SQL Skills - IEPTO2 Recap » GarryBargsley.com

Recently I had the opportunity to attend my second SQL Skills training course. I was honored that my company felt it was worth while for my career growth to send me to such a top notch training class. This was my second time to attend a SQL Skills training event. The first one was hosted in Chicago, IL in 2015. I learned so much during that class and was able to start using the information gained as soon as I arrived back at the office.

Sight-Seeing Weekend:

This class was hosted in Bellevue, WA which is a part of the country I have never been before. I was able to travel to Seattle the weekend before the class with my lovely wife. We had such a great time exploring Seattle and taking in such beautiful sites. We had great food and shopping all over town and enjoyed my first Uber…

The icing on the cake for that weekend was that there was an annual Air Show and the Blue Angels were practicing outside of my hotel room window.

Training Week:

Now comes the fun stuff that is SQL Skills IEPTO2. So on Sunday I made my way to Bellevue, with the help of an Uber of course. The hotel where the training was held was very nice and accommodating. Right across the street was a shopping center with stores that are out of my price range. However, I wondered through and did some window shopping for my wife. (Hahaha!!!) Then I proceeded to walk down the street to the “normal” mall which my phone map said was pretty close. It was not really. I was looking for a special gift for my wife as I tend to do when I am alone and missing her. Low and behold there was a Tiffany’s store; they have a special place in our history together. So I was greeted by a very nice lady who helped my find exactly what I was looking for. And then guess what, Uber back to hotel.

The hotel has a gym and a pool on the same floor as my room. These are things that life usually gets in the way of when I am at home, so I actually worked out each day I was there.

Then along came Monday morning and after doing some work, due to the 2 hour time difference back home I went down to class. The first day is always exciting as you get to meet the trainers and your classmates. The agenda was jam packed for the week and all the instructors were there and ready to get going.

Topics of the week:

SQL Server IO
SQLOS and CPU
Extended Events
Wait Stats
Query Plan analysis
Plan Cache
SQLOS and Memory
And much, much, much more…

The week flew by as these things tend to do when you are so focused on learning new stuff for a solid eight hours a day and also trying to keep track of things back home.

However, I learned so much that I feel most of it was completely beyond my comprehension. But I plan to focus on putting the methods in place that I learned and building solid troubleshooting skills when it comes to SQL Server.

The more I learn about how SQL works at the deepest and darkest depths it is truly amazing how awesome the product is. And with all the smart people at Microsoft the product continues to get better. And what I have found is that the SQL community support on the internet is truly world class. There are so many resources and other tools that help you learn the product in the area that interests you most.

Recap:

I am a firm believer in classroom training if you can take what you learn and apply it in the real world and learn from the material. The SQL Skills classes are world class and are taught by people that have the hands on knowledge. They have seen the scenarios’, they have worked through these problems time and time again.

Now off to my note filled; personalized notebook my wife made me so I can start implementing what I learned.