I suggest you mark your calender right now and present at the hall before time to secure your seat.

Session Details

SQL Server Performance Tips and Tricks

In this session we will go over various SQL Server Performance Tuning Tricks and Tips. Learn about top tips and best SQL Server performance practices related to:

• Unused Indexes
• Clustered Indexes
• Importance of Statistics
• Index Maintenance Scripts
• ColumnStore Index
• A Surprise Secret Tip

January 7, 2012 1:30 PM

I will ask 5 questions during my session and needless to say 5 winners will get copy of my book.

The session will be 100% demo oriented and I will share lots of tips and tricks during this session. Just like every other session of mine, this session will have lots of trivia for you as well it will be extremely interactive. If you prefer to stay quite during the session, this session will a perfect technology opener for you. Once you are in the session – you will be talking and discussion various aspect of performance along with your co-attendees and me.

Additionally, I am personally waiting for the sessions of Rick Morelan who is founder of Joes 2 Pros series. Do not miss any of the sessions of SQL Saturday – here is the complete schedule.

My friend Vinod Kumar has written blog on his sessions, read it here.

Note: Session will be not recorded. There will be no live cast of the session.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Well, we learn the lesson from the experience and have made sure that the inventory does not run out any more. Since then we are now available on multiple outlets. Pretty much anywhere in USA and India the book is available. Additionally, where ever Amazon ships internationally.

I have created dedicated page where I have listed where one can avail this book from Details of SQL Server Interview Question and Answers. Even though I keep on getting common question like – where one can get this book.

You can get this book from:

USA: Amazon

India: Flipkart | IndiaPlaza | Crossword

In India now you can walk into any crossword store and ask this book, if they do not have it, you can ask them get one for you.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Book writing is a complex process.  Even after you spend months, maybe years, writing the material you still have to go through the editing and fact checking processes.  And, once the book is out there, there is no way to take back all the copies to change mistakes or add something you forgot.  Most of the time it is a one-way street.

Just like every author, I had a dream that after the books were written, they would be loved by people and gain acceptance by an audience. My first book, SQL Programming Joes 2 Pros: Programming and Development for Microsoft SQL Server 2008, is extremely popular because it helps lots of people learn various fundamental topics. My second book covers beginning to learn SQL Server Wait Stats, which is a relatively new subject. This book has had very good acceptance in the community.

Helping my community is my primary focus, so I was happy to see this year’s SQLPASS tag line: ‘This is a Community.‘ At the event, the expressor studio guys came up with a very novel idea. They had previously used my books and they had found them very useful. They got 100 copies of the book and decided to give it away to community folks. They invited me and my co-author Rick Morelan to hold a book signing event. We did a book signing on Thursday between 1 pm and 2 pm.

This event was one of the best events for me. This was my first book signing event outside of India. I reached the book signing location around 20 minutes before the scheduled time and what I saw was a big line for the book signing event. I felt very honored looking at the crowd and all the people around the event location. I felt very humbled when I saw some of my very close friends standing in the line to get my signature. It was really heartwarming to see so many enthusiasts waiting for more than an hour to get my signature. While standing in line I had the chance to have a conversation with every single person who showed up for the signature. I made sure that I repeated every single name and wrote it in every book with my signature. There is saying that if we write a name once we will remember it forever. I want to remember all of you who saw me at the book signing. Your comments were wonderful, your feedback was amazing and you were all very supportive.

I have made a note of every conversation I had with all of you when I was signing the books. Once again, I just want to express my thanks for coming to my book signing event. The whole experience was very humbling. On the top of it, I want to thank the expressor studio people who made it possible, who organized the whole signing event. I am so thankful to them for facilitating the whole experience, which is going to be hard to beat by any future experience.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Here are 1% of the photos which I have. If you are not in the photo, it does not mean I have less respect to our friendship. Please post link to our photo together :)

I was very fortunate that I was able to snap a quick photograph with Pinal Dave with Dr. David DeWitt. I stood outside of the hall waiting for Dr. to show up and when he was heading down from convention center I requested him if I can have one photo for my memory lane and very politely he agreed to have one. It indeed made my day!

Every single time I met Steve, I make sure I have one photo for my memory. Steve is so kind every single time. If you know SQL and do not know Steve Jones, you do not know SQL (IMHO).

Following is the photograph with Michael McLean. More details about this photo in future blog post!

Arnie always shares his wisdom with me. I still remember when I very first time visited USA, I was standing alone in corner and Arnie walked to me and introduced to every single person he know. Talking to Arnie is always pleasure and inspiring.

I am now published author and have written two books so far. I am fortunate to have Rick Morelan as Co-author of both of my books. He is great guy and very easy to become friends with. I am very much impressed by him and his kindness during book co-authoring. Here is very first of our photograph together at SQLPASS.

Diego Nogare and I have been talking for long time on twitter and on various social media channels. I finally got chance to meet my friend from Brazil. It was excellent experience to meet a friend whom one wants to meet for long time and had never got chance earlier.

Buck Woody – who does not know Buck. He is funny, kind and most important friends of every one. Buck is so kind that he does not hesitate to approach people even though he is famous and most known in community. Every time I meet him I learn something. He is always smiling and approachable.

Rushabh Mehta is current SQL PASS president and personal friend. He has always smiling face and tremendous love for SQL community. I often wonder where he gets all the time for all the time and efforts he puts in for community. I never miss a chance to meet and greet him. Even though he is renowned SQL Guru and extremely busy person – every single time I meet him he always asks me – “How is Nupur and Shaivi?” He even remembers my wife and daughters name. I am touched.

