Podcasts about sqlbits

Bob Ward is a Principal Architect for the Microsoft Azure Data team, which owns the development for Microsoft SQL Edge to Cloud. Bob has worked for Microsoft for 30-plus years on every version of SQL Server shipped from OS/2 1.1 to SQL Server 2022, including Azure SQL. Bob is a well-known speaker on SQL Server, Azure SQL, AI, and Microsoft Fabric, often presenting talks on new releases, internals, and specialized topics at events such as SQLBits, Microsoft Build, Microsoft Ignite, PASS Summit, DevIntersection, and VS Live. You can also learn Azure SQL from him on the popular series aka.ms/azuresql4beginners. You can follow him at @bobwardms or linkedin.com/in/bobwardms. Bob is the author of the books Pro SQL Server on Linux, SQL Server 2019 Revealed, Azure SQL Revealed, and SQL Server 2022 Revealed, available from Apress Media.   Topics of Discussion: [4:22] Bob's long history with Microsoft and the evolution of SQL Server. [6:41] What are the big use cases that SQL Server can now do? [7:38] Beyond RDBMS framework. [9:34] Building innovation off an already trusted brand. [9:50] What's the vision of AI on SQL Server? [10:51] It's all about smarter searching. [14:26] AI assistance features in SQL Server, such as the SQL Copilot and natural language to SQL query generation. [16:02] Hybrid searching. [19:41] Challenges and opportunities in AI Integration. [20:43] Content moderation is now being added to the loop. [22:39] The categories of different models. [23:16] The potential for industry-specific models to enhance AI capabilities in fields like insurance underwriting. [28:19] Knowing which model to use. [33:17] The trend towards industry-specific training of AI models to better suit specific business needs. [34:07] The current vision for SQL Server. [35:22] Innovating in the cloud. [38:30] The potential for SQL Server to handle AI workloads on small form factors, such as edge devices and standalone boards.   Mentioned in this Episode: Clear Measure Way Architect Forum Software Engineer Forum Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net. Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor) .NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon! Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events! Ep 162 with Bob Ward Bob on LinkedIn Azure SQL Revealed: The Next-Generation Cloud Database with AI and Microsoft Fabric SQL-AI-Samples Samples Intelligent Applications with Azure SQL Database LangChain   Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Erik Darling makes your database faster in exchange for money. He is a DBA, developer, and architect with a track record of tackling even the most challenging technical issues. He runs a SQL Server Consulting and Coaching practice. In addition to his consulting services, he is also passionate about blogging, training, and contributing to open-source projects that help with SQL Server troubleshooting. He's given many public speaking engagements on the topic at conferences and events around the world, like PASS Summit and SQLBits.   Topics of Discussion: [2:57] Eric's journey into SQL Server and database performance tuning. [4:25] Challenges faced in early SQL Server work and evolving technical debt. [7:47] The standard problems with databases over time. [11:14] How technical debt shows up in SQL Server databases. [15:20] How abstraction layers like ORMs contribute to technical debt. [22:38] Performance issues as a result of technical debt in databases. [25:19] Key advice on database schema design to improve performance. [30:46] Key differences between Azure SQL DB and managed instances. [37:23] Staffing challenges and solutions for managing SQL Server environments.   Mentioned in this Episode: Clear Measure Way Architect Forum Software Engineer Forum Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net. Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor) .NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon! Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events! Darling Data Darling Data on X Erik Darling Darling Data on LinkedIn Darling Data on TikTok   Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

גיא ואיתן מדברים על כמה נושאים מעניינים, ומחדשים כמה דברים גם לכם וגם אחד לשני! אנחנו מתנצלים על איכות הסאונד של גיא שנחתך כל כמה זמן... היו לו תקלות רשת ביום ההקלטה. קישורים רלוונטיים: Batch mode Adaptive Joins Parameter Sensitive Plan optimization פרק 156 של הפודקסט בנושא Intelligent Query Processing Storage performance best practices and considerations for Azure SQL DB Managed Instance (General Purpose) Traditional Azure SQL architecture VS Azure SQL Hyperscale architecture – Zoran Barac What is the Hyperscale service tier? Data Platform Meetup Israel - The best of SQLbits 2023! Azure Data Engineer Certification Prep series (playlist on YouTube) Upcoming meetup - Export Data to Parquet Files Directly from SQL Server 2022 Tempdb Performance Improvements in SQL Server 2022

גיא ואיתן מדברים על כמה חידושים מעניינים בעולם של Azure SQL ועוד: Data API builder for Azure SQL Databases - Public Preview Azure Podcast Episode 457 - Data API Builder The query_antipattern extended event SQL Assessment - Microsoft's Best Practices Checker | Taiob Ali dbachecks sys.dm_exec_query_plan_stats (Transact-SQL) Find_Top_Exec_Plans_to_Optimize.sql Slow Startup, Failover, and Restore Times with In-Memory OLTP - Brent Ozar Unlimited The best of SQLbits 2023! at Microsoft Reactor Tel Aviv

CMA blocks Activision Blizzard deal, FY23 Q3 earnings, Mad Dogs Hot Dogs Microsoft earnings Microsoft announced that it earned a net income of $18.3 billion on revenues of $52.9 billion for the quarter ending March 31. Those figures represent gains of 9 and 7 percent, respectively, year-over-year. Intelligent Cloud, the home of Azure and Server, was once again the software giant's biggest business, with $22.1 billion in revenues, up 16 percent YOY. Productivity and Business Processes, which houses Office, delivered $17.5 billion in revenues, up 11 percent YOY. Windows, Xbox, and Surface once again tripped over themselves, with $13.3 billion in revenues, down 9 percent. Analysis of Microsoft's F23Q3 Yet another AI theory: After years of 70 percent-ish growth in Azure revenues driving its stock price and market cap, Microsoft needed something exciting for Wall Street. (Azure grew "just" 27 percent in this quarter) Windows revenues from PC makers fell 28 percent in the quarter. Windows Commercial products and cloud services increased 14 percent YOY, "driven by strong renewal execution and an increase in agreements that carried higher in-period revenue recognition." Surface was a no-show: Devices revenues fell by 30 percent. Xbox: Xbox console sales and other hardware revenues fell 30 percent in the quarter while gaming revenue, overall, declined 4 percent and Xbox content and services revenue grew 3 percent. But revenue from Xbox subscriptions reached nearly $1 billion in the quarter. Teams: over 300 million MAUs. Microsoft 365: Office commercial revenue grew 13 percent in the quarter. Paid Office 365 commercial seats were up 11 percent YOY to 382 million. Office consumer revenues were up, sort of, by 1 percent, while the Microsoft 365 consumer user base grew 12 percent to 65.4 million. Windows 11 A new monthly preview update to think about Phone Link for iOS is now rolling out to everyone New Beta channel builds: new Live Caption languages Leak: Microsoft will bring (back) app labels and grouping to the Windows 11 Taskbar Microsoft 365 Microsoft rumored to unbundle Teams from Office to appease regulators Does Microsoft have an antitrust problem? Xbox UK CMA blocks Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard... because of cloud streaming?? Microsoft Flight Simulator has a new World Update Atari just acquired over 100 classic games from the 80s and 90s ASUS ROG Ally is a new Windows gaming handheld Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Bulk-install apps with Winget and Winstall App pick of the week: Google Authenticator On RunAs this week: Building your Data Analytics Team at SQLBits! Brown liquor pick of the week: Ohishi Whisky Sherry Cask Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT lookout.com kolide.com/ww

CMA blocks Activision Blizzard deal, FY23 Q3 earnings, Mad Dogs Hot Dogs Microsoft earnings Microsoft announced that it earned a net income of $18.3 billion on revenues of $52.9 billion for the quarter ending March 31. Those figures represent gains of 9 and 7 percent, respectively, year-over-year. Intelligent Cloud, the home of Azure and Server, was once again the software giant's biggest business, with $22.1 billion in revenues, up 16 percent YOY. Productivity and Business Processes, which houses Office, delivered $17.5 billion in revenues, up 11 percent YOY. Windows, Xbox, and Surface once again tripped over themselves, with $13.3 billion in revenues, down 9 percent. Analysis of Microsoft's F23Q3 Yet another AI theory: After years of 70 percent-ish growth in Azure revenues driving its stock price and market cap, Microsoft needed something exciting for Wall Street. (Azure grew "just" 27 percent in this quarter) Windows revenues from PC makers fell 28 percent in the quarter. Windows Commercial products and cloud services increased 14 percent YOY, "driven by strong renewal execution and an increase in agreements that carried higher in-period revenue recognition." Surface was a no-show: Devices revenues fell by 30 percent. Xbox: Xbox console sales and other hardware revenues fell 30 percent in the quarter while gaming revenue, overall, declined 4 percent and Xbox content and services revenue grew 3 percent. But revenue from Xbox subscriptions reached nearly $1 billion in the quarter. Teams: over 300 million MAUs. Microsoft 365: Office commercial revenue grew 13 percent in the quarter. Paid Office 365 commercial seats were up 11 percent YOY to 382 million. Office consumer revenues were up, sort of, by 1 percent, while the Microsoft 365 consumer user base grew 12 percent to 65.4 million. Windows 11 A new monthly preview update to think about Phone Link for iOS is now rolling out to everyone New Beta channel builds: new Live Caption languages Leak: Microsoft will bring (back) app labels and grouping to the Windows 11 Taskbar Microsoft 365 Microsoft rumored to unbundle Teams from Office to appease regulators Does Microsoft have an antitrust problem? Xbox UK CMA blocks Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard... because of cloud streaming?? Microsoft Flight Simulator has a new World Update Atari just acquired over 100 classic games from the 80s and 90s ASUS ROG Ally is a new Windows gaming handheld Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Bulk-install apps with Winget and Winstall App pick of the week: Google Authenticator On RunAs this week: Building your Data Analytics Team at SQLBits! Brown liquor pick of the week: Ohishi Whisky Sherry Cask Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT lookout.com kolide.com/ww

CMA blocks Activision Blizzard deal, FY23 Q3 earnings, Mad Dogs Hot Dogs Microsoft earnings Microsoft announced that it earned a net income of $18.3 billion on revenues of $52.9 billion for the quarter ending March 31. Those figures represent gains of 9 and 7 percent, respectively, year-over-year. Intelligent Cloud, the home of Azure and Server, was once again the software giant's biggest business, with $22.1 billion in revenues, up 16 percent YOY. Productivity and Business Processes, which houses Office, delivered $17.5 billion in revenues, up 11 percent YOY. Windows, Xbox, and Surface once again tripped over themselves, with $13.3 billion in revenues, down 9 percent. Analysis of Microsoft's F23Q3 Yet another AI theory: After years of 70 percent-ish growth in Azure revenues driving its stock price and market cap, Microsoft needed something exciting for Wall Street. (Azure grew "just" 27 percent in this quarter) Windows revenues from PC makers fell 28 percent in the quarter. Windows Commercial products and cloud services increased 14 percent YOY, "driven by strong renewal execution and an increase in agreements that carried higher in-period revenue recognition." Surface was a no-show: Devices revenues fell by 30 percent. Xbox: Xbox console sales and other hardware revenues fell 30 percent in the quarter while gaming revenue, overall, declined 4 percent and Xbox content and services revenue grew 3 percent. But revenue from Xbox subscriptions reached nearly $1 billion in the quarter. Teams: over 300 million MAUs. Microsoft 365: Office commercial revenue grew 13 percent in the quarter. Paid Office 365 commercial seats were up 11 percent YOY to 382 million. Office consumer revenues were up, sort of, by 1 percent, while the Microsoft 365 consumer user base grew 12 percent to 65.4 million. Windows 11 A new monthly preview update to think about Phone Link for iOS is now rolling out to everyone New Beta channel builds: new Live Caption languages Leak: Microsoft will bring (back) app labels and grouping to the Windows 11 Taskbar Microsoft 365 Microsoft rumored to unbundle Teams from Office to appease regulators Does Microsoft have an antitrust problem? Xbox UK CMA blocks Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard... because of cloud streaming?? Microsoft Flight Simulator has a new World Update Atari just acquired over 100 classic games from the 80s and 90s ASUS ROG Ally is a new Windows gaming handheld Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Bulk-install apps with Winget and Winstall App pick of the week: Google Authenticator On RunAs this week: Building your Data Analytics Team at SQLBits! Brown liquor pick of the week: Ohishi Whisky Sherry Cask Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT lookout.com kolide.com/ww

