Year Two of our beautiful idea--gather together with a group of podcast listeners in a conference type format and find ways for us to connect and help each other grow.  I am influenced by what I see in other events; however, I want to add my own flavor to what is currently offered.  I want SQL Trail to be different--learning should be attendee-driven rather than event planned.  The focus should be on the networking--the hallway track.  Everyone should make a new friend.  In this episode of the podcast, we have our SQL Trail retrospective and give some thoughts on what next year might entail. We try to give our honest feedback about what we did well, what could have been improved, and what the attendees reported.  I can’t say enough about the help I got from our speakers–Jonathan Stewart, Kevin Feasel, Angela Henry, Monica Rathbun, Megan Longoria and Melissa Coates.  They were awesome and the event was much simpler because of them and their commitment.  They are truly my compañeros on the SQL Trail. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/11/07/episode-153-sql-trail-2018-retrospective. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Those trained in SSAS may cringe a bit, but a curious thought entered my mind.  Many organizations start using data warehouse structure with fact and dimension tables, but never make it to the 'cube' state--actually using analysis services.  Admittedly, I don't use SSAS and the occasional reprocessing of a cube or dimension is about my only experience.  When Trey Johnson, our guest for this episode, wanted to chat about SSAS, I thought this would be interesting to get his perspective on using SSAS, the future of the service, and how PowerBI just might make it much more accessible. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/11/1/episode-152-do-you-use-analysis-services. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Platform as a service has finally arrived to Microsoft's Azure offering.  With the release of Azure SQL Database Managed Instances--quite the mouthful--there is now an option to explore database services without missing all the functionality we didn't have with Azure SQL Database.  We are joined by Javier Villegas to discuss his experiences with Managed Instances and why we think this will be one service more organizations will want to start adopting. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/10/24/episode-151-azure-sql-database-managed-instance. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Today we, the SQL Data Partners team, celebrate our 150th podcast episode! We introduce ourselves, talk about what we're doing, our goals for the coming year and answer the SQL Family questions. Come get to know us! The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/10/18/episode-150-sql-data-partners-team. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Do you ever feel like you have too many databases to manage?  Managing lot of databases can get tricky and in this episode we explore some of the techniques you can use when you need to manage lots of databases.  Tracy Boggiano joins us to discuss some of her techniques, as she has managed over 300 instances. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/10/11/episode-149-managing-lots-of-databases. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

SSRS is great -- it comes with SQL Server, provides quite a bit of functionality, but sometimes doesn't always perform well. In this episode we welcome back Bert Wagner as he chats with us about some of the ways he has improved his under-performing reports. Our conversation focuses on SSRS itself -- we are going to assume you can tune the queries in SSMS from previous episodes or the interwebs. What do you think of our list? Did we miss one? Let us know! The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/09/27/episode-148-high-performance-ssrs. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Security is always important to data folks and when a new feature like Always Encrypted comes along, it gets your attention. In this episode, we discuss this feature introduced in SQL Server 2016. We are joined by our guest Sam Nasr and he shares an overview and we find it may not cover all the scenarios you might think when you hear the name. Our discussion leads to scenarios in both on-premises and cloud solutions. Joined by Kevin Feasel and Eugene Meidinger, this episode will allow you to be a bit more prepared when you hear someone say all your problems will be solved with Always Encrypted. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/09/19/episode-147-always-encrypted. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

So what is SQL Trail all about?  In this episode we invite our MVPs to discuss some of the topics they are ready to share on SQL Trail.  We know there are lots of options for training and networking -- this is our iteration on what the experience should be.  If after you listen to the episode and want to sign up, you can use our sponsor code "MaconIT" to save $250 of the cost!  We hope to see you on the SQL Trail! The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/09/12/episode-146-sql-trail-speakers. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

In this episode we finish up our conversation with Jason and Cathrine and talk about how they keep up with all the changes in data conversions.  The advent of Azure services is great, but can be tricky to navigate.  We also get to hear Jason's answers to the SQL Family questions. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/09/05/episode-145-is-ssis-still-relevant. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Moving data with SSIS is a forgone conclusion for most of us -- it is part of SQL Server, it has a interface we are somewhat familiar with, and connects to lots of common data sources like csv, excel, and of course SQL Server. Are our needs changing as our environments become more hybrid -- as we introduce cloud services? Are you still building packages the same way you were 10 years ago? Just as our data sources have grown, the capabilities needed to move data around have increased. This episode, with Jason Horner and Cathrine Wilhelmsen, challenges some of the thoughts around data movement and gives some things to think about as new tools are available to move data around. The show notes for today's episode can be found at http://sqldatapartners.com/2018/08/29/episode-144-is-ssis-still-relevant. Have fun on the SQL Trail!