Event link at our Meetup page.

• 5:30 pm Networking
• 6:00 pm Meeting

Backup Options in Azure

Database backups are the foundation of data protection in SQL Server. In Azure, backups for Azure SQL Database are managed, but there are options for both short- and long-term retention. Backups for SQL Server databases running on Azure VMs can be backed up using SQL Server Agent jobs. Alternately, these databases can be backed up using Azure Recovery Vault. Join me for this session to learn about these options, including demonstrations of set up and administration.

Frank Gill

Frank Gill is a Senior Data Engineer at Concurrency   With 19 years of IT experience, the first 8 as a mainframe programmer, he has developed a love of all things internal. When not administering databases or geeking out on internals, Frank volunteers at the Art Institute of Chicago and reads voraciously.

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Event link at our Meetup page.

• 5:30 pm Networking
• 6:00 pm Meeting

SQL Server Lockdown: Options for High Security Scenarios

We will cover options for high security scenarios in SQL Server.

Ed Leighton-Dick

Ed Leighton-Dick is a Microsoft MVP, SQL Server performance and architecture specialist, and Founder/Principal Consultant of Kingfisher Technologies. He is a frequent volunteer with PASS, including roles as regional mentor, chapter leader of I-380 PASS SQL Server User Group, and organizer of SQLSaturday Iowa City. He can often be found teaching sessions at local, regional, and national events, including user groups, SQLSaturday, and PASS Summit. 

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Event link at our Meetup page.

• 5:30 pm Networking
• 6:00 pm Meeting

Introduction to Azure Data Studio

As days go by Azure Data Studio is becoming more and more powerful. This session will provide a high level overview of Azure Data Studio and highlight some of the differences from SQL Server Management Studio. We will cover saved connections, how to get both the actual and estimated Execution plans, workspaces and one of my favorite features, Notebooks. We also go over what an extension is and why I would want to use them.

David Bland

Manager of Database Administrators, Stericycle

Over 20 years of SQL Server experience that includes being a DBA, BI development and Application development using VB.NET. Dave currently is the Manager of the DBA team at Stericycle. Dave is a Friend of Red-Gate for 2019. He is a frequent presenter at SQL Saturday events and user groups around the country. Has been teaching SQL Server since version 2000 and is the SQL Server instructor at Harper College in Palatine, IL. Current certifications include: Microsoft Certified Trainer; MCTS: SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance; MCTS: SQL Server 2008, BI Development and Maintenance; MCSA: SQL Server 2008; MCSA: SQL Server 2016; MCSE: SQL Server 2016 – BI; MCDBA: SQL Server 2000; MCSD; MCSE: Data Management and Analytics.teaching sessions at local, regional, and national events, including user groups, SQLSaturday, and PASS Summit. 

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Event link at our Meetup page.

SQL and Authentication and Permissions, Oh My!

The fundamentals of SQL security can be confusing even for people who have used them for years. There are many combinations, but they are built on simple building blocks that fit together in concrete ways. Like DNA the combinations are almost endless, but the rules are few and easy to remember.

Pat Phelan

Pat Phelan joined a user group (DECUS) in High School, and many more since then. Pat was paid for his first program before he got his driver’s license. After many jobs (with some great stories) in High School and College, Pat worked over twenty years for a major accounting firm. Pat started working for Involta in 2007 and is now the database mentor and a member of the Engineering team.  Involta builds, owns and operates world class colocation datacenters and provides managed services and support staff to clients.

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Event link at our Meetup page.

SQL Server on AWS RDS The Other Cloud Alternative

SQL Server on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Relational Database Services (RDS) is Amazon’s PaaS offering for SQL Server. In this session you will learn how to create an SQL Server Instance, know the difference between running SQL Server on RDS versus SQL Server on Premise.

H. Ross Reed

H. Ross Reed is a Lead Database Administrator for the Options Clearing Corp. He has been a database administrator for over 20 years. He’s Co-Organizer of the Chicago Data Professionals User Group, and a frequent presenter.

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Event link at our Meetup page.

