Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Meetup - August 2025

Join us later this month for a deep dive into building a resilient data platform and an overview of Google's Agentspace solution. Doors open at 2:30PM and we will begin our presentations at 3PM. We will have a dedicated social hour after the presentations, running from approximately 4PM-5PM. Don't miss out on this opportunity to learn, share, and network! Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, there's something for everyone.

Topics:
"From Zero to Reliable: Our Journey to a Resilient Data Platform on GCP" presented by Matt Sharkey, Sr Manager of Database Administration at Buildertrend.

"AgentSpace: Building the Intelligent Enterprise with Unified Knowledge and Agentic AI" presented by Alex Driesen, Customer Engineer at Google

Networking:
Connect with fellow technology professionals (before and after the presentation)
Food & Drinks provided for free

Speaker Information:
From Zero to Reliable: Our Journey to a Resilient Data Platform on GCP presented by Matt Sharkey, Sr Manager of Database Administration (Buildertrend)

Abstract:
It’s a common story in tech: an errant transaction against the production database, no backups in place, and no way to recover. For many startups, that’s the end of the road — lost trust, lost data, and a business that doesn’t bounce back.
Buildertrend was nearly one of those stories. But a few key decisions, some luck, and a lot of learning helped us recover and grow. In this presentation, I’ll walk you through how we evolved our SQL Server environment from a single point of failure to a resilient, highly available, cross-region data platform.

I’ll also highlight how Google Cloud SQL’s built in HA and DR capabilities mirror the complex manual work of setting up and maintaining a clustered environment which requires significant technical expertise and administrative overhead, now delivered with just a few clicks. This is a story of incremental wins, architectural maturity, and what it really takes to build enterprise-grade data infrastructure.

Whether you're just beginning your HA/DR journey or evaluating managed solutions on GCP, this session will give you practical insights and takeaways.

Bio:
Matt is the Senior Manager of Database Administration at Buildertrend, with a focus on cloud database infrastructure and building resilient, high-availability SQL Server environments.. Outside of work, Matt enjoys spending time outdoors, training in martial arts, and hanging out with his wife and their 21-month-old son.