Speaking – T-SQL.dk

Speaking at #SqlSaturday #Pittsburgh #770

Posted by Jens Vestergaard on 18/09/2018 in Community, Programming 0 Comment

September 29th I will be hosting two (2) sessions at the SqlSaturday event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US.

My first session will be on the basics of Power Query with some tips and tricks added to spice things up a bit. See details here.

My other session will be on Windows/Azure IoT and Raspberry PI. For that session, I used to carry a breadboard with my own poor soldering applied, but for this event I’ve bought a Grove PI starter kit which I am really excited to demonstrate as well. See more detail here.

The coincidence of a SqlSaturday and Pittsburgh Steelers playing in the same vicinity is something I experienced first time almost 5 years ago, as I went to my first SqlSaturday in Cambridge (which is a smashing event btw) where I got to see my first Steelers game as they played Minnesota Vikings at Wembley stadium

This time it will be on Heinz Field, taking on Baltimore Ravens – Classic arch rivalry in the AFC North. Wouldn’t be surprised if the final score was 2-0. But still very excited to go!

Speaking at the Power BI World Tour in Copenhagen

Posted by Jens Vestergaard on 02/09/2018 in Community 1 Comment

In just little over a week the Power BI World Tour will be stopping by in Copenhagen, Denmark. More precisely in Lyngby at Microsoft HQ. Copenhagen was luckily reelected for hosting the World Tour again this year, which I think will be very beneficial to the local Power BI adoption and community to say the least.

Copenhagen

Last time around I was honoured by having one of my sessions selected. This year I get to have two sessions. I am super excited about that!

My first session will be on Tuesday 11th about Power BI Best Practices. From the trenches of some of our own projects I have gathered a list of things to do in a project, to make your life easier.

My other session will be an Introduction to Power BI and Power Query (M). The query language is one of the few things of late that blown my mind in terms of capability and versatility. I will be showing you how to get started with the basics.

I am so looking forward to spending a couple of days with other Power BI Professionals, foreign and domestic!

SET Pressure ON;

Posted by Jens Vestergaard on 30/07/2017 in Community 0 Comment

This fall is going to be my most busy so far, in terms of speaking. I have been accepted for SqlSaturday in Oslo where I am going to be talking about BI DevOps, which I am really stoked about. Supposedly our Northern neighbors are to host one h… of a SqlSaturday. I hosted a session about this at the recent SqlNexus event, and it seems quite popular. This not only by attendance, but also the fact that Mark Broadbent (b|l|t) and I have agreed that I do a mini-con on the same topic at SqlSaturday Cambridge. See here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.

Please use this link to register for the mini-con: BI DevOps Mini-Con
(All proceeds will go to charity)

I am thrilled to go back to Cambridge again this year. It seems I am there odd years only, 2013, 2015 and now 2017. This year, besides the mini-con, I am on for a session on Pro Techniques for the SSASMD Developer. A session I have delivered on several occasions, latest at SqlSaturday in Prague.

Update:
On a more local scale, I am hosting a Power BI workshop in Maribo on Lolland August 23rd. More information via the Meetup invite here.

But, before these three events, I am to give a session at the Power BI World Tour, which is held in Copenhagen. More precisely at Microsoft HQ in Kgs. Lyngby, just north of Copenhagen. Here I will be demonstrating how to connect a Raspberry Pi running Windows 10 IoT Core to Azure and read of the device live in Power BI.

Topping off the quarter, I will be in Seattle, where I am doing not only one, but two sessions; on session on BI DevOps (again) and one on <drum roll please> how to connect a Raspberry Pi with Azure Stream Analytics and Power BI. Really, REALLY, excited to be selected to speak at the PASS Summit. I have only done a Lightning Talk, back in 2015 , and I am both humbled and scared to have two(!) general session slots at the greatest data platform event in the world. I have however had a few test runs before the event, so that should hopefully have settled the worst of the nerves.

This year I am proud to state, that I am 2/2 on submissions to the Summit.

I hope to be going back to the U.S. in December, to be able to speak in Washington at the SqlSaturday event there. If I succeed in getting accepted there, I have a cunning plan on going home via Pittsburgh to catch the Ravens taking a beating. Fingers X’ed.