5:30 pm Networking
6:00 pm Meeting

Secrets of the Plan Cache

You have heard of a query plan, right?  Perhaps even looked at one somewhere a long the way.  Have you ever wondered what information might be buried in the plan cache, the courses of action having that additional information might lead you to?  Perhaps you have wondered what plans in cache would benefit from those missing indexes or contemplated your cost threshold of parallelism, among other questions.  This session is designed to answer just that.  We will look at query plans without the pretty node icons and from there we will interrogate the plan cache thus putting its secrets to work for us.

Peter Shore

Peter is a seasoned IT professional with over 25 years of experience, a frequent speaker at SQL Saturday, User Groups, and other conferences.  He took the accidentally intentional DBA plunge in 2013 and has discovered that he loves to find the stories the data has to tell.  Peter is comfortable working with both physical and virtual servers where he tries to apply best practices to attain performance improvements.  He is also adept at bridging the gap between technical and business language in order to bring technology solutions to business needs.

Additionally, Peter is the president of CBusPASS in Columbus, Ohio and co-organizer of SQL Saturday Columbus.

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Event link at our Meetup page.

5:30 pm Networking
6:00 pm Meeting

Back to the Future with Temporal Tables

Back to the Future is the greatest time travel movie ever. I’ll show you how temporal tables work, in both SQL Server and Azure SQL Database, without needing a DeLorean. We cover point in time analysis, reconstructing state at any time in the past, recovering from accidental data loss, calculating trends, and my personal favorite: auditing. There’s even a bit of In-Memory OLTP. This is a demo-heavy session.

Randolph West

Randolph West (they/them) is an actor, author, and Microsoft Data Platform MVP, and has worked with SQL Server since the late 1990s. When not consulting, you can see them acting on the stage and screen, or doing voices for independent video games. Randolph is available for mentoring, and talks on SQL Server and technology in general. Do not trust Randolph around chocolate.

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Event link at our Meetup page.

5:30 pm Networking
6:00 pm Meeting

Intro to Azure Synapse Analytics

I will introduce briefly Azure Synapse architecture and features, demonstrate how to Create and setup a Synapse workspace, extract data from azure data lake or azure SQL Databases then analyze the data with dedicated SQL pools, and serverless moreover how to Integrate with pipelines, and monitor Azure Synapse Workspace.

Jean Joseph

Jean Joseph is a Data Engineer/DBA, highly experienced in Traditional Database, and Big Data technologies with a history of successes in designing, implementing complex technical projects for diverse businesses in various stages of their development. Acknowledged as a leader capable of mentoring teams of different backgrounds and talents moreover inspiring individual efforts to deliver.

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Event link at our Meetup page.

5:30 pm Networking
6:00 pm Meeting

SQL Server Configuration with dbatools and dbachecks

Automating the configuration of SQL Server instances and being able to check the configuration for standard configuration is an important role for any DBA when you have lots of instances. But how can we automate the configuration easily? How can we check to make sure the proper configuration is in place and hasn’t changed?

In this session, we will look at how to configure your SQL Server Instances using PowerShell and the dbatools module. Then we will look at how to use dbachecks to confirm the configuration of our instances and how to check for changes in the future of the configuration. Attendees will see how easy it is to use PowerShell via dbatools to configure their SQL Server instances.

Attendees will see how easy it is to use PowerShell via dbachecks and PowerBI to see if their servers are configured properly. Attendees will be given a set of scripts that take back to use to configure and test the configuration of their SQL Server instances.

Tracy Boggiano, Senior Database Administrator for DocuSign

Tracy Boggiano is currently a Data Platform MVP, PASSion 2020 Award winner, and works as a Senior Database Administrator for DocuSign. Tracy has worked on SQL Server since 6.5. She has spoken at numerous local user groups and SQLSaturdays, virtual groups, Data Relay, and Summit. She is currently a co-leader of the Triangle SQL Server User Group in Raleigh, NC. Tracy tinkered with databases in middle school to keep her sports card collection organized and got an early start on databases.

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