I will be presenting at the Boulder SQL Server User’s Group (BSSUG) on March 15, 2011. My presentation will be on “Hardware 201: Selecting and Sizing Database Hardware for OLTP Performance”.  Here is the abstract:

The foundation of database performance is the underlying server hardware and storage subsystem. Even the best designed and optimized database application can be crippled by an inadequate hardware and storage infrastructure. Recent advances in new processors and chipsets, along with improvements in magnetic and SSD storage have dramatically changed the evaluation and selection process compared to the past. Many database professionals struggle to keep up with new technology and often simply let someone else make their hardware selection and sizing decisions. Unfortunately, the DBA usually gets the blame for any performance issues that crop up later. Don’t let this happen to you! This session covers current and upcoming hardware from both Intel and AMD and gives you the tools and resources to make better hardware selection decisions to support SQL Server OLTP workloads.

The meeting is actually held in Broomfield, at the Level 3 Communications campus.