Life as an independent consultant is interesting and challenging, but it gets a little lonely in the sense that you don’t spend a lot of time with your industry peers. That’s why I enjoy getting out to conferences each year. I always run into people I know and admire and get to pick their brains on some nagging issue I’m battling at the time and I always get to meet new people who are doing interesting things. And of course I get to share what I know, too. This year I’m going to the Best Practices Conference for the first time, but I recognize most of the speakers’ names so there will be many familiar faces and I feel privileged to be included with them.

I’m presenting the following two topics —

BI316, Optimizing Your MDX Queries

Retrieving data from an Analysis Services cube is supposed to be fast, right? Then why are your queries running so slowly? Many factors can contribute to poor query performance. If you have applied best practices design principles to cube and dimension design, the next step is to evaluate the design of your MDX queries. In this session, you first learn how to know whether your query or the cube needs to be optimized. Then you learn the principles of optimal MDX query design in Analysis Services 2005 and Analysis Services 2008, and how to modify your queries to deliver data faster.

BI337, Designing Analysis Services Cubes for Performance

Building a cube is simple. After all, you have a lot of wizards at your disposal to do the development work. But building a cube that delivers data quickly requires you to make additional changes to the database design. Come to this session to learn what steps you need to take in the development process to ensure the cube is designed for optimal performance, whether you’re using Analysis Services 2005 or Analysis Services 2008. You learn not only how to properly design dimensions, aggregates, and partitions, but why these design principles improve performance.

If you’re planning to be there, be sure to stop by and say hello!