CMA blocks Activision Blizzard deal, FY23 Q3 earnings, Mad Dogs Hot Dogs Microsoft earnings Microsoft announced that it earned a net income of $18.3 billion on revenues of $52.9 billion for the quarter ending March 31. Those figures represent gains of 9 and 7 percent, respectively, year-over-year. Intelligent Cloud, the home of Azure and Server, was once again the software giant's biggest business, with $22.1 billion in revenues, up 16 percent YOY. Productivity and Business Processes, which houses Office, delivered $17.5 billion in revenues, up 11 percent YOY. Windows, Xbox, and Surface once again tripped over themselves, with $13.3 billion in revenues, down 9 percent. Analysis of Microsoft's F23Q3 Yet another AI theory: After years of 70 percent-ish growth in Azure revenues driving its stock price and market cap, Microsoft needed something exciting for Wall Street. (Azure grew "just" 27 percent in this quarter) Windows revenues from PC makers fell 28 percent in the quarter. Windows Commercial products and cloud services increased 14 percent YOY, "driven by strong renewal execution and an increase in agreements that carried higher in-period revenue recognition." Surface was a no-show: Devices revenues fell by 30 percent. Xbox: Xbox console sales and other hardware revenues fell 30 percent in the quarter while gaming revenue, overall, declined 4 percent and Xbox content and services revenue grew 3 percent. But revenue from Xbox subscriptions reached nearly $1 billion in the quarter. Teams: over 300 million MAUs. Microsoft 365: Office commercial revenue grew 13 percent in the quarter. Paid Office 365 commercial seats were up 11 percent YOY to 382 million. Office consumer revenues were up, sort of, by 1 percent, while the Microsoft 365 consumer user base grew 12 percent to 65.4 million. Windows 11 A new monthly preview update to think about Phone Link for iOS is now rolling out to everyone New Beta channel builds: new Live Caption languages Leak: Microsoft will bring (back) app labels and grouping to the Windows 11 Taskbar Microsoft 365 Microsoft rumored to unbundle Teams from Office to appease regulators Does Microsoft have an antitrust problem? Xbox UK CMA blocks Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard... because of cloud streaming?? Microsoft Flight Simulator has a new World Update Atari just acquired over 100 classic games from the 80s and 90s ASUS ROG Ally is a new Windows gaming handheld Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Bulk-install apps with Winget and Winstall App pick of the week: Google Authenticator On RunAs this week: Building your Data Analytics Team at SQLBits! Brown liquor pick of the week: Ohishi Whisky Sherry Cask Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT lookout.com kolide.com/ww

The demand for effective data analytics within organizations continues to grow – how do you build your analytics team? While at SQLBits in Wales, panelists Maria Zakourdaev, Falek Miah, and Anupama Natarajan discussed their experiences with building teams - from recruiting to training, up-skilling, and retention. The discussion spans the different roles, including architects and data modelers, that help to provide the data sets analysts need. Do you train from within, hire into the role, or use consultants? There are many choices for growing your data analytics team!Links:SQLBitsRecorded March 18, 2023

CMA blocks Activision Blizzard deal, FY23 Q3 earnings, Mad Dogs Hot Dogs Microsoft earnings Microsoft announced that it earned a net income of $18.3 billion on revenues of $52.9 billion for the quarter ending March 31. Those figures represent gains of 9 and 7 percent, respectively, year-over-year. Intelligent Cloud, the home of Azure and Server, was once again the software giant's biggest business, with $22.1 billion in revenues, up 16 percent YOY. Productivity and Business Processes, which houses Office, delivered $17.5 billion in revenues, up 11 percent YOY. Windows, Xbox, and Surface once again tripped over themselves, with $13.3 billion in revenues, down 9 percent. Analysis of Microsoft's F23Q3 Yet another AI theory: After years of 70 percent-ish growth in Azure revenues driving its stock price and market cap, Microsoft needed something exciting for Wall Street. (Azure grew "just" 27 percent in this quarter) Windows revenues from PC makers fell 28 percent in the quarter. Windows Commercial products and cloud services increased 14 percent YOY, "driven by strong renewal execution and an increase in agreements that carried higher in-period revenue recognition." Surface was a no-show: Devices revenues fell by 30 percent. Xbox: Xbox console sales and other hardware revenues fell 30 percent in the quarter while gaming revenue, overall, declined 4 percent and Xbox content and services revenue grew 3 percent. But revenue from Xbox subscriptions reached nearly $1 billion in the quarter. Teams: over 300 million MAUs. Microsoft 365: Office commercial revenue grew 13 percent in the quarter. Paid Office 365 commercial seats were up 11 percent YOY to 382 million. Office consumer revenues were up, sort of, by 1 percent, while the Microsoft 365 consumer user base grew 12 percent to 65.4 million. Windows 11 A new monthly preview update to think about Phone Link for iOS is now rolling out to everyone New Beta channel builds: new Live Caption languages Leak: Microsoft will bring (back) app labels and grouping to the Windows 11 Taskbar Microsoft 365 Microsoft rumored to unbundle Teams from Office to appease regulators Does Microsoft have an antitrust problem? Xbox UK CMA blocks Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard... because of cloud streaming?? Microsoft Flight Simulator has a new World Update Atari just acquired over 100 classic games from the 80s and 90s ASUS ROG Ally is a new Windows gaming handheld Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Bulk-install apps with Winget and Winstall App pick of the week: Google Authenticator On RunAs this week: Building your Data Analytics Team at SQLBits! Brown liquor pick of the week: Ohishi Whisky Sherry Cask Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: GO.ACILEARNING.COM/TWIT lookout.com kolide.com/ww

Today, we had the pleasure of interviewing Rob “sqldbawithabeard” Sewell, who shared insights on changes to dbachecks, maximizing community involvement, mentorship, and dbatools. We also discussed the exciting upcoming events, including psconfeu and data Saturdays, where enthusiasts can come together to learn, share ideas, and connect with like-minded individuals. In addition, Rob shared his innovative approach to automating the process of finding speakers for events, streamlining the planning and organization of future gatherings.  Guest Bio and links: Rob was a SQL Server DBA with a passion for PowerShell, Azure, Automation, and SQL (PaaS geddit?). Now he just helps people make things. He is a Cloud and Data Center MVP and a Data Platform MVP, SQLBits committee member and PSConf EU organiser.    See the podcast here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRG3uWLe1nI https://psconf.eu/  https://blog.robsewell.com/blog/creating-a-training-day-speakers-list-with-github-action-from-a-github-issue/  https://datasaturdays.com/  https://github.com/dataplat/DataSpeakers/issues/new/choose  https://dbachecks.readthedocs.io/en/latest/  https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/learn-dbatools-in/9781617296703/  https://twitter.com/sqldbawithbeard  https://blog.robsewell.com/ 

Guy and Eitan share their experience from SQLBits 2023 and some of their favorite sessions. Relevant links: Official SQLBits Website SQLBits Content Library SQLBits YouTube Channel SQL Server Debugging with WinDbg – an Introduction Join #TeamHugo and Help Fight Leukemia Parameter Sensitive Plan optimization Azure Functions overview GitHub CoPilot  

גיא ואיתן מדברים על חוויותיהם מכנס SQLBITS 2023 שהם היו נוכחים בו, ומספרים על ההרצאות האהובות עליהם מהכנס. קישורים רלוונטיים: האתר הרשמי של SQLBits 2023 ספריית הקלטות מכל הכנסים הקודמים של SQLBits ערוץ היוטיוב הרשמי של SQLBits Don't Let Your Permissions be Hijacked! - Erland Sommarskog Row numbers with nondeterministic order - Itzik Ben-Gan קבוצת הריאקטור של מיקרוסופט בתל-אביב

In this Data Point, Andy records a quick data point from a much quieter place than the last time he was at Heathrow Airport.

In this episode, the trio talk to Annette Allen of SQLBits! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How about a free suite of over 500 tools for SQL Server best practices, administration, development, and migration? Richard talks to Rob Sewell about the ever-growing dbatools PowerShell module. While its origins are in migrating SQL Server databases from one environment (and version) to another, the range of capabilities is extensive. Rob talks about the power of repeatability when attempting to do these potentially complex tasks - which is best served by scripting. But why write the scripts when they already exist? The conversation also digs into learning as a DBA, including getting involved with conferences like SQLBits!Links:dbatoolsdbachecksdbatools on PowerShell GallerySQL Server Management Objectsdbatools in a month of lunchesRunAs at SQL Bits!Recorded January 10, 2023

In this episode, Alexander and Heini go through a bunch of Power BI and Azure news, and have a chat about last mile analytics and the fallacies of data driven analytics. Listen to the episode to get a 15% discount code for SQLBits!https://sqlbits.swoogo.com/2023/knee-deep-in-tech Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we have the pleasure of hosting Rob Sewell, and talking about the upcoming SQLBits event of 2023! Relevant links: SQLBits 2023 agenda, speakers, pricing, and registration - events.sqlbits.com/2023 YouTube playlist of all 195 sessions from SQLBits 2022 - available for free! SQLBits helpers form - beard.media/sqlbits-helpers Rob Sewell's blog - blog.robsewell.com

This episode of the Coeo podcast is hosted by Justin Langford along with our team: Victoria Holt, Jessica Healey and Niall Quinn. They discuss the concept of hybrid events, and we hear from the team on their initial thoughts, expectations, and key takeaways.As Victoria aptly mentions, the SQLBits event is in many ways 'the event of the year'! With a mixture of novice and seasoned attendees, this conversation takes a deep dive into some of our teams' expectations prior to arrival, honest impressions, and so much more.A second key element that the team were keen to explore throughout this episode was the topical concept of hybrid events. With the event returning for the very first time since the pandemic, a question on many people's minds is how a physical event measures in comparison to virtual attendance.Tune in as they discuss their thoughts and experiences of SQLBits 2022.

In this episode, the trio talk security updates, Intune updates, new certifications, Azure Chaos Studio, going to SQLBits - and Heini's found Cuban Eddie's! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Conferences are on the uptick as COVID restrictions lift and we are excited for the upcoming year. After Eugene's return from SQLBits my thoughts revolved around what I wanted to learn this year at conferences and how you and I can go about picking the content we want to know more this year. Join us for a quick discussion on deciding what to learn as conference season picks up. The show notes and video for today's episode can be found at https://sqldatapartners.com/2022/03/16/episode-243-choosing-what-content-to-focus-on. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

