PASS SQL Azure VC Event: SQL Azure 101 - RESCHEDULED‏

Due to some issues that occurred, our first event had to be rescheduled to September 7th 2010(today) at 12:00 PDT. I apologize for the late update but we wanted to ensure that everything was properly arranged before sending the new date; unfortunately some confirmations took longer than we expected.

For more information about the event see my previous blog post.
For the Live Meeting link please visit the PASS SQL Azure Site.

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TTSSUG Event Review: Lifecycle of an SSIS package

The Trinidad and Tobago SQL Server User Group (TTSSUG) held its second meeting at the Leon Agostini Conference Room, in the Chamber of Commerce Building on August 25th. The meeting had a total of 41 attendees which included members and a few newcomers from various organisations.

We began with a small presentation to explain the mission and goals of TTSSUG and also to introduce the steering committee to the attendees. The presentation ended with an introduction of the main presenter, Gregory Chee. Gregory is an Application Consultant in Microsoft Business solutions department with Esprit Consultants Limited and has over 7 years of IT experience. His presentation, Lifecycle of an SSIS package: From development to production, gave a brief introduction to SSIS and helped people to understand the basic concepts of SSIS. Most of his session was focused on demonstrating how to create and deploy two SSIS packages. The first package was a basic ETL package which introduced Control Flow items such as Data Flow Task and Execute SQL Task. The package also showed the use of Data Flow sources, destinations and some basic transformations. The second package was create to combine data from multiple excel files and compare them to a database in order to produce a report. This package highlighted variables, looping, table lookup, output redirection and package logging. The presentation and the packages can be downloaded here.

I would like to thank Microsoft Trinidad and Tobago team for sponsoring this event and for assisting us with everything that contributed to the event. Also special thanks to Gregory Chee for coming to share his knowledge with the group during his vacation time. Last but most importantly, I would like to thank the people who attended the event and who were interested in attending the event. For more information about SSIS please visit SSIS homepage on MSDN.

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Are You Tweeting What I Am Tweeting?

Recently my involvement with various local and international groups has increased and I realise that my new activities/responsibilities along with my everyday activities is causing a delay in informing the public about upcoming events. I have come up with a solution that will allow me to give updates about events as soon as possible. My plan is to create a wrist watch that can scan my mind for events information and then send it to an application that will create a blog post and send mail to the respective mailing list. This solution will take some time to be implemented so in the meantime I will use Twitter to give people heads up on various events.

If you are interested in local and international events and you want to know what's new going on in the 'SQL World' you can follow me on twitter. I may tweet about other tech stuff that I find cool (such as the mind scanning watch) but I won't be tweeting about things like what I had for lunch and what I am planning to have for dinner.

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Community Events: TTSSUG meeting and Trinidad and Tobago Software Architect Council (TTSAC) launch

On the 25th of August 2010, TTSSUG will be holding its second meeting and Microsoft Trinidad and Tobago will be launching a new committee, the Trinidad and Tobago Software Architect Council (TTSAC).

The TTSSUG meeting would be focusing on Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). SSIS is a platform for building enterprise-level data integration and data transformations solutions and is an important component of The Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform. This meeting is recommended for Developers, Database Developers and Database Administrators. See the invite below for more details.

The TTSAC launch will give insight on how this new community can facilitate the growth of the local IT ecosystem and ignite the drive for innovation. This meeting is recommended for Software and Enterprise Architects. See the invite below for more details.

I hope to see you at both events!

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PASS SQL Azure VC Event: SQL Azure 101

PASS SQL Azure Chapter is a new virtual chapter (VC) whose goal is to become one of the best resources for anything and everything SQL Azure. As part of the leadership committee I would like to invite you to join us for our first Live Meeting event, SQL Azure 101. The presentation will introduce you to the SQL Azure world and help you to understand the benefits that it can provide. The event will be occurring on Wednesday 18th August at 6:00 PM EST and the presenters will be Scott Klein and David Robinson.

Scott Klein is co-founder of Blue Syntax Consulting, a company that specializes in Azure training and consulting. Scott has been working with SQL Server for nearly 20 years, working with companies large and small all over the United States, working in a wide scope of fields such as medical, finance, and retail. Scott is also a veteran author, having written a number of books including Professional SQL Server XML, Professional LINQ, Pro ADO.NET Entity Framework 4.0, and the soon to be released Pro SQL Azure. Scott is a SQL Server MVP and President of the South Florida SQL Server Users Group and the newly formed Azure PASS Virtual Chapter. He speaks frequently as SQL Saturday events and user groups, and was lucky enough to speak at the 2008 European PASS conference in 2008.

David Robinson is a Senior Program Manager on the SQL Azure team. David is responsible for a multitude of things including driving product features, code samples, and most importantly demonstrating to customers the value that SQL Azure and cloud computing provides. You can often find him speaking on Channel 9 or TechEd.

For the Live Meeting link please visit the site at: http://azure.sqlpass.org/

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PASS Professional Development Virtual Chapter Interview

Last month, Nancy Nasso (PASS Community Coordinator) recommended me to Kathi Kellenberger, SQL Server MVP, for an interview. Kathi was interested in interviewing a new PASS chapter founder for the Professional Development Virtual Chapter, a chapter which provides information about Professional Development for people in the technology industry.

She interviewed me via email and recently posted it on their blog (An Interview with New Chapter Founder, Nigel Sammy). The information will be useful to anyone interested in starting a user group/chapter and it will also give some insight as to why the Trinidad and Tobago SQL Server User Group (TTSSUG) was started. Thanks Nancy and Kathi for this wonderful opportunity.

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Review of the TTSSUG Launch Event

On the 30th of June, the Trinidad and Tobago SQL Server User Group (TTSSUG) held its first meeting at the Hyatt Regency. This event was sponsored by Microsoft Trinidad and Tobago and catered for a maximum of 45 participants. Registrations however far exceeded the expectation for the event with over 60 persons being interested in attending the event. The TTSSUG launch attracted SQL enthusiasts from a wide cross range of industries both private and public as well as education. Other attendees represented the financial sector, trade and industry and IT providers.

I was the presenter for the introduction session which provided information about the group such as its missions, goals and why it was created. I also explained the affiliation that we have with the Professional Association of SQL Server (PASS). For more information about this presentation please review my Trinidad and Tobago SQL Server User Group post.

After the introduction I went on to my other presentation which was titled 'Introduction to Database Administration'. We didn't want the sessions to be too advanced because there were some attendees who were new to Microsoft SQL Server. The presentations were developed to introduce people to the SQL Server world and also keep the interest of people who was already familiar with SQL Server. My presentation highlighted definitions of Microsoft SQL Server and Database Administration and also gave a brief introduction to SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), Analysis Services (SSAS) and Integration Services (SSIS). The majority of the presentation demonstrated some basic methods of adjusting settings for an instance via SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and concluded with the creation of a management plan to create ‘Back Up Database tasks’ and ‘Maintenance Cleanup tasks’. The deck can be viewed here.

The presenter for the last session titled 'Introduction to Database Development' was Mitra Sinanan, who is a Senior System Analyst/Programmer at Infotech Carribbean. He created a database to store data for the Round of 32 taking place in the FIFA World Cup 2010. He used this information to explain CRUD operations, Table and Column Aliasing, Inner Joins, SQL Constructs, Common Table Expressions and Complex Sub queries. His presentation and the scripts used during the presentation can be downloaded here.

The closing remarks consisted of a vote of thanks and a winner selection that was created by placing the attendees name into a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 table and randomly selecting the name with T-SQL code. Congratulations to Rellon Lawrence who won the HP Passport Drive and Gregory Chee who won the Sony Digital Camera.

I would like to thank Microsoft Trinidad and Tobago for hosting this event and also investing and believing in the vision of the group.

Also special thanks to following for making the event a success:

• Mitra Sinanan for taking the time to share his knowledge with the group.
• Gisselle Ramsaran and Indera Ganesh from Corbin Communications for making all the arrangements for the event.
• Neeala Maharaj-Racha, our Microsoft Liaison, for all the time and effort that she spent in order to assist the group
• Of course the other co-founders of the group, Anand Singh and Ruselle Seeboo.
• Last but most importantly, the people who attended the event and who were interested in attending the event.  

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