ProcureSQL Speakers at Day of Data Pittsburgh and St. Louis 2026

The ProcureSQL team is bringing practical insights on SQL Server performance, data protection, Power BI, and Microsoft Fabric to two Day of Data events this October.

John Sterrett will present in Pittsburgh on Saturday, October 10, 2026, followed by Meagan Longoria in St. Louis on Saturday, October 24, 2026. Both events offer in-person opportunities to learn, connect with fellow data professionals, and explore solutions to real-world data challenges.

Day of Data continues the long-running SQL Saturday and PASS community tradition, bringing together data professionals for a day of practical learning, technical sessions, networking, and conversations about the tools and practices shaping modern data work. Whether your focus is SQL Server, analytics, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, data engineering, AI, or data leadership, these events create a valuable opportunity to learn from peers and practitioners who work with real-world data challenges every day.

John Sterrett at Day of Data Pittsburgh

When: Saturday, October 10, 2026
Where: Commonwealth Charter Academy, The Waterfront, 162 East Bridge Street, Homestead, PA 15120.

At Day of Data Pittsburgh, John Sterrett will present:

DBA Basics: Getting Started with Performance Tuning

This session at Day of Data in Pittsburgh is a good fit for newer DBAs, developers, accidental database administrators, and IT professionals who want to build confidence in performance tuning.

This session at Day of Data in Pittsburgh is a good fit for newer DBAs, developers, accidental database administrators, and IT professionals who want to build confidence in performance tuning.

Performance problems can be intimidating—especially for newer DBAs, developers, and accidental database administrators who inherit an environment where users are already reporting that “SQL Server is slow.” John’s session provides a practical starting point for identifying and addressing common performance issues.

Attendees will learn how to find the most resource-consuming statements and get foundational guidance on reading and understanding execution plans. The goal isn’t to chase one-off fixes; it is to build a repeatable process for investigating performance problems, prioritizing the most meaningful opportunities, and making informed tuning decisions.

This session is a great fit for:

  • New and aspiring DBAs who need a usable performance-tuning framework.
  • Developers who want to understand how query design and execution plans affect application performance.
  • IT professionals responsible for SQL Server environments who want a clearer troubleshooting process.
  • Data professionals who want to move from reactive firefighting toward more proactive database performance management.

Advanced Data Protection Strategies with SQL Server

For teams responsible for database security, application access, or data governance, this session at Days of Data in Pittsburgh is for you.

For teams responsible for database security, application access, or data governance, this session at Days of Data in Pittsburgh is for you.

As organizations manage growing volumes of sensitive data, protecting that information requires more than defending against external attackers. Application users and privileged employees—including database administrators—also need appropriate boundaries around what they can access.

In this session, John will explain how to protect data while maintaining functionality and performance. He will explore three key capabilities:

  • Column-level encryption.
  • Row-level security.
  • Auditing.

Attendees will leave understanding how and why these capabilities contribute to SQL Server data protection, helping them make more informed decisions about securing sensitive information.

For teams responsible for database security, application access, or data governance, this session complements the performance-tuning fundamentals with another essential responsibility: protecting the data entrusted to your organization.

Day of Data Pittsburgh takes place on October 10, 2026. If you are attending, be sure to connect with John, ask questions, and share the performance challenges you are seeing in your own SQL Server environment.

Meagan Longoria at Day of Data St. Louis

Two weeks later, Meagan Longoria will represent ProcureSQL at Day of Data St. Louis on October 24, 2026, hosted at the Microsoft Technology Center in St. Louis.

When: Saturday, October 24, 2026
Where: Microsoft Innovation Hub, Microsoft Technology Center, 4220 Duncan Avenue, 5th Floor, St. Louis, MO 63110.

Meagan will present:

Challenges and opportunities in using AI for Power BI Report Development

 

Exploring AI for Power BI development, this session will help you think beyond speed and focus on the quality and usefulness of the finished report.

Exploring AI for Power BI development, this session will help you think beyond speed and focus on the quality and usefulness of the finished report.

AI-assisted report development is generating plenty of excitement, but it does not remove humans from the design process. Why do some attempts to generate charts and reports with AI work well while others fall flat?

Meagan will examine the report and visualization development process, taking an honest look at what AI tools can do today and where human judgment still drives the outcome.

