SQL Saturday Austin is coming to Austin Texas. That’s right, you heard it here first! Free SQL Server training in Austin, TX!
SQL Saturday Austin Free Training on Feb 24th and Feb 25th
SQL Saturday Austin is Feb 24th and 25
We hope you had a great holiday season. With the new year everyone made goals and resolutions. Are you looking to take your IT career to the next level? If so, we got you covered! The Austin SQL User Group is coming together to see if Austin SQL Server professionals are interested attending in-person training.
SQL Saturday Austin – Why Should you go?
This is a great opportunity to network with your peers in the data community. Since 2020 networking opportunities have been rare and hard to find in-person.
Free SQL Server Training from some of the best trainers in the US. There will be sessions about SQL Server, Azure, and Analytics. If you like to make data fast, secure, available, visible there will be sessions for you!
Learn SQL Server 2022 in an all-day session with Bob Ward. You can travel to conferences across the world and pay hundreds of dollars or come to Austin for the same all-day experience for $50.
SQL Saturday Austin Costs?
How much does SQL Saturday Austin cost to attend?
Great question. Friday is an all-day training event on SQL Server 2022 with Bob Ward and costs only $50 to attend.
Saturday will have multiple 1-hour sessions going concurrently from several Microsoft MVP’s, MCT’s, and national speakers and is 100% Free to Attend. You must sign up as space is limited. Currently, there are only 40 seats available.
SQL Server 2022 was announced yesterday at Microsoft’s Ignite Conference. Here are some of the items that caught our attention. This includes SQL Server 2022 Announcements and other announcements around the Microsoft Data Platform.
Bob Ward blessed the community with this presentation over his three favorite features..
SQL Server 2022 First Thoughts
The following is a summary of some of my favorite announcements with some initial thoughts.
Bi-directional HA/DR to Azure SQL – With SQL Server 2022, you can use Distributed Availability Groups to have HA/DR replica in Azure Managed Instance. You can failover your Read/Write Traffic. You have to do a backup and a restore into SQL Server 2022 to go back from the Azure Managed Instance. Hopefully, Distributed Availability Group failovers will be bi-directional in the near future.
Query Store Enhancements (QDS) – SQL Server 2022 allows you to have separate data for your readable replicas. QDS will now be on by default for new databases. QDS provides the ability to utilize hints to easily shape query plans with no code changes.
Intellectual Query Processing Improvements (IQP)- IQP has new enhancements to memory grant feedback to persist data instead of requiring changes only to happen when queries are executed frequently.IQP has more improvements without changing your code. These improvements include changes with MAXDOP and CE Feeback. The query can detect and change how many threads are used so large tables can have more threads as needed. Saving the best for last. Progress to help smooth out parameter sniffing will also be included in SQL 2022. Looking forward to seeing how this is like Automatic Tuning Automatic Plan Correction introduced in SQL Server 2017.
Free SQL Assessments for Azure VMs – If you are using an Azure VM to host an instance of SQL Server you might be interested in the new free assessment offering coming out of Ignite.
New Class Ebdsv5 Virtual Machines – Now 30% better price on performance compared to the previous greatest option. Remote I/O Throughput goes up to 2,500 MBPS so less memory could be required due to higher read throughput.
SQL Server 2022 integrates withAzure Synapse LinkandAzure Purview – Being able to manage data discovery within both on-premise and the cloud is a great win! The same could be said for breaking down silos to help you get the most value out of your data.
SQL Server Ledger – Looks like the Azure SQL Database Ledger which was announced in May of this year is coming to SQL Server 2022. Always excited to see the most secure relational database platform increase its security features., Microsoft is bringing the same blockchain capabilities to SQL Server.
SQL Server 2022 What Is Next?
If you want to get an early jump on SQL Server 2022 you can apply to enter the Early Adoption Program (EAP). I also recommend signing up for PASS Member Summit Conference that starts next week. I will be giving a 101 Fundamentals talk on Performance Tuning. It’s 100% FREE to attend.
