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11/24/2009 SQLBits V Summary & ThanksAnother SQLBits – the fifth! – has come and gone, and I wanted to say thanks to everyone that helped to make it such a success. It was a three-day event for the first time this time, which meant that there was even more organisation work needed, but looking back I think it all went extremely smoothly and was by far the slickest conference we’ve put on so far. My colleagues on the organising committee, Simon Sabin, Martin Bell, Allan Mitchell, Darren Green and James Rowland-Jones, are a great bunch of people and it’s always a pleasure to work with them on SQLBits even if it does take a big chunk out of our spare time. Thanks are also due to the speakers and sponsors, without whom the event would not be possible, and I’d also like to highlight the people who volunteered to help out doing unglamorous things like stuffing the attendee bags and room monitoring – Rachel Clements, Jon Reade, Gary Short, Rachel Hawley, Richard Douglas, Luke Hayler and many others. If you came to SQLBits I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did enjoy it please let everyone know by blogging and twittering about it. Please also join the SQLBits groups on LinkedIn and Facebook, and if you’ve got any pictures of the event why not post them on the latter? Anyway, it’s time to crack on with some real work and deal with the big pile of emails that has built up over the last few weeks. I’ve missed a whole bunch of big announcements I would otherwise have blogged about but I’m sure you’ve caught them elsewhere… I must get round to downloading and installing the latest Powerpivot CTP etc. See you at the next SQLBits! 11/13/2009 SQLBits Agenda PublishedAt long last, the SQLBits agenda has been published: It’s not too late to register, even though SQLBits is only next week. It’s looking like it will be the largest event yet in terms of attendance… If you’re coming and you see me around, say hello! UPDATE: car sharing is live now too - http://sqlbits.com/CarSharing.aspx 11/2/2009 PASS Summit 2009I’m currently waiting to board my flight to Seattle for this year’s PASS Summit, so I thought I’d give a quick plug for my session “Designing Effective Aggregations in Analysis Services 2008”, just after lunch on Wednesday. Unfortunately I’ve been scheduled against several other interesting SSAS sessions, so all I can say is go to mine and watch the videos of the others later! I’ll also be hosting a table on ‘Performance Tuning MDX’ at the Birds of a Feather Lunch on Tuesday, so if you’d like to come and have a chat then please join me. And if you see me wandering around anywhere, however stressed/tired/drunk I might look, by all means say hello…! 10/31/2009 “SQLBits 2009” written in Task Manager10/13/2009 SQL Server Day BelgiumI’m pleased to announce I’ll be speaking at the Belgian SQL Server User Group’s one-day conference, SQL Server Day 2009, which will be taking place in Mechelen on December 3rd 2009. You can find out more about the agenda and register here: It looks like it’s going to be a great day, so if you’re in Belgium (or nearby) why not come along? 9/16/2009 Top Ten Reasons to come to SQLBitsIt seems like every conference nowadays has to come up with a ‘top ten’ of reasons to attend, doesn’t it? Well, we at SQLBits thought we shouldn’t be left out and I got the job of writing it. So, even though it’s already been used in one of our promotional emails and Simon’s already put them on his blog, I thought I’d post them up here: 10. We’re going West (Newport, to be exact)! Which is great news if you live in Wales or the South West and you get fed up with all the tech conferences being held in London or the Thames Valley. Even if you don’t live in the local area it’s only 1hr 45 by car or train from London, it’s close to Birmingham, and with Bristol and Cardiff airports nearby it’s easy to get to from anywhere in Europe. 9. SQLBits has grown to three days. We have a day of pre-conference seminars on Thursday November 19th; on Friday November 20th we have a special SQL 2008 and SQL 2008 R2 day; and on Saturday November 21st we have our flagship free community conference. That’s probably all the SQL Server education you’ll want or need this year. 8. Meet other SQL Server professionals. Are you the only DBA in the village? Do people think you’re talking about your private life when you say you’re a “BI consultant”? Do you have to pretend to be an estate agent or a lawyer at parties to avoid the stigma of being seen as an IT geek? At SQLBits you’re among friends: no-one will mind you talking about clustered indexes or the finer points of MDX syntax. 