The session looks beyond generating visuals faster. It explores how AI can support better design decisions, clearer communication, and reports that people actually use.

Attendees will leave with a practical framework for deciding:

  • When to lean on AI.
  • When to take the wheel themselves.
  • What to expect as these tools continue to evolve.

If you’re exploring AI for Power BI development, this session will help you think beyond speed and focus on the quality and usefulness of the finished report.

Mirroring for SQL Server in Fabric: Inside the Replication Process

Meagan will take a technical look at the full replication process, tracing changes from the source database through how data lands and is retained in OneLake.

Meagan will take a technical look at the full replication process, tracing changes from the source database through how data lands and is retained in OneLake.

Mirroring for SQL Server in Microsoft Fabric promises near-real-time replication to OneLake—but what is actually happening under the hood?

Meagan will take a technical look at the full replication process, tracing changes from the source database through how data lands and is retained in OneLake.

The session will also cover:

  • Configuring replicated objects.
  • Monitoring replication health.
  • Understanding the conditions that trigger a table replication restart.

For DBAs, data engineers, and architects evaluating or implementing SQL Server mirroring, this session offers an opportunity to move beyond the feature overview and understand the mechanics that matter when operating it.

The St. Louis event is free and in person, though attendance is limited by capacity. Organizers note that prior events have reached capacity, so prospective attendees should register early.

Practical Learning, Community Connections

At ProcureSQL, we value opportunities to share knowledge, learn from other practitioners, and help data professionals address the challenges they face every day.

These four sessions reflect that commitment: finding and understanding performance problems, protecting sensitive information, making thoughtful use of AI, and understanding the replication processes behind modern analytics platforms.

Day of Data builds on the SQL Saturday and PASS community tradition, bringing professionals together for technical learning and connections across the data community. St. Louis’s event includes tracks spanning SQL Server, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, data engineering, AI, and professional development.

Whether you’re focused on maintaining your existing SQL Server environment or expanding into modern analytics, we hope you’ll join us and bring your questions.

Register and Join Us

  • Day of Data Pittsburgh — October 10, 2026: View event details and the latest schedule. The event offers a full day of free training for Microsoft data-platform professionals.
  • Day of Data St. Louis — October 24, 2026: View the schedule and register. The event is free, but organizers say purchasing a lunch ticket provides priority attendance and guarantees a spot; without one, entry is available only while space remains.

Join John in Pittsburgh or Meagan in St. Louis for practical learning, technical conversations, and a chance to connect with the ProcureSQL team.

Follow ProcureSQL for future event updates, practical SQL Server and data-platform guidance, and insights from our team as we help organizations build, manage, move, analyze, visualize, and govern their data.

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We’re Speaking at FabCon/SQLCon

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We are happy to announce that three ProcureSQL employees are on the FABCON/SQLCON agenda. These co-located conferences are happening in Atlanta, Georgia March 16 – 20.

FABCON is the largest conference dedicated to Microsoft Fabric, bringing together tech enthusiasts, innovators, and industry leaders to explore the future of data, analytics, business intelligence, and AI integration.

SQLCON stands out as a premier conference within FABCON, featuring sessions and workshops that take you on a dive deep into SQL Server, Azure SQL, SQL in Fabric, SQL Tools, AI Apps with SQL, migration & modernization, optimization & performance, database security, and much more.

Justin Cunningham and Meagan Longoria are presenting Mirroring for SQL Server in Fabric: Inside the Replication Process. This session examines how Mirroring for SQL Server in Fabric really works: what happens on the source database, how data lands in OneLake, data retention policies, monitoring and logging, configuration of replicated objects, and which scenarios require restarting replication.

Justin is also presenting Materialized Lake Views: Simplifying Your Medallion ETL. Materialized lake views turn Spark SQL into auto-orchestrated smart tables in your Fabric lakehouse. This session covers how to replace fragile ETL with declarative medallion layers, understand refresh and lineage, and decide when materialized lake views beat notebooks, jobs, or warehouses.

John Sterrett is presenting Modern Data Protection Strategies with SQL Server. Today, we handle increasing volumes of sensitive data. DBAs and Data Engineers must protect their data from external attackers, employees, and privileged admins like themselves. This session will teach you how to protect your data while maintaining functionality and performance. The session focuses on using column-level encryption, row-level security, and auditing to secure your data.

