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PASS

Scripts for presentation today at the 2011 PASS Summit

Oct 13th, 2011
by Aaron Nelson.
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I’m presenting at the PASS Summit today and just wanted to post the scripts I plan on using.  If you’re following along and you’re new to PowerShell I recommend that you have a look at this article I wrote earlier this year: Day Zero with PowerShell

  1. Table Size
    1. Store Results
  2. Compress Tables
    1. Compress Indexes
    2. Store Results
  3. Process Cube
  4. Backup Database –PassThru
  5. Download Denali CTP
  6. Grab Configuration Info
  7. New Get-DisksSpace try to pass from Reg servers w/ Group
  8. Email Space Report
  9. CSV with Bulk Insert
  10. Import CSV with Out-DataTable
  11. Allen Kinsel – Logs
  12. SQL Saturday – Navigate Event Schedule XML

Whats in my PowerShell Profile

Oct 11th, 2011
by Aaron Nelson.
2 comments

Here are two zip files.  The first file is my profile and the second zip file is the scripts that my profiles references.  These are just some of the tools I find useful for enhancing PowerShell.

PowerShell takes the Pole at SQLRally!

May 10th, 2011
by Aaron Nelson.
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PowerShell takes the Pole at SQLRally!

PowerShell has taken the Pole for the DBA division at SQLRally!  Come see why the organizers have chosen this session to lead the pack to the Green Flag.

We will be covering new ground, not rehashing last year’s PASS Summit presentation.  I have developed several new examples for leveraging PowerShell in your everyday DBA role since then.  I am promising 6 new scripts for everyone but if I get on a role that number might be closer to 10 when they drop the green flag on this year’s event.  :-)

If you’ve never used PowerShell before don’t worry. We will spend a few minutes on a ‘get up to speed lap’ so everyone is going at the same pace when we step on the gas with all this new material.  All scripts will be made available for you to download during the session and access later on from pit-row.

After my session here’s what I’ll be checking out:

 

What sessions I'll be checking out during SQLRally

What sessions I'll be checking out during SQLRally

Late April Free Training from PASS VCs

Apr 15th, 2011
by Aaron Nelson.
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www.sqlpass.orgPowerShell provisioning of Hyper-V Servers
Designing Cubes for Performance
Database Standards SOP
_____________________________________________________________
PowerShell provisioning of Hyper-V Servers
April 20, 2011, 12 PM EDT (GMT -4)
Marco Shaw

Marco provides an overview of using sysprep for Windows Server 2008R2, and SQL Server 2008R2, which also now supports this feature. This is especially useful when wanting to get up a new (lab or even production environment) quickly. He will be doing this using only Microsoft Hyper-V & Windows PowerShell without any other external tools.

Marco Shaw
Marco ( blog | twitter ) is a consultant with CGI and has over 12 years of IT experience. He has been awarded a Microsoft MVP award for the last 4 years in the Windows PowerShell category.

LiveMeeting: Registration Link
_____________________________________________________________
Designing Cubes for Performance
April 20, 2011, 12 PM EDT (GMT -4)
Stacia Misner

Building a cube is simple. After all, you have a lot of wizards at your disposal to do the development work. But building a cube that delivers data quickly requires you to make additional changes to the database design. In this session, you’ll learn what steps you need to take in the development process to ensure the cube is designed for optimal performance, whether you’re using Analysis Services 2005 or Analysis Services 2008. You learn not only how to properly design dimensions, aggregates, and partitions, but why these design principles improve performance.

Bio:
Stacia Misner is a consultant, educator, mentor, and author specializing in Business Intelligence solutions since 1999. With more than 25 years of experience in IT, she is the author or co-author of ten books about BI. Her most recent books include Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Building Integrated Business Intelligence Solutions with SQL Server 2008 R2 and Office 2010. Stacia provides consulting and custom education services through Data Inspirations, writes about her experiences with BI at blog.datainspirations.com, and tweets as @StaciaMisner.

LiveMeeting: Link
_____________________________________________________________
Database Standards SOP
April 21, 2011, 1 PM EDT (GMT -4)
Thomas LeBlanc

Join Normalization nut Thomas LeBlanc for a review of a standard operating procedure used among DBAs at an employer. See the changes he made after joining the BI group at this employer. The session will go through naming conventions, check list for creating a table, formatting in stored procedures, and more. A brief preview of the SQLRally talk 3rd Normal Form: That’s Crazy Talk!!! Will be given about Lookup tables. This discussion comes from 21+ years of developing databases for application developers. The use of identity columns for primary keys, and the need for a unique constraint on transaction tables that do resort to ID columns will be covered.

