My Two Sessions at the SQL PASS Summit 2017

on October 12, 2017

PASS Summit sessions have been scheduled, and I’m excited to be giving two sessions this year AND helping judge Speaker Idol!

I’m looking forward to teaching, learning a ton, and connecting with lots of people who love working with data.

Why Did My Clever Index Change Backfire?

Wednesday, Nov 1, 10:45 AM, Room 6A

Table partitioning is a fantastic tool to help you manage tables with skyrocketing rowcounts. SQL Server 2016 SP1 made table partitioning available in Standard Edition, so you may be planning to add partitioning to your database. But some queries may get slower after you partition your tables: the SQL Server optimizer doesn’t always use indexes the same way after those indexes are partitioned into chunks.

This session teaches you to use execution plans to troubleshoot regressed queries using partitioned tables. You will learn what “non-aligned” indexes are, how to tell how many partitions a query is really using, and see options for TSQL and indexing changes to speed up your queries.

When Partitioning Hurts Performance (and How to Fix It)

Friday, Nov 3, 8 am, 6B

SQL Server is full of advanced techniques to build powerful indexes: indexed views, filtered indexes, columnstore indexes, and more. Many of these techniques have risks, however: your cool indexing idea may just backfire and leave your users frustrated.

In this session, you’ll see multiple demos of how different indexing patterns may slow down queries, have dangerous side effects, or not work at all. You’ll learn what to test, how to identify index problems in query execution plans, and how to sidestep these indexing blunders. If you have a solid knowledge of index basics are are comfortable reading query execution plans, this session will improve your index tuning skills.

Speaker Idol

Round 1: Wednesday, Nov 1, 4:45 PM, Skagit 4 (TCC Lower Level)
Round 2: Thursday, Nov 2, 3:15 PM , Skagit 4 (TCC Lower Level)
Round 3: Friday, Nov 3, 11:15 AM , Skagit 4 (TCC Lower Level)
Final : Friday, Nov 3, 3:30 PM , Skagit 4 (TCC Lower Level)

PASS Summit hosts its 4th annual Speaker Idol - Twelve contestants will have the opportunity to test their speaking skills and compete for a guaranteed session at PASS Summit 2018. Judged by an expert panel, speakers will have the chance to not only get great real time feedback and exposure to an audience from around the world, but also the opportunity to improve as speakers.

Help support and cheer on your PASS Summit speakers in the making at this event open to all attendees!