New Beginings – Big Data to Find a Cure for Healthcare

I know it’s been a while since my last post  here.
Next week is PASS Summit and it will mark 3 years since my last  session at SQL PASS Summit 2015. I have learned a lot since then and joined a  new company as Data Architect to help build a new web analytics and audience identity product. I shifted my focus from SQL Server on premise to the AWS Cloud. I learned a lot about AWS, migrated instances to SQL Server on RDS as well as traditional EC2 instances and then shifted into Big Data on AWS, working with an amazing team to build a datalake for the new product I helped develop in the last 3 years. Earlier this year I passed the exam to become a  AWS Certified Solution Architect – Associate and I’m working on getting the Big Data – Specialty Certification.

But next week marks a new chapter in my life and I cannot contain my excitement. I will be joining a leading healthcare decision support technology company as their Big Data Architect and work with another great team to build a cloud product that I hope will help solve one of the biggest problems in America – The cost of healthcare.  Needless to say that  this is a subject I am extremely passionate about. The greatest country in the world has a deep fundamental problem – the majority of healthcare providers both individuals and corporations don’t know how much a medical procedure should cost. This means that if you ask a doctor before a procedure how much will it cost the answer will be “I DON’T KNOW”.  We developed an industry that has providers on one side wanting to charge more to cover their costs and be profitable  because they do not have detailed information and on the other side medical insurance wanting to negotiate the same cost down to stay competitive. But regardless if you are insured, uninsured or underinsured the costs of healthcare will shift towards those who pay … the patients and their employer,

Healthcare is complex
Healthcare is complex

In all honesty, accurately estimating the cost of helthcare  is not a simple problem and I believe it is a global problem. Even if most countries have standardized costs for every procedure everyone is different. The cost is just an average cost that does not account for factors like equipment maintenance cost, healthcare professional’s experience,  legal costs or unknown side effects that can occur following the procedure because everyone is different. Just like any average that can change year over year and it does. If you approximate your car expenses based on the average maintenance and fuel cost of the first 3 years of owning  your first car and then you buy a more expensive models you would expect the cost to change and it would not be accurate to use the old car even with some padding to estimate the new cost.  Imagine a world where you can use a business inteligence tools to analyse all the different costs in real time and gain insights that can help you rapidly  make decisions to save money , budget more accurately  and maybe ultimately improve the outcomes and lives of patients.  Can you tell I’m excited?

I promise I will start to write more about technologies I’ve used, healthcare costs and othe things I’ve learned as well as new technologies that I have yet to discover and implement.

Speaking at PASS Summit 2015 in Seattle

 I’m thrilled  to announce that I’ll be speaking for the fourth  time in a row at PASS Summit 2015 in Seattle, WA, presenting a new session  ,“Anatomy of an optimizer” as a Regular Session on Wed 10/28/2015 starting at 4:45 p.m. in room 6B

I am extremely honored to be selected to speak a PASS Summit again , the greatest SQL Server conference of the year where I will join more than  150 of the industry’s leading speakers while having the unique chance to meet over 5500 database professionals from  more than 52 countries. I would like to thank the PASS  Program Committee and Speaker review team for their support and for selecting my session again .

Presenting to Chicago SQL Server User Group – October 9, 2014

I am honored to preview one of my sessions for PASS Summit 2014 –  A Tale of Two Joins: Merge vs. Hash to the Chicago  SQL Server Users Group at the Microsoft Technology Center, 200 East Randolph Drive, Suite 200 Chicago, IL 60601.

It is a true honor to present in front of my own user group

Microsoft Technology Center
Microsoft Technology Center

where I learned so much in the last 7 years.

Look forward to see everyone there!

 

Presenting at SQL Saturday in Madison and Chicago

This week I am back in Madison, where I  will be presenting my newest  session on “How to baseline IO performance for your next SQL Server”  at  SQL Saturday #287 March 29, 2014. My next engagement will be in Addison for SQL Saturday #291 Chicago on April 26 2014 

Madison has a new location at 6000 American Parkway, Building A, Madison, WI 53783

There are 3 great Full day in-depth training sessions with respected SQL Server professionals on Friday , March 28  at  Globe University Madison East. Click a link for more information and registration!

Source: http://www.goodfreephotos.com

Chicago SQL Saturday  will be at the same great location  DeVry University Addison 1221 N Swift Road, Addison, IL 60101

There will be also 2 great full day in-depth training sessions with respected SQL Server professionals on Friday , April 25 2014. Click a link for more information and registration!

