Education

Call me a believer: Microsoft SSAS

This week, I’ve spent most of my days working with Microsoft’s Premier Support; they’re on site at our office, showing us the basics of SQL Server Reporting Services and SQL Server Analysis Services. I must admit that I was NOT looking forward to this week, because I felt like we were going to spend a lot of time defending design choices we had made.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

Our rep has been very helpful in helping us understand the power of SSAS and SSRS; I’ve always appreciated the potential of OLAP cubes, but I’ve never really worked with them. We spent most of yesterday talking about the tools, and stepping through the various concepts, but what really helped today was when we took an existing report that we currently deliver to our clients (using standard SQL queries) and developed an analog to it using SSAS and SSRS.

I think what made the difference for me was that this was MY data; I know this stuff in and out. For all of the imperfections in my design, it’s still my design, and I was able to see how the use of OLAP cubes could very effectively address some business problems we have. That’s a very effective teaching tip that I need to remember when I go to classes (and something I remember from way back in my education classes at UGA): PEOPLE UNDERSTAND CONCEPTS BEST WHEN THEY CAN GET THEIR HANDS DIRTY.

I’ve tried tutorials on SSAS before, and often found myself not quite able to grasp the concept; today, I was working to answer a common question using data I was familar with, but a totally different language. It was very enlightening, and I think it’s going to be what pushes us toward implementation. There’s still a lot of ground to cover (why is MDX so frikking complicated?), but I think I’m going to enjoy the challenge.

Quick update: SQLSaturday, life in general

Not going to be a long post; I’ve got a major report due for work tomorrow, so I’m sitting at Schlotzky’s (I really should buy stock), waiting on the kids to get out.

* SQLSaturday is going well. Just picked up speaker shirts and gift mugs today, and they look awesome. Sent the check to Microsoft a couple of days late, but hopefully they won’t dump us. Started cleaning the roster from lunch no-pays, only to discover there’s a bug in our pay process, and a lot of people did pay. I think Andy Warren is just going to pay for everybody’s lunch next time rather than put up with me (just kidding, Andy).

* A couple of weeks ago, I started talking about the impact of Facebook on my own personal appearance. I’m proud to announce I’ve lost 5 pounds so far, and I’m determined to lose the next 5 by next Wednesday. My secret? Lots of veggies, very few carbs, and a lot of exercise. We’ll see what happpens.

* Anyway, Microsoft is coming in to the office next week to show us what SSAS and SSRS can do for us. I dread meetings like this because I’ve rarely met a consultant that doesn’t have the “I-have-a-hammer-and-that-looks-like-a-nail” mentality. It’s a good excuse to update documentation (which we’ve been needing to do, but it’s hard to justify hours for).

SQLSaturday #13 Update

So much stuff going on that it’s hard to keep track of; as of this moment, we’re at budget, which means that all of my expenses are able to be paid. I’m still working on getting a little more funding (just in case we need it), but I’m feeling really good about things right now. I’ve still got a long list of stuff to do, but we’re getting there.

Just in case you care, here’s my remaining to-do items:

1. Make sure that the restaurant is still available on April 24th for the speaker’s dinner. I sent a request in, and got a few initial emails, but haven’t heard back. I need to follow up with that.

2. Need name badges for volunteers, and hopefully for all of the registrants. My wife said I could find some at Office Max, which is good, because I was getting prices on fancy lanyards (which we don’t need).

3. Pick up event bags; Regions Bank is actually donating the event bags to us, so here’s a little shout out to them 🙂

4. Prep the event guide. The Microsoft conference center has names for its rooms, so I need to go back and change the names of the tracks to match. Should simplify my life as best I can.

5. Prepare my volunteer army for stuff they need to do. I still haven’t laid out a logistical plan, which I need to do soon.

6. The week before the event is going to be printer mayhem; I need to check on prices at the various business stores to see what printing the event guide will cost me.

7. Pursue the non-pays on the lunch fee list, as well as prepare to reimburse volunteers who paid.

8. Contact the SQL Short Session Speakers and see where they are at with their topics.

Ugggh. Too much stuff to do. On the plus side, free stuff is continuing to come in, so that’s exciting.

SQLSaturday #13 update

Things are trucking along; I finally got all of the speakers nailed down and had to choose between some very interesting presentations. After a discussion with the rest of the SQLSaturday team, I decided to add another room and track, and so we now have 34 presentations (plus a lunchtime special by Joe Celko). WOW.