What is your favorite feature of SQL Server 2002? What do you wish was added to the feature list? Let us know in the comments.
https://procuresql.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Procure-SQL-Automatic-Tuning-1.jpg5631093JohnSterrett/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Data-Architecture-as-a-Service-with-ProcureSQL.pngJohnSterrett2021-11-03 20:30:132021-11-03 20:30:13SQL Server 2022 What is New?
Procure SQL has achieved Gold Partner Status with Microsoft for its Cloud and Database Platform capabilities.
As a member of Microsoft’s Gold-Certified Partnership, we’ll
have access to Microsoft’s newest products and services. We’ll work with
Microsoft in the development, training and implementation of new technology and
database solutions.
Procure SQL’s philosophy is that fast databases are critical
for your company to deliver on your promises to your customers. Our Remote
Database Management Services help you make good on those promises.
“We are very excited
to be part of the Microsoft Gold-Certified Partner,” said John Sterrett, CEO at
Procure SQL. “Being part of the Microsoft Gold-Certified Partner Program will
give us even more tools in our toolbox when managing our client’s database and
cloud environments.”
About Procure SQL
Procure SQL offers a variety of DBA services, including:
100% onshore DBAs
Senior level talent on every account
Full SQL Server Assessment and road mapping
4 times the value of a senior DBA for a 1⁄4 of
the cost
We offer packages for as little as 20 hours of expert Remote DBA experience a month. Learn more at here.
https://procuresql.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/procuresql-MSFT-Gold-Announcement-1-1.jpg9521730JohnSterrett/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Data-Architecture-as-a-Service-with-ProcureSQL.pngJohnSterrett2019-07-23 19:20:452024-04-26 18:33:07It’s official
The Procure SQL team is out and about in September, sharing their knowledge for free at SQL Saturdays as well as online webinars! We are very proud of our team and their efforts to share knowledge and experiences. Be sure to say hello and ask questions when you see them!
GroupBy September 7, 2018
We are proud to announce that Martin Perez, close friend of Procure SQL, will be joining John Sterrett in presenting for GroupBy.Org! GroupBy is FREE online SQL Server training by the community, for the community! This month’s training is scheduled for September 7, 2018 beginning at 8:00 AM Eastern, with the last session starting at 2:15 PM!
Martin will be presenting “T-SQL Tools: Simplicity for Synchronizing Changes” at 11:45 AM Eastern. Any DBA or developer that has ever faced the problem of moving data changes across databases will surely benefit from this session. One of the most common problems a DBA or database developer may face is finding an syncing data changes efficiently between multiple systems. He will explore different methods focusing on effective use of TSQL, and how these methods can be mixed and matched in your ETL workflows:
Brute Force
Log Shipping/Read Only Standby
Rowversion datatype
Change Tracking
Change Data Capture
Temporal Tables
Martin hopes to assist the DBA or Developer free up time and energy by understanding all the available options. Come find out why brute force is not the only path forward!
John Sterrett (1:00 PM Est)
Directly following Martin, John Sterrett will be presenting “Make Your Own SQL Server Queries Go Faster” at 1:00 PM Eastern. Have you ever developed slowly running queries and wondered how to make your own SQL Server queries go faster? It is how John stumbled into his career in performance tuning. In this session, you will learn some T-SQL performance tuning tips that can be used in the office immediately. You will learn how to identify top offender queries and be able to benchmark queries. Finally, he will cover some coding patterns that are developer friendly (but are not SQL Server database engine friendly) and show you how to rewrite them so they can run faster.
SQL Saturday #774 – Denver, CO September 15, 2018
If you are in the Denver, Colorado area, be sure to register for SQL Saturday #774! The free training event will be held on Saturday, September 15, 2018 at the University of Denver in Sturm Hall. Registration is free!
Two of our team members will be presenting! Both John Sterrett and Angela Tidwell will be presenting at 9:00 AM.
