John Martin
Data Platform and Cloud Specialist.
Aberdeen, United Kingdom
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John is an experienced data platform professional having spent over fifteen years working with Microsoft SQL Server, Azure, and AWS technologies. Working closely with clients to solve their data platform problems with innovative solutions with a focus on simplicity, maintainability, and automation.
Awards
Area of Expertise
Topics
Exploring your GitHub Repositories with Microsoft Fabric and DORA.
How long are issues open? Where is our tech debt? How many of our releases failed? These, and many more questions are asked by organisations the world over, but how do you answer them effectively?
In this session we will look at where and how this data is stored in GitHub, how we access it, and how we can build a platform in Microsoft Fabric to pull it all together for us to provide answers to these questions and more.
Database Security is not the DBAs responsibility, change my mind.
Database security has long been considered the realm of the DBA. However, this is not the case, the developers are the owners of the database and the security is part of the schema.
Together let's look at why this is, and should be the case that database security is shifted left and how we can look to incorporate security into our development processes.
A Practical Guide to migrate SQL Server databases to PostgreSQL on Amazon Aurora
Moving from SQL Server to PostgreSQL can have several benefits to your organisation. From significant reducitons in licence costs, to leveraging the extensions capability to provide additional capabilities in the engine for your applications to use. But how do we actually convert a SQL Server database to PostgreSQL database?
In this workshop we will look at, and demonstrate how to assess, plan, and perform a migration from SQL Server to PostgreSQL running in Amazon Aurora.
The topics covered in this workshop are.
1. Why move from SQL Server to PostgreSQL.
2. What is Amazon Aurora and why use that for PostgreSQL.
3. Identifying, assessing, and planning workload migration.
4. Automating database and infrastructure deployment in AWS.
5. How to convert and migrate a SQL Server databases.
6. Summary of tools, services, and techniques used through the course of the day.
After this workshop you will have a solid understanding of how to identify the right workloads to move, the servcies and tools to make life easier, and how to perform a database migration from SQL Server to PostgreSQL.
How to identify development performance with GitHub, DORA and Microsoft Fabric
Reporting on development team performance has always been somewhat fraught. Whether it has been the number of tests, lines of code added, number of commits. If not done right it drive poor behavior and people game the system just to do their jobs. The DORA framework has sought to help address this by looking at throughput and stability metric, but how can we actually measure this?
In this workshop we will look at how we can use Microsoft Fabric to build a platform which will allow us to gain deeper insight on how our GitHub organization is performing. We will look at defining the key metrics needed, design a data model that will meet those needs, then explore how to ingest and transform the data before presenting it in a way that makes it easy to digest.
At the end of this training day we will have shown you how to get away from arbitrary reporting on meaningless metrics, but rather how you can build a system to help teams see where they are productive, where they are not and help them streamline their processes.
Ingesting API data into your Analytics Platform with Data Pipelines.
With more and more businesses using SaaS platforms for their line of business apps it is now common for data engineers to need to pull and push data via an API.
Whereas before connectivity and queries for direct database access or ingesting flat files were relatively uniform, APIs introduce a lot of vaiation on implementation.
In this session we will look at some of the key considersations when we want to work with API sources. From authentication, to pagination, and handling JSON I will talk through how to get started pulling data from a REST API into our analytics solution.
Modernizing workloads from SQL Server to PostgreSQL with Amazon Aurora
There are many reasons to look at using PostgreSQL for your database systems, but what if you're already using SQL Server?
In this session we will walk through the process needed to migrate a SQL Server database to PostgreSQL running on Amazon Aurora. Then take a practical look at how to put it into practice converting the database code, moving data, and automating deployments with AWS Services and free community tools.
You'll walk away with the knowledge needed to start moving workloads from SQL Server to PostgreSQL on Amazon Aurora.
Of course I want to let Azure SQL manage my indexes, why wouldn't I?
Azure SQL Database has several Automatic Tuning features which can be enabled, one of these is Automatic Index Management. It can identify which indexes are needed or not and make recommendations or you can let it create and drop them as needed. What could possibly go wrong...
In this session we will look at how to enable the capabilities, find the recommendations, and the changes to the way we will need to handle database development if we want to let Azure SQL Database manage the indexes in our databases too.
The importance of being a visible ally
Allyship is key, the actions we take now lay the foundations for those that follow as well as helping to improve the workplace today and tomorrow. So let's take a quick look at how we can be better allies to those around us.
Data Engineering and the rise of the API
APIs, once the preserve of application developers or enterprise service bus integration solutions, are now commonplace for data engineers to use.
With increased use of SaaS platforms holding key business data, we can no longer connect to the database directly. Rather, we need to pull data from an API, which will be unique per-platform.
Join me as I work through the key characteristics of APIs, from authentication, headers, body, and parameters, through to pagination for large volumes of data. I will demonstrate how we can utilise APIs in our data pipelines to get the data we need, when we need it.
Introduction to Database Development
Do you want to build reliable, efficient, and maintainable databases, whether they are for OLTP or analytical workloads? If the answer is yes, then this is the session for you.
While building a database is easier than it has been, especially with the tools available now. However, building one which will last the test of time needs some careful planning and understanding of the trade-offs during the development phase.
This workshop will go back to the fundamentals and build up from the core foundations. From concepts such as understanding what the database is, and what it is used for, through to normalization and modelling, then looking at how we can use the tools to build quickly and leverage CI/CD in our processes. At the end of the day, you will have all the materials to refer to and skills needed to build better databases.
For the practical side of this training day, we will focus on the Microsoft SQL technology stack and deploy it to Azure SQL Database.
Agenda
1. What are databases, why do we need them, and what forms do they come in?
2. Database design, including modelling, normalization of data entities, the use of constraints and appropriate data types.
3. Turning the model into code, building the core SQL Server database objects for storing the data, as well as writing stored procedures to read and write data to the database. We will also look at core security concepts and where the line is between developer and DBA.
4. How to use source control and automation to store your code, track changes, and deploying to a target database automatically.
5. Operational aspects of databases including indexing strategies, how to handle deployments of updates to database schemas and codebases to minimize impact as well as more options for securing the database.
Database Development For non-Developers
With the rise of low-code and no-code options it has never been easier for non-developers to build business critical data flows. However, there comes a time when bringing a more traditional database into the mix becomes necessary.
In this session I will walk through the key concepts and processes needed to get started with database development. From defining data and modelling data entities and the normal forms, through to how to write and deploy the database objects and code.
Together we will lay the foundations for your next step into building data driven systems to meet the needs of your colleagues or users.
SQL Konferenz 2025 Sessionize Event
Fabric February 2025 Sessionize Event
SQL Saturday Oregon/SW Washington 2024 Sessionize Event
dataMinds Connect 2024 Sessionize Event
Techorama 2024 Netherlands Sessionize Event
SQL Konferenz 2024 Sessionize Event
Future Data Driven Summit 2024 Sessionize Event
DATA:Scotland 2024 Sessionize Event
Data Saturday Oslo 2024 Sessionize Event
Data Toboggan - Cool Runnings 2024 Sessionize Event
Data Left Unattended - Cambridge Sessionize Event
Data Céilí 2024 Sessionize Event
SQLBits 2024 - General Sessions Sessionize Event
Techorama Netherlands 2022 Sessionize Event
dataMinds Connect 2022 Sessionize Event
Data Relay 2022 Sessionize Event
Data Saturday Oslo 2022 Sessionize Event
SQLDay 2022 Sessionize Event
SQLBits 2022 Sessionize Event
Data Saturday Southwest US Sessionize Event
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