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SQLSaturday #372 - Exeter 2015

Start Time (24h) Speaker Track Title
00:00:00 Alex Yates Other The elephant in the room: Continuous Delivery for Databases
08:00:00 Dejan Sarka Track 01 Analizing Text with SQL Server 2014 and R
08:00:00 Ed Elliott Track 2 Practical advice on how to get started using source control, ssdt and ci
08:00:00 Pieter Vanhove Track 3 Run your DBA morning checklist with policy based management while sipping coffee
08:00:00 Tony Davis Track 4 You did WHAT to my transaction log?!
08:00:00 Prathy Kamasani Track 3 Loading Dimensions with SSIS
09:00:00 Tobias Koprowski Track 3 Certification and IT Career - Self Case Study
09:25:00 Kevan Riley Track 4 Introduction to Execution Plans
09:25:00 Stephanie Locke Track 01 Agile BI
09:25:00 Allan Mitchell Track 2 Azure Data Factory - The New SSIS?
10:45:00 Cathrine Wilhelmsen Track 01 Biml for Beginners: Generating SSIS packages with BimlScript
10:45:00 David Morrison Track 4 Statistics, Estimation Plan Caching - The Big Three
10:45:00 James Skipwith Track 3 Database Partitioning - Part I
10:45:00 Rob Sewell Track 2 Making PowerShell useful for your team
11:45:00 James Skipwith Track 3 Database Partitioning - Part II
11:45:00 Rasmus Reinholdt Track 01 Building a meta-driven near realtime ETL solution with BIML and SSIS
11:45:00 Al Eardley Track 2 SharePoint Databases - What you need to know
11:45:00 Richard Douglas Track 4 Top Down Tuning
13:05:00 Alex Yates Other The first step towards continuous integration for SQL Server
14:00:00 n/a n/a Track 01 Session Details not available
14:00:00 Lord Richard Douglas Track 4 SQL Server 2014 Features EVERYONE Can Use
14:00:00 Andrew Fryer Other Machine Learning without a PhD in statisitcs
15:20:00 Mladen Prajdić Track 3 SQL Server and Application Security for Developers
15:20:00 Terry McCann Track 01 SSRS Inception: Reporting on Reporting services.
15:20:00 William Durkin Track 2 Stories from the Trenches: Upgrading SQL with Minimal Downtime
15:20:00 André Kamman Track 4 Visualizing performance tuning data
16:20:00 Bob Duffy Track 2 When good SQL design goes bad
16:20:00 John Martin Track 3 Microsoft SQL Server AlwaysOn in a Multi-Site world
16:20:00 Neil Hambly Track 4 Load Testing With SQL Server Tools
16:20:00 Oz Locke Other SSRS - After the Begining (formerly But SSRS Can't Do That)

SessionID: 9211

The elephant in the room: Continuous Delivery for Databases

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 00:00:00 - Track: Other

Speaker: Alex Yates

Title: The elephant in the room: Continuous Delivery for Databases

Abstract:

Let’s talk about constraints. What’s holding you back from achieving Continuous Delivery?

Databases.

If it’s painful, do it often... Your app is automatically integrated, tested and packaged for deployment in minutes. But what about databases?

Of course, databases come with complications and risks. We’ll talk about both the human and technical changes which are necessary to achieve a reliable, nimble, and automated database deployment process.

You’ll learn how to bring Dev and Ops closer together as well as customize established practices and existing toolsets to build a database deployment pipeline and speed up delivery while at the same time protecting the data (and your sanity).

There will be four example scenarios to choose from based on four different technology stacks - so for the demo you can vote on your favourite tooling!

By the end of the session, delegates will have learned that the elephant in the room is now: ‘Why aren’t we doing Continuous Delivery for d

SessionID: 13548

Analizing Text with SQL Server 2014 and R

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 08:00:00 - Track: Track 01

Speaker: Dejan Sarka

Title: Analizing Text with SQL Server 2014 and R

Abstract:

SessionID: 13657

Practical advice on how to get started using source control, ssdt and ci

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 08:00:00 - Track: Track 2

Speaker: Ed Elliott

Title: Practical advice on how to get started using source control, ssdt and ci

Abstract:

Being more agile sounds like the right thing to do, unit testing, source control even SSDT should help to make us Sql Developers more productive and happier but how do we actually do it?

This is a talk about how to start with an existing database and drag it kicking and screaming into source control.

We will cover what practical choices of IDE there are and how to use them to help, rather than hinder the development process.

