Tag: epmf

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Going to be Co-Authoring a Book…

This weekend I had quite the shock (other than realization that Ikea is overrated) in that I was asked to co-author a new book with 2 others authors: Ken Simmons (Blog | Twitter) and Colin Stasiuk (Blog | Twitter). As Colin mentioned in his blog post I’m EXTREMELY honored to even be considered for this project so huge thank you to Ken for getting this together. I bookmarked an article earlier this morning on Readitlater about starting the writing process but any and all advice is welcome and appreciated!

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Events Presentation Review Syndication

OPASS User Group Meeting: Review

Well last night I presented my Policy Based Management presentation for the Orlando SQL PASS User Group aka OPASS. The meeting was held at the End-to-End Training (now called SQLShare.com) offices which is a nice facility ran by Andy Warren (Blog | LinkedIn). The meeting started off with a short bit of networking where Andy has everyone introduce themselves to their neighbors and get some discussion going. I thought this was a nice little touch and lets people work on their networking skills.

First up for the night was a mini presentation on Backup Basics with Todd Holmes (LinkedIn), a DBA for Channel Intelligence in Celebration. The mini presentation is a 15-minute presentation slot that Andy came up with to encourage new speakers to cut their teeth on public speaking and technical presentations. Todd did a great job with such a broad topic and even went the extra mile in showing examples via T-SQL code. Todd will also be doing this mini presentation at the upcoming SQL Saturday #21 in Orlando.

After Todd’s presentation there was a short dinner break and I got setup for my PBM presentation. Andy said he was curious to see an hour-long presentation went on Policy Based Management since he thought it was a topic that could be covered rather quickly. Funnily enough my presentation ran just a tad over an hour and I could have kept going! There were some hiccups here and there with my VM taking a little longer than I would have liked to open certain things but demos didn’t blow up like they did at the last SQL Saturday. I also got a chance to show the audience EPMF in action (sort of). I showed the script run that used PowerShell to apply existing policies and dump results into a database repository. The example failed because I tried to open Reporting Services page on VM which had the hardened IE settings enabled that didn’t allow scripts to run so I wound up just showing a screenshot of the dashboard view. Hopefully this demo helps people take SQL 2008 and PBM back to their jobs and look like rock stars for virtually no money (except for cost of SQL 2008 Standard license after they see how awesome this is).

After the meeting I stuck around and talked shop with Andy, Jack Corbett (Blog | Twitter) and Kendal Van Dyke (Blog | Twitter) which was pretty awesome as we talked about all things SQL. Always a good time when you get quality geek time in. Overall it was a great time and a big thank you to the group for having me out there. If you’re in the Orlando area make sure to check out the group!

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Events Policy Based Management Presentation Review Syndication

Spacecoast SQL User Group Meeting: Review

After writing up my review for my presentation at OPASS I realized I hadn’t done one for my visit to Melbourne for the Spacecoast SQL User Group! A thousand apologies Bonnie and crew!

I arrived early in Melbourne so I spent some quality time at Starbucks for a bit before the meeting which gave me the opportunity to test and retest some of the policy demos so I didn’t repeat my blunders from the previous weekend at SQL Saturday in South Florida. When the time came around I got over to the Spacecoast Federal Credit Union headquarters building where the meeting was held (which is a beautiful building btw). The group is small but very enthusiastic crowd in that they ask a LOT of good questions. The PBM presentation went without a hitch which was nice and the presentation actually took a positive unexpected turn when we started discussing virtualization. I wound up giving a mini presentation on VMware and virtualization and how it all worked which was pretty cool.

Afterwards a few of us went over to the questionably-named sports bar called The Rendezvous in the Holiday Inn to socialize and talk shop a bit. It was interesting to hear about how Bonnie got started in the SQL world and how she came about establishing the User Group. Want to hear the story yourself? Then get over to one of their meetings! They meet on the second Thursday of each month so if you’re in the Melbourne/Cocoa Beach/Titusville area go check them out!