7. Attend an advanced technical training course. Got some budget for a training course, but don’t want to spend it on yet another basic Microsoft Official Curriculum course where the instructor only read the course notes the night before? Our pre-conference seminars are run by world-class SQL Server experts and will give you the knowledge you need to do your job. Our big draw is Donald Farmer doing a whole day on Gemini and self-service BI, but I’ll be running an introductory MDX course too… 6. Win some swag, drink some beer and eat some pizza. It’s not all work, work, work at SQLBits: we have great giveaways, there are loads of opportunities for socialising and there’s beer, pizza and games at the end of the day. And if you like golf, you might be interested to know that the venue, Celtic Manor Resort, has three championship courses and is playing host to the 2010 Ryder Cup. 5. Check out the latest SQL Server-related products. Don’t have time to download and test the latest tools and utilities? Our sponsors will be happy to demo them for you and provide eval versions. They’ll probably also have loads of those cheap plastic promotional freebies that your kids love. 4. Find out what’s coming in the next version. Our new SQLBits Friday event will give you the lowdown in what’s new in SQL 2008 and what’s coming in SQL 2008 R2 (including Madison, Gemini, StreamInsight, Master Data Services and changes in Reporting Services), so you can plan for the future more effectively. 3. Bring the family. Want to come to SQLBits, but feel guilty about leaving the family at home? No need, they can come too! The venue has its own swimming pools, a spa, tennis courts and restaurants as well as the golf courses. Repeat after me: “It’s not a conference, darling, it’s a luxury weekend break...” 2. Deep technical content. We won’t make you sit through hours of marketing guff from some sales guy who doesn’t know a database from a spreadsheet - SQLBits is all about SQL Server professionals sharing their hard-won technical knowledge with the community. We’ve got big names like Donald Farmer (program manager on the Analysis Services/Gemini dev team) and Thomas Kejser (from the SQLCat team), and MVPs like Simon Sabin, Allan Mitchell and me speaking. 1. Did we mention that SQLBits Saturday is FREE? Yes, as always, the SQLBits community day on Saturday November 21st is free to attend. Top-class speakers, a massive selection of sessions and 100% SQL Server focused – and you pay nothing. That’s 100% cheaper than most tech conferences! So, what are you waiting for? Register now at: Oh, and if you are already registered you might be interested to know that voting has just opened, so you can pick the sessions you’d most like to see. Last of all, would you like to win free admission to the training day of your choice, the Friday event, and free hotel acommodation at Celtic Manor for the Thursday and Friday night? Then check out our mugshot competition: 8/25/2009 SQLBits V: Registration Open!Registration for SQLBits V, which will be taking place on November 19th/20th/21st in Newport in Wales, is now open. As always, full details and information on how to register are on the site: It’s a three day event this time. Thursday November 19th will be a day of pre-conference seminars, as we had in Manchester, and I would like to point out that I’ll be running my ever-popular ‘Introduction to MDX’ course once again: Alternatively, you might be interested in attending Donald Farmer’s one-day seminar on Gemini and self-service BI: Friday the 20th is a new departure for us: a multi-track day similar to the traditional SQLBits event, but with a distinct theme of 2008 and R2, and hand-picked speakers. You’ll have to pay for this (we couldn’t afford to run two free days unfortunately) but it’s very modestly-priced (£99 if you register before the end of September) and it will have a lot of exclusive content such as more sessions from Donald Farmer. Full details are here: Saturday the 21st is the regular SQLBits, free-to-attend community day. You can register here: There’s a list of sessions already submitted here: 8/18/2009 Swiss SQL Server Saturday, Zurich, September 19thI’m doing a lot of speaking this autumn. The first event I’m going to is the first-ever Swiss SQL Saturday, which will be taking place in Zurich on September the 19th. You can find out more about it here: It’s a free-to-attend event in the well-known SQL Saturday model and there’s a very strong line-up of speakers; credit is due to Charley Hanania for organising it. I’ll be doing a session on cache-warming strategies for SSAS 2008 – it should be a spur for me to update some of the work I did on this subject a while ago. Hopefully I’ll see some of you there! 