One of the places I really look forward to going every year is Dublin - not just for the countryside, friendly people, and our very good friends Carmel, Sandra, and Bob of Prodata, but also for the fabulous Irish breakfasts that the hotel serves - nowhere beats it, not even Scotland!

And now that time is almost upon us again! This will be the third year we've taught classes in Ireland and this year we're doing a lot more than before:

4-Day Immersion Event, June 28-July 1 2010: See this site for full details, registration links and options.
2-Day Performance Tuning Masterclass, July 5-6 2010: See the this site for full details, registration links and options.
2-Day Disaster Recovery Masterclass, July 7-8 2010: See the this site for full details, registration links and options.

Next Wednesday, June 9th, I'll be presenting at the monthly meeting of the PASS DBA virtual chapter.

The Live Meeting starts at 11am PST and lasts for an hour (hopefully I can try to speak for that short a length of time :-)

Title: Building the Right Backup Strategy

Abstract: In many situations, database backups are critical for recovering from a disaster, but there are lots of misconceptions about how backups work and what a good backup strategy is. The purpose of taking backups is, of course, to be able to restore them at some point - but that can sometimes be easier said than done, depending on what you want to be able to restore. In this in-depth session, Paul will explain how the three most common types of backups work and how they can be combined into an effective backup strategy. Paul will also cover how restore works, the three recovery options for restoring a backup, and some useful examples. You don't want to find out that your backups are unusable when disaster strikes - this session provides the knowledge you need to make sure you can recover. (Paul recommends that you read through the "Understanding Logging and Recovery in SQL Server" Technet Magazine article - February 2009 before watching this talk.)

This is going to be a fast-paced talk - maybe you'll want to play it back at 1/2 speed later :-) 

The attendee URL is https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/8000181573/join?id=98S527&role=attend.

There will be a door prize for registered attendees (a $50 Amazon voucher) and you must be registered via https://www.livemeeting.com/lrs/8000181573/Registration.aspx?pageName=7j42r4k0528mb2s3 no later than 5pm EST on June 8th to be eligible for the prize.

Hope you can join me!

PS Don't forget to checkout the various classes coming up in London, Dublin, and the US - see http://www.sqlskills.com/upcomingConferences.asp for details.

It's official! We're doing another 5-day SQL Immersion Event (our ever-popular SQL Server master-class) this year in the US!

We decided to put on a class near Seattle this time as Washington is *fabulous* in August!

The class will follow our regular 5-day format with our best content covering:

• On-disk structures: how the data is stored
• Index internals: how the data is organized
• Logging and recovery: how the data is protected
• Choosing the RIGHT Data Type
• Table & Index Partitioning Strategies
• Data Access
• Indexing Strategies
• Data and log file provisioning and management
• Tempdb
• Index and statistics maintenance
• Using backup and restore (plus internals)
• Consistency checking and disaster recovery

The event will be held in the Marriott Courtyard Bellevue Downtown and will be fully catered - there's a special room rate of $159/night and even a hotel room discount for the first 10 people to sign up with the hotel.

The full cost is US$3100 with an early-bird special of US$2500 for registrations before midnight PST June 18th.

Check out the Immersion Event page for full details, registration, and feedback from attendees of our event in Boston earlier this year (or jump straight to registration).

We hope to see you there!

 

This one-day MasterClass (June 17th, 2010) will focus on many of the top issues companies face when implementing and maintaining a SQL Server-based solution. In the case where a company has no dedicated DBA, IT managers sometimes struggle to keep the data tier performing well and the data available. This can be especially troublesome when the development team is unfamiliar with the affect application design choices have on database performance.

The Microsoft SQL Server MasterClass 2010 is presented by Paul S. Randal and Kimberly L. Tripp, two of the most experienced and respected people in the SQL Server world. Together they have over 30 years combined experience working with SQL Server in the field, and on the SQL Server product team itself. This is a unique opportunity to hear them present at a UK event which will:

• Debunk many of the ingrained misconceptions around SQL Server's behaviour  
• Show you disaster recovery techniques critical to preserving your company's life-blood - the data  
• Explain how a common application design pattern can wreak havoc in the database
• Walk through the top-10 points to follow around operations and maintenance for a well-performing and available data tier!

