MinneAnalytics Data Tech 2024

Join us for an insightful session with Trace3 Practice Directors in Data and Analytics, who bring decades of consulting experience to the table. They will delve into three leading data platforms: Databricks, Snowflake, and Microsoft Fabric. They gain invaluable insights from their extensive experience implementing these platforms across numerous large organizations. Prepare your questions and discover:

What drives an organization’s decision-making process?
How do organizations transition to the implementation stage?
Who possesses the necessary skills for successful deployment?
How is data quality maintained and addressed?
Can data be effectively secured?
What are the challenges and benefits of implementing multiple platforms?
How do you integrate AI with data?

Understand that data platforms are comprehensive end-to-end systems designed to manage all aspects of an organization’s data throughout its lifecycle. These platforms typically encompass data acquisition, storage, preparation, delivery, governance, and security capabilities.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn and engage with seasoned experts in the field of Data & Analytics.

Power BI & Fabric Summit 2024 Sessionize Event

SQLSaturday MN 2022 Sessionize Event

Midwest Architecture Community Collaboration

Aligning Business and Data Strategies: In this session Ross McNeely will cover techniques to properly align your Data and Business Strategy to support critical business capabilities. Including how to mitigate several risk factors that will derail your data initiatives. Discuss steps to use when aligning current data projects or programs already underway. Talk about assessing your organization’s data maturity, and the impact it can have on delivering solutions and innovation. The session will conclude with Ross laying out a Data Strategy roadmap, and how align delivery with business needs. Please join this session to understand the importance of aligning your data capabilities with business capabilities. (Online)

Midwest Architecture Community Collaboration

Azure Security and Capabilities: We now live in an identity-based security perimeter, and every XaaS has a variable depth of access and control. Security and capabilities are the key questions for any cloud architecture. Nothing should be implemented today without a strong security surface that is able to meet the capability requirements. Join my session as I walk through key Azure security patterns for cloud infrastructure, data, and software. You will see how to manage identity and access. Know how platform protection is just the beginning for any capability rolled out. We will finish with how to secure your data and applications.

SQL Saturday

Azure Security, Cost, and Capabilities: Security, cost, and capabilities are the key questions for any Azure project. Nothing should be implemented today without a tested security surface. Creating a strong and flexible identity perimeter will allow for secure access. Platform security will create a secured perimeter for all of your cloud resources from Virtual Machines and Networks to resource locks and permissions. Manage customized security alerts, and configure a playbook for specific threats. Configure security for data infrastructure, and data encryption at rest. Implement security for applications such as certs, monitoring, and security baselines. Data and applications will not last long if costs are not managed from the beginning. You will need to monitor and analyze the cost of your Azure resources as soon as development begins. Azure Cost Management allows you to create a budget. The biggest factor in security, and cost management is implementing the right capabilities to support your business requirements.

SQL Saturday

Power BI in Healthcare: Ross has implemented Power BI Premium for regional, national, and global clients. Join this healthcare focused presentation to hear the various licensing and data sourcing methods for PBI. Ross will discuss actual use cases to help illustrate the flexibility in rolling out the product to different teams within your organization. Implementation strategies for the IT department will also be discussed. Deployment topics to be covered include a PBI loaded model, PBI direct connect, PBI live connect, and PBI mix-model. On-premises data sourcing topics include SQL databases, Oracle databases, Analysis Services Tabular, and Excel files. Discussion will cover various healthcare reporting sources, such as an Operational Data Store and a Data Warehouse. Cloud data sourcing topics include Azure Data Lake, Azure Analysis Services, Dataflows, and Snowflake on Azure. Ross will start the session by introducing the basics of PBI, and work our way into complexities necessary to support an enterprise.

SQL Saturday

Power BI Premium Use Cases: We will walk through all the various Power BI (PBI) deployments and data sourcing methods. I will discuss actual use cases so you will know when each solution is appropriate. Deployment topics to be covered include a PBI loaded model, PBI direct connect, and PBI live connect. On-premises data sourcing topics include SQL databases, Oracle databases, Analysis Services Tabular, and Excel files. Cloud data sourcing topics include Azure Data Lake, Azure Analysis Services, and Snowflake on Azure. There will be a few demos regarding the developer approaches for the actual use cases. I will start the session by introducing the basics of Power BI Premium, and work our way into complexities necessary to support an enterprise.

MinneAnalytics FARCON

Analytics in the Cloud: Join as we walk you through the analytic-lifecycle with tools based entirely in the cloud. By leveraging Microsoft’s suite of managed services in Azure, we will develop an end-to-end analytic solution. We will begin by discussing and defining the business issue we would like to solve. Moving forward we will apply well-defined data engineering practices for the intake of structured data and non-structured data through Azure Data Factory.