In a nutshell, how do we become more agile on our Sql development!

SessionID: 22144

Run your DBA morning checklist with policy based management while sipping coffee

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 08:00:00 - Track: Track 3

Speaker: Pieter Vanhove

Title: Run your DBA morning checklist with policy based management while sipping coffee

Abstract:

In my job as a SQL Consultant, I have my weekly recurring customers. They don’t have a DBA, so I have to perform the daily DBA checklist on a weekly basis ;) Initially, I've started with executing some T-SQL scripts to verify the SQL Servers. But as more servers were installed, my DBA checklist became really time consuming and I didn't even have the time for a coffee… In this session you will learn how you can perform your DBA morning checklist while sipping coffee. I will demonstrate how you can use Policy Based Management to evaluate your servers and how I configured my setup. By the end of this session, I guarantee you will have more time for your morning coffee!

SessionID: 27041

You did WHAT to my transaction log?!

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 08:00:00 - Track: Track 4

Speaker: Tony Davis

Title: You did WHAT to my transaction log?!

Abstract:

You won't believe what people will do to the transaction log when they get into trouble. The log is full! The application is experiencing strange errors! Do something! In this session, I will apply commonly suggested advice from internet search results and various forums, in search of a fast remedy for explosive log growth. How bad could it be?! Fortunately, once you understand what the transaction log looks like, how SQL Server uses it to guarantee database consistency, and the factors that can prevent reuse of log space, the dangers of 'quick fix' advice will become readily apparent, as will the right way to diagnose and fix a full log file. Note: no production servers will be harmed during this presentation.

SessionID: 36208

Loading Dimensions with SSIS

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 08:00:00 - Track: Track 3

Speaker: Prathy Kamasani

Title: Loading Dimensions with SSIS

Abstract:

There are many different ways of using SSIS to load data into a Data Warehouse. To populate a simple star schema it is quite easy to use an SCD transformation task in SSIS. But when you want to handle advanced Data Warehouse requirements such as Type 3 SCDs, auditing execution details, error logs and fast performance, the SCD transformation makes it difficult. In this session I will present a pattern which can handle these in a scalable , efficient way in SSIS.I will also show how this pattern will benefit us when we use the Kimball audit model ,SSISDB and the SSIS catalog in SQL Server 2012.

SessionID: 18786

Certification and IT Career - Self Case Study

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 09:00:00 - Track: Track 3

Speaker: Tobias Koprowski

Title: Certification and IT Career - Self Case Study

Abstract:

Several years of work in one industry. A few years in another. The first professional exams, certification and specialization. For last few years, the next - this time in ICT. Even more exams (successful or not), the requirements, specializations, orientations. Is certification for information technology or information technology for the certification? Where to start, what to stop. Where is the end to the possibilities, and where the boundary joy of work. As far as proving something to someone in need IT career. These and several other strange, philosophical, perhaps unnecessary questions I will answer. A few would be left to their own assessment.

SessionID: 18260

Introduction to Execution Plans

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 09:25:00 - Track: Track 4

Speaker: Kevan Riley

Title: Introduction to Execution Plans

Abstract:

Maybe you are a developer who is quite comfortable writing T-SQL queries and stored procedures, but maybe someone has started asking about performance issues. Maybe you have tuned the query and it runs fine; maybe someone is asking for you to tune it that little bit more, but you don't know where to start. Maybe someone has mentioned execution plans, but you don't really know much about them. In this session Kevan will explain what execution plans are, where they come from, what they are used for and why are they so important that everyone keeps going on about them. You will find out how to produce them, how to understand them and how to use them to find opportunities for further performance tuning. This session will take you to the next level of understanding what SQL Server is doing under the covers when it runs your query.

SessionID: 35931

Agile BI

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 09:25:00 - Track: Track 01

Speaker: Stephanie Locke

Title: Agile BI

Abstract:

Agile methodologies are widely used in the dev world and are becoming increasingly adopted in the database world. But what about BI?

Covering the technology and process sides of enabling agile BI, this session is designed to give you practical tips to get things moving more quickly for you.

SessionID: 9324

Azure Data Factory - The New SSIS?

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 09:25:00 - Track: Track 2

Speaker: Allan Mitchell

Title: Azure Data Factory - The New SSIS?