John Sterrett
John will be presenting “Automate the Pain Away with Adaptive Query Processing and Automatic Tuning“ In this Intermediate level session, John will explore how tuning SQL Server workloads is changing. In the past, you would rely on dynamic management views, execution plan cache, and server-side traces or extend events. In SQL Server 2012 Columnstore indexes were introduced; In SQL 2014 the cardinality estimator got a huge overhaul. With SQL Server 2016 we were given query store to allow us to get more insight into our performance pains and execution plan changes. SQL Server 2017 gave us Automatic Tuning and Adaptive Query Processing to help automate performance improvements. In this session, he will harness ways to improve performance into the new so you can automate the pain away and spend more time identifying and tuning pain points that cannot be automated.
Angela Tidwell
Angela will be presenting “Become the Most Valuable Player: Soft Skills for the Hard Market“ This session is for beginners and seasoned pros alike. Whether you are just starting a career, advancing into senior leadership, or trying to woo a potential client, soft skills can be your ticket to success. Often times we focus on showing how smart we are instead of showing what a good team member we can be. In this session, Angela will discuss the role and types of soft skills needed to showcase your X-factor. Need to hone your skills? She will explore innovative and fun ways in which to do just that! Get ready, Angela likes to wake you up and make you think: she likes to have fun in this session!
SQL Saturday #802 – San Diego, CA September 22, 2018
Planning to be in San Diego on September 22, 2018? If so, you can catch Jay Falck speaking at SQL Saturday #802! SQL Saturday San Diego will be held at UCSD Extension – University City Center and Registration is free!
Jay Falck
Jay will be presenting “Introduction to Linux for SQL Server“ SQL Server is now available on Linux but you only know Windows, now what? In this beginner level course, Jay will introduce the Linux version of Windows commands used on a daily basis for administering SQL Server. He will explore updating Linux, updating SQL Server, moving files between Windows and Linux, and backing up and restoring databases from one system to another. Also he will dive into default file locations for SQL Server and what can be moved and how to accomplish that.
SQL Saturday #770 – Pittsburgh, PA September 29, 2018
Pittsburgh Technical College will be hosting SQL Saturday #770 on September 29, 2018. As always, registration for SQL Saturday is free!
John Sterrett
John will be presenting Automate the Pain Away with Adaptive Query Processing and Automatic Tuning at 10:00 AM Eastern. The way you tune your SQL Server workloads are changing. In the past, you would rely on dynamic management views, execution plan cache, and server-side traces or extend events. In his intermediate level session, John will explore the ways to improve performance into the new so you can automate the pain away and spend more time identifying and tuning pain points that cannot be automated.
We are back this year! Not only are we sponsoring SQL Saturday Houston, we are also speaking! All three of us are presenting! Go here to see the full schedule.
What is SQL Saturday?
SQL Saturday is a free training event for Microsoft Data Platform professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server, Business Intelligence, and Analytics. SQL Saturday Houston will be held on June 23, 2018 at San Jacinto College – South Campus, 13735 Beamer Road, Houston, Texas 77089. Check-in and breakfast starts at 7:30am. The first sessions begin at 8:30 am. There are sessions for beginners, intermediate, and advanced levels. Topics covered at this SQL Saturday are:
Powershell
Application & Database Development
BI Platform Architecture, Development & Administration
Cloud Application Development & Deployment
Enterprise Database Administration & Deployment
Professional Development
Strategy & Architecture
Remember, this is a FREE event, but only a few spots remain! Don’t wait, click here to register!
Where will we be?
We will each be at the Procure SQL booth with smiling faces, fun giveaways, and answers to your SQL Server questions! Please stop by and say hello. If not at the booth, you can find us attending a session or giving one of our own!
Angela will start out the day at 9:45 am in room 117. She will be presenting her professional development session “Becoming the MVP: Soft Skills for the Hard Market.” In this interactive, round-table discussion, Angela explores how soft skills are important at all levels of a person’s career. The importance of soft skills in the job market, specific skills, and how to hone them will be top priority. She has been known to give away prizes, so make sure to say hello!
