Frontpage Announcements

12 hours of SQL Server 2012 on Feb, 24th

2012-01-30T20:41:00Z

Welcome to the 12 hours of SQL Server 2012, the next release of the Microsoft Cloud-Ready Information Platform that is scheduled to be released in the first half of 2012. During the 12 hours of SQL Server 2012 we'll walk you through all the new innovations we're bringing to the platform, or as we call them "The Fantastic 12 of SQL Server 2012". Together with our 12 speakers, both local and international, we'll deliver 12 webcasts over 12 hours starting 12:12 CET on February 24th (too bad February 12th is a Sunday).

We'll dive into all the new things around Business Intelligence, Tier-1 Performance & Reliability, the Manageability enhancements and of course the Cloud readiness and integration of SQL Server 2012 and SQL Azure.

Make sure to Register Today and explore the next release of SQL Server 2012 together with us.
By following at least 5 sessions, you get a chance to win a Nokia Lumia Windows Phone!

Technet Livemeeting - What’s New in Microsoft SQL Server 2012 for SSIS, Nov 3rd

2011-10-28T18:23:00Z

This session shows off the new features of Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services in SQL Server code-named “Denali”. We will highlight the migration process and the benefits of the new SSIS server architecture. We cover the many improvements made to increase developer productivity,as well as the enhancements to the current configuration,deployment,and management experiences.

Speaker Wesley Backelant

Registration info: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032495615&Culture=nl-BE

TechNet Live Meeting - How many nines do we need? Introducing SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn on Oct 25

2011-10-21T19:15:00Z

With natural disasters like earthquakes and fires in the news so often, and the economy still struggling to stabilize, IT Professionals know that many disasters can shut down a SQL Server.

Microsoft has already implemented a lot of high availability solutions in previous editions of SQL Server, like failover clustering, database mirroring, log shipping,... But,when it comes to high availability, Denali changes the game for SQL Server deployments by introducing SQL Server AlwaysOn. You can increase application availability and get a better return on your hardware investments through a simplified high availability deployment and management experience.

In this session you will see the key capabilities and concepts of Database Availability and Instance Availability, deploying availability groups, configuration Application Failover using a Virtual Name, Initiating a failover to the secondary and possibilities with the active secondary.

Speaker Pieter Vanhove

Tuesday, October 25, 2011 2:00 PM

Level 300

Database Mirroring, Microsoft Clustering and Virtualization - 27/10/2011

2011-09-22T19:10:00Z

Our next session is planned for October, 27th: "Database Mirroring, Microsoft Clustering and Virtualization" with three seasoned SQL Server professionals.
Ludo Bernaerts (Belgacom), Karel Coenye (Kohera) and Peter De Seranno (bPost) will bring you 3 different types of solutions for your HA/DR plan for SQL Server 2008 (R2): Database mirroring, Microsoft clustering and virtualization.

You can expect an overview by technology followed by question time & panel discussion.

About The Speakers
Ludo Bernaerts, Karel Coenye and Peter De Seranno are seasond SQL Server professionals.

Some details will follow.

Agenda:

18:00	Registration
18:30	Session Start
21:00	Session End

Location:
Microsoft België
Corporate Village
Leonardo Da Vincilaan 3
1935 Zaventem

Tel: +32.2.503.31.13
Fax: +32.2.704.35.35

This Event is brought to you by Microsoft

Click here to register

Announcing Belgian SQL Server Days on November 14th and 15th

2011-07-28T13:22:00Z

Yes, you read well, DAYS. SQL Server day has become a household name when you talk about SQL Server technology. And this year we go big, really big. Off course we'd like to welcome you again and hopefully snow won't be a kill-joy on this year's edition. Our team is working really hard on building the agenda so keep an eye on www.sqlserverdays.be for more information.

TechNet Live Meeting : Database Mirroring on SQL Server 2008 R2

2011-06-20T07:07:00Z

Database mirroring was introduced since Microsoft SQL Server 2005. It can be used to design high-availability and high-performance solutions for database redundancy. It is designed to maintain a hot standby server with a transitionally consistent copy of the database. Mirroring is cost-effective, speedy, requires no special hardware, and ensures transactional consistency. This live meeting will describe the database mirroring components, the different modes of database mirroring, failure types, failure scenarios, how it is different from other technologies and client redirection. Also a demo on how to setup databases mirroring with GUI and T-SQL will be shown.

Speaker: Pieter Vanhove (Kohera)

Time: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 2:00 PM

Registration: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032487684&EventCategory=2&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

PowerPivot / BISM and the future of a BI Solution - Slides available

2011-05-24T13:58:00Z

Last thursdya we had an exilirating presentation made by Marco Russo. The slide deck is available for download here.

Community Day 2011

2011-05-19T04:51:00Z

Community Day is back with the Fifth Edition of this annual community event on Microsoft technologies!

14 Microsoft User Groups combine their efforts to organize this unique networking and knowledge sharing

event.

Microsoft Community Day will take place on Thursday 23th June 2011 in Utopolis, Mechelen.

Click here for more details.

MSDN Live Meeting : SQLServer self-service BI on May 10th

2011-05-04T06:19:00Z

In this fast paced and ever changing world, insight in your company’s data becomes more and more crucial to stay ahead.
Power users need this insight in data now, not in the next week or month. Due to this trend, BI has to evolve into a more mobile, quick and personal approach.
Microsoft addresses this need for self-service BI for Power Users with Report Builder 3.0 and PowerPivot.
This session gives you a quick overview of the SQL Server BI stack and introduces you to the concepts of self-service BI.

Speaker : Luc Lemaire

Full details and registration info can be found here.

Next SQLUG.be event - PowerPivot / BISM and the future of a BI Solution - May 19th with Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari

2011-04-18T14:02:00Z

We are very proud to announce our next event: PowerPivot / BISM and the future of a BI Solution on May 19th with Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari

The next version of Analysis Services will offer the BI Semantic Model (BISM) that is based on Vertipaq, the same engine that runs PowerPivot. DAX and PowerPivot have been created as tools for Excel users but in Denali they will be available on the Corporate BI stack technology for Microsoft, as part of Analysis Services.

The impact of this technology is huge, because many assumption that are made today for an OLAP cube (star schema models, surrogate keys and so on) might be no longer the optimal way to design a complete BI solution.

This session is about this impelling change: after an initial introduction about PowerPivot, DAX and Vertipaq changes that are relevant to this topic and some consideration about design impact on Data Warehouse, Data Mart and ETL pipeline, the session will become an open discussion with all attendees, in order to share experience, needs, technical challenges and understand future directions in corporate BI world.

About The Speakers

About Marco Russo:
Marco Russo is a Business Intelligence consultant and mentor.
His main activities are related to data warehouse relational and multidimensional design, but he is also involved in the complete development lifecycle of a BI solution. He has particular competence and experience in sectors like financial services (including complex olap designs in banking area), manufacturing and commercial distribution.
Marco is also a book author and, apart from his BI-related publications, he also wrote some books about .NET programming. He is also a speaker in international conferences like European PASS Conference and PASS Summit. He is an MCT and has several certifications (MCPD, MCIP, MCTS, MCAD and MCDBA).
Blog | Twitter | Linkedin

About Alberto Ferrari:
Alberto Ferrari is a Business Intelligence consultant.
He his interests lie in two main areas: BI development lifecycle methodologies and performance tuning of ETL and SQL code. His main activities are with SSIS and SSAS for the banking, manufacturing and statistical sectors.
He is also a speaker in international conferences like European PASS Conference and PASS Summit.
Blog | Twitter | Linkedin

Location:

The Oak3 Campus - Brussels
Telecom Gardens
Medialaan 36
1800 Vilvoorde

This Event is brought to you by Kohera

As usual the event is free, but registration is required.

Slide Deck and SQL scripts available for SQL Server Locking: Taking back control of SQL Server

2011-04-06T19:15:00Z

Allright, the slide deck and SQL scripts came in today from last week's event: SQL Server Locking: Taking back control of SQL Server by Marc Mertens.

Download them from the media gallery and enjoy!

PowerPivot Workshop in Brussels

2011-03-23T10:24:00Z

The PowerPivot Workshop is coming to Brussels on 19-20 May, 2011. All attendees will receive a copy of the new book "Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010: Give Your Data Meaning" authored by Marco Russo and Alberto Ferrari, who are the trainers of the workshop.

This 2-day intensive course is aimed to IT professionals and Excel power users (Information Workers) who want to take the most out of PowerPivot.

The course will cover all aspects of PowerPivot, from basics to the most advanced topics, including an extensive coverage of the new DAX language, which will be also used by BISM (BI Semantic Model) in the next version of Analysis Services.

You can get more information and register on www.powerpivotworkshop.com.

Don't wait, seats are limited!

SQL Server Locking: Take back control of SQL Server brought to you by Marc Mertens

2011-03-13T11:53:00Z

SQL Server Locking - 31/03/2011

We are happy to announce the second event of 2011, SQL Server Locking: Take back control of SQL Server brought to you by Marc Mertens.

Check here for details and registration.

SQL Server Forensics – Playing CSI with a database: Slides and Scripts

2011-03-08T18:56:00Z

Slides and scripts of last weeks session SQL Server Forensics – Playing CSI with a database have been put available for download.

Check out Tom Van Zele's blog and download the files

Techdays Early Bird Registrations

2011-02-17T20:55:00Z

You might have noticed that Microsoft is currently publishing a lot of new sessions to their TechDays site.

If you didn't notice yet, just visit techdays.be to have a look at the session listings.

The bird pricing will end on February 28th, So be quick and save your seat today!!!!