Abstract:

For a long time people have been asking where is SSIS for the cloud. Truth is it was never going to happen. Azure Data Factory has been designed from the ground up. It is designed for moving data at scale and with agility. Come to this session to learn about this new service and how it come provide value to your business processes

SessionID: 11237

Biml for Beginners: Generating SSIS packages with BimlScript

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 10:45:00 - Track: Track 01

Speaker: Cathrine Wilhelmsen

Title: Biml for Beginners: Generating SSIS packages with BimlScript

Abstract:

SSIS is a powerful tool for extracting, transforming and loading data, but creating the actual SSIS packages can be both tedious and time-consuming. Even if you use templates and follow best practices you often have to repeat the same steps over and over again. There are no easy ways to handle metadata and schema changes, and if there are new requirements you might have to go through all the packages one more time. It's time to bring the Don't Repeat Yourself principle to SSIS development.

In this session I will use the free BIDS Helper add-in to show you the basics of Biml and BimlScript, how to generate SSIS packages automatically from databases, how easy those packages can be changed, and how to move common code to separate files that can be included where needed. See why they say Biml allows you to complete in a day what once took more than a week!

This session is intended for SSIS developers who are not yet familiar with Biml.

SessionID: 12847

Statistics, Estimation Plan Caching - The Big Three

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 10:45:00 - Track: Track 4

Speaker: David Morrison

Title: Statistics, Estimation Plan Caching - The Big Three

Abstract:

In this session we will take an in depth look at statistics, how they are built, stored and used. We will go over why they are so important and what role they play in selecting a query plan. We will also take a look into estimation and how this affects query plan selection and how estimation and statistics tie together.

Also in this session we will take a look into plan caching, what it is, why it is done and how it can be both a help and a hindrance.

Using lots of demos and examples attendees will leave the session with a greater understanding of these three key areas and also the tools and techniques to work with and understand them in their own enviroments

SessionID: 15656

Database Partitioning - Part I

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 10:45:00 - Track: Track 3

Speaker: James Skipwith

Title: Database Partitioning - Part I

Abstract:

In Session One: - Just what is database partitioning? - Do I even need it? - So what can be done in Standard edition? Knowledge is power and after these sessions those big tables won’t be so scary anymore. They can be tamed and will soon be purring like a kitten. It’s never all pain-free sailing partitioning large live tables but, armed with the correct knowledge, you can start planning and implementing your partitioning. Sweet.

SessionID: 21124

Making PowerShell useful for your team

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 10:45:00 - Track: Track 2

Speaker: Rob Sewell

Title: Making PowerShell useful for your team

Abstract:

Making PowerShell useful for your team

You have heard about PowerShell and may be spent a little bit of time exploring some of the ways in which it will benefit you at work. You want to be able to perform tasks more specific to your organisation and need to share them with your team. I will show you how you can achieve this by demonstrating An easy way to learn the syntax How to explore SQL Server with Powershell How to turn your one off scripts into shareable functions How to ensure that your team can easily and quickly make use of and contribute to PowerShell solutions Where else to go for help

SessionID: 15657

Database Partitioning - Part II

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 11:45:00 - Track: Track 3

Speaker: James Skipwith

Title: Database Partitioning - Part II

Abstract:

In Session Two: - And what can be done in Enterprise edition? - Is it useful for Data warehouses and SSAS Cubes? - And what’s new in SQL 2014? Knowledge is power and after these sessions those big tables won’t be so scary anymore. They can be tamed and will soon be purring like a kitten. It’s never all pain-free sailing partitioning large live tables but, armed with the correct knowledge, you can start planning and implementing your partitioning. Sweet.

SessionID: 23523

Building a meta-driven near realtime ETL solution with BIML and SSIS

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 11:45:00 - Track: Track 01

Speaker: Rasmus Reinholdt

Title: Building a meta-driven near realtime ETL solution with BIML and SSIS

Abstract:

This all demo session will take you through a case of how to build a completely meta-driven SSIS solution relaying on BIML and MDS to do the hard-work for you. Being able to do this and have the system finding the fastest way to load data automatically using system stored procedures enables you to offer near real-time reporting to your users.

Topics covered in the session

SessionID: 26061

SharePoint Databases - What you need to know

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 11:45:00 - Track: Track 2

Speaker: Al Eardley

Title: SharePoint Databases - What you need to know

Abstract:

An introduction to the different databases that SharePoint uses, with recommendations for High Availability, Disaster Recovery and configuration settings for SQL Server, including the constraints imposed in a single farm, a stretched farm between data centres and a separate DR farm.