Jay comes in next at 11:00 am in room 149. Jay’s presentation is “Linux for SQL Server” and is a high-level overview of the differences and similarities between Linux and Windows for those who haven’t been exposed or may need a refresher. Don’t be mistaken, even though this session is a high-level overview, it is fantastic for beginners! Jay will introduce the Linux version of Windows commands used on a daily basis for administering SQL Server. Next, he will explore updating Linux, updating SQL Server, moving files between Windows and Linux, and backing up and restoring databases from one system to another. He will round out the session by taking a look at default file locations for SQL Server and what can be moved and how to accomplish that.
John is waking up the afternoon crowd at 1:30 in room 113. He is presenting “Automate the Pain Away with Query Store and Automatic Tuning” which is an intermediate level presentation which explains how execution plans get invalidated and why data skew could be the root cause of seeing different execution plans for the same query. He will further explore options for forcing a query to use a particular execution plan. Finally, he will discuss how this complex problem can be identified and resolved simply using new features in SQL Server 2016 and SQL Server 2017 called Query Store and Automatic Tuning. You won’t want to miss out on that!
What happens after the sessions are done?
Stick around after the last sessions because at 5:00 we all gather together for final remarks and sponsor raffles! We will be giving away a new Super Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition! To enter, just drop your raffle ticket in the bucket at our booth.
But wait, there’s more!
The fun doesn’t stop here. We leave from the event to an after party which is being held at Main Event, 1125 Magnolia Ave., Webster, Texas 77598. Party starts at 6! The after parties are a great way to unwind, network, and chat up the speakers and new SQL friends you made during the sessions!
Procure SQL is proud to announce that Jay Falck has joined our team! Jay brings a wealth of knowledge, wisdom, experience, and levity to our group.
How it all started.
Jay’s love of all things computer started his sophomore year in high school when a friend of his chemistry teacher loaned them a computer for a week. Jay was so taken, he ended up walking home from school around 7:00 PM that night! Over the next two years, a teacher, using his own money, bought a computer kit and did training before and after school as the school didn’t have a computer science class. For those two years, Jay’s team won first place in a programming contest at Southwest Texas State for schools from Waco to San Antonio. He decided then he was destined to do something computer related with his life.
A very impressive list of experience!
While in high school, Jay worked as a night shift operator at the textile mill in New Braunfels, Texas, where he got to dabble in FORTRAN and COBOL troubleshooting. As a freshman at UT, he worked for an Animal Science researcher maintaining and running a huge FORTRAN program that performed radioimmunoassay analysis. At San Antonio College, Jay worked in the research lab at the Audie Murphy VA Hospital. Here he did everything from computer operator to DG BASIC and FORTRAN programming for the research doctors. After graduation, he moved to Austin and went to work for a small firm selling account software and hardware. (This was his first exposure to rudimentary database systems.)
Eventually he moved to state government as an application developer working with VSAM and Model204 database systems. After 2 years he got the opportunity to do what he really wanted to do, Operating Systems programming! He spent the next 14 years of state employment as a mainframe system programmer. This lead to his two biggest passions in IT: performance and security.
Jay’s passion for healthcare IT.
In 1996, when the Clinton Administration was moving forward with HIPAA, Jay was invited to join a company that was moving into healthcare. At this time he didn’t know anything about healthcare IT but neither did they, so he went along for the ride. At this point Jay added healthcare IT to his passion list. He spent the next 20 years doing programming, system administration, and database administration for Unix/Linux and Windows based systems. This included Informix, Universe, Oracle and SQL Server databases. During this time he was VP of the CSC Healthcare User Group and the CIO of a small health insurance company in Lexington, KY.
SQL Server experience.
Jay’s two passions in IT are making things go faster and security. His experience with SQL Server includes years of improving query performance, indexing, data extraction and transfer, and security. Through the years, he has had the opportunity to see first-hand how important security is to the data world. He is looking forward to bringing his understanding of security policy to the database admin role and becoming proficient in applying policy to procedure.
Jay holds many certifications.