Nigel Sammy has extremely well sense of humor and passion from community. We have excellent synergy while we are together. The attached photo is taken while I was talking to him on Seattle Shoreline about SQL.

Rick Morelan wanted my this trip to be memorable. I am vegetarian and I told him that I do not like Seafood. Well, to prove the point, he took me to fantastic Seafood restaurant in Seattle and treated me with mouth watering vegetarian dishes. I think when I go to Seattle next time, I am going to make him to take me again to the same place.

Well, this is a short summary of few of the friends I met at Seattle. What is the life without friends, eh?

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Well, this is a short summary of my extremely quick city tour of Seattle.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Recently I attended SQLPASS 2011 and it had few announcements and some of them really important. I am going to write in detail in future all the announcements. However, there is one announcement needs special attention and blog post. The official name of the next version of the SQL Server. So far we were all addressing the next version of the SQL Server as SQL Server ‘Denali’.

Microsoft VP Ted Kummert announced the official name of the next version of the SQL Server – SQL Server 2012. The version of the SQL Server will be 11. The release date is estimated in the first half of the year 2012. Here are two important updates which are related to SQL Server 2012.

• Apache Hadoop will power Azure Cloud Services and Windows Deployments.
• New touch-based data exploration capabilities will be extended to other devices.

Additionally, SQL Server Crescent project also got new name as Power View. A new Data Explorer tool will be also released that will make it easier to browse and use data from public-cloud data sources. There is a blog post from SQL Server Team on roadmap on big data.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

I wrote book on SQL Wait Stats. [Amazon] | [Flipkart] | [Kindle]

I really wanted to learn about SQL Wait Stats. There was no real book available so I wrote the book myself. Since I wrote this book, I feel I can now more 100 pages to what I had contributed. I am very fortunate that my SQL Wait Stats book is very well accepted in community. Every author who authors book has dream that his book is well received and well read. In the recent internet era eBooks and PDF copies are everywhere and the job of reading print book and using bookmark is getting faded. Just like the same every author wants to have their books book signing event. I am so fortunate that during this SQLPASS the similar opportunity has presented to me.

I will be also doing book signing but here is interesting twist – you do not have to purchase the books (USD 11.99) – this book will be FREE for you.

Here are further details:

Event: SQL Server Wait Stats Book Signing
Date: October 13, 2011 Thursday
Time: 1 PM to 2 PM
Location: SQLPASS Exhibitors Booth #300

Thanks to kind people at expressor Studio for kindly helping me to with this arrangement.

Read the review of the book on SQLConcepts and on flipkart.

See you tomorrow!

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

“The greatest of all gifts is the power to estimate things at their true worth” – Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Please Note: The date and time are Thursday 13 at 1 PM (not Wednesday) – there are few emails asking for the same.

Quotes listed above are really relevant to the news of the day. Regular readers of my blog knows that I have published SQL Server Wait Stats [Amazon] | [Flipkart] book. I am glad to say that this book has become extremely popular since it has been published. It has ran out of stock in India two times thus far. In USA, we could manage the inventory efficiently. This book is now available on Kindle (at a price less than that of a coffee).

Recently, the kind people at expressor Studio have previously gave away few copies of my book. The same folks have sent me email that they got excellent feedback for the book from the readers who received the book. They have decided to give away 100 copies of my Wait Stats Print Book on Thursday October 13, 2011 between 1.00 and 2.00 PM at SQLPASS exhibition at Booth #300. I am just speechless at their efforts and good will for my book.

Tomorrow, I will be available between 1.00 and 2.00 PM at booth #300 and signing the books personally. Just stop by the booth and pick up the book. We intend to give away 1 book every minute of that hour. Honestly, it will be more than 1 book as there will be 100 books to give away during the short period of 60 minutes (on First come first serve basis!)

See you tomorrow!

and thanks one more time expressor Studio.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

The event started right on time, at 10 am, with my introduction and welcome to the audience.  My presentation on my favorite subject of “SQL Server Performance Troubleshooting Using Waits and Queues.”  Because of the number of speakers, I had to cut my presentation short by 10 minutes, so I only had 50 minutes to explain how to use swaits and queues to fine tune performance.  There was a good response to my talk from audience.

I feel the best presentation, though, was “HTML5 – Future of the Web” by Harish Vaidyanathan.  He explained how HTML5 is going to change the internet, and taught everyone a lot about how to best use Internet Explorer 9, and discussed CSS3, SVG and DOM specifications.  Many people in the audience came specifically for this session – many had to take a half day leave off work just to travel there.

At this point we all took a break for lunch, but there was no one taking a nap with a full stomach because we had a presentation of the new Windows Mango phone from Dhananjay Kumar.  New technology like this always wakes everyone up!

After this came “TSQL Worst Practices” by Jacob Sebastian.  He too had to cut his talk short by 10 minutes in order to accommodate everyone, but his discussion of what SQL queries to avoid was still excellent. He is magnificent presenter and Ahmedabad loves him.

The final presentation was “ASP.NET Tips and Tricks” by Tejas Shah.  This was a good overview of asp.net fundamentals, and how to use them to improve application performance.  However, the day was not over here!  We kept the audience entertained with prizes and give-aways.  Names were drawn for prizes and there was a quiz session with great gifts for the winners.

Overall, the day was a huge success.  There was a good mix of SQL and non-SQL subjects, and many audiences members commented on how much they learned.  We had a much bigger turn-out than expected – all the chairs were filled 45 minutes before we even started!  For our next conference we need to find a space that will hold everyone, especially since we are hoping to have 600-800 people attending.  We definitely feel we can reach this goal.  We are already looking forward to the next Ahmedabad Microsoft Community TechDays.

