I had the pleasure of attending SQL Saturday 112 this past weekend.  This was my second time speaking at a SQL Saturday in Birmingham.  I was selected to present two sessions again this year in the first and second time slot.  I started off with “Getting Involved and Getting Ahead”.  This session is all about the SQL Community and how volunteering and giving of your time can pay huge dividends in your career.  You get to learn so much more and at such an advanced rate that the sky is the limit.  While helping others you gain as much or more.  The contacts you make alone are work the investment of your time.

The second session I gave was a brand new session called “Know Backups and Know Recovery”.  I presented this session in March to the Columbus GA SQL Users Group.  I really enjoy this session and hope to make it my primary session I give.  In this session I cover best practices with make FULL, DIFFERENTIAL, and TLOG backups of your databases.  I find that most people are at least doing FULL and Transaction logs.  About 25% do weekly FULL and Daily DIFFERENTIAL backups.  I also have found that most attendees have not practiced restores to include their DIFF and Transaction log backups.  In this session I demo using a script to generate the restore scripts of the last FULL, DIFF and all transaction log backups since the last respective FULL or DIFFERENTIAL backup.  I also demo FILEGROUP backups, peace meal restores and even a TAIL LOG backup and restore.

In between giving these two sessions and the remainder of the day I helped work the RedGate booth and PASS Booth.  I had a great deal of fun helping to spread the word about all things PASS and helping to field questions about many of the RedGate products.  The organization team for SQL Saturday 112 did an excellent job putting on this event.  I really like the speaker shirt and the bags the team got.

The event location at Jefferson State Community College was great.  Large classrooms and a centrally located vendor area.  There was excellent signage leading up the event, schedules posted on the doors to the rooms, a very well put together event guide and tons of drinks, donuts and coffee.

I will definitely be back to this event as long as they are willing to have me.

My slides can be found on the SQL Saturday website here.