We are looking forward to speaking and hope to see you in our sessions.

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TSQLTuesday #188 – The Recap of Growing the Younger Data Community and Speakers

 

Earlier this month, we hosted T-SQL Tuesday and chose the topic of Growing the Younger Data Community and Speakers.  Today, I bring you a summary recap of everyone who shared their thoughts on this subject with links to their full content.

First, if you are not familiar with T-SQL Tuesday, it is a monthly blog party created by Adam Machanic in 2009. Now managed by Steve Jones.

 

T-SQL Tuesday Recap

Joe Fleming shares his ideas on how we can watch for those wallflowers, make them feel welcome, and help them create the next generation of in-groups.

Rob Farley shares his thoughts on mentoring various people, and some of that involves presenting. Still, more of it is about establishing them as experts, helping them learn what they want to know, and encouraging them to take steps to achieve their goals. If someone feels comfortable in their own skin as an expert, knowing that they are genuinely good at what they do, then they will often start to realize that they belong on the other side of the room.

Andy Yun flips the script and asks the readers to get involved. You do not have to be an expert to help. You can help by encouraging someone to share their ideas and become more involved in the data community.

Steve Jones shares his story of helping by finding people who inspire and educate their local community.

Andy Levy shared his experience meeting Courtney Woolum at the SQLPASS Summit in 2023 with Steve Clement. They blogged about their experience and the importance of the hallway track (walking around and meeting people) at conferences.

Mala Mahadevan shares what has worked over the past two decades and what has changed. I think she is spot on in finding what already exists and participating in whatever way you can. Real growth comes from real human connection.

Robert Douglas shares his thoughts on building a legacy and how that involves presenting to the targeted audience of people at the start of their story.

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TSQLTuesday #188 – Growing the Younger Data Community and Speakers

TSQLTuesday #188 - Growing the Younger SQL Community and Speakers

TSQLTuesday #188 – Growing the Younger SQL Community and Speakers

This month, I am hosting T-SQL Tuesday for the very first time. T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party created by Adam Machanic in 2009. I want to give Steve Jones a shout-out for allowing me to host this month’s edition.

Each month, a new topic is chosen and published on the first Tuesday of the month, and contributors post their takes on the following Tuesday. Anyone can participate by sharing their thoughts on their preferred forum. Please publish your post by July 8th at midnight CDT. Please leave a comment on this blog post with the link to your response so that we can include your thoughts in the roundup. Doing so will provide everyone with a centralized location to find all the responses and let me know which ones to include in the recap.

Growing the Younger Data Community and Speakers

ProcureSQL wouldn’t exist today if it weren’t for being involved in the community. Straight out of college, Dolph Santorine dragged me along to the local AITP monthly meetings in Wheeling, WV.  This led me to start a SQL Server user group in Wheeling and host SQL Saturday events in both Wheeling and Austin. During SQL Saturday Austin in May, I had a great conversation with Steve about our thoughts on the state of the SQL community post-COVID. We both noticed that the average speaker age wasn’t getting any younger. This leads me to ask this month’s question.

What are you doing, or what can we do to encourage younger people to get involved in the SQL community while increasing the number of younger speakers?

Anything is fair game. For example, here were some things I was thinking:

  • Involving the local colleges in event planning for SQL Saturdays
  • Bringing interns and younger co-workers to user group meetings
  • Hosting lightning talks, where speakers focus on a single topic for five to ten minutes.
  • Mentoring a speaker through building and delivering their first presentation
  • Allowing a new speaker to co-present with you
  • Doing a one-on-one review, giving a critique on how they can improve their session
  • Create a budget for your young speakers to speak at events.
  • Hosting a track or event, only allowing new speakers the opportunity to present and share their knowledge
  • Making sure new local speakers can speak at your event, if that means saying no to MVPs and Microsoft Employees.

You Never Will Know the Impact You Will Generate

As the host this month, I will go first. I want to share two brief stories about helping new speakers and the impact it had on them.

My first big presentation was at SQL Saturday DC, many years ago. If you are familiar with Amateur Night at the Apollo, I would have given myself the hook.

It might have been my last presentation if it weren’t for Allen White taking the time to sit with me one-on-one after my session and go through the things I did well and the areas where I could improve, ensuring my presentation was better the next time I gave it. ProcureSQL would most likely never have existed without Allen taking the time to help make me a better speaker.  It’s fantastic to look back at how fifteen minutes had such a significant impact on my career.  I would have never spoken at PASS Summit or become a Data Platform MVP. I definitely wouldn’t have been focused on helping new speakers as well.

