Abstracts

Policy Based Management

In the database world, many best practices exist. Some are general, some are company or site specific. Wouldn’t it be nice if SQL Server could automatically check or even enforce these best practices? Well, this is exactly what the Policy Based Management (PBM) framework allows you to do. In this session, we guide you through this framework that was introduced in all editions of SQL Server 2008. We demonstrate how to create facets, conditions and policies, we show the different evaluation methods for these, and we briefly dive under the hood of PBM to see what it does to our servers. We end with the story of multi-server management, so that you can use your policies on all the sql servers in your company… even the ones that still run on sql 2000 or sql 2005! Get the slides!

Designing Effective Aggregations in Analysis Services 2008

Building aggregations is one of the most important ways of improving query performance in Analysis Services, but simply running the Aggregation Design Wizard doesn't always result in useful aggregations being built. This session shows the steps you need to go through in order to build aggregations that are actually going to be used by the queries that you're running. Get the slides!

New breakthrough Self-Service Business Intelligence, introduction to PowerPivot (aka Gemini)

PowerPivot (Gemini) is Microsoft’s new, heavily hyped BI tool that allows you to manipulate vast amounts of data extremely quickly, all from within Excel.
But what is it and how does it actually work? In this session we’ll take a closer look at Gemini and its architecture, discover its strengths and weaknesses, and find out if it will make you want to upgrade to Office 2010. Get the slides!

Breaking the ETL world record with integration Services

Data volumes managed with SQL Server are growing by the day, but how do you make sure you're most demanding databases  perform @ topspeed ?
In this session you will learn based on some typical scenarios how you can optimize the throughput within SQL Server significantly ;
what throughput to expect from an "out of the box " SQL setup vs a fully optimized one ? Where to start and where to look ?
You will learn some tricks how to optimize  joins on multiple large dimension tables with a staging table and insert data to a final fact table and how to speed up scans for large fact tables.
These optimizations will be demoed step by step live on a  96 core Unisys ES7000 model 7600R Server with the most recent SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP. Get the slides!

Change Data Capture and Change Tracking

It is a common business requirement to have a copy of (part) of the production data available at a secondary server, and SQL server has always offered many features to accomplish this.
SQL server 2008 now introduces 2 new ways for synchronizing data between servers: Change Data Capture (CDC) and Change Tracking (CT).
This session will give a practical introduction into these features, using real-life scenarios and code examples. It will also compare CDC and CT to the existing data movement options, indicating the sweet spots for each technology. Get the slides!

Looking beyond the database: How new .NET development technologies could change the live of the SQL/DBA guy/girl

The release of the new cloud based development platform Azure, the adoption of object/relational mapping with ADO.NET Entity Framework/LINQ and the need to have a restful approach to access dynamic data on a global scale is changing the way developers look at SQL server, its relational constraints and T/SQL as query and DML language. The tools and platforms such as WPF and Silverlight allow developers to build data-driven applications much faster with writing less code.
In this demo-driven session, Kurt Claeys and Gill Cleeren will explain what lives beyond the data in the database, building a data-intensive application with the newest platforms and tools, all in one hour! Get the slides!

Microsoft Report Builder 3.0

Prior to the SQL Server 2008 R2 release we introduce to you a whole new meaning of creating reports.
This tool will bring features such as enhanced data layout, data visualization, maps, on demand rendering, intuitive authoring for the information worker and does no longer depend on just Visual Studio. Microsoft Report Builder 3.0 will bring a new meaning to creating reports. Get the slides!

Handling XML in SQL Server

Web services, REST, Office 2007 documents, RSS feeds,... , the world is filled with XML data. How do we deal with this when it comes to storing such data in our databases? SQL Server offers a lot of functionality to store, retrieve, index and manipulate XML data. In this session, we bring an overview of all the XML related technologies in SQL Server. We start with FOR XML and OPENXML, functionality available since SQL Server 2000. We move on to the XML type, new in SQL Server 2005. We dive into the five functions to query and manipulate XML data on SQL Server, and build primary and secondary xml indexes to improve performance. We conclude with column sets, new functionality in SQL Server 2008 to deal with sparse columns in an xml-alike style. Get the slides!

Reporting Services… A DBA’s Tool ? Yes!!!

Is SQL Server Reporting Services more than just a Business Intelligence tool for the BI guys.
Luckily for us there is more to that, and when we look further then our first prejudices we will see that SSRS can be turned into a very useful part of your dba toolkit above and beyond just helping you with your DBA checklist. Enabling you to visualize issues and helping you to troubleshoot your machines.
This session will show you how you can turn your DBA scripts into real Dashboards, and even eliminating some of your most tedious and repetitive DBA tasks. Get the slides!

Entity Framework in Visual Studio 2010: How developers handle databases

Microsoft’s data strategy is solidly focused on conceptual models. The Entity Framework (EF) is the tool for .NET developers to build applications that make use of these models. A key goal of the Entity Framework (EF) is to help .NET developers feel at ease while giving them the opportunity to make a drastic change in their approach to data access. Visual Studio 2010 annex .NET 4.0 will contain the second major release of the framework.
In this demo-driven session, Rudi Claes and Ignace van Buggenhout will bring you up to speed with the concepts, the implementation, and real-world application opportunities of the framework, thereby focusing on the new features in EF 2.0. Get the slides!

High availability for BI/DWH

When talking about high availibility for BI you are not just talking hardware and software. For BI, the processes for data movement and the perceived availability of the user are added to the mix. In this session we will highlight the full picture and will focus quickly on the BI related elements of high availability and handle some best practices. Get the slides!