Category: Training

PASS Data Community Summit 2022: Come See My Session, The SQL Server Performance Tasting Menu

Posted on by Erik Darling

Workin’

On top of my precon, The Professional Performance Tuning Blueprint, I’ve also got a regular session selected!

The SQL Server Performance Tasting Menu:

You’re a DBA or Developer, and you’ve been using SQL Server for a few years.

You know there are different ways to make queries faster, but you’re not sure when to use them.

I’m Erik Darling, and I’ll be your sommelier for the evening.

Over several courses of delicious demos, I’ll show you the types of performance problems different tuning techniques pair well with, and which ones to avoid.

When we’re done, you’ll understand exactly what patterns to look for when you’re troubleshooting slow queries, and how to approach them.

You’ll have the secret recipe for gourmet queries.

Dates And Times

The PASS Data Community Summit is taking place in Seattle November 15-18, 2022 and online.

You can register here, to attend online or in-person. I’ll be there in all my fleshy goodness, and I hope to see you there too!

Thanks for reading!

Going Further

If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. Blog readers get 25% off the Everything Bundle — over 100 hours of performance tuning content. Need hands-on help? I offer consulting engagements from targeted investigations to ongoing retainers. Want a quick sanity check before committing to a full engagement? Schedule a call — no commitment required.

Catch Me At Techorama Netherlands For A Precon And More!

Posted on by Erik Darling

Star Trecht

This October 10-12, I’ll be in Utrecht for the wonderful and fabulous Techorama conference!

Get your tickets here.

You can catch me putting on my Professional Performance Tuning Blueprint full day training session.

Searching the internet for every problem isn’t cutting it. You need to be more proactive and efficient when it comes to finding and solving database performance fires.

I work with consulting customers around the world to put out SQL Server performance fires. In this day of learning, I will teach you how to find and fix your worst SQL Server problems using the same modern tools and techniques which I use every week.

You’ll learn tons of new and effective approaches to common performance problems, how to figure out what’s going on in your query plans, and how indexes really work to make your queries faster. Together, we’ll tackle query rewrites, batch mode, how to design indexes, and how to gather all the information you need to analyze performance.

This day of learning will teach you cutting edge techniques which you can’t find in training by folks who don’t spend time in the real world tuning performance. Performance tuning mysteries can easily leave you stumbling through your work week, unsure if you’re focusing on the right things. You’ll walk out of this class confident in your abilities to fix performance issues once and for all.

If you want to put out SQL Server performance fires, this is the precon you need to attend. Anyone can have a plan, it takes a professional to have a blueprint.

I’ve also got a couple regular sessions that’ll get announced later on.

Get your tickets here.

See you there!

Going Further

If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. Blog readers get 25% off the Everything Bundle — over 100 hours of performance tuning content. Need hands-on help? I offer consulting engagements from targeted investigations to ongoing retainers. Want a quick sanity check before committing to a full engagement? Schedule a call — no commitment required.

Speaking At PASS This Year: Precon And Regular Session

Posted on by Erik Darling

Personable

I’ve had it with presenting online, especially full-day precons. Talking to yourself for eight hours while standing in front of a camera is about as enjoyable as it sounds.

  • It’s a lot harder to build up rapport with the audience
  • There’s no social break where you get to talk to people
  • You can’t do fun things like give away t-shirts

And there will be more MAXDOP shirts. I can’t leave my dear American friends behind.

Right On Time

This November 15-18, I’ll be presenting live and in person in Seattle at the PASS Data Community Summit. It’s available online for folks who can’t make it there in-person, too.

For a precon, I’ll be doing my world famous Blueprint Performance Tuning:

The Professional Performance Tuning Blueprint

Searching the internet for every problem isn’t cutting it. You need to be more proactive and efficient when it comes to finding and solving database performance fires.

I work with consulting customers around the world to put out SQL Server performance fires. In this day of learning, I will teach you how to find and fix your worst SQL Server problems using the same modern tools and techniques which I use every week.

You’ll learn tons of new and effective approaches to common performance problems, how to figure out what’s going on in your query plans, and how indexes really work to make your queries faster. Together, we’ll tackle query rewrites, batch mode, how to design indexes, and how to gather all the information you need to analyze performance.

This day of learning will teach you cutting edge techniques which you can’t find in training by folks who don’t spend time in the real world tuning performance. Performance tuning mysteries can easily leave you stumbling through your work week, unsure if you’re focusing on the right things. You’ll walk out of this class confident in your abilities to fix performance issues once and for all.

