G’day,

On Saturday 16th April 2012, I attended SQL Saturday #136 in Wellington, New Zealand.

The day was run by Dave Curlewis [Blog | Twitter] and his excellent team –  a big hats off to them, the sponsors and the team at Whitireia Community Polytechnic (Porirua Campus) for organising such a great day.

There were two streams running, so unfortunately attending all sessions was not an option – but the quality of the one’s I attended was superb - here’s my run down of the sessions that I went to..

The first of the presentations that I attended was Rob Farley’s [Blog|Twitter] “Query Tuning Using Lessons Learned from SSIS” – I’d never seen Rob speak before and was impressed with his relaxed style – and his content was very good as well.

Next up was Dave Dustin [twitter] with “Myths and misconceptions” – and I’m sure a large amount of people went away having picked up quite a bit of knowledge. Dave’s well known in the New Zealand SQL community and he’s always good value to hear speak.

Next up was the presentation that I had been looking forward to, Paul White [Blog|Twitter] with  “Query Optimizer Deep Dive” – which exceeded my high expectations of Paul’s session. Anybody who has ever read his blog will know the depth of knowledge that he has is phenomenal! – Again, Paul is a major player in the NZ SQL community, and that was reflected in the numbers that he had at the session. Apparently, he’ll be at SQL Saturday #139 (on a Tuesday) In Adelaide, Australia giving an extended version of this presentation – and so if you’re in that area then I’d recommend going along.

I presented my “Extended Events – A whirlwind tour!” first thing in the afternoon. I’d initially spent most of the morning debating with myself if my presentation would be up to scratch (despite the fact I’d given it twice previously and spent a fair bit of time practicing) – but it went reasonably well (I though). I got some feedback previously which I’d listened to, and when I’d finished the session I felt like it had gone well. The audience had asked questions and they seemed to be interested – now all I have to do is wait for the feed back!

Next up was the second session from  Dave Dustin [twitter] titled “What’s available with SQL Server 2012” which I attended as I’m currently starting to delve into the latest iteration of the product more and more. Dave had obviously put a lot of work into learning the new features and this came across in the presentation – he even knew a fair bit about the new licensing model!

Next up was a second session from Rob Farley [Blog|Twitter], with the presentation “Analytic T-SQL Functions in 2012” – and this introduced me  to quite a  few cool functions that have been introduced into the product. I am pretty sure all the audience learned lots from Rob – whose joke’s had improved significantly from his morning session!

The last session of the day I attended was by Peter Ward [Twitter] with the aptly named presentation “The Dark Art of Performance Tuning” – where he did a live demo to show performance tuning issue and some possible solutions. Peter’s a great presenter and a fast (but clear) talker and very easy to listen to.

For every presentation I went to there was another I would have liked to attended – but maybe next time – I’ll certainly be reviewing the slides of the presentations that I missed.

You can read more about SQL Saturday #136 here from the organiser.

Roll on the next SQL Saturday in NewZealand – and thanks again.

Have a good day.

Cheers

Martin.