Thomas LeBlanc
Thomas is a semi-retired Senior DBA turned ETL Lead Architect @ Amedisys in Baton Rouge, LA. Worked in the IT field for 21 years experience w/ COBOL dBase, FoxPro, Visual FoxPro, VB 3 thru 6 and .Net(C#). Designing and developing Normalized & Dimensional database has become his passion. Full-time DBA work started about 9 years ago. he has been blessed with speaking at SQLRally this year. Free time is spent helping other & improving his relationship with family & God.

LiveMeeting: Link

Mid April Free Training from PASS VCs

Apr 11th, 2011
by Aaron Nelson.
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www.sqlpass.orgBuilding Applications That A DBA Will Love
All About Analysis Services
_____________________________________________________________

Building Applications That A DBA Will Love
April 12, 2011, 12 PM Eastern
Presenter: Andy Warren
Attendee URL: LiveMeeting

It’s natural for the focus to be on the end user when we build applications, but it’s important and worthwhile to build into our design some things that make it easier for the DBA to provision, tune, and support the product we deliver. So what does a DBA care about? Performance of course, but also security, scalability, space usage, and yes, even documentation. This presentation will cover tips in a number of areas that address the concerns of the DBA, and we’ll talk about why you should care about making the DBA happy too!

Andy Warren

Andy Warren is a SQL Server consultant and trainer who occasionally writes some code too. He’s on the PASS Board of Directors, was a founding partner in SQLServerCentral.com, started the SQLSaturday event format, and is currently a SQL Server MVP. Andy blogs at www.sqlandy.com, and can be reached via Twitter as @sqlandy and on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/sqlandy.

How do I attend?
Attendee URL: LiveMeeting
_____________________________________________________________

Efficient and effective processing of OLAP CUBES with AMO and XMLA
Fri April 15th 12PM EST (US)
Speaker: Steve Simon

Topic Description:

Within the financial industry, rapid and effective decision making is critical to our client relationships. Analytical tools such as OLAP cubes help make this a reality. In many 24 X 7 enterprises, data capture and cube updates occur on an ongoing basis throughout the business day. We are able to achieve this through the innovative utilization of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). This intermediate level hands-on presentation will show the attendee how we have utilized Analysis Management Objects (AMO) commands and SSIS to ‘fire’ our OLAP CUBE updating processes. The presentation will discuss the high level concepts behind Analysis Management Objects (and the XMLA that is generated from the commands) and the scenarios under which we can benefit from their usage. Topics covered will be the updating of dimensions, measures, partitions, the cube and more.

Bio:

Steve Simon is an Assistant Vice President with State Street Corporation in Boston. He has been involved with database design and analysis for over 26 years. Steve has presented papers at eight North American PASS Summits (in Orlando, Seattle WA (4), Denver CO (2) and San Francisco CA), two at PASS Europe 2009 and one at PASS Europe 2010. He has just recently presented his PASS 2008 Summit presentation in Johannesburg South Africa. Steve is actively involved with the SQL Server community within the Boston area and is a regular presenter at the New England Code Camps and SQL Saturday events and participates actively on many of the Microsoft User Forums. He is also the Virtual Chapter leader of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) Oracle – SQL Server Virtual Chapter and is a PASS regional mentor. He will also be presenting a data mining paper at SQL Teach in Montreal between May 31st , 2011 and June 3rd 2011.

URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=RPN4J9&role=attend&pw=J%25%7E*7r%229d

Help Promote SQLRally!

Feb 24th, 2011
by Aaron Nelson.
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SQLRally_Logo_Dell_WebIn case you’re in need of some images to help us promote the largest PASS event on the East Coast this year, I’ve gathered some together for you Smile For all you chapter leaders I’ve also included a flyer that you can print out and hand out at your user group meeting or SQL Saturday. You can right-click save-as on these or just grab this zip with everything.

This one would look great in your email signature!