Later on, I worked at RDX for Kon Melamud. One of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. He had never given a community session before, even though he worked down the street from the Pittsburgh SQL User Group meeting location. One month, I was the speaker, and I talked him into going with me and standing next to me as I gave the presentation. I told him I would do the presentation. When I am done with a section, I will ask him to share his thoughts and experience working with over 100 different customers. He was extremely nervous, and this was the perfect way to introduce him to the community. Doing so got him started and, over time, encouraged him to establish a budget and allow others at RDX to speak at community events. Today, Kon is the CTO at ProcureSQL, but more importantly, my best friend. Our relationship wouldn’t have grown without our involvement in the community together.

Instructions

  • Now that you have the topic, let’s recap the instructions:
    • Schedule your post to publish on Tuesday, July 8th.
    • Please include the T-SQL Tuesday image.

  • Please post a link to your blog post in the comments of this post, so I have an easy way to find it and include it in the recap.
  • Post it to social media if you can, and include the #tsqltuesday hashtag.
  • Link back to this blog post so that everyone can find a recap of all the blog posts on this topic.
  • Watch for my wrap-up the following week!

 

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Austin Texas SQL Saturday was a Success!

Austin Texas SQL Saturday
Austin Texas SQL Saturday was a Success!

Austin Texas SQL Saturday was a success! Procure SQL would not exist if it wasn’t for #SQLFamily and the SQL Community. Therefore, we always want to help connect, share and learn with our local data community.

In 2010 I hosted my first SQL Saturday #36 in Wheeling, WV. One thing in common with my first SQL Saturday and last week is that I honestly had no idea how many people would show up. My first event had 70 attendees and I wasn’t sure if this one would surpass it when we decided to commit and make it happen in November 2022.

We were not 100% sure if the Austin Data community would welcome in-person events. We figured doing this event would help us decide if we should try going back to in-person events.

Austin Texas SQL Saturday – The Final Numbers

Our final numbers are as following.

  • 140 people signed up in Eventbrite to attend our SQL Saturday.
  • 78 Sessions Submitted by 34 different individuals.
    • 64 additional people on the waitlist.
    • 40 People attending Bob Ward’s All-Day SQL 2022 Workshop
    • 82 total in-person attendees.
    • 18 Sessions by 18 Speakers
    • 6 Microsoft Employees as Speakers
    • 6 Volunteers running the event. Couldn’t have done this without the following (Jay Falck, Dora Klutz, Shawn Wiestfield, LaShanna Sterrett, Conor Cunningham, Allen Kinsel and myself. )
    • 4 Concurrent tracks
    • 1 Pre-Con aka All-Day Friday presenter.

Things that worked.

  • Using Microsoft’s Office as venue – While starting the budget all over from scratch for the Austin Texas SQL Saturday. It helped to have a great free venue. In the past, we would use a bigger venue like a conference center or college. With an unknown number of attendees, it made a lot of sense to use a smaller venue. I have presented and attended Azure Bootcamps in the Microsoft Office so I knew this would be a good fit.
  • Volunteers were amazing – Jay Falck, Dora Klutz, Shawn Wiestfield, LaShanna Sterrett, Conor Cunningham, and Allen Kinsel were amazing.
  • Recorded Sessions – We were able to leverage Shawn’s UserGroup.TV setup to allow us to have a place for everyone to see the sessions once they are published. Publishing the sessions is still in progress. Hopefully, we will get these up soon.
  • Sessionize for Event App – All of the things we would typically print except the attendee badges and vendor raffle QR cards could be fully replaced with Sessionize. Next year we will reduce a lot of the printing and just have attendees use the individual app you can create in Sessionize.
  • Speakers were amazing – We had an amazing amount of speaker interest. We did release our call of speakers at the PASS Data Summit intentionally. We think this did help us get a lot of amazing speakers.
  • Food was good – We did a volunteer/speaker’s dinner where you got to taste several different great pizzas. It was Brazilian’s Steakhouse meets Pizza. We reserved a big separate room in the restaurant so people could space out if that was their preference. With Covid still being a concern, we also opted to go with box lunches for both Friday and Saturday.
  • Thank You, Sponsors – Thank you so much for being patient and understanding of us. Thank you, AzureAustin, Microsoft, SolarWinds, DBeaver, Quest, and SIOS.
  • Eventbrite Collections – This made it easier for there to be a landing page for both the SQL Saturday and All-Day Training on Friday. We noticed this was helpful for people who found us on eventbrite.