Download presentations:

HTML5 Beauty of Web -By Harish Vaidyanathan

TSQL Worst Practices- By Jacob Sebastian

SQL SERVER Performance troubleshooting using Waits and Queues -By Pinal Dave

ASP.NET Tips and Tracks -By Tejas Shah

Other reports:

Tech-Ed on Road 2011- Ahmedabad–A great event- By Jalpesh

Tech-Ed 2011 on the Road in Ahmedabad – by Ritesh Shah

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Here is the quick summary of the session.

SQL Server Waits and Queues – Your Gateway to Perf. Troubleshooting
Time: 11:15am – 12:15pm – June 11, 2011
Just like a horoscope, SQL Server Waits and Queues can reveal your past, explain your present and predict your future. SQL Server Performance Tuning uses the Waits and Queues as a proven method to identify the best opportunities to improve performance. A glance at Wait Types can tell where there is a bottleneck. Learn how to identify bottlenecks and potential resolutions in this fast paced, advanced performance tuning session.

This session is based on my performance tuning Wait Types and Queues series. SQL SERVER – Summary of Month – Wait Type – Day 28 of 28

During the session there will be Quiz and those who gets right answer will get very interesting gifts from me. Do not miss a single minute of the event.

We are also going to have two rock star speakers – Harish Vaidyanathan and Jacob Sebastian.

Here is the details for the event: SQLAuthority News – Community Tech Days – TechEd on The Road – Ahmedabad – June 11, 2011

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 0
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 1
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 2
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 3
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day Next

Day 4 – March 26, 2011

I woke up again at 5.00 AM. I really had nothing to do. Everything was over the night before, but waking up at this time had become a habit after I did so for three days continuously. I tried to go back to sleep, but my efforts were in vain. Very soon, my little princess Shaivi (my daughter) was up and the day started. I was happy and relaxed as the event went very fine and that I did my best to participate at various levels of the event.

Twitter was very much the ‘in-thing’ during the event, and there were plenty of the tweets during the event. Here are some of the tweets from various people who really enjoyed the event. You can follow me at @pinaldave for my latest updates and can stay in touch with me.

@pinaldave 1st time I have attended ur sessions in this TechEd. The analogy you have used to explain waits and extended events are amazing. By: @rkassetty

@pinaldave u r too humble !!! No wonder the audiences love your style. By @vinodk_sql

@pinaldave With the amount of time, planning that went behind that session. It will be very satisfying. You did it really well. By @vinodk_sql

Great Database sessions by @pinaldave | @vinodk_sql .Enjoyed and learned a lot from the sessions. By @parveensapra

Attended @pinaldave ‘s session on Extended events in SQL server. His Heart attack example to explain extended events was fun! #techedin By @SuprotimAgrawal

Attended a highly technical session from @pinaldave. DMVs & SQL performance.. Lots of stuff I don’t know. By @AbhishekKant

Great session on extended events at #techedin by @pinaldave.Next session by @vinodk_sqlob backups. Like both the speakers and topics. By @skganguly

TechED stands for Technology Education, and I had enjoyed this event very much. Please visit the following related posts on the TechEd India. I am looking forward to the next edition of TechEd.

If you have attended my sessions and written about the same, do send me email with the link and I will link your blog post over here. Thanks

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 0
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 1
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 2
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 3
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day Next

Day 3 – March 25, 2011

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

My wife woke me up at 5.00 AM. Two hours of power sleep seemed inadequate as I had only less than 6 hours of sleep during the last 3 days. Today was a big day for me. I had to present two sessions. I got ready quickly, and headed towards the hotel. While I was traveling, I was continuously thinking about my sessions.

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

I reached the TechEd Venue at 7.00 AM and attended an-hour-long meeting with senior officers for the community. I was very happy as I strongly believed that throughout the year, I will be able to help community really well. I got the much-needed blessings from my senior officers for the same. I headed to Database Administrator Track with Vinod Kumar. As I said, it was a very important day for me.

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

I presented the following two topics during the sessions.

1. Understanding SQL Server Behavioral Pattern – SQL Server Extended Events
2. SQL Server Waits and Queues – Your Gateway to Performance Troubleshooting

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

You can read about them at the following links:

• Abstract of the session
• Scripts of the session
• My Video taken by my wife

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

My both sessions had more than 200 attendees. I was glad and motivated to see considerable interest of so many people on this advanced 400 level subject. My both sessions had excellent participation and also lots of questions. I enjoy presenting the sessions more when attendees are interested and they start asking questions on various subjects that I am presenting.

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

I was pretty exhausted after my both my sessions. However, I still managed to attend three more sessions myself on the same day.

1. Vinod Kumar presented on ”Database Recovery and Backup” – A simple but really interesting session.
2. Prem Mehra presented on “SQL Server Consolidation” – A real world scenario based session.
3. Balmukund Lakhani presented on ‘AlwaysOn – High Availability Solution’ – A session looking at the future version of the SQL Server.

Vinod Kumar

It was the third day, and I had not seen my daughter. I was really missing her this time. As from last few days, every day when I left home, she was sleeping, and when I reached home, she was sleeping as well. On the third day, I was missing my daughter immensely. I called up Nupur and Shaivi for lunch with me at Hotel. Nupur and Shaivi both visited me during the lunch time, and I played few games with Shaivi. Nupur also met few of her friends, and they returned back home.