SQLRally

This one would look great in the tight-hand column of your blog Smile

SQLRally_Banner_240x120_1

Or this one:

SQLRally_Banner_240x120_2

If you’re using the PrimePress theme like me you’ll want to put this under /wp-content/themes/primepress/headers

SQLRally_Banner_728x90

PASS AppDev VC Presents: SSIS Tips & Tricks

Dec 27th, 2010
by Aaron Nelson.
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www.sqlpass.orgSSIS Tips & Tricks
12/28/2010 12 Noon Eastern Time (GMT-5)
Josef Richberg

Learn some of the quirks and capabilities of SSIS. Learn about the pitfall of “parallel path choicing”. Use the Script Component as a data source (to solve complex sourcing issues) and as a data destination (to get around the identity column conundrum). See how to use Script Tasks to build directory scanners for efficient file import techniques. We’ll also go over some the tunable properties of the Data Flow object.

Josef Richberg
Josef is a DBA for HarperCollins Publishers working with SQL Server and SSIS.  He has over 17 years’ experience designing, building, and tuning SQL Server.  Josef was the recipient of the ’2009 Exceptional DBA’ award and actively blogs at http://josef-richberg.squarespace.com.

How do I view the presentation?
Attendee URL:  Live Meeting link

PASS Summit 2010 Feedback Results Are In

Dec 23rd, 2010
by Aaron Nelson.
1 comment

I got my PASS Summit 2010 Feedback earlier this week and am blown away with the results! Actually, I’m humbled, very humbled. Before I bore you with the scores or anything: today is my brother Jason’s Birthday ( blog | twitter | flickr ) so I thought I’d share with you some pictures he took while he was out there with us at the PASS Summit. This one is taken from the Columbia Tower (the REALLY tall black building, well I guess it’s not actually that tall, I mean it’s not as tall as Bank of America Plaza in Atlanta Winking smile but anyways…). The Columbia tower is a much better deal than the Space Needle, it only costs $5 to go up and it’s MUCH taller.

Onto the boring part:
I put a lot of work into that session and even on the day of the event I was still second-guessing what scripts to put in and which to leave-out. Thankfully fellow [PowerShell] speaker Trevor Barkhouse ( blog | twitter ) sat through my entire presentation that morning and helped me carefully tweak the sequence of scripts. I had the 4th most well attended session of the 186 sessions at the PASS Summit on the official scoring list I was sent! My scores were nothing short of amazing considering I had never spoken on a stage this large before. Even if you leave the whole first-time-at-Summit-speaker thing out I still scored just above the midpoint for all speakers at the Summit. Not half bad for a n00b <—Literally!

I am not a professional speaker. In fact I have been speaking for less than a year still. I had a time budget in preparation and I had to make trade offs. I decided to focus vastly more time on demos and script flow than slides or things like inserting jokes in the session. I’ll definitely work to improve the things that people comment on and I’ll share those in a later post (short on time today).

The Scores:

How would you rate the… Score
amount of time allocated to cover the topic/session? 4.17
Speaker’s presentation skills? 4.33
quality of the presentation materials? 4.41
usefulness of the information presented in your day-to-day environment? 4.46
accuracy of the session title, description and experience level to the actual session? 4.5
Speaker’s knowledge of the subject? 4.62

Time allotted: Based on the comments from people who came up and talked to me afterwards at the Summit, they would have loved for me to have kept going for another 20 minutes. I don’t think Adam Machanic ( blog | twitter ) would have appreciated that much but I sure had the material for it! Smile

Presentation skills:I will definitely work on upping my presentation skills but this is the toughest competition I’ve ever been up against so not half bad!

Quality of the materials: This may have been lowered because of the many A/V related comments I received. Or maybe refining my presentation skills will help this too.

Usefulness in your day-to-day environment: is the entire reason I put the presentation together in the first place. My goal for this particular score is not a number but a note from the organizers mentioning the shocking number of people who scratched out the choices and wrote in a number above the range. I will not let people down the next time Winking smile

Accuracy of title: I have some ideas on how to tweak the abstract a little but I’m happy with this score.

Speaker’s knowledge: I’m happy with this score. I’m sure Adam (who was speaking right after me) got nothing but 5s on this score. Considering the company, my score was stellar. I will not spend any time thinking about let alone trying to improve this score.

I’ll post the comments I received in a separate post. Gotta run.

Oh btw… that table up there. Generated if off of an Excel spreadsheet using a single line of PowerShell code! (I’ll blog that soon, promise.)

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