Difinity 2018 Conference Sessions – Difinity Conference

Difinity 2018 Conference Sessions for 13th and 14th of Feb 2018

List of sessions will be complete shortly. Please Stay Tuned!

Evaluation Contexts in DAX

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

Evaluation contexts is one of the hardest things to master in DAX. It is not uncommon to think you know how evaluation contexts works only to find that you are completely stumped by a formula that is not doing what you expect. In this session Matt Allington will clearly explain the concepts of row context, filter context and context transition using on screen examples that anyone can understand. A working knowledge of the fundamentals of Power Pivot will be assumed but will be briefly covered in the session as well. Anyone with a working knowledge of DAX can learn from this session.

Matt Allington

Matt Allington is a career data professional that has spent more than 30 years leveraging data to drive success. In 2014 Matt left the corporate world to start his own company (Excelerator BI) and now works full time to help others to use Microsoft BI products (Power BI, Power Pivot for Excel, Power Query for Excel). Matt is Microsoft MVP based in Sydney Australia, however has a global reach through his blog at http://xbi.com.au/blog

DAX as a Query Language

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

In 2011, Microsoft released the Vertipaq (also called xVelocity) database technology on the world. Vertipaq is the database technology that is better known as Power Pivot, Power BI and SSAS Tabular Edition. Many people (business and IT) already use Power Pivot, Power BI and SSAS Tabular to produce reporting and analytics tools. But did you know that these tools also have their own query language? In traditional databases such as SQL server, it is possible to extract data into a new table. The same is possible using DAX as a query language with a tabular data model. In this session, Matt will introduce the topic and show how you can use DAX Studio to connect to a data model to write queries that interrogate the data itself (as opposed to simply aggregating the values into a pivot table or a Power BI report). The learning can then be used to write more complex DAX measures or alternatively it can be used to extract tabular data directly into a table for further analysis.

Matt Allington

Power BI Gateways as a solution

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

There are number of blog posts, technical deep dive(s) and how-to articles on Power BI desktop and service but very few on Gateways for Power BI. Gateways form a major part of Power BI enterprise deployment and so in this introductory session we will go through ways of managing, configuring and administering Gateways for Power BI within an organisation. We will also discuss real-world scenarios for the application of Gateways and how you can benefit from Gateways being in different job functions.

Philip Seamark

An experienced database and business intelligence (BI) professional with a deep knowledge of the Microsoft BI stack along with extensive knowledge of data warehouse (DW) methodologies and enterprise data modelling.

What are chat bots and why do we need them in Business Intelligence?

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

In this session you will get to learn

a) What are chat bots?

b) How to develop a chat bot using Microsoft Bot Framework?

c) How bots can be useful in Business Intelligence?

d) Enabling Data driven conversations using bots

Anupama Natarajan

I am a Software Professional with over 15 years experience in designing and developing Web, Data Warehouse, Business Intelligence and Mobile solutions. I am a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and really passionate in sharing knowledge. I love solving complex business problems for my clients with innovative solutions using Microsoft Technologies and use that experience in my trainings.

Analysis Services Data DNA

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 100 – Intermediate

Have you ever wanted an overview of your cubes and their dimensions, attributes and measures?

This session will show you how you can use Analysis Services DMVs to extract information about your cubes and collect it for later use. We will then see how you can report on top of it thus documenting your SSAS cubes. We will then hear about different scenarios where this data might be useful.

The attendees will learn how to extract, transform and load the data into a database using SSIS. They will learn how to reports that show the relevant information for different scenarios and how my company is making use of these information for different purposes. Some of the use cases for this data can be aligning dimensions across cubes or creating a bus matrix for documentation purposes.

At the end of the session the attendees leave with all the code needed to start on their own as well as the knowledge on how to extend and further the solution for their own purposes

Ásgeir Gunnarsson

Ásgeir works as a Business Intelligence Developer for Össur. Ásgeir has been working with business intelligence for over 10 years, and with Power BI since its inception. Ásgeir has been awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional twice for his technical experience implementing Microsoft BI, as well as his contributions to the community as speaker and a user group leader. Ásgeir presents on international conferences such SQL Saturdays and others multiple times each year. In 2017 Ásgeir has presented Power BI sessions on SQL Bits, SQL Nexus and Microsoft Data Insight Summit with few other conferences coming up in the autumn. Besides speaking on international events Ásgeir also speaks locally and internationally in user groups and teaches multi day courses on Power BI and Power Pivot at the University of Ic

Impact of weather on English Premier League matches – Power BI analysis

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

Have you ever wondered if there are scored more goals when it rains or if Stoke wins more games on cold weekday evening at bet265 stadium? This session shows how you can use open data sources and web pages to gather data. How you can then manipulate and extend it and finally report on it.

We will look into how you can use open weather data and combine it with data from web pages to create the dataset you need. When we have our dataset we will manipulate and extend it using M and DAX so that we can get meaningful insights from it. We will then dive into the data to see if there is anything to report.

In this end to end Power BI Desktop demo we will use fun data that many can relate to as the English Premier League is one of the most popular football leagues in the world. The audience will take away many nuggets of information as they see how a real world example could look like. I will share with them all the obstacles and learning I got when creating this report

Ásgeir Gunnarsson

SSRS and Power BI Report Server – What’s new

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 100 – Basic

In SQL 2016, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) underwent massive changes with the addition of many new reporting features. Since that release, there have been many further developments, including the release of Power BI Report Server and SSRS 2017. In this demo laden session, Craig will recap the changes that SSRS has undergone from SSRS 2016 onwards, as well as look at and discuss Power BI Report Server.This session will be valuable for anyone new to SSRS, or anyone who has not had an opportunity to work with the latest versions of SSRS.

Craig Bryden

Craig has been working in Business Intelligence since the late 90’s and has gained experience in almost all industries. He has previously been seconded by Microsoft to assist in creating certification tests for the Microsoft Business Intelligence tools, and is a regular speaker at BI related user groups and conferences. Craig is the organiser for the QLD Power BI user group. Craig is the COO at BiTQ (www.bitq.com.au) where he and his team help customers to transform business data into intelligent data.