Things that did not work or needs improvement.

  • More Concurrent Sessions – One of my biggest disappointments this year was having to say, “NO!” to speakers who I greatly respect. Writing this now I still fill bad about not having enough sessions to let more people present at the Austin SQL Saturday. I know I never like getting rejected when I submit so it’s even more painful giving that news to someone else. Hopefully, next year we will have at least two more tracks. I greatly apologize to everyone who submitted but didn’t get an opportunity to present.
  • Paying for attendees’ lunch – Traditionally, attendees pay for their lunches. It’s a nominal fee around $15 to $20 dollars to offset the cost of bringing in lunch and drinks. Due to our success with sponsorship, we were able to pay for everyone’s lunches. You might be wondering why would this need improving? It took away that cost of ownership attendees have for committing to attend the Austin Texas SQL Saturday. I had multiple people share the feedback that charging for lunch would help reduce no-shows.
  • We need a bigger venue – While we could hold some more people at the Microsoft’s office it limited us from going all out on trying to maximize our attendees. This provides additional value to our sponsors and the speakers. I think next year we will consider doing Friday’s training session at Microsoft while using another venue near for the SQL Saturday event.
  • Speaker Evaluations – We skipped evaluations this year and need to find a good way to bring this back for next year.
  • Raffle QR Codes – Before the pandemic SQL Saturday organizers had a great tool for generating QR codes for the vendor raffles and producing an electronic list of attendees who chose to participate in the raffle. Unfortunately, it didn’t survive the pandemic and organizers had to come up with an alternative. Jeff Taylor has a great blog documenting a process to generate QR codes for vCard’s. I would like to make this easier for sponsors and find an affordable way to allow them to obtain a list of all QR codes scanned.

Results

The Austin Data Community is ready for in-person events again. We will be starting up in-person events. To start, we will go every other month and grow it from there.

View our Eventbrite Collection of user group meetings. All future in-person meetings will go there. Our first In-Person event is March 21st, 2023, with Cory Brown presenting Azure Synapse Link.

We are also planning to implement our lessons learned by doing another SQL Saturday in February 2024!

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SQL Saturday Jacksonville Sponsors

Procure SQL is proud to be speaking and sponsoring SQL Saturday Jacksonville this weekend. Join us and several other amazing community speakers as we all share our knowledge with the community. The event will be on Saturday, May 14th, 2022, at University of North Florida. You can sign up for free here. We look forward to seeing you there!

Sign Up for Free!
SQL Saturday Jacksonville 2022
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Getting Started with SQL Server Performance Tuning

Getting Started with Performance Tuning
Watch! Getting Started with Performance Tuning

Have slow queries and want to get down to the basics of learning some fundamentals for performance tuning? If so, John Sterrett is giving an talk at the Nashville User Group (Online) tomorrow. Feel free to join us. If you are local to Nashville make sure you sign up for their future meetings.

Join us virtually on Thursday, April 14, 2022 from 10:45 AM to 12:00 PM CDT

Watch Now!
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September 2018 Training Opportunities

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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!

Registration is free! GroupBy

Martin Perez (11:45 AM Est)

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.

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SQL Saturday Houston 2018

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SQLSatHou 2018

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 SNES GiveawayEntertainment 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!

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Four Tips for Entry-Level and Experienced IT Professionals

John Sterrett shares his thoughts on successfully transitioning to an entry-level IT job.

Recently, I worked with  AITP to share some tips that helped me successfully transition from a Computer Engineering student at the University of Oklahoma to an entry-level information technology professional. Once, I completed the interview I noticed that my advice was more of a secret sauce to being a successful informational technology professional than just a how-to guide to getting that first entry-level information technology job.   Therefore, I wanted to share with everyone.

To see the words of wisdom four tips to successfully enter the IT workforce or continue your successful IT career check out the following AITP article.  If you are not a member, I highly recommend joining AITP. AITP has been a game changer for my IT career.

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