When Jen Stirrup speaks, she speaks softly.  The meaning of her words, however, speak loudly!  Jen is CEO of Data Relish, a UK-based consultancy that delivers real business value through solving all manner of business challenges.  You don't earn the nickname the Data Whisperer without knowing a great deal about Business Intelligence and AI.  Jen certainly knows not only those topics, she knows SO much more! References in this episode: Data Kind The Art Of War Blade Runner Tears Scene Episode Timeline: 4:30 - The human element of data, Bias in data, implications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and COVID data 27:00 - The BI goal is Business Improvement, escalation and taking principled stands, Data-Driven vs Data Inspired 46:00 - Seeing the hidden costs of some business strategies, the value of even small successes, Diversity and Inclusion, and online bullying 1:29:30 - Jen's mugging story (!) Episode Transcript: Rob Collie (00:00:00): Hello friends. Today's guest is Jen Stirrup. Jen and I have had one of those long-running internet friendships that are so common these days, especially in the data world and in certain communities. But we've also had the opportunity to meet in person several times at those things that we used to do called "in-person physical conferences." She's an incredibly well-seasoned veteran of the data world, but if you're expecting us to be talking about things like star schema and DAX Optimization, that's not really what we talked about. You know that our tagline here is "data with the human element," and we definitely leaned into that human element in today's show. Now, we do talk about some of the important human dynamics about data projects. For example, how the business intelligence industry kind of lost its way in the past and forgot that it's all about improvement and how we're as an industry waking back up to that today. Rob Collie (00:00:54): We also talked about the value of having even one signature success in a large organization that other people can look at to become inspired. And she has some very interesting and well-founded semantic opinions about terms like "data-driven" and why maybe, "data-inspired" is better. Similarly, she prefers the term "data fluent" to "data literate", and she explains why. But we also touched repeatedly on the themes of ethics and inclusivity in the world of data. Now, I have a personal idea that I haven't really shared on this show before that I call "radical moderation." It's the idea that you can be polite, you can be reasonable, while at the same time advocating for sharp change. Now, this is personally what I would like to see emerge in our political sphere, for instance, a form of polite radicalism. We need to change, but we need to be nice. Rob Collie (00:01:52): There aren't many readily available examples that I could point to if I wanted to show you "this is what radical moderation looks like." But now if someone asked me for that, I can point them to this conversation we have with Jen. She is soft-spoken, she is polite, she is open-minded, including the open-mindedness that she might not always be correct. And yet, underneath all of that, is a very firm conviction that we need to be better. And I think that's the best introduction I can give this because I don't want to spoil anything upfront. So, let's get into it. Announcer (00:02:28): Ladies and gentleman, may I have your attention please? Announcer (00:02:32): This is the Raw Data By P3 Adaptive Podcast, with your host, Rob Collie, and your co-host, Thomas you know. Find out what the experts at P3 Adaptive can do for your business. Just go to p3adaptive.com. Raw Data By P3 Adaptive is data...with the human element. Rob Collie (00:02:56): Welcome to the show, Jen Stirrup. It is such a pleasure to see you again, virtually, talk to you. I'm really glad we were able to do this So, thrilled to have you here. Jen Stirrup (00:03:06): Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad we made it work in the end. Diaries, schedules, everything else, but I'm really glad to be here and it's great to speak to you. Rob Collie (00:03:15): I know bits and pieces of the Jen Stirrup story and I know bits and pieces of what you're up to. How do you describe yourself on your LinkedIn profile? Jen Stirrup (00:03:23): So I would describe myself as really trying to help people make their data better. I've just finished a post- COVID data strategy for a healthcare organization in the US and in the UK. The reason I'm doing that is to try and have a big impact. I believe in that, I think COVID has brought around a real stress and a lot of technical architectures, and a lot of data architectures as well, and there're all sorts of pressures. So I've just finished that, which has been a nice piece of work. I've been working with a religious organization on their data as well. A lot of people are accessing their services as part of a recovery from COVID. I think it's been a very difficult, challenging time for a lot of people in terms of mental health, and I like to think that by solving these problems you're actually helping people, in a way to contact, some of whom you may never meet, but that's okay. That's really what I like to do, I think, it's a way of connecting, I think. Rob Collie (00:04:22): We subtitled the show 'Data With The Human Element,' you think of the data field is like this cold, analytical, sanitary, and it's not, right? If you're doing it right, you're having an impact in the human plane, and it's a leveraged impact because you can really sort of touch a lot of people's lives via the central hub that is data. And you've got to keep the human beings in mind, even to be successful at the quote-on-quote "cold, calculating data stuff." If you don't keep the humans sort of first and foremost in your mind, you're not going to design, for example, a good data strategy, like what you just finished. Jen Stirrup (00:05:02): That's right. So I believe that the information ladder is quite important. So we start off with data, then we need to turn that into information, but then we need to turn it into knowledge and then wisdom. And I think COVID has taught us many things. I think it's maybe taught us a sense of purpose, it's something that can help drive all of us. Data can be part of that and I think that data in some ways has been replacing some of the bigger-purpose questions that perhaps we should ask ourselves more often as human beings. With artificial intelligence, particularly, I'm finding that people are replacing data with, perhaps, information, knowledge, or wisdom and say "what does the data see?" and that's fine, but we have to have the context to the data as well. Jen Stirrup (00:05:47): I think in some ways with artificial intelligence, what people are trying to do is build a little box of data and it's becoming this oracle that people are going to touch and say: "So, what does the data say?" It's like we are taking this box and we're trying to turn into some sort of God that we can touch, and it's going to give us all the answers, but if we're going to do that, it has to be a God that we are comfortable to live with, and it's one that we can choose, and one that fits in with people's ethics and their sense of purpose. So, I see data as part of fitting something that can make us all better in so many different ways, whether that is healing or bringing people together. Jen Stirrup (00:06:29): So I think if we could solve these problems where people are feeling that they are not interconnected, then we could start to try and look at that and perhaps think about making people feel whole and feel more together. Because I think what COVID has done is really helped us to focus a lot on data but perhaps not about how we could do things better. It seems that we have an opportunity to decide what goes back in to make the new normal or the next normal. And I'm worried I suppose that I don't see that happening as much as I would like. So yeah, data is important. Absolutely. We wouldn't be here without it and the fact people are struggling with it does pay my mortgage. I still would like us to ask ourselves the bigger questions as well as something that's important to me. Rob Collie (00:07:14): Let me check here. Oh yeah yup, it pays my mortgage as well. We're here for a reason that's for sure. I loved you talking about the AI, this box, that we're going to sort of elevate to the status of a God or that's how a lot of people are viewing it subconsciously. Of course, it's a box that we built. Jen Stirrup (00:07:33): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:07:33): We fed it with our context. It got fed with our assumptions and also our blind spots and now if it makes decisions, that thing starts making judgments and decisions that impact people's lives. It's a tricky proposition, it's one that's best approached very carefully. Jen Stirrup (00:07:55): I agree and I think that's why the bigger questions are important. So say for example, you may have seen the Netflix information series. It was called 'The Social Hack' or something like that. I've forgotten the name, but it was talking about the role of bias in data. One of the researchers found that their facial recognition algorithm didn't recognize a face. And the reason for that was that she's black and for me, I just thought, that's such a preventable issue and how much time do you spend looking at preventable issues? And perhaps not very much. I still see the magpie problem a lot in technology. Companies are happier buying a new technology that they see that's going to solve all their problems, but actually it's not doing that. It's maybe replacing as a bad answer to a different question. We can't see that right now in artificial intelligence. Jen Stirrup (00:08:48): There's some research going on, which will decrease the size of data sets that AI needs in order to create its algorithms and that sounds fine. It's a good piece of research, but what I'd like to see is more researches on collating datasets which are less biased, so that we can think about focusing and trying to make the algorithms fewer rather than focusing on making them smaller. Jen Stirrup (00:09:13): I know a few years ago, you probably remember, everyone talked about big data. Big data was the thing but we didn't ask ourselves if this was the right data. It might be big, but if it's missing out large sections of the population, then that's building an inequality before we get started. I think, even if you don't have the answers, asking these questions is a good thing. I don't have all the answers. There's people working in this field much much smarter than me and they all live and breathe this stuff and I read it, the things that they're doing and talking about, and I think this is such an important part of what we do every day. I think it's really important. I don't know what you think, but there's so much going on in the world of data at the moment that it feels hard to keep up sometimes. Thomas Larock (00:09:58): So first I want you both to remember in case you've forgotten, but you can purchase the Azure Data Box, that does exist. Rob Collie (00:10:07): We will just call it God in a box. Thomas Larock (00:10:09): Azure Data Box, it's actually for shipping storage to an Azure data center, but that's what they chose to call it and I said: "You put your data in the box or it gets the hose again." Right? So- Rob Collie (00:10:20): No no, Tom, it's one: "Put your data in the box." Thomas Larock (00:10:26): So, I mean, that does exist. The first point I wanted to make that you danced around, like Rob you were talking about how we're building this thing and it comes with all of our failings. And I know Jen, she leads discussions on diversity, inclusion, equality and I try to emphasize why that's so much more important and especially seeing the rise and I saw the Netflix special as well, and the Data Justice League. The idea is we need to have those programs in order to have better models. We have to be aware of the bias inherent in the stuff that has already been built. And I think there's a lot more awareness over the last 18 months regarding the products that are on the market that are already failing us because they were built with these biases. And that's a difficult thing to overcome now that you have police departments or governments deploying this technology, thinking, as Jen said, it's this God that is just going to give you all the answers. Thomas Larock (00:11:35): Jen, you also hinted on the thing about the question. So, you're replacing one problem with another, and that made me think of how vital it is that you understand the question you need answered and a lot of times that gets kind of shifted, it's fluid almost. It's like: "Oh, well we were doing this thing we think this next thing we'll solve for it." But the next thing you're getting is actually answering a completely different question than what you thought you were doing and it leads to a huge, huge disconnect. And I think the last thing I would say Jen, I've seen that research about the data sets. I'm encouraged by the idea that we could get people to understand that it's not the volume of data that makes a better model. It's the data that was chosen to be collected in the manner in which it's collected. Thomas Larock (00:12:30): So I know the research on building these models and they're saying: "Yeah, you don't need a billion rows. The accuracy tails off at some point after, say, a million rows." At some point more data doesn't make this model any more accurate but the inherent problem is how was it collected? What were the biases and how was it collected? What was missing? Was it missing at random? Was it missing not at random? The analysis necessary to conduct that research, I think is where we are sorely lacking in business. I know it exists in academia, but those people, they don't scale. There's only so many of those, and there's a lot more businesses trying to get the job done so I think that's fairly important. Jen Stirrup (00:13:13): There is a huge gap between academia and business. I guess there always has been, I do speak to academic institutions from time to time and it's clear that they are doing so much work. They really are, but how that is getting out? I am not sure. Maybe that's why they asked me to come and talk to them so I can talk to other people about what they're doing and I don't mind doing that. I think there needs to be more of that, because I think these scientists, these academics are working in this, have to get access to each other as well and the multidisciplinary aspect of it is really interesting. I did a Postgraduate in Cognitive Science about 20 years ago, and suddenly it's back round again, and it's about philosophy, linguistics, psychology, AI. And why did that go away? Jen Stirrup (00:14:03): It should never have really gone away. I think we got as an industry perhaps Goldstone and such technologies which these things were re-badged as, and we got derailed by the marketing efforts. But I think that there's real room for doing these things in a better way. I don't know if you see this, but I see, or maybe it's my age now, I've been around in the industry for a long time, but I see that people are doing and making mistakes that I first saw 20 years ago, data collection, which you rarely mentioned, Tom, that's been there for a long time and then it seemed to go away. Jen Stirrup (00:14:36): I think that's why academia does help because it gives us maybe more of that consistent backgrounds than perhaps we get from marketing noise, which was goes round in cycles and trends as people are under pressure to purchase these licenses or whatever it happens to be. I wish I had better answers for all of this, I think sometimes it's about just asking these questions, blogging, talking about them, putting them on social media so that when people are thinking, "what do I do about data strategy?" That these things are part of this. I saw a study recently saying that companies are decreasingly likely to include ethics and these questions and bigger societal questions as part of the data strategies as you're trying to get the link. But it disheartens me because I thought I could see that the voices are getting squeezed out. Rob Collie (00:15:25): Decreasingly likely, like we're trending- Jen Stirrup (00:15:28): Trending down. Rob Collie (00:15:28): You know, it'd be one thing to be flat, right? I mean that would also be disheartening, but to be decreasing, decreasingly likely to be factoring in ethics into a data strategy. Now we've been talking a lot and I think it's a good thing to continue to talk about the implications of AI and machine learning in this space, the business intelligence industry isn't particularly fraught with this kind of problem, right. Transactions happened, or they didn't, you know, and it was the number of six or a seven. I mean like, you can get it wrong, you can have bugs, right. But there isn't any like objective debate about what, there shouldn't be any way about what actually has happened. But the decider systems, are a completely different game, like where should we route this patient? This is going to have a huge impact on their life. Rob Collie (00:16:21): That's a very, very, very different game and we've been talking about sort of like, the completeness of the data that is used to train these systems, but I think it's really instructive just to stop for a moment and go, you know what, even if we were able to feed these systems a 100% comprehensive picture of today's world, we still have to accept the fact that we're telling it that today's world is what we want. Right. And maybe we don't, you know and there's always a judgment in training these systems, we tell it what is a success and what isn't a success. Our unintentional biases can leak into this stuff in a million different places, even if you suddenly had God-like comprehensive powers to feed it, quote-on-quote, all the data, right. It's still leaky. It's still fraught. Jen Stirrup (00:17:13): Yeah and actually, I think it's an extension of their problem that we see just when we're building a data warehouse. Sometimes I'll go into a customer and they'll say, "you know, we want to see our data and see our latest vendor here," and then I'll say, "well, is it preserving the data or is it just, you know, been reamed out the other end, what you're doing with it? Where you're storing it?" And then the argument against the data warehouse as well. It's not going to capture everything in the possible universe of possibilities in my business, so I don't want to do it. And I find the argument goes something like, "there's an edge case that it won't cover." Others, "this edge case, it won't cover here." And then you have to say, "well, you know okay. So it's not going to cover all the possible edge cases, but it will cover 80% of what you need, and the rest, can go to shadow IT or shadow data systems or wherever they happen to be." Jen Stirrup (00:18:03): And I think we're still trying as it's a bigger picture perhaps trying to control everything that happens around our business, but we have to be flexible enough to cater for these scenarios. We haven't seen this before. I think that's what makes the AI so difficult actually, as we have more than one type of AI, we have a general artificial intelligence, which is more like Terminator, you know, these kinds of things. Rob Collie (00:18:29): Innocuous stuff like that. Thomas Larock (00:18:30): Harmless. What's the worst that could happen. Rob Collie (00:18:32): Yeah. I mean. Jen Stirrup (00:18:35): Well, I think as humans, we do enough damage to ourselves, most of the time we don't need a Skynet. Thomas Larock (00:18:38): That's true. I agree. That's often my reaction to, well you know, like self-driving cars, like what if it makes this mistake? Okay yeah but the human being track record behind the wheel, we're not trying to be perfect, we're just trying to be better than people, which is a little bit more achievable perhaps. Jen Stirrup (00:18:56): Exactly and it's all a bit context, which is how to program. You probably remember a few years ago, at SQLBits say Tom, Steve Wozniak visited. I don't know if you were there for that SQLBits but Steve Wozniak is one of the team that founded apple. You must know who he is, but he's talked to us about the Wozniak test for AI, the testers will have an artificial intelligence sought of robot come into your house and make you a coffee from scratch. Now that involves a lot of contextual knowledge. They have to find your kitchen, they have to get your ingredients and get a cup, you know all that kind of thing and that requires context. And that's more general AI, that's more difficult to program. But if we're to think with CEI being more successful for businesses automation productivity, and it's just trying to do something, one thing really, really well, something that will help a human to make better decisions faster. Jen Stirrup (00:19:51): Such as perhaps parceling out x-rays, which don't show any presence of a tumor as an example, but we then get the 10% of x-rays that makes sure something and passing those onto a human to look at. So there's plenty of rooms for defining what success looks like for us for artificial intelligence I think. With business intelligence, your right, we should have one version of the truth. People are still living so much in Excel and Google sheets and things of empires away, and that are sitting in their laptop. How do you move that to the cloud? So you move them perhaps to office 365 or a Google work space, and then you're trying to encourage people to rethink the processes about, Hey why do we save stuff in the cloud? Or why do we make our decision making more apparent? And it seems a bit difficult to ask AI to make its decision-making more apparent, when actually a lot of people spend time hiding or umpiring the knowledge anyway. Jen Stirrup (00:20:49): I don't know if you think this, but I often think business intelligence problems are change management problems in disguise. It just happens to be showing up in the data that there's a problem. Thomas Larock (00:20:59): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:20:59): Ultimately it's not about knowing, it's about improving. Knowing that there's a problem and even knowing what's causing it is really just the beginning. Very often it's like okay, now what? This is going to be a really difficult problem to address operationally. Jen Stirrup (00:21:16): I think we forget the process of optimization and business intelligence. And I wonder if that's the reason why AI is becoming so prevalent at the moment, because it is much more clearly talking about optimizing and improving processes and automating. I think in business intelligence, we have almost stopped talking about optimizing business processes. I don't see it quite as much, I wonder if we get sort of caught up in data visualization, you know Tableau came along and then power BI and everyone started chasing after that. We're perhaps forgetting that actually we're doing all that for a purpose, which is to make something better somewhere. I don't know if you find this but, I obviously run [inaudible 00:21:54] business and it's very hard to get customers to agree to a case study because they don't want to show that actually they were in a bad place and they don't want to show the competitors that they were in a bad place. Everyone's ashamed of the data. So it's really tough. Rob Collie (00:22:07): I've seen sort of multiple facets of that. So first of all, yes, everyone thinks that they are uniquely broken, everyone's organization that they feel a level of sort of like discomfort and shame about where they're at today or where they were yesterday. They feel like they're the only ones, but we see so many organizations per year, especially the kinds of projects and the pace at which we move the world is very much uniformly broken. No one's really behind, everyone's way behind of where you'd sort of like as a dispassionate observer, you'd expect people to be a lot further ahead than they are, but no, no, really the basics are still not sorted out universally. We're still kind of in a dark age, in a way. Jen Stirrup (00:22:51): Yeah. Something, I see really basic issues of one customer example of talking about where they were calculating the mean incorrectly for two years. And then two years before that, for another two years, they were calculating the median incorrectly in Excel. What they were doing was it were taking the middle value of a column. So of course, if you sorted the column next to it, the value changed. And they said that that was the median. And I said, "okay, so you've got a column of 20 items. Are you telling me that whatever's a number 10 is the mean?" And they said, "well, yes, that's in column B." What happens if you change the order in column E from perhaps alphabetical order to reverse alphabet order, the values can be changed, right? And they looked at me and I said, "why did you calculate it like that?" Jen Stirrup (00:23:41): And they said, cause we can calculate the mean using Excel formula. So eventually I said, "why are you using the mean," because it's quite sensitive to outliers the median's better. and then they said, "well we've tried that but we couldn't calculate the median either." I said, so okay "for four years you've been trying to calculate the mean and the median incorrectly in this one spreadsheet. Can you tell me about the rest of your spreadsheets? How often are you trying to use the median or the mean all of it incorrectly?" And I think it's probably the only time in my 20 plus year career, I've seen a customer actually punch himself in the face and it was just absolutely stunning. And he said, "I'll go and speak to the statisticians." And I thought, you've got statisticians working here. I'd love to meet them. Jen Stirrup (00:24:26): I wonder what they're telling you. And that was my second deal in sight, I was on the on and off for six months. And that was just the first problem I found. So I know we talked about data literacy. I'm not a fan of that phrase. I prefer fluency or something along those lines. So I don't want to assume people are data illiterate. Because I don't think that they are, I think we're born naturally within us an innate sense of numbers in a way, we can tell more from less, right? My dog can do it, right. So if I got five treats in my hand, he knows I've got others. If I just give them one, he's not stupid, he has a sense of quantity. And I think it's about, we need to get better in industry, perhaps explaining results, findings, conclusions, and context to people instead of just throwing dashboards at people and expecting them to understand it. Jen Stirrup (00:25:16): If somebody recently sent me a scientific article which was all about COVID and some testing that they did in mice, and I could read it, but I couldn't understand it because I don't have a background in medicine. I read the abstracts and I read the last paragraph and the first paragraph, but I didn't read the rest of it because I thought this is way beyond me. I don't understand what they're trying to say. But I think for me that highlighted a problem with data literacy, I could read it, I couldn't understand it, and I certainly couldn't act on it. And I don't want to give other people who are trying to consume business intelligence products in some way, whether they're dashboards or even dumps from Excel, that they just don't understand what they're getting. How we do that, I think is perhaps focusing in data translation. Jen Stirrup (00:26:03): How we do that, I think, is perhaps focusing in data translation. I had a woman who worked for me, she actually was a qualified librarian. So, her insights about information retrieval were very interesting. I learned a lot from her, because that was a little bit the data. And she would say things like, "Jennifer, Google is not the only search facility in the world. We can use so much more," because she's accessed all their library systems around the world. And there's so much information we don't access because we can't, usually. But the point being that what I learned from her was about translating things, where they were easier to understand for other people. And I think it's an incredibly valuable lesson, and the world needs more librarians. Rob Collie (00:26:43): There's a lot here, right? Business intelligence was always a means to an end, but because it was so difficult, it was just so incredibly difficult to even get a halfway-competent system instilled, built, configured. When something is that hard for that long, it becomes its own goal after a while. It's easy to habituate to the idea that this is the goal, intelligence is the goal, knowledge is the goal. No, no, no. Improvement was always the goal. What's really been fascinating for us is, when we see our clients, the people we work with, when we see them start to get the BI problem under control for the first time ever, their gaze immediately sort of zooms back and they start thinking completely unbidden by us. We don't have to seed this conversation. It just happens. They start looking at the bigger picture now and going, "Oh, okay. So, now this information needs to feed into better decision loops and optimization and things like that. And how do we facilitate that?" Rob Collie (00:27:53): And from the beginning, we try to counsel everything being built around that "taking action" thing. You can build an incredibly informative dashboard that is intelligent, it's a work of art in many ways, on many levels, and it can be useless. It can be factual, it can be impressive, and it can be useless because you can't use it to make any improved decisions. I've been guilty of this. I have built things like this, like, "Ta-da." And the client doesn't even have the language to push back. Jen Stirrup (00:28:30): It's something I've tried to keep in mind now is the utility of what I'm actually doing, because people just want data for the sake of data, and they get that. I think, sometimes, they don't know what to ask for, so they take something because it's better than nothing. And they'll say things like, "Right, I want the last five years of data and 191 columns, I want it all on the same page, and I want to be able to print it." And then you have to say, "Well, let's think about how feasible that is. You'll get five years of data, it's not going to fit in one page. 191 columns is going to be really small. So, let's have a..." People ask that because they don't know what they want. Jen Stirrup (00:29:06): About a dashboard recently, a health and safety dashboard, it was using power apps as well. So, the company, if they saw a health and safety priority issue, they could use the app, if they were health and safety professionals, and the app would record data, you could upload a photograph, and then that would go into a system which you could then see in Power BI. And the nice thing about that was you could see improvements over time because people could get their health and safety issues resolved more quickly, so things like boxes stacked against fire exits, slip and trip hazards. Jen Stirrup (00:29:43): Now, it may not seem very interesting, but actually, the reason that project had happened was because someone that had been in a health and safety incident and it had not been tracked properly, and the idea being that they were trying to improve the process. But sometimes, I think data problems and data solutions happen because of two things. One is you need an executive sponsor, and the second thing is a crisis. And together, the executive sponsor and the crisis will engender change somewhere. And that change management process so often turns into a business intelligence solution. And nothing is an industry. It's something I'm personally trying to always keep in mind is: what's the purpose? What's the optimization? What problem am I trying to solve? Rob Collie (00:30:30): Yeah, one time, I was asked by a client to help debug a report that was really slow. So, this is great because this is an example of a report that I didn't build, right? I can use an example that wasn't one of my own families, but I'll tell my own as well if you want. But I go, "Okay, I'll take a look at it." I'm expecting some sort of DAX or data modeling problem or something like that. And they show me the report, and it is a 100,000-row pivot table. The pivot table has a 100,000 rows in it. There's DAX behind it. It's a DAX data model behind the scenes, but the report itself, the output is 100,000 rows. And before I even engage, I just turn and look at them and say, "Oh, my God, who was using this? You don't have a performance problem. It's..." And they're very insistent. "No, no, no, no, no. This is the thing. We need this." I'm like, "All right." Rob Collie (00:31:21): So, I start looking at it, and it's crazy how many columns there are. And it was a list of every employee and every location that they have in the country, which was hundreds of locations and thousands of employees. And for each employee, their scheduled time-in and their scheduled time-out, and their actual time clocked in and actual time clocked out. I turned back at him again and I go, "Okay, really? What are we doing here?" And they're like, "Okay. So, we have all these regional managers that are looking at this multiple times a day, probably eight times a day or more, to try to figure out if any of their stores are empty, aren't staffed because people didn't show up." And I just smacked my forehead and I go, "You don't need the timecard report," which is what they called this thing, the timecard report, "You need the empty store detector." Rob Collie (00:32:18): And I mean, there was no way to make this thing faster. I mean, this thing was such a gross misuse of technology. I just went to the whiteboard and I sketched what the empty store detector could look like, and they're like, "Oh, that's great. We'll never get our managers to switch over to using it, so let's just go back to fixing this other piece of junk." Jen Stirrup (00:32:37): Yeah, because something that I struggle with, personally, is the idea of surveyance reports. It's something that really bothers me. I've pushed back on a few customers to see, "Are you micromanaging or are you surveying? What is it you're trying to do?" On occasions, I have escalated it to say, "Look, this report is probably been used to hit people for the head, and I'm not comfortable with this because I think this has gone beyond micromanaging." And we had set the scope of the project of the thing we were supposed to deliver. So, I'm going to escalate this because I want to understand better the purpose. And if I'm wrong, we will deliver it." Jen Stirrup (00:33:12): And normally, when I go back and see that, even in that particular instance, I showed the senior management and I said, "Your middle management want to do this." And they said, "No. We are not spending time doing that. We need to understand the wider context. If there is any issues going on with staffing, then this is probably a symptom rather than the cause of the issues, if people are being watched like that." So, I think some teams escalating, as much as I don't like to do it, sometimes is the best way forward. Rob Collie (00:33:44): It takes a lot of professional courage to do something like that. For example, have you ever taken one of those principled stands and ended up no longer working for that client because they basically fire you for not staying in your lane? That's a risk, right? Jen Stirrup (00:34:01): Yeah. It is. I've never been fired for that, but I have said, "Uncomfortable, and I'm we going to stop delivering services, and we need to decide on an exit strategy." There's different ways you can do that, right? So, you deal with the current project. You then say that you're busy for the next century when we come back to you for other work. I don't like doing that because I often feel like you should give them an alternative to say, "Well, here. I can't deliver it, but I know someone who can." And then I recommend one to my network. But the thing is, when I make these quite principal stands, people back down often, or they back down and they just asked me to do it. But when I've gone back to people like that customer, who come back to me for extra work, I've done some investigating work and I've found that they have not implemented a thing that I've been worried about or concerned about. Jen Stirrup (00:34:49): So, I think, sometimes, if you do speak up, people are maybe surprised by it. It's maybe different who it comes from. And I think, perhaps, even a soft Scottish accent, smiling sweetly at them and saying, "Can you explain to me a bit more about the reasoning behind this? Because your team want to do this thing, but I have some discomfort because it's outside scope." And they're not telling them, and they're very direct. Wait at first, but they start to get their message. Jen Stirrup (00:35:16): A former boss of mine years ago, he said I had a soft rein approach. I actually think that's a nice way of putting it, where, as much as I might be tempted to go in all guns blazing, I'm trying to gently bring it up and then bring it up again a bit more firmly, and then, suddenly, people are starting to understand better. But that's me having to probably, sometimes, exert a huge amount of self-control as well. But I think that's part of the consulting game. It's very tough. But I think seeing something like that happen, I think the reason it happens is because people aren't thinking about it longer-term. And me as a consultant, it's easier, perhaps, for me to think about it long-term and also a bit more closely as well, because you are thinking about the consequences of what you're trying to do, the purpose. Rob Collie (00:36:04): Yeah. If you're good at data and you're experience with it, you spend a lot of time with it, that allows you to put some of those things a little further down in the subconscious, and the rest of your human faculties can resume working, whereas, I think, for people who data is still this arcane thing, it's not the thing that they've spent their lives with, it's just really easy to get target-fixated on the data, data, data, data, right? "It's not about the people, we're trying to figure out the data," right? "And inform me," and all of that. Rob Collie (00:36:33): And I think it's like when you're first learning to drive, I couldn't have the radio on. The radio was really distracting. And you certainly couldn't have a conversation with someone next to you. So, all you can do just to make sure that you're turning the wheel the right amount and all this kind of stuff. It's just overwhelming. But once you internalize all that stuff and you build the muscle memory and all those sorts of things, now your brain is free to do some other things. Like this data fluency thing we were talking about, it's neat how, as you climb that slope, you're never there, it's a perpetual journey, the other parts of the equation like the human things, right? They can come back. Rob Collie (00:37:12): An example, even just from our own business, we do a lot of internet advertising. And sometimes, when people at our company are thinking about this, now the wrong way to do it is to go and like, "Oh, let's go look at the ad words API and let's get fascinated by the tech around this." And I'm always trying to remind people that, no, no, no, we're trying to scale a human interaction. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to reach people with our humanity- Jen Stirrup (00:37:43): I think that's so true. Rob Collie (00:37:43): ... and we're using a technological system to do that. It's a tool for the other thing. Jen Stirrup (00:37:50): You're so right. I think we should be using technology empower and enable. And I think my personal mission is about helping people. I find that rewarding, personally. I like things with a purpose, so that's why I do charity work with organizations like DataKind, because when you get someone crying because you've solved a problem for them and you've helped them, you know how incredibly grateful they are. But I think, for me, that's why diversity and inclusion, equality, and intersectionality more recently has become really important to me. Jen Stirrup (00:38:21): I'll just give you a few examples that's in my head. I did a project recently, and there was a woman of color in my team, and I felt that she was being talked over. I'm used to being talk over, softly spoken. But I could see it with her. And I just made a conscious effort to say, "I'm sorry, but I don't think she's had the opportunity to speak, and I can see she's tried to have some input." So, some of it's a bit like that. But some of it is directly saying, "What do you think? Sorry, we haven't heard from you," and pulling people out. And you know what? She was and is still incredibly insightful. And sometimes, the best data scientists I work with are people who can't code. And I think about her and I think about another woman of color as well that I work beside. Jen Stirrup (00:39:06): Fantastic data scientists, they both know Excel, but they can't write a line of code. And the reason they're so good is because they are such fantastic questions. That means the rest of us who can code have to then go and get the answers. And I think the knack of asking the right questions is such a gift, it's such a skill, and it's something that I am consciously trying to improve myself on. And I think diversity, inclusion, and equality is really important, but we wouldn't get anywhere with any of that if we're not allowing people space either to talk or we're not able to give them the space to ask the right questions. Jen Stirrup (00:39:42): Now, I am constantly learning every day. And to do that, I'm having to learn to get better at asking questions. And it is a skill to ask, but I think, when we're dealing with data, it's about helping people not to feel stupid if they're asking questions, because I think, with these particular cases, it's very easy to feel diminished in a conversation where other people are understand the technology, they can code, you can't, but you've got an insight. I know we talk about data-driven, but I like the term "insights-inspired," and I wish we had more of that because that, I think, gives us room for other people who perhaps don't understand the technology but do have business insights that I would never get, because they help me interpret the code or the data to make it better. Thomas Larock (00:40:28): So, you said data-driven, but you prefer insights-inspired. I think those are still two different things because, when I think of data-driven, I actually think of that in terms of, "I'm going to make a decision based upon what the data's telling me, not upon my feelings." The insights-inspired, to me, is how I get to the question I want answered, right? But I'm still data-driven. I think there's some overlap, but I also think there's a lot of space there where they are distinct, because I do believe in data-driven because I've been in those meetings where somebody's like, "Yeah, I don't really care. We're going to do what I think is right." "But the data says something completely opposite." "Yeah. That doesn't matter to me." And lots of those cultures exist. I love insights-inspired, and I'm going to steal that. Jen Stirrup (00:41:16): That's fine. I think we need both, actually. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. But you're right, there is a good impetus for people to think, "What does the data say?" And I like that. I think the "insights-inspired" piece will help us to understand if the data's right. And I'll give you an example of something that I did. So, I was doing some work for the national health service and there's some data missing for a hospital, and it was not an insignificant amount of data. It was for about five years, the data. And I searched for it all morning, and I was just about to ,arch down the corridor to go and corral a DBA to ask him, Have we lost any data? Because I cannot find this." Jen Stirrup (00:41:55): And then, when [inaudible 00:41:56] was passing, she said, "How are you doing?" I said, "Oh, have you ever worked at this hospital?" I won't mention which one it is. And she said, "Oh, I was there until it closed for five years and it merged with another hospital." And I thought, "Oh, you've just answered my question. Right." Because I was sweating beads because I thought, "We've lost five years' worth of data." And I thought, "We've done that. We are in so much trouble," because it's a lot of data. It's a lot of patient data. No, no, no, no. They went somewhere else. And there was a very good explanation that I would never have got by the data. I could have hugged her. Jen Stirrup (00:42:31): And to this day, I still feel the palpable relief, because I was walking in the hospital, thinking we need a really good explanation for this. But according to the data, it was not there. So, I think, when I look at data-driven, I think they're two sides of the same coin, because insights will tell you what the nurse said, "Well, actually, it's like this," and they will add to the interpretation. Jen Stirrup (00:42:54): I just sat in a meeting once where one of the leaders said, "All right. So, we've got the data now?" I said, "Yes, everything's fine." And in front of four of his team members, he said, "So, we can get rid of the business analysts then, because we've got the data now." And even when I mention this, I still, at this point, feel my blood pressure rising, which is not good for me. I am well over the age of 40. And actually, I was stunned. I said, "How are you going to understand the data if you don't have your business analysts. Who's going to tell you what it means? "Oh." I said, "Are you really thinking that you can just throw your data at a wall, see what sticks, see what's left, and that's going to drive a business? Because, pretty much, that's what you're doing, if you are not involving the people who understand the business." Jen Stirrup (00:43:43): And after the meeting, I mean, some of them were crying, saying, "He was talking about me losing my job." And the people impact was terrible. So, this is where I've got my principals coming in. So, I went and I escalated that afternoon, and he was taken off the project the next day. That was due to happen. That was just outrageous. And if any of you who are listening and this is you, I love that team, their insights were incredible and I learned so much from them. And to the leader in that organization, please listen to your team members. You will get so many many great insights. Rob Collie (00:44:23): Wow. Jen Stirrup (00:44:24): Sorry, this is very cathartic for me. I'm glad you've brought me on today. Rob Collie (00:44:33): I mean, just watching your face as you told that story, I can see the emotions that you're feeling, right? Jen Stirrup (00:44:37): He's going to get this. Rob Collie (00:44:38): And it's a mix, right? It's a mix of the beauty of some of these people that you worked with, right? Contrasting with like this horrible, horrible attitude, at the same time, from this one individual. When you have all those feelings at the same time, it's like you need a new name for it. It's like, "What is this feeling?" Jen Stirrup (00:44:56): And I think the industry is like a pendulum, so we go towards data-driven. And for some organizations, they need good data-driven, so Tom's given a great example. But sometimes, it goes too far and they say, "Yeah, I read that buzzword. I'm going to do that." And then, there's an expense, something has to give. And that, unfortunately, was his team. Like you said earlier, Rob, it's about the people. We should be there to help people by helping people do their jobs better, not necessarily replacing them. That was not ever on the menu. Rob Collie (00:45:29): Yeah. It's counterintuitive. Sometimes, when your data system gets better, the right move is to have more analysts because there's more ROI in having them. Even just hiring a data professional services firm such as yourself, the reason to do it is because the ROI can be massive. Jen Stirrup (00:45:51): Yes. There's lots of unseen costs. I worked with an accountant last year who spent four out of five days a week merging Excel together. And I sat with her, I got to know her pretty well, I mean, remotely because of COVID. And eventually, she said, "Oh, I'm looking for a new job." And I said, "Oh, really?" And she said, "I did not incur a graduate debt to sit and do something that I could have done without my degree." She'd put a lot of effort and, same in the US, lots of student loans to do a degree. And she said, "Technically, my job title is accountant, but I'm not accounting. I am munging data around in Excel." And one of the projects I had recommended was data integration, right? And they wouldn't go forward it. They kept saying, "No, no, no. We've always done it this way. So-and-so om accounts does all that." But they never asked her what she wanted. Jen Stirrup (00:46:43): So, she left, and I was not a bit surprised because she said, "I want to be an accountant. I want to account." And I know that it's not my personal lifestyle. It wouldn't be my choice of a job, but for her, she just loved that, and she wasn't getting to do. So, sometimes, the causes are quite unseen if you're not looking after the processes or the data, because that incurs hiring costs, then, on staff onboarding costs that don't get included often as part of these business strategy projects. When I'm doing a data strategy, I try to include them, to say, "But what happens if you change? But what happens if you don't?" And you're going to lose people because your people, very often, want to be skilled in the later technology. Jen Stirrup (00:47:25): And I'll give you an example. One customer I worked with said to me, "We need your help with reporting services, SQL server." So, "Okay, good. I like reporting services." Then, they talked to me and I said, "What version are you using?" And they said, "2005." And I said, "Why?" "Because the application that's using it requires SQL server 2005 and we can't upgrade." Said, "So, what was the application written in?" "VB6," which you may have heard of that technology. It was around in 1999. It was last century. So, the data state was antique. I had no idea that it was that bad. But then, the application came up, and Microsoft still do a version of a Visual Basic. You can go to the site, the latest version... But the point being that the staff and that place had settled for VB6, they'd settled for 2005. That doesn't mean that you're getting the best team members. And when we worked, it was recommended an architecture. Said it was not touching it with our [inaudible 00:48:30]. Rob Collie (00:48:30): I'm still very fluent in VBA6, so maybe after we finished this show, can you give me the information of this organization? I might go apply. The last place on earth that VBA6 fluency is... Actually, that's not true. It's still being used everywhere. It's just not being used centrally. Jen Stirrup (00:48:53): Yes. I did say to them, "I am not touching any software that was not built in this century. So, if it's in the last century, you've no chance." So, re-architected, actually, we're using the Azure Cosmos... Thomas Larock (00:49:04): It's a good rule. Jen Stirrup (00:49:05): ... and dot... Yeah, it's a good rule. It's a rule to live by, you can quote me on that. I use no software built in the last century. In fact, I'm going to make that my new company advertising strapline. That's great. I like that. So, they're happily in Cosmos and .NET. And we used that because the developer said, "Hey, does that mean we get to modernize?" I said, "Yes. And you will either modernize or I will leave. Your bosses are going to have to modernize." So, they did. But again, that soft Scottish accent comes up. "Well, why don't we use software that's built in this century?" Rob Collie (00:49:42): It's a devastating maneuver. If we were making a card for you in a trading card game, that would be one of your two power moves, right? Soft Scottish accent. And the description of the power is something like, "Removes all defensive screen cards from opponent." Thomas Larock (00:50:07): Disarming. Jen Stirrup (00:50:10): Absolutely. Yeah. It's just funny how the data problems are really throwing up what's wrong with the organization. Obviously, they did that, but two years ago, I went to visit them again, just before COVID last year. They'd implemented a data science team and they just wanted some strategic consulting. And I was really pleased with how they turned around. So, sometimes, if you just find a problem like that, a small success, building those small successes, and they were allowed to up. I don't know if you see this, but big thing of what I'm doing when I'm in organizations is change management, but also a lot of that's people. And people tend to align themselves with success. So, if you can just show one small success, people get on board with it. Rob Collie (00:50:53): Yeah. I mean, it's everywhere in humanity, right? We're fundamentally pattern-matchers. And if you haven't given a population any positive patterns to match, no examples, it's amazing how stuck you can be. But one success, right? We have an infinite percentage increase in our population of successful examples. We went from zero to one. Like you say, the dog knows that there's five treats in your hand, right? We're not dumb. If there can be one success, there can be more. But if there's zero successes, that's powerful. Jen Stirrup (00:51:25): Yeah. And I don't know if you see this problem, but it's something I see a lot is people think maybe Tableau or Power BI, they buy this, it's going to give them a success. And it does, until the data starts to get hard. And then they either have to scale up in DAX, which is fine, but sometimes they don't have room or bandwidth to do that, so they get almost a bit depleted because they realize, actually, data's hard. We've never really nailed data as the human race. Rob Collie (00:51:55): It's always hard. Unfortunately, to sell software, to a certain extent, you have to sell the lie. If you're a software vendor, you have to se... Rob Collie (00:52:03): ... have to sell the lie. If you're a software vendor, you have to sell the lie that this tool is the magic fix, that it's going to make data easy. And I do actually, in a weird way, I kind of like blame Tableau for making this worse, but while at the same time, being very grateful to Tableau that they made interactivity a must have. Jen Stirrup (00:52:24): Yes. Rob Collie (00:52:24): I think they were actually, more than any one entity, responsible for us breaking this notion that reporting services and similar tools were it. Jen Stirrup (00:52:34): Yes. I remember the first time I saw Tableau. I had been hired as a developer for SQL server [inaudible 00:52:40] services and my boss said, "I think this is a future, this stuff, Tableau. Here's the download link. Tell me what you think". 10 minutes I was completely hooked and it changed my career because otherwise I would have probably stayed in the database reporting world and I suddenly thought there's a whole world here with stuff. So I love what they did. I really, really think it was groundbreaking. Thomas Larock (00:53:01): At what point did a report just become synonymous with the word "Tableau"? I have a limited experience and maybe it's an outlier, but to me, I always hear people say, "I'm going to run a Tableau report". I mean, it's just a report. I worked with Crystal and BusinessObjects, same thing I guess. And do people always qualify the type of report they're running as if that makes it more special or do people always say, "I'm going to run a power BI report"? Why is it always a qualifier? And in my case, I always hear, "I'm going to go run the Tableau report". I'm like, "It's just a report. It doesn't really matter what's the software that's doing it. It's just data. It's just a report". But I hear that a lot. I just figured I'd ask you two if that's the same experience? Jen Stirrup (00:53:43): Yeah. I think I'm hearing that more and more and I actually think it's almost going the other way, where people are only wanting interactivity, they're only wanting things they can click and tick. And what they're not wanting as much is a SQL server, mahogany red, forest green, slate gray, corporate template, because that was the what, about four templates you got with reporting services. So I see that more and more apart from the finance world. They still very much want it. But what I'd still see is a big need for tables. People still want to export to Excel. And I think it was you, Rob, who actually said this years ago, that the third most common button in Tableau is something like "export to CSV". Thomas Larock (00:54:26): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:54:28): Yeah. The third most common button in any data application is "export to Excel". Thomas Larock (00:54:32): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:54:32): Behind "OK" and "Cancel". That's the joke. And what it is, is an acknowledgement of, again, the human plane that this report, this app, does not meet your needs. It's in a way like if you could instrument your organization and find all of the "export to Excel" buttons that are being worn out, those are like the hotspots for you to go and improve things. That button being, click, click, click, click, click, click, click all day long, is telling you that there's a tremendous opportunity for improvement here, both in terms of time saved, but also quality of result. Quality of question that's even formulated. You mentioned questions earlier, asking good questions. Here's the problem. The ability to execute on answers and the inability to execute on answers, the friction, the inertia, that works its way upstream into the question- forming muscles. The question-forming muscles atrophy to a level where they fit the ability to execute on the questions. And so when you suddenly expand the ability to answer questions, it actually... You've got to go back and re-expand your question-asking muscles to be more aggressive, to be more ambitious. Jen Stirrup (00:55:52): Yes. I think sometimes the data-driven piece is trying to, in a way, subtly bring that back into play. It's okay to admit that we don't have all the answers and it's okay to admit that we need to ask questions. I think there should be more of that. Something that, certainly earlier in my career, asking questions was discouraged. It meant you didn't know it. It meant that you were vulnerable in some way. And I think as an industry, we need to encourage people to ask questions. I think with the diversity inclusion piece, try and make a conscious effort. If I think someone in the meeting is being quiet, regardless of the background, but at least I'm trying to watch out for that now, whereas maybe 20 years ago, I wouldn't have realized it, but sometimes people do sometimes need that extra help to speak up and speak out. They often don't know what to say or how to beckon to a meeting and say something. It's quite difficult. Jen Stirrup (00:56:51): Especially if you were being measured in your performance. I think sometimes people see things very confidently. And actually when you start to pick it apart, you think, "I need to as a person, stop believe in confidence and maybe thinking is that right, not how it's being delivered". I think they're stolen for quiet voices, hopefully like mine, who are trying to say things but I do find that harder to get heard. I think it's good that you do podcasts like this because I think it gives people the opportunity to talk about different ideas and how they impact people because that is important. There's loads of vendor podcasts that will talk all about the technology but we need to know better how to apply it. Rob Collie (00:57:31): When we were talking about starting this show, it was pretty clear we did not need another tech show. People who are working in tech, but are human beings, like yourself, and who are focused on helping other human beings. We weren't sure if it was going to work. It was one of those like, "Are people are going to listen?". Thomas Larock (00:57:45): We're still not sure. Rob Collie (00:57:50): We knew that we were going to like it, but yeah, it's building an audience. I've enjoyed it. And plus, it's an excuse to get together and talk with people such as yourself. If we just pinged you out of the blue and said, "Hey, you want to get on a two hour Zoom call with us and just catch up?". That's going to get pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed, but, "Oh a podcast? Oh, well, yeah. That's exciting". Jen Stirrup (00:58:14): Yeah. I know what you mean. It's good to, I think, to try and translate data and technology into something people feel is within their reach because I think there is still an element of people who are almost being scared of working with data. I deal a lot with CTO's, CIO. I was busy CTO and some way reports sent to their CFO because their CFO is over all of it, keeping costs down. The CTO has to work really hard to justify them. And I think what they want, ultimately, is not to appear stupid or not to know what they're doing. So some of these leadership conversations I have are about people saying, "Explain these terms to me. I don't know what a data lakehouse is. Do I need one? How's it different from a data lake? What about the warehouse? Is that going away or is that rebranded as well?". I know Microsoft talked about data hubs recently. If you're a data vault person, a data hub means something quite specific. It's been a term around for 30 years to mean something else. But I think sometimes people get very confused with the terms. Rob Collie (00:59:16): Like for example, the noun "dashboard" in Power BI, right? It's just a head clutching frustrating mistake. I mean a Power BI report is probably best described as a dashboard. The multi-visual, interactive experience, lowercase D dashboard is what I always want to describe it as, but no, no, no, no. We repurposed that word. Jen Stirrup (00:59:41): I know, and customers don't always understand it because they say, "Well, actually my report looks exactly like the dashboard. So I don't understand this publishing thing". So I have to try and explain that actually, we can take data from [inaudible 00:59:55] here and you can extra things. I'm interested to know actually, how much Power BI users spend actually making dashboards as opposed to making reports. And I just wish we'd ever the answer to that because sometimes you just want to get reports that they can run in their desktop or not always sometimes use a browser and just have the reports and have them open on the actual dashboards higher up. So I feel that's a bit of a separation that maybe wasn't required to have. But Tableau does something similar, doesn't it in a way? But I think with Tableau, it's a bit more clear that you're putting these things together. Rob Collie (01:00:29): Well, we were talking at the beginning about the importance of comprehensive training sets. Well, let me just tell you, we only need one data point here. I, as a Power BI user, have never once created an actual Power BI dashboard. So let's just conclude that that's it. No one uses them. But yeah, I've never felt compelled to need one. I tend to put together, what I need in the report. Jen Stirrup (01:00:56): Yes. And that's what I do because I'm trying to get the customer from A to B. I'm trying to do it quickly and I can see that they've reached on that tool ceiling of where they want to go and then they've got this other thing they need to do and they don't understand why. So sometimes it's a battle I just don't have because I just think, "You know what? These often been through so much to get to that point in the first place, cleaning data and getting access to the data and all the things that are hard and even understanding what they want in the first place". I try and work out where the fatigue is. Rob Collie (01:01:28): Yeah. I think there's a certain hubris just in the idea that a user will go around and then harvest little chunks out of other reports and take them completely out of context. Anyway, we didn't come here for cynicism today but- Jen Stirrup (01:01:43): I have plenty of that. Rob Collie (01:01:43): But it's still there. We can't really help it. So it's come up a few times and I want to make sure we actually make some time to talk about it specifically. So you've mentioned a number of times, inclusion and diversity and already a few anecdotes within your own professional organization, within your own firm. Outside of your own data relish organization, what are you up to in this space around the diversity and inclusion as a cause? You're very active in the community in this regard. Can you summarize for us what all you're up to? Jen Stirrup (01:02:15): Yeah. I've started there to talk more about intersectiona

