We are very proud to be able to bring you this selection of free and paid technical training opportunities for you to select from. The opportunity to have a full day of training with any of these speakers should not be underestimated; here are some comments from people who attended our training day in March 2013.

“Really good conference – hope there is another in the SW”
“Jonathan & Annette (and the rest of the team) have done a fantastic job. This has been a first class event. I hope they organise more in the future.”

Update: Details on the session locations are now available.

The Sessions available on our Training Day event on 21st March 2014 are:

Data Insights Immersion
Delivered by Microsoft and free to attend these half-day sessions are a new in-person facilitated engagement that allows you to take your own journey in understanding how Microsoft’s Cloud OS vision can deliver a consistent and comprehensive set of Big Data capabilities, covering SQL Server 2012, Microsoft HDInsight Services, Sharepoint and Microsoft Excel.  More details …

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Depending on when you register for a place on one of the sessions below the charge will be £185 (for bookings made before 28th February 2014) and £200 thereafter.

Latest news! We have 16 Prometric exam vouchers available to session attendees interested in taking an MCP exam. We will be drawing 2 names from each session at the end of the training day. Good luck!

You can register for your chosen Training Day session here.

Reporting Services From Rookie to Rockstar
Stacia takes us on a journey in SQL Server Reporting Services, designed specifically for report developers who have no prior experience with the product. Delegates will learn how to use the development tools effectively, how to present and enhance data in a report, and how to create dynamic reports.
Even if you have some experience with Reporting Services, this session will explore aspects that aren’t intuitive or well-documented, helping you expand your skills and make the most of this powerful reporting tool. More details …

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Understanding Execution Plans
Reading and understanding execution plans is key to understanding and fixing ill-performing queries. In this full-day workshop Hugo will teach you everything you need to know about execution plans.

Attend this workshop if you want to hone your tuning skills and help your servers reach optimum performance. More details …

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A 360 View of Data Warehousing in SQL Server
Certified Microsoft Trainer and SQL Server MVP Chris Testa ONeill will take you on a journey through Data Warehousing with SQL Server.

SQL Server provides capabilities that really empower users to play an active role in defining a business data warehouse, and provides more solid requirements to the BI professional. In this session Chris shows delegates how to get the business involved. Whether it is cleaning data through Data Quality Services, defining reference data in Master Data services, or pulling trusted industry data from Azure data market. And not forgetting SSIS where you can then wire it all up. More details …

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SQL Optimization & Internals Workshop!
– A day of T-SQL and SQL Server Fun.
Join Dave to learn how to make your queries go fast!! And understand how this happens. Dave always makes his sessions fun and you are guaranteed to come away with loads of information on how to write and tune your queries and configure your servers for maximum efficiency. You’ll also get a deeper knowledge of the internals of SQL Server. More details …

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Performance Troubleshooting using DMVs
Neil is Senior DBA with Confio and has over a decade of experience with SQL Server. In this training day he will show you how Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) can help performance troubleshooting. . .

Learn the critical DMV knowledge and other techniques to becoming skilled in performance troubleshooting; be able to rapidly identify and resolve performance issues using proven methodologies; correctly configure important resources for maximising performance capabilities. More details …

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SQL Server For Developers
Mladen Prajdić is a C# developer and SQL Server MVP who has a habit of optimizing things. He is also the developer of the brilliant SSMS ToolsPack. Mladen will spend the day demonstrating what .NET and SQL Developers should know about SQL Server. Covering data types, error handling, troubleshooting and lots more.

Whatever your level you should get lots out of this session that will bring out the best solutions possible when developers get to work with SQL Server. More details …

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What’s new in SQL Server 2014 for DBAs
André Kamman, SQL Server MVP, has worked for some of the largest global corporations, managing hundreds of SQL Server instances.

We all know that SQL Server 2014 is coming soon but if you want to know how it will help you and what changes you might need to prepare for then let Andre guide you through the new features and improvements that SQL 2014 will give you. More details …

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Big Data for the Business Intelligence Professional
Allan Mitchell and Jen Stirrup have SQL Server BI in their blood, both are MVPs, and they will bring you a day of high value BI content, drawn from their years of experience as BI consultants.

Everywhere you look at the moment people are talking about Big Data and how to analyse it. Experts Allan and Jen will demystify Microsoft’s Big Data offerings and show you how to serve big data to business users. More details …