7/28/2009 SQLBits V Session Submission now openSession submission is now open for SQLBits V, which, as I said a week or two ago, is taking place near Newport in Wales on November 19th-21st. We’re looking for sessions on any SQL Server-related subject and we actively encourage submissions from people with little or no conference speaking experience – we always make room on the agenda for new faces. And it’s not an exclusively-UK event either: we’ve had quite a few European and US speakers at previous events, so if you’re looking for an excuse to come to the UK for a holiday then this is it! You can submit sessions by completing a speaker profile: and then going to: 7/8/2009 Announcing SQLBits V: SQLBits Goes West, 19th-21st November 2009Yes, it’s time to announce the next SQLBits, and this time we’re going to Newport in South Wales. It’s going to be a three day event, taking place from the 19th to the 21st of November: the first day will be pre-conference seminars, the second day(a Friday) will be a day of SQL2008 and R2 content for which we’ll be charging a modest sum, and the third day will be the usual free Saturday event. We’ll be holding it at the Celtic Manor Resort, where the 2010 Ryder Cup will be held, so make sure you pack your gold clubs… The Friday is a bit of a departure for us, but don’t worry, we won’t be turning SQLBits into just another paid-for conference. The formula for Saturday will be the same as ever but we have always been aware that there are a large number of people who simply can’t attend a conference on a Saturday. Since we don’t have the cash to run a free two-day conference, we reasoned that the people who would be interested in attending on a Friday are also likely to work for companies who can pay for training; in return for the cash, we’ll be providing a more structured set of sessions presented by well-known speakers. Anyway, all the details we have at the moment are at: Conference registration isn’t open yet but put the dates in your diary! If you register yourself on the site we’ll be able to send you regular updates. And of course, if you’re interested in sponsoring SQLBits then please let us know. PS as a tribute to our location, Martin Bell has the announcement in Welsh on his blog: 6/22/2009 Speaking at the PASS Summit 2009The agenda for the PASS Summit 2009 has been announced, and I’m pleased to say that I’ve been accepted as a speaker. A full listing of who’s speaking can be found here: I’ll be doing a session on ‘Designing Effective Aggregations in Analysis Services 2008’. Hope to see some of you there! 6/1/2009 Upcoming BI User Group EventsTwo UK SQL Server user group dates to flag up for anyone with an interest in BI:
Unfortunately I’m going to be out of the country on the 10th, but it looks like it will be a good evening… 4/28/2009 Speaking next week in ZurichI do quite a lot of work in Switzerland: I lived in Basel for three years and still have a lot of friends and business contacts there as a result. I’ll be there next week, in fact, and while I’m there I’ll be speaking at the May meeting of the Swiss PASS chapter in Zurich. I’ll be doing the same session I did at PASS Europe last week (so no prep time needed, luckily) on ‘Designing Effective Aggregations in SSAS 2008’. All the details are here: Hope to see some of you there… 3/29/2009 SQLBits IVSo, yet another SQLBits finished, and judging by the feedback we got it was the best yet. Certainly we had our highest ever attendance and the sponsors all seemed very happy (which is important because, after all, they’re the ones paying for it); we’ve also had a number of very kind emails thanking us too. Now for a few months of peace and quiet before we start planning for the next one, which I suppose will be sometime in the autumn. Any suggestions on where to hold it? Bristol, Oxford, Leeds? Incidentally, if you took any photos or videos at SQLBits why not share them on the SQLBits Facebook group? There’s also a SQLBits LinkedIn group and the #sqlbits tag on Twitter that you might want to check out too. Oh, and while you’re at it why not join the UK SQL Server User Group Facebook group as well? We’re planning some BI user group events soon, I promise. I suspect the current economic problems have had a lot to with the success of SQLBits. Apart from the fact that a free conference is the perfect answer to a reduced training budget, I guess everyone’s worried about job security and therefore keen to invest in their own education - Simon Munro wrote a good blog entry on exactly this topic last