Now that we are firmly into the New Year it is time to start getting prepared for what 2018 holds in store for us.
The first major event for me this year will be SQLBits at the Olympia exhibition centre in London, where I and some of my SentryOne colleagues will be presenting a range of sessions.
What will I be talking about?
This year I have been lucky enough to be asked to deliver a pre-con training day, as well as two main conference sessions.
On Wednesday I have a training day where I will be looking at “Getting Started with SQL and Azure”. This will be a day of getting the fundamentals of Azure storage, networking, and identity, before moving on through to looking at the different options for SQL Server. These include IaaS VMs and Containers, Azure SQL Database, as well as a covering Azure SQL Database Managed Instances.
On Friday I will spend some time talking about “What are Azure SQL Database Managed Instances?” in an extended 75-minute session. This is a new Platform as a Service database offering from Microsoft that was announced at Build last year. Managed Instance will be bringing many of the capabilities we have currently in retail SQL Server to a cloud based service. If you want to know more about what features, possible use-cases, and migration paths then please drop in.
On the free Saturday conference day, I will be discussing GDPR. Specifically “Laying the Foundation for GDPR”, in which I will look at some of the requirements we now face and the processes and technology solutions that we can use to meet this compliance requirement. If you handle Personally Identifiable Information (PII) for European Citizens, then GDPR is going to be on your radar.
Meet the team
Several members of the SentryOne team will be joining me at SQLBits this year: the usual suspects of Scott Fallen and Nick Harshbarger; Richard Douglas and Andy Yun from the Solutions Engineering team, both of whom are also delivering sessions during the conference; and Microsoft MVPs Aaron Bertrand and Kevin Kline who will be there to provide sage advice about many aspects of the Microsoft Data Platform.
We will be handing out a bunch of swag items at the stand this year. If you want to get your hands on the usual array of pens and notepads as well as a few special items, remember to stop by and say hello. Additionally, we will be giving away a mystery prize in the SQLBits sponsor raffle – so if you want a chance to win don’t forget to drop your raffle ticket off with us.
On the whole this year’s event is shaping up to be something magical, we hope to see you there!
