Uwe Ricken

Uwe Ricken has been working with IT systems since the early 1990s, with a deep focus on Microsoft SQL Server starting from his work on Membership Software for the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany - later rolled out across five European countries. His passion for SQL Server took off in 2007 when he joined Deutsche Bank AG as a database administrator, gaining hands-on experience in high-performance, enterprise-scale environments. With over three decades of experience in database development and operations, Uwe earned the prestigious "Microsoft Certified Master – SQL Server 2008", the highest technical certification at the time. In 2013, he was honored with his first "Microsoft MVP Award" for his contributions to the SQL Server community across Germany and Europe. Since 2010, Uwe has been sharing his expertise through his blog https://sqlmaster.de, offering deep dives into SQL Server internals, performance tuning, and real-world troubleshooting. A regular speaker at international conferences and user groups, Uwe’s sessions focus on Database Internals, Indexing Strategies and Advanced SQL Development - always with a practical, performance-driven mindset.

Sessions for 2026

Demystifying Clustered Indexes in SQL Server

Explore SQL Server table design choices—heap vs. clustered index. Learn strengths, pitfalls, and practical insights to optimize query speed, storage efficiency, and overall performance.

Evolution of User-Defined Functions in Microsoft SQL Server

Explore the evolution of SQL Server UDFs from 2000 to today. Learn key milestones, performance improvements, and best practices for optimizing functions in modern environments.

How to properly handle LOB data in SQL Server

Discover SQL Server strategies for managing LOB data—documents, images, audio, and video. Learn best practices and techniques to optimize storage, performance, and data management efficiency.

Leveraging JSON in Microsoft SQL Server

Dive into JSON in SQL Server: learn its role, native support, and best practices to efficiently store, query, and optimize JSON data for modern applications.

SQL Performance Pitfalls: Identification and Optimization Lab

Interactive workshop on identifying and optimizing bad SQL code. Learn common pitfalls, best practices, and test performance improvements through hands‑on scenarios and load tests.

Previous Sessions

Security techniques for cross database access

Security is given too little attention in the database environment and many times more rights are given than are necessary. Especially with CROSS DATABASE access, the goal is often overshot. Learn how to securely access data in other databases without breaking the bank.

Partitioning for Beginners

Introduction of areas for partitioning for Beginners

Why is SQL Server waiting for what?

You are wondering why SQL Server is waiting endless for a request and you don't know what is going on inside? A look behind the curtain with comon scenarios will help you to understand and solve long waits in SQL Server.

Inside statistics-a guessing game

A query was running fast yesterday and today it suffers from performance problems. What will you do? - restart the server (did work) - drop the procedure cache (read in a blog article) - get a coffee and pass in review this session about statistics

Deep dive into the secrets of Temporal Tables

Temporal Tables as a new technology in Microsoft SQL Server makes the implementation and management of data histories so easy. In this session, discover ALL the secrets of System Versioned Temporal Tables.

Daily problems with indexing and its-possible-solution

This session will demonstrate query performance issues a dba is confronted with every day. The demos will handle these scenarios and it's solution