SQL Server object disks on Windows Server can be expanded at any time with no issues, but Linux doesn't quite work like that by default. In a situation where you run out of space, you're out of luck, unless you know some secrets about Linux. The mysterious Linux Logical Volume Manager must be used before you put anything on the disks to properly set up the disks so you can expand them in a pinch in the future. In this episode with David Klee, we're going to walk through how to use this service to set up your object volumes the right way from the beginning and show you how to expand the disks with no outage. Break out your pocket protectors and come learn with someone who was compiling Linux kernels while in elementary school! [00:37] About David Klee[01:18] Challenge overview[02:14] Linux Logical Volume Manager [03:00] Demo: Logical Volume Manager Setup[09:22] Who should this set up[10:05] Getting started Resources:$2 Million Reasons to Start with TuningDavid Klee's websiteHeraflux Data Platform ConsultantsSQLlibrium Training About David Klee:David Klee is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and VMware vExpert with a lifelong passion for technology. David spends his days focusing on the convergence of data and infrastructure as the Founder of Heraflux Technologies and SQLibrium Education. His areas of expertise are cloud, virtualization, performance tuning, and business continuity. David speaks at a number of national and regional technology-related events, including the PASS Summit, VMware VMworld, SQLBits, SQL Saturday events, and many SQL Server User Groups. About MVPs:Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs, are technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community. They are always on the "bleeding edge" and have an unstoppable urge to get their hands on new, exciting technologies. They have very deep knowledge of Microsoft products and services, while also being able to bring together diverse platforms, products and solutions, to solve real world problems. MVPs make up a global community of over 4,000 technical experts and community leaders across 90 countries/regions and are driven by their passion, community spirit, and quest for knowledge. Above all and in addition to their amazing technical abilities, MVPs are always willing to help others - that's what sets them apart. Learn more: https://aka.ms/mvpprogram