EARLY BIRD OFFER: Register before 31st May and SAVE £50

Places for this must-attend event are limited: Book now for just £199 +VAT

Full delegate price is £249 +VAT

Registration and more details: click here.

 

(And if you want even more in-depth training, don't forget the 3 classes scheduled in Dublin at the end of June and start of July. See here for details!)

We enjoyed Dublin so much in 2008 and 2009 that we're going back for two weeks this time - and teaching three classes while we're there! We'll be working with our fabulous friends (Carmel, Sandra, and Bob) at Prodata and the event will be hosted by the nice folks at Microsoft Ireland. We'll also be doing a user group presentation, as usual, and you can register for this on the MTUG website. Not sure what we'll talk about at the user group yet (probably SQL Server related :-) - suggestions?

If you register for any of the classes, be sure to use this special discount code "PRB" which gets you 5% off and we'll know you saw the class on my blog.

We decided to structure the first class as a 4-day version of our popular Immersion Event and the following week do two deeper classes focusing on performance and disaster recovery.

We've taught several classes this year already and had rave reviews of the content, our knowledge, and presentation style. Check them out for yourself (with quotes extracted from their blog posts):

• Greg Gonzalez, President and CEO of SQL Sentry wrote a long blog post about the Immersion Event he attended in Boston in April:
  • "When it comes to the instructors themselves, Kimberly and Paul simply have no equal.  Not only are they both ultimate authorities, but they have endless enthusiasm about the material, and spot on delivery.  If either ever got tired they never showed it, even after going all day and all week.  We witnessed countless demos over the course of the week, some extremely involved, multi-step processes, and I can’t recall a one that didn’t go the way it was supposed to."
  • "These are not beginner presenters, and they put an extreme amount of preparation and attention to detail into everything that they do.  Completely, utterly professional."
  • "You might think that with this extreme level of skill comes extreme levels of egotism and lack of patience.  Nothing could be further from the truth. ... They simply know how to teach, and are approachable, humble, and patient."
• Fellow-MVP Aaron Bertrand discussing the same Immersion Event:
  • "The additional insight around what's printed in the book or in Books Online is invaluable; and the experience Paul and Kimberly have had with real live customers yields a lot more information and things to watch out for than you'd ever get from the documentation alone."
• Newly-minted MCM Robert Davis of Microsoft explaining how the previous training he'd received from us at Microsoft helped him pass his MCM certification (which we also teach):
  • "I try to take the SQLSkills classes when I can. I highly recommend to everyone that they take advantage of any training opportunities that they see from this group."
• Newly-minted MCM Brent Ozar of Quest summing up the first week of the recent MCM class that we taught:
  • "To call them good trainers is an epic understatement.  They know how to deliver very, very technical material in ways that illustrate it well.  I had to stop Paul at one point and ask him how long it took to build a particular slide because the animations were so good at conveying a hard-to-describe process."

We also have a bunch of quotes from past customers and finally, here's the press release from last year's class. Phew!

4-Day Immersion Event, June 28-July 1 2010, Dublin, Ireland: See the Prodata site for full details and for registration links and options.

Day 1: SQL Server Internals

• On-disk structures: how the data is stored
  • Records, pages, allocation bitmaps
• Index internals: how the data is organized
• Logging and recovery: how the data is protected
  • What is logging?
  • How recovery works
  • How the transaction log is structured
  • Recovery models 

Day 2: Designing for Performance

• Choosing the RIGHT Data Type
  • Understanding data types
  • Character data, overflow and LOB
  • LOB considerations
  • Date and time data types
  • Heterogeneous data types
  • Sparse columns
  • Application inconsistencies in types
• Table & Index Partitioning Strategies
  • Concepts/motivating factors in Partitioning
  • SQL Server 2000+ Partitioned Views
  • SQL Server 2005+ Partitioned Tables
  • Partitioning Design Techniques Combined
  • Partitioned and non-partitioned Indexes
  • Implementing the Sliding Window Scenario

Day 3: Indexing for Performance

• Data Access
  • Data Access Patterns
  • Covering
  • Using INCLUDE (SQL Server 2005+)
  • Using Filters (SQL Server 2008+)
• Indexing Strategies
  • Indexing for AND
  • Indexing for OR
  • Indexing for Joins
  • Indexing for Aggregates
  • Indexed Views (Overview)

Day 4: Essential Database Maintenance

• Data and log file provisioning and management
  • Database layout considerations
  • Growing and shrinking
  • Instant initialization
• Tempdb
• Index and statistics maintenance
• Using backup and restore
• Consistency checking

Performance Optimization Masterclass, July 5-6 2010, Dublin, Ireland: See the Prodata site for full details and for registration links and options.