Fast forward to today and Jay maintains an impressive list of certifications related to his passion areas: CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) and HCISPP (Healthcare Information Security and Privacy Practitioner) from ISC2, and CCSA (Certified Cyber Security Architect, a HIPAA centric certification that replaced the CHSS (Certified HIPAA Security Specialist) and CSCS (Certified Security Compliance Specialist). He is currently studying to add Microsoft Certification for SQL Server and ISC2 CCSP (Certified Cloud Security Professional).
What he brings to the table.
Not only does Jay bring his vast experience and knowledge, he brings a love of movies and the Texas Longhorns. He’s always armed with a zinger and great story as well! Jay is always ready to learn new things as well as teach what he knows. We are very thankful to have Jay and cannot wait to share his knowledge and humor with our clients!
ProcureSQL is proud to be a first-time sponsor for Houston Techfest 2017.
We would love to see you at this years Houston Techfest! The admission is FREE! You can register here. The complete agenda is posted on their facebook page here.
What is Houston Techfest?
It is a large community-run event focusing on SQL Server, other data solutions, security, mobile development, and agile development. It will be held on Saturday, October 14, 2017 starting at 8am to 6:30 pm. The event will take place at the NRG Center, North Stadium Drive, Houston, Texas 77054.
Did you miss seeing John at Microsoft Ignite in Orlando?
If you did not see John’s session at Microsoft Ignite, you are in luck! Not only will we be sponsoring, but John Sterrett will be presenting three sessions entitled “Make Your SQL Server Queries Go Faster!” , “Learn SQL Backups and Master SQL Restores” and “Successfully Migrating Existing Databases to Azure SQL Database.” Come join us for another great day of free education!
John Sterrett at #MSIgnite 2017
Drop by our booth and chat with Angela and John, they will have some cool swag and a chance to win a great prize!
https://procuresql.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Procure-SQL-Come-See-Us-at-Houston-TechFest-2017-1.jpg5641093Angela Tidwell/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Data-Architecture-as-a-Service-with-ProcureSQL.pngAngela Tidwell2017-10-05 20:41:452017-10-05 20:41:45Come See Us at Houston TechFest 2017!
We are proud to announce that John Sterrett will be speaking at Microsoft Ignite. This will be John’s first time speaking at the Microsoft Ignite conference. John will be talking about migrating existing databases over to Azure. If you are going and passionate about your data, SQL Server, or just want some help solving your business problems with SQL he would love to meet you there.
https://procuresql.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Procure-SQL-Speaking-at-Microsoft-Ignite-2017-1.png5781096JohnSterrett/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Data-Architecture-as-a-Service-with-ProcureSQL.pngJohnSterrett2017-08-15 16:03:532017-08-15 16:03:53Speaking at Microsoft Ignite 2017
Procure SQL LLC is pleased to announce its recent hire of Angela Tidwell,
who will join the Procure SQL team as a Marketing Database Administrator working remotely from Austin, TX. Within these roles, Angela will focus on marketing, social media, client management, operations, and help developing training content.
“It’s such an exciting time to be involved in the data community. I am elated to take this opportunity and learn and grow with John and the ProcureSQL team,” Angela said.
Angela Tidwell is Procure SQL LLC’s Marketing Database Administrator
John, the founder of Procure SQL, says, “We are blessed to have Angela on board. Her skills are directly going to help us scale and meet our targeted goals for 2017.”
Angela comes to Procure SQL with four years of experience managing the Austin office of Guida Slavich & Flores, PC. There, she did research, billing, technical assistance with computers and programs, scheduling, client relations, administrative duties, office management, and marketing. This background has helped Angela to make a smooth transition into her current position with Procure SQL.
Angela will be spending her first week of employment at the PASS Member Summit connecting, learning and sharing. If you are attending the PASS Member Summit, you can congratulate her in person.
For more information, please contact John Sterrett at 512-872-5320, email info@www.procuresql.com or visit the Procure SQL website at www.www.procuresql.com.
Entertainment System Classic Edition! To enter, just drop your raffle ticket in the bucket at our booth. 
