SQLSaturday #1015 – Vienna – Virtual 2021
Event Date: 01/15/2021 00:00:00
Event Location:
- JUFA Wien City
- Mautner Markhof Gasse 50
- Vienna, , Austria
This event has completed. All data shown below is from the historical XML public data available.
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Sessions
This is a list of sessions from the event, based on the schedule in the XML files.
Title: From XL to S - Reduce your Power BI model size by 90%!
Abstract: Have you ever wondered what makes Power BI so fast and powerful when it comes to performance? So powerful, that it performs complex calculations over millions of rows in a blink of an eye.
In this session, we will dig deep to discover what is “under the hood” of Power BI, how your data is being stored, compressed, queried, and finally, brought back to your report. After the session, you will get a better understanding of the hard work happening in the background and appreciate the importance of creating an optimal data model in order to get maximum performance from the Power BI engine.
Finally, you will see a real use-case demo showing how the Power BI data model was reduced by 90%!
Speaker(s):
- Nikola Ilic
Track and Room: Power BI - Power BI Power Platform 1
Title: Designing impactful visualisations for your data
Abstract: As Data is key, visualising said data is even more important. We want our message to be understood with ease, and merely with a couple of glances. Hence making sure the receiving party can do so with ease will be vital to our success.
During this session, we’ll go through some steps on how to maximise the potential of data visualisations. Starting at choosing the right types of visualisations, and which colour palettes are good matches for your message, we’ll also make sure that our designs are as inclusive as we can possibly make them. Wrapping up with a few common use cases, you’ll definitely pick up a few new things to take home with you.
Walking out of this session, you can expect to have a decent understanding on a few common design principles for your data visualisations and reports.
Speaker(s):
- Benni De Jagere
Track and Room: Power BI - Power BI Power Platform 1
Title: Start thinking like the SQL Engine
Abstract: Many DBA’s and Developers work with SQL Server but don’t fully understand how it really works behind the scenes. Join Deepthi on her dive into the internals of SQL Server to explain why knowing what goes on under the covers will help you make better decisions quickly when solving performance problems in SQL Server. This session will cover ACID properties, key components of the Relational Engine, Storage engine, Cache and the Transaction manager. This session will also cover how SQL optimizer chooses the plans, how cache in sql Server is managed, what happens under the covers during read and write operations within SQL Server. This session will also have demo of how queries are processed at each component inside SQL Engine. Deepthi will show you how the SQL engine thinks – enabling you to think like it!
Speaker(s):
- Deepthi Goguri
Track and Room: Administration - Administration
Title: ABCs of the Power BI REST API
Abstract: In this session we will be looking into managing our Power BI content using only the Power BI REST API. While the Power BI REST API is extensive, we will be limiting this session on the following sections of interest: Dashboards, Datasets, Reports Groups.
How many Dashboards are there in a workspace? Which Datasource is this Dataset configured to use? Who is allowed to see this Report? Can I take ownership of this Dataset? How do I resfresh my Dataset? Is my Dataset refreshing on a schedule? … Those are just some of the questions we will find the answers to.
Examples will be provided in Powershell, which may require minute skills up front. Not to worry, a quick intro will be provided as well.
Attending this session will make you familiar with the Power BI REST API and provide you with guidance on how to manage the most common tasks in Power BI.
Speaker(s):
- Jens Vestergaard
Track and Room: Power BI - Power BI Power Platform 2
Title: Financial Modelling with Power BI
Abstract: Bob has been involved in taking Financial Models from paper based to highly dynamic analytics models in Microsoft BI for many large enterprises in Ireland.
Building Successful Financial Models based of a Chart of Accounts and General Ledger can be difficult for a number of reasons:
- Dynamic/Growing Chart of Accounts
- Many to Many Structure
- Parent Child
- Ragged Hierarchies on financial reports
- Unary Operators such as running sums
- Entity Attribute Value structures
- Overhead Allocation
- Modelling Profit Variations like EDBITA
Bob will show the “secret sauce” to financial modelling for General Ledger (GL) structures such as Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet.
Speaker(s):
- Bob Duffy
Track and Room: Power BI - Power BI Power Platform 1
Title: Analyze and solve common wait stats scenarios
Abstract: SQL Server is a high frequently used piece of software which need to serve single requests and/or hundreds of thousands of requests in a minute. Within these different kinds of workloads Microsoft SQL Server has to handle the concurrency of tasks in a fashion manner. This demo driven session shows different scenarios where Microsoft SQL Server has to wait and manage hundreds of tasks. See, analyze and solve different wait stats due to their performance impact:
- CXPACKET: when a query goes parallel
- ASYNC_IO_COMPLETION: speed up IO operations (Growth / Backup / Restore)
- ASYNC_NETWORK_IO: What happens if your application refuses data?
- THREADPOOL starvation: crush of requests for Microsoft SQL Server
- PAGELATCH_xx: How does Microsoft SQL Server protects data?
Speaker(s):
- Uwe Ricken
Track and Room: Administration - Administration
Title: Crushing a Cloud Migration: Moving Mountains While Migrating Data
Abstract: Are you an architect or DBA who has been tasked with executing a cloud migration? Are you a consultant who is trying to wrestle with the scale and scope of a cloud migration for a client? While there are certainly technical issues to solve and tooling selections to understand and execute, what often gets lost in a migration are the political and organizational mountains that need to be moved for the project to be successful. Technical success will not happen with our organizational success - they work hand in hand to lead to a successful conclusion.