(This is not duplicate content to the 4-day class - it's deeper knowledge and really requires the equivalent knowledge to the 4-day class to get the best out of it.)

Part 1: Optimizing Procedural Code

• Module 1: Batches and Plan Cache
  • Statement execution and plan caching
  • sp_executesql and dynamic string execution
• Module 2: Optmizing Procedural Code
• Understanding stored procedures
  • Understanding recompilation
  • Creating an optimal plan
  • Forcing plans & plan guides

Part 2: Resource Monitoring and Troubleshooting

• Module 1: Waits & Queues
  • What are waits and queues?
  • What should you be looking for?
• Module 2: Locking / blocking
  • Locking overview
  • Examples of blocking scenarios
  • Troubleshooting blocking
  • Blocking avoidance strategies
• Module 3: Resource governor
• Module 4: Extended Events
• Module 5: Performance Data Collection

Part 3: Are Your Index Strategies Working?

• Module 1: index cleanup
  • Index usage and consolidation
• Module 2: Index health
  • What is fragmentation
  • Detecting fragmentation
  • Removing fragmentation
• Module 3: Missing indexes
  • DTA

Disaster Recovery Masterclass, July 7-8 2010, Dublin, Ireland: See the Prodata site for full details and for registration links and options.

(This is not duplicate content to the 4-day class - it's deeper knowledge and really requires the equivalent knowledge to the 4-day class to get the best out of it.)

Part I: Fundamentals

• Module 1: Internals
  • Introduction to database structures
  • Introduction to logging and recovery
  • How recovery models affect disaster recovery
• Module 2: Data Storage
  • Choosing a RAID level
  • Storage tuning for fast recovery

Part II: Strategy

• Module 3: Planning a disaster recovery strategy
  • Requirements and limitations
  • Testing
• Module 4: Architecting for recoverability
  • Partial database availability
  • Planning a backup strategy
  • Database snapshots
  • Utilizing high-availability technologies

Part III: Practicalities

• Module 5: Recovering from a disaster with backups
  • Tail-of-the-log backups
  • Determining restore sequence
  • Point-in-time restore
  • Piecemeal restore
  • System databases
• Module 6: Recovering from a disaster without backups
  • Interpreting DBCC CHECKDB output
  • Using database repair
  • Using EMERGENCY mode

We really hope to see you at one or more of these classes!

Our first public class of the year is just over 3 weeks away! This is the *only* public class we'll be teaching in the US in 2010. There are a few spots left so book now to avoid disappointment.

We've teamed up with our good friend Adam Machanic to bring a week-long custom class to the Boston area. In this class Kimberly and I take turns teaching modules and we're both on hand to answer questions, do research, and try things out (and banter too!). The tag-team approach works *really well* and make the class very enjoyable and relaxed for those attending (and for us!).

The class will be March 29th-April 2nd in the Le Meridien hotel in Cambridge, MA and will cover:

• On-disk structures: how the data is stored
• Index internals: how the data is organized
• Logging and recovery: how the data is protected
• Choosing the RIGHT Data Type
• Table & Index Partitioning Strategies
• Data Access
• Indexing Strategies
• Data and log file provisioning and management
• Tempdb
• Index and statistics maintenance
• Using backup and restore (plus internals)
• Consistency checking and disaster recovery

You can see a much more detailed course outline here and full details including how to register at Adam's Boston SQL Training website.

We hope to see you there!

Due to some Microsoft date changes, the Spring SQL Connections show had to move to the week of April 12th. As a knock-on effect - and believe me, there were a bunch for us! - the public class Immersion Event we're doing in Boston had to move out of that week, and is now two weeks earlier in March. The locations remain the same though. Our Upcoming Events page has all the details and links to the registration sites (don't forget the Early-Bird specials for both!), but in a nutshell, it's:

• 5-day intense public class on internals, maintenance, performance tuning, disaster recovery with Kimberly and I, March 29 - April 2, Boston
• Spring SQL Connections, April 12 - 16, Las Vegas

Both events are going to be very cool - hope to see you at one (or both!) of them!