BTW, we’re still way overbooked. If you put off reserving a slot, I’m sorry. Maybe next year.

Anyway, here’s the tentative graphical schedule; this is still subject to change, but it’s close to being done (I think):

SQLSaturday #13 schedule

SQLSaturday #13 schedule

I’ve also figured out a restaurant for the Speaker’s dinner, as well as the vendor for the box lunches on Saturday. Stuff left to do:

1. Get more sponsors! More money, more money.
2. Get the speaker’s shirts done.
3. Get the attendee gifts done.
4. Set up volunteer shifts.
5. More shwag.

Sheesh….

SQLSaturday update

This update is brief compared to other ones; I just wanted to get some thoughts down quickly:

1. We’re overbooked with speakers; still waiting on a session from a really smart guy that I admire a lot. Hopefully, he’ll have time to submit it tonight before I close the sessions down again.

2. We sent out our second email to the AtlantaMDF membership list today, and we now have 200 registrants (standing room only if everybody shows up).

3. I got a price from our caterers, and it’s well within our $10 lunch fee.

4. I’ve got enough sponsors at this point to pay for everything; I just need a few more to have enough cool swag to hand out.

Gotta run pick up the girls.

SQLSaturday #13 update

It all started with phone call with Andy Warren last Friday (February 13); that seems like a lifetime ago.  I was concerned because things weren’t going so well with the planning for SQLSaturday #13 here in Atlanta on April 25 (sorry; it starts becoming a habit.  I can’t say the name without giving a location and a date).

Anyway, I’m coordinating this event, and it just wasn’t feeling right.  I had been exchanging emails with Andy, and he suggested a phone call to give me some advice.  It was a good idea; among Andy’s suggestions was that I tackle one problem at a time.  Our schedule was only about half full, our registrations were about half full, and we only had one or two sponsors.  Andy suggested that I get the schedule filled up, and that would draw in registrations.  With registrations, I could sell the show to sponsors.  I agreed, and started thinking about where I could advertise for speakers.

I started by contacting everyone who had ever spoken at a SQLSaturday event in the past; I then posted the call for speakers to every LinkedIn group to which I belonged.  I asked nearvy regional user groups for speaker recommendations.  I did all of this on Friday afternoon.

Response was swift; I got several responses, including one short email on Saturday:

“Celko can do extra slots.”

Celko?  Joe Celko?  The guy from the usergroups with whom everyone I know has had at least one brief and antagonistic conversation? THAT Celko?

Yep.

Out of desperation (and a little avarice), I wrote back and asked if he would consider being a featured presentation.  The way I figured, Celko’s a controversial figure; a lot of people love him, and a lot of people, well, don’t.  But, I had heard that he’s a great speaker, and even though I’ve disagreed with some of his methods, he is a smart guy.

He agreed.  I posted a couple of postings to different newsgroups advertising Celko’s presentation, and wanted to see if the numbers would go up.  They eked up a notch (5 or 6 registrations), but not much.  I then asked the email master at AtlantaMDF to send out a blast to all registered members announcing the event.

Sunday came and went.  No email.

Monday and Tuesday came and went. No email.

On Wednesday, I nudged the email master.  At 3:39 pm the email went out.  By 4:02, we had jumped from 76 registrations to 100 registrations.  I was hoping for 120.  By 4:45, we had 118.

After consulting with the other team members, we decided to bump up the available seats to 140.  By 7:00 AM today, we had hit it.  Andy suggested we bump it to the fire code limits; I now have a limit of 200 seats, and a little over 150 registrants.

Of course, we picked up other speakers along the way; we now have 26 scheduled sessions (I was expecting 15), and I’m now having to turn people away.   I’m still waiting for sponsors to respond, but I’m very hopeful that we’ll get a good response SINCE WE”RE TWO MONTHS OUT AND I”M LOOKING AT STANDING ROOM ONLY.

Sorry for yelling.  I’m a little excited.

It all started with a phone call.

RC Cola and a moon pie

If you ain’t from the South,  you probably don’t get that particular reference; basically, it’s a classic desert combination.  Two good things that are great together.  I kind of felt that way after having lunch today with Dan Attis.  Dan’s putting together a Sharepoint Saturday  the week before SQLSaturday, and it was kind of nice to compare notes with somebody.  We’re looking for ways we can build on that synergy for a future conference (and whatever little things we can do for the current ones).

