Speaking: DAMA Chicago 19 October – Data Management: The Straw Poll

The next stop on my DAMA Speaking Tour will be DAMA Chicago on 19 October, where I’ll be presenting on:

Data Management: The Straw Poll

As DAMA heads into its 4^th decade, the data management profession works on refining existing approaches, plans for new ones, and investigates emerging topics.  In this session, we will discuss the priorities, roles, and benefits of past, current and new technologies, tools, methods, and patterns.

This highly interactive discussion will measure and record the opinions of the local data management profession.  Topics will cover the enterprise architecture, data architecture, application development, information sharing, project politics,  master data management, data quality  and silver bullet specializations…and more.

Bring your opinions, insights, long-held beliefs and personal experiences.

This is a brand new presentation and will follow a format similar to my Data Modeling Contentious Issues presentation, but we will be talking about Data Management as a whole, not specific data modeling issues.  So come join us.

Meeting location: Discover, 2500 Lake Cook Road, Riverwoods, IL 60015-1838 (which is between Deerfield and Northbrook).

Speaking: DAMA IA (Des Moines) Oct 18 – 10 Database Design Blunders

My next stop on the DAMA chapter speaking tour is Des Moines DAMA Chapter, where I’ll be presenting on 18 October.

10 Database Design Blunders

What’s going on in your physical data model? How many people can or will update it to match the reality of what’s going on in your databases? Who decides what goes into the physical model?

In this presentation we discuss 10 physical data modeling mistakes that cost you dearly. Will your physical design lead to performance snags, development delays, bugs and weakening of professional respect?
Data Architects are often tasked to prepare first cut physical data models, yet these skills usually overlap those of DBAs and Developers and this overlap can lead to contention, confusion, and complacency. With this presentation, you’ll learn about the 10 blunders, how to find them, plus 10 tips on how to avoid them.

More information should be available on their website soon about the location and timing.

Speaking: DAMA MN (Minneapolis) 17 October – Career Success in Turbulent Times + More

The next few weeks are going to be busy for me: I’m speaking at SQLSaturday Oregon (Portland) and then at the PASS Summit in Seattle.  Right after that I’m headed on DAMA chapter speaking tour.  First up on that tour is DAMA MN on Monday, 17 October 8:30 AM – 11:30 AM where I’ll be presenting:

Career Success in Data Management in Turbulent Times

A workshop on issues and ideas that today’s data architects and modelers can do to build their careers and networking skills with other data management professionals.

Workshop topics will include:
• Demonstrating your expertise
• Building a portfolio of your success stories
• Getting others to sell your skills and business value
• Building & extending your data management skill set
• 10 Steps to highlighting you and your work

Bring your thoughts, ideas, and experiences.

You’ve Just Inherited a Data Model:  Now What?

The good news is that someone else has done the hard work of architecting a data model and you just have to take on minor maintenance…or is that the bad news? Or have you been tasked with implementing a pattern or industry standard data model? Perhaps a team member has sent the world’s best resignation letter and won’t be helping you with the model. Learn the 5 steps you MUST take before working with a new data model.

Attendees will also receive a detailed checklist for the 5 steps.

Details about the event are provided on the DAMA MN webpage.  I hope to see you there.

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

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.

Career Success in Turbulent Times: Join Me Today 1PM ET for #PASSProfDev VC Webinar

This afternoon I’m presenting at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) Professional Development virtual chapter.  My topic today is about how to ensure that you are doing the right things now to support job and project search efforts when you need them.  Join me at 1PM EDT

A workshop on issues and ideas that today’s data professionals can do to build their careers and networking skills with other data management professionals.

Workshop topics will include:
• Demonstrating your expertise
• Building a portfolio of your success stories
• Getting others to sell your skills and business value
• Building & extending your data management skill set
• 10 Steps to highlighting you and your work

Bring your thoughts, ideas, and experiences.

As a virtual presentation, I’ll be relying heavily on Q&A from the audience, as well as input from Twitter to ensure that this is the most interactive it can be.  Please join us as we talk about how we as a profession can best ensure that we are all working and our projects have the right resources to be successful.

The hashtag to use during this talk is #PASSProfDev

A recording of the presentation should be available on 24 Sept 2011 at http://prof-dev.sqlpass.org/ .

We had great interaction for a Live Meeting. Great job, everyone.

