The company that I work with, SQL Solutions Group, is conducting a free community event. The week of the PASS Summit, on Tuesday, we will be hosting a day of free training. This is an event for all data professionals who happen to be in the Seattle area the days leading up to Summit but may not be able to attend one of the Summit Precons.  This day of free training will be conducted by four of our MCMs. If you’re not going to be at one of the PASS Summit Precons, then we’d love to have you come out to see us!

The workshops that we will be presenting are:

Code Smells for the Consultant (which I’ll be presenting)

Throughout my career, I’ve seen developers do some pretty crazy things to databases ( I know because I come from a developer background). Come to this session to learn both what I (and SSG) look for and why it’s bad for the database (or your career), and alternatives that can be used. Some of the topics that I will discuss include; how coding mistakes open up the database for SQL Injection attacks, how coding choices can slow down the server, and how design choices keep SQL Server dumb ( if SQL Server was allowed to be smart, it would be faster!). Trust me, your DBA will love you for identifying and fixing these code smells.

A Masters Passport to Extended Events (presented by Jason Brimhall)

As is commonly the case, all good things come to an end.  And now is as good a time as any for the use of SQL Trace and Profiler to come to an end.  Let’s face it, Trace was a good tool and had some wonderful uses.  Profiler for that matter was a good tool and was useful at times.

It is time to let those old tools retire gracefully and move into the world of XE.  This workshop will provide you the means to let Profiler and Trace be retired from your toolset as you discover all that XE has to offer.

This focused session on Extended Events will help prepare you to put this tool to immediate use as you walk back to your daily duties.  This workshop will teach you about Extended Events starting with the basics and moving through to some specific XE sessions that I would use to troubleshoot in a client environment – while doing so with minimal impact.

You will be exposed to advanced troubleshooting techniques as we work through complex issues that are made easier through the use of XE.  Take advantage of this opportunity to dive into the world of Extended Events and learn how you can make best use of this tool in your SQL 2008+ environment.

Practical Powershell for the DBA (presented by Ben Miller)

Think of all the tools you use in managing your SQL Servers. All those SQL Servers being managed by tools and man that is a lot of clicks. We will show practical scripts and techniques to help you get a handle on all those clicks. Whether you are gathering data or statistics from your SQL Servers or deploying an object to all of them. Configuration items are not excluded from the need for good tools. PowerShell is that tool that will let you get away from all those clicks. Reusable scripts that let you manage all those instances with ease. This session will give you a great start on how to think about admin tasks using PowerShell scripts or modules. Many items are already out there to help you and we will take a good look.

Transaction Isolation Levels, Locking and Deadlocking (presented by Randy Knight)

Managing concurrency is one of the most challenging aspects of working with any enterprise DBMS. There is much confusion out there about locking, blocking, and deadlocks.

In this demo heavy session we will clear up the confusion by defining what each of these items are and what their causes are. We will then dig into each of SQL Server’s built in isolation levels and explore how they affect concurrency. Understanding concurrency and how isolation levels impact it is one of the most important things you need to know as a SQL Server developer. But understanding when to use each one can be daunting. Whether you are a developer who needs to understand how isolation works and why NOLOCK is not an appropriate hint in most cases, or a seasoned DBA who needs to understand the less commonly used isolation methods, this session is for you. We will look at each level, how it impacts the engine, and examine appropriate (and inappropriate) use cases for each.

Each of these presentations will be 90 minutes long. Note that this is not necessarily the order that the presentations will be given. There will be a lunch break during the day – which brings up the fine print: While the training is free, we have a small $10 cover charge per person for the lunch. All ticket sales are final and non-refundable.

This FreeCon is being held at the Hyatt (located at 110 6th Avenue, Seattle, WA), which is about 3/4 of a mile from the Washington State Convention Center, where the PASS Summit is at. Full details (including our bios and pictures) are available at EventBrite, which is where you need to register at.

Looking forward to seeing you there!