I am delighted to announce that Kevin Kline, previous Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) President, Community Speaker, Author, and Technical Strategy Manager for SQL Server Solutions at Quest Software will be joining us on SQL Cruise Miami 2012 and will be presenting two sessions that complement what I hope is a well-rounded offering for those in attendance.  Kevin, the author of one of my first SQL Server books, O’Reilly Media’s SQL In A Nutshell, and also a contributor to the two MVP Deep Dives books will be presenting the following two sessions:

Leadership Skills for the Database Professional

The skills that made you a successful IT professional are NOT the skills that will make you a top-notch manager. This presentation will teach you the fundamental management skills needed to lead a team of technologists and will take you from motivating and coaching your team, to approaching communications in an organized fashion, to handling common difficult management scenarios. Leaving this seminar, you’ll feel equiped for the challenges of team leadership and ready to lead.

Real World Database Configuration and Tuning

This multi-module seminar covers the spectrum of best practices as they relate to database and application design and configuration, implementation, maintenance and performance tuning. With a special focus on IT organizations with large SQL Server deployments, MVP Kevin Kline will discuss:

• Bare metal tuning of server and disk configuration
• Benchmarking performance
• Physical machine versus virtual machine deployment
• Database conceptual design and normalization through to physical deployment of databases, indexing and partitioning
• Understanding SQL Server query performance
• Identifying performance bottlenecks and resolving performance issues
• Automating as much as possible so that life gets easier!

I am so thrilled that Kevin will be joining us on SQL Cruise Miami 2012!  If you’re interested in joining us a few spots remain open.  Details about the cruise is available throughout the site but here are a few shortcuts for you:

Cruise Details

Technical Sessions and Presenter Information

Registration Form

What to Expect From SQL Cruise

How to Sell a SQL Cruise as TRAINING to you Manager