SQL Saturday #85 is quickly approaching. It will be held in sunny Orlando, FL so if you live in the area get ready for awesome because I am coming to town! Ok, that may have been a little over the top but all parts of that thought are in fact true. I am coming to town for the event and it will be awesome.
To start with if you are a SQL Server professional in any way you should come out for the day. That includes all the DBAs, .Net developers that work with SQL and of course the BI developers out there. There is going to be something for everyone. Even better if you are wanting to find a quick and easy way to get up to speed on the entire BI stack or want to see how to develop and end to end data warehouse solution then Friday is really going to be a great day of training.
This year a few of the guys from Pragmatic Works have been given the opportunity to teach a full day pre-con on Friday that is all about business intelligence. The day will feature myself, Jorge Segarra (blog | Twitter), Mike Davis (Blog | Twitter) and Kyle Walker (Blog). We are all BI developers at Pragmatic Works in Jacksonville, FL. There is a price to attend the pre-con but I think that what we have planed for the day will be more than made up in value. The day will start with data modeling and how to design a data warehouse, then discuss how to load it with SSIS, build a cube in SSAS and finish with a presentation layer in SSRS, Excel and PowerPivot. If any of those topics interest you or may be needed in an upcoming project it will be a great learning experience. We will get you some hands on experience and you are more than welcome to bring your laptop and follow along on your own. There will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions as well, so bring those with you as well! More details will be at the bottom of the blog.
In addition to the pre-con each of the four of us are presenting Saturday for the free SQL Saturday event. I will be presenting two sessions. The first will be the very first session of the day at 9 am and will be an introduction to SSIS. We will talk about how to get past the learning curve of SSIS and take you through the basics of building your first package. The second session will be a little later at 1:30 when we will talk about making SSIS more dynamic with expressions, variables and configurations. I get bored watching sessions with nothing but slides so I promise not to do that. These will be all demo all the time, well mostly I have to give myself a cheesy intro via PowerPoint otherwise it wouldn’t be a technical session now would it. We will have some fun in both sessions and there may even be prizes to give away to people!
If you aren’t busy Saturday the 24th of September be sure to come out. What do you have to loose; it’s free and you get to meet me. Saturday Complete! If you do have a little bit of a training budget and can swing it come out for the full day on Friday as well. More details can be found on the SQL Saturday website here.
SQL Saturday Details:
When: Saturday September 24th, 2011
Where: Seminole State College, Main Campus, 100 Weldon Blvd, Sanford, FL 32773
What Time: Registration starts at 7:30 am, First session at 9am (with me!!)
Pre-Con: Business Intelligence Workshop with Jorge Segarra, Bradley Schacht, Kyle Walker and Mike Davis
In this full day workshop, you’ll learn from the author team of Jorge Segarra, Mike Davis, Bradley Schacht and Kyle Walker how to build a data warehouse for your company and support it with the Microsoft business intelligence platform. We’ll start with how to design and data model a data warehouse including system preparation. Then, we’ll jump into loading a data warehouse with SSIS. After that you’re ready to roll the data up and provide the slice and dice functionality of SSAS. The team will walk through cube development and data enrichment with things like KPIs, which are essential for your future dashboards. Lastly, we will cover how to report against the data warehouse with SSRS including a primer in how to write MDX queries against the SSAS cube.
- Practical knowledge of building a dimensional model
- Designing a simple ETL process using SSIS
- Designing a cube
- Designing simple SSRS reports
- Building an integrated process that fully leverages the entire Microsoft business intelligence stack to load and report on a data warehouse
About the Presenters:
Jorge Segarra is a BI consultant for Pragmatic Works and a SQL Server MVP. In addition to being a member of the Jacksonville SQL Server User Group (JSSUG) he is also a PASS regional Mentor for the U.S. Greater Southeast region. He has also co-authored the book from Apress “SQL 2008 Policy-Base Management”. Redgate Exceptional DBA of the Year 2010 Finalist.
Bradley Schacht is a consultant at Pragmatic Works in Jacksonville, FL. He was an author on the book SharePoint 2010 Business Intelligence 24-Hour Trainer. Bradley has experience on many parts of the Microsoft BI platform. He has spoken at events like SQL Saturday, Code Camp, SQL Lunch and SQL Server User Groups. He is a contributor on sites such as BIDN.com and SQL Server Central as well as an active member of the Jacksonville SQL Server User Group (JSSUG).
Kyle Walker is a Business Intelligence consultant for Pragmatic Works. His current and past experience includes Integration Services, data warehousing concepts, reporting services, and Crystal reports. He is active in the local and online community as a speaker for SQL Lunch, Jacksonville SQL Server User Group, and past SQL Saturday events, as well as a blogger on BIDN.com.
Mike Davis, MCTS, MCTIP is a Business Intelligence consultant at Pragmatic Works. He is an author of a few business intelligence books. Mike is an experienced speaker and has present at events such as SQL Saturday, Code Camps, SQL Server User Groups, SQL Lunch and SQL Rally. Mike is an active member of his local user group (JSSUG) in Jacksonville, FL.
