Search results matching tags 'PASS' and 'SQLPASS'

Upcoming Database Design Pre-Cons

drsql — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:45:19 GMT

In July and October, I will be doing my "How To Design a Relational Database" full day conference in two places. First on July 26 for the East Iowa SQL Saturday, and then for the big daddy SQLPASS Summit in Charlotte, NC on October 14. You can see the entire abstract here on the SQL PASS site. It is essentially the same concept as last year, but this year I am making a few big changes to really give the people what they have desired (and am truly glad to have a swing at it several months before the summit to iron out any wrinkles.)

The first third of the day will be an example driven lecture that will be as tight as I can make it and still include all of the important foundational information that I can pack in. We will talk about the history of relational databases to get a feel for why we have the database environment that we currently have, then terminology, the data modeling process, a practical overview of the normal forms, and a bit about implementation. If it sounds like a lot in two hours, then you are right, but it is information that is essential to understand what we are doing the rest of the day (and hopefully the rest of your career!)

The second third of the day will be the class designing a database "together". I will have distributed a set of requirements for a database for us to design as a class, each person taking a turn to add an element. As we add elements, the class will be able to discuss if the item added is correct or not, simulating a typical meeting with N * 2 opinions from N persons.

The final third of the day will be a small team design session. I will distribute requirements to the class, broken up into several groups, and they will take them and do the design... Probably an hour later, I will take a picture of the design and put it up on the big screen for us to look at and discuss. This is a task I have done each time I have done this pre-con, and it is always interesting to see the several different ways the models turn out. Sometimes I learn a way to think about the problem that I hadn't thought about (and sometimes that is a good thing.)

Along the process of the two design sessions, I will be keeping a tally of topics that we haven't touched on in the discussion so we can hit those topics before the day is over. If we are lucky and the class is active enough, this section may not even need to exist other than to say "goodbye and good luck".

So hope to see you in Iowa City in late July (26), or (and perhaps again for) in Charlotte on October 14th at the SQL PASS Summit.

A wee bit exhausted… time to reenergize

drsql — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 02:26:00 GMT

I admit it. I am tired and I have not blogged nearly enough. This has been a crazy year, with the book I finished writing, the pre-cons I have done (teaching is NOT my primary profession so I do a lot more prep than some others probably do), lots of training on Data Warehousing topics (from Ralph Kimball, Bob Becker, and Stacia Misner, to name three of the great teachers I have had), SQL Rally, SQL PASS, SQL Saturdays and I have gotten a lot more regular with my simple-talk blog as well… Add to this the fact that my daughter added a new grandchild to the family, and my mother has started to get so weak she is starting to fall down quite often (I am writing this blog entry from a spare bedroom at my mother-in-law’s house while my mom is in rehab!) and I am getting exhausted.

Am I whining? Probably, but it is my blog! No, seriously I figure that occasionally you have to poke your head out from under the covers and write something and this is my something until after the New Year (other than posting a few already written and edited simple-talk blogs). I am on vacation from work for 2.5 weeks, and I don’t plan to do much with this laptop of mine for those two weeks unless the spirit hits me with an idea for a blog that I just have to write, but usually most of my blogs that have any technical or artistic merit take weeks to complete. On the second of January, I hope to be back at it, analyzing my resolutions from last year, and making good on a few of them, particularly “Blog about my other (computer) love occasionally” and review some of the gadgets I have acquired as they pertain to doing my job as a writer/data architect. (Hint: My mother-in-law does not have Internet access, so some of the devices I have here are instrumental in my ability to work untethered for weeks on end.)

So until next year, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year! I hope your holidays are restful and fun. I know part of mine will be because I intend to replicate this picture at least one or two more times next week, hopefully with a Turkey Leg in the hand that isn’t holding the camera taking the picture (all with my Windows Phone set on Battery Saver Mode, which delightfully turns off all syncing :)

24 Hours of PASS next week, pre-con preview style

drsql — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 00:53:47 GMT

I will be doing my Characteristics of a Great Relational Database, which is a session that I haven’t done since last PASS. When I was asked about doing this Summit Preview version of 24 hours of PASS, I decided that I would do this session, largely because it is kind of light and fun, but also because it is either going to be the basis of the end section of my pre-con at the summit or it is going to be the section of the pre-con we don’t get to because we are so involved in working out designs that we forget the time and the next day’s precon people start arriving and kick us out.

