February West Michigan SQL Server Users Group Meeting

This month’s meeting will take place in Grand Rapids and New Horizon’s Training Center.  (5315 28th Street Court, Grand Rapids, MI) from 6:00pm to 8:00pm.  Our speaker will be Daniel Frandsen of BlueGranite, Inc.  Information is listed below.  I’d like to thank Joshua Fennessy for taking the helm this month as I deal with a family medical emergency and the pending MVP Summit in Washington and SQL Cruise #2.

Due to issues with the RSVP plug-in for WordPress please reply back to wmssug@sqlpass.org if you plan to attend this month’s meeting so we have an accurate count of attendees for placing a food order.  Thank you BlueGranite for once again funding this month’s food and beverages!

Abstract

This month’s topic will be Microsoft’s cloud-based Azure technology.  We will cover both SQL Azure and Windows Azure, showing the advantages and disadvantages of a cloud-based solution.

 We will take a broad look at the Azure platform, looking at everything from types of subscriptions to a live demo.  Azure allows developers to deploy scalable solutions without worrying about server management.  Cloud-based solutions are naturally accessible from anywhere and provide redundancy as well.  Best of all, all you need to develop an Azure solution is all the applications you already know and love!

 We’ll take an hour discussing an overview of Azure and see samples of where it can be utilized well.

 Bio

Daniel Frandsen, Business Intelligence Consultant for BlueGranite, Inc has been working with Microsoft SQL BI technologies for over four years.  He currently holds MCTS certifications in BI Development in SQL 2005 and 2008, as well as MCITP certification for SQL Server Database Developer 2008.  He has a wide variety of knowledge in SQL Server (relational), SSAS and SSIS; as well as a range of UI solutions including SSRS, PerformancePoint, and Excel.  He carries with him experience in application design in ASP.Net as well, from before his days developing BI solutions.