SessionID: 34860

Top Down Tuning

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 11:45:00 - Track: Track 4

Speaker: Richard Douglas

Title: Top Down Tuning

Abstract:

Lots of emphasis is placed upon fixing long running queries and reports, but what if you’re running third party applications, what then? In this session Richard Douglas will walk you through a number of options and procedures you should be following to allow your SQL Server to run more optimally. This is “Top Down Tuning” where the emphasis is placed on how you can make things better for all your users rather than SELECT TOP 3 Users FROM dbo.Company ORDER BY Importance DESC (That’s T-SQL for a selected few).

SessionID: 36485

The first step towards continuous integration for SQL Server

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 13:05:00 - Track: Other

Speaker: Alex Yates

Title: The first step towards continuous integration for SQL Server

Abstract:

Continuous integration (CI) is a development practice that has become widely adopted for the application layer because it allows teams to detect problems quickly and locate errors more easily. By regularly integrating code into a shared repository and automatically verifying it you'll build confidence in your code.

But database CI continues to be a painful, manual process in many projects. Redgate supports developers through the first steps in setting up databases CI and in this session, I will show you:

-How easy it is to get your SQL Server database changes in source control using Redgate’s SQL Source Control. -How to set up an automated build process for your databases using the DLM Automation Suite and Team City. -How this process helps you spot and fix errors quicker. -How to produce an artifact you can use for reliable, repeatable deployments in the future.

One lucky session attendee will also win a licence of SQL Source Control.

SessionID: 12092

Session Details not available

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 14:00:00 - Track: Track 01

Speaker: n/a n/a

Title: Session Details not available

Abstract:

Session Details not available

SessionID: 22712

SQL Server 2014 Features EVERYONE Can Use

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 14:00:00 - Track: Track 4

Speaker: Lord Richard Douglas

Title: SQL Server 2014 Features EVERYONE Can Use

Abstract:

You love technology and have a passion to get things done, so when a new release of SQL Server comes out you’re ecstatic! Unfortunately your employer’s budget can’t stretch to the premium Enterprise edition and all the new sessions are showing Enterprise only features.

Don’t worry, in this session Richard Douglas will show you all the new features available in the Standard and Business Intelligence Editions that EVERYONE can benefit from.

After this session you will be able to outline why you need to upgrade to the latest edition of SQL Server as well as the benefits and how they can improve your business.

SessionID: 36185

Machine Learning without a PhD in statisitcs

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 14:00:00 - Track: Other

Speaker: Andrew Fryer

Title: Machine Learning without a PhD in statisitcs

Abstract:

Machine learning is the science of making computers act without being unambiguously programmed. Machine learning (ML) is something that we use every day when we search and shop on the web and talk to our devices. Microsoft Azure ML is a fully-managed cloud service that enables data aware developers to efficiently embed predictive analytics into their applications, without a PhD in statistics helping organizations use massive data sets and bring all the benefits of the cloud to machine learning. So join Andrew for a practical insight into the fascinating world of Machine Learning, where you can be significantly different but never certain, deviation is normal, and you are amongst friends if you found the above quote funny.

SessionID: 24800

SQL Server and Application Security for Developers

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 15:20:00 - Track: Track 3

Speaker: Mladen Prajdić

Title: SQL Server and Application Security for Developers

Abstract:

A lot of companies have a philosophy of "ship early with as many features as possible.” Security is an afterthought since it isn't fun to do and no one will attack them anyway. However, the dark side never sleeps, and security breaches have always happened, often leaving companies severely exposed or even bankrupt.

In this session we'll look at a few attack vectors that can be used against your company, and what you as a developer can and should do to protect against them. It will involve a good mix of security conscious SQL Server and application development, because you care about your work and nobody messes with you.

SessionID: 26101

SSRS Inception: Reporting on Reporting services.

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 15:20:00 - Track: Track 01

Speaker: Terry McCann

Title: SSRS Inception: Reporting on Reporting services.

Abstract:

Still using Reporting Services? Yeah me too! Does this scenario sound familiar? You already have a large SSRS environment but the users still want more reports. You create a new, all singing, all dancing dashboard that removes the need for a bunch of reports, awesome. You launch it and explain to the business that you are deprecating the old reports. "WAIT! We still need that for Jill in HR to do her end-of-month", or "We might still need that" - these types of comments are what leads to having a load of reports that are not being used.

Wouldn't it be great if you could see who is viewing a report, in what format and how often, all inside your current SSRS environment? With this data wouldn't it then be even better if we could automate a process to email the owner of that report to say "HA! I told you no one looked at this report!". In this session we will look at how we can do all of this and more by mining the SSRS DB.