The session is basically a discussion about the finishing touches that make a database better than average, something you can rave about, something you can brag to your significant other about, something your company will run a Super Bowl ad just thanking you for… Well, ok, seriously, a database that won’t cause you and your coworkers to ralph each time you use it is a solid step towards the way you will want to develop your databases.

The goal is to be reasonably like at a little bit fun, since I am doing the presentation at 11:00 PM Central Time in the US, and well, that isn’t exactly prime SQL time for most people. In Europe it will be the middle of the night, and in half of the US I will be competing with the national news and the end of the football game between the New York Giants and Carolina Panthers. If the game is close, I will be happy to share your attention, and heck, if my internet connection would support streaming video and the sharing client I would probably be watching the game myself (as it is, I will probably TiVo it and watch it on my phone via SlingBox when we are done…yes, I have a little bit of a football problem.)

If you want to attend my session, click here and register. Even if database design isn’t your thing, 24 hours of PASS has (hold on to your hat) 24 different sessions in a 24 hour period to choose from. So click on over to the 24HOP Speaker/Session list and pick your sessions and register for them. I look forward to seeing you (well your name in the list) at the event.

But db design is your thing (or you want it to be!), and you want to get a full day dose on the Monday before PASS, try my pre-con on Relational Database Design. It is going to be a great day, there will be plenty of learning, lots of swag (including at least 30 copies of my book to give away,) and some practical experience doing a bit of team based design. In any case it will be better than a normal Monday at the office.

Louisville SQL Saturday…

drsql — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 23:31:13 GMT

One more week until we get to SQL Saturday 122 in Louisville KY. I have a couple of sessions on the calendar this time. First, the one on Sequences:

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What Sequence objects are (and are not)

SQL Server 2012 adds a new object to our arsenal called a sequence that can will give us the capability to implement automatically incrementing values. However, it cannot replace a lot of functionality that we have used a numbers table and windowing functions for (though they can be complimentary to one another). In this session I will demonstrate the uses and performance characteristics of sequences, including how they compliment the use of number tables and windowing functions to create surrogate key and sorting values, and more.

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The second session is my professional development session that goes along with my What Counts for a DBA blog series on SimpleTalk. Come with your ideas about what makes a great DBA so we can all get into the conversation (and not just so I won’t have to create too many slides). I will have my topic spinning wheel with me, so who knows exactly what we will discuss, not even I know.

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What Counts For a DBA

The world of a DBA can be daunting for a person, either as a new or old, because not only do they need to keep up with new and emerging technologies, but also with the code and designs of their coworkers. In this highly participation driven session, we will employ a random topic chooser to pick several of these traits for discussion as a group. Possible topics include past blog topics such as Logic, Curiosity, Failure, Humility, Skill and Passion, as well as any other topics that might be added for that day. So come prepared to participate and voice your opinion about what counts for a DBA.

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Hope to see you there! (and if you can’t make it to Louisville, I will be in Cleveland OH for SQL Saturday #164 on August 16, and then in Chattanooga for Devlink the last week of August. Chattanooga, TN.

Speaking at PASS 2012… Exciting and Scary… As usual…

drsql — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 23:03:00 GMT

Edit: As I reread this, I felt I should clarify.. As usual refers mostly to the "Scary" part. I have a lot of stage fright that I have to work through. And it is always exciting to be picked.

I have been selected this year at the PASS Summit 2012 to do two sessions, and they are both going to be interesting.

Pre-Con: Relational Database Design Workshop - Abstract

Triggers: Born Evil or Misunderstood? - Abstract

The pre-con session entitled Relational Database Design Workshop will be (at least) the third time I will have done this pre-con session, and I am pretty excited to take it to a bit larger scale. The one big change that I am forcing this time is a limit on the lecture time. Each of the first two times I have done this session the biggest disappointment has been that we didn't get nearly enough time for the exercises. If people get tired of the exercises, I will certainly have a lot of extra material to do, but the focus will be on getting at least three hours of design time in. Some as a full group on the screen, and some broken up into groups. (Of course, we will adjust the schedule based on the size of the group and whatever they are throwing at me verbally… and physically! I will have material to pad out at least an hour if people start looking bored (or if the group members start screaming at each other…you know, like a real database design session would be like if people weren't concerned with losing their jobs.))

