We have big news for SQL Saturday #67 Chicago. There is going be a pre-con on Friday 3/25 at the Hampton Inn right around the corner from the SQL Saturday venue.

Here is the link to register, SQL Saturday #67 Pre-Conference: DBA Skills Upgrade Toolkit.

Questioning why you should attend the pre-con? Check out Noel McKinney’s take on it.

Before I give details about the event, let me introduce you the presenter. The pre-con will be presented by Eddie Wuerch (Blog|Twitter) from Indianapolis. I had the pleasure of meeting Eddie at SQL Saturday 45 in Louisville a few weeks ago. We had some interesting discussions about the extreme loads that hit his environment. With this daily experience, I’m sure Eddie will have some great things to share in the pre-con session. Eddie is also a regular presenter at SQL Saturdays and Indy PASS. Eddie tweeted this earlier. Need I say more: “@dawndevirgilio: A million rows of data isn’t cool, you know what’s cool? A billion…! #ETHub” <-we’re approaching a trillion, actually…

Here is the detailed information on the pre-con session:

The DBA Skills Upgrade Toolkit

Cost: $99 (before March 7)

Presenter: Eddie Wuerch

This full-day seminar is for DBAs and developers with DBA responsibilities looking to beef up their skillsets and simplify their lives with additional insight into their SQL Servers.  Eddie Wuerch takes his extensive experience as a speaker, trainer, mentor, and DBA in one of the largest and busiest SQL Server environments in the world and distills it into a collection of topics for DBAs managing databases of all sizes.

Topics included in the seminar include

• Current and historical monitoring of server processes and resources
  
• SQL I/O for the DBA:
  
  • RAID, disk options, and SANs
    
  • File and Filegroup planning, placement, and monitoring
    
  • Transaction log internals
    
  • TempDB considerations
    
• Encryption for the DBA
  
• Locking, Latching, and Deadlocks
  
• Capacity planning (CPU, memory, and files)
  
• Performance and operational troubleshooting techniques
  
• Backup and recovery planning
  
• Automation of standard tasks
  
• Includes a large collection of T-SQL scripts for performing many of the tasks covered in the seminar
  

Seminar fee includes lunch, breaktime refreshments, and seminar materials.

SQL Saturday #67, filled with many free sessions and events, will be held the next day.  For more info and to register for SQL Saturday, please visit the event website:http://www.sqlsaturday.com/67/eventhome.aspx