Last week I had a wonderful conversation with Ryan Atkinson, creator and founder of the TechGuide Podcast. We discussed my career journey and advice aimed to help those early in a technical career. He asked great questions that had me revisiting my old self to try to help bring in some insights to the conversation. I’m very happy for the fruitful and fun conversation and I hope that others will benefit from it. For your viewing/hearing enjoyment here is the full episode and the blog post:
Category Archives: Presentations
SQL Saturday 294 Philadelphia Lessons Learned
Being in Philadelphia this past weekend was fantastic! I got to meet a lot of old friends, spend time with family, and make new friends in the SQL world. This SQL Saturday was especially important for me since I lived in the Philly area for almost 10 years. I got to reconnect with my colleagues from Johnson Matthey out in the Wayne PA area and pass by my old desk where it all started. It is especially hard to get started this morning since I really do miss the great experience I had around this SQL Saturday.
SQL Saturday 294 Philadelphia, Nostalgic!
Less than a week left and I’m extremely excited about SQL Saturday in Philly on June 7th, 2014 and the Precon the day before (I signed up for Allan Hirt’s). I lived in Philadelphia for about 10 years during which I went to college, had my first two full-time jobs, and my first to kids were born in that area. This SQL Saturday is going to be a blast from the past for me. The actual event takes place in Malvern PA which is off of 202 in the Northwestern Region of the Philadelphia suburbs. It is part of the “mainline” and close to Valley Forge, King of Prussia and other historic/tourist attractions. I used to work in the Mainline area for Johnson Matthey in Wayne (and part time in Malvern) so I’m very excited about taking this trip back to visit friends and family.
For those of you that don’t know about SQL Saturday it is a fantastic event. Here are some of the reasons I’ve encouraged people to attend SQL Saturday events:
SQL Server Internals Presentation Double Time!
I’ll be doing double time over the next two weeks with Two Presentations on SQL Server Internals. It is essentially just a repeat of the same presentation but with two chances to attend 🙂
Here are the details of the timings for both presentations:
April 29th @ 12 Noon EST – Dell Software
I will only cover the first half of the slides during this time slot
Click here to Register
May 6th @ 12 Noon EST – PASS DBA Fundamentals Virtual Chapter
Click here to Register
SQL Saturday 277 RVA Lessons Learned
Once again it is an honor to attend such a great event and meet up with other like minded geeks. It’s an honor to be selected to speak and a privilege to deliver a session without any problems. I enjoy writing about my experience to encourage others to attend, and for those that could not attend, maybe they will get some insight as to what can be learned from such events. I wrote about my experiences at the DC SQL Saturday late 2013.
SQL Saturday #277 Richmond – Covering new ground
SQL Saturday has been a fantastic experience for me here in the DC area (I blogged about it here) and I hope for the same thing in Richmond. This is my first time to attend a SQL Saturday in a city outside my area of residency, and I will also be speaking there. This is a bit of a new journey and one that I think I will enjoy.
This is a new experience and one that I have been excited about since speaking with Wayne Sheffield about it at the DC SQL Saturday in December 2013. I have him to thank for encouraging me to spread my wings and I hope for a smooth ride upward from here. That is the embodiment of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) after all; to establish life long learning and grow the community by giving back. I think I could probably do a commercial for them or be a PASS spokesperson. Seriously though, I’ve learned so many things that have helped my career for free or a very low cost.
For this SQL Saturday, I’m also planning to attend the PreCon event scheduled for the day before. There is still time to register by going to the main site for the event here. I’ve selected to go to session by Robert Davis for my PreCon and it was a hard choice because the “Murder Thy Wrote” PreCon was very appealing as well and I hope to catch that one at the next SQL Saturday I attend.
I’m speaking at SQL Server Saturday #233 – Washington DC!
It’s that time of the year again when SQL Saturday makes its way back to the Washington DC Area. Here is a link to register and to get all the details you need http://www.sqlsaturday.com/233/eventhome.aspx. I hope to meet a lot of new SQL Server professionals this year. Last year, I met a gentleman that now works with me, so as you can see networking pays off 🙂
Now this year’s SQL Saturday is a little different for me because I will be one of the speakers! I am very excited, as well as a little nervous. I think having some nervousness helps me prepare because I mentally tell myself “makes sure you know what you are talking about so you don’t look like an idiot!” My topic will be about the fundamentals of Backup and Recovery with SQL Server. It is targeted towards beginners and here is a brief abstract:
Backup and Recovery are essential parts of and DBA’s job. After all, if you lose your data you lose your job so you need a great backup strategy. In this session we will cover Recovery Models, Backup Types, Backup Strategy, Restores, RTO, RPO, and understanding how your Transaction Log is maintained through backups.
Finally, I wanted to share my thoughts on some of the other interesting sessions that are being held that I will be trying to attend. My disclaimer is that there are so many really great sessions that it is almost impossible to pick sometimes.
Slides for SQL Server Internals Presentation with PASS DC Chapter
For those of you that attended yesterday and are interested in the slides, you can download them here.
Thanks!
Topic:
SQL Server Internals Party: Storage, Memory and the Query Life-cycle
Abstract:
Come meet the Internals of SQL Server at this special get-together! In this presentation we will cover the basics of data storage and querying with SQL Server. We will cover how data is stored in pages and extents and how that translates to data reads/writes with the storage system. Additionally, we will explore how different queries are processed by SQL Server and how the query life cycle works in general. Finally we will cover disk storage and memory and tie it all together. This session is intended to be broad and to give a general overview of how a query is processed in SQL Server and how storage and memory play a part in that. Everyone is invited to this introductory level presentation and should be appealing to DBAs, DB & BI Developers and System Administrators. Party hats not included, rated G for Geeks.
SQL Server Internals Presentation with PASS DC Chapter October 10, 2013
If you’re in the DC/Baltimore area, or just feel like coming to DC to learn about SQL Server, please join me for my presentation on SQL Server Internals. The date is Thursday October 10, 2013 at 6:30PM at the Microsoft Building in Chevy Chase. For more details please visit http://passdc.sqlpass.org/
Topic:
SQL Server Internals Party: Storage, Memory and the Query Life-cycle
Abstract:
Come meet the Internals of SQL Server at this special get-together! In this presentation we will cover the basics of data storage and querying with SQL Server. We will cover how data is stored in pages and extents and how that translates to data reads/writes with the storage system. Additionally, we will explore how different queries are processed by SQL Server and how the query life cycle works in general. Finally we will cover disk storage and memory and tie it all together. This session is intended to be broad and to give a general overview of how a query is processed in SQL Server and how storage and memory play a part in that. Everyone is invited to this introductory level presentation and should be appealing to DBAs, DB & BI Developers and System Administrators. Party hats not included, rated G for Geeks.
Date/Time: October 10, 2013 @ 6:30PM
Location:
Microsoft Technology Center
5404 Wisconsin Ave. Ste. 700
Chevy Chase, MD 20815
SQL Saturday in Washington D.C. December 8, 2012
This is my first time attending a SQL Saturday event and I’m quite excited. If you live in or near the D.C. Metro area I hope to see you there. If you have not registered, you still have a chance:
http://sqlsaturday.com/173/eventhome.aspx
I’ve put together a short list of the sessions that I am planning to attend with some brief reasons why. Hope to see you all there!
SQL Security Architecture Decomposed Presentation
Professional Association for SQL Server Presentation
Topic: SQL Server Security Architecture Decomposed
Presenter: Ayman El-Ghazali
Abstract: Security can be difficult to understand when first approaching SQL Server due to the many layers. In this webinar we will take a top down look at SQL Server Security and then “peel” its layers one by one to understand how it works. This webinar will help those who wish to understand security layers and concepts better with in SQL Server. We will cover how to properly manage individual and group access to your SQL Instance, Databases, and many other securables. Please join us on this journey from your server’s network port all the way to your tables, stored procedures, and functions.
http://dba.sqlpass.org/MeetingArchive.aspx
June 27, 2012 – SQL Server Security Architecture Decomposed. Click here to start streaming.
Slides and Code for all Presentations can be found here
SQL Server 2012 New Features Presentation
Professional Association for SQL Server Presentation
Topic: SQL Server 2012 New Features
Presenter: Ayman El-Ghazali
SQL Server Presentations with PASS (Professional Association for SQL Server) Virtual DBA Chapter.
http://dba.sqlpass.org/MeetingArchive.aspx
January 11, 2012 – SQL 2012 New Features. Click here to start streaming.
Slides and Code for all Presentations can be found here
The SQL Pro 