Anil Kumble and Gaurav Kapoor

The third day was yet not over for me. After the five sessions, I went back to keynote area as we were about to have Anil Kumble as keynote speaker. He did an excellent job and discussed about team spirit and his experience as a cricketer. He was fun and inspiring. I really loved how he presented balanced views. One of the attendee in audience asked a very nasty question, and I loved the way he dodged it with a polite reply.

Pinal Shaivi Nupur

After the keynote, I rushed to party sponsored by sponsors. It was very good to unwind with community folks after a very successful event. I also rushed to another party right after this, where I met all the key people who had made this event successful. Finally, I decided to relax and mingle with friends – we were there till 1.00 AM. I left the venue at around 1.00 AM in the morning for home.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 0
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 1
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 2
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 3
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day Next

Day 2 – March 24, 2011

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

I woke up once again at 5.00 AM as I was planning to leave at 6.00 AM. While I was heading towards the venue, I was thinking about the remaining day ‑ a very eventful day indeed! There were many things lined up and I had not yet reached the venue. Anyway the day started on a good note. I met my MVP friends in the lobby and did not realize that I talked with them for more than 2 hours. I finally went to attend the keynote, but the hall was quite full. I was directed to another room, where live streaming was happening. Live streaming was equally exciting.

Vinod Kumar and Pinal Dave

I headed towards Database Business Intelligence Track. I enjoyed the new concepts of BI. I also attended Beauty of the Web track and enjoyed one HTML5 and IE9 track. Following are the sessions that I attended.

Rushabh Mehta

1. Rushabh Mehta presented on Semantic Model of SQL Server Denali – it is very new concept and the attendees surely had a great time.
2. Harish Vaidyanathan presented on “HTML5” – more than just HTML5 – what a fun session it was, I did not know that through HTML, one can have so much fun.

Harish Vaidyanathan

After attending the sessions, I headed right away to the keynote hall. There was going to be Demo Extravaganza, where I was about to present on “Spatial Database”. Spatial Database is interesting concept and I was encouraged immensely by the response and appreciation for the same concept. Though no one noticed, let me share one secret with you regarding this. Even the attendees did not notice this; I actually presented more tricks than what I had initially planned. It was fun that in front of 3000+ people I was able to  show new feature of SQL Server. I had two great Demo Extravaganza hosts – Harish V and Nahash – and it was really fun to be on stage with them. They were really fun to be with, very important, and excellent supporting hosts.

SQL Boys - Vinod, Rushabh, Pinal, Jacob

After the Demo Extravaganza, I attended community party. It was really gala time to meet friends like Sanjay Shetty, Abhishek Kant, Abhishek Baxi, and all the MVPs. Lots of people attended this event. I had fun time hanging around with fellow MVPs and Community Leaders. I think we should have this type of meetings quite often to keep the community spirit going.

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

I wanted to head home early as I had two sessions to present next day. Even though I was all ready with my presentation, I was slightly nervous. As you know Murphy’s law – if something can go wrong, it will go wrong – and this holds true for anybody at any moment. When I was returning, I noticed that it was already 11 PM. I had one more hour journey back to home. I reached home at midnight, and instead of sleeping, I went back to my sessions. I practiced all the demos and all the slide decks one more time and went to bed around 3.00 AM in the morning. A long day was already over, but about the next day was about to get started in the next 2 hours.

Pinal Dave at TechEd 2011

Moreover, an exciting World Cup quarterfinal match was taking place between India and Australia that. Despite this, I found that the event was house full! In case you are wondering of the results, India won in the exciting game. Indian bowlers and batsman indeed did a fantastic job on the ground.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 0

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 1

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 2

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 3

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day Next

Day 1 – March 23, 2011

After my 3 hours of power sleep, I was up before 5.00 AM. I got ready and headed to TechEd Venue. Even though it was pretty early and very dark, it took me around 45 minutes to reach the venue from my home. When I reached there, I met Vinod Kumar, who had reached there before me. We talked a bit; I had a chat with my manager, and then moved very quickly to location where database track was about to happen. Everything seemed alright at the location; so, I once again headed to the Hotel Lobby as I was expecting many other friends to be there.

I met so many people there and I almost lost count of them. I had great pleasure meeting Abhishek Kant (MVP Lead) once again. We shared a few words with each other. After couple of calls, I finally spotted Jacob Sebastian – SQL Server MVP and a very close friend. Jacob and I both worked together in the Ahmedabad community. We worked together in almost every event that happened in the Gujarat region. Jacob and I talked for about an hour and headed towards Keynote. We had excellent key note speakers and cheered at the new technology announcements.

When I returned from keynote, I met Rushabh Mehta (PASS Global President and Solid Quality India CEO). I talked for a while with him regarding SQL PASS community. It is always a pleasure to meet him as he has such an interesting vision for PASS for India. Along with few friends and SQL Professionals, I headed towards, Database Development Track. I am a database guy, and I am very interested to hear others who are talk about SQL Server.

I attended all the sessions in this track. However, there are two tracks which kept me on edge as I came across some new and useful information.

1. Jacob Sebastian presented on ‘T-SQL Worst Practices’ – I really enjoyed it as it talked about what not to do in reality.
2. Vinod Kumar presented on ‘Unexplained of SQL Server Security’ – I learned a few new things over here.

After these sessions, I also went and participated in Chalk Talk of ’100 TB Migration’ subject. It was fun to attend the questions and talk to people.

Well, the day ended with partying. It was a speaker party, and all the Microsoft biggies were attending the same. This great place brewed with some intelligent conversations ‑ in short, a wonderful party and a good place to meet great people.

