11:00am – 1:00pm
Embarkation
1:00pm – 3:00pm
Welcome and Orientation
Tim Ford
Conference Room
We will be meeting in our designated conference room to go over schedule for the week in detail as well as orientation of the ship and introductions of staff and attendees. All students and their guests are requested to attend the first 30 minutes of this session.
5:30pm – 6:30pm
Welcome Mixer
Skyline Bar
Everyone is invited for complimentary drinks and appetizers for an hour of meeting new friends and re-acquainting with former cruise friends.
6:30pm – 7:30pm
Search the Ship Contest
Skyline Bar
Everyone is invited for complimentary drinks and appetizers for an hour of meeting new friends and re-acquainting with former cruise friends.
8:00am – 9:45am
It Just Runs Faster
Kevin Kline
Conference Room
Internal Improvements that Make SQL Server 2016 the Fastest SQL Server Ever: The major new features of a new release always capture the headlines of SQL Server blogs. You also probably know that countless bug fixes are released with each new release of SQL Server. But many people do not realize that very specific upgrades and improvements are put into play with new releases of SQL Server. SQL Server 2016 has loads of improved internals, in fact, too many to cover in an hour. So we’ll go on a fast-paced exploration of improvements like faster bulk insertion, Availability Groups transport and compression improvements, multiple logging improvements like LDF stamping, faster checkpoints, updates to the scheduling algorithms, DBCC improvements like MultiObjectScanner enhancements, and automatic soft NUMA.
10:00am – 12:00pm
Microsoft R – SQL Server Focus
Buck Woody
Conference Room
An introduction to R and the Microsoft R platform, with a comprehensive example in SQL Server R. Starting at the foundations of the R language we delve into the Microsoft R ecostructure, installing and configuring all R Server types, SQL Server R architecture, best practices for installation and operation.
1:00pm – 3:30pm
Statistics, Row Counts, Execution Plans, and Query Tuning
Grant Fritchey
Conference Room
It’s fairly well known that the query optimizer is what creates execution plans. What seems to be less well known is just how vital the number of rows that the optimizer thinks may be returned by any given query is what drives the choices that the optimizer can make. This session focuses down on how the row counts for queries are arrived at and how those row counts impact the choices made by the optimizer and, ultimately, the performance on your system. With the knowledge you gain from this session, you will make superior choices in writing T-SQL, creating indexes and maintaining your statistics, all to arrive at a better performing system, all thanks to counting the number of rows.
4:00pm – 5:00pm
Office Hours
All Technical Leads
Location to be Determined
Office Hours is our time to meet to go deeper than time allowed with classroom sessions, get questions to real-world issues back on land, or to dig into other topics that were not a part of this week’s curriculum. Think of it as a mix of class review, free consulting, and technical networking.
5:30pm – 7:30pm
Group Formal Dinner
Full group including guests
Manhattan Restaurant
Join us for a night of fancy dress, stimulating conversation, and great food. Dress as nice as you’d like.
7:30pm – 8:00pm
Group Formal Photo Session
Full group including guests
Manhattan Restaurant
We will meet outside the restaurant and walk to the photo shoot location which will be determined on the ship. We ask that all Technical Leads, students, and their guests attend.
8:00am – 9:45am
SQL Server Encryption Features in SQL Server 2016
Ben Miller
Conference Room
Have you ever had a requirement that said that you needed to encrypt your database “at rest?” What about just encrypting a column? What does that take? Then there is this new feature called Always Encrypted, what does that mean and how is that a good thing? Then there is the database that is not encrypted and the requirement indicates to encrypt backups is required. This session will take you through the Encryption Hierarchy and all that goes with it. We will go through TDE, Always Encrypted, Column Encryption using keys and Backup Encryption. Take a journey with me into the land of encryption, you will leave having learned how to master these technologies.
5:30pm – 7:00pm
Communicate Like a Pro
Buck Woody
Conference Room
From writing to presenting, Buck explores and expounds on the skills needed to get your point across. This was a highly rated session on our third SQL Cruise back in 2011 and Buck has offered to present it with updated content again this year. As was the case in our earlier 2011 session all guests of students are also invited to attend as the content applies to everyone regardless of profession.
5:30pm – 7:00pm
Hidden new features in SQL Server 2016
Kevin Kline
Conference Room
You may have seen or read about the new features of SQL Server 2016. You might have even played with some of the major new features sets by now. But did you know there are many cool features outside of the top 10 lists. This talk covers enhancements to indexing (both columnstore and traditional b-tree indexes), DMVs, database compression, string handling, encryption and obscuration, configuration, and even added time zone support. These smaller features may not be highlighted in the latest glossy ads from Microsoft’s marketing department, but they’re the kinds of things that add up to make your life easier. Attend this session to learn all sorts of new and different reasons to upgrade as quickly as possible.
4:30pm – 6:00pm
Deep Dive into Time Travel with SQL Server 2016
Ben Miller
Conference Room
Have you ever wanted to know what the data looked like yesterday before a change was made? Have you cringed at the thought of creating triggers to get data changes logged for later analysis? Looking at a new feature in SQL 2016 called Temporal Tables gives you the ability to create a table that automatically keeps track of your data in time. Magic was never meant to be part of IT, but SQL Server has done a great job with this new feature. Join me in a time travelling adventure to find out how you can leverage Temporal Tables in your world. We will also look at the new TIME features in SQL 2016 to give you an idea of what is possible with time.
6:00pm – 7:00pm
Office Hours
All Technical Leads
Location to be Determined
Office Hours is our time to meet to go deeper than time allowed with classroom sessions, get questions to real-world issues back on land, or to dig into other topics that were not a part of this week’s curriculum. Think of it as a mix of class review, free consulting, and technical networking.
4:15pm – 5:15pm
Office Hours
All Technical Leads
Location to be Determined
Office Hours is our time to meet to go deeper than time allowed with classroom sessions, get questions to real-world issues back on land, or to dig into other topics that were not a part of this week’s curriculum. Think of it as a mix of class review, free consulting, and technical networking.
5:30pm – 7:30pm
Group Casual Dinner
Full group including guests
Manhattan Restaurant
Join us for a night of stimulating conversation and great food. Dress as nice as you’d like.
8:00am – 9:00am
Office Hours
All Technical Leads
Conference Room
Bring your breakfast to our final Office Hours and discuss the remaining questions you came aboard with that are yet unanswered or raise new questions based upon what you experienced over the week on SQL Cruise.
9:00am – 10:30am
SQL Server Availability Groups from Start to Finish
Ben Miller
Conference Room
Availability Groups have been around since SQL 2012. The features have expanded in each release afterwards. This session will cover the setup, configuration and management of Availability Groups including multi-subnet AGs. I will also cover the new installment of Availability Groups in Standard Edition and what that means to AGs. Then there is management of the AG after setup and configuration. How do you know that it is behaving? What does it look like to failover? We will take a ride on the AG railroad to ensure that you are ready for this technology in your environment. We will go from start to finish, having nothing to having an Availability Group fully functioning.
10:45am – 12:45pm
Exploring the Azure SQL Data Warehouse
Grant Fritchey
Conference Room
Managing and processing large amounts of data requires major investments in hardware and time, or, you can look to an appliance-style solution like Analytics Platform System (APS). However, APS requires a massive outlay of cash just to get started and you can’t possibly know if APS will solve your problems or not without that outlay. Enter Azure SQL Data Warehouse. This Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering from Microsoft helps to democratize and open the capabilities of APS to anyone. The cost of entry is low and the functionality is high. This session will walk you through Azure SQL Data Warehouse so you understand what is on offer, how it works and what it can do for you and your enterprise. You’ll attain a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses that this PaaS offering brings to the table so that you can begin to use massively parallel operations with your own data.
1:45pm – 3:45pm
The Data Professional’s Guide to the Data Science Path
Buck Woody
Conference Room
An intro and dive into the main subjects needed to morph a data professional’s career, with discussions of paths that might make someone else pay for the effort. Buck will cover the Team Data Science Process, the Cortana Intelligence Suite, and outline an end-to-end data science solution using Machine Learning in R.
4:00pm – 5:45pm
SQL Cruise Closing Panel Discussion
All Technical Leaders
Conference Room
A panel discussion on next steps for your return to the office, future trends you should consider, and opportunities for growth based upon what you learned or were introduced to over the course of the week.
6:15pm – 7:15pm
Farewell Mixer
Skyline Bar
Everyone is invited for complimentary drinks and appetizers for an hour of goodbyes and networking.