SQL Server object disks on Windows Server can be expanded at any time with no issues, but Linux doesn't quite work like that by default. In a situation where you run out of space, you're out of luck, unless you know some secrets about Linux. The mysterious Linux Logical Volume Manager must be used before you put anything on the disks to properly set up the disks so you can expand them in a pinch in the future. In this episode with David Klee, we're going to walk through how to use this service to set up your object volumes the right way from the beginning and show you how to expand the disks with no outage. Break out your pocket protectors and come learn with someone who was compiling Linux kernels while in elementary school! [00:37] About David Klee[01:18] Challenge overview[02:14] Linux Logical Volume Manager [03:00] Demo: Logical Volume Manager Setup[09:22] Who should this set up[10:05] Getting started Resources:$2 Million Reasons to Start with TuningDavid Klee's websiteHeraflux Data Platform ConsultantsSQLlibrium Training About David Klee:David Klee is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and VMware vExpert with a lifelong passion for technology. David spends his days focusing on the convergence of data and infrastructure as the Founder of Heraflux Technologies and SQLibrium Education. His areas of expertise are cloud, virtualization, performance tuning, and business continuity. David speaks at a number of national and regional technology-related events, including the PASS Summit, VMware VMworld, SQLBits, SQL Saturday events, and many SQL Server User Groups. About MVPs:Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs, are technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community. They are always on the "bleeding edge" and have an unstoppable urge to get their hands on new, exciting technologies. They have very deep knowledge of Microsoft products and services, while also being able to bring together diverse platforms, products and solutions, to solve real world problems. MVPs make up a global community of over 4,000 technical experts and community leaders across 90 countries/regions and are driven by their passion, community spirit, and quest for knowledge. Above all and in addition to their amazing technical abilities, MVPs are always willing to help others - that's what sets them apart. Learn more: https://aka.ms/mvpprogram

