Sessions a Data Architect Can Love at #SQLSat92 Portland (Including Mine)

Sep 28, 2011 // by Karen Lopez // Blog, Data Modeling, Professional Development, Speaking // No Comments

I’m speaking at the Portland, OR SQLSaturday on 8 October. I’ll be giving my Database Design Contentious Issues Presentation, one of my favourites and most popular presentations.

Database Design Contentious Issues

A highly interactive and popular session where attendees evaluate the options and best practices of common and advanced design issues, such as:

* Natural vs. Surrogate keys

* Classwords and other Naming Standards

* Varchar Minimums

*Identity Crisis

* Who Calls the Shots and Who Does What?

…and others. Bring your votes, your debates, and your opinions.

Session Level: Intermediate

I so love giving this presentation because it is driven by audience members. Not a lecture by me, but a moderated, sometimes referred debate about issues in database design and data modeling.

But I’m betting you data architects are thinking "Why would I attend an event about SQL Server? I’m DBMS-agnostic." I think it’s great that we modelers and designers have skills that cross multiple vendor products. But I sometimes wonder if some of us pride our agnosticism so much that we have actually become DBMS-illiterates. I know that most of us don’t work hands on with databases as often and DBAs and Developers, but it is important that we understand and have a firm foundation on the platforms upon which our designs will be built.

SQL Saturdays are free events hosted by other data professionals and sponsored by vendors in the data community (that’s what keeps them free). Sometimes there is a small charge for lunch, but that’s it. For the Portland event, it appears that even lunch is free. You must pre-register, but it’s free. Did I mention it’s free?

So you can come to my session but what about the others? Here are ones that I’ve picked out the schedule that would be of value to those of us wearing the modeling/design hat on a project:

Database Development: Keep It Agile, Not Fragile

Does your company use agile development? It can deliver more value to customers with lower project risk. However, it can also make the system design change rapidly, and require frequent software rollouts. This session will focus on best practices for DBAs and developers to make design, testing and deployments easier. Keep your systems agile, not fragile!

Session Level: Intermediate

Data Warehousing Best Practises

This session will describe the best practises for designing a data warehouse to get the most out of SQL Server. Doug has worked in data warehousing for 12 years and will blend experience, with best practises and recommendations from Microsoft’s Fast Track program. Each version of SQL Server introduces new features specifically for data warehousing – by applying the correct technique, feature, hint, modelling approach and layout the data warehouse will be faster and more scalable.

Session Level: Advanced

No More Bad Dates: Working With Dates and Times

Dates and times seem simple at first. Kendra Little will show you there’s more to it than you think. She’ll give you five best practices that will help you select the right temporal data type, avoid common issues, and use the most effective techniques to aggregate data. She’ll also explain painful problems with query performance and how to avoid them. Choose wisely: the correct types and high performing data access logic will scale well and save development and administrative time.

Session Level: Intermediate

Want a promotion? It’s up to you!

Self-promotion is often times the best promotion you can get. In this session, we will talk about how to promote yourself, your brand and your career without looking like “That Guy”. We will discuss Social Medias, communities, volunteering and other ways to get your name out… What are the first steps? Come find out.

Bad Indexes

I’m sure you’ve been told seeks are better than scans. I’m sure you’ve been told that a covering index is ideal. I’m sure you’ve been told small arrows are better than thick ones. Get the whole story.

Session Level: Intermediate

Models, Cubes & Marts: how & why to choose

Microsoft offers three distinct platforms for data analysis and a variety of related reporting tools. When should you use BI Semantic Models, PowerPivot, tabular column storage, SSAS cubes or relational data marts? Learn about the right fit for each of these choices and what you need to know to use the next generation of BI reporting tools like Project Crescent, SSRS and SharePoint BI.

Analyze and map spatial data with SQL Server 2008

With the widespread availability of location and spatial data to both consumers and corporations (such as smartphone GPS data), there is a need to manage and analyze all this data as well. SQL Server 2008 introduces new standards-based spatial data types and associated functionality to the relational engine. Spatial data can be stored in the cloud using SQL Azure. And SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services allows spatial data to be visualized as Maps. In this session, we’ll explore both the SQL spatial data types and SSRS maps, using demos to show this functionality in action. We’ll also cover enhancements to spatial functionality in the forthcoming "Denali" version of SQL Server.

Why these sessions? I believe that even if we aren’t responsible for finalizing a physical data model prior to implementation, it’s still a responsibility of ours to understand the above concepts so that we can work with models that include these design-time decisions. We may not be responsible for choosing all the indexes, but it’s important that our models have them. We need to understand the trade-offs around datatype choices, data warehouse architectures and newer DBMS features such as spatial datatypes, XML columns and others.

The line of responsibility between DBA, developer, and DA is constantly moving and may vary based on your project’s environment and culture. We must understand more about the target environments we are modeling for.

I hope to see you at the Portland SQL Saturday. The SQL community is great at sharing knowledge and we data architects need to be part of that sharing. It’s free, there will be prizes, and it’s fun. Be there.