SQL Saturday

I had an amazing Saturday with the #SQLFamily at the SQL Saturday event at Microsoft's Burlington office today. It started with organizer Taiob Ali remarks and greetings to the attendees, speakers, and mainly the sponsors. David Birmingham explained the journey of SQL Saturday and the achievements of SIOS over the years. Then the real fun began with the informative sessions. There were a variety of sessions going on in 7 rooms, but I could only attend one. Here's how it went:

The first session by Philip P. was titled "SQL Memory Management, Memory Clerks, and Other Creatures." He explained this by using an example of a business problem he encountered a few years ago. His wit in referring to SQL memory as the Mafia showcased his exemplary presentation skills. His live demo was the best of all sessions! So, I can say the day started full of knowledge and interesting insights. I got to learn how I could possibly debug problems with memory clerks and how bad queries can affect stolen memory from the buffer pool.

The second session by Varsham Papikian was about "Mastering Power Query and Handling Data Like a Pro." In this session, he showed live demos of useful tips to extract, create, modify, and merge different tables in Power Query using the M language. Although the language was completely new to me, he made sure to keep it basic and easy to follow.

The third session by Steve Wright was titled "Mission Possible: 'This Database Will Self-Destruct'." This session was about how slow downtime is more dangerous than downtime in IT and how much loss could occur over a period of time. To mitigate this, he provided solutions using SQL Sentry by SolarWinds, which has many advantages in storage forecasting, event calendar proactive alerting, and automation. Finally, he also explained the differences between DPA, DBO/DPM, and SQL Sentry. Surely, SQL Sentry has many advantages over the other two. It was very informative and provided a high-level view of business decisions.

The fourth session by Janis Griffin was about "What's New in SQL Server 2022?" She had over 30 years of experience in SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, etc. She talked about each change in SQL Server 2022 compared to previous versions, including Azure SQL Managed Instance, analytical features, security features, and performance features. I could only understand 10% of them, but I could see how technology is ever-growing and everything is becoming smarter with AI.

The fifth session by Surbhi Pokharna was titled "IoT Connecting the Dots from Device to Database." She was an interactive speaker who connected with the audience to see what they were expecting from the session. She talked about everyday examples of IoT and how we can build projects on our own using Microsoft Azure. The demo was excellent and inspired me to work on an IoT project soon.

Last but not least, Thomas Grohser session was titled "How to Manage 10, 100, 1000, 10000, or More Databases." He ended the sessions with a bang! He had a persona that couldn't match anyone in the world. He was very funny and explained each slide with real-life/business examples that everyone could relate to. He had tried using or finding tools or software that can automate the process of creating, managing, or backing up databases. He definitely tried 1000 times and failed more times than Einstein did in inventing a bulb. But he did create something in the end, which will be online soon, or at least that's what he promised. One exceptional piece of advice I got from the session was to write down Engineering Principles before writing any size of code. I can't wait to see his millions of lines of automation code and learn from the best!

Thanks to Taiob Ali for organizing and all the volunteers for making it a wonderful day. By the way, the food was amazing too. I even got my money back through raffle ticket winnings of $20. This happened through networking with amazing individuals including Camila Cruz , Thaynara L. DuBois , Jeremy Bennett , Todd Cioffi , Anil Ahuja , Jharred Williams , Karen Meerdink , and Jay Meerdink .

Finally, thanks to all the sponsors for making this happen: 微软 , SolarWinds , SIOS Technology Corp. , Quest Global , Silk , COZYROC , SQLGrease , Redgate Software , and Rubrik