I’m Being Replaced by a Normalization Nut …Okay, a Crazy Talking @TheSmilingDBA

Due to some last minute travel plans, I have to fly during one of the days of 24 Hours of PASS (24HOP), so I won’t be able to do my teaser presentation scheduled for the PASS Summit.  I really hate when I have to step back from doing a presentation I’ve committed to doing, but it turns out that I couldn’t get to where I needed to be.  Time, location and distance worked against me.  The good news is that 24HOP has found a perfect replacement with Thomas LeBlanc,  MCDBA & MCITP (@TheSmilingDBA | blog ).  I know Smiling DBA from Twitter and I’m looking forward to seeing this excellent presentation at some point:

Standard Operating Procedure for Normalized Database Design

Join Database Normalization nut Thomas LeBlanc for a review of a Standard Operating Procedure used among DBAs as a template for database normalization. This session will touch on conceptual design, naming conventions, check list for creating a table and lookup table structure. These points are a preview of the PASS Summit 2011 talk 3rd Normal Form: That’s Crazy Talk! This discussion is based on 21+ years of developing databases for application developers. This session will include identity columns for primary keys and the need for a unique constraint on transaction and lookup tables. The creation of a SOP for DBAs can help developers follow a standard and DBAs code review the database design.

See, he even has a bit o’ the snark that I do in my abstracts.  A perfect session to fill in for my lapse in flight scheduling.  There should be a law that says that any Normalization presentation must be done with snark, humour, and a bit of craziness, don’t you think?  You should run right over and register for his session, plus all the others.  There’s lots to offer in these free, online presentations: ETL, BI, Data, DW, PowerShell, SANs…all things data for 24 hours over two days.

Look at all this goodness:

September 7, 2011

Session 01 – Start time 12:00 GMT on Sept 7
Introduction to Data Mining in SQL Server Analysis Services
Presenter: Brian Knight

Session 02 – Start time 13:00 GMT on Sept 7
SAN Basics for DBAs
Presenter: Brent Ozar

Session 03 – Start time 14:00 GMT on Sept 7
Diving Into Extended Events
Presenter: Jonathan Kehayias

Session 04 – Start time 15:00 GMT on Sept 7
Exploring PowerPivot for Excel in SQL Server Project "Denali"
Presenter: Peter Myers

Session 05 – Start time 16:00 GMT on Sept 7
Why PowerShell?
Presenter: Aaron Nelson

Session 06 – Start time 17:00 GMT on Sept 7
SSIS in the Enterprise
Presenter: Andy Leonard

Session 07 – Start time 18:00 GMT on Sept 7
Extracting Execution Plans
Presenter: Gail Shaw

Session 08 – Start time 19:00 GMT on Sept 7
Multi-Site Failover Clustering with SQL Server 2008, 2008 R2, and Denali
Presenter: Allan Hirt

Session 09 – Start time 20:00 GMT on Sept 7
So How Does the BI Workload Impact the DB Engine?
Presenter: Denny Cherry, Stacia Misner

Session 10 – Start time 21:00 GMT on Sept 7
Hardware 301: Diving Deeper into Database Hardware
Presenter: Glenn Berry

Session 11 – Start time 22:00 GMT on Sept 7
Secrets of the SQLOS – Leveraging Microsoft SQL Server Internal Operating System for Improved Scalability and Performance
Presenter: Maciej Pilecki

Session 12 – Start time 23:00 GMT on Sept 7
All About Execution Plans: Reading Execution Plans
Presenters: Grant Fritchey

September 8, 2011

Session 13 – Start time 12:00 GMT on Sept 8
Zero to Cube – Fast Track to SSAS Development
Presenter: Adam Jorgensen

Session 14 – Start time 13:00 GMT on Sept 8
Fixing Queries with Uniqueness
Presenter: Rob Farley

Session 15 – Start time 14:00 GMT on Sept 8
Disaster Recovery Is Not Just About Technology
Presenter: Edwin Sarmiento

Session 16 – Start time 15:00 GMT on Sept 8
Reporting Services 201: From Basic to WOW!
Presenter: Jes Schultz Borland

Session 17 – Start time 16:00 GMT on Sept 8
Standard Operating Procedure for Normalized Database Design
Presenter: Thomas LeBlanc

Session 18 – Start time 17:00 GMT on Sept 8
Baseline Basics or: Who Broke the Database
Presenter: Adam Machanic

Session 19 – Start time 18:00 GMT on Sept 8
T-SQL Awesomeness – 3 Ways to Write Cool SQL
Presenter: Audrey Hammonds

Session 20 – Start time 19:00 GMT on Sept 8
Code-First Development with the Entity Framework
Presenter: Don Kiely

Session 21 – Start time 20:00 GMT on Sept 8
Advanced Reporting Services
Presenter: Simon Sabin

Session 22 – Start time 21:00 GMT on Sept 8
Important Trace Flags That Every DBA Should Know
Presenter: Victor Isakov

Session 23 – Start time 22:00 GMT on Sept 8
Policy-Based Management in a Nutshell
Presenter: Jorge Segarra

Session 24 – Start time 23:00 GMT on Sept 8
Visual Report Design: Bringing Sexy Back
Presenter: Paul Turley

My presentation was supposed to be 5 (NEW) Database Design Blunders.  I’ll be giving a more extended and even snarkier spotlight version of that at the PASS Summit in October, so I hope to see you there.  And if you have already registered for my session at 24HOP, go ahead and be part of the new one.  You won’t regret it.