As we walk through this session we will discuss and demo the technologies and tools that are useful for a cloud migration - and we'll review some that are not useful and talk about why they should be avoided. We will also mix in discussions of successful migrations and how the team worked together to move those organizational and political mountains out of the way in order to execute a successful cloud migration to make clients, customers
Speaker(s):
- Matt Gordon
Track and Room: Administration - Administration
Title: Notebooks 101 for SQL People
Abstract: Are you a database developer, a DBA or a data analyst? Do you find spending quite a bit of time trying to reproduce analysis or reproduce issues and the troubleshooting techniques? This Notebooks 101 session is for you!
The lack of rigor in being able to reproduce analysis in business context or to reproduce data troubleshooting can lead to confusion and time wasted on work that had been previously done. With Notebooks, Data Professionals can share their techniques and data sources used for the data analysis or troubleshooting for code review and reproducible insights/troubleshooting.
Azure Data Studio Notebooks support SQL and KQL natively with intellisense; with easy to use charting capabilities. With Notebooks and Jupyter Book (collection of Notebooks) in Azure Data Studio, it’s also easy now for your team to build an onboarding guide (user manual) / documentation on data sources, useful sample scripts and tutorials.
Speaker(s):
- Julie Koesmarno
Track and Room: Administration - Application Database Development
Title: Advanced ETL with Power Query
Abstract: The M language provides to Power Query a very powerful way to develop ETL, way beyond the basic features you know.
We can create functions, re-use funcitons, create loops, everything to turn our data transformations easier. During this session you will see many advanced techniques using M and Power Query
Speaker(s):
- Dennes Torres
Track and Room: Power BI - Power BI Power Platform 2
Title: Azure Synapse Analytics - Early Lessons learned
Abstract: We were in the lucky situation to actively accompany several customers on their POCs and early developments of Data Warehouse projects using Azure Synapse Analytics. Based on those experiences we will take you with us on a journey from the first steps into this new offer to use cases and scenarios from existing projects. Let’s explore the current set of features, childhood diseases left behind and potential for improvement.
Speaker(s):
- Gabi Münster
Track and Room: Cloud Technology - Cloud, AI ML 1
Title: The ins and outs of securing SQL Server traffic
Abstract: We are frequently hearing of an enterprise-size business being hacked, data being stolen, or data being exploited. Data security has always been important, but it should not be taken for granted. Data is information, and one of the greatest assets to a business, and when it is compromised, things go south quickly.
While there are multiple levels of security (securing data at rest, data in traffic, etc.), this session will focus on securing data that is on the move; ie., securing traffic between a client and server. We’ll discuss and look at two solutions: Certificates and IPsec, exploring them in detail, outlining the pros and cons of each, how to set up and configure them, and when to use what.
Speaker(s):
- Scott Klein
Track and Room: Administration - Administration
Title: Power BI Dataflows on Steroids: Handling 100+ million records using Enhanced Compute Engine
Abstract: Power BI dataflows used for self-service data preparation within the Power BI ecosystem. When a large volume of data and complex transformations should be handled, Enhanced Compute Engine should be enabled to support DirectQuery queries against Power BI dataflows and accelerate the transformations in upstream dataflows. In this session, we will present how to use Enhanced Compute Engine for managing 100+ million records in multi-phase ETL processes containing complex transformations, then implementing Power BI composite models and aggregations over this large amount of data stored in Power BI dataflows. We will also present in detail the best practices for Power BI dataflows to manage such a huge volume of data. We will focus also on how to store dataflows in your organization’s ADLS (Azure Data Lake Storage) Gen2 account instead of using the built-in one.
Speaker(s):
- Ferenc Csonka
Track and Room: Power BI - Power BI Power Platform 1
Title: Not My Problem(?) - Azure Networking 101 for Azure SQL Server DBAs
Abstract: The unofficial scapegoats of the the IT world has always been “the network” or “the database”. The traditional way of doing things on-prem has unfortunately added to this divide - either you’re a networking specialist or a DBA, and very rarely will the same person do both jobs. As an on-prem DBA, chances are that you never had to think twice about which network the database was in, what kind of endpoint was used for the traffic or how the firewall was configured. In Azure, things can get rather complex pretty quickly - especially when working with the platform-as-a-service (PaaS) version of Azure SQL Server. This session will walk you through the basics of networking, explore the concept of virtual networks and firewalls, and explain the use of endpoints - all from the perspective of how they relate to Azure SQL Server. We will be looking at both how the technical components work, and also why one would choose a specific design in favor of another.
Speaker(s):
- Alexander Arvidsson
Track and Room: Cloud Technology - Cloud, AI ML 2
Title: Big Data Clusters for the Absolute Beginner
Abstract: Are you a DBA or data professional working with out-dated technology or feel your skills are quickly becoming irrelevant? Stay ahead in today’s ever changing tech space and take your career to the next level.
Join Mohammad Darab this session to explore the cutting-edge technology that SQL Server 2019 has to offer: Big Data Clusters.
Topics include: -Big Data Cluster architecture and its components such as: Containers, Kubernetes and the newly enhanced Polybase -Unique advantage of SQL Server Big Data Clusters -Data Virtualization, Scale-out Data Marts, and Data Hub concepts
Speaker(s):
- Mohammad Darab
Track and Room: Administration - Administration
Title: Developing a Solution with SQL Server Machine Learning Services
Abstract: If you want to launch a Python or R project with data which lives in SQL Server, SQL Server Machine Learning Services may be right for you. In this talk, we will take a look at SQL Server Machine Learning Services, starting with an overview and installation, but quickly moving into custom development. We will deploy packages with sqlmlutils and investigate some of the nicest features of Machine Learning Services, including native scoring and parallel processing. We will also see how to develop and deploy custom code and tie everything back to .NET applications using stored procedures.