Geeks on Screens with Coffee Episode 46 - Big DAATTAA Clusters vs SQL Pooooooowl Look who I bumped into at the water cooler/tea room/corridor? It's only Bob Ward (@BobWardMS ) i thought I would get Bob Ward on to talk about SQL Server Big Data Clusters, is it going to put me out of a job? Bio: Bob Ward is a Principal Architect for the Microsoft Azure Data SQL Server team, which owns the development for all SQL Server versions. Bob has worked for Microsoft for 26+ years on every version of SQL Server shipped from OS/2 1.1 to SQL Server 2019 including Azure. Bob is a well-known speaker on SQL Server, often presenting talks on new releases, internals, and performance at events such as PASS Summit, SQLBits, SQLIntersection, Microsoft Inspire, and Microsoft Ignite. You can follow him at @bobwardms or linkedin.com/in/bobwardms. Bob is the author of the books Pro SQL Server on Linux and SQL Server 2019 Revealed available from Apress Media. I must dash, the kettle has almost boiled. Love you!

Within Azure SQL maintenance tasks such as backups and integrity checks are handled for you, and while you may be able to get away with automatic updates keeping your statistics up-to-date, sometimes it's not enough. Proactively managing statistics in Azure SQL requires some extra steps, and in this Data Exposed episode with Erin Stellato, we'll step through how you can schedule and automate regular updates to statistics. [01:15] Overview of statistics[02:00] Schedule & automate updates to statistics demo[07:02] Runbooks Resources:SQL Server Maintenance SolutionSQL Server Index and Statistics MaintenanceAbout Erin Stellato:Erin Stellato is a Data Platform MVP and lives outside Cleveland, OH. She has almost 20 years of technology experience and has worked with SQL Server since 2003. Her areas of interest include performance tuning, Query Store, Extended Events, and helping accidental/involuntary DBAs understand how SQL Server works. Erin is an active member of the SQL Server community, has volunteered for PASS at the local and national level, and is a regular speaker at conferences including the PASS Summit, SQLIntersection, and SQLBits. Outside of time with family and friends, she enjoys running, spinning, movies, and all things chocolate.About MVPs:Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs, are technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community. They are always on the "bleeding edge" and have an unstoppable urge to get their hands on new, exciting technologies. They have very deep knowledge of Microsoft products and services, while also being able to bring together diverse platforms, products and solutions, to solve real world problems. MVPs make up a global community of over 4,000 technical experts and community leaders across 90 countries/regions and are driven by their passion, community spirit, and quest for knowledge. Above all and in addition to their amazing technical abilities, MVPs are always willing to help others - that's what sets them apart. Learn more: https://aka.ms/mvpprogram

Geeks on Screens with Coffee Episode 3 - Chucklevision This is the 3rd in my series of unsocial experiments. I had a good hour to setup the stream, I got the desk setup, green screen setup, lightning setup.... but I only streamed to youtubes and didnt turn on facebooks/twitch and linkedin... WHAT A MUPPET!!! We chat about life, eating meals over zoom and not boring non technical people (or humans) with geek chat... I tiny bit about SQLBits and I show off part of my costume for SQLBits... Her tips on working from home, they are very useful. (I just think we need to take turns in having Jonathan) I might link to that bit directly, if I can work out how to do it. Here is the Azure bootcamp link : https://globalazure.net/ and Data in Devon : https://sqlsouthwest.co.uk/ You know what, I think this cheese question has legs.... Any way, you can find her on twitter. @Mrs_Fatherjack https://twitter.com/Mrs_Fatherjack I must dash, the kettle has almost boiled. Love you! Check out the podcast version on https://anchor.fm/geeksonscreenswithcoffee (Or find it in your favourite podcast app) This content is mostly my own, but I have to honour the podfather Richard K Herring, it's inspired by and dedicated to his memory.... (Okay he's not dead, but we will be dead one day). Check out Richard's work, become a monthly badger. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm_RKDdhebIXYK615k55hGg https://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/richard_herring_lst_podcast/ Podcast links: Anchor - https://anchor.fm/geeksonscreenswithcoffee/episodes/Geeks-on-Screens-with-Coffee-with-the-amazing-Ian-Pike-eckpqp Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/geeks-on-screens-with-coffee/id1507936246 Breaker - https://www.breaker.audio/geeks-on-screens-with-coffee Google - https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xYzYxMzQ5NC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw== Overcast - https://overcast.fm/itunes1507936246/geeks-on-screens-with-coffee Pocket Casts - https://pca.st/o52kn250 Radio Public - https://radiopublic.com/geeks-on-screens-with-coffee-6r0wON Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1Bei0TJQXGy6HxxMlPzvsS