week which is worth a read. However, I found it interesting talking to other BI professionals at the conference (and yes, networking is another great reason to come along) about their pipelines because everyone was saying how busy they were at the moment. When the recession hit I was sceptical of predictions that the BI sector would survive unscathed but, although I’ll admit I’ve not been as busy this year as I was last, I’m still doing more than OK. Looking at the visitor stats for this blog and my company website, I’ve noticed hits from a number of companies that have been in the news for their, ahem, financial problems – and the conclusion I draw is that there are a lot of organisations out their who have realised how little they know about their own financial situation and hope BI software is the answer. 2/23/2009 SQL Server Conference in ItalyI'm doing some work with Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari at the moment, and for the benefit of any Italian (or Italian-speaking) readers of this blog I thought I'd mention that they are involved in organising a SQL Server conference near Milan. You can find out more and register here: It looks like they've got a lot of good BI/Analysis Services content... 2/11/2009 SQLBits IV Registration Open!Registration for SQLBits IV (the UK's - and perhaps the world's - largest free SQL Server tech conference), which will be taking place on March 28th in Manchester is now open: We've got four tracks of top-notch presentations including some very strong BI sessions. I'll be speaking, and among other speakers we've got SSIS-superstar Jamie 'two-blogs' Thomson for the first time. You can see the agenda here: I'm also doing a pre-conference seminar "Introduction to MDX": 2/6/2009 PASS European Conference 2009 and Analysis Services MonitoringLast November, at the PASS Summit in Seattle, I presented a session on building a monitoring solution for Analysis Services, Integration Services and Reporting Services which seemed to go down pretty well. I was lucky in that the SQLCat team presented a very similar session, although just covering Analysis Services, the next day - so at least I got to present first! Anyway, I see that they've just got round to publishing their material on this subject here: Meanwhile, I'll be working on expanding my material (which was a bit rough-and-ready) into a full day pre-conference seminar which I'll be presenting with Allan Mitchell at the PASS European Conference, on April 22nd-24th in Neuss in Germany: Allan, being the SSIS expert, will be covering that side of things and rewriting my packages so they're rather more robust; that will allow me to concentrate on the SSAS/SSRS side of things, which I know better. We have a vague plan to release all of our code on Codeplex or somewhere similar; I know a lot of people are also interested in this area. With a bit of luck I'll also be speaking at the main conference, but I don't think the full agenda hasn't been decided yet. I had a good time there last year and hopefully I'll see some of you there this year too! 1/26/2009 SQLBits IV voting now openWe've now closed session submission for SQLBits IV, which will be taking place on March 28th in Manchester. Once again we've had a great response and it's now time to vote for which of the 83 submitted sessions you'd like to see; to do this you need to register on the site and then go to http://www.sqlbits.com/information/PublicSessions.aspx and choose the sessions you'd like to see. 1/5/2009 UK BI User Group meeting next weekOK, this is rather short notice I know but the UK SQL Server User Group is hosting a BI evening event next week, on January 15th at Microsoft's HQ in Reading: Since this is the rumoured date for Microsoft laying off 15% of its staff, you might be advised to wear some wellies in case you step in a puddle of blood on the floor. Hopefully all the BI folks will be ok though... Anyway if you follow the link you'll see that I'm one of the speakers: I'll be repeating the session I did at PASS last year on building a monitoring solution for Integration Services, Analysis Services and Reporting Services. Also speaking will be Allan Mitchell, on his new pet hobby of data mining. Hope to see you there! 12/23/2008 SQLBits IV Manchester - Submit a Session!The next SQLBits will be taking place in Manchester (in the UK) on March 28th 2009, and if you're interested in submitting a session you can now do so here: Remember, we're always looking for new blood so don't be nervous and have a go at speaking! We're also looking for sponsors too: Hope to see you there! |
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