February 22, 2016 at 3:12 pm
We're looking at our training opportunities for this year. Primarily in the US.
I'm looking to list the conferences, immersion events, and focused training classes so we can make the best decisions on where to send everyone. We are not focused on cert mills, we are trying to get the best education.
I haven't found many focused on the details of how to actually build an enterprise warehouse, does anyone have suggestions?
PASS Summit
Seattle, October 25-28, 2016
PASS BI
San Jose, May 3-4, 2016
SQL Saturday
Various
SQL Skills
https://www.sqlskills.com/sql-server-training/immersion-events-schedule/
Brent Ozar
https://learnfrom.brentozar.com/
VS Live
February 26, 2016 at 6:09 am
benjamin.reyes (2/22/2016)
PASS SummitSeattle, October 25-28, 2016
Probably the best event you can choose. Lots of sessions going on at the same time, (almost) all from high quality speakers. Covers a broad range of topics.
If you can send a few people, make sure that they spread out and attend different sessions. Then have them present key learnings to each other and/or to your staff that cannot go.
Can also be good for employee retention - if I were on payroll, I'd *love* a boss that sends me to such events.
(Also, the atmosphere over there is just amazing. If you ever wonder what people mean when they say "SQL Family" - go to the PASS Summit)
PASS BI
San Jose, May 3-4, 2016
Much like PASS Summit, but fully focused on BI. No personal experience, I am not a BI person.
SQL Saturday
Various
http://www.sqlsaturday.com/%5B/quote%5D
Mostly geared towards professionals who do not have a boss willing to send company time and money on conferences, but who still are serious about their personal development and who understand that you cannot afford to not learn in the modern world. They are free (some charge a token amount for lunch), and on Saturdays. If you are an employer, you probably cannot force your staff to go there. But if they are smart, they *want* to go there. Some SQL Saturdays have a (paid, but not expensive) precon on Friday.
Benefit of SQL Saturday is that there's always one or two near you, so you have no big travel.
The average level of speakers is lower - you get some of the speakers that also go to the PASS Summit, but you also get less experienced speakers. Some of them may be a disappointment, others can be undiscovered gems.
Very deep, very focused training. Classroom training by some of the best trainers, using top-notch material. If you go to a planned event, read up on the contents so you know what they will cover.
Depending on how many people you want to send to the training and your budget, you might be able to negotiate an in-house training for your company with the content tweaked to fit exactly what you need.
Brent Ozar
I know Brent from conferences (PASS, SQL Saturdays). He is an amazing presenter, but it's a style that not everybody likes. Most of his sessions are 200-300 level (beginner to intermediate). If you are looking for more advanced knowledge, then he might not be the best trainer for you.
That being said, I do not know if his in-person training and self-paced video trainings are similar to what he does at conferences or not.
VS Live
https://vslive.com/events/redmond-2015/home.aspx%5B/quote%5D
That's an event I do now know. I do believe that it's not just SQL Server, right?
Some resources that I know, that are available in the United States, and that you do not mention are:
* SQL Cruise - a SQL Server training event on a cruise ship. I never attended it, but I do know that the selected speakers are all top-notch presenters.
* SQL Intersections and SQL Connections - two events that take place in Las Vegas. I have been to Connections once; this event is part of a larger conference coverinig other IT subjects as well. The level of the SQL content is somewhere between PASS Summit and SQL Saturday, the amount of SQL content is not very high - just two tracks if I remember correctly. But if you have a broader interest, the other co-conferences can make it an amazing event. I have not been to Intersections, I think it is similar but with a slightly higher/deeper level (the organizers previously were chairs of the Connections conference). If you are an employer and you have the type of staff that would sneak out and go see a show instead of attending the conference, do not send them there. On the other hand, if you are the kind of employee who would get the most out of that conference and than enjoy winding down in the evening while enjoying a show, then you might want to try talking your boss into funding this trip for you.
* Pluralsight - an online training resource. You pay a monthly subscription fee, and you get to watch instructional videos. Not recording of live events but videos created and optimized specifically for online viewing. For individuals, the subscription is available for $29 per month. For companies, special pricing and extra features are available. The library of courses is amazing - thousands of courses, and more coming online every week. (Disclaimer: I am an author for Pluralsight, so I might be a tad biased)
February 26, 2016 at 6:31 am
in South Florida, most of the SQL related groups are using meetup to organize and publish when there next event is:
this is my local group, for example:
http://www.meetup.com/South-Florida-SQL-Server-User-Group/; Diana Betancourt puts a lot of effort into it.
after someone joins, it's software suggests other local groups near you.
and it is really easy check your local area on meetup, and find tech related groups;
as a result of this, i'm a lot more active in this group, a BI south Florida group, and i keep the pulse of other groups related to development, like xamarin and .net.
Lowell
February 26, 2016 at 9:06 am
Most of my coworkers make it out to the local SQL Saturday, and I regularly attend the monthly users group. It is wildly helpful. I'll probably also try to make it out to SQL Saturday in one or two surrounding states.
What I'm looking for is suggestion for longer more in depth training. Especially but not limited to things that cover sql specific warehouse architecture, from beginning to end.
February 26, 2016 at 12:25 pm
benjamin.reyes (2/26/2016)
Most of my coworkers make it out to the local SQL Saturday, and I regularly attend the monthly users group. It is wildly helpful. I'll probably also try to make it out to SQL Saturday in one or two surrounding states.What I'm looking for is suggestion for longer more in depth training. Especially but not limited to things that cover sql specific warehouse architecture, from beginning to end.
If you want longer and in-depth training on a very specific subject, you should talk to either SQL Skills (https://www.sqlskills.com/) or Kalen Delaney (http://sqlserverinternals.com/) and see if they either have a class that fits your needs, or know someone who does, or can create a custom class for you.
Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply