Microsoft’s Big Play for Big Data – June 11th, 2012
You must register at http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=159865 in order to be admitted to the building and attend.
Microsoft’s Big Play for Big Data
Big Data entails collecting and analyzing large volumes of data obtained from Web, social media, scientific and other pools of fast-growing event-driven data. Relational databases are rarely employed in big data scenarios, so using SQL Server for big data can be tricky. In response, Microsoft has announced its planned implementation of Windows Server and Windows Azure implementations of Hadoop, the open source MapReduce engine widely used in Big Data implementations. And the plot thickens as Microsoft has also announced its plan to fit SQL Server business intelligence (BI) tools on top of Hadoop, to make the analysis part of Big Data work with familiar and accessible Microsoft technologies. Come to this session to get an overview of Big Data, Hadoop and the Microsoft BI stack integration. See how your skills can be applied to this rapidly growing part of the industry.
Presenter: Andrew Brust
Andrew Brust is Founder and CEO of Blue Badge Insights, an analysis, strategy and advisory firm serving Microsoft customers and partners, and ZDNet’s “Big on Data” blogger.http://www.zdnet.com/blog/big-data Brust is also a Microsoft Regional Director and MVP; an advisor to the New York Technology Council; and co-author of “Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2008″ (Microsoft Press, 2008). Brust is a frequent speaker at industry events and is a columnist for Visual Studio Magazine. He’s been a participant in the Microsoft ecosystem for over 15 years, has worked closely with both Microsoft’s Redmond-based corporate team and field organization for much of the last 10 and is a member of several Microsoft “insiders” groups that supply him with insight around important technologies out of Redmond.
Date/Time:
6-11-2012 6:00 P.M. – 8:30 P.M.
Location:
Microsoft NYC offices, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10104
You must register at http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=159863 in order to be admitted to the building and attend.
PowerPivot on SharePoint: How to Install and Configure it Yourself!
Undoubtedly, PowerPivot is the shiny new toy in the Microsoft BI toolbox, but installing and configuring this powerful new addition to the SharePoint stack can be a daunting task. Join us in this session as we help navigate you through the ITPro perspective on the pitfalls and traps to a successful implementation. We’ll show you the best practice for configuration and discuss some implementation choices and the reasoning behind them. We will also give a comparison of features between SQL Server 2008 R2 & SQL 2012 to help ease the decision of jumping in to a new version.
In the second half of this action packed presentation we will show you some flashy examples of the End User experience with PowerPivot in action, give you an understanding of how dynamic a tool the new version of PowerPivot really is, & take you on a guided tour of Power View. Lastly we will show you the integration between the new SQL 2012 features & SharePoint 2010 and how the experience has improved in the new version.
Presenter: Jason Himmelstein
Jason Himmelstein, MCTS, MCITP, is the SharePoint Practice Director for Sentri, Inc. and has been working with Microsoft Server technologies since 1998 when he was supporting Motorola in Austin, TX. He went to work for the University of Texas for 5 years where he developed expertise in Active Directory and Exchange. He left UT to go on the road doing work for Dell in a partnership with Microsoft doing architecture, design and implementation of Active Directory and Exchange. He started working with SharePoint in 2007 as an Enterprise Architect for Raytheon Company. Today he leads a team of dynamic SharePoint Consultants for Sentri, a four-time Microsoft Partner of the Year.
Outside of this crazy working world he is a happily married father of 2 boys and a die-hard Texas Longhorns and San Antonio Spurs fan.
Date/Time:
4-9-2012 6:00 P.M. – 8:30 P.M.
Location:
Microsoft NYC offices, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10104
You must register at http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=159261 in order to be admitted to the building and attend.
BI In The Sky? – Where We Are With SQL Azure Reporting Services
SQL Azure is Microsoft’s database-as-a-service in the cloud. It offers a robust subset of SQL Server 2008 R2. That ‘subset’ is always growing over time. One thing that didn’t make the original cut, but is available now in preview mode is SQL Azure Reporting Services. We’ll take a look at what SQL Azure has to offer, including the tools, new web portal, new Federations feature, as well as the new Reporting Services features.
Presenter: Peter Laudati
Peter Laudati, the “JrzyShr Dev Guy,” is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft, based in the New York/New Jersey area. Peter spends most of his time these days focused on Windows Azure and cloud computing. One of his roles is supporting and educating developers working Microsoft technologies. Peter supports the developer community in the NY Metro area by speaking at user group events, Code Camps, and various tech conferences. Peter is also the co-host of the “Connected Show” (www.connectedshow.com), a podcast focused on the cloud and connecting Microsoft technology with non-Microsoft technology. His blog can be found at http://www.peterlaudati.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @Jrzyshr.
Date/Time:
2-13-2012 6:00 P.M. – 8:30 P.M.
Location:
Microsoft NYC offices, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10104
SQL Server 2012: Exploring Power View (formerly Project Crescent) and Business Intelligence Semantic Model (BISM) – January 9, 2012
You must register at http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=158710 in order to be admitted to the building and attend.
SQL Server 2012: Exploring Power View (formerly Project Crescent) and Business Intelligence Semantic Model (BISM)
This session will be an overview of new end user Business Intelligence tools that will be delivered in SQL Server 2012, including Power View (formerly Project Crescent) and the Business Intelligence Semantic Model (BISM). Power View is a new tool that allows end users to visualize data and perform sophisticated analyses on their own. BISM provides a level of data abstraction which allows end users to find and select data without needing a deep understanding of database schema design or dimensional concepts. Attendees of this session will leave with an understanding of how to develop BISM models, Power View reports and Tabular Analysis Services cubes, which are new to SQL Server 2012.
Presenter: Jaimie Fox, Microsoft
Jaimie Fox is a Technical Solutions Professional for Microsoft in the NY/NJ Metro district where he is the district’s database/BI community lead. He has 15 years of experience in delivering business analysis, data warehousing, and business intelligence solutions. Jaimie has spent most of his career as a consultant helping various organizations by architecting and developing solutions on Microsoft’s Business Intelligence stack on SQL Server and SharePoint. Jaimie has worked with all versions of SQL Server since version 6.5 while his knowledge of SharePoint is still growing.
Date/Time:
1-09-2012 6:00 P.M. – 8:30 P.M.
Location:
Microsoft NYC offices, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10104
You must register at https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=158248 in order to be admitted to the building and attend.
Denali in PowerPivot: Self-Service BI hits the Big Time
I’ll admit it – I wanted to like the first release of Microsoft PowerPivot. I realized it was a 1.0 version, and wasn’t intended to be a full replacement for Analysis Services. In the last year, I trained people on it, and I implemented it for a customer – but I wanted more. Well, borrowing from S.E. Hinton’s “That was Then, This is Now” theme, Microsoft is releasing a new version of PowerPivot in SQL Server Denali, and PowerPivot 2.0 is a remarkable and substantial upgrade over PowerPivot 1.0.
I’ll take a stripped down version of an actual production database and demonstrate “corporate BI” with PowerPivot 2.0. Along the way, I’ll focus on some of the enhancements in PowerPivot 2.0, including the new Diagram View and Hierarchy designer, the ability to create multiple relationships, the new Measure Grid to create actual measures, as well as other welcome additions (such as “Sort by” columns and drillthrough capabilities, to address some of the shortcomings in PowerPivot 1.0). I’ll also construct a data-driven KPI, using the new KPI features in PowerPivot 2.0.
Microsoft continues to leverage existing Analysis Services features in PowerPivot 2.0 – I’ll demonstrate two such features, perspectives and aggregations.
I’ll also show some of the new DAX features in PowerPivot 2.0. PowerPivot 1.0 introduced the new DAX programming language, which is a hybrid of Excel macros and MDX. PowerPivot 2.0 features 30 new DAX functions, such as ranking/statistical functions, filtering functions, and lookup functions. I certainly can’t show all 30 new DAX features, but I will certainly demonstrate a handful of them. I’ll also offer a few performance tips regarding the use of certain DAX functions.
Additionally, I’ll show a scenario where we can implement dynamic role security with the new PowerPivot DAX function UserName(), to limit visibility of data based on the current domain user name – something that is very critical in many corporate settings, and was also lacking in the first version of PowerPivot.
Finally, I’ll show how to publish PowerPivot content to SharePoint 2010, and how to schedule a data refresh and verify the refresh using the PowerPivot Management Dashboard in SharePoint.
Presenter:
Kevin S. Goff
Kevin S. Goff is Microsoft SQL Server MVP and has been a recipient of the MVP award since 2005. He is the SQL Server/Business Intelligence Practice Manager for SetFocus, a Microsoft Gold Partner for Learning Solutions. Kevin writes regularly for CoDe Magazine on different SQL Server/BI topics, and speaks regularly in the Mid-Atlantic region at CodeCamp, SQL Server, and SharePoint Community Events. He was the lead author on one book, a contributing author on a second book, and has just started his third book. His email address is kgoff@kevinsgoff.net, and his website/blog is http://www.kevinsgoff.net
Date/Time:
12-12-2011 6:00 P.M. – 8:30 P.M.
Location:
Microsoft NYC offices, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10104
You must register at http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=158041 in order to be admitted to the building and attend.
SQL Server 2012: A First-Hand Report from the PASS Summit
The next version of SQL Server is coming and along with it, a ton of features for BI practitioners. Come to this session for a full briefing on Microsoft’s SQL Server announcements, made just a few weeks ago at the PASS Summit 2011 in Seattle, WA. We’ll review and distill announcements pertaining to PowerView (formerly Project “Crescent”), Analysis Services Tabular Mode, Microsoft’s Hadoop initiatives, “Data Explorer”, enhancements to SQL Azure and more. Jeff will analyze and explain what these technologies are, demo a few of them along the way and explain their relevance to BI. If you missed PASS itself, then you won’t want to miss this session.
Presenter:
Jeff Bolton, Tallan
Jeff Bolton is a database architect for Tallan, a leading IT services firm specializing in custom solutions. With nearly 25 years of IT experience, Jeff has experience in all aspects of technology. He currently specializes in architecting and implementing data warehouses and BI solutions.
Date/Time:
11-14-2011 6:00 P.M. – 8:30 P.M.
Location:
Microsoft NYC offices, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10104
Evolved BI with SQL Server “Denali” – October 10, 2011
You must register at https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=157446 in order to be admitted to the building and attend.
Evolved BI with SQL Server “Denali”:
The next version of SQL Server, code-named “Denali,” steps up Microsoft’s BI game significantly. To start with, PowerPivot’s technology is now part of Analysis Services, in the form of BI Semantic Model (BISM) databases, and there are improvements to PowerPivot itself that everyone should know about. Next is project “Crescent,” which provides ad hoc, interactive data visualization and analysis. And even the non-BI world gets BI functionality in Denali, now that the VertiPaq columnar engine has been implemented for SQL Server relational databases. In this session, we’ll review all of these new capabilities in a demo-heavy manner. We’ll also learn about updates to Master Data Services and the introduction of Data Quality Services, Microsoft’s new data cleansing tool. Come to this session and get caught up on what’s next in Microsoft BI.
Presenter:
Andrew Brust, Blue Badge Insights
Andrew Brust is Founder and CEO of Blue Badge Insights, an analysis, strategy and advisory firm serving Microsoft customers and partners. Brust also serves as CTO for Tallan, a Microsoft National Systems Integrator; is a Microsoft Regional Director and MVP; an advisor to the New York Technology Council; and co-author of “Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2008″ (Microsoft Press, 2008). A frequent speaker at industry events, Brust is co-chair of the VSLive! family of conferences and a contributing editor to Visual Studio Magazine. Brust has been a participant in the Microsoft ecosystem for over 15 years, and has worked closely with both Microsoft’s Redmond-based corporate team and its field organization for much of the last 10. He is a member of the Microsoft Partner Advisory Council and several “insiders” groups that supply him with insight around important technologies out of Redmond.
Date/Time:
10-10-2011 6:00 P.M. – 8:30 P.M.
Location:
Microsoft NYC offices, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10104