Speaker(s):
- Kevin Feasel
Track and Room: Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning - Cloud, AI ML 1
Title: Finding Islands, Gaps, and Clusters in Complex Data
Abstract: Gaps and islands problems are often treated as academic problems that are discussed without relevant real-life problems to solve.
By subdividing a data set into meaningful groups of islands, we can perform analytics against it that would otherwise be slow, error-prone, or seemingly impossible!
Data clustering can be applied to complex data sets in order to answer questions about winning streaks, financial performance, monitoring/alerting, goal achievement, and more!
Data quality becomes critical when crunching data in this fashion. We address duplicate data, bad data, NULL, and any other unexpected weirdness that a user might throw at us.
This is a fast-paced session that delves into methods that can be applied to any data. A complete set of historical baseball records will be used as our imperfect sample data in order to everything from a player’s hitting streak to the longest winning streak by a team on Wednesdays at night.
Speaker(s):
- Edward Pollack
Track and Room: Application Database Development - Application Database Development
Title: Azure databricks: brick by brick for the data engineer
Abstract: Still developing your ETL with SSIS but you’re willing to take a look to the new Azure databricks platform? This session is the first step to start developing with Azure Databricks! We’ll start by the use-cases or if you prefer “when is it smarter to switch your good old SSIS for the new tools”. Then we’ll take a look to a data preparation and a data move with Databricks and we can automate its execution. Finally, we’ll go for a few tips with the tooling.
Speaker(s):
- Cédric Charlier
Track and Room: Cloud Technology - Cloud, AI ML 2
Title: Let’s go Premium! The essentials to kickstart your experience.
Abstract: Going with Premium capacity in Power BI provides a lot of value for your organization: more reliable performance, larger data volumes, widespread distribution of content to consumers, and more! In this session you will learn: • What Power BI Premium capacity exactly is, and what is happening ‘under the hood’! • How it compares to the regular/shared capacity • How it compares to Azure Analysis Services • How you can govern and manage the capacity • How you can monitor the capacity
Speaker(s):
- Dave Ruijter
Track and Room: Power BI - Power BI Power Platform 2
Title: Azure Sql DB Managed instance, a different sql server?
Abstract: On this session we are going to cover Azure sql db managed instance service. Introduction, how to Migrate, limitations, best practices among other things :):):):)..
Speaker(s):
- Gonzalo Bissio
Track and Room: Cloud Technology - Cloud, AI ML 2
Title: Strukturierung des Data Lake
Abstract: Der Data Lake, unendliche Weiten, unendlicher Speicherplatz, unendliche Möglichkeiten, Daten zu sammeln und zu horten. Aber ist das das Ziel? Gerade in einem Data Lake gibt es Regeln, wie man Daten speichert, Entwickler müssen sich mit Namenskonventionen, Busniess Regeln und Richtlinien auseinandersetzen.
In dieser Session zeigen wir, welche unterschiedlichen Konzepte es für die Strukturierung eines Data Lakes gibt und wie Sie die verschiedenen theoretischen Ansätze in die Praxis überführen.
Welche Namenskonventionen haben sich etabliert oder sollten vermieden werden. Der Azure Data Lake bietet darüber hianus auch eine gewisse Unterstützung auf der Infrastrukturseite in Form von Richtlinien, die beim Aufbau eines sauberen Data Lakes helfen können.
Taucht mit uns ab in die Tiefen des Azure Data Lakes.
Speaker(s):
- Tillmann Eitelberg
Track and Room: Cloud Technology - Cloud, AI ML 2
Title: Self-service BI - Why Data Modelling Is Still Important
Abstract: Self-service business intelligence is on the rise. Tools like Power BI, Power Query and Power Pivot make it easy for everyone to create a powerful model that can hold millions of rows. However, it’s not all cookies and rainbows. To get good performance and correct results, a good data model is required. In this session, we go over the basics of data modelling for business analysis. You will learn to apply a set of guidelines to make your models better, faster and more robust.
Speaker(s):
- Koen Verbeeck
Track and Room: Power BI - Power BI Power Platform 1
Title: DAX - Musings about foundational concepts
Abstract: Much has been said about DAX, and even more will be told, as DAX still evolves and the adoption of tools that are using DAX like Power BI and MSFT Analysis Services Tabular is growing. I got inspired for this session by questions from https://community.powerbi.com. These questions are touching the most foundational concepts. They remind me of my journey into the realm of evaluation context, filter propagation, data lineage, the scope of variables, and the mysterious world of table iterators, just to name some concepts. I explain these concepts using small datasets that allowing us to perform computation without leveraging the cloud, but please be prepared for some surprises. The presentation uses a single pbix file that will be available for download after the session.
Speaker(s):
- Thomas Martens
Track and Room: Power BI - Power BI Power Platform 2
Title: Intro to Query Store
Abstract: In this session, we will look at the new Query Store feature in SQL Server 2016, 2017, and 2019. Query Store tracks changes in execution plans, allowing you to easily view performance differences and revert to older plans with a few clicks of the mouse in 2016.
Then in 2017, Microsoft added wait stats per query plan and Automatic Plan Correction capabilities. Allowing DBAs more tools to troubleshoot fires with and a way to automatically resolve issues.
In this session, we will walk through the features of the Query Store, so you can understand how to use them in SQL Server 2016, 2017, and 2019.
Speaker(s):
- Tracy Boggiano
Track and Room: Application Database Development - Application Database Development
Title: Change your skills - from an onpremise DBA to a cloud DBA
Abstract: In this session, everything will be around changing your daily business from an on-premise environment to a cloud world… new challenges, new tasks, and new options… in order not to struggle too often, you need to create new knowledge and learn a lot of new stuff, so I want to show several ways to update your skills and what you really need to become cloud database admin.
