College basketball fans across the country — and anyone whose bracket wasn’t already doomed by Kentucky’s surprise defeat earlier last weekend —know that the University of Wisconsin’s men’s team lost a heartbreaker to the Duke Blue Devils in the NCAA Final Four championship game on Monday night.

While that Badger victory celebration may be on hold another year, more than 400 SQL Server professionals will converge on Wisconsin’s state capitol this Saturday for the Professional Association for SQL Service (PASS) SQL Saturday, a free training event for data professionals who use the Microsoft data platform.

Questar Assessment’s own James Dorame, a Database Systems Manager and current member of PASSMN’s Board of Directors in the position of Director of Corporate Development, is a featured presenter at the event. His topic, How to Collect a Baseline on All Your Servers and Still Get a Good Night’s Sleep will cover how to stay on top of your system performance and avoid this scenario: Your boss asks you why the system is slow. Before you can say what is wrong, you need to know how your system reacts under normal circumstances, or you’ll be left scrambling to find answers. With a few free queries and some SSIS magic you can capture a Baseline of your systems, so when there’s a problem you’ll know exactly where to look and what might be amiss. This session will provide the tools you need to start collecting your systems baselines and compile a great deal of useful information.

Jim is an accomplished speaker, a noted SQL expert and a long-time student of the popular Microsoft data platform who consistently provides his audiences with new insights to achieve better server performance. If you or someone you know is attending the event, be sure to sign up for his presentation. If you can’t be there, follow along on Twitter, using the official event hashtag: #SQLSatMadison.

PASS is an independent, not-for-profit organization run by and for the community. With a membership of more than 100,000 and growing, PASS supports data professionals throughout the world who use the Microsoft data platform. See sqlpass.org for more information and to find local PASS Chapters.