It’s the first day of the year 2016 and I’m thinking about all the SQL events I attended in 2015.
SQL Sat Vienna
February 28, SQL Saturday #374, Vienna, Austria. My friend Milos ( b | t ) and his pals from the Austrian PASS chapter did a great job organizing this event, pre-cons and post-event parties. My personal session highlights were:
“Putting Your head in the Cloud– A Beginner’s Guide to Cloud Computing and SQL Azure” by David Postlethwaite ( t ). He explained the new concepts in the cloud very clearly, in simple terms. He also talked about the difference between on-prem, IaaS and PaaS, specific features of the Azure SQL Database and so on. One detail that I especially liked was the fact about the new buzzwords: “on-premises” and “on-prem” are correct while “on-premise” is wrong. So today I remember this session every time I hear someone saying “on-premise”. Check out his free e-book.
“Top 5 SQL Server 2014 Hybrid Cloud Features” by Scott Klein ( b | t ). I think I would go and listen to Scott any time he presents on anything. He’s knowledgeable, entertaining and always brings news on the stuff that’s coming out of Microsoft laboratories.
Red Gate UG Tour
March 19, Grant Fritchey, alias The Scary DBA ( b | t ) of Red Gate presented to the SQL and .NET user groups. This session had 2 interesting parts:
What to look for in execution plans: a hands-on demo of real-life scenarios performed by a master. And we got a book for free 
Get your databases under control with Red Gate SQL Source Control and the DLM suite. This was just in time for me as I needed to implement it at work. Oh yes, and I got a free book on SQL Server source control, too
I’ve been using Red Gate tools for a long time and I love them very much. And, if you’re interested on their books, you can actually download them for free
SQL Sat Rheinland
June 13, SQL Saturday #409 in Germany. Highlights:
“Big Data for the SQL Ninja” by Scott Klein ( b | t ). An entertaining introduction to the world of Big Data and Azure HDInsight.
“Securing your SQL Azure Database” by Boris Hristov ( b | t ). A great hands-on demo of key Azure SQL DB security features like Row-Level Security and Dynamic Data Masking.
“Would I survive the Titanic?” by Olivia Klose ( b | t ) – a great demo of Azure Machine Learning using the real historical data about the Titanic passengers. A great session despite that spooky title.
Niko and the Columnstore Indexes
June 22, Niko Neugebauer ( b | t ) made a stop in Munich and presented to the Bavarian PASS regional group. In an unlikely case that you don’t know already, Niko is totally obsessed with Columnstore Indexes and he’s converting his passion to a blog that currently has 75 (!) high-quality posts on this topic alone. His presentation to our group and the dinner afterwards was a great experience.
SQL Sat Slovenia
Dec 12, SQL Sat #460 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The last SQL Saturday in 2015 took place in a pleasant Christmas atmosphere. My highlights were:
“Real Time Power BI – API, Hubs and Streams” by Davide Mauri ( b | t ). This was about controlling Power BI dashboards from applications through APIs and the talk was followed by a simple real-life demo. Visually very attractive, simple to code and just in time for my current project.
“Azure Machine Learning algorithms” by Tomaz Kastrun ( b | t ) . A good presentation for those of us approaching AzureML from the tech side and trying to understand the other side – theory of statistical algorithms and modelling.
“T-SQL: Bad Habits and Best Practices” by Aaron Bertrand ( b | t ). I saw Aaron’s webcasts before, I read his blog and I used his work as a basis for my own Coding Standards documents so I was happy to meet him in person and discuss some of his points during this session. It was a great experience.
Happy 2016, #sqlfamily!
