Agenda
• 5:30 PM Networking with Food & Refreshments
• 6:00 PM Short Session
• 6:30 PM Long Session
• 7:30 PM Meeting End

Bill Carroll, a Sr. Escalation Engineer from the Microsoft Commercial Technical Support team will present: Windows Azure Virtual Machines

Have you heard about Microsoft’s Windows Azure Virtual Machines? Did you know you can build a SQL Server VM in the cloud with just a few clicks? Come learn how to get started with WAVM’s.

K. Brian Kelley will present: Building an Infrastructure for Secure SQL Servers

In warfare, understanding your enemy is a supreme advantage. The same is true when it comes to protecting SQL Server. We’ll get into the mindset of an attacker, looking at the methods and techniques attackers use to go after SQL Server. Once we understanding the threats, we’ll then examine defensive techniques to secure and protect our SQL Servers, using both new and creative methods, as well as the tried and true.

Brian is a SQL Server author, columnist, and Microsoft MVP focusing primarily on SQL Server and Windows security. In addition to being a database administrator, he has served as an infrastructure and security architect encompassing solutions with Citrix, virtualization, and Active Directory. Brian is also a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) and has been the head of a financial organization’s computer incident response team. Brian is active in the IT community having spoken at DevConnections, SQL Saturdays, code camps, and user groups. He is also the President of the Midlands PASS Chapter, a Professional Association for SQL Server Chapter located in Columbia, SC.

K. Brian Kelley
kbriankelley@acm.org
@kbriankelley

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The Short Session
Curt Mathews, a Sr. Escalation Engineer from Microsoft Commercial Technical Support, will give us a deep dive on the SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn causes of Failover Conditions and health checking routines internals.

The Long Session

Ben DeBow will present:
Index Tuning for the DBA

Indexes are like a turbocharger for your queries: they help the engine process queries faster. Without having the right index strategy, you will be stuck managing a SQL Server environment that end users may constantly complain is “too slow.” How do you avoid that situation by knowing which indexes to add or which ones to remove if they are not working—especially if you are not intimate with a particular application’s database? Knowing fundamentals such as baselining performance and proactively monitoring performance are crucial for long-term index maintenance. This session will give you those fundamentals and more to enable you to implement a solid index tuning strategy for your company’s applications.

Ben DeBow is a consultant who works with customers of all sizes on their mission critical applications and SQL Server deployments. His versatility allows him to assist with everything from virtualization and consolidation to schema design, performance tuning, disk architectures, and everything in between. He has tuned and deployed some of the largest and most complex SQL Server solutions in the world. An active member of the SQL Server community, Ben is also an MCDBA, MCSE, and MCITP. He is also the co-founder of SQLHA with Allan Hirt, and can be reached at http://www.sqlha.com

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For our short session, Microsoft SQL Solution Specialist Craig McKee will be presenting on SQL Licensing.

After, MVP Jorge Segarra will cover “Do More with Less: Consolidation and Virtualization” in our longer session.

About the session:

In today’s economic times, we are being asked to do more with less. Less budget, less hardware and yet our data needs keep growing! So how do we keep our database infrastructure humming along given these restrictions? In this session we will talk about different options of consolidation including: database-level consolidation, instance-level consolidation, and virtualization. Additionally we will also talk about some of the tools and methods you can use today to help you consolidate your SQL Server environment and do more with less!

Jorge is a SQL Server MVP living and working in Jacksonville, Florida as a consultant for Pragmatic Works. In addition to being a member of the Jacksonville SQL Server User Group, he is also a PASS Regional Mentor for the U.S. Greater Southeast region. Jorge has co-authored the book from Apress “Pro SQL Server 2008 Policy-Based Management,” as well as “Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Bible” from Wrox-Wiley.

You can contact Jorge through:
Blog: http://sqlchicken.com
Linked In: jdsegarra
Twitter: @sqlchicken
Speaker Feedback: http://speakerrate.com/speakers/3077-jorge-segarra

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Microsoft Certified Architect / Master and Principal PM for SQL Server Advanced Certifications will be presenting two topics for this session.

The first topic will provide an overview of the new features in Transact-SQL introduced or enhanced for SQL Server 2012. Each of these will be presented in the context of demo code, so you can see the new features in action.

The second topic will address the changes to the Microsoft Certification program, as it applies to SQL Server.

There will be time for Q&A as well.

