I guess I will join the trend, and list the session abstracts that I submitted for PASS Summit 2010. There is a limit of four session submissions per speaker this year. Hopefully, I will get lucky and will have one or two sessions selected.
DMV Emergency Room!
If you have ever been responsible for a mission critical database, you have probably been faced with a high stress, emergency situation where a database issue is causing unacceptable application performance, resulting in angry users and hovering managers and executives. If this hasn't happened to you yet, thank your lucky stars, but start getting prepared for your time in the hot seat. This session will show you how to use DMV queries to quickly detect and diagnose the problem, starting at the server and instance level, and then progressing down to the database and object level. Based on the initial assessment of the problem, different types of DMV queries will help you narrow down and identify the problem. This session will show you how to assemble and use an emergency DMV toolkit that you can use to save the day the next time a sick database shows up on your watch in the Database ER!
Hardware 201: Selecting and Sizing Database Hardware for OLTP Performance
The foundation of database performance is the underlying server hardware and storage subsystem. Even the best designed and optimized database application can be crippled by an inadequate hardware and storage infrastructure. Recent advances in new processors and chipsets, along with improvements in magnetic and SSD storage have dramatically changed the evaluation and selection process compared to the past. Many database professionals struggle to keep up with new technology and often simply let someone else make their hardware selection and sizing decisions. Unfortunately, the DBA usually gets the blame for any performance issues that crop up later. Don't let this happen to you! This session covers current and upcoming hardware from both Intel and AMD and gives you the tools and resources to make better hardware selection decisions to support SQL Server OLTP workloads.
Getting Started with SQL Server Utility in SQL Server 2008 R2
SQL Server 2008 R2 includes a new feature called SQL Server Utility, which allows you manage and monitor up to 25 instances of SQL Server 2008 R2 from a single Utility Control Point (UCP). SQL Server Utility allows you to automatically gather and store historical data on CPU usage and disk space usage for these managed instances. You can set policies that can notify you about over-utilization of these resources by instance. This session shows you how to create a UCP and enroll managed instances for monitoring. It also shows you how to set policies to improve your management capabilities with SQL Server Utility.
SQL Server Database Mirroring Deep Dive
Database mirroring is a valuable HA technology that can be an important component in your overall HA/DR solution. This session will cover how to effectively integrate database mirroring, fail-over clustering, log shipping and database snapshots to build a robust HA/DR solution that can meet your recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) requirements. This session goes far beyond the basics, showing you how to programmatically set up, maintain and monitor database mirroring for maximum performance and reliability. Mirroring multiple databases on the same instance can be challenging from an administrative perspective, so this session has specific tips and techniques to automate this process, with practical techniques, scripts and tips to help you take advantage of database mirroring as part of an effective HA/DR strategy.