The first of our public classes (what we call Immersion Events) in 2010 is now officially open for registrations!

We've teamed up with our good friend Adam Machanic to bring a week-long custom class to the Boston area. In this class Kimberly and I take turns teaching modules and we're both on hand to answer questions, do research, and try things out (and banter too!). The tag-team approach works *really well* and make the class very enjoyable and relaxed for those attending (and for us!).

The class will be April 12-16 2010 in the Le Meridien hotel in Cambridge, MA and is $3100 for the week. If you use the discount code EARLYBIRD you'll get $600 off for registering before February 1st.

The class will cover:

• On-disk structures: how the data is stored
• Index internals: how the data is organized
• Logging and recovery: how the data is protected
• Choosing the RIGHT Data Type
• Table & Index Partitioning Strategies
• Data Access
• Indexing Strategies
• Data and log file provisioning and management
• Tempdb
• Index and statistics maintenance
• Using backup and restore (plus internals)
• Consistency checking and disaster recovery

You can see a much more detailed course outline here and full details including how to register at Adam's Boston SQL Training website.

We hope to see you there!

We're part-way through the Fall conference season, and in the middle of teaching week 1 of the current Microsoft Certified Master - SQL class. At the weekend we head off to Australia to teach some public classes in Melbourne - last chance to sign up for them!

Here's what we have coming up:

• October 15-16. Kimberly and I will be teaching a 2-day class "SQL Server 2008: New Features - Updating Your Administrations Skills in Database Infrastructure and Scalability" in Melbourne, Australia
• October 19-22. I'll be teaching a 4-day class "SQL Server 2005/2008: DB Maintenance and Availability: From Performance to Disaster Recovery" in Melbourne.
• October 19-22. Kimberly will be teaching a 4-day class "SQL Server 2005/2008: Performance Tuning – From Design to Indexing to Optimizing Procedural Code" in Melbourne.
• November 2-5. SQL PASS, Seattle: Kimberly and I will be teaching two full-day workshops and a Spotlight Session each.
• Nobember 9-12: SQL Connections, Las Vegas: Kimberly and I will be teaching two full-day workshops and 5 sessions. Stacia will be teaching 4 sessions on BI.
• November 5 and 17: Kimberly and I will be teaching a day each of the Microsoft Certified Master - SharePoint class.

You can find more details and links to the various registration sites on our Upcoming Events page.

Hope to see you there!

Yes, I'm a week late (at least) uploading these, and I apologize. But better late than never!

For those lucky 48 people who attended our week-long SQL class in Dublin at the end of September, I've uploaded all our demo scripts on our past conferences page. Let me know if you have any issues.

Enjoy!

While we're in Ireland teaching our Immersion Event (week-long in-depth class on SQL Server internals/performance/maintenance/DR), we'll be doing a user group meeting as well in Dublin on Wednesday September 23rd.  You can find out the details and register here.

The Immersion Event (Septemer 21-25) already has a good class size but of course we have space for a a few more attendees - check out the details of the class at http://www.eventznet.com/SQLImmersion.

Hope to see you there!

We've finally nailed down the dates for all our Fall classes and conferences around the world. Here's the plan:

• September 21-25. Kimberly and I will be teaching a week-long Immersion Event in Dublin, Ireland - combining internals, performance tuning, database maintenance and more.
• September 29-30. Kimberly and I will be presenting a full day of SQL Server sessions at the Microsoft Technology Summit 2009 in Warsaw, Poland
• October 15-16. Kimberly and I will be teaching a 2-day class "SQL Server 2008: New Features - Updating Your Administrations Skills in Database Infrastructure and Scalability" in Melbourne, Australia
• October 19-22. I'll be teaching a 4-day class "SQL Server 2005/2008: DB Maintenance and Availability: From Performance to Disaster Recovery" in Melbourne.
• October 19-22. Kimberly will be teaching a 4-day class "SQL Server 2005/2008: Performance Tuning – From Design to Indexing to Optimizing Procedural Code" in Melbourne.
• November 2-5. SQL PASS, Seattle: Kimberly and I will be teaching two full-day workshops and a Spotlight Session each.
• Nobember 9-12: SQL Connections, Las Vegas: Kimberly and I will be teaching two full-day workshops and 5 sessions. Stacia will be teaching 4 sessions on BI.