Right after the party, I headed towards keynote area which could accommodate more than 3000 people. I went there and did a dry run of the my Demo-X for next day.

When I was returning home, I noticed that it was already 11.00 PM, and there was an hour of journey to reach home.

Nupur (my wife) and Shaivi (my daughter) were already asleep when I returned home. I had not talked to Shaivi the whole day – and I felt slightly guilty for the same.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 0
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 1
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 2
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day 3
TechED 2011 – Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – Day Next

TechEd India is the one of the best Technology Events in India. The event venue was at Hotel Lalit Ashok, Bangalore. This three-day event was from March 23 to March 25, 2011, and this was my third TechEd Event.

My First TechEd in 2009

I had presented on SQL Server Management Studio Tricks and Tips.

My Second TechEd in 2010

I had presented three topics: 1) MDS 2) Spatial Database, and 3) Database Myths and panel discussion on Blogging.

My Third TechEd in 2011

This time, I presented two level 400 sessions: 1) Extended Events 2) Wait Types and Queues

Instead of writing what happened at TechEd, I am going to write what I did at TechEd. I am sure you will enjoy reading the same.

Session Selections and Preparation

Every speaker knew the sessions they are going to present several months in advance. I had started to prepare for my sessions from then on. I will write a separate post on the how I prepared the sessions. Following were my major milestones in the preparation process:

Vinod Kumar and Pinal Dave

• Two long discussions about the two sessions I was going to present with the Database Technology Evangelist Vinod Kumar (he is currently the Technology Specialist at Microsoft Technology Center).
• Vinod and I had 3-4 revisions regarding the outline of the sessions.
• I studied Extended Event for more than a month to understand the entire technology.
• I wrote a month-long series on the wait types and queues and learned this subject in depth.
• I spent hours creating slides. Each slide deck had more than 40 slides – where 15 slides were meant for presentations and 25 slides were kept as backup reference.
• I did not rehearse my session speech as it is in prompt, but I tested my scripts almost 2-3 times a day till the last moment.
• Following people helped me at various levels to prepare the sessions.
  • Vinod Kumar – He helped me at every single level. From sessions review, flow review, additional resources, pre-session feedback, post-session feedback and much more.
  • Govind Kanshi – He helped me with some key input for presentations and gave me opportunity to work with a real client for additional insight.
  • Jacob Sebastian – He took my sessions and studied them diligently. In case, I was not there to present due to any unavoidable issue, he was ready as the backup speaker.

I created one more presentation on T-SQL Tricks and Tips in case of any emergency. So, I was ready with a total of three sessions.

Jacob Sebastian and Pinal Dave

Day 0 – March 22, 2011

I went to the hotel at 12.00 PM. I checked all the locations and stage where database track was going to happen. I joined Vinod Kumar and learned so many things about pre-day preparations. We tested all the audio and video as well stage locations. We were there till late evening. I ran all my demos one more time on Day 0. When I reached home, it was already 10.00 PM. I practiced my sessions demo one more time. By the time, I went to bed, it was like 2.00 AM. I set three alarms to wake up at 5 AM as I had to leave from home at 6.00 AM to reach to venue.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

I had shared the links of where all the scripts can be downloaded in the last slide. Here is the same links one more time.

Understanding SQL Server Behavioral Pattern – SQL Server Extended Events
Scripts: Extended Events

SQL Server Waits and Queues – Your Gateway to Perf. Troubleshooting
Scripts: SQL SERVER – Summary of Month – Wait Type – Day 28 of 28

Videos, Slide decks are the complete report of the event will be posted on the blog very soon.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

I would like to know what do you want me to cover in this session.

Watch the video taken by my wife when I was preparing for the session.

Sessions Date: March 25, 2011

Understanding SQL Server Behavioral Pattern – SQL Server Extended Events
Date and Time: March 25, 2011 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM

SQL Server Waits and Queues – Your Gateway to Perf. Troubleshooting
Date and Time: March 25, 2011 04:15 PM to 05:15 PM

I promise following for both of my sessions:

1. I will share the scripts demonstrated in the session right at the end of the sessions
2. The sessions will be 300-400 level but I promise to make the concept very simple
3. Less slides and lots of meaningful Demos
4. Session close to real life cases and scenarios
5. Surprise gifts to best participants
6. I promise to answer all the questions either in session or right after the hall after the session
7. Lots of Technical Education and FUN!

Please leave your comments with your expectation and if you are going to attend the session do let me know here. We will for sure meet at the event and do some interesting talk. You can read the abstract of the session over here.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

I just received my feedback score of the event. I was very much surprised and stunned and at the same time humbled. My rating are very high and also my demo was considered as one of the best demos of the whole event. I am not sure how much feedback I can share with the community as the organizer did not specify this to me, but I am quite certain that I am allowed to share my own feedback.

Speaker – 4.39 (best score 4.74, average 3.84)
Contents – 4.37 (best score 4.39, average 3.65)
Demo – 4.48 (best score, 4.48, average 3.61)

I am very glad that all of my efforts to conduct presentations at the SharePoint Conference finally paid up. I was apprehensive before my presentation on whether the attendees will accept me or not as I am a speaker of foreign technology to them and also an unfamiliar face at the event.

I must thank all of you for the support and encouragement.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Life is full of little and happy surprises. I think Christmas and Santa are based on it. I just received very interesting email earlier today, I had no idea about it.