If you want to put out SQL Server performance fires, this is the precon you need to attend. Anyone can have a plan, it takes a professional to have a blueprint.

Regular sessions haven’t been announced yet, so keep your eyes peeled!

Hope to see you there, one way or another!

Thanks for reading!

Going Further

If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. Blog readers get 25% off the Everything Bundle — over 100 hours of performance tuning content. Need hands-on help? I offer consulting engagements from targeted investigations to ongoing retainers. Want a quick sanity check before committing to a full engagement? Schedule a call — no commitment required.

New Darling Data Training Site

Posted on by Erik Darling

Schoolbus

When I first started selling training videos, I tried out Shopify because it was highly recommended, seemed great at e-commerce, and offered an easy way for me to let folks buy inexpensive SQL Server training videos.

And you know what? It does all that stuff nicely, but I found it hard to incorporate other things easily.

  • Live training
  • Distributing slides and demos
  • Quizzes
  • Progress charts

Not that a lot of folks were asking for it, but it’s all stuff that seems nice to have when you’re trying to keep learners engaged.

Late last year I started exploring other options, and eventually landed on Podia. Everything recently got migrated over by my dear friend and indispensable web helper, Josh.

WIPMVP

Right now, all the plumbing is in place to deliver that to you, and I’m working on getting it set up so you have a better training experience.

I’m trying to figure out a way to migrate existing customers over, but while I do that I wanted to get some folks in the door. If you use this link, you’ll get 75% off of any purchase, large or small.

As soon as I start getting other stuff set up, and figure out how to get past customers migrated, I’ll send out more official emails to let folks know to head to the new site.

In the meantime, thanks for all your support over the past couple years. I’m definitely looking forward to using a platform that’s friendlier for teaching, and not just selling.

Thanks for reading!

Going Further

If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. Blog readers get 25% off the Everything Bundle — over 100 hours of performance tuning content. Need hands-on help? I offer consulting engagements from targeted investigations to ongoing retainers. Want a quick sanity check before committing to a full engagement? Schedule a call — no commitment required.

Going To SQLBits? Come To My Precon: The Professional Performance Tuning Blueprint!

Posted on by Erik Darling

Learn-A-Lot

Check out my Events page for the full details, and of course head over to SQLBits.com to register.

 

Searching the internet for every problem isn’t cutting it. You need to be more proactive and efficient when it comes to finding and solving database performance fires.

I work with consulting customers around the world to put out SQL Server performance fires. In this day of learning, I will teach you how to find and fix your worst SQL Server problems using the same modern tools and techniques which I use every week.

You’ll learn tons of new and effective approaches to common performance problems, how to figure out what’s going on in your query plans, and how indexes really work to make your queries faster. Together, we’ll tackle query rewrites, batch mode, how to design indexes, and how to gather all the information you need to analyze performance.

This day of learning will teach you cutting edge techniques which you can’t find in training by folks who don’t spend time in the real world tuning performance. Performance tuning mysteries can easily leave you stumbling through your work week, unsure if you’re focusing on the right things. You’ll walk out of this class confident in your abilities to fix performance issues once and for all.

If you want to put out SQL Server performance fires, this is the precon you need to attend. Anyone can have a plan, it takes a professional to have a blueprint.

Going Further

If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. Blog readers get 25% off the Everything Bundle — over 100 hours of performance tuning content. Need hands-on help? I offer consulting engagements from targeted investigations to ongoing retainers. Want a quick sanity check before committing to a full engagement? Schedule a call — no commitment required.

I’ve Got A Full Training Day At SQLBits: The Professional Performance Tuning Blueprint

Posted on by Erik Darling

The Professional Performance Tuning Blueprint

Searching the internet for every problem isn’t cutting it. You need to be more proactive and efficient when it comes to finding and solving database performance fires.

I work with consulting customers around the world to put out SQL Server performance fires. In this day of learning, I will teach you how to find and fix your worst SQL Server problems using the same modern tools and techniques which I use every week.

You’ll learn tons of new and effective approaches to common performance problems, how to figure out what’s going on in your query plans, and how indexes really work to make your queries faster. Together, we’ll tackle query rewrites, batch mode, how to design indexes, and how to gather all the information you need to analyze performance.

This day of learning will teach you cutting edge techniques which you can’t find in training by folks who don’t spend time in the real world tuning performance. Performance tuning mysteries can easily leave you stumbling through your work week, unsure if you’re focusing on the right things. You’ll walk out of this class confident in your abilities to fix performance issues once and for all.