Amit R S Bansal is a SQL Server Specialist at SQLMaestros (brand of eDominer Systems). He leads the SQL and BI practice with a much-focused team providing consulting, training and content development services to more than 160+ SQL customers globally. He frequently speaks at international conferences including Data Platform Summit (India), MS Ignite (US), SQLBits (UK), PASS Summit (US) & SQL Saturday events across the globe. Amit is also honoured with Microsoft Regional Director status, MVP award and Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) of SQL Server credential. Amit has been working with SQL Server since 1999 and has been part of countless mission-critical SQL deployments. Performance Tuning in SQL Server is his core area of expertise.This talk has taken place during SQLBits 2019 in Manchester (UK) on 1st March 2019 (Friday).Interviewers: Kamil Nowinski (T), Michal Sadowski (T)

Amit R S Bansal is a SQL Server Specialist at SQLMaestros (brand of eDominer Systems). He leads the SQL and BI practice with a much-focused team providing consulting, training and content development services to more than 160+ SQL customers globally. He frequently speaks at international conferences including Data Platform Summit (India), MS Ignite (US), SQLBits (UK), PASS Summit (US) & SQL Saturday events across the globe. Amit is also honoured with Microsoft Regional Director status, MVP award and Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) of SQL Server credential. Amit has been working with SQL Server since 1999 and has been part of countless mission-critical SQL deployments. Performance Tuning in SQL Server is his core area of expertise.This talk has taken place during SQLBits 2019 in Manchester (UK) on 1st March 2019 (Friday).Interviewers: Kamil Nowinski (T), Michal Sadowski (T)

How much extra commitment helps at work and what else?In what position did Patrick no good and why he was sweating?What is tremendously difficult for Patrick, but is child's play for Adam?Who is Adam's mentor and how has he started speaking on workshops?In this episode is predominantly about commitment, youtube, extra efforts, moments of discouragement, how to do things well and how to start.There will be a few things about Star Wars, Power BI and Microsoft teams, Kerberos and DTS too.Guy in a Cube is all about helping you master business analytics on the Microsoft Business analytics stack to allow you to drive business growth.They are just two guys that do the work.Adam & Patrick look at how to leverage Microsoft Business Analytics to allow you to gain knowledge that is needed to shape the data your business cares about. This includes Power BI, Reporting Services, Analysis Services and Excel. If you work with our business analytics products or services, be sure to subscribe and join in the discussion with their weekly content on YouTube channel.Adam Saxton and Patrick LeBlanc are Microsoft employees.This talk has taken place during SQLBits 2019 in Manchester (UK) on 28th February 2019 (Thursday).Interviewers: Prathy Kamasani (T), Kamil Nowinski (T).

How much extra commitment helps at work and what else?In what position did Patrick no good and why he was sweating?What is tremendously difficult for Patrick, but is child's play for Adam?Who is Adam's mentor and how has he started speaking on workshops?In this episode is predominantly about commitment, youtube, extra efforts, moments of discouragement, how to do things well and how to start.There will be a few things about Star Wars, Power BI and Microsoft teams, Kerberos and DTS too.Guy in a Cube is all about helping you master business analytics on the Microsoft Business analytics stack to allow you to drive business growth.They are just two guys that do the work.Adam & Patrick look at how to leverage Microsoft Business Analytics to allow you to gain knowledge that is needed to shape the data your business cares about. This includes Power BI, Reporting Services, Analysis Services and Excel. If you work with our business analytics products or services, be sure to subscribe and join in the discussion with their weekly content on YouTube channel.Adam Saxton and Patrick LeBlanc are Microsoft employees.This talk has taken place during SQLBits 2019 in Manchester (UK) on 28th February 2019 (Thursday).Interviewers: Prathy Kamasani (T), Kamil Nowinski (T).

Do you want to know why actually YouTube?What tool Adam does use for post-production?Why the very first movies were like "awful"?Who has been scared to death and why?What were the circumstances of joining Patrick to the team and what's fun fact related to his name?And finally: how did the YOOO become a hallmark - get know the entire story about it.Guy in a Cube is all about helping you master business analytics on the Microsoft Business analytics stack to allow you to drive business growth.They are just two guys that do the work.Adam & Patrick look at how to leverage Microsoft Business Analytics to allow you to gain knowledge that is needed to shape the data your business cares about. This includes Power BI, Reporting Services, Analysis Services and Excel. If you work with our business analytics products or services, be sure to subscribe and join in the discussion with their weekly content on YouTube channel.Adam Saxton and Patrick LeBlanc are Microsoft employees.This talk has taken place during SQLBits 2019 in Manchester (UK) on 28th February 2019 (Thursday).Interviewers: Prathy Kamasani (T), Kamil Nowinski (T).

Do you want to know why actually YouTube?What tool Adam does use for post-production?Why the very first movies were like "awful"?Who has been scared to death and why?What were the circumstances of joining Patrick to the team and what's fun fact related to his name?And finally: how did the YOOO become a hallmark - get know the entire story about it.Guy in a Cube is all about helping you master business analytics on the Microsoft Business analytics stack to allow you to drive business growth.They are just two guys that do the work.Adam & Patrick look at how to leverage Microsoft Business Analytics to allow you to gain knowledge that is needed to shape the data your business cares about. This includes Power BI, Reporting Services, Analysis Services and Excel. If you work with our business analytics products or services, be sure to subscribe and join in the discussion with their weekly content on YouTube channel.Adam Saxton and Patrick LeBlanc are Microsoft employees.This talk has taken place during SQLBits 2019 in Manchester (UK) on 28th February 2019 (Thursday).Interviewers: Prathy Kamasani (T), Kamil Nowinski (T).

SQL Pub Quiz The Keynote How to Make Sure Your SSIS Packages Will Never Fail by Guy Glantser Benchmarking in the Cloud by Gianluca Sartori Common Troubleshooting Techniques for AGs and FCIs by Allan Hirt Failover Detection Utility – Availability Group Failover Analysis Made Easy What's New - Query Performance Insights by Pedro Lopes Top 5 Tips to Keep Always On AGs Humming and Users Happy by Matt Gordon The SQLBits Party Patterns and Best Practices in SSIS by Richard Munn Build Hybrid Data Platform with Azure SQL Database and SQL Server by Kevin Farlee SQL Leadership Q&A by Microsoft PowerShell Medley by Jonathan Allen Validate Your SQL Server Estate with Ease Using dbachecks by Rob Sewell Select Stars: A SQL DBAs Introduction to Azure Cosmos DB by Bob Pusateri

Do you know which conference was inspired by the SQLBits conference?How to make a success as a team at work?What’s important in your public speaking?CTO at Clouds On Mars, former Microsoft employee as Data Insights Product Manager for Poland. In 2007 Pawel started Polish SQL Server User Group (PLSSUG), currently known as Data Community Poland, an official PASS Chapter in Poland. Pawel has been a speaker at many conferences in Poland and worldwide (e.g. SQLDay, SQLSaturday, European PASS Conference). Six times Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). Father of three. Avid runner.This talk has taken place during SQL Saturday #824 in Krakow (Poland) on 9th February 2019 (Saturday).Interviewers: Kamil Nowinski, Michał Sadowski.

Do you know which conference was inspired by the SQLBits conference?How to make a success as a team at work?What’s important in your public speaking?CTO at Clouds On Mars, former Microsoft employee as Data Insights Product Manager for Poland. In 2007 Pawel started Polish SQL Server User Group (PLSSUG), currently known as Data Community Poland, an official PASS Chapter in Poland. Pawel has been a speaker at many conferences in Poland and worldwide (e.g. SQLDay, SQLSaturday, European PASS Conference). Six times Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). Father of three. Avid runner.This talk has taken place during SQL Saturday #824 in Krakow (Poland) on 9th February 2019 (Saturday).Interviewers: Kamil Nowinski, Michał Sadowski.

In this episode we talk new beta features from SQL Server 2019 CTP 2.3, thoughts from SQLBits, news from Intune and ConfigMgr as well as a very strange SQL Server behavior! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this show, we talk about: SQLBits 2019 Guy is Bragging about Tel Aviv Marathon Microsoft Helps You Transform Your 2008 Server Applications with Azure MongoDB Database Skills - Sia Cheap Thrills Parody Matan is Bragging about Azure Data Explorer SQL Saturday Israel 2019 Beware of MIN/MAX Aggregates Against Partitioned Tables

Which unusual mean of transportation Alex use from time to time? Why monitoring of data quality does matter and what is the very efficient contrary of SCD in SSIS in BI loading process? Which skill is important if you want to jump into the IT market?Find out the answers on these questions and much, much more.Alex Whittles is the owner and principle consultant at Purple Frog, a SQL Server Business Intelligence consultancy in the UK with multinational clients in a variety of sectors. He specialises in all aspects of dimensional data modelling, data warehousing, ETL and cubes using the SQL Server stack.Alex has an MSc (Master of Science) in Business Intelligence, is a chartered engineer, and a member of Mensa. Community leadership includes being on the SQLBits committee, Director of SQL Relay, founder and leader of the Birmingham Data Platform user group.Alex is also a regular speaker at many SQL Server events around the world including SQL Relay, SQLBits, SQL Saturdays, 24 HOP and the PASS Summit.This talk has taken place during Data Relay (formerly SQL Relay) conference in Reading (UK), on 11th October 2018 (Thursday). Interviewers: Kamil Nowinski.

Which unusual mean of transportation Alex use from time to time? Why monitoring of data quality does matter and what is the very efficient contrary of SCD in SSIS in BI loading process? Which skill is important if you want to jump into the IT market?Find out the answers on these questions and much, much more.Alex Whittles is the owner and principle consultant at Purple Frog, a SQL Server Business Intelligence consultancy in the UK with multinational clients in a variety of sectors. He specialises in all aspects of dimensional data modelling, data warehousing, ETL and cubes using the SQL Server stack.Alex has an MSc (Master of Science) in Business Intelligence, is a chartered engineer, and a member of Mensa. Community leadership includes being on the SQLBits committee, Director of SQL Relay, founder and leader of the Birmingham Data Platform user group.Alex is also a regular speaker at many SQL Server events around the world including SQL Relay, SQLBits, SQL Saturdays, 24 HOP and the PASS Summit.This talk has taken place during Data Relay (formerly SQL Relay) conference in Reading (UK), on 11th October 2018 (Thursday). Interviewers: Kamil Nowinski.

How did Chris Webb start working with SSAS? What is the future of SSAS On-Premise? How often the Direct Query has chance to being used in Power BI? What was the story of the beginnings of Chris' consultancy company?Check these things and much more in this episode. Chris Webb is independent consultant specialising in Analysis Services, MDX, Power Pivot, DAX, Power Query and Power BI in general. He has been blogging about Microsoft BI for over 10 years, and racked up over 1000 posts on his blog! Also he speaks at a number of conferences including SQLBits, the PASS Summit, the PASS BA Conference, SQL Saturdays and user groups.The author of "Power Query for Power BI and Excel", a co-author of few other books and also he co-authored the white paper "Planning a Power BI Enterprise Deployment" for Microsoft.This talk has taken place during Data Relay (formerly SQL Relay) conference in Birmingham (UK), on 10th October 2018 (Wednesday).Interviewers: Kamil Nowinski.

How did Chris Webb start working with SSAS? What is the future of SSAS On-Premise? How often the Direct Query has chance to being used in Power BI? What was the story of the beginnings of Chris' consultancy company?Check these things and much more in this episode. Chris Webb is independent consultant specialising in Analysis Services, MDX, Power Pivot, DAX, Power Query and Power BI in general. He has been blogging about Microsoft BI for over 10 years, and racked up over 1000 posts on his blog! Also he speaks at a number of conferences including SQLBits, the PASS Summit, the PASS BA Conference, SQL Saturdays and user groups.The author of "Power Query for Power BI and Excel", a co-author of few other books and also he co-authored the white paper "Planning a Power BI Enterprise Deployment" for Microsoft.This talk has taken place during Data Relay (formerly SQL Relay) conference in Birmingham (UK), on 10th October 2018 (Wednesday).Interviewers: Kamil Nowinski.

Itzik Ben-Gan is a Mentor and Co-Founder of SolidQ. A Microsoft Data Platform MVP (Most Valuable Professional) since 1999, Itzik has delivered numerous training events around the world focused on T-SQL Querying, Query Tuning and Programming. Itzik is the author of several books including Microsoft SQL Server High-Performance T-SQL Using Window Functions, T-SQL Fundamentals and T-SQL Querying. He has written articles for SQL Server Pro, SolidQ Journal and MSDN. Itzik's speaking activities include SQLPASS, SQLBits, SQLTeach and various user groups around the world. Itzik is the author of SolidQ's Advanced T-SQL Querying, Programming and Tuning and T-SQL Fundamentals courses along with being a primary resource within the company for their T-SQL related activities.This talk has taken place during SQLDay conference in Wroclaw (Poland), on 16th May 2018 (Wednesday).Interviewers: Kamil Nowinski & Damian Widera.Do you know what Itzik does like doing the most? What kind of thing is important when writing a book? Why worth to be at conferences and also when he has started working with Microsoft SQL Server databases? Find out more in this talk.