Earlier this year, I had visited Seattle to attend SQLPASS – read the complete summary over here: SQLAuthority News – SQLPASS Nov 8-11, 2010-Seattle – An Alternative Look at Experience.

While I was walking down, someone has stopped me and asked if they can talk to me for 15 seconds, I said yes and they had shot quick movie with mobile. The conversation was very quick and I had forgotten about it. Today I received email from one of the blog reader about it being on YouTube.

Honestly, I did not know if this was ever going to be on YouTube. I am surprised and thrilled.

Watch my 18 seconds fame movie.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

On the day of the event, it seemed to be the coldest day in Ahmedabad but I was glad to see hundreds of people waiting for the doors to be opened some hours before. We started the day with hot coffee and cookies. Yes, food first; and it was right after my keynote. I could clearly see that the coffee did some magic right away; the hall was almost full after the coffee break.

Jacob Sebastian, an SQL Server MVP and a close friend of mine, had an unusual job of surprising everybody with an innovative topic accompanied with lots of question-and-answer portions. That’s definitely one thing to love Jacob, that is, the novelty of the subject. His presentation was entitled “Best Database Practices for the .Net”; it really created magic on the crowd.

Next to Jacob Sebastian, I presented “Best Database Practices for the SharePoint”. It was really fun to present Database with the perspective of the database itself. The main highlight of my presentation was when I talked about how one can speed up the database performance by 40% for SharePoint in just 40 seconds. It was fun because the most important thing was to convince people to use the recommendation as soon as they walk out of the session. It was really amusing and the response of the participants was remarkable.

My session was followed by the most-awaited session of the day: that of Rushabh Mehta. He is an international BI expert who traveled all the way from Florida to present “Self Service BI” session. This session was funny and truly interesting. In fact, no one knew BI could be this much entertaining and fascinating. Rushabh has an appealing style of presenting the session; he instantly got very much interaction from the audience.

We had a networking lunch break in-between, when we talked about many various topics. It is always interesting to get in touch with the Community and feel a part of it. I had a wonderful time during the break.

After lunch was apparently the most difficult session for the presenter as during this time, many people started to fall sleep and get dizzy. This spot was requested by Microsoft SQL Server Evangelist Vinod Kumar himself. During our discussion he suggested that if he gets this slot he would make sure people are up and more interactive than during the morning session. Just like always, this session was one of the best sessions ever. Vinod is true to his word as he presented the subject of “Time Management for Developer”. This session was the biggest hit in the event because the subject was instilled in the mind of every participant.

Vinod’s session was followed by his own small session. Due to “insistent public demand”, he presented an interesting subject, “Tricks and Tips of SQL Server“. In 20 minutes he has done another awesome job and all attendees wanted more of the tricks. Just as usual he promised to do that next time for us. Vinod’s session was succeeded by Prabhjot Singh Bakshi’s session. He presented an appealing Silverlight concept. Just the same, he did a great job and people cheered him.

We had a special invited speaker, Dhananjay Kumar, traveling all the way from Pune. He always supports our cause to help the Community in empowering participants. He presented the topic about Win7 Mobile and SharePoint integration. This was something many did not even expect to be possible. Kudos to Dhananjay for doing a great job.

All in all, this event was one of the best in the Community Tech Days series in Ahmedabad. We were fortunate that legends from the all over the world were present here to present to the Community. I’d say never underestimate the power of the Community and its influence over the direction of the technology.

This event was a very special gathering to me personally because of your support to the vibrant Community. The following awards were won for last year’s performance:

Ahmedabad SQL Server User Group (President: Jacob Sebastian; Leader: Pinal Dave) – Best Tier 2 User Group

Best Development Community Individual Contributor – Pinal Dave

I was very glad to receive the award for our entire Community.

I want to say thanks to Rushabh Mehta, Vinod Kumar and Dhananjay Kumar for visiting the city and presenting various technology topics in Community Tech Days.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

The venue details are as following:

H K Hall, H K College Campus, Near Handloom House, Opp. Natraj Cinema, Ashram Road, Ahmedabad – 380009

Click here to Registration for the event.

Please read the announcement details here.

I will be speaking on following session.

Best Database Practice for SharePoint Server

This session will be very unique. I will be starting with a bit pessimistic talk about how one cannot many things in SQL Server when SharePoint Server is installed. I will go over in the details for the reasons for the same. Right after this 5 minutes I am going to show few things to attendees which they can apply right away to their database and instantly get the performance. I am going to share the easy scripts with them online right away and if they run the same on their SharePoint Database, they will get the performance right out of the box right away – I Promise!

This is the same session I presented at SharePoint Conference and I have received excellent feedback on the same subject.

Join us!

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

There is one thing very different between usual class room training and this seminar series. In this seminar series we go 100% demo oriented and real world scenario deep down. We do not talk usual theory talk-talk. The goal of this seminar to give anybody who attends a jump start and deep dive on the performance tuning subject. I will share many different examples and scenarios from my years of experience of performance tuning.

The beginning of the second day is always interesting as I take attendees the server as example of the talk, and together we will attempt to identify the bottleneck and see if we can resolve the same. So far I have got excellent feedback on this unique session, where we pick database of the attendees and address the issues. I plan to do the same again in next sessions.

The next Seminar is in Pune.I am very excited for the same.

Date and Time: December 4-5, 2010. 10 AM to 6 PM

The Pride Hotel
05, University Road,
Shivaji Nagar,
Pune – 411 005
Tel: 020 255 34567

Click here for the agenda of the seminar.

Instead of writing more details, I will let the photos do the talk for latest Hyderabad Seminar.