You can find more details and links to the various registration sites on our Upcoming Events page.

Hope to see you there!

PS And yes, we'll be teaching week 1 of each SQL MCM rotation and a couple of days from each SharePoint MCM rotation through the next year as well.

Kimberly and I will be teaching a week-long public Immersion Event in Dublin, September 21-25, in partnership with our good friends at Prodata and Microsoft Ireland.

The class will cover:

• Day 1: SQL Server Internals (On-disk structures, index internals, logging, recovery, transaction log architecture)
• Day 2: Designing for Performance (data types, table and index partitioning)
• Day 3: Indexing for Performance (Access patterns, covering, INCLUDE, indexing strategies)
• Day 4: Essential Database Maintenance (data and log files, tempdb, index and statistics maintenance, backup and restore)
• Day 5.1: Essential Database Maintenance (consistency checking and disaster recovery)
• Day 5.2: SQL Consolidation and Virtualization

This is going to be a great workshop where we combine the best of all our various classes into a superb learning opportunity.

Checkout the registration site for more in-depth details about the content, location, and cost.

Hope to see you there!

This year it looks like we're not going to be involved in TechEd US in May so the SQL Connections show in Orlando in March (21-26) will be the best way to pick up some of our training in the first half of the year. We are planning to do some Immersion events in various locations around the world (including the US) in the second half of 2009, so watch the blog for announcements.

Anyway, at this Connections Kimberly and I are going all-out on indexes - here's what we've got planned:

• A full-day pre-con workshop on index internals, statistics, and fragmentation (2000, 2005, 2008)
• A full-day post-con workshop on analyzing your indexing strategy - looking for extra, missing, or unhealthy indexes and dealing with them (2000, 2005, 2008)
• A session by Kimberly on tuning indexes for various search arguments, joins, and aggregates (i.e. indexing for performance)
• A session by Kimberly on sparse columns and filtered indexes in SQL Server 2008

And apart from indexing-mania, we'll have sessions on surviving database corruption and effective database maintenance. Our plan is to have AS LITTLE OVERLAP AS POSSIBLE between all these sessions and workshops - that's a lot of material!

Of course, Bob Beauchemin will be there with a plethora of developer-centric topics (including a full-day pre-pre-con on spatial data) and a bunch of other top SQL speakers that we've pulled together to create a great show.

Checkout out our Upcoming Events page for all the abstracts and details on how to register.

Hope to see you there!

In the previous blog post I mentioned our partner company in Australia, so I'd better explain...

We have a new partner company - SQLskills.com.au - run by our good friend and fellow MVP Greg Linwood, along-side his other company MyDBA, which provides DBA support, consulting and staffing services to customers world-wide. By extending SQLskills.com into Australia, we can provide world-class training to the burgeoning SQL Server base in and around Australia, without customers having to travel to the US. As well as providing their own custom courses, the SQLskills.com.au team will be teaching courses developed by me, Kimberly, and Bob Beauchemin - using only the best instructors that we've personally taught and approved.

Update 12/10/08: the Australia classes have been pushed out to June 2009 for various reasons - watch the blog for more details.

The courses have already been running the last two months to great success and I'm very excited to announce that Kimberly and I are coming to Australia in February 2009 to teach four classes in the SQLskills.com.au training facility in Melbourne. The classes we have planned are:

• SQL Server 2008 Database Infrastructure and Scalability (Paul & Kimberly, February 24^th-26^th)
• Internals and Storage Structures (Paul & Kimberly, March 3^rd)
• SQL Server 2005/2008 Performance Tuning (Kimberly, March 4^th-6^th)
• Database Maintenance - From Performance to Disaster Recovery (Paul, March 4^th-6^th)

Click the links for more details and registration info. The internals course (or equivalent knowledge) is really a pre-requisite for the perf tuning and maintenance courses that immediately follow it, as these courses will be really in-depth.

Checkout the SQLskills.com.au site for other classes they offer for developers and BI specialists.

We hope to see you in Melbourne next year!