If you want to put out SQL Server performance fires, this is the precon you need to attend. Anyone can have a plan, it takes a professional to have a blueprint.

See you there!

Going Further

If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. Blog readers get 25% off the Everything Bundle — over 100 hours of performance tuning content. Need hands-on help? I offer consulting engagements from targeted investigations to ongoing retainers. Want a quick sanity check before committing to a full engagement? Schedule a call — no commitment required.

Black Christmas Training Sale

Posted on by Erik Darling

Ho Ho Ho

For the month of December I’m putting my training on sale at 75% off.

That means you get over 24 hours of SQL Server performance tuning training content for around $100 USD when you click on this link and add everything to your cart. Discount applies at checkout, so you have to click through for it to apply

The way my training is structured is to take you from where you are to where you want to be. There’s beginner, intermediate, and advanced stuff.

You pick where you want to start — but I guarantee no matter where you are you’ll learn something new — I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. There’s enough of that in the world.

What I cover is all of the things that confused, confounded, and cut me up when I first started learning about SQL Server querying, indexing, execution plans, locking and deadlocks, and more.

Hi Hi Hi

If you’re planning on attending SQLBits in London this March, you can catch me doing a full day session live and in person.

It’ll be nice to see those smiling faces again!

Enjoy, and have yourself a happy holiday.

Thanks for reading!

Free Training For SQL Server Beginners

Posted on by Erik Darling

Month Of Sundays

All this month I’m going to be giving readers (watchers? stalkers?) access to my Starting SQL video course.

Enjoy!

Going Further

If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. Blog readers get 25% off the Everything Bundle — over 100 hours of performance tuning content. Need hands-on help? I offer consulting engagements from targeted investigations to ongoing retainers. Want a quick sanity check before committing to a full engagement? Schedule a call — no commitment required.

Darling Data Is Moving On Up

Posted on by Erik Darling

Spatial Abuse

At the beginning of 2020, I recorded a bunch of training videos, and put on some live classes throughout the year. As much as I love doing that stuff, my current office absolutely sucks for it.

IMG 0828

Like a lot of families, we spent most of 2020 trying to figure out how to make the most of the space we had, and then thinking longer-term about what our space requirements are.

We thought about moving to a lot of different places. We looked in difference cities, states, and even countries (visa applications for France weren’t available for a lot of the year though).

The entire time, I sort of put off recording training content and putting on classes, because the experience wasn’t great for me. That’s it. I stopped streaming, didn’t record YouTube videos for a while, and just buckled down to focus on blogging and client work.

Getting set up to do any of that stuff was a process, and the whole green screen situation in a small office just didn’t work out. It was right behind me, I’d knock into it, and the lighting in here made all sorts or artifacts and flicker effects. I was never really happy with the final product.

Add to it that there was a lot of outside noise and annoyances.

Very blah, as they say.

We finally found a new place that suits our needs though, and I have a much bigger office now that doesn’t require anyone else sacrificing space. I’m getting things migrated to the new space, and when I do I’ll start planning out more live stuff and training.

Stay tuned!

Going Further

If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. Blog readers get 25% off the Everything Bundle — over 100 hours of performance tuning content. Need hands-on help? I offer consulting engagements from targeted investigations to ongoing retainers. Want a quick sanity check before committing to a full engagement? Schedule a call — no commitment required.

Announcing The Darling Data Vantablack Friday Sale!

Posted on by Erik Darling

A Word From Our Sponsors

First, a huge thank you to everyone who has bought my training so far. You all are incredible, and I owe all of you a drink.

Your support means a lot to me, and allows me to do nice stuff for other people, like give training away for free.

So far, I’ve donated $45k (!!!) worth of training to folks in need, no questions asked.

Next year, I’d like to keep doing the same thing. I’d also like to produce a whole lot more training to add value to the money you spend. In order to do that, I need to take time off from consulting, which isn’t easy to do. I’m not crying poor, but saying no to work for chunks of time isn’t easy for a one-person party.

I’m hoping that I can make enough in training bucks to make that possible.

Because this sale is extra sale-y, I’ve decided to name it after the blackest black known to man.

Going Further

If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. Blog readers get 25% off the Everything Bundle — over 100 hours of performance tuning content. Need hands-on help? I offer consulting engagements from targeted investigations to ongoing retainers. Want a quick sanity check before committing to a full engagement? Schedule a call — no commitment required.