The triggers session is the one that I have been mulling over for years now, and it is going to be minimally interesting, and probably a lot of fun (particularly if Hugo Kornelis (@Hugo_Kornelis) and Tom LaRock (@SQLRockstar) (Tom is not a fan of triggers! http://thomaslarock.com/2009/03/sql-database-triggers/) show up to offer their opinions). Triggers are probably the most controversial of SQL Server objects, and for good reason. There are server and database settings that affect how they work, and it is not trivial to write them in a manner that doesn't harm performance. Worst yet, they can cause side effects that (if not performed correctly) really harm performance, data integrity, and the sanity of the developers who don't realize they exist. But for all of the negatives, there are some tasks that just fit the trigger to a T. I might be trying to do too much in a 1:15 session, but it would not be the first time!

So I hope to see a good number of you there, for the pre- con, and certainly for the Trigger session. Just leave the potential projectiles in your hotel room...

PASS Nomination Committee

drsql — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 14:00:00 GMT

Edit: Well, I didn't get elected, and at this point, seeing who won (great choices in Angela, Stephanie, and Jason) and what else I have going on between now and the end of the year (presentations, grand childen being born, etc), I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome. Usually the phrase "maybe next year" is cold comfort to the people who were not (as the election site so elequently uses) top vote getters, but in this case, I think we can all be happy that the top vote getters will do a great job for PASS and that we have more time to do other community activities. So, see you maybe next year.

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Starting today you can vote for your choice for who should be on the Nomination Committee for SQL PASS (or perhaps some previous day if you aren't reading this on the 13, and if it is after noon on the 23, well, tough). There are 12 people who are up for vote with 3 slots available so this should be fun. There are a few people I know quite well on the list, and a few I don't really know at all. Looking at their qualifications I think one thing stands out. You probably can't make a bad choice. One of them is myself, and this is a job I did once in the past, and is something I feel like I am somewhat uniquely qualified to do from 11 years of working with PASS members and board members alike.

The job is helping to pick who will get the chance to run for the Board of Directors for PASS by vetting the people who apply (according to the PASS By-Laws, Section VIII.3, assuming I am reading it right.) So, the fact is, your choice ought to be somewhat based on how your idea of a board member matches up with our ideas. Of course, it will be a team effort and there is always compromise.

So let me tell you the criteria that I personally have always hoped to find in board members.

Professional level technical skills (primarily SQL). The last thing we need is people who know nothing of what we do simply trying to make a name for themselves with the concept of a professional group like ours. We need people that understand what it is they will be representing. They don't have to be experts by any means, just solid skills, probably demonstrated in the community.

Strong leadership qualifications. Ideally, we will get people who have led groups of people before. Not everyone who would be a great Board Member will live near enough to a SQL user group to be involved, so this could mean technical management, local government, and volunteer work for charities, church leadership, or even being a team leader. A big plus is that the person should be able to communicate well publicly to unify the community of PASS through the good times and the times that are opposite to the good times.

History of volunteerism. Possibly just with PASS, or possibly with some other type of organism. The person ought to know what it means to work for not a buck.

History with PASS. Even if for just a reasonably short period of time, the person should know enough about PASS that they aren't just blindly trying to join at the top. Attendance at a conference or two would be a good bonus so they know what it is about but not everyone can afford to attend, even if they were comp'd the entrance fee.

Ideas on what they think PASS should be like and how they can help get it there. (Perhaps) obviously we all expect that candidates aren't just campaigning because they think it sounds cool. They have a desire to move PASS toward some better future.

Over the years I have put my name in the hat a several times for the board of directors, and twice was cut by the Nomination Committee, and the one time I was a candidate I lost. The funniest part of that year's Summit for me was that I was sincerely relieved when Kevin Kline sat me down and told be I had lost. I did not (and still do not, really) have the strong leadership qualifications needed to be on the Board of Directors. However, like most any longtime volunteer, I feel like I have a solid understanding what kind of kind of person inspires me as a volunteer. (Hence the list!)

