saw some really interesting sessions as well! Let’s see, what sessions made me take out my notebook? (No, not to surf, the old paper version!)

There was of course the pre-conference by Donald Farmer. He’s worth seeing just for his Scottish accent alone. And on top of that, he’s one of the better speakers that I’ve ever seen. And he’s “the BI guy from Microsoft” Initially I was planning to see the sessions by Adam Saxton but after seeing some memory dump analysis I decided that I would probably never do that myself anyway… I think once you’re on that level, it’s time that you apply for a job at Microsoft.

So, what other sessions did I take notes at? Chris Webb and his session about DAX. Until now I haven’t had the time to play with PowerPivot, but I think time has come to get it installed. He gave some quite interesting tips, such as the one on the Time table that shouldn’t end in the middle of the year.

Later on I saw Markus Raatz about the hidden BI treasures on CodePlex. Yes Markus, if it were up to me you’ll be doing the sequel next year!

I also made some notes during another Chris Webb session, about warming SSAS cache. A tip that I noted down: do not use subqueries in your MDX (such as the ones generated by the query designer in Reporting Services) because the global cache will not be used.

I saw several more speakers but won’t go into detail on those sessions. Except for this last one: the session on PowerPivot (and everything that’s related to it) by Kasper de Jonge. It was one of the last sessions on Friday, and we finally saw some interesting (read: not repeated for the n-th time) demos using PowerPivot. Well done Kasper! You were one of the lesser-experienced speakers (mind: I’m referring to speaking experience here, not technical!) and you were far better than some other speaker with years of experience (I won’t mention his name here but those who saw the presentation must know who I’m talking about).

That’s it for now people, have fun!

Valentino.

Tags: Community Event, PASS

Save up to 35% for the PASS European Conference

March 6, 2010 in Events | No comments

As I have recently become a core-member of the Belgian SQLUG, you’re probably going to see a bit more spread-the-word posts about interesting events or other advantages, such as this one.

The Belgian SQL Server User Group offers a significant 35% discount for its members (even more than the early-bird discount) for any PASS European Conference 2010 registration.

Use discount code BEC15Y and enjoy your savings on the registration.

For more information check out the SQLUG website. PASS European Conference 2010 is Europe’s premier conference for SQL Server technical education and business networking. Meet top SQL Server experts from Europe and around the world. Learn about best practices, effective troubleshooting, how to prevent issues, save money, and build a better SQL Server environment for your company or clients.

A while ago I already blogged about the sessions that I’m planning to see (which reminds that I should have another look at the agenda and update my list there )

Have fun!

Valentino.

Tags: Community Event, SQL Server 2008 R2, SQLUG