For those of you that know me, you know that I enjoy learning, and passing on what I have learned to others. As it turns out, this whole presenting thing has been an interesting path for me. (You can read more about the early disastrous presentations in my life here.) As I have started to present at SQL events, I have found that I really enjoy it. When I first saw the light come on in someone’s eyes as they understood what I was presenting, I became hooked. As I got feedback from other #sqlfamily members, and learned by watching other presenters, I have improved my skills. Yet, one thing remained constant – these one hour slots at a SQL Saturday just seem so short sometimes. I began to yearn to conduct longer presentations.

After discussing this with my co-worker, friend and fellow MCM Jason Brimhall (b | t), we decided to collaborate on a longer presentation. The result of this collaboration is that we have created a pre-conference style presentation titled “Murder They Wrote”. We will give our first presentation of it at SQL Saturday #233 in Washington, DC (well, it’s actually in Chevy Chase, MD) on December 6th. Hopefully, this will be the first of many times that we give this presentation.

The Target Audience and what we cover

If you are a DBA, a database developer, or an application developer that connects to a SQL Server back-end database, then this session is for you. If you are experiencing performance issues, then this session is for you. If you’re looking for a fun way to spend a day and to get some #sqllearning, then this session is for you. This presentation is geared around the various ways of writing code that will kill performance, based upon the things that we have seen done to the instances that we have managed (and, in my case, some of the things that I did back when I was a developer and didn’t know better). With no topic being off limits, we also cover critical issues that just aren’t that great to do – and that still happen way too often. And demos? Oh yeah! You know that I like to show things instead of just telling them, so in that spirit, this is a demo-heavy presentation. We don’t just tell you that something is bad and something else is good… we’ll show it to you.

So, come on out for a day of learning, fun, and SQL camaraderie. We look forward to spending a day chatting with the attendees, and in helping them to overcome some of their issues.

The Official Session Abstract

Join Microsoft Certified Masters Wayne Sheffield and Jason Brimhall as they examine numerous crazy implementations they have seen over the years, and how these implementations can be murder on SQL Server.  No topic is off limits as they cover the effects of these crazy implementations from performance to security, and how the “Default Blame Acceptors” (DBAs) can use alternatives to keep the developers, DBAs, bosses and even the end-users happy.

Course Objectives

  1. Recognize practices that are performance pitfalls
  2. Learn how to Remedy the performance pitfalls
  3. Recognize practices that are security pitfalls
  4. Learn how to Remedy the security pitfalls
  5. Demos Demos Demos – scripts to demonstrate pitfalls and their remedies will be provided
  6. Have fun and discuss
  7. We might blow up a database
  8. Or a server

We are trying to have a nice mix of real world examples (and some contrived ones), all of which demonstrate a good and useful point.

Registration – or what to do to join us

If you will be in the area, and you are looking for high quality content with a good mix of enjoyment (and some self-ridiculing), come and join us! You can register for this session at Eventbrite.  There is a limit of only 30 seats available for this murder mystery theater, so sign up now to ensure that you have a spot saved for you.

Early bird bonus – or how to save some bucks

Until November 8th, the registration is discounted to $99 (plus transaction fees).  Just use the promo code SQLSATDC for the discount. After November 8th, the price jumps up to $125 (plus transaction fees). The clock is ticking – register now to save!

Don’t forget to hit your boss up for this training! Where else can you get one-day of training for under $100?