Speaker(s):
- Björn Peters
Track and Room: Cloud Technology - Cloud, AI ML 1
Title: Business Analysis with T-SQL
Abstract: You can make advanced business analytics also with T-SQL, you do not need to use R, Python, or some other currently fashionable language for every single in-depth view in your data. In addition, you can get magnitudes better performance inside a database management system when in statistical languages and engines. You will learn how to use T-SQL for queries that you might already be familiar with, for aggregating queries. But this is only to warm you up. Then you will learn how to do hazard and survival analysis, market basket analysis with association rules using different measures like support and confidence, and even sequential market basket analysis, when there is a sequence in the basket. Then the session introduces the look-alike model, which is a mixture of k-nearest neighbor and decision trees algorithms. The session finishes with Bayesian inference implemented with T-SQL.
Speaker(s):
- Dejan Sarka
Track and Room: Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning - Cloud, AI ML 1
Title: DIY ETL with Logic apps, Azure Functions and more
Abstract: How do we handle the edge cases, the unique or temporary solutions to get data from emails, file shares, FTP, someone’s desktop etc? We need DIY ETL when the easy data sources don’t exist, and the usual methods won’t work. In this session, we’ll take 3 scenarios, solve them and make them reliable, and repeatable, with tools like Power Automate, logic apps, Azure functions and more.
Speaker(s):
- Craig Porteous
Track and Room: Cloud Technology - Cloud, AI ML 2
Title: BI in Azure two years live
Abstract: After more than two years live with BI in Azure Alexander Klein would like to give an honest feedback.
Which architecture is the right one? Which tools/services should I use ( Azure Data Factory V1 or V2, Azure Stream Analytics, Logic Apps, Azure Functions, Azure SQL DB, Azure SQL DW, Azure Analysis Service, Azure Data Lake, Power BI, Azure Databricks …) ? What was good and what wasn’t so good? What do you have to pay attention to? What can you possibly do better in the next project?
Alexander Klein will answer all these questions and more in this presentation.
Speaker(s):
- Alexander Klein
Track and Room: Cloud Technology - Cloud, AI ML 1
Title: Introduction to Azure DevOps
Abstract: Azure DevOps is rapidly becoming one of the most in-demand skills for IT professionals and in this session, we will explain how you can implement and start using Azure DevOps from the ground up based upon real-world experiences.
We will provide a good overview of all major facets of Azure DevOps including:
- Azure Boards
- Azure (Build and Release) Pipelines
- Azure Repos
By the end of this session, you will be able to set up your first build and release pipelines and implement CICD in your workplace!
Speaker(s):
- Mark Broadbent
Track and Room: Application Database Development - Application Database Development
Title: Power BI and Paginated Reports? [Deutsch/German]
Abstract: Within the Office 365 / Power Bi platform, the paginated reports we traditionally know from Reporting Services have now arrived into Power BI. This session gives an overview of the choice the report types are used in, how the current state of Reporting Servicers is in the cloud, and what this can bring with it both advantages and disadvantages and additionally how you can build a whole reporting platform
Speaker(s):
- Philipp Lenz
Track and Room: Power BI - Power BI Power Platform 1
Title: Lightning Talk Session
Abstract: 5 talks, 10min each topics across all tracks
Speaker(s):
- Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen
Track and Room: Lightning Talk - Power BI Power Platform 2
Title: Living on the Edge: SQL Server Edge
Abstract: One of the new Products that was presented at Ignite 2019 / PASS Summit 2019 was SQL Server Edge. SQL Server Edge is a SQL Server Edition that is built for the ARM-Architecture and can be run on IoT/Edge Devices like Raspberry PI. In his session German Data Platform MVP Frank Geisler will explain what SQL Server Edge exactly is and will show how to set up a Raspberry PI Device with SQL Server Edge.
Speaker(s):
- Frank Geisler
Track and Room: Application Database Development - Application Database Development
Title: Azure SQL anywhere. An Introduction to Azure Arc enabled Data Services.
Abstract: Until very recently, Azure SQL was just for… well. Azure. Join Data Platform MVP Ben Weissman as he explores Azure Arc for Data Services, Microsoft‘s solution to deploy services like Azure SQL to any cloud – including private clouds – using kubernetes. He will take us through the core concepts of Arc enabled Data Services and also demo how easy it is to deploy an Azure SQL Managed Instance on premises (or in any other cloud) while still being able to see it’s telemetry etc. from the Azure portal.
Speaker(s):
- Ben Weissman
Track and Room: Cloud Technology - Cloud, AI ML 1
Title: From adaptive to intelligent: query processing in SQL 2019
Abstract: As announced in September 2018, SQL Server 2019 expands the “adaptive query processing” features of SQL 2017 and relabels them as “intelligent query processing”. This name now covers many features, such as batch mode on rowstore, memory grant feedback, interleaved execution, adaptive joins, deferred compilation, and approximate query processing.
In this high-paced session, we will look at all these features and cover some use cases where they might help – or hurt! – you.
Speaker(s):
- Hugo Kornelis
Track and Room: Application Database Development - Application Database Development
Title: External Tools for Power BI, how to create them!
Abstract: Power BI offers an add-in to work with 3rd party external tools like Tabular Editor, DAX Studio and ALM toolkit. The fact that you can use a tool of your own preference is already really cool! But did you know that you can build these tools yourself pretty easy?
In this session I will show you how I build my model documentation external tool and how you can start doing this yourself!
