UK SQL Server User Group Events Feed

SQL 2008 Data Warehousing Features (Vincent Rainardi); Index Views and Computed Columns (Neil Hambly); Business Intelligence in Office 2010 - Excel,PowerPivot,SharePoint (Duncan Sutcliffe); finishing with a Q & A on BI with the panel

17/03/2010

Note: This event has a max capacity of 102 - this event is now full; we are operating a reserve list - feel free to register as I will be sending reminders out a few days before the event to make sure if you have registered you are still coming.

Come and socialise and learn from your peers; these physical meetings are great places to expand your network, get answers and find out how other people are using SQL Server and what is going on. This is the last meeting this year for London and for those who can we should do drinks after the meeting to continue the SQL chat in an even more informal environment.

If you want to twitter please make sure you use the tag #uksqlug so it is shown on the site.

Your host for the evening will be Ashwani Roy, SQL Server MVP.

Agenda

18:00 - 18:15 Meet & Greet

Meet up and socialise with your friends, meet new people, find out what other people are doing with SQL Server.

18:15 - 19:00 SQL Server 2008 Data Warehousing Features
Vincent Rainardi;
http://www.datawarehouse.org.uk

In this session I will explain about 2008 Data Warehousing features such as merge, CDC, data compression, backup compression, star join query, minimally logged insert, parallel query on partition tables, partitioned aligned indexed views, resource governor, grouping sets. I will pick some of them and show implementation example in the form of a demo.

So this session will be particularly useful for people/companies who already have a data warehouse on SQL Server 2005, as it explains to them the benefits of upgrading their warehouse to 2008. It will also be useful for companies who don't currently have a data warehouse on SQL Server (perhaps they have it on other platform), and are currently deciding whether to use SQL Server 2008 for their warehousing platform. And of course this will benefit Microsoft, as it draws people's attention to using SQL Server 2008 for their data warehousing platform.

19:00 - 19:15 Using Indexed Views & Computed Columns for Performance
Neil Hambly, http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/NeilHambly

One of the key elements of any DW / OLTP system is performance, alas no matter how good it's design or how powerful it's hardware there are times when the performance of a Query operation / function is JUST NOT adequate, even if properly tuned these times generally we are likely to be dealing with lots of data or complex calculations SQL Server has ways to help deal with those scenarios, some of these include the use of Indexes Views or Computed Columns I will spend a few minutes explaining their usage, Pro's & Con's and demo some examples.

19:15 - 19:35 Break for Pizza sponsored by Microsoft

19:35 - 20:30 Business Intelligence in Office 2010
Duncan Sutcliffe, Hitachi Consulting (http://www.hitachiconsulting.co.uk)

This session will look at the improvements to self-service BI made in Excel 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2. It will examine native Excel functionality, the PowerPivot for Excel tool, and deployment of PowerPivot in SharePoint 2010. The session will be in the form of a live demonstration using the most recent CTP and beta software.

20:30 - 21:00 Panel - Q & A session on Business Intelligence
Ashwani Roy and Chris Testa-O'Neill

Please send in your questions to tonyrogerson@torver.net and I will post them on this event page; questions can be taken at the meeting also.

Introduction to Business Intellence in the SQL Server Stack - Date to be confirmed - register your interest

27/03/2010

Agenda TBC

Introduction to Database Maintenance and Development 101 - Date to be confirmed - register your interest

27/03/2010

Agenda TBC

Developer and DBA Focus

21/04/2010

Network, learn, ask a question, meet other folk, get fed - these are all things that happen at user group events. These events are a really great opportunity to socialise in an informal learning experience - if you want your own exposure then come and do a 1 - 5 minute nugget in front of your peers.

Remember to tell your friends and the people you work with; make sure you register as soon as you can.

5.30pm – 6:00 Registration and networking + Tea/Coffee with biscuits.
Meet and greet.

6:00pm – 6:30pm Round Table discussion and Nuggets - ALL
Take stock and get the latest news in the SQL Server field. This is also a great opportunity to ask any burning questions you have, may be a problem at work.

It's also a great opportunity to share your knowledge and gain exposure in the industry by giving a short 1 - 6 minute "nugget" demo/tip.

6.30pm – 7:30 TBC
TBC

TBC

7:30pm – 7:50 BREAK: Light refreshments
More time to network and ask questions...

7:50pm – 8.50pm TBC
TBC

TBC

Database Design Part 1 - Why is Normalisation important? What is Normalisation, a look at First Normal Form (1NF) and Boyce Codd (BCNF) Normal Form

07/05/2010

This will be an online presentation via LiveMeeting.

Presenter: Tony Rogerson, SQL Server MVP
http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tonyrogerson
http://www.sql-server.co.uk

In this 30 - 45 minute talk I will set the grounding as to why Normalisation is important, I will then start to go through First Normal form and then Boyce Codd (BCNF).

Whilst I will be using SQL Server to show examples I will keep to ANSI 92 so this talk will be vender neutral.

Agenda

Why is Normalisation important?

Relational Theory Introduction (enough to do Normalisation)

First Normal Form

Repeating Groups

Multivalued Attributes

Boyce Codd Normal Form

This will be one in a series of LiveMeetings on this topic - I'm time limited so whatever doesn't get covered in the first 30/45 minutes will spill over into part 2 :)

LiveMeeting URL will be shared nearer the date.