SQL Server 2006 DBA Street Smarts – Joseph L. Jorden

Welcome to my first book review!  As part of the process of arranging for swag for SQLSaturday, I’ve encountered a number of publishers that have agreed to donate books to our event in exchange for book reviews.  Obviously, they’d like favorable reviews, but I don’t feel obligated to hold back any legitimate criticisms that I may have of their material.  I do think this is a good opportunity to expand my own writing skills, plus encourage me to read more.

I’ve been studing for my MCITP: Database Administrator exams for some time; I picked up Jorden’s Street Smarts a while back, and have slowly been easing my way through it.  other things seem to occupy my time, so I’ve been unable to fully commit to taking the exam.  However, that’s no fault of the author.  He does a great job of simplifying the material that will be covered on the Microsoft exam 70-431, and it really is framed in terms of common “street” scenarios that a typical DBA might encounter. 

The book is laid out in four phases: Installation and Configuration, Implementing High Availability, Maintaining and Automating, and finally, Monitoring and Troubleshooting.  Each phase is comprised of tasks; for every task, there’s a description of a plausible scenario, followed by a step-by-step explanation of how to do the task using SQL Server Management Studio.  There’s lots of pictures (probably because the exam emphasises the use of the GUI), and it’s a very easy read.  Unfortunately, there’s only so much you can do to make this material exciting.  As a development-oriented DBA, I’ve been sitting for months on the second section (mainly because it’s the stuff I don’t do on a day-to-day basis anymore), and even now, I’m dreading cracking it back open again.

The book is well-written, and if I were more enthralled with the material, I think I would actually enjoy using it as a study guide.  It’s better than many other certification books I’ve encountered, because I think the author really tries to use examples that are realistic (rather than simply trying to teach the test).  If you’re looking to upgrade from a SQL Server 2000 MCDBA to the MCTS SQL Server 2005 cert, this is a good place to start.

catching up…

I’m starting to fall back into a bad habit of not posting regularly; I’ve already missed a couple of weekly updates, and I haven’t shown off much coding lately.  I wish I could blame it on a lack of time, but the truth is that I’m lazy.  Even though I’ve been keeping busy, I still have plenty of free time.  I’ve just been frittering it away on television.  However, I’ve decided I’m going to take some advice from a fellow blogger: if you can’t keep a committment to two posts a week, commit to one.  Henceforth, I’ll be posting at least one post a week on Wednesday nights.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, here’s the breakdown of what’s been up with me since my last post:

  • Judged a speech contest at the local community college,
  • Started our latest sprint in the scrum method at work,
  • Finished the sponsor letter for SQLSaturday,
  • made several appeals for volunteers and speakers for SQLSaturday,
  • finally took down my Christmas lights, and
  • cleaned my home office.

I’m pooped just making the list.  🙂

AtlantaMDF meeting 2009-01-12

Wanted to drop a quick post wrapping up tonight’s usergroup meeting for AtlantaMDF.  Tonight was the first chance I’ve had to pitch SQLSaturday #13 to a larger audience, and I got a lot of positive feedback.  I had several people volunteer to help, and even had two or three people volunteer to present (not including those who were interested in presenting in my two super-short sessions).  I’m hoping this is going to be killer; I’ve got a lot of legwork to do to get sponsors lined up, but we’re on our way!

There were a lot of new faces tonight; the cynical side of me wants to point to the economy.  A lot of people are either looking for work, or want to make sure that they still have work in the next year.  User groups provide both free education, and free contacts, and you can’t fault someone for doing what they can to improve themselves and make sure that their opportunites are lined up.  However, I think a lot of people are finally starting to realize that SQL Server is a great platform for database development, and the best way they can learn about the technology is to participate in the user group.

Tonight, Eric Melcher of Intellinet gave a great presentation on End-To-End BI.  If you weren’t there, you may want to download it from the AtlantaMDF site when he publishes it; I think the title was a little misleading, but the content was great.  Eric really focused on the client tools available for analysis, including everything from Excel to Performance Point, touching on Excel Web Services, Proclarity, and Reporting Services along the way.  If you’re like me, and you feel overwhelmed by what BI is, and what options are available to display data, this was a great presentation to get your feet wet.