Speaker(s):
- Marc Lelijveld
Track and Room: Power BI - Power BI Power Platform 2
Title: Creating an modern data platform in the cloud
Abstract: Planning on creating a new data platform? Come join one of Norway’s most experienced solutions architect to learn the Do’s and Don’ts on cloud data platforms as well as design patterns and which services to choose where.
Speaker(s):
- Johan Ludvig Brattås
Track and Room: Cloud Technology - Cloud, AI ML 2
Speakers
This is a list of speakers from the XML Guidebook records. The details and URLs were valid at the time of the event.
Nikola Ilic
Twitter: - DataMozart
LinkedIn: Nikola Ilic
Contact: https://data-mozart.com
I’m making music from the data!
PowerBI and SQLServer addict, MCT, Pluralsight Author, blogger, speaker…Interested in everything related to data - always eager to extract valuable info from raw data in the most effective way. Multi-year experience working with (predominantly) Microsoft Data Platform (SQL Server, SSAS, SSIS, SSRS, and Power BI). Father of 2 and true football (and Barca) fan!
Hugo Kornelis
Twitter: - Hugo_Kornelis
LinkedIn: Hugo Kornelis
Contact: http://sqlblog.com/blogs/hugo_kornelis/default.aspx
Hugo Kornelis is an established SQL Server community expert who spends a lot of time at various conferences. He is author of “the Execution Plan Reference” (sqlserverfast.com/epr), blogger, technical editor of Grant Fritchey’s “SQL Server Execution Plans, 3rd edition” and some other books, and Pluralsight author. He was awarded SQL Server MVP and Data Platform MVP 12 times (2006 - 2016, and 2019-present).
When not working for the community, he is busy at his day job: freelance database developer/consultant.
Hugo has over 20 years of SQL Server experience in various roles. He loves to write and tune complex queries, but he also has a strong database design background.
When not working for the community, he is busy at his day job: freelance database developer/consultant.
Hugo has over 20 years of SQL Server experience in various roles. He loves to write and tune complex queries, but he also has a strong database design background.
Dennes Torres
Twitter: - Dennes
LinkedIn: Dennes Torres
Contact: https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/author/dennes-torres/
Dennes Torres is a Data Platform MVP with more than 25 years of experience in the IT area. He improves Data Platform Architectures and turns data into knowledge. As a Brazilian living in Malta, Dennes works as a software developer and leads the Malta MDP User Group. Having the MCSE Data Platform, Business Intelligence, and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) certifications, Dennes has been in love with database servers since he was introduced to SQL Server 6.5, more years ago than he would like to admit.
Gabi Münster
Twitter: - @SQLMissSunshine
LinkedIn: Gabi Münster
Gabi Münster is working as a Business Intelligence consultant and team lead and brings in her experience with SQL Server, data warehousing, relational and multidimensional database design and implementation, report and dashboard design, and Master Data Services, as well as project management into the community as a regional PASS Local Group lead. She is also passionate about motivating other women to start a technical career and therefore initiates and supports “Women in Technology” events. Apart from SQLSaturdays, she also spoke at SQLBits, SQL Nexus, Tuga IT, and 2015’s and 2017’s PASS Summit. In October 2017 Gabi received her first Data Platform MVP award.
Edward Pollack
Twitter: - EdwardPollack
LinkedIn: Edward Pollack
Contact: https://www.sqlshack.com/author/edward-pollack/
Ed Pollack has over 20 years of experience in database and systems administration, which has developed his passion for performance optimization, database design, and making things go faster. He has spoken at many SQLSaturdays, 24 Hours of PASS, and PASS Summit. This led him to organize SQLSaturday Albany, which has become an annual event for New York’s Capital Region. Sharing these experiences with the community is a top priority, and encouraging everyone to take the leap into public speaking and engaging others, a passion. In his free time, Ed enjoys video games, traveling, cooking exceptionally spicy foods, and hanging out with his amazing wife and sons.
Dejan Sarka
Twitter: - DejanSarka
Contact: http://blogs.solidq.com/dsarka/Home.aspx
Dejan Sarka, MCT and Data Platform MVP, is an independent trainer and consultant that focuses on development of database and business intelligence applications. Besides projects, he spends about half of his time on training and mentoring. He is the founder of the Slovenian SQL Server and .NET Users Group. Dejan Sarka is the main author or co-author of eighteen books about databases and SQL Server. Dejan Sarka has also developed many courses and seminars for Microsoft, Radacad, SolidQ, and Pluralsight.
Bob Duffy
Twitter: - @bob_duffy
LinkedIn: Bob Duffy
Contact: http://blogs.prodata.ie/author/bob.aspx
Bob Duffy is a SQL Server MVP from Dublin, Ireland who is MCA, MCM. and Analysis Services Maestro certified.
Bob works as a Database Architect at the Prodata SQL Centre of Excellence where he specializes in business intelligence and performance tuning.
Uwe Ricken
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/dbBerater
LinkedIn: Uwe Ricken
Contact: http://www.sqlmaster.de
Uwe Ricken is working with IT systems since the 90’s. The primary passion for developments with Microsoft SQL Server expanded in 2007 with his engagement as a DBA for Deutsche Bank AG in Frankfurt am Main. After 6 years of operational experiences as a DBA and over 14 years as a developer of complex database models he achieved the “Microsoft Certified Master – SQL Server 2008” certification which “was” the highest technical certification. In the same year he earned his first award as a Data Platform MVP for his support to the Microsoft SQL Server community in Germany and Europe. Uwe Ricken is a speaker on many international conferences and events and preferred topics are “Database Internals”, “Indexing” and “Development”.