Better Performance Through Parallelism with Adam Machanic
Virtualization for SQL Server DBAs  with David Klee

Source: J. Crocker

SQLSaturday is a training event for SQL Server professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server. Admittance to this event is free, all costs are covered by donations and sponsorships. 

Hope to see you there!

Speaking at PASS Summit 2013 in Charlotte, NC

Speaking at the PASS Summit last year was  the highlight of my career. I was picked to present a single regular session and  I got some good feedback.

This year I’m thrilled  to announce that I’ll be speaking for the second time in a row at PASS Summit 2013 in Charlotte, NC

I’ll be presenting my favorite  and most popular deck ,“Anatomy of a join” as a Regular Session.

I am extremely honored to be selected to speak a PASS Summit 2013, the greatest SQL Server conference of the year where I will join more than  150 of the industry’s leading speakers while having the unique chance to meet over 5000 database professionals from 57 countries. I would like to thank the PASS  Program Committee and Speaker review team for their support and for selecting my session for the second time .

I hope to see you in October at the PASS Summit and hope you can make it to my session or just come by and say hi at one of the other events.

Presenting session: Anatomy of a Join at SQL Saturday #242 in Indianapolis

I’m thrilled to announce that I will be presenting for the third time at SQL Saturday in Indianapolis my Internals session “Anatomy of a Join” on Saturday August 10, 2013

source: Tripadvisor

Location is:
Indiana Wesleyan University North
3777 Priority Way South Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46240

SQLSaturday is a training event for SQL Server professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server. Admittance to this event is free, all costs are covered by donations and sponsorships. Please register soon as seating is limited, and let friends and colleagues know about the event.
If you are attending please stop by and introduce yourself. Also if you are on Twitter don’t forget to use hashtag #sqlsat242 and see what others are doing.

Hope to see you there!

T-SQL Tuesday #41 – A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

This post might come a bit late but this is in response to  Bob Pusateri‘s T-SQL Tuesday topic  about presenting. T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blogging event, with a different community host each month.

So, how did I come to present and loving it?

“a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”

After getting my graduate degree I stayed as an  Assistant Professor at Politechnica University of Timisoara, my Alma Mater, teaching seminars and labs on Programming  101 (Turbo Pascal … oh my!) and Relational databases labs while being the resident Oracle DBA at the Software Engineering department. 3 years later, I switched to a full time job as Oracle DBA and later  moved to a different continent with a different language and being an ESL speaker I did not think I would be speaking at public events… until 2 years ago at SQL Skills Immersion Events in Chicago (with Bob Pusateri!! our blog host). On the fourth day of the IE 1 class I volunteered to present a slide deck on SSD technology . I was extremely embarrassed as I felt like I was not in the same league as the rest of the presenters, but everything went so well that it made me reconsider my thoughts. As a matter of fact it made me submit a couple sessions for SQL Saturday #82 in Indianapolis and this was the beginning of my public speaking adventure. Later that year I actually presented 2 sessions in a day at SQL Saturday #96 in Washington, DC and the feedback was excellent.

 Starting on a journey as a speaker that has been incredibly rewarding and even though most of the time I paid for it out of my own pocket, the knowledge and the friends that I made on this journey were worth every effort. Last year two of my goals came true: attending PASS Summit for the first time and presenting my session titled “Optimizing SQL Server I/O with Solid State Drives ” at PASS Summit 2012. To put things  in perspective, 2012 has proved to  be truly amazing: Being mentored by Joe Sack blog|@josephsack from  SQLskills, attending my third  SQLskills Immersion Event – IE3, speaking at 6 SQLSaturday events in Madison WI, Chicago IL, Indianapolis IN, Iowa City IA, Kalamazoo MI and Minneapolis MN. I was extremely honored to be selected to speak a PASS Summit 2012, the greatest SQL Server conference of the year where I was joined by more than  150 of the industry’s leading speakers while having the unique chance to meet over 5000 database professionals.

My friend Paul Timmerman mentioned  in his post that last year I inspired him  to  start presenting. I am deeply honored to grow the community and inspire others to start speaking at community events the same way as I was inspired by Brent Ozar, Jes Borland, Paul Randal, Joe Sack and many other folks that are now part of my #SQLfamily

…and it all started 2 years ago with a session that was not supposed to last more than 15 minutes.

This week I will be attending my 4th SQL Saturday in Chicago, second time as a speaker,  hope you can make it to my session or just come by and say hi.