SessionID: 28218

Stories from the Trenches: Upgrading SQL with Minimal Downtime

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 15:20:00 - Track: Track 2

Speaker: William Durkin

Title: Stories from the Trenches: Upgrading SQL with Minimal Downtime

Abstract:

SQL Server has come a long way in the last few years, with Microsoft investing heavily in High Availability features. This session will show you how to use these features to enable you to safely upgrade a SQL Server, while ensuring you have a return path if things should go wrong. You will leave the session knowing what features you can use to upgrade either the OS, Hardware or SQL Server version while keeping your maintenance window to a minimum. The session will apply to Standard Edition as well as Enterprise Edition, so doesn't only apply to "High Rollers"!

SessionID: 9467

Visualizing performance tuning data

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 15:20:00 - Track: Track 4

Speaker: André Kamman

Title: Visualizing performance tuning data

Abstract:

Just staring at the output from for instance sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats is usualy not very helpful. Creating delta's from the data and then representing it as a graph helps to understand that data. Over the years I've tried various ways to look at output from SQL Server for performance tuning reasons. In this session I will share a couple of them with you. We will look at virtual_file_stats, waitstats, the buffer cache etc. and we will visualize them in various ways to make it easier to draw conclusions. The visualisation techniques vary from simple graphs that combine throughput and latency to more complicated scenarios that I saw being used by Formula 1 on tv, which translate well to Waitstats and Buffer pool cache usage.

SessionID: 10571

When good SQL design goes bad

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 16:20:00 - Track: Track 2

Speaker: Bob Duffy

Title: When good SQL design goes bad

Abstract:

Take what you’ve learned about SQL Server and turn it upside down.

In this humorous session I’ll be debating many of the so called "best practices" in SQL Server and demonstrating counter arguments. Come along to see how so called "pillars" of design are starting to break down. •When you should NOT use stored procedures. •When we don’t need indexes. •When Clustered Tables are bad. •When Identity Columns should not be Primary Keys. •When we don’t care about fragmentation. •When good naming convention’s go bad. •Why Partitioning often makes your queries slower. •Why do ORMs really makes sense when they make all your parameters nvarchar (max)

Health Warning: These may not be the design tips you should be using on your production OLTP.

SessionID: 17283

Microsoft SQL Server AlwaysOn in a Multi-Site world

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 16:20:00 - Track: Track 3

Speaker: John Martin

Title: Microsoft SQL Server AlwaysOn in a Multi-Site world

Abstract:

Multi-Site configurations are the natural progression from the more orthodox Failover Cluster Instances that form the basis previous High Availability configurations. With the introduction of Availability Groups and multi-subnet capability with SQL Server 2012 it is now even easier to build a multi-site multi-subnet solution. With this ease of deployment it is more important than ever to look at the important configuration options that can have a big impact in multi-site implementations but not in single-site.

Covering things like Asymmetric storage configurations, DNS considerations and the advances in clustering. By the end of this session, you will be in a position to confidently start building out multi-site Highly Available and ef

SessionID: 21386

Load Testing With SQL Server Tools

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 16:20:00 - Track: Track 4

Speaker: Neil Hambly

Title: Load Testing With SQL Server Tools

Abstract:

It’s often difficult to know how your SQL Servers will perform under different loads. By performing load testing, we can gain these key insights, perform modifications to existing configurations, and understand the impact on performance levels.

Come learn about the native tools at our disposal for performing these important load tests and how we can identify when performance levels begin to drop. Using demos of these native tools – including Distributed Replay Utility (DRU), Database Tuning Adviser (DTA), Perfmon, Extended Events, and Profiler – we’ll see how to plan and perform a load test project, gain an understanding of SQL Server’s performance under varying load scenarios, and discover which tell-tale indicators can help alert us to performance degradation.

SessionID: 21598

SSRS - After the Begining (formerly But SSRS Can't Do That)

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Event Date: 25-04-2015 - Session time: 16:20:00 - Track: Other

Speaker: Oz Locke

Title: SSRS - After the Begining (formerly But SSRS Can't Do That)

Abstract:

You’ve gotten your head around SSRS — how to set up datasets, how to make tables and charts, how to add parameters — and know you’re looking for more. This sessions will add to what you already know and teach you some nifty things you may have thought you couldn’t do.

Among the topics covered will be mastering export formats, creating user driven branding, making the most of parameters and using your reports’ metadata to control how they behave.