SQL Saturday Chattanooga was held on June 24, 2017 at UT Chattanooga EMC Building, Tennessee. I have been to multiple SQL Saturdays earlier, but this was my first time in SQL Saturday Chattanooga. I was humbled to get the opportunity to present two sessions during this event.

SQLSaturday is a free training event for Microsoft Data Platform professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server, Business Intelligence and Analytics. It is a great opportunity to listen to some of the best speakers around, interact with the brightest minds and network with the awesome SQL Family. Admittance to this event is free, and most costs are covered by donations and sponsorships. 

Due to heavy rains on the day before the event, I missed out the Speaker Dinner. I started speaking in SQL Saturdays earlier this year and hence for me Speaker Dinner is a great opportunity to meet popular speakers and interact with them. Not to forget the awesome event organizing team!

The event had a great turnaround. There were 7 tracks with lot of awesome sessions by speakers, who came from all over the country.

During my 1st session on ‘Making Developers lives easier with SQL Server 2016‘ , there was a technical glitch – there was no HDMI connection available in the room – and hence I could not use my primary laptop to run the demos. Good thing was that I carried a backup laptop having VGA connection and used it for both my presentations. You learn something each day. I will be surely carrying a HDMI to VGA converter with me during my future presentations.

You can find my presentation slide here –

Making Developers Lives easier with SQL Server 2016

Scripts demonstrating SQL Server 2016 features are uploaded in GITHUB –
https://gist.github.com/samirbehara

The 2nd session on ‘Increasing your Coding Speed in SQL Server Management Studio‘ went really good and there were some nice questions asked by the attendees. 

You can download the presentation slide from the link below –

Increasing your Coding Speed in SQL Server Management Studio

I would like to thank everyone who came to my sessions and provided their valuable feedback – I received a total of 36 session evals 🙂

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The overall event had a great turnaround and I think close to 200 attended it. The Organizing Team did an amazing job in organizing the event so smoothly. Special mention to Larry Ortega for all his efforts in making this event a runaway success. I hope to be back to this event next year.

Categories: Conference, SQL Server