SQL Server gurus Kimberly Tripp and Paul Randal to deliver powerful one-day Masterclass in London

May 19, 2010 - PRLog -- LONDON, ENGLAND, MAY 19, 2010 – World-renowned SQL Server gurus Kimberly L. Tripp and Paul S. Randal have teamed up with Microsoft UK to host a unique one-day conference, the Microsoft SQL Server Masterclass, in London in June.

The Microsoft SQL Server Masterclass will be held at the Radisson Edwardian Heathrow Hotel on Thursday, June 17. The dynamic duo will be joined by Microsoft UK's Paul James Taylor and well-known Data Architect Keith Burns.

Tripp and Randal, a husband-and-wife team, are two of the world's most popular SQL Server speakers having spoken at conferences around the globe and are consistently top-rated. As one wag has blogged: "While most couples argue over paint colour, they argue over indexing strategies."

Tripp and Randal are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors. Both held positions at Microsoft with Paul latterly being responsible for the SQL Server storage engine. Kimberly left Microsoft in 1995 to form the SQLskills consultancy and Paul joined the team in 2007. As well as receiving speaker accolades at conferences like Microsoft Tech*Ed, DevConnections and PASS, the two are also are well-known authors having each written a chapter for SQL Server 2008 Internals as well as acted as editors for SQL Server MVP Deep Dives.

Randal says: "From the online community and the SQL MVPs we know in the UK, there's a large and enthusiastic SQL Server user base in the UK so we’re looking forward to a busy event." As a globetrotting Brit himself, he adds: "British people are more direct in many ways than other cultures around the world so I'm expecting the kind of challenging questions as we go through the day that make an event like this a lot of fun."

Tripp is a writer/editor for SQL Server Magazine, wrote multiple whitepapers on SQL Server 2005 and has authored/co-authored numerous resources and courses for SQL Server 2008. Randal writes a bi-monthly SQL Q&A column for TechNet Magazine, a monthly SQL Q&A column for SQL Server Magazine and feature articles for both. They are both Contributing Editors for SQL Server Magazine and together they co-chair the SQLConnections conferences in the UK. Randal is also a Contributing Editor for TechNet Magazine and is one of the most active people in the SQL Server community, from user groups and online forums to helping out on Twitter (@PaulRandal – check out the #sqlhelp tag).

Both experts write popular and widely-referenced blogs at http://www.SQLskills.com/blogs/Paul/ and http://www.SQLskills.com/blogs/Kimberly.

"Keeping a well performing SQL Server-driven business workload up and running in the face of decreased hardware and personnel budgets is the biggest challenge our customers face,” says Tripp.

Randal adds: "The economic crunch is far from over and so many companies are making do with ageing hardware and skeleton IT staff. This presents serious difficulties, especially when there isn't a seasoned DBA in control of SQL Server. We're going to cover a lot of information that companies can use to streamline operations and performance without making major application changes – lots of areas for people to dig deeper and get more knowledge to help avoid having to spend precious budget. One of the things we'll highlight is a design pattern that often goes unnoticed but causes real havoc with server performance and availability."

The Microsoft SQL Server Masterclass one-day workshop will feature a myriad of best practices and techniques for solving current problems. Specific sessions cover debunking some of the more commonly-held misconceptions about SQL Server, solving problems with GUIDs, database recovery techniques and maintenance tips and tricks (see agenda below).

For ticket prices, registration and availability, see the Microsoft SQL Server Masterclass website at http://www.regonline.co.uk/kimtrippsql.  

For more information, contact:

Seamus Quinn
Cue Communications
Seamusquinn1@yahoo.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0)7846 102192

Agenda: Microsoft SQL Server Masterclass, Radisson Edwardian Heathrow Hotel, London June 17

Opening Keynote: Bridging the Gap Between Development and Production

Applications are commonly developed with little regard for how design choices will affect performance in production. This is often because developers don't realise the implications of their design on how SQL Server will be able to handle a high workload (e.g. blocking, fragmentation) and/or because there's no full-time trained DBA that can recognize production problems and help educate developers. The keynote sets the stage for the rest of the day. Discussing some of the issues that can arise, explaining how some can be avoided and highlighting some of the features in SQL 2008 that can help developers and DBAs make better use of SQL Server, and troubleshoot when things go wrong.

Session 1: SQL Server Mythbusters

It's amazing how many myths and misconceptions have sprung up and persisted over the years about SQL Server – after many years helping people out on forums, newsgroups, and customer engagements, Paul and Kimberly have heard it all. Are there really non-logged operations? Can interrupting shrinks or rebuilds cause corruption? Can you override the server's MAXDOP setting? Will the server always do a table-scan to get a row count? Many myths lead to poor design choices and inappropriate maintenance practices so these are just a few of many, many myths that Paul and Kimberly will debunk in this fast-paced session on how SQL Server operates and should be managed and maintained.

Session 2: Database Recovery Techniques Demo-Fest

Even if you have a disaster recovery strategy in place, you need to practice to make sure that your plan will work when a disaster does strike. In this fast-paced demo session Paul and Kimberly will repeatedly do nasty things to databases and then show how they are recovered – demonstrating many techniques you can use in production for disaster recovery. Not for the faint-hearted!

Session 3: GUIDs: Use, Abuse, and How To Move Forward

Since the addition of the GUID, my life as a consultant and "tuner" has been busy. I’ve seen databases designed with GUID keys run fairly well with small workloads but completely fall over and fail because they just cannot scale. And, I know why GUIDs are chosen –  it simplifies the handling of parent/child rows in your batches so you can reduce round-trips or avoid dealing with identity values. And, yes, sometimes it's even for distributed databases and/or security that GUIDs are chosen. I'm not entirely against ever using a GUID but overusing and abusing GUIDs just has to be stopped! Please, please, please let me give you better solutions and explanations on how to deal with your parent/child rows, round-trips and clustering keys!

Session 4: Essential Database Maintenance

In this session, Paul and Kimberly will run you through their top-ten database maintenance recommendations, with a lot of tips and tricks along the way. These are distilled from almost 30 years combined experience working with SQL Server customers and are geared towards making your databases more performant, more available, and more easily managed (to save you time!). Everything in this session will be practical and applicable to a wide variety of databases. Topics covered include: backups, shrinks, fragmentation, statistics, and much more! Focus will be on 2005 but we'll explain some of the key differences for 2000 and 2008 as well.

Closing hosted Q&A

If, after attending the MasterClass, you decide that you or your team really needs more in-depth training on these topics ASAP, Paul and Kimberly will be teaching three public classes in Dublin in late June and early July. Details can be found at: http://www.prodata.ie/Events/sqlimmersionDublin2010

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