Hotel Amrutha Castle

King Arthur's Court

Pinal Presenting Seminar

Pinal Presenting Seminar

Seminar Attendees

Pinal Presenting Seminar

Group Photo of Hyderabad Seminar Attendees

Seminar Support Staff - Nupur and Shaivi

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Best Summit Ever

This year the summit was at its best. Instead of writing about my usual routine or the event, I am going to write about the interesting things I did and how I felt about it!

Trip to Seattle!

This was my second trip to Seattle this year and the journey is always long. Here is the travel stats on how long it takes to get to Seattle:

• 24 hours official air time
• 36 hours total travel time (connection waits and airport commute)

Every time I travel to USA I gain a day and when I travel back to home, I lose a day. However, the total traveling time is around 3 days. The journey is long and very exhausting. However, it is all worth it when you’re attending an event like SQLPASS. Here are few things I carry when I travel for a long journey:

• Dry Snack packs – I like to have some good Indian Dry Snacks along with me in my backpack so I can have my own snack when I want
• Amazon Kindle – Loaded with 80+ books
• A physical book – This is usually a very easy to read book

I do not watch movies on the plane and usually spend my time reading something quick and easy. If I can go to sleep, I go for it. I prefer to not to spend time in conversation with the guy sitting next to me because usually I end up listening to their biography, which I cannot blog about.

In any case, I love to go to Seattle as the city is great and has everything a brilliant metropolis has to offer. The new Light Train is extremely convenient, and I can take it directly from the airport to the city center. My hotel, the Sheraton, was only few meters (in the USA people count in blocks – 3 blocks) away from the train station. This time I saved USD 40 each round trip due to the Light Train.

Sessions I attended!

Well, I really wanted to attend most of the sessions but there was great dilemma of which ones to choose. There were many, many sessions to be attended and at any given time there was more than one good session being presented. I had decided to attend sessions in area performance tuning and I attended quite a few sessions this year, compared to what I was able to do last year. Here are few names of the speakers whose sessions I attended (please note, following great speakers are not listed in any order. I loved them and I enjoyed their sessions):

• Conor Cunningham
• Rushabh Mehta
• Buck Woody
• Brent Ozar
• Jonathan Kehayias
• Chris Leonard
• Bob Ward
• Grant Fritchey

I had great fun attending their sessions. The sessions were meaningful and enlightening. It is hard to rate any session but I have found that the insights learned in Conor Cunningham’s sessions are the highlight of the PASS Summit.

I always like the sessions where the speaker is much closer to the audience and has real world experience. I think speakers who have worked in the real world deliver the best content and most useful information.

Sessions I did not like!

Indeed there were few sessions I did not like it and I am not going to name them here. However, there were strong reasons I did not like their sessions, and here is why:

• Sessions were all theory and had no real world connections.
• All technical questions ended with confusing answers (lots of “I will get back to you on it,” “it depends,” “let us take this offline” and many more…)
• “I am God” kind of attitude in the speakers

For example, I attended a session of one very well known speaker who is a specialist for one particular area. I was bit late for the session and was surprised to see that in a room that could hold 350 people there were only 30 attendees. After sitting there for 15 minutes, I realized why lots of people left. Very soon I found I preferred to stare out the window instead of listening to that particular speaker.

One on One Talk!

Many times people ask me what I really like about PASS. I always say the experience of meeting SQL legends and spending time with them one on one and LEARNING!

Here is the quick list of the people I met during this event and spent more than 30 minutes with each of them talking about various subjects:

• Rushabh Mehta – It is always pleasure to meet with him. He is a man with lots of energy and a passion for community. He recently told me that he really wanted to turn PASS into resource for learning for every SQL Server Developer and Administrator in the world. I had great in-depth discussion regarding how a single person can contribute to a community.
• Michael Coles – I consider him my best friend. It is always fun to meet him. He is funny and very knowledgeable. I think there are very few people who are as expert as he is in encryption and spatial databases. Worth meeting him every single time.
• Glenn Berry – A real friend of everybody. He is very a simple person and very true to his heart. I think there is not a single person in whole community who does not like him. He is a friends of all and everybody likes him very much. I once again had time to sit with him and learn so much from him. As he is known as Dr. DMV, I can be his nurse in the area of DMV.
• Brad Schulz – I always wanted to meet him but never got chance until today. I had great time meeting him in person and we have spent considerable amount of time together discussing various T-SQL tricks and tips. I do not know where he comes up with all the different ideas but I enjoy reading his blog and sharing his wisdom with me.
• Jonathan Kehayias – He is drill sergeant in US army. If you get the impression that he is a giant with very strong personality – you are wrong. He is very kind and soft spoken DBA with strong performance tuning skills. I asked him how he has kept his two jobs separate and I got very good answer – just work hard and have passion for what you do. I attended his sessions and his presentation style is very unique.  I feel like he is speaking in a language I understand.
• Louis Davidson – I had never had a chance to sit with him and talk about technology before. He has so much wisdom and he is very kind. During the dinner, I had talked with him for long time and without hesitation he started to draw a schema for me on the menu. It was a wonderful experience to learn from a master at the dinner table. He explained to me the real and practical differences between third normal form and forth normal form. Honestly I did not know earlier, but now I do.
• Erland Sommarskog – This man needs no introduction, he is very well known and very clear in conveying his ideas. I learned a lot from him during the course of year. Every time I meet him, I learn something new and this time was no exception.
• Joe Webb – Joey is all about community and people, we had interesting conversation about community, MVP and how one can be helpful to community without losing passion for long time. It is always pleasant to talk to him and of course, I had fun time.
• Ross Mistry – I call him my brother many times because he indeed looks like my cousin. He provided me lots of insight of how one can write book and how he keeps his books simple to appeal to all the readers. A wonderful person and great friend.
• Ola Hallgren - I did not know he was coming to the summit. I had great time meeting him and had a wonderful conversation with him regarding his scripts and future community activities.
• Blythe Morrow – She used to be integrated part of SQL Server Community and PASS HQ. It was wonderful to meet her again and re-connect. She is wonderful person and I had a great time talking to her.
• Solid Quality Mentors – It is difficult to decide who to mention here. Instead of writing all the names, I am going to include a photo of our meeting. I had great fun meeting various members of our global branches. This year I was sitting with my Spanish speaking friends and had great fun as Javier Loria from Solid Quality translated lots of things for me.