SQL Server in a multi-platform world – Windows/Linux/Mac

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

SQL Server is moving to a multi-platform world; in this session, we look at- SQL Server running on Windows and Linux; what’s included, what’s different, what’s the same

– Co-existence / Migration options

– Management and development tools across Windows/Linux/Mac

David Lyth

David is a Premier Field Engineer (PFE) working for Microsoft NZ. He runs workshops covering SQL Server performance tuning and optimization, high availability configurations, maintenance and management, and Powershell. He also works onsite with customers to analyze and improve the health of their SQL environments, and provide advice on consolidation and modernization. As well as SQL Server, David supports APS (parallel data warehouse) appliances. Prior to joining Microsoft, David worked for an outsourcing company, supporting large SQL Server installations for a variety of NZ customers.

SQL Server 2016 Query Store

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

The Query Store feature is a game changer for how SQL Server professionals troubleshoot query performance. It provides the ability to natively capture baseline data within SQL Server. Using the performance metrics the Query Store records, we can decide which Execution Plan SQL Server should use when executing a specific query.During this session we will take a thorough look at the Query Store, its architecture, the build-in reporting, DMVs and the performance impact of enabling the Query Store. No matter if you are a DBA or developer, the Query Store has information that can help you.

Dharmendra Keshari

Dharmendra Keshari is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP. He has been organizing world renowned events like SQL Saturday (Singapore), also a co-organizer of KDSSG MSSQL Tech Unite events (in India), and also a core member of “Singapore SQL PASS Chapter”. He also frequently blogs on his website and also a regular contributor at sqlservercentral.com Currently working as Senior Database Administrator at Micron Technology, Singapore. He has worked in a variety of roles including SQL DBA, Windows/Hyper-V Administrator and also worked very closely with Storage team and vendor management which have given him extensive experience planning and implementing large-scale environment changes and upgrades. In his free time, Dharmendra loves to hang out with family & friends, joining Marathons and spend time reading on SQL Server new technology developments.

Designing a SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups Topology Without Losing Your Sanity

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

So, you’re tasked to implement SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups but don’t know where to start. You have a lot of different topologies to choose from but they’re all the more confusing. Creating effective design architecture is key. In this session, we will look at the different topologies – from simple ones to advance – that you can implement and how to build them. At the end of the session, you will walk away with the knowledge on how to build the right SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Group topology that will address your high availability and disaster recovery requirements. You will learn: – Common design patterns and guidelines that you need to consider when building your architecture – Proper selection of quorum configuration – Network configuration for local and geographically dispersed replicas – Combining SQL Server Failover Clustering with AlwaysOn Availability Groups

Edwin Sarmiento

Edwin M Sarmiento is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and Microsoft Certified Master from Ottawa, Canada specializing in high availability, disaster recovery and system infrastructures running on the Microsoft server technology stack. He is very passionate about technology but has interests in music, professional and organizational development, leadership and management matters when not working with databases. He lives up to his primary mission statement – “To help people and organizations grow and develop their full potential.

What SQL Server DBAs Need To Know About Distributed Availability Groups

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

With the introduction of Distributed Availability Groups in SQL Server 2016, it is becoming even more confusing to decide on the appropriate high availability and disaster recovery architecture to implement. In this session, we will cover how Distributed Availability Groups work, how you need to think about them in a possible deployment scenario and how you can combine them with the other high availability and disaster recovery features to meet your database recovery objectives and service level agreements.

Edwin Sarmiento

Power BI Row Level Security Made Easy

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

In this session I plan to go over the basics of what is Row Level Security for people in the audience who have not used Row Level Security before.I then plan to show how easy it can be to implement Row Level Security in your Power BI Model by leveraging the built in functionality, as well as leveraging Active Directory.

Gilbert Quevauvilliers

Microsoft MVP - Power BI Consultant using Microsoft Power BI to provide solutions for business challenges by sitting with the users within the business to build Power BI models which enable the business to gain insights My goal is for the business to see their data on their terms by delivering Microsoft Power BI Solutions in weeks or less, thereby enabling them to move forward to leverage their data I have assisted with the implementation and completion of Power BI which includes Power BI Desktop development, assistance with Power BI Gateway, Power BI Service, Power BI Internal Training, Power BI Best Practice & Power BI User Group sessions. Power BI training provided to Businesses based on their requirements. Participate and present at the Brisbane Power BI User Group Leader, SQL Saturday Presenter, Brisbane Power BI User Group, Power BI Community and publish blog posts to the Power BI Community Blogs Past working experience in Business Intelligence (BI), working on large, complex end to end BI solutions for customers.

Test Driven Development in SQL Server – it will make your database deployments better

Track: SQL Server Development
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 100 – Basic

Test Driven Development (TDD) is a practice that has for years enabled application developers to write code that is less-buggy.
It is extremely relevant for database development, as it ensures that the code produced using TDD will be of higher quality, which means interactions with data and code are safer.
In this session we will go through how to setup some simple unit tests using various industry tools such as the open-source framework – tSQLt, the SQL Cop testing utility and Redgate’s SQL Test tool which brings it all together.
The advantage of these tools is that we can run them within our familiar SQL Server Management Studio, whereas other testing frameworks rely on the Visual Studio IDE.
It will be shown in a comprehensive DEMO how to bring TDD to your database development and result in higher quality deployments to your databases when incorporated into Continuous Integration processes.

Hamish Watson

Hamish is a Systems Management Specialist with a passion for efficient database & application deployment using DevOps methodologies. He has 19 years IT experience in managing large scale databases on SQL Server technologies. He has been managing SQL Server since SQL Server 2000 and pragmatic architectural design is his main focus at Jade Software. Educating and helping others learn is a driver for Hamish and he is a PASS Chapter Leader, International speaker and a repeat guest lecturer at a local university.

Dynamic charts for browser and mobile with Excel

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

Let’s face it, Excel is still the number one tool for data analysis and visualisation, because it is on everyone’s desk. Charts are the core of dashboards and reports and often require user choices and inputs. In this eye-opening session, you’ll discover different techniques to make Excel charts dynamic, including worksheet layout, tables, named ranges, and formulas. The best thing? All techniques covered in the session work without code and run perfectly in Excel online and Excel for mobile.