Mohammad Darab
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/mwdarab
LinkedIn: Mohammad Darab
Contact: https://mohammaddarab.com
Mohammad Darab is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP, Certified Kubernetes Administrator, Certified Kubernetes Application Developer, speaker and blogger with over 19 years of IT professional experience, 10+ years of that working with SQL Server. He is passionate about SQL Server Big Data Clusters, Kubernetes and overall professional development.
Kevin Feasel
Twitter: - feaselkl
LinkedIn: Kevin Feasel
Contact: http://www.catallaxyservices.com
Kevin Feasel is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and CTO at Envizage, where he specializes in data analytics with T-SQL and R, forcing Spark clusters to do his bidding, fighting with Kafka, and pulling rabbits out of hats on demand. He is the lead contributor to Curated SQL (https://curatedsql.com), president of the Triangle Area SQL Server Users Group (https://www.meetup.com/tripass), and author of PolyBase Revealed (https://www.apress.com/us/book/9781484254608). A resident of Durham, North Carolina, he can be found cycling the trails along the triangle whenever the weather’s nice enough.
Matt Gordon
Twitter: - sqlatspeed
LinkedIn: Matt Gordon
Contact: http://www.sqlatspeed.com
Matt is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and has worked with SQL Server since 2000. He is the leader of the Lexington, KY PASS local group and a frequent domestic and international community speaker. He’s an IDERA ACE alumnus and 2020 Friend of Redgate. His original data professional role was in database development, which quickly evolved into query tuning work that further evolved into being a DBA in the healthcare realm. He has supported several critical systems utilizing SQL Server and managed dozens of 24/7/365 SQL Server implementations. Following several years as a consultant, he is now the Director of Database Management for rev.io, where he is implementing data governance, DevOps, and performance improvements enterprise-wide.
Tracy Boggiano
Twitter: - TracyBoggiano
LinkedIn: Tracy Boggiano
Contact: http://databasesuperhero.com
Tracy Boggiano is a Senior Database Administrator for DocuSIgn. She has spent over 20 years in IT, using SQL Server since 1999, and is currently certified as an MCSE Data Platform. Tracy has worked on SQL Server since 6.5. She has spoken at local user groups and numerous SQLSaturdays. She is currently a co-leader of a TriPASS Local Group in Raleigh, NC.
Tracy also tinkered with databases in middle school to keep her sports card collection organized. She blogs at databasesuperhero.com.
Her passion outside of SQL Server is volunteering with foster children as their advocate in court through volunteerforgal.org and being a mental health advocate as part of the PAIMI NC Advisory Council.
Dave Ruijter
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/daveruijter
LinkedIn: Dave Ruijter
Contact: https://moderndata.ai
Dave is Technology Consultant Data Analytics and Microsoft MVP, bringing a decade’s worth of Microsoft Azure Data Platform and Power Platform experience to the table. He is a very passionate Power BI evangelist, eager to share his knowledge and experiences from the field.
Craig Porteous
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/CPorteous
LinkedIn: Craig Porteous
Contact: https://craigporteous.com
Craig is a Data Platform MVP working with Incremental Group as a Data Engineer. He has more than 10 years working with the Microsoft Data Platform and related technologies, supporting global BI Environments, automating processes with PowerShell and implementing BI Solutions. Craig is actively involved in the SQL community as a co-leader of the Glasgow SQL User group creator of the DATA:Scotland Conference in Scotland.
Scott Klein
Twitter: - SQLScott
Contact: http://aka.ms/sqlscott
Scott Klein is a senior consultant with SQL Solutions Group with over two decades of experience working with Microsoft SQL Server. Prior to SSG, Scott spent almost 10 years at Microsoft, traveling the globe as a technical evangelist training and speaking about SQL Server and Microsoft’s Azure data services. Scott’s recent focus has been on advanced analytics, including big data and IoT, providing real-world training to help bring intelligence to your data. Scott has authored several books focusing on data and data analytics. Scott is continuously striving and looking for ways to help developers and companies grok the wonderful world of data.
Benni De Jagere
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/BenniDeJagere
LinkedIn: Benni De Jagere
Contact: https://bennidejagere.com
Benni De Jagere is a Senior Data Insights Consultant at Realdolmen, with a strong focus on the Microsoft (BI) Stack.
On a daily basis he turns (large amounts) of coffee into insights for customers, and references witty British comedy way too often. Overly enthusiastic about anything data related, he’s trying hard to keep up with all things new and shiny.
Rumour has it that he’s also involved with a ragtag band of data enthusiasts, enjoying themselves whilst organising cool community things. They go by the name of .. dataMinds!
Ben Weissman
Twitter: - bweissman
LinkedIn: Ben Weissman
Ben Weissman has been working with SQL Server since SQL Server 6.5, mainly in the BI/Datawarehousing field. He is a Data Platform MVP, MCSE Data Management and Analytics, and a Certified Data Vault Data Modeler. He is also the first BimlHero Certified Expert in Germany and a co-author of ‘SQL Server Big Data Clusters’ and ‘The Biml Book’. Ben has been involved in more than 150 BI Projects and is always looking for ways to become more productive and make SQL Server even more fun! Together with his team at Solisyon, Ben provides training, implementation and consultancy for SQL/BI developers and data analysts in upper-mid-market companies around the globe.
Alexander Arvidsson
Twitter: - arcticdba
LinkedIn: Alexander Arvidsson
Contact: http://www.arcticdba.se
Alexander is a principal solutions architect at Solution Xperts in Linköping, Sweden. Nobody really knows what it means to be a principal solutions architect, but he spends his days helping clients of all shapes and sizes to take better care of their data.