 

Presenting session: Anatomy of a Join at SQL Saturday #211 in Chicago

I’m thrilled to announce that I will be presenting for the second time at SQL Saturday  in Chicago  my Internals  session “Anatomy of a Join” on Saturday April 13, 2013!Chicago

Location is:
Devry Addison Campus
1221 N. Swift Rd, Addison, IL 60101

SQLSaturday is a training event for SQL Server professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server. Admittance to this event is free, all costs are covered by donations and sponsorships. Please register soon as seating is limited, and let friends and colleagues know about the event.
If you are attending please stop by and introduce yourself. Also if you are on Twitter don’t forget to use hashtag #sqlsat211 and see what others are doing.

Hope to see you there!

Things to do at PASS Summit 2012

Since there are over 5000 people that will be coming to Seattle this year for PASS Summit 2012 I was thinking to put together a list of things to do around the city.

Please feel free to add on to the list and I will try to update the content.Original Starbucks

First of all if you have not already done so, download the Guidebook app , search for Summit 2012 and load the official event schedule. This way any future updates will land right on your device.

  • #SQLRUN organized by Jes Borland @grrl_geek This will be a 5K run on Wednesday, November 7th at 6:00 AM.
  • Pike Place Market – about 6 blocks from the Convention Center  on Pike St – It is one of the oldest continually operated public farmers’ markets. If you are a coffee addict like me don’t miss the second Starbucks location in the original brown color scheme.
  • Seattle Monorail – You can ride a piece of history ($2.25 cash only/ one way) from Westlake Mall (2 blocks from Convention Center) to Space Needle and EMP
  • Space Needle –  Just like the monorail this iconic Seattle landmark was built for the1962 Seattle World’s Fair and featured in several movies like Elvis Presley’s It Happened at the World’s Fair
  • EMP Museum (formerly known as Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame)

I also recommend Denny Cherry’s SQL PASS 2012 1st Timers Webcast (low res only). He has a few more tourist attractions on the slides.

 

I will continue to add  items to this list, so come back soon.

 

My road to PASS Summit 2012

It’s been a while since I decided to give back to the SQL Server community  and start speaking at community events. I started on a journey as a speaker that has been incredibly rewarding and even though most of the time I paid for it out of my own pocket, the knowledge and the friends that I made on this journey were worth every effort. Next week two of my dreams will come true: attending PASS Summit for the first time and presenting my session titled “Optimizing SQL Server I/O with Solid State Drives ” at PASS on Friday, November 09, 2012, 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM in 302-TCC.
To put things  in perspective, this year has proved to  be truly amazing: Being mentored by Joe Sack blog|@josephsack from  SQLskills, attending my third  SQLskills Immersion Event – IE3, speaking at 6 SQLSaturday events in Madison WI, Chicago IL, Indianapolis IN, Iowa City IA, Kalamazoo MI and Minneapolis MN. On a personal note I have completed the Pewaukee triathlon and completed a Century ride (100 miles cycling)  with Bicycling Club of Lake County.

I am extremely honored to be selected to speak a PASS Summit 2012, the greatest SQL Server conference of the year where I will join more 150 of the industry’s leading speakers while having the unique chance to meet over 2400 database professionals. I would like to thank the PASS  Program Committee and Speaker review team for their support and for selecting my session .

I hope to see you next week at the PASS Summit and hope you can make it to my session or just come by and say hi and one of the other events.

 

 

 

A tale of two cities : Presenting Anatomy of a Join at SQL Saturday #160 and #149

Next 10 days will be pretty busy as  I will be presenting  my session “Anatomy of a Join” at  SQL Saturday #160  in Kalamazoo, MI on Saturday September 22, 2012 and the following week at SQL Saturday #149  in Minneapolis, MN on Saturday September 29, 2012

SQLSaturday is a training event for SQL Server professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server. Admittance to this event is free, all costs are covered by donations and sponsorships. Please register soon as seating is limited, and let friends and colleagues know about the event.
If you are attending please stop by and introduce yourself. Also if you are on Twitter don’t forget to use hashtag #sqlsat160 For Kalamazoo or #sqlsat149 for Minneapolis and see what others are doing.

Hope to see you there!

Presenting session: Anatomy of a Join at SQL Saturday #161 in Iowa City

I will be presenting  my session “Anatomy of a Join” at  SQL Saturday #161 in Iowa City on Saturday August 11, 2012!

Location is:
University Capitol Centre Room 2520,University of Iowa,
201 S Clinton St, Iowa City, IA 52240

SQLSaturday is a training event for SQL Server professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server. Admittance to this event is free, all costs are covered by donations and sponsorships. Please register soon as seating is limited, and let friends and colleagues know about the event.
If you are attending please stop by and introduce yourself. Also if you are on Twitter don’t forget to use hashtag #sqlsat161 and see what others are doing.

Hope to see you there!