Speakers

Klaus Aschenbrenner (Anecon)

Klaus Aschenbrenner works as a Software Architect in Vienna - Austria. Klaus has worked with the .NET Framework and especially with SQL Server 2008 from the very beginning. In the years 2004 - 2005 Klaus was honored with MVP awards from Microsoft for his tremendous support of the .NET Community. He currently travels around the world teaching clients the core concepts of SQL Server 2008. Klaus is also the author of the book Pro SQL Server 2008 Service Broker (ISBN 1590599993) published by Apress in August 2008.

Andras Belokosztolszki (Red Gate Software Ltd.)

András Belokosztolszki is a software architect at Red Gate Software Ltd. He is a frequent speaker at many UK user groups and events like SQL Bits, NxtGen and VBUG. His primary interest lies in databases; from implementing database back ends to schema change management. At Red Gate he has designed and led the development of many database tools that compare schemata, enable source control for databases, refactor databases and analyze the transaction log of SQL Server. András has a PhD from Cambridge and an MSc and BSc from ELTE, Hungary. He is also an MCSD and MCPD.

Christian Bolton (Coeo Ltd.)

Christian Bolton is a Director and Database Architect for Coeo Ltd, a Microsoft Gold Partner that delivers SQL Server Managed Support and Consulting to organisations in the UK and Europe. Prior to this, Christian worked for 5 years as a Senior Premier Field Engineer for Microsoft UK working with some of Microsoft’s biggest customers. He is a Microsoft Certified Architect, Certified Master and MVP for SQL Server, co-author of Professional SQL Server 2005 Performance Tuning and is currently writing a book titled Professional SQL Server 2008 Internals & Troubleshooting. He works out of London and lives in the south of England with his wife and children and can be contacted through http://coeo.com

Bodo Michael Danitz (sql-server.de)

Bodo Michael Danitz has been a freelanced consultant for database systems since his studies of electrical engineering. He worked as an application developer on Oracle platforms for eight years. With the release of Microsoft SQL Server 6 in the year 1995 he left the Oracle platform to be deep diving into SQL Server DBA matters. His specialities are performance tuning, very large databases, and high availability subjects. Today he is one of the few highly esteemed performance gurus worldwide. His customer list covers many global players, including Microsoft in Redmond, for whom he incidentally wrote SQL Server MOC exam items. He won also fame for his expertise in performance tuning Microsoft Dynamics NAV and AX, as well as for his products known under the brand of SQLSunrise®.

Donald Farmer (Microsoft Corporation)

Donald Farmer has worked in the Microsoft Business Intelligence team for 7 years, with experience in both the Analysis Services and Integration Services product teams. Donald is now a Principal Program Manager for SQL Server Analysis Services, working to build a new generation of analytic technology. Mr. Farmer is a popular speaker at international events for both business and technical audiences, with a wide range of interests including data integration, information quality, metadata intelligence, master data management and predictive analytics. He is a Guest Professor at the College of Software and Information Science, Southwestern University at Chongqing, China and is the author of a number of books and articles. Prior to joining Microsoft, Donald worked not only in Business Intelligence but in fields as varied as medieval archaeology and fish-farming.

Alberto Ferrari (SQLBI)

I am a consultant and trainer in BI development in Italy. My main interests are in the methodological approaches to the BI development, some of my thoughts about it are shown at the page http://www.sqlbi.eu/SqlBiMethodology.aspx where, with Marco Russo, we describe a complete methodological approach to the BI development. I spent several years working with SSIS and SSAS for the bank and manufacturing areas. I normally work as a consultant for SW developers who are interested in the creation of complex BI solutions.

Brad McGehee (Red Gate Software)

Brad M. McGehee is a MCSE+I, MCSD, and MCT (former) with a Bachelors’ degree in Economics and a Masters in Business Administration. Currently the Director of DBA Education for Red Gate Software, Brad is an accomplished Microsoft SQL Server MVP with over 13 years’ SQL Server experience, and over 6 years’ training experience. Brad is a frequent speaker at SQL PASS, SQL Connections, SQLTeach, TechFests, Code Camps, SQL Server user groups, and other industry seminars, where he shares his 13 years’ cumulative knowledge. Brad was the founder of the popular community site SQL-Server-Performance.Com, and operated it from 2000 through 2006, where he wrote over one million words on SQL Server topics. In 2008, Brad attended 16 conferences/user group events, presented 26 sessions, and had 1,402 people attend them. A well-respected and trusted name in SQL Server literature, Brad is the author or co-author of more than 12 technical books and over 100 published articles. His most recent books include “How to Become an Exceptional DBA,” and “Brad's Sure Guide to SQL Server 2008: The Top Ten New Features for DBAs.” In early 2009, he will be releasing a book on how to use the SQL Server Profiler.