He has spent the last 23 years toying with databases and related infrastructure services such as storage, networking and virtualization, occasionally emerging from the technical darkness to attend a Star Wars convention somewhere in the world.
He is a frequent international speaker, a Data Platform MVP, podcaster, blogger and a Microsoft Certified Trainer, focusing on SQL Server, the Azure data stack and Power BI.
Gonzalo Bissio
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/gbissio
LinkedIn: Gonzalo Bissio
Contact: https://sqlserverrules.wordpress.com
Pure strain DBA, MCSA 2012-2014-2016 Database administrator and MCSE Data Management and Analytics, clearly passionate about SQL Server. I currently work in the global SQL Engineering team, supporting more than 1000 internal applications. I am a DBA since 2012, and I drove from SQL 2000 to SQL 2019. Also I worked migration more than 50 applications from on premises to AWS RDS SQL Server as well migrating and supporting more than 1000 Logical servers and 3000 Azure SQL DB databases ( and some others Azure SQL DB Managed instances)
Tillmann Eitelberg
Twitter: - @_Tillmann
LinkedIn: Tillmann Eitelberg
Contact: http://www.ssis-components.net
Tillmann Eitelberg is CEO and co-founder of oh22information services GmbH, which specializes in data integration and data management. Tillmann is an active blogger at www.ssis-components.net, writing regularly about data quality topics and his passion: spatial data. In addition, he has published several SSIS components on Codeplex and GitHub. Tillmann is a Data Platform MVP, a board member of PASS Germany e.V., a PASS CL for the Cologne/Bonn region, and a PASS RM.
Benni De Jagere
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/BenniDeJagere
LinkedIn: Benni De Jagere
Contact: https://bennidejagere.com
Benni De Jagere is a Senior Data Insights Consultant at Realdolmen, with a strong focus on the Microsoft (BI) Stack.
On a daily basis he turns (large amounts) of coffee into insights for customers, and references witty British comedy way too often. Overly enthusiastic about anything data related, he’s trying hard to keep up with all things new and shiny.
Rumour has it that he’s also involved with a ragtag band of data enthusiasts, enjoying themselves whilst organising cool community things. They go by the name of .. dataMinds!
Julie Koesmarno
Twitter: - @mssqlgirl
LinkedIn: Julie Koesmarno
Contact: http://www.mssqlgirl.com
Julie Koesmarno, MCSE Data Platform, and MCSE Business Intelligence, MCT, is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft, with a Bachelor’s degree in IT. She has over 10 years of experience working with SQL Server for large-scale and multi-million-dollar OLTP and ETL projects as a SQL Server developer and system analyst/designer. Her past projects include delivering a SQL Server 2012 data warehouse and BI solutions in the US and Australia. She now works with hybrid, cloud and on-prem SQL projects.
Mark Broadbent
Twitter: - @retracement
LinkedIn: Mark Broadbent
Contact: http://tenbulls.co.uk
Mark Broadbent is a Data Platform MVP and SQL Server MCM with more than 20 years of experience working with SQL Server and principal of SQLCloud, a consultancy specializing in concurrency control and highly available solutions. He is the founder of the UK’s SQLSaturday Cambridge (its first and largest), SharePoint Saturday Cambridge, the Hybrid Virtual Chapter and the East Anglia SQL User Group.
Jens Vestergaard
Twitter: - @vestergaardj
LinkedIn: Jens Vestergaard
Contact: http://www.t-sql.dk
Jens performs the traditional BI disciplines from imports in Integration Services through data consolidation in Analysis Services, to report in Power BI or Reporting Services. Jens has worked with The Stack since SQL 2000 and has a core competence in Integration Services and Analysis Services. Along with the certified skills in Microsoft SQL Server, Jens has also worked with Microsoft .Net platform for more than 15 years and currently manages a BI Platform in Azure for the CatMan Solution application(s).
Deepthi Goguri
Twitter: - dbanuggets
Contact: https://dbanuggets.com/
Deepthi is a SQL Server Database Administrator with 7+ years of experience in administering SQL Servers. She is a Microsoft certified Trainer and professional with an Associate and Expert level certification in Data Management and Analytics. Deepthi completed her Masters in Computer Technology at Eastern Illinois University. She blog for DBANuggets.com.
Philipp Lenz
Twitter: - lenz_philipp
Contact: https://www.flip-it.de
Philipp works as a Business Intelligence Senior Consultant at XXXL Digital in Coblenz, Germany. With the advent of Power Pivot for Excel and SQL Server Reporting Services, he has discovered his passion for Microsoft Business Intelligence technologies over 12 years.
Since mid-2016 he has been a founding member of the Power BI Usergroup in Cologne and is Chapter Leader of SQL PASS Mittelrhein, Germany. In 2019 he has also founded the Power Apps and Power Automate Usergroup and he was in the end of 2019 recognized as an Data Platform MVP.
Ferenc Csonka
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/ferenc_csonka
LinkedIn: Ferenc Csonka
Ph.D. in Computer Science, 20 years experience in software development, 10+ years experience in Microsoft BI stack, day-by-day usage of Power BI since its very first release, teaching lots of Power BI trainings in Hungarian and English, co-organizer of Hungarian Power BI Meetup. Last year I was a speaker at Microsoft Tech Summit 2019 conference in Budapest and also at Power Platform World Tour in Vienna. Recently, I had a presentation at Budapest Artificial Intelligence Meetup, Community Summit Europe 2020, Lightup Virtual Conference, Power BI Days Munich, and DataWeekender.