Ingeborg Hawighorst

Ingeborg has several decades of experience in all aspects of information technology. For the last few years, her main focus has been on collaboration, data analysis, and her favourite: data visualisation. She is active in the online communities with the alias “teylyn” and has received the Microsoft MVP award for Excel every year since 2012. In 2001 Ingeborg moved with her family from Germany to New Zealand. She is a Senior System Analyst at Spark Digital, where her current focus is on data analytics and Office 365 integration.

An introduction to the magical world of BIML!

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 100 – Basic

Ever feel like you are just doing busy work while creating new SSIS packages? Feel like you are doing the same thing over and over while changing the names to protect the innocent? Ever wonder if there is a better way? Well wonder no more. Come learn about the magical world of BIML and how it can help transform your environment by increasing your productivity while reducing the possibility of errors. Come with intrigue and leave with a fundamental understanding of BIML!

Jonathan Stewart

Jonathan Stewart is a Business Intelligence Consultant specializing in data visualization, data warehousing and data management technologies. An advocate for educating others, he is a public speaker, teacher and blogger, continually teaching people about the Microsoft BI Stack. Since 2000, he has been working in the database field with industry leaders in healthcare, manufacturing, financial, insurance and federal, state and local governments. Jonathan is very active in the community. He has presented on SQL Server, SSIS, Reporting Services, Power BI and business intelligence at numerous SQL Saturday events, local user groups and conferences throughout the United States and around the world. He participates in webcasts, podcasts and online presentation events. He is also an active board member for his local Columbus, Ohio PASS chapter. Jonathan maintains a blog at https://sqllocks.net/. He is a frequent speaker at local, national and international events and is a board member of the Columbus SQL Server User Group. In his free time, Jonathan works with the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning commission to help improve central Ohio and enhance the quality of life of its residents.

Performance Tuning for the BI Professional

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

Being a BI Professional, you need all the performance tuning the DB folks get and more. In this hour, we will go over important performance tuning tips that you can use to help make your deliverables faster and more effective. We will touch on the MSBI tools of SSIS, SSAS, SSRS and PowerBI as well as some core engine stuff.

Jonathan Stewart

Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Data Lake, Polybase, SSAS and Powerbi

Track: Azure Data Analysis
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

This session will show you how to make the most of the Azure Data Platform, when it comes to massive amounts of data, how we can easily process and move this data using Data Lake, Polybase and SQL Data warehouse. Data is then moved to an Tabular SSAS instance and viewed in a PowerBI dashboard with lightning fast performance.

Kenneth Nielsen

Kenneth M. Nielsen currently work at Microsoft as Data Insights Architect, focusing on data services on Azure. Previously worked as managing consultant and teamlead for the company Rehfeld Partners in Denmark. He has worked at various consulting firms and worked on many small/large/very large bi installations in Denmark over the last 12 years. He really likes to advice the customers to take the right decisions, but also maintains a high technical knowledge, so he can act at both architect and developer.

Data Lake Analytics – R, Python and Cognitive Services

Track: Azure Data Analysis
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

In this session we take a look and a deep dive into Aure Data Lake, a new feature on Azure that will enable amost anyone to work with BIG DATA. It combines C# and SQL to a language that is way more intuitive than what we are used to. Azure Data Lake Store, our new repository for data of various origins – we can collect, store and share data from this lake as we see fit. Azure Data Lake Analytics, a new way to scale and use your analytics on AZURE and BIG Data, it introduces U-SQL a new language combined of C# and T-SQL to make the task of analyzing BIG Data easier and more comprehendible. Azure Data Lake Tools for Visual Studio, provide an integrated development environment that spans the Azure Data Lake, dramatically simplifying authoring, debugging and optimization for processing and analytics at any scale. The newest addition to Data Lake Analytics is execution of R, Python and Cognitive Services, parts that this session will focus on.

Kenneth Nielsen

Azure Database Migration – Choosing the Right Tier

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

Microsoft has two different types of SQL Server services available in Azure. The SQL Server on an Azure VM is the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), which is easier to understand and migrate to.

Microsoft offers two types of PaaS (Platform as a Service) or DBaaS (Database as a Service) for SQL Server Database native to could – Single Database and Elastic Pool. Choosing the right tier for your database gets harder with the complexity in calculating the resource utilization for your Azure SQL Database.

In this session, I will walk you through the steps involved in analyzing the resource utilization and estimating the right tier to choose for your database in Azure.

Manohar Punna

"Manohar Punna is an SQL Geek and President of DataPlatformGeeks by passion and a Data Platform Consultant by profession. He is a speaker at various SQL Server Day events and user groups, SQL Saturday Melbourne and Sydney, SQLBits, SSGAS and DPS conferences. He has authored over 150 blogs and has written a One DMV a Day series which is a longest one day series on any topic on SQL Server till date. "

Hybrid Distributed Architecture with Azure Data Sync 2.0

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

For a number of years, Azure Data Sync was stuck in “preview” mode in the old classic deployment model and with no updates on functionality over that time many thought that it was destined for the scrap heap. However with the recent revival and port to the Azure Resource Manager model it has become a viable option for organisations looking to deploy applications that are partially SaaS but with a local on-premises component. This session will show to use Azure Data Sync for centralised management of remote systems such as point-of-sales terminals. The session will show how to use Data Sync to gather data from each terminal and push down centralised changes to selected remote systems.

Martin Cairney

Martin has over 15 years’ experience in SQL Server technologies. His experience spans both the Database Engine and infrastructure requirements, and Data Warehousing and BI implementations. He has worked across many industry sectors including London’s global financial institutions and both State and Federal Government Departments. He is a SQL Server MVP, MCT and an experienced conference presenter, having presented at PASS Summit, SQLBits, and SQL Saturday events and User Groups round the world

Split, Merge and Eliminate – An Introduction to Partitioning

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

In my life as a Consultant, partitioning is one of the least used or even inefficiently used components of SQL Server that I have seen. Partitioning provides many potential benefits such as easier index maintenance, data loads and archiving using partition switching and improved query performance through partition elimination.. In this session we’ll cover the basics of partitioning – from getting started with partition switching to partition elimination to make your queries go faster – with plenty of demos for you to take away.