Speaking at #SqlNexus – May 2017

Posted by Jens Vestergaard on 30/01/2017 in Community, Programming 0 Comment

I received notice last night, that the program committee has selected my abstract for the SqlNexus event coming up in May.
The event itself is the biggest SQL related event in Denmark (maybe in the Nordics) and was visited by over 500 attendees last year. There was a ton of great sessions, pre-cons and community happenings (Kahoot, Beer etc.). So if you are anywhere around Copenhagen in May and into SQL Server, you should definitely attend – register here.

My session will be about DevOps for BI. In more detail this session will cover the main three (3) tools of the MS BI stack; SSIS, SSRS and SSAS. Each of these tools produce an output/artifact for deployment, and the main goal is to make this available to the end-user with as little hustle as possible. For each of the three, there is a separate approach, which we will go over in detail in this session; How to build and deploy each of the components and how to automate this, all with Microsoft tools such as Visual Studio Online, Team Foundation Server, PowerShell to name a few.

A part of the session will cover the not so technical part of the transition, that the organization needs to address, in order to support what is quickly becoming the new black.

Here is the session abstract:

If you are releasing database changes, new reports, cubes or SSIS packages on a regular basis, you’ve probably offered up your share of blood, toil, tears and sweat on getting them delivered into production in working condition.

DevOps is a way to bridge the gap between developers and IT professionals and for that we need to address the tool-chain to support the practices. Microsoft offers a set of tools that’ll help you on your journey towards the end goal: Maximize predictability, efficiency, security and maintainability of operational processes.

We will in detail be looking at:

Agile Development Frame of Mind

Visual Studio Online (tool)
Feature/PBI/WI (concept)

Team Foundation Server

Code Branching (concept)
Build Agents (tool)

PowerShell

Microsoft’s Glue (tool)

Speaking at Microsoft BI Professionals Denmark

Posted by Jens Vestergaard on 17/05/2016 in Community 0 Comment

Microsoft Denmark HQ Speaking Kick Off 2016 – Slow start!

On Monday 23rd, I will be speaking at the Microsoft Business Intelligence Professionals, Denmark [MsBIP] user Group meeting. It’s been about two years since I was the host of one such meeting, while I was at Maersk Line. This time it’s at the new Microsoft HQ in Lyngby – And it will be my first visit there.

This will also be my first public talk this year.

The MsBIP User Group, is a community group dedicated to share information about Microsoft BI technologies, such as: Power BI User Group

SQL Server (DB, SSAS, SSIS, SSRS, MDS, DQS)
SharePoint (PPS, Excel, SSRS…)
Excel og Power BI (PowerPivot, Power View, Power Query, Power Map)
3. Party Products

The User Group is also part of the Microsoft Power BI User Group Program.

There will be two talks at this session:

Time Intelligence in DAX, Marco Russo [b|l|t]

Time Intelligence is probably the most interesting feature of any analytical solution. Computing Year To Date, Month To Date, Same Period Previous Year is quite easy in DAX but, as soon as the customer requests for time intelligence require working days evaluation, complex and custom calendar shapes, seasonal pattern recognition, the DAX formulas start to be harder to write.
In this session we are going to show how to compute classical time intelligence with the built-in DAX functions. Then, we will show some more complex time intelligence formulas that require to think out of the box, using advanced data modeling and querying techniques to produce interesting and useful formulas.

Pro Techniques for the SSAS Developer, Jens Vestergaard [b|l|t]

Getting the techniques in your tool belt right, makes a world of a difference. Did you ever wonder, how to deploy a cube, with minimum impact to query performance? Or how to optimize processing performance? Are you really ready to deploy when its required? Or do you get nervous every time?
Attend this session to build and improve your SSAS Developer skills, by exploring:

Custom Assemblies – To improve Query Performance
Partitioning – To improve Processing Performance
Unit Testing – To improve Cube Release Quality
Synchronization – To improve End User Experience
PowerShell to tie all the ends together

My session will be presented for the first time at this event, and I hope you will join me for some SSAS Fun. Seating is limited to 50, or so I heard.