Join SQL Server professionals from around the world for free online technical training and networking year round. PASS Virtual Chapters (VC) are interest-based forums that unite the SQL Server community through live webcasts with top SQL Server experts, online forums and resources – including an archive of past presentations, and special training events.
Business Intelligence - Virtual Chapters
Date: Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Time: 4:00 am - 5:00 am (Mountain Time)
Cost: Free
Language: English
Featured Presentation: From Data Source to Secret Sauce: Hive for BI Pros
Big Data is not so much about storing massive amounts of data in a common database. It is also a force of change for the organisation, and it means that we have to consider the collective capabilities of the platform to serve the business: from data source to secret sauce that will help the business to make data-driven decisions to drive the enterprise forward.
How can you get your organisation's secret sauce? Big Data allows us to conduct better analyses because research has shown that simple algorithms with a lot of data can produce better results than complex algorithms that do not have a data-rich set to work on. Data scientists need a way of combining the scalability of Big Data with the ability to conduct extensive data analysis.
Big Data can look like a minefield: what is Map Reduce? Do I have to know Java? In this session, you will be introduced to Hive, which is comfortingly similar to SQL and translates your SQL queries into Map Reduce behind the scenes for you. It's an essential tool so please join us to learn more about it.
Speaker Info:
Jen is a SQL Server MVP who is best-known for her work in Business Intelligence and Data Visualisation. She is the current holder of the SQLPassion Award, presented by PASS at Summit 2012, for her work in organising Women in Technology events across Europe and the UK for the European SQL Server community. Jen has presented at TechEd North America, TechEd Europe, SQLPass and SQLBIts, along with SQLSaturday events throughout Europe. Jen is the main organiser for SQLSaturday Edinburgh, and runs the Hertfordshire User Group for SQL Server (HUGGS). Jen is joint owner of Copper Blue Consulting, architecting and delivering enterprise-critical solutions that add business value in addition to provisioning technical integrity. You can follow Jen on Twitter at @JenStirrup
Business Analytics VC
Date: Thursday, September 5, 2013
Time: 8:00 am - 9:00 am (Mountain Time)
Cost: Free
Language: English
Featured Presentation: Microsoft Power BI in Office 365: Your first Road
The learning curve with a new technology is always a mixture of excitement and challenge. Seeing the great new features in a product often generates some inspiration to implement new solutions for clients. On the other hand, the process of learning about the depth of the functionality and the scope (and even limits) of features is also critical in assessing the value of a tool.
This webcast has two objectives: first, to provide a demonstration of a solution using Power BI for Office 365, and second, to walk through the primary components of Power BI, their specifications and integration points, and any limitations. The attendee will get a chance to see a live demo of Power BI in Office 365 in action, and also gain understanding of all the pieces of Power BI. The webcast will not cover the steps to create the demo, nor spend a great deal of time on any one feature The goal is to demonstrate the type of content you can create, and what tools exist “under the hood”.
Speaker Info:
Kevin S. Goff (http://www.kevinsgoff.net) is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP Database architect/developer/speaker/author Regular columnist for CoDe Magazine on .NET, SQL Server, and Business Intelligence topics Frequent speaker at community events in the Mid-Atlantic region. Host of BDBI Radio (http://www.bdbiradio.com), a weekly webcast on SQL/BI topics
HASSUG & H-BI Monthly Meeting
Date: Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Time: 8:30 am - 11:30 pm (Mountain Time)
Cost: Free
Language: English
Schedule:
8:30-8:40 – Announcements
8:40-9:45 – General presentation (Topic 1)
9:45-10:15 – Lunch\Networking – Raffle #1
10:15-11:20 – BI themed presentation (Topic 2)
11:20-11:30 – Recap Announcements – Raffle #2
Professional Development - Virtual Chapters
Date: Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Time: 9:00 am - 10:00 pm (Mountain Time)
Cost: Free
Language: English
Featured Presentation: SQL Licensing - What Managers Need to Know
Speaker Info:
Joseph D'Antonio
Data Architecture - Virtual Chapters
Date: Thursday, September 12, 2013
Time: 9:00 am - 10:00 am (Mountain Time)
Cost: Free
Language: English
Featured Presentation: How Recognize Relational Database is "Good Enough"
In a computer project, no phrase irks me more than "better is the enemy of good enough." It is true of course, but you have to carefully guard the meaning of "good enough" or you will have a mess on your hands. What makes a great database? When queried, most database professionals would mention normalized as one of the most important characteristics that tell the difference between a good and bad database design. I won't disagree in the least, but there is so much more to be considered. Even if you did a great job of normalization, poor naming, poorly implemented keys, too many or too few indexes, and so on can derail your design. In this session I will present seven primary characteristics of a design that differentiates between an ugly design that will have your colleagues nitpicking you to death and one that will have them singing your praises. Characteristics such as comprehendible, documented, secure, well performing, and normalized (naturally) will be covered.
Speaker Info:
Louis Davidson has worked in the IT industry for over 15 years as a corporate database developer and architect. He has been a Microsoft SQL Server MVP for 8 years and has written five books on database design. Louis is currently the data architect for the Christian Broadcasting Network, supporting offices in Virginia Beach, VA, and Nashville, TN. He has a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. You can read more about Louis at http://drsql.org.
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