Data transformations will be done through U-SQL scripts in Azure Data Lake Analytics for data cleansing, and data integration. Once we have gathered and explored the data, we will dive into the usage of Azure Machine Learning (ML). We will develop Azure ML models by leveraging Azure Machine Learning Studio, which is another managed service by Microsoft to create, test, and deploy our predictive analytics. Using Power BI we will then consume the predictive model. We finish with a complete analytic-lifecycle where we present the final visualization for insight and action.

SQL Saturday

Cube Processing Strategies: There has been a wide range of Cube solutions implemented over the years. Cube processing strategies will cover both Multidimensional and Tabular cubes. Best practices will be included for processing large and small cubes. Processing big cubes can consume a large amount of IO, and create lengthy response times. Processing many small cubes at once can create bottlenecks on the database. Additionally, processing complex cube will be addressed. Best practices for designing dimensions and partitions will be covered in detail, because of the impact associated with good design.

SQL Saturday

Cube Processing Strategies: There has been a wide range of Cube solutions implemented over the years. Cube processing strategies will cover both Multidimensional and Tabular cubes. Best practices will be included for processing large and small cubes. Processing big cubes can consume a large amount of IO, and create lengthy response times. Processing many small cubes at once can create bottlenecks on the database. Additionally, processing complex cube will be addressed. Best practices for designing dimensions and partitions will be covered in detail, because of the impact associated with good design.

SQL Saturday

Information Management Framework: In this session, Ross McNeely will discuss the need for a strong approach towards Information Management, and which tools will help you deliver solutions. The focus of the presentation will be on leveraging SQL Server 2016, and Azure data platforms within an Information Management Framework. Major components of the framework include Information Strategy, Information Asset Management, Enterprise Data Management, and Business Intelligence. Information Strategy will include Governance, and how to define strategies for data, query, and business intelligence platforms. Information Asset Management will cover data linage, and security. Enterprise Data Management will dive into Data Architecture. Business Intelligence will include designing for predictive, prescriptive, and performance analytics.

MinneAnalytics FARCON

Spatial Analytics in Retail and Financial Services: Where could sales channel behavior be influenced in retail? Which financial service employees have a multiplier effect on others around them? Join as we dive into geography data for a retail use case, and geometry data for a financial services use case. The geography data was used to identify near-by sales channels that were under performing by product groups. The geometry data allowed managers to identify the influence of high achievers on those around them. We will walk through how we used geospatial data types in our analytics to provide insight into business opportunity.

SQL Saturday

GeoGRAPHY and GeoMETRY Spatial Data Types: In this session explore the use of the SQL Server spatial data types. We will see an example of the geography spatial data type used to represent data in a round-earth coordinate system. Then the geometry spatial data type which represents data in a flat coordinate system will be demonstrated. Both spatial types are CLR data types and provide a powerful way for businesses; such as; retailers to identify where their shoppers are concentrated, or for call centers to visualize the effect of top performers on others.

SQL Saturday

GeoGRAPHY Spatial Analysis: Tired of your PostGIS and Oracle friends bragging about all their geography data? Microsoft continues to support and add features to the spatial data types. It is time to let your friends know that Microsoft has stepped up. In this session we will take a deep look at analyzing the SQL Server Geography spatial data type in T-SQL. We will look at different scenarios to show how you can begin using the Geography data type. To begin, we will look at using T-SQL to analyze geographic locations and the surrounding geography data. Secondly, we will look at using T-SQL to analyze geographic lines such as roads, and borders.

SQL Saturday

Minimal Processing for Large Cubes: Processing large cubes can consume vast amounts of IO, and create lengthy response times. This presentation will demo how to process dimensions and dynamically create, process, and delete measure group partitions to minimize IO. By taking control of cube processing through a SSIS package you are able to process only the bare minimum in order to bring a cube current while keeping response times acceptable. Additional areas to cover will include the support tables to control cubes, and a review of the XMLA for creating, processing, and deleting.

SQL Saturday

Using Spatial Data Types: In this session explore the use of the SQL Server spatial data types. We will see an example of the geography spatial data type used to represent data in a round-earth coordinate system. Then the geometry spatial data type which represents data in a flat coordinate system will be demonstrated. Both spatial types are CLR data types and provide a powerful way for businesses; such as; retailers to identify where their shoppers are concentrated, or for call centers to visualize the effect of top performers on others.

SQL Saturday

Dynamic Text File Creation Via Single SSIS Package: Creating individual SSIS Packages for individual business-to-business data files is not only time consuming, but becomes a maintenance nightmare. This presentation will show you how to create a single SSIS package that can generate varying length and formatted text files. By utilizing stored procedures and executing dynamic T-SQL you will see how the time from specification to file delivery can be greatly reduced and simplified. Additional areas we will cover include the support tables to control file run times, creating file variables at run time, and how to report file success.