I’m excited to present two different sessions in April at DC SQL Server User Group and at Baltimore SQL Server User Group. I look forward to seeing you there if you’re in the area.

I’m passionate about these topics and enjoyed building these new sessions. Hopefully the attendees will have as much fun as I will have delivering them.

In DC, on Apr 10, I’ll be talking Automating Your SSIS Design Pattern for Faster Development.

ABSTRACT:

Once you finish designing the SSIS packages needed for your project, the process of creating those packages is mostly redundant and time-consuming. As the source or target systems go through changes (even as small as a column rename), you’re forced to modify the packages.

BI Markup Language (BIML), which is a free plugin, removes the pain-points involved in manual development by programmatically generating packages. In this session, you’ll learn the basics of BIML and see how you can use it along with metadata to create packages automatically. You’ll also see how easy it is to regenerate the packages when the system changes. You’ll leave the session with knowledge of BIML’s building blocks and a principle I call “D[ee]MOB” that helps you automate SSIS development in your environment.

In Baltimore, on Apr 22, I’ll be talking Team-based Database Development – Playing Nice With Others.

ABSTRACT:

As soon as you’ve more than one person working on a development effort, you’re going to see issues with collaborating and integrating your work – you may not know what the other person is doing, or your changes may break others code.

In this session, you’ll learn how development practices such as version control, unit testing, continuous integration, etc., can help ease some of your team-development headaches. You’ll see demonstrations (using Red Gate tools) of how to implement these practices in your environment and improve the productivity, efficiency, and quality of your development process.