Bill Graziano

Bill Graziano is a partner in ClearData Consulting and and a SQL Server MVP. He specializes in SQL Server performance tuning, database administration and database application development. Bill serves on the Board of Directors of PASS and is a regular presenter at their annual conference. Bill is a founder of SQLTeam.com, a web site for SQL Server professionals and has taught classes in SQL Server, Visual Basic, MSF and Windows Server.

Thomas Grohser (bwin Interactive Entertainment AG)

SQL Server DBA since 1994 First Version used SQL Server 4.21 First Log Shipping Failover on SQL Server 6.0 First SQL Server Cluster on SQL Server 6.5 First time > 1 billion rows on SQL Server 7.0 First time 100% availability for 2 years ina row SQL Server 2000 First OLTP long distance mirroring SQL Server 2005 I work very close with the SQLCAT and SCAN teams and participate in various SQL Server TAP (technology adoption programs) with microsoft to be able to architect, plan, implement and run one of the largest and busiest SQL Server installations Now it's time to share all the lessions learned and give back to the community.

Thomas Kejser (Microsoft Customer Advisory Team - SQLCAT)

Thomas has been working with SQL Server since version 6.5 and performance tuned cubes since OLAP Server 7.0. He has worked on some of the largest cubes in the world. Performing fast loading of warehousing and removing every bottleneck is one of Thomas specialties. He holds a master degree in computer science and has 10+ years of experience with developer coaching and scalable architectures on both OLTP and OLAP systems.

Steffen Krause (Microsoft Deutschland GmbH)

Steffen Krause is a Technical Evangelist for Application Platform at Microsoft Germany. After working for seven years as a BI and information management senior consultant for for various enterprise customers, he now supports the SQL Server community for Microsoft TechNet, specializing in large databases, data mining and SQL Server Security. He is a regular speaker at various European events, like TechEd EMEA ITProfessionals and PASS European conference. http://blogs.technet.com/steffenk

Justin Langford (Coeo Ltd.)

I work as a Principal Consultant for Coeo Ltd, a Microsoft Gold Partner providing SQL Server consulting services for upgrade, performance tuning, scalability and availability solutions for all versions of SQL Server. Coeo also offer Remote DBA services to customers who outsource management and 24x7 operations of their SQL Server platform. I work delivering and maintaining SQL Server solutions for customers in a variety of industry sectors throughout Europe.
Prior to joining Coeo - I spent three years working for Microsoft as a Premier Field Engineer. In this role, I delivered SQL Server support consulting to some of Microsoft’s largest finance and government customers in Europe. I have co-authored Wrox IT Pro: SQL Server 2005 Performance Tuning, two Syngress study guides on SQL Server 2008 and I’m currently working on a new Wrox title: SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting with Christian Bolton, Brent Ozar and Cindy Gross.

Holger Linke (Microsoft)

Holger Linke joined Microsoft in 1992 and is currently a member of the SQL Server support team in Unterschleissheim near Munich. His Microsoft SQL Server experience ranges from version 6.0 up to the recent version 2008. He is now working as an escalation engineer, and is a specialist for the QL Server Replication technology.

Sascha Lorenz (PSG Projekt Service GmbH)

Sascha is co-founder of PSG GmbH and works as a Solution Architect und Senior Consultant focusing on the Microsoft platform and tools (SQL, SharePoint and BizTalk). He has been involved since 1996 in many Business Intelligence-related projects, workshops and presentations. He represents his company as a speaker at events, conferences and user group meetings. He is also active in the German SQL Server Community as the Leader for PASS Chapter in Hamburg and writes articles for print and online magazines. Sascha share his daily experiences and knowledge at his weblog http://saschalorenz.blogspot.com and as a speaker in the local PASS Chapter in Hamburg. He is certified as MCDBA, MCSE, MCTS & MCITP. Sascha also represents his company at conferences for tax consultants and chartered accountant in database-related workshops.

