As a DBA why would I consider attending a pre-con by John Welch at SQL Saturday 89 titled Data Warehousing with SSIS?  For starters lets look at what all the session entails.

-          Laying out a framework for your ETL

Logging, Restartability and Recoverability, Auditing

-          Common SSIS Tasks

Using FTP to Retrieve Files, Copying and Archiving Files, Executing SQL Statements, Moving Data

-          Handling Dimensions

SCD Type 1, SCD Type 2, Advanced Dimension Types

-          Handling Facts

Transactional, Periodic Snapshot, Accumulating Snapshot, Advanced Fact Patterns

-          Errors

Handling Processing Errors, Handling Data Errors, Recovering from Errors

-          Performance Tuning SSIS

Tuning Performance of the Data Flow, Optimizing Data Warehouse Loads

-          Best Practices for Managing Your ETL

Out of the 7 topics only 1 is strictly about data warehouse.  The rest is all about SSIS and managing ETL.  As a production DBA I work a good bit with SSIS and support many ETL processes.  I might not get a great deal out of the portion about slowly changing dimensions but learning anything about SCD would be a good thing right.  At least then I could carry on a conversation and know a little about it.

So if you are a production DBA that wants to learn a great deal more about SSIS and tuning ETL processes then you really should consider attending John’s pre-con session at SQL Saturday 89 in Atlanta GA on September 16th.  You can’t beat the price of the class either.  $99 for 8 hours of training with lunch being included.  Don’t wait as space is limited.