UPDATE: Here are the Demos And Slide from the meeting

Bio:

boB Taylor is a Principal Program Manager at Microsoft responsible for the Microsoft Certified Solutions Master and Certified Architect program for SQL Server. boB recently join Microsoft Learning after six years in the Microsoft Premier organization. boB’s career in IT started over 39 years ago, programming FORTRAN on punch cards (and has written assembly language programs on a drum based computer). He understands the entire development life-cycle having been a line of business programmer, a manager and Vice President of Software Engineering, and a Director of Database Technologies. boB started working with SQL Server on version 4.2.1a back in the early nineties. boB holds many industry certifications including Microsoft Certified Architect (2005/2008), Microsoft Certified Master (2005/2008), MCSE: Data Platform, MCITP, MCSD.NET, MCT, and MCSE. boB has participated in the development of over 10 different Microsoft Certified Professional certification exams. The unique spelling of boB’s first name comes from the fact that he is a magician and mentalist – the only thing he has done longer than software development. http://www.majikbybob.com and http://www.classicclairvoyant.com

We’ll be in the multi-purpose room (the second door on the building to the left if you’re coming from Arrowwood).

Click here to register!

However, setting up the above environment (even a simple version) for a BI QuickStart / PoC or other customer evaluation scenario is overly complex and fraught with opportunities for problems which immediately place the Microsoft business intelligence platform in a negative light, even before the customer starts evaluating the capabilities of Power View, Power Pivot and the Analysis Services tabular model (not to mention Excel Services and PerformancePoint). In this talk, I will demonstrate how to navigate the complexity and (hopefully) make the complex seem simple (including a 5 minute configuration of Kerberos).

Bio

Carl has been working with the Microsoft BI stack since SQL Server 7.0 and OLAP Services. Most recently, Carl worked with the SQL Server product team on the release of SQL Server 2012 – in particular, he worked with early adopters on Power Pivot, tabular modeling, SharePoint integration, and security configuration. Carl has been working with the SQL Customer Advisory Team (SQL CAT) for over 10 years, both as an independent consultant and as a Microsoft employee on cutting edge and complex solutions. Since leaving Microsoft, Carl continues to work with Microsoft customers to deliver business intelligence solutions that utilize the business intelligence features of SQL Server 2012 and SharePoint 2010. Most recently, Carl has also been working with the Database Consolidation Appliance and with Big Data and Hadoop, in particular placing Microsoft BI on top of big data solutions.

 As organizations grow and become physical and logically diverse, the need for unified management and implementation standards becomes more important. This is especially important as more architectures move into private or public cloud environments.

 This presentation will focus on the practical management of diverse architectures including:

• Classification and prioritization of Key Performance Indicators and Key Health Indicators.
• Configuration and implementation of routine maintenance and monitoring.
• Capacity planning and the identification of resource constraints before they impact application performance.
• Managing SQL as a Service
• Frequently seen technical issues and their diagnosis/resolution.

By applying IT Service Management (ITSM) principles to complex SQL environments, Database Administrators will spend less time putting out small fires and will be able to focus on the important planning and optimization of their environment.

Click here to register!

BIO

I was going to start this with “Former Heisman Trophy candidate….”

Denis McDowell has been supporting Microsoft Server Technologies at Peak 10 since 2006. In his current role of Application Services Architect, he is primarily tasked with defining and applying IT Service Management standards and best practices in the delivery of the Application Management products at Peak 10. Additionally, Denis provides expert-level support to customers in the area of SQL Server Management and Optimization, SharePoint architecture design and management, and Exchange Server messaging administration.

Prior to joining Peak 10, Denis worked as a Senior Systems Engineer at Intercerve (now SQL Sentry) and spent five years at Microsoft Corporation working in Enterprise Messaging Support.

Denis currently holds MCITP – SQL Server 2005/2008 DBA and MCITP – SharePoint 2010 Administration.

Difficulty Level : Intermediate

Presentation Synopsis :

SSRS 2008 R2 has opened a new realm of reporting possibilities by including the spatial data support. By the end of this session, you should be familiar with the basic spatial concepts, creating map reports in SSRS from different sources, drilling down on map reports, aggregating custom data in the maps , creating squarified TreeMap reports and many more interesting tips and tricks revolving around them.

Sign up to attend today!

Speaker Bio :

Jason Thomas is a Microsoft Certified SQL Server professional with over 6 years of Microsoft BI experience. He currently works as a BI Consultant for Mariner in Charlotte, NC. He is a constant presence in the MSDN forums and was recognized with the Microsoft Community Contributor award. He blogs regularly at http://road-blogs.blogspot.com and can also be found tweeting about BI related stuff at https://twitter.com/#!/de_unparagoned

Speaking Experience :

I have spoken

- at SQLBits 9 (largest SQL Conference in Europe)

- at a couple of Local UG events in London

- lots of  internal presentations in my previous company

Going to speak

- SQLSaturday#118 (Madison, WI)