Party, Party and Parties

Every evening there were various parties. I did attend almost all of them. Every party had different theme but the goal of all the parties the same – networking. Here are the few parties where I had lots of fun:

• Dell Reception Party
• Exhibitor Party
• Solid Quality Fun Party
• Red Gate Friends Party
• MVP Dinner Microsoft Party
• MVP Dinner Quest Party
• Gameworks PASS Party
• Volunteer Party at Garage

They were all great networking opportunities and lots of fun. I really had great time meeting people at the various parties. There were few people everywhere – well, I will say I am among them – who hopped parties.

NDA – Not Decided Agenda

During the event there were few meetings marked “NDA.” Someone asked me “why are these things NDA?”  My response was simple: because they are not sure themselves. NDA stands for Not Decided Agenda.

Toys, Giveaways and Luggage

I admit, I was like child in Gameworks and was playing to win soft toys. I was doing it for my daughter. I must thank all of the people who gave me their cards to try my luck. I won 4 soft-toys for my daughter and it was fun. Also, thanks to Angel who did a final toy swap with me to get the desired toy for my daughter. I also collected ducks from Idera, as my daughter really loves them.

Each of the exhibitors was giving away something and I got so much stuff that my luggage got quite a bit bigger when I returned.

Best Exhibitor

Idera had SQLDoctor (a real magician and fun guy) to promote their new tool SQLDoctor. I really had a great time participating in the magic myself. At one point, the magician made my watch disappear.  I have seen better magic before, but this time it caught me unexpectedly and I was taken by surprise. I won many ducks again.

The Common Question

I heard the following common questions:

• I have seen you somewhere – who are you? – I am Pinal Dave.
• I did not know that Pinal is your first name and Dave is your last name, how do you pronounce your last name again? – Da-way
• How old are you? – I am as old as I can be.
• Are you an Indian because you look like one? – I did not answer this one.
• Where are you from? This question was usually asked after looking at my badge which says India.
• So did you really fly from India? – Yes, because I have seasickness so I do not prefer the sea journey.
• How long was the journey? – 24/36/12 (air travel time/total travel time/time zone difference)
• Why do you write on SQLAuthority.com? – Because I want to.
• I remember your daughter looks like you. – Is this even a question? Of course, she is daddy’s little girl.

There were so many other questions, I will have to write another blog post about it.

Again, Best Summit Ever!

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

This was very a unique event in Asian Sub-Continent and also one of the best managed conferences that I have attended thus far. The location of the event was very good, and the rooms were large enough to accommodate a huge crowd. Mike Fitzmaurice presented the keynote on the history of the amazing product and the factors that were involved in taking SharePoint to a 1^st class Collaboration Platform. There were 42 sessions in 04 different tracks followed by the keynote and I noticed that all the sessions had the room brimming with crowd, and during some sessions, we even had people standing at the back of the room.

Besides delegates and speakers, the credit of this successful event goes to Debbie Ireland, Randy Williams and Steve Sofian. They had put in lot of efforts to make this event successful. Every single aspect was properly organized.

I presented a session on Maintaining SQL Server at Optimal Performance for Blazing Fast SharePoint Site!

My session was slightly different than my previous sessions. I started with a slightly pessimistic talk about how one cannot achieve many functionalities and performance aspects in SQL Server when SharePoint Server is installed. After this 2-minute talk, I explained why there are so many restrictions. Right after this, I demonstrated few concepts and ideas to attendees, which they could apply right away to their database and obtain the desired performance instantly. I promised the attendees that if they follow my suggestions right after they walk out of the session, they will surely achieve the desired performance of their SharePoint box instantly.

The details of the demo are as follows:

Demo 1: Importance of File Subsystem and Its Effect on Performance

In this demo, I had three various examples to be presented in front of the attendees. The examples enabled us to see various configuration options and optimal configuration for SQL Server data files and log files.

Demo 2: Importance of Filegrowth settings

Pre-configuration of the data files and filegrowth is usually ignored in default SharePoint installations. I explained this concept and tried to make it interesting for all the attendees.

Demo 3: Important of Statistics

Does Statistics matter for SharePoint as well? It does, and we noted the effect of Statistics on performance using this demo.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

Here is the details for my session which is planned for tomorrow.

Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel Singapore
392 Havelock Road
Singapore 169663

My Sessions details:

Maintaining SQL Server at Optimal Performance for Blazing Fast SharePoint Site!
Date: Oct 27, 2010
Time: 1:30 PM
Venue: Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel (Waterfront Conference Centre)

During the session I will be presenting three demos. I have worked hard to come up with this demos. Here is the details for the same.

SQLAuthority News – SQLAuthority News – Presenting at South East Asia SharePoint Conference – Demo Details

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)