If you look at the 5 qualities, all of them are solidly focused on community. If you agree with my vision of what a PASS leader should be, vote for me. I promise to make sure the candidates are up to the high quality that you expect. If you don't agree (or perhaps just didn't find my black and white photo to your liking), vote for someone else, everyone seems quite solid as members of this committee.

If I don't get elected...there is less work for me to do, and I will have more time to server PASS and the SQL Community in any other way I can.

PASS Week/Speaking/Doing Schedule

drsql — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:20:08 GMT

Well, we are finally here at what is the secular version of the holiday season for Microsoft SQL Server nerd types, the week of the SQLPASS Summit. This year, I am speaking 3 times and will also be doing the Quiz Bowl at the Welcome Reception, so I am going to be busy. If you are here and are interested in database design, please do stop by and check out my sessions.

Monday and Tuesday I will be in side sessions that are NDA for much of the day, and that is probably all that I can say. Tuesday night will be the Quiz Bowl where Tim Ford and I will attempt to one up ourselves and attempt to (along with some unwitting (but hopefully full of wit) experts) entertain you with our yearly Jeopardy-esque wanna be game show.

Wednesday, from 1-1:30, a bunch of the writers of the SQL Server MVP Deep Dives 2 book will be signing copies for you (there is a second signing at 7:15 - 8 AM on Friday, if you can stomach the earliness). If you want to see what is in the book, check http://www.manning.com/delaney/. The book will be on sale starting Tuesday afternoon for you if you want is signed or not. Note that all author proceeds of the book are going to charity (this edition’s proceeds going to http://www.operationsmile.org/), so you get a good book with lots of different subjects, and make a donation to a worthy cause. I am almost certain that you get an ebook edition of the book for free with the paper version that you can read on your portable device as well.

At 4:45 - 6 PM, I will be doing my "Characteristics of a Great Relational Database " session that was picked up as an alternate . This needs to be a very interactive session, and my hope is to learn a bit from your ideas as well as the slides I have prepared. The session is fairly light and a bit humorous, so if you are feeling particularly serious and sour, well, my Thursday session is far less fun:

Thursday afternoon, from 3-4:15 PM, I will be presenting "Database Design Fundamentals" which presents a more deep dive on the concepts that go into designing a relational database. My goal here is to present the basics of the process of creating a database from conception until you are ready to start typing CREATE TABLE statements.

Friday, I will be in a panel discussion called "Are you a Linchpin? Career management lessons to help you become indispensible.", representing the corporate developers in the world who like that they have one set of problems to solve that while the basis never varies, can never really be solved because the demand outstrips the realities of the day. Other members of the panel include Jeremiah Peschka, Stacia Misner, Kevin Kline, Brent Ozar, Thomas LaRock, Andy Warren, Andy Leonard

Saturday I go home...

A Change of Scenery for the PASS Summit

AaronBertrand — Wed, 18 May 2011 23:15:00 GMT

In 2013, the PASS Summit will move from Seattle, which it has called home in 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, to the warmer climes of Charlotte, North Carolina. (Read the official PASS announcement.) There are a lot of big benefits to this move:

folks in the eastern half of the US, never mind Europe and beyond, will lose less time to travel
in spite of a few complaints already, Charlotte is a hub for US Airways, so there should be plenty of direct flights
Microsoft presence will still be good because there is quite an expansive support operation in Charlotte
it's not Seattle, so it probably won't be overcast or drizzling throughout the entire event

For me personally, there are a couple of additional benefits to this specific location:

there are a half dozen direct flights in each direction, every day, through an airport I can practically walk to
SQL Sentry's offices are located in Huntersville, just minutes north, so it is literally my company's stomping grounds

Other than the fact that it actually means *more* travel time for west coasters, there is only one potential downside I see. The biggest value I've taken from the PASS Summit in previous years is the Microsoft presence. A lot of people respond to this by saying, "well, I don't actually go to many sessions from Microsoft speakers." The speakers specifically aren't the people I'm talking about. I'm talking about how many members of the dev team can come downtown for lunch or an afternoon meeting without incurring the time and T&E cost of flying across the country. This is a benefit that is especially meaningful for the group of SQL Server MVPs who attend the Summit. Hopefully this presence won't be too muted because of the cross-country trip. Even if it does, I need to try to remember that we have other exclusive occasions where we get to spend a significant amount of time with the dev team (e.g. the MVP Summit).