Marc Lelijveld
Twitter: - @Marclelijveld
LinkedIn: Marc Lelijveld
Contact: https://data-marc.com/
Power BI enthusiastic, public speaker and passionated for everything which transforms data into action! Working at Macaw in the Netherlands as a Data Analytics consultant.
What I like the most? Sharing my thoughts, experience, best-practices and enthusiasm about Power BI and related Microsoft Products with others. I mostly do this in public speaking for the user group, conferences, customer presentations and end-user training. But wouldn’t it be great to cross borders and expand the community!
Cédric Charlier
Twitter: - @Seddryck
LinkedIn: Cédric Charlier
Contact: http://seddryck.wordpress.com
Cédric is a talented architect and Data Platform MVP active in the domain of Business Intelligence and Data warehousing. He has more than 10 years of successful experiences with SQL Server in European industrial groups and services companies. Driven by quality and reliability, he is the main developer of an open-source solution for testing BI solutions (cubes, etl, reports) named NBi (www.nbi.io). Cedric also advocates for the introduction and general usage of agile practices in BI’s world.
Dave Ruijter
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/daveruijter
LinkedIn: Dave Ruijter
Contact: https://moderndata.ai
Dave is Technology Consultant Data Analytics and Microsoft MVP, bringing a decade’s worth of Microsoft Azure Data Platform and Power Platform experience to the table. He is a very passionate Power BI evangelist, eager to share his knowledge and experiences from the field.
Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen
Twitter: - MEhrenmueller
LinkedIn: Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen
Contact: http://www.savorydata.com
Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen, as the founder of Savory Data, has a long history of providing customer solutions in the areas of data engineering, data science, and Business Intelligence. He is a certified software engineer, a graduated business educator, and professor of Databases Project Management at HTL Leonding, and is certified as an MCSE MCT. He is a published author and writes articles for well-known journals. He co-founded PASS Austria and organizes SQLSaturdays in Austria. Markus is a founding member of Power BI Usergroup Austria. Since 2017 Markus was awarded as an Microsoft Data Platform MVP.
Björn Peters
Twitter: - https://twitter.com/sql_aus_hh
LinkedIn: Björn Peters
Contact: http://www.sql-aus-hamburg.de
I’ve started with SQL Server 6.5 but only as a sys-admin and not as DBA. Later I’d worked as a full DBA with SQL Server 2000 and my love to SQL Server started. In 2015 I’d got more interested in SQL PASS and tried to speak for the first time… the main part of my job is to work as DB-Admin and solution architect but I’m trying to widen my horizons. In 2016 I’ve visited and volunteered at the German SQLSaturdays und SQLGrillen and since October 2016 I’m the organizer of Azure Meetup Hamburg.
Frank Geisler
Twitter: - @Frank Geisler
LinkedIn: Frank Geisler
Contact: http://www.gdsbi.de
Frank Geisler is owner and CEO of GDS Business Intelligence GmbH. He is SQL Server MVP, MCT, MCSE – Business Intelligence, MCSE – Data Plattform and MCSE - Azure Solutions Architect. In his Job he is building Business Intelligence Systems based on Microsoft Technology, mainly on SQL Server and SharePoint.
Koen Verbeeck
Twitter: - Ko_Ver
LinkedIn: Koen Verbeeck
Contact: http://sqlkover.com/
Koen Verbeeck is a Business Intelligence professional working at AE. He helps clients to get insight in their data and to improve their business intelligence solutions. Koen has a decade of experience in developing data warehouses, cubes and reports using the Microsoft Data Platform. Koen has a blog at sqlkover.com and writes articles for MSSQLTips.com. He has been awarded the Microsoft Data Platform MVP award in 2017.
Alexander Klein
Twitter: - @SQL_Alex
LinkedIn: Alexander Klein
Alexander Klein is a senior Business Intelligence consultant with more than 15 years of experience. He focuses on Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse projects with Microsoft technologies like SQL Server, Power BI, Azure ML or Cortana Intelligence.
Since 2008, he has been a self-employed consultant in large and medium-sized projects in all sectors across Europe. He has been visiting SQLSaturdays and other Data Conference all over Europe since 2013. Speaker at national and international events since 2017.
Johan Ludvig Brattås
Twitter: - intoleranse
LinkedIn: Johan Ludvig Brattås
Contact: http://brattas.org/sqlmusings
Johan Ludvig Brattås is a managing consultant at Capgemini, and a dedicated community guy. He has worked with MS SQL server since late 1999, mostly with BI in one form or another. The last 6 years, most of his work has been in Azure working on data platforms, Power BI and the last three years expanding to Azure IoT and Stream Analytics.
Combining his passion for Microsoft SQL Server with his passion for sharing knowledge, he has spoken at various events in the SQL Community. This is also a way to give back to the community for all the things he has learned over the years. When not working, Johan Ludvig either spends his time with his kids, playing with new technology, or teaching coeliacs how to bake glutenfree food.
Thomas Martens
Twitter: - tommartens68
LinkedIn: Thomas Martens
Contact: http://minceddata.info
Thomas “Tom” Martens has been awarded as a MSFT Data Platform MVP and works as Lead Expert at b.telligent (www.btelligent.com). For 20+ years Tom delivers Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing and Analytics solutions. Tom helps organizations to become data driven by implementing self service Business Intelligence tools at enterprise scale. His current interest is about the visualization of data and applying analytical methods to small and large amounts of data. Tom is a regular speaker at the PASS User Groups, Power BI User Group, SQLSaturdays, the PASS Camp and also the SQL Server Konferenz.
Sponsors
The following is a list of sponsors that helped fund the event: