As has now become a regular tradition, SQLServerCentral.com is providing an educational track at SQL Server Connections (part of DevConnections) this October 31 through November 3, 2011 at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, NV.

SQL Server Connections includes three regular tracks, plus the SQLServerCentral.com track. The regular tracks include speakers such as Stacia Misner, Kimberly Tripp, Brent Ozar, Adam Machanic, Itzik Ben-Gan, Maciej Pilecki, Bill Vaughn, Andrew Kelly, and Paul Randal.

The SQL Server track includes the following speakers and sessions:

Andy Warren

Andy Warren is a SQL Server consultant and trainer based in Orlando, focusing on administration, performance, and enterprise patterns. Over the course of his career he has been a DBA, developer, and a manager. Andy was one of the founders of SQLServerCentral.com, created the SQLSaturday event concept and web site, served as President of the Orlando SQL Server User Group for three years, and is now serving a second term on the PASS Board of Directors. Andy is a SQL Server MVP and blogs daily at www.sqlandy.com.

Tips and Tricks for Database Design

Designing databases is a lot like building the foundation of a house, once it’s done it’s very hard to change and you live with the results for a very long time! This presentation focuses on a practical approach to database design. We’ll start by reviewing and discussing the rich array of data types and why picking the right data type matters more than you think, and we’ll look at our options for insuring we have good data including defaults, constraints, triggers, and foreign keys. We’ll also look at the role of views and synonyms as part of a good design. Then we’ll move into a case study of a real world problem and actually build a database to meet the needs of our customer, who as it turns out wants the best design but can only afford to implement it in phases – more of design in the real world. We’ll finish up by reviewing our checklist to make sure we’ve applied our standards consistently.

Top 10 SSRS Best Practices

Want to get more out of Reporting Services? Make sure that you’re doing things the “right” way? This presentation focuses on ten best practices that you can take back to the office and use immediately on your own Reporting Services reports and servers. We will be looking at Reporting Services from the perspectives of the report designer, the testing and QA team, and the DBA as we explore best practices that include defining usable naming standards and layout conventions, planning for Firefox users, tracking report usage, developing a process for moving reports from development to test to production, and more!

Grant Fritchey

Grant Fritchey is a SQL Server MVP with over 20 years’ experience in IT, including time spent in support and development. He has worked with SQL Server since 6.0, back in 1995. He has developed in VB, VB.Net, C# and Java. Grant volunteers at PASS and is president of the Southern New England SQL Server Users Group (SNESSUG). He has authored books for Apress and Simple-Talk and joined Red Gate Software as a Product Evangelist in January 2011. He blogs at www.scarydba.com.

Lucky 7: Seven Different Solutions for Bad Parameter Sniffing

Parameter sniffing is a misunderstood issue on SQL Server. Most of the time parameter sniffing is helping performance on your servers. But sometimes, circumstances change and what was helping you is now hurting you, bad. In this session we’ll gain an understanding of what exactly parameter sniffing is and why it’s usually so helpful. Then, we’ll explore how parameter sniffing can wrong and I’ll show you seven different ways you can deal with it when it does. You’ll bring back a wealth of knowledge so that you can identify and resolve bad parameter sniffing in your own environment.

The SQL Server Optimization Checklist

Squeezing the absolute most performance you possibly can out of your server, database, and T-SQL code can be very difficult. But you should be able to get more than adequate performance just by following some simple guidelines. This session walks you through a basic set of checks that you can use on your own machines to ensure that you’re avoiding common and easily solved performance problems. From the checklist you’ll know what to look for and I’ll show you what to do about issues when you find them.

Steve Jones

Steve Jones is the founder and editor of SQLServerCentral, the largest SQL Server community in the world. Steve has worked with SQL Server for two decades, starting with v4.2 and continuing on to SQL Server 2008 R2. He has worked for a variety of small and large companies in that time in different industries, allowing him to learn how SQL Server can solve many types of problems. He currently works for Red Gate software, the owner of SQLServerCentral. He blogs at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/steve_jones/default.aspx.

Preparation for a SQL Server Disaster

This session will showcase how a DBA can be ready for any problems that might occur in their SQL Server environment. Learn how you can develop a well thought out backup and recovery solution, taking into account the needs of your clients and employer. Attendees will see demos on backup schedules, restore techniques for full and partial databases, and an easy way for regularly running DBCC to check for corruption.

Tim Mitchell

Tim Mitchell is a business intelligence consultant, database developer, speaker, and trainer. He has been working with SQL Server for over 8 years, working primarily in business intelligence, ETL/SSIS, database development, and reporting. He has earned a number of industry certifications and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, and is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP. As an active member of the community, Tim has spoken at numerous SQL Saturday events, Houston Tech Fest, and various user groups and PASS virtual chapters. He is a board member and speaker at the North Texas SQL Server User Group in Dallas, and is an active volunteer for PASS. Tim is an author and forum contributor on SQLServerCentral.com and has published dozens of SQL Server training videos on SQLShare.com. Tim blogs at www.TimMitchell.net.

Top 10 SSIS Best Practices

SQL Server Integration Services is a highly versatile product for performing all manner of ETL (Extraction, Transformation, and Loading) operations. Because it is so multifaceted, there are a lot of ways to configure – and misconfigure – the tasks and components within SSIS packages. In this session we’ll discuss ten of the best practices for building and configuring SSIS packages. From package configurations to logging and auditing, and naming conventions to deployment, we’ll review what works, and why, in real-world SSIS environments. We’ll include demos for each of these best practices, along with tales of some less-than-best-practices lessons learned the hard way.

Defensive ETL

Dealing with clean data is easy. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have that luxury! In the real world, data contains duplicates, inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and other anomalies that can render the information useless to the business. Much like motorists are taught to drive defensively, ETL developers and other data professionals must maintain a "code defensively" attitude to avoid collateral damage from unexpected (and unhandled) occurrences during the ETL process. In this session, we’ll discuss some of these pitfalls, including some realistic examples and a few war stories. We’ll address some best practices for defensive ETL coding, along with practical demonstrations of these methodologies.

Brad M McGehee

Brad M. McGehee is a MCSE+I, MCSD, and MCT (former) with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and a Masters in Business Administration. Currently the Director of DBA Education for Red Gate Software, Brad is an accomplished Microsoft SQL Server MVP with over 16 years SQL Server experience and over 7 years training experience. Brad is a frequent speaker at SQL PASS, European PASS, SQL Connections, SQLTeach, devLINK, SQLBits, SQL Saturdays, TechFests, Code Camps, SQL Server user groups, and other industry seminars. Brad is the author or co-author of more than 15 technical books and over 275 published articles. He blogs at www.bradmcgehee.com.

Top 10 Database Maintenance Best Practices

Many DBAs take routine database maintenance for granted. What they don’t understand is that the cumulative effect of poor database maintenance can significantly hurt performance and reduce uptime. In this session, you will learn the top 10 key things all DBAs need to know in order to help them maintain their databases at peak performance. In this session you will learn about: Physical File Fragmentation; Database and Log File Management; tempdb Maintenance, msdb Maintenance; Index Maintenance; Statistics Maintenance; Data Corruption Detection; Database and Log File Protection; and Database Maintenance Monitoring.

Using SQL Server Compression to Boost Database Performance

SQL Server 2008 (including R2) Enterprise Edition offers the ability to compress rows or pages so that more data can be stored on disk and in the data cache. If properly implemented, it not only saves memory and disk space, it also can also boost your databases’ performance. In this session, you will learn how row and page compression works, how to implement it, and how to implement compression best practices.