Davide Mauri

Davide Mauri - MCP, MCAD, MCDBA, MCT, MVP on SQL Server - works with SQL Server since version 6.5, and his interest cover the whole platform, from the Relational Engine to Analysis Services, from architecture definition to performance tuning. He also have a strong knowledge of XML, .NET and the Object Oriented Design principles, which allows him to have the correct vision and experience to handle development of complex business intelligence solution.
Having worked as a Microsoft Certified Teacher for many years, Davide is able to pass all his knowledge to his co-workers, making his team able to deliver high-quality solutions. He actually works as a Mentor for Solid Quality Mentors and can be found speaking in many Italian and internationals events.

Ross Mistry (Convergent Computing)

Ross Mistry is a consultant, bestselling author and SQL Server MVP. As a consultant in the Silicon Valley, he design and implements solutions for fortune 500 organizations with Microsoft technologies. His specialties include migrations, high availability, security and virtualization. Ross has been involved in over ten books; his latest titles include SQL Server 2008 Management and Administration, Windows Server 2008 Unleashed and Hyper-V Unleashed. Ross also frequently speaks at international conferences such as PASS, Connections and Microsoft. His sessions receive top rated speaker scores. His blog can be found on networkworld.com and the Microsoft TechNet IT Community Manager Hub site.

Allan Mitchell (Konesans)

Allan, began his experience of SQL Server with version 6.5. He provides consultancy on DTS and SSIS to an array of clients based in the US and Europe. Allan is currently working on a number of credit Risk projects at a Tier 1 Investment bank in London. He is an MCSE on Windows 2000, an MCDBA and a Microsoft SQL Server MVP. He is the co-author of Real-World SQL-DMO for SQL Server by Apress and has had articles published in SQL Server Professional Magazine. Allan can be found on the Microsoft public newsgroups answering questions on a variety of topics but in the main on DTS and SSIS (microsoft.public.sqlserver.dts, (microsoft.public.sqlserver.integrationsvcs).

Markus Raatz (ixto GmbH)

Markus Raatz is Co-founder and General Manager of ixto GmbH, a Microsoft Gold Partner specialized in Microsoft Business Intelligence. Together with Ruprecht Dröge, he was the author of the first german book on SQL Server 2005 at Microsoft Press. Their new book covering SQL 2008 will be available this spring. At the moment, he is mostly busy doing data warehousing-projects with Analysis Services. In his spare time, he also leads the regional group of SQLPASS in his home town Berlin.

Marco Russo (SQLBI)

I’m a consultant and trainer in software development based in Turin (Italy), focusing on development for Microsoft Windows operating system. I’m involved in several Business Intelligence projects, making data warehouse relational and multidimensional design. I have particular competence and experience of BI solutions in sectors like financial services (including complex olap designs in banking area), manufacturing and commercial distribution. I approached and designed complex models involving heavy use of virtual cubes, distinct count measures, MDX formulas especially server-side (calculated members and custom member formulas) and many-to-many relationships (with UDM of SQL Server 2005 – see http://www.sqlbi.eu/manytomany.aspx for my publications about this topic). I'm one of the authors of the SQLBI Methodology, which is specifically intended to use the SQL Server platform to design a Business Intelligence Solution based on a RDBMS-based Data Warehouse and a multidimensional database using Analysis Services. I have been a SQL Server 2005 beta tester since summer 2003 and I regularly teach about Microsoft BI-related products in private courses and public events.

Simon Sabin

Simon is Director of his own data consultancy company Onarc Consulting that specialises in data related systems. He is also a Developer Skills Partner with SQLSkills. He has a particular expertise in the world of search, distributed architectures, business intelligence and application development. He has worked with SQL Server since 1998 and has always focused on high performance reliable systems. Simon was awarded as an MVP in 2006. He founded the first free SQL Server conference in the UK SQLBits in 2007 along with other MVPs in the UK. He is a regular speaker at SQL Server events as well as writing his blog and writing for SQLServerCentral and Simple-Talk.com. He is married with children and lives in the UK.

Dejan Sarka

Dejan Sarka focuses on development of database & business intelligence applications. Besides projects, he spends about half of the time on training and mentoring. He is the founder of the Slovenian SQL Server and .NET Users Group. Dejan Sarka is the main author or coauthor of seven books about databases and SQL Server. Dejan Sarka also developed two courses for Solid Quality Learning - Data Modeling Essentials and Data Mining with SQL Server 2008.

Steve Simon (State Street Corporation)

Steve Simon is an Assistant Vice President with State Street Corporation. He has been involved with database design and analysis for over 20 years. Steve has presented papers at seven PASS Summits (in Orlando, Seattle WA(3),Denver C0(2) and San Francisco CA). He has just recently presented his PASS 2008 Summit presentation in Johannesburg South Africa. Steve has also presented papers at the Information Builders' International Technology Summits in New Orleans(1998), in Orlando(1999), Las Vegas (2007) and two in Nashville(2008). Steve has also had two papers published in Information Builders' Systems Journal and is a regular Webinar presenter for Information Builders.