Itzik Ben-Gan is a Mentor and Co-Founder of SolidQ. A Microsoft Data Platform MVP (Most Valuable Professional) since 1999, Itzik has delivered numerous training events around the world focused on T-SQL Querying, Query Tuning and Programming. Itzik is the author of several books including Microsoft SQL Server High-Performance T-SQL Using Window Functions, T-SQL Fundamentals and T-SQL Querying. He has written articles for SQL Server Pro, SolidQ Journal and MSDN. Itzik's speaking activities include SQLPASS, SQLBits, SQLTeach and various user groups around the world. Itzik is the author of SolidQ's Advanced T-SQL Querying, Programming and Tuning and T-SQL Fundamentals courses along with being a primary resource within the company for their T-SQL related activities.This talk has taken place during SQLDay conference in Wroclaw (Poland), on 16th May 2018 (Wednesday).Interviewers: Kamil Nowinski & Damian Widera.Do you know what Itzik does like doing the most? What kind of thing is important when writing a book? Why worth to be at conferences and also when he has started working with Microsoft SQL Server databases? Find out more in this talk.

James Rowland-Jones is a Principal Program Manager for Microsoft. He is passionate about delivering highly scalable solutions that are creative, simple and elegant in their design. James specializes in big data warehouse solutions such as Microsoft Analytics Platform System (APS), Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Hadoop ecosystems.James is a keen advocate for the SQL Server community; both internationally and in the UK. He has previously served on the Board of Directors for PASS and helped organise SQLBits. James was awarded Microsoft’s MVP accreditation from 2008 - 2015 for his services to the community.This talk has taken place during SQL Bits conference in London, on 23rd February 2018 (Friday).Interviewers: Kamil Nowinski & Damian Widera (remotely).Do you want to know why James has moved to Seattle and started working for Microsoft?How he started his career in IT and what is important in your work? Which big conference is his baby and how much his community involvement has affected his professional life?You will find out all the answers in the following talk.

James Rowland-Jones is a Principal Program Manager for Microsoft. He is passionate about delivering highly scalable solutions that are creative, simple and elegant in their design. James specializes in big data warehouse solutions such as Microsoft Analytics Platform System (APS), Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Hadoop ecosystems.James is a keen advocate for the SQL Server community; both internationally and in the UK. He has previously served on the Board of Directors for PASS and helped organise SQLBits. James was awarded Microsoft’s MVP accreditation from 2008 - 2015 for his services to the community.This talk has taken place during SQL Bits conference in London, on 23rd February 2018 (Friday).Interviewers: Kamil Nowinski & Damian Widera (remotely).Do you want to know why James has moved to Seattle and started working for Microsoft?How he started his career in IT and what is important in your work? Which big conference is his baby and how much his community involvement has affected his professional life?You will find out all the answers in the following talk.

Rob is a SQL Server DBA with a passion for Powershell, Azure, Automation & SQL. He is an MVP & an officer for the PASS PowerShell VG & has spoken at, organised & volunteered at many events. He is a member of the committee that organises SQL Saturday Exeter, PSDayUK & also the European PowerShell Conference. He is a proud supporter of the SQL & PowerShell communities.He relishes sharing & learning & can be found doing both via Twitter & his blog. He spends most of his time looking at a screen & loves to solve problems. He knows that looking at a screen so much is bad for him because his wife tells him so. Thus, you can find him on the cricket field in the summer or flying a drone in the winter.He has a fabulous beard!This talk has taken place during SQL Bits conference in London, on 22nd February 2018 (Thursday).Interviewers: Kamil Nowiński & Hubert KobierzewskiWhat is his recipe for having a good speech? Where is a passion in his life? Check out which kind of toys Rob doesn't take to abroad and why. Check that and also, why we had a lot of background noises during this chat.

Rob is a SQL Server DBA with a passion for Powershell, Azure, Automation & SQL. He is an MVP & an officer for the PASS PowerShell VG & has spoken at, organised & volunteered at many events. He is a member of the committee that organises SQL Saturday Exeter, PSDayUK & also the European PowerShell Conference. He is a proud supporter of the SQL & PowerShell communities.He relishes sharing & learning & can be found doing both via Twitter & his blog. He spends most of his time looking at a screen & loves to solve problems. He knows that looking at a screen so much is bad for him because his wife tells him so. Thus, you can find him on the cricket field in the summer or flying a drone in the winter.He has a fabulous beard!This talk has taken place during SQL Bits conference in London, on 22nd February 2018 (Thursday).Interviewers: Kamil Nowiński & Hubert KobierzewskiWhat is his recipe for having a good speech? Where is a passion in his life? Check out which kind of toys Rob doesn't take to abroad and why. Check that and also, why we had a lot of background noises during this chat.

In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Chris Webb, a well respected independent consultant based in the UK. He specialises in Analysis Services, MDX, Power Pivot, DAX, Power Query and Power BI in general. He is a widely read blogger having authored more than a 1000 posts over the last 10 years. Chris regularly speaks at leading industry conferences and events including SQLBits, the PASS Summit, the PASS BA Conference, SQL Saturdays and user groups. His blog can be found at blog.crossjoin.co.uk.

Bob Ward is a Principal Architect for the Microsoft Data Group (Tiger Team) which owns the development and servicing for all SQL Server versions. Bob has worked for Microsoft for 24 years supporting and speaking on every version of SQL Server shipped from OS/2 1.1 to SQL Server 2016. He has worked in customer support as a principal escalation engineer and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) interacting with some of the largest SQL Server deployments in the world. Bob is a well-known speaker on SQL Server often presenting talks on internals and troubleshooting at events such as SQL PASS Summit, SQLBits, SQLIntersection, and Microsoft Ignite. This talk has taken place during PASS Summit in Seattle, WA, on 2nd November 2017 (Thursday).Do you want to find out what is the next goal of Tiger Team for SQL Server? What was his first database he worked with and how SQL's world looked like before DMV appeared? What does Bob have to do with the city of Łódź and why he does like to return to Poland?Listen to this episode to find out all answers and more.

Bob Ward is a Principal Architect for the Microsoft Data Group (Tiger Team) which owns the development and servicing for all SQL Server versions. Bob has worked for Microsoft for 24 years supporting and speaking on every version of SQL Server shipped from OS/2 1.1 to SQL Server 2016. He has worked in customer support as a principal escalation engineer and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) interacting with some of the largest SQL Server deployments in the world. Bob is a well-known speaker on SQL Server often presenting talks on internals and troubleshooting at events such as SQL PASS Summit, SQLBits, SQLIntersection, and Microsoft Ignite. This talk has taken place during PASS Summit in Seattle, WA, on 2nd November 2017 (Thursday).Do you want to find out what is the next goal of Tiger Team for SQL Server? What was his first database he worked with and how SQL's world looked like before DMV appeared? What does Bob have to do with the city of Łódź and why he does like to return to Poland?Listen to this episode to find out all answers and more.

In this show, we talk about: External deadlines The RS.EXE utility and what it is used for Why you shouldn't use Task Manager to check how much memory SQL Server consumes The Lock Pages in Memory option Stored procedure execution options under Transactional Replication Instant File Initialization checkbox in SQL Server 2016 setup SQL Server Agent job history Fixed server roles and how to correctly configure logins in SQL Server  Items mentioned in the show: Scott Murray - SQL Server Reporting Services RS.EXE Utility Gail Shaw - Stop using Task Manager to check SQL’s memory usage! SQLSaturday Israel Guy's Big Data seminar at SQLBits

We start to warm up the engines towards PASS Summit, which will take place in Seattle at the end of October. Before the summit, we will host a few speakers to talk about their sessions and share some of the stuff you can expect to hear. In this show, we have Bradley Ball (blog | twitter), Data Platform Management Lead at Pragmatic Works. Among other topics, we talk to Bradley about: What you can expect to hear in Bradley’s PASS Summit precon and session Data architecture What is Microsoft APS and what’s important when working with it How Azure SQL Datawarehouse took the APS idea a step further Message queuing Bradley’s military career Items mentioned in the show: Bradley’s PASS Summit session: Indexing Internals for Developers and DBAs Bradley’s PASS Summit precon: Optimize “All Data” with a Modern Data Warehouse Solution Jason Strate – sp_IndexAnalysis We also talk about some weird meanings of the acronym “APS”. About Bradley Bradley Ball is a SQL Server MVP with about 15 years of IT experience. Bradley spent 8 years working as a defense contractor for clients such as the U.S. Army and The Executive Office of the President of the United States. He is the data platform management lead with Pragmatic Works and a Microsoft VTSP. He has presented at SQLSaturday, SSUGs, SQLRally, DevConnections, SQLBits, SQL Live 360, and PASS Summit. Bradley can be found blogging at http://www.SQLBalls.com.

On this show, we host Niko Neugebauer, a.k.a “Mr Columnstore”!. On this very fun conversation, we talk to Niko about his various roles and activities, about the improvements Microsoft is making version after version, about SQL Server 2016, and of course, about Columnstore. Among other topics, we cover: What people need to know about Columnstore How to use Columnstore the right way Columnstore and In-Memory OLTP improvements in SQL Server 2016   About Niko Niko Neugebauer is a Software Designer, living in Portugal. In the recent years he’s being fascinated by data (big and small) and its analysis. Niko also likes to write about Clustered Columnstore Indexes and SQL Server. Niko founded and leads the Portuguese SQL Server User Group , and he’s the head of the organization committee for the SQLSaturday events in Portugal. He works as a BI Consultant for OH22, where he creates intelligent solutions for Business with a focus on Data Quality. Niko presents on the topics of Microsoft Data Platform around the world at SQLSaturdays, SQLBits, PASS Summit, User Groups and local events such as Microsoft BI Conference in Portugal. He loves the human-computer interaction, and adores design, but most of all – he enjoys making technology to make life easier, and people more connected with each other. LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/webcaravela Twitter: http://twitter.com/NikoNeugebauer

Show 19 was recorded at the SQLBits conference in London, where we had the pleasure to interview PASS President, Thomas LaRock (blog | twitter). We talk to Tom about his long time volunteering at PASS and about his current role as the president of the organization. Among other topics, we cover: What does it mean to be PASS president? What’s the path to being on the board of directors? How does Tom manage to balance between his job at Solarwinds, his role at PASS and his family? How did 24 Hours of PASS come to the world? What is PASS Summer Camp? And more.. About Tom: Tom LaRock works as a Head Geek for Solarwinds, where his mission is to give IT and Data Professionals longer weekends. He also serves as the president of the PASS board of directors. He’s a Microsoft Certified Master, a SQL Server MVP, a VMWare vExpert, and also a Microsoft Certified Trainer. He has over 15 years experience in the IT industry in various roles such as programmer, developer, analyst, and database administration. Tom is also the author of DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA and have participated in the technical review of several other books.

How secure is your data? Richard talks to Simon Sabin about securing your databases and making sure you know they're actually secure. The conversation digs into various aspects of security including access control, restricting permissions and effective record keeping. Audits don't have to be the enemy, they're also the best proof that you've protected your data, and help point out when you haven't! With all the stories out in the world about data breaches, isn't it a good time to start really thinking about data security? Check out Simon's SQLBits session about not becoming the next Sony in the links below!

Show 12 is here, and yet again we have a mix of various SQL Server topics. Among them are High Availability, development, performance, Columnstore Indexes, Azure, and general news and events. More specifically, we talk about: How log backup and Log Shipping really work What parts of SQL Server Memory does the Max Server Memory option controls Performance differences between Row_Number and CROSS APPLY A disturbing bug with the SYSDATETIME function Clustered Columnstore Indexes, and how Rebuild and Reorganize work on them Azure Storage SQLRally and SQLBits conferences And more.. Items mentioned in the show: Guy Glantser – SQL Server Developer Tips that Can Save Your XXX Matan Yungman – Rebuilding and Reorganizing Clustered Columnstore Indexes Kendra Little – Did You Give SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition Enough Memory? Glenn Berry – Running SQL Server 2014 on an Azure Virtual Machine Mary Jo Foley – Microsoft says Storage service performance update brought Azure down Azure Premium Storage

On our 2nd show, we start by talking about our trips. Matan shares about how great SQLBits was (including the custome party), and Guy talks about WPC (Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference). He explains what WPC is, about the Microsoft vision and its effects on the DBA’s work. We then talk about interesting blog posts, forum discussions, news and incidant we encountered in the last month: The less known but deadly drawback of User Defined Functions The real meaning of Blocking Iterators The real meaning of PAGEIOLATCH waits Perofrmance monitoring and baselines Automatic code And more.. Items mentioned in the show: Adam Machanic – Query Tuning Mastery: The Art and Science of Manhandling Paralellism Paul Randal – Knee-Jerk Wait Statistics : PAGEIOLATCH_SH Eitan Blumin – Let SQL Server Write Code for You Avi Niv – Generating Email Reports using XML Kendal Van Dyke – Troubleshooting Transactional Replication Microsoft’s unified technology event for enterprises Adam Machanic – PASS Summit 2014 and the Contradiction of Long Running Things

SQLBits a Node.js SQL builder that can be used with Postgres or other ANSI SQL databases to help you generate safe parameterized queries and user driven filters