22-25 April 2026 
Hugo Kornelis
Hugo Kornelis is an established SQL Server community expert who spends a lot of time at various conferences. He is also a blogger, technical editor of a variety of books, and Pluralsight author. He was awarded SQL Server MVP and Data Platform MVP 17 times (2006 - 2016 / 2019 - now).
When not working for the community, he is busy at his day job: freelance database developer/consultant.
Hugo has over 25 years of SQL Server experience in various roles. Starting from a strong database design background, he has spent the last ten years specializing in execution plans and query performance tuning.
Hugo Kornelis's Training Days
Execution Plans in DepthSQLBits 2017
Reading and understanding execution plans is key to understanding and fixing ill-performing queries. This full-day workshop will give you in in-depth understanding of execution plans. Attend this workshop if you want to hone your tuning skills!
Understanding Execution PlansSQLBits 2015
Reading and understanding execution plans is key to understanding and fixing ill-performing queries. This full-day seminar will teach you everything you need to know about execution plans. Attend this seminar if you want to hone your tuning skills!
An effective (though uncommon) approach to database designSQLBits 2012
Learn to make a data model that captures business needs, using concrete examples. Know what questions to ask, how to ask them, and how to incorporate the answers in the data model. Then, transform the data model to a fully normalized database design.
Hugo Kornelis's Sessions
Fast Focus: Scalar User-defined Functions in SQL Server 2019SQLBits 2020
SQL Server 2019 introduces FROID, a framework to inline user-defined functions, promising much better performance. What problem does it solve? And how does it work?
From adaptive to intelligent: query procesing in SQL 2019SQLBits 2019
SQL Server 2019 includes new query processing features such as batch mode on rowstore, memory grant feedback, approximate query processing, and more. How do these work? Are they as good as Microsoft wants us to believe?
Execution Plans in DepthSQLBits 2017
Reading and understanding execution plans is key to understanding and fixing ill-performing queries. This full-day workshop will give you in in-depth understanding of execution plans. Attend this workshop if you want to hone your tuning skills!
Normalization Beyond Third Normal FormSQLBits 2017
Many people think that normalization stops at Third Normal Form. But there are lots of higher normal forms. And they are not as complex or as irrelevant as often claimed.
If you want to design better databases, then come attend this session!
T-SQL User-Defined Functions, or: Bad Perf. Made EasySQLBits 2016
T-SQL user-defined functions may appear to be a good tool for code encapsulation and reuse, but they can have a dramatic impact on performance. In this session, you'll see why they slow down your queries, and how you can avoid this performance hit.
Understanding Execution PlansSQLBits 2015
Reading and understanding execution plans is key to understanding and fixing ill-performing queries. This full-day seminar will teach you everything you need to know about execution plans. Attend this seminar if you want to hone your tuning skills!
All About IndexingSQLBits 2015
Indexes are the best instrument for query optimization. But what kind of indexes and on what columns? The key to answering those questions is understanding how indexes are stored and used by SQL Server. And that is exactly what this session is about.
Everything you always wanted to know about MERGESQLBits 2013
In this demo-rich session, Hugo Kornelis shows how the full syntax of MERGE enables more than just synchronizing data. You'll get an overview of all the available options, plus a few surprising pitfalls you may not be aware of.
An effective (though uncommon) approach to database designSQLBits 2012
Learn to make a data model that captures business needs, using concrete examples. Know what questions to ask, how to ask them, and how to incorporate the answers in the data model. Then, transform the data model to a fully normalized database design.
SQL Server 2012: Column store indexesSQLBits 2012
This session will present you with a fascinating behind-the-scenes deep-dive view of the new column store index feature. How do column store indexes work? How are they built? And how can they yield such enormous performance boosts to some workloads?
Now Where Did THAT Estimate Come From?SQLBits 2024
This session is a deep dive into cardinality estimation. It starts with the basics, covering statistics, predicates, and correlation. But we then move on to hardly documented advanced topics, such as aligning histograms to estimate the cardinality after a join.
Here’s the execution plan … now what?SQLBits 2024
This session is for those who have learned about execution plans, but notice that the theory lessons have not prepared them for the messy reality of real production code and execution plans. Using more complex examples than typical for conference sessions, I will guide you through a few examples, to show how execution plans can be used to pinpoint isues and fix them