Dejan Sunderic (SQL Server User Group)

Dejan Sunderic is an independent consultant specializing in SQL Server development and architecture. He is originally from Belgrade. He came to Toronto in 1995 and at some point spent 3 years doing consulting in US. He is currently vice-president of Toronto SQL Server User Group (www.tsql.ca). He is an author of 7 books (such as "SQL Server 2005 Stored Procedure Programming in TSQL and .NET").

Frederik Vandeputte

Frederik Vandeputte is a Senior Consultant and trainer for Kohera, the Microsoft SQL Server/Business Intelligence Competence Center of the Cronos Group. Frederik has been working with SQL Server since version 6.5. In his free time Frederik collects Microsoft certifications. His collections includes MCTS, MCSA, MCSE, MCDBA, MCITP, MCT, ranging from Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000 up to Windows 2003 and SQL Server 2008. Frederik is one of the co-founders and the Vice President of the Belgian SQL Server User Group (SQLUG.BE). In January 2008 Frederik, became the first Belgian MVP on SQL Server. His blog can be found on http://www.vandeputte.org/.

Henk van der Valk (Unisys)

Henk van der Valk is Workload & Performance Architect and responsible for the European Unisys Enterprise Performance Center located in Amsterdam. Since 2000 Henk is specialized in optimizing large-scale Microsoft application and database solutions; handling high volume / multi Terabyte solutions. (And here to share the tricks!)
He also participates in the Dutch SQLPass Performance Special Interest group (www.sqlpass.nl).

Bob Ward (Microsoft CSS)

Bob Ward is a Principal Escalation Engineer in Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) based in the Microsoft Regional Support Center in Irving, Texas. He has worked with Microsoft since 1993 and has now supported every release of Microsoft SQL Server from 1.1 for OS/2 to SQL Server 2008. Bob has been presenting topics on SQL Server at PASS Summits since 2003 both in the United States and Europe. His background in the computer industry spans 22 years and includes database development projects with companies like General Dynamics, Harris Hospital, and American Airlines. Bob graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science from Baylor University in 1986. Bob has co-authored the book SQL Server 2005 Practical Troubleshooting: The Database Engine including chapters on advanced data recovery and troubleshooting critical errors.

Chris Webb (Crossjoin Consulting)

Chris Webb is an independent consultant who has been working with the Microsoft Business Intelligence toolset since 1998. His main focus is Analysis Services - complex MDX queries and calculations are his particular interest - although he has much experience with Reporting Services, Integration Services and various other related tools. He has worked both as a consultant, including three years with Microsoft Consulting Services, and on internal BI development projects in a wide range of industries including pharmaceuticals, banking, finance, manufacturing, engineering and retail.
He is a co-author of the book "MDX Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 and Hyperion Essbase" along with George Spofford and others, and is an active member of the Microsoft BI community, contributing regularly to newsgroups and online forums and speaking at conferences.

His weblog can be found here.

Meinrad Weiss

Meinrad Weiss works for more than 15 years in the IT Business. His primary focus is in the area of Databases, Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence. He is also MSDN Regional Director for Switzerland.

Johann Weskandt (Microsoft)

Johann Weskandt is working since 1995 in the SQL Server support for the Microsoft GmbH in Unterschleissheim near Munich. So he knows the Microsoft SQL Server since the Version 4.2a. Since 1998 he is working as escalation engineer to support customers together with the development team in Redmond. At the European PASS conference 2005 he delivered the lecture "Practical SQL Server" and at the PASS conference 2008 he delivered a German version of "Advanced troubleshooting in SQL Server 2005 and 2008".

Andreas Wolter

Andreas Wolter has been working with SQL Server since Version 7 and is certified as MCITP on all 3 tracks (Administrator, Developer und Business Intelligence) on SQL Server 2008. He is founder and manager of Sarpedon Quality Lab, focused primarily on the development and optimizing of database systems and datawarehouse environments as well as on the business intelligence suite of SQL Server. As Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and Consultant, he works all over Europe to impart and apply his knowledge in professional trainings or in developments on the spot.
His website is: www.SarpedonQualityLab.com and his blog on Reporting Services is at www.vb-magazin.de/forums/blogs/andreaswolter.