My Review of Immersion Event on Performance Tuning and Optimization 1

I was fortunate enough to attend IEPTO1 (Immersion Event on Performance Tuning and Optimization part 1) by Kimberly Tripp (twitter) and Paul Randal (twitter) of SQLSkills this past Spring. It was absolutely amazing! If you are a DBA, developer, or just an IT tech geek who loves to learn then you must attend this event. Find registration information here.

Getting situated…

I flew in on Saturday and stayed with a friend. Some people stayed at the hotel where the event was taking place. I was staying only a couple miles away from the event so it was bad at all.

On the very first day, before class started, Kimberly reassured us that we will not go hungry. There was so much food! Breakfast and lunch was served every day. Snacks, soda, coffee/tea, water were all available throughout the day. The last thing anyone worried about was an empty stomach.

The conference room was a bit chilly but I got used to it. If you easily get cold then I advise wearing a fleece or light sweater.

Agenda

The agenda is no joke. Before I even thought about signing up for this event, I watched SQLSkills MCM videos at least 2-3 times each and still was in for a surprise.

The IEPTO1 event is broken into 11 modules spread over 5 days:

Module 1: Database Structures
Module 2: Data Files
Module 3: Locking & Blocking
Module 4: Versioning
Module 5: Logging & Recovery
Module 6: Index Internals
Module 7: Index Fragmentation
Module 8: Internals & Data Access
Module 9: Statistics
Module 10: Cardinality
Module 11: Indexing Strategies

It was an immense amount of information. I definitely plan on attending IEPTO2.

Kim and Paul encouraged everyone to go back home and practice, practice, practice! They sent us back with demo scripts, notes, homework, printouts, and a few goodies. (see pic below)

On the last day we all got a certificate of completion (see below) and posed for a group picture! Paul asked us to “act silly”…and yes, that is Paul in the back doing what seems like choking (or trying to kiss) Tim Radney. :)