Martin Cairney

Database Monitoring and Reporting in 2018

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

In this Session we will look at how Powershell, PowerBI, SSRS, Flow and PoweApps can be used to provided a modern reporting environment that embraces the cloud and mobile options available in 2018.

We will look at how the collection of Database Metrics and Performance Data can be automated via PowerShell and then made available across On_Prem and Mobile Applications by utilising PowerBI, SSRS, PowerApps and Flow.

Attendees will leave with the required tools and information to be able to create a monitoring, alerting and reporting solution that is ready for environments of any size and embraces the tolls available in 2018

Patrick Flynn

Patrick Flynn is a full time Production DBA and has worked with Microsoft Database and Development products since 1994. He specializes in providing Automation, Monitoring, Performance Tuning, High Availability and Disaster Recovery solutions for Enterprise environments. He has particular interests in Database Internals and Corruption Recovery Techniques as well as applying Powershell and PowerBI to assist in DBA tasks. He is a regular Presenter at SQLSaturday events in Australia and NZ.

Why MDX cubes aren’t dead yet

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

Lets have a look at the pros and cons of the two SSAS offerings and see why Multi-Dimensional cubes still have a place.

Philip Seamark

Performance in 60 Seconds – SQL Tricks Everybody MUST Know

Track: SQL Server Development
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 100 – Basic

Data and Database is a very important aspect of application development for businesses. Developers often come across situations where they face a slow server response, even though their hardware specifications are above par. This session is for all the Developers who want their server to perform at blazing fast speed, but want to invest very little time to make it happen. We will go over various database tricks which require absolutely no time to master and require practically no SQL coding at all. After attending this session, Developers will only need 60 seconds to improve performance of their database server in their implementation. We will have a quiz during the session to keep the conversation alive. Developers will walk out with scripts and knowledge that can be applied to their servers, immediately post the session.

Pinal Dave

Pinal Dave is a SQL Server Performance Tuning Expert and an independent consultant. He has authored 11 SQL Server database books, 21 Pluralsight courses and has written over 4000 articles on the database technology on his blog at a https://blog.sqlauthority.com. Along with 16+ years of hands on experience he holds a Masters of Science degree and a number of database certifications.

Secrets of SQL Server – Database Worst Practices

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

“Oh! What did I do?” Chances are you have heard, or even uttered, this expression. This demo-oriented session will show many examples where database professionals were dumbfounded by their own mistakes, and could even bring back memories of your own early DBA days. The goal of this session is to expose the small details that can be dangerous to the production environment and SQL Server as a whole, as well as talk about worst practices and how to avoid them. In this session we will focus on some of the common errors and their resolution. Developers will walk out with scripts and knowledge that can be applied to their servers, immediately post the session.

Pinal Dave

Big Data Ingestion and Analytics with Microsoft Azure

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

Azure is built to handle big data workloads. From ingesting millions of events per second, to visualizing those events in a dashboard in real time (hot path), to storing for long term query and retrieval (cold path), Azure has the solutions. In this talk we will take a look at a big data pipeline which includes Azure Event Hubs to ingest telemetry, Azure Stream Analytics and Power BI for real time dashboards, Azure Data Lake plus Azure Data Lake Analytics for big data retention and querying, Azure Data Factory and SQL Azure Data Warehouse for ETL.

Regan Murphy

Regan is part of the worldwide Commercial Software Engineering (CSE) team at Microsoft, but based in Auckland, NZ. The CSE team has a focus across all development areas, with Regan specialising in Data Platform and Machine Learning. Like the rest of my team I love technology, gadgets, and the promise of new things to come - including #mixedreality. I like beer, craft beer. I also enjoy wine. To offset the beer and wine, I run. Running is also a nice way to sightsee when travelling.

2,4,8 & 16 – Journey of upgrading your data platform with SQL Server

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: Double Session – 150 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

2,4,8 & 16 – these aren’t just numbers to count or calculate. These are years that how SQL Server evolved as number of years!

Why Upgrade?

Data Platform Upgrade topic has been a popular session that I’ve presented in major conferences like Microsoft Tech-Ed (North America, Europe & India) and SQLbits since 2008.

In this session, we will overview in depth end-to-end upgrade process that covers the essential phases, steps and issues involved in upgrading SQL Server (2000 to 2012), SQL Server 2014 (with a good overview on 2016 too) by using best practices and available resources.

What to-do and what not-to-do?

Real-world database demos and database upgrade with 40% demos.

We will cover the complete upgrade cycle, including the preparation tasks, upgrade tasks, and post-upgrade tasks. Real-world examples from my Consulting experience expanding on why & how such a solution

Satya Jayanty

"Microsoft Data Platform MVP (12+ years and counting). Satya Jayanty is a Data Platform Consulting professional based in United Kingdom, with over 25+ years of IT experience working within cross-industry, cross-functional and cross-domain know-how. The Consulting journey experience surrounding data platform comprises solution of architecture management service at the layers of definition, implementation and on-going evolution of IT strategy. He is a self-starter and team player who drives CxO & clients’ accounts with a focus to solve real-world business problems with achievable solution practices. A constant learner and always keen to gain perception on newer technologies, proven methodologies with best patterns & practices."

Datawarehouse Lightning Performance with Columnstore!

Track: SQL Server Performance Tuning
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

During this session we will be talking about Columnstore Indexes and how to use them. We will be showing you tips & tricks on how to get the performance you want out of Columnstore.

We will show you the concepts on how to efficiently load data to your Columnstore tables, how to get your Columnstore properly created, and some dangers with performance you might face when working with Columnstore Indexes as seen in the field!

Stijn Wynants

Stijn is an independent Data Platform Consultant & DataMinds (Belgian Data Platform User Group) core member. He is also one of the organisers of the local user group sessions & the yearly event called DataMinds Connect (SQL Server Days). He spends his days tuning SQL Servers & solving problems with the data platform. He is primarily a DBA consultant, but has also done various BI & ETL projects. He gets his kicks out of Columnstore indexes & tuning queries but shivers at the sight of an SSAS cube. When Stijn is not working with SQL Server, you can probably find him enjoying the local cuisine & local beers or enjoying time with his wife and his dog.

Realtime Analytics: OLAP & OLTP in the mix!

Track: SQL Server Development
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

Since SQL Server 2016 it is possible to have an OLTP & OLAP workload together. This can be achieved using columnstore indexes.

We will start off with a brief history on how the columnstore indexes evolved in the different SQL Server versions. Then we will take a deepdive on how the columnstore works, explaining what a delta store is, how delete and update operations work, what batch mode processing is, what the different kind of segments are & how to maintain your columnstore indexes.

We will conclude by showing you how to combine OLTP & OLAP workload on a database as seen in the field. Showing you issues you might face & how to make it fit for your environment

Stijn Wynants

Azure Cosmos DB

Track: SQL Server Development
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

In this session let us find about (technical overview)what are the foundations and design goals of Azure CosmosDB. There are many benefits which will fit for web, mobile and globally distributed applications that need elastic scaling, high availability with a predictable performance which can elevate ease of development with NoSQL capabilities that every developer/architect/DBA should know about.

Satya Jayanty

Secure your data at rest – on demand, now!

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

Description
The new releases of Microsoft SQL Server: SQL Server 2016 & 2017 brings new functionality for Data Security Professionals. Now you can protect your data in your database anywhere (on-premise, in the cloud, even in the hybrid environment) even more simply than before. Transparent Data Encryption with better algorithms and better support for backup, Row-Level Security, Dynamic Data Masking and AlwaysEncrypted for your application are now simple features. We focus on hard theory and of course, on demos. We look a little closer for few specific files that exist in our environment. We work on all three different environments, but our goal is only one: protect your data.Objective
New Security Features, SQL Server 2016, Microsoft Azure SQL Database, Encryption, Data Security

Tobiasz Koprowski

CEO of Shadowland Consulting. In January 2015 decided to permanently leave Poland and discover new worlds. Actually settled in Hucknall (The Last home of The Byron Family). Community leader focused on SQL Server, SharePoint, security, collaboration and ITIL, DR, BCM, and SLA. Love licensing stuff. MCT, freelancer, and consultant. Subject Matter Expert at Microsoft. Member of Microsoft Terminology Community, Friends of RedGate PLUS, PASS, ISSA, ACM and several communities in the world. Since 1st July 2010 Data Platform MVP. Former President of the Polish SQL Server USer Group. Creator of SQLDAY Conference and Conference CEO 2009-2011. Co-Leader of PASS East Midlands Group. Speaker at group meetings and conferences.STEM Ambassador.

AD 2018. 2 AM. A New Disaster just began.

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

Description
2AM. We sleeping well. And our mobile ringing and ringing. Message: DISASTER! In this session (on slides) we will NOT talk about the potential disaster (Business Continuity Management); we talk about: What happened NOW? What tasks should have been finished BEFORE! Is virtual or physical SQL Server matter? We talk about systems, databases, peoples, encryption, passwords, certificates and users. In this session (on few demos) I’ll show which part of our SQL Server Environment is critical and how to be prepared for the disaster. With some papers, I’ll show you how to be BEST prepared for Early Morning Disaster.Objective
SQL Server 2014, SQL Server 2016, Backup, Restore, SQL Azure, Microsoft Azure SQL Database, Best Practices

Tobiasz Koprowski

Performance Tuning with SQLSentry for SQL Server

Track: SQL Server Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

As a Database professional, we are responsible for ensuring our data is accessible for the business in an optimal manner. However sometimes performance problems arise with our database that causes the business applications to slow down. Are you equipped with the right tools to quickly identify what has changed and what is going on in your environment that has caused this slowdown? In this Session, Warwick will introduce you to how to quickly identify what you need to look at and how to resolve this with the help of SQLSentry for SQL Server by SentryOne.

Warwick Rudd

Warwick Rudd is a Data Platform MVP, Microsoft Certified Master – SQL Server 2008, Founder and Principal Consultant at SQL Master Consulting. With over 15 years of experience beginning with the release of SQL Server 6.5, he has worked in both Australia and England from small start-ups to Multi-National Corporations. Warwick predominantly specialises in designing and implementing HA & DR Solutions. He is a frequent speaker at local SQL Server User Groups & SQL Saturday events, Ignite in Australia and New Zealand. When not playing with the SQL stack, Warwick likes to get away to the cold and spend time snowboarding.

SQL Server Graph Database

Track: SQL Server Development
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

A new feature introduced in SQL Server 2017 and Azure SQL DB is the ability to describe a graph, store data in form of nodes and edges making up a graph. This allows real-world scenarios such as recommendation systems, fraud detection, and basket analysis to be implemented more efficiently with SQL technologies.

Dave Dustin

With more than 25 years experience on SQL Server, Dave has worked with a number of startups, SMEs and larger enterprises. He is a popular presenter and contributor at meetups and conferences around the world. Based in Wellington, New Zealand, he is currently the Data Lead at Xero.

Building Fast and Reliable Reporting with Power BI

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

Fast reports are a delight to use. Slow reports languish into obscurity. How do we build reports that are fast and reliable? Join us for a deep dive into Power BI performance tuning and optimization. We’ll cover the basic patterns for Power BI usage, performance implications and best practices, including security, workspaces, apps and content packs, as well as RLS and more.

Sergei Gundorov

The presenter, Sergei Gundorov, currently works as a Program Manager on the Power BI team at Microsoft. He has Master’s Degree in Business Administration. Sergei published numerous articles over the course of the last 26 years through multiple channels on various subjects that range from accounting and economics to in depth technical articles on MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network). Sergei’s most recent contribution was to the Security Whitepaper for Power BI published in May of 2017. He presented his most valuable technological advancements to worldwide developer audiences at TechEd, TechReady, and Office/SharePoint Developer conferences. He participated and contributed to numerous webcasts that focused on various technologies that he is considered to be an expert on. He is an inventor and filed several patent applications. Sergei runs popular technical “XLGeek’s Space” blog where his work is praised very highly by the readers and his apps users.

Siva Harinath

Siva is a Principal Program Manager on the Microsoft Business Applications Platform Innovation (BAPI) team. Siva joined Microsoft Business Intelligence team in 2002 and has been part of the Analysis Services, Reporting Services, Power BI product teams. Siva has closely worked with enterprise customers in architecting solutions with Microsoft BI stack. Siva currently leads the team helping the MVPs, user groups, community, education/training content and marketing websites of Dynamics 365, Power BI, PowerApps, and Stream.

Power BI Embedded; Developers Guide

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

Power BI is not just a self-service tool for business analysts. Power BI has many features that helps developers to build their reporting solution. Power BI Embedded, real-time streaming with Power BI, along with all powerful analytical engine of Power BI, helps developers to take their reporting to the next level. Come to this session to learn about all features that Power BI provides for developers.

Sergei Gundorov

Power BI Visualization Best Practices

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

Data Visualization is the front end of every BI system, and getting it right is one of the most important tasks in a BI application. Good visualization will benefit the decision making process, while bad visualization can lead to wrong decisions. In this session, you will learn how to create the right chart or visual, with examples ranging from line charts, bar/column charts, and some other useful chart styles in Power BI. You will also learn some tips and tricks to control interactivity of visuals in Power BI. Session is full of demos, and through that you will learn tips and tricks for choosing best colors and best visuals for your solution.

Reza Rad

Reza Rad is author, speaker, trainer and consultant. He is the world well-known name in the Microsoft BI field. Reza Rad is invited speaker in world’s best and biggest SQL Server and BI conferences such as PASS Summits, PASS Rallys, SQLBits, TechEds, Ignites, Microsoft Data Insight Summit, and so on. He is author of books on this topic, and he has more than 15 years’ experience in the Microsoft BI technologies. 10 years of his experience focused on training and consulting to the largest BI teams in the world. He is also Microsoft Certified Trainer for years. He is Microsoft SQL Server MVP (Most Valuable Professional) focused on BI and Data Analysis, He has been awarded MVP from Microsoft because of his dedication and expertise in Microsoft BI technologies. He is author of Power BI online book; from Rookie to Rock Star; http://radacad.com/online-book-power-bi-from-rookie-to-rockstar

Genesis Energy Implementation: Technical reference and Design patterns for enterprise BI and reporting supporting data science teams

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

In this session we walk through the recently announce the technical reference implementation for BI and reporting solution to augment your data science and analytics platform on Azure.

This reference implementation enables you to fast track your infrastructure deployment, so that you can focus on the main goal of building a BI and reporting application that addresses your ever changing business needs.

We will cover the following :

pre-built with components like Blob, SQL Data Warehouse, SQL Database, and Analysis Services in highly scalable configurations that have been proven in the field to meet enterprise requirements.
configuration of software for virtual network configuration, job orchestration for data ingestion and flow, system management, monitoring, and other operational essentials for a production system.

Also we will Chris Lowe from Genesis Energy’s implementation of this architecture and share their experience with design and deployment.

Myles Matheson

Myles is a Solution Specialist for Microsoft New Zealand. He has worked in the field of business intelligence and data warehousing for the last 15 years both in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Chris Lowe

Chris Lowe is GM Architecture, Data and Analytics at Genesis Energy and plays a key role in building the capabilities to become a truly data driven organisation. He has worked with Microsoft data platforms for 18 years and is currently establishing the new data capabilities at Genesis to meet the needs of enterprise business intelligence, data science exploration and also expanding their artificial intelligence capability. Prior to joining Genesis, he worked in Telecommunications, Packaging, Forestry, Mining and Appliance Manufacturing in a variety of Operations Research and Information Technology roles.

Endless Possibilities: R and Power BI

Track: Data Science
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

R integration with Power BI provides more flexibility for users. People are able to have more visualizations which not exist currently in Power BI such as: normal distribution chart, column width chart, different type of subplots in a map, five dimensions’ chart with facet chart and so forth. Moreover, writing R scripts inside power query and Power BI Visualization enable users to do machine learning using R cods. The other possibilities that recently added, people able to create custom R visual with plotly package to make their visualization much more interactive, accessible and more flexible. In this session, first I will show how to create some interesting charts using ggplot2 package inside Power BI. Then, I will show how to do Machine Learning inside Power query by following machine learning process: data gathering, data cleansing, feature selection, model creation, data sampling and finally prediction. Also, I will show the main process to create a custom R visual (pbiviz) file through the installing Power BI tools. Finally, a brief demo in current available R visual produces by Microsoft team will be presented.

Leila Etaati

Leila is a Artificial Intelligence Microsoft MVP, PhD, Trainer, and BI consultant. She is world well-known speaker in Machine Learning and Analytics topics, and spoke in world’s best international conferences in Data Platform topics, such as; Microsoft USA Ignite, Microsoft data Insight Summit, Microsoft NZ ignite, SQL PASS Summits, PASS Rally, SQL Nexus, SQL Saturdays and so on. She has more than 10 years’ experience in Data Mining and Analytics. She writes blog posts in RADACAD and also publishes YouTube videos in our channel. She also is an invited lecturer in universities such as University of Auckland, and Unitec, and some other universities. She worked in many industries including banking financial, power and utility, manufacturing, tourism, and so on.

Data Integration – preparing for the data challenges of tomorrow

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

With the ever increasing demand of data and information from the business, data professionals are increasingly feeling the pressure to deliver. This often results in us not being able to see the forest through the trees and we struggle making all those data streams come together in well tuned governed process. Many of us see understand the separate technology pieces that make up Data Integration architecure but we often loose the overview and how to make it all work together.

In this session I would like to share some pearls of wisdom on how to make the various tools work for your Data Integration projects. Show the common pittfalls and failures of big Data Integration projects and how to avoid them. Data Profiling, Performance tuning, Baseline measurements, master data management, data quality assesment, integration services are all cogs in the large machine called data integration. I hope to show you how you can oil that machine to make it work seamlesly for your organization.

Robert Blaas

"I have over 20 years of experience in the architecture, design and delivery of Business Intelligence solutions with a focus on the data structures required to effectively deliver business information. Over this time I have consulted with large multi nationals, local government and private companies in New Zealand and overseas. I have designed and developed enterprise data warehouses and large corporate data stores ensuring high quality data and information to business users. I enjoy working with people across a business to understand their requirements and translates these into sound technical structures. Having worked within multi-cultural environments, I am able to easily facilitate, mentor and coach business teams in meeting their information requirements."

Let’s start using Cognitive Services in our business apps!

Track: Azure Data Analysis
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 100 – Basic

Our business application started to be more and more intelligent. And we can use a lot of data that we never had a chance to use in our application. To do that we can easily use API provided by Microsoft Cognitive Services. There are 30-ish API’s that are really clever and can provide object recognition, face detection and identification, emotion recognition, computer vision, video services, speech and speaker recognition, language understanding, text analytics, sentiment analysis, knowledge exploration, search services, and more.
If you want to add to your application more intelligent futures, come to this session to more understand what Cognitive Services are and get some ideas how you can use in your business today.

Gosia Borzecka

Gosia Borzecka works as a full stack .NET developer. While searching for her path, she has been working as a network administrator and IT systems supervisor according to Prince2 and ITIL methodologies. Currently, she loves programming and looking for news related to it, to which she devotes most of her time. While she started work with Office 365 and SharePoint she found an opportunity to add more fun to existing business apps using the newest technology provided by Microsoft. After work, she teaching kids programming and co-organizing workshop meetup: NottsDevWorkshop.co.uk

Super Charge Power BI and What is new with Analysis Services

Track: Azure Data Analysis
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

Microsoft Azure Analysis Services enables you to build comprehensive, enterprise-scale analytic solutions that deliver actionable insights through familiar data visualization tools such as Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft Excel. This session introduces Azure Analysis Services as a fully-managed platform as a service (PaaS) in Azure. We will discuss where Analysis Services fits into Microsoft’s BI platform and strategy, reference architectures and cloud efficiencies. Modeling and analytics features covered by the last two compatibility levels will be reviewed and demonstrated, including Power Query connectivity, object-level security, and Detail Rows for non-technical users to drill through to transactional records.

Siva Harinath

Introducing Power BI Premium

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

Extend your Power BI solution to everyone on your team with Power BI Premium! Learn how our latest offering can bring you dedicated capacity for your organization.

Siva Harinath

The last mile – Operationalization of Maching Learning

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

So you’ve built your AI/Machine Learning model. What next? How do you extract value out of your model and integrate them into you business? In this session, we show you different options available in the Microsoft stack; from both on-prem and cloud or a fully hybrid one.

Julian Lee

Julian is not your traditional Microsoft employee. He does not know SQL, .NET or Windows. He started his career in Cancer Research and specialized in Genomics. Half of his time was spent in tools such as R, Bioconductor, Perl and a Sun Machine to do High Performance Computing work. 5 years ago, a Palo Alto based company (Revolution Analytics) started its operations in Asia and he joined them as their early ‘revolutionaries’ preaching R and Data Science. In 2015, Microsoft acquired this company and today he preaches Advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence

Are you ready for Artificial Intelligence? – Bots and Cognitive Services

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

It’s 2018 and AI is definitely here to stay! Learn all about Microsoft’s BotFramework and the various Cognitive Services that support it! In this short session, we will learn about the concepts behind the Botframework, from what’s inside and how one could build and deploy bots. We’ll also cover some of the ‘brains’ behind a bot, such as LUIS, a service which powers how phrases are quickly matched to an intent. Concepts such as utterances, entities, intents and training LUIS are covered in this session.

Julian Lee

Data Privacy and the Data Professional

Track: Database Development
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

It’s almost a daily occurrence to hear about some sort of data breach.
But what are the consequences of a data breach – for both the victims and companies involved – and what does that mean for you as a data professional.
As governments start to legislate more in an effort to protect the privacy of its citizens the entire concept of data storage become more complex.
Exactly what is legislation like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and how will it affect around the world.
We’re seen Microsoft give us tools over the years – like Transparent Data Encryption and Dynamic Data masking – to help with this sort of thing – but is there a better answer?
Come along to this session and hear how you and your team can lessen your chances of being the ones responsible for the next data breach.

Martin Catherall

Martin is a Consultant with SQL Down Under in Melbourne, Australia and has over 10 years’ experience as a TSQL developer and database administrator. He is a current recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for The Data Platform and is a Regional Mentor for the Professional Association of SQL Server (PASS) in the Asia Pacific area as well as the former leader of the Christchurch SQL Server User Group

Correctly Architecting Availability Group Solutions

Track: Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

With the release of SQL Server 2017, Microsoft has further enhanced the capabilities of Availability Groups. Clearly Microsoft is investing more in Availability Groups compared to Failover Clustering. However, this does not mean that you should automatically architect Availability Groups over Failover Cluster Instances.
In this session we will have a look at how to correctly architect and deploy Availability Groups. We will cover areas including: new features in SQL Server 2017 (and 2016), Availability Group internals, potential performance overhead of Availability Groups, licensing considerations and where to deploy Failover Clustering instead. We will look at the pros and cons of deploying Availability Groups over Failover Clustering.
If you are considering implementing Availability Groups in your new SQL Server high availability deployment this practical session should prove to be invaluable.

Victor Isakov

Victor Isakov (MCA, MCM, MCT, MVP) is a Database Architect that specializes in SQL Server performance tuning, optimization, high-availability and upgrade projects. Victor has authored a number of books and Microsoft courseware for SQL Server and regularly speaks at various conference internationally. He was one of the first IT professionals to achieve the Microsoft Certified Master certification and is the only Microsoft Certified Architect in Australia.

Azure IoT – Opportunities are Endless

Track: Azure
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

How Microsoft is trying to simplify deliver of the IoT, examples of how it’s been used for business transformation and how Microsoft is investing to create new value with the Intelligent Edge + Intelligent Cloud.

Sam Denton-Giles

Sam Denton-Giles is the Internet of Things Business Group Lead for Microsoft Asia-Pacific. He is responsible all up for managing the health and growth of the IoT business in APAC, from developing and integrating the partner ecosystem through to marketing and direct sales. He works closely with Microsoft specialist sales teams and partner ISV and Solution Integrators to deliver high impact Internet of Things and Advanced Analytics projects to customers in the Asia-Pacific region.

Microsoft IoT Central – Enterprise IOT as-a-Service

Track: Azure
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

Microsoft IoT Central is a fully managed IoT SaaS (software-as-a-service) solution that makes it easy to connect, monitor and manage your IoT assets at scale, so you can create deep insights from your IoT data and take informed action.

Sam Denton-Giles

Scalable Data Science with SparkR on HDInsight

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 200 – Intermediate

R, a powerful statistical programming language, is unfortunately single threaded and therefore, natively limited to a single node. What happens when data scientists need more resources that can fit in single server? Enter Apache Spark – a leading distributed in-memory analytics platform for data analysis, with interfaces in Scala, Python and of course, R. In this demo heavy session, we’ll take a look at using SparkR for scalable data analytics on an HDInsight cluster. First, we start with a technical and architectural overview of Apache Spark, SparkR and HDInsight. Then we’ll cover the basics of performing distributed data manipulation, cleansing, and machine learning using SparkR utilizing HDInsight, as well as how to parallelize existing R scripts and R packages using SparkR’s UDFs.

Lace Lofranco

Lace is a Senior Software Development Engineer on the Commercial Software Engineering (CSE) Team at Microsoft. Her focus is on big data analytics, machine learning, data engineering, and scalable architecture. Prior to joining Microsoft, she worked as a Senior Consultant and has successfully delivered projects for various industries and companies across the globe, particularly in the US, South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. She is also a co-founder of the Azure Nights Melbourne User Group.

Adaptive Query Processing and Automatic Tuning

Track: Database Administration
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

Automatic Tuning and Adaptive Query Processing are perhaps the two key features of SQL Server 2017 and Azure SQL Database which would influence query optimizer’s plan choices. The following session will provide an overview of the features and explain how it can help to address performance issues like parameter sniffing, plan regressions, lack of indexes or too many indexes without any manual intervention and change of code.

Nagaraj Venkatesan

Nagaraj Venkatesan is a Data Platform MVP from Singapore and the leader of Singapore SQL PASS Chapter. As a SQL Server enthusiast, Nagaraj is a regular speaker in Asia Pacific region at Data Platform events like SQL Saturdays, SQL Server Geeks Summit, User group meetups etc. Nagaraj shares his technical expertise at strictlysql.blogspot.com. Nagaraj also runs a YouTube channel called "DataChannel", which contains technical interviews with top Microsoft Data Platform experts in the world.

SSIS in Azure Data Factory v2 – a game changer?

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

SQL Server Integration Services in Azure Data Factory v2 is a solution for ETL/ELT workflows. Using SSIS in ADFv2, we will show you how to move all/parts of your on-premises ETL workloads and just “lift & shift” many existing SSIS packages to Azure, lowering your operational costs and gaining scalability + high availability. We will guide you end-to-end from provisioning Azure-SSIS Integration Runtime (IR) as the managed, dedicated, scaled up/out compute resource for SSIS to scheduling parallel package executions on it. But is it useful, is it fast, is it easy and powerful to use ? And most of all is ADF a replacement for SSIS or is it complementing it for hybrid ETL scenarios?

These are some of the questions that might arise, when reading about this new PaaS and that we will answer together in this demo packed session where will we go through orchestration, consumption and administration of data through the ADF pipeline.

Regis Baccaro

Régis is a Senior Consultant working with databases and BI since 1999. He specializes in mentoring, performance tuning and scalable architecture of datawarehouses and bi-solutions. His background and work experience mixes technology and business, providing him a unique edge to contribute to datawarehouse and database projects, and effectively interacting with technical and business decision makers. Régis is a frequent speakers at SQL Server conferences around the globe and is a board member of the Danish SQL Server User Group and the founder of the SQL Saturday Denmark community event. He is also Recipient of an MVP award for Data platform for four years in a row.

Kerberos for BI

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

Have you ever seen this message “Login failed for user ‘NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON”

Have you ever witnessed Kerberos mentioned in a conversation – or in a forum – and seen developers shiver, sysadmins crawl back under their rock and project managers fear for the consumed hours ?

Have you ever wondered why it seems so complicated ?

If you answered yes to any of these question then this demo-packed session is for you.

Because Kerberos is something that anyone who must deploy SQL Server wishes they didn’t have to worry about. It truly affects all aspects of SQL Server including the engine, Reporting Services, Analysis Services, SharePoint and PowerPivot. Furthermore we will have a close look at how to diagnose problems and troubleshoot the three-headed beast when it breaks loose.

This session is based on many hours spent sweating in setting up Kerberos in BI and SharePoint environments and explaining support people how to troubleshoot and fix Kerberos issues when they arise.

Regis Baccaro

Deep Learning with TensorFlow and the Data Science Virtual Machine

Track: Business Intelligence
Length: 75 minutes
Level: 300 – Advanced

The Data Science Virtual Machine is designed and configured for working with a broad range of usage scenarios and can be utilised as a one-stop-shop for a data scientists’ Big Data analytic workloads. You are able to scale your environment up or down as your project needs change, use your preferred language to program data science tasks and install other tools and customise the system for your exact needs.
First, we start with a technical and architectural overview of the Data Science Virtual Machine and TensorFlow. Then, we will demonstrate how to provision the services using a business case scenario and build out an end-to-end solution for Big Data Deep Learning workloads.

Chimene Bonhomme

Chimène Bonhomme is a Technical Solution Specialist in Data and Artificial Intelligence on the Enterprise team at Microsoft. Her focus is on the Cortana Intelligence Suite, big data analytics and machine learning. Prior to joining Microsoft, she worked as a Data Specialist Consultant and has successfully delivered projects for various industries and companies in the US, Australia and New Zealand. She is also a speaker in the NZ Business Intelligence - Power BI User Group.