Anyway, based on the community response so far, there are a lot of people who are quite happy about this change, and I can't say I blame them - even though I thoroughly enjoy attending the Summit in Seattle, it is going to be a refreshing change of scenery. Here are a few other blog posts that crossed my path today:

Jeff Smith (blog | twitter)
http://www.thatjeffsmith.com/archive/2011/05/things-to-keep-in-mind-for-pass-2013-charlotte-nc/
Brent Ozar (blog | twitter)
http://sqlserverpedia.com/blog/sql-server-bloggers/pass-summit-2013-location-charlotte-nc/
Greg Gonzalez (blog | twitter)
http://greg.blogs.sqlsentry.net/2011/05/2013-pass-summit-in-charlotte-good-call.html

And surely more will follow (I haven't seen any reflective posts from the PASS BOD, for example).

Blogging from the PASS Keynote : 2010-11-09

AaronBertrand — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:15:00 GMT

The keynote starts off with a tine Turner impersonator (or maybe it really was Tina?):

Rushabh Mehta (donning the Tina wig) delivers the first segment of the keynote, telling the SQL Server community that we are "simply the best." He then introduces the Board of Directors and founding partners. He tells us the Board of Directors will be available for chatting at the Meet & Greet on Thursday from 5:30 - 7:30 PM, and that PASS is eager to hear about our ideas for how to improve the organization and its events.

This Summit has 3,807 attendees from 48 countries. And there are over 4,500 registrants from 49 countries for the streaming keynotes and WIT event. There are 191 speakers, 44 of them MVPs, and 111 out of the 168 sessions are 300+ level. And for the first time, the DVDs will include all 168 sessions *AND* the pre- and post-con recordings. (And probably David DeWitt's keynote again, if history is any indication.)

Exhibitors are an important part of PASS, obviously. Visit the Exhibit Hall (which sold out for the first time ever). The hours are Tuesday from 10:45 to 4:00 and Wednesday from 10:45 to 5:00. Also all attendees are welcome to the Exhibit Hall Reception tonight from 6 - 8.

Mark Souza comes on stage and talks about Ask the Experts, SQL Clinic, and several ways you can interact with the MVPs and Microsoft employees that are here at PASS. One of the giveaways each day will be an XBox Kinect. They give away an Alienware laptop after placing an envelope under a random chair in the crowd.

Before Ted Kummert takes the stage, there is an entertaining video about the evolution of SQL Server - from breaking out of the Sybase code ($100 million/yr) to SQL Server 2008 R2 ($3 billion/yr). Ted comes on stage and exclaims that this is the largest PASS ever. He talks about the focus of SQL Server over the years, and more importantly, the future. He explains that SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse (formerly "Project Madison") is available now, and will be shipping on appliance servers in December.

Jesse Fountain (Principal Program Manager, CAT) comes on stage and shows off two nice racks loaded up with PDW, and then explains a new CREATE TABLE statement that incorporates the CLUSTERED INDEX, HASHING KEY and PARTITION boundaries all in the WITH clause - looks like very simplified syntax compared to setting up partitioning today. Then he demonstrates an 800 billion row query that runs in 19 seconds.

Paulo Resende, Chief Architect, Bank of America comes on stage and talks about he implemented SQL Server solutions to reduce costs, improve performance, and be more agile.

Dave Mariani, VP Development at Yahoo, talks about ad distribution for 600 million users (3.5 billion events, amounting to 1.2 TB of data per day). He discusses using a 12 TB cube in Analysis Services for data mining to deliver relevant ads and optimize the revenue of their advertising customers.

Ted announces updates to support & service offerings such as Premier Mission Critical, and the new Microsoft Critical Advantage Program - end-to-end support and service starting with Parallel Data Warehouse appliances.

Then Ted talks about the beta for Codename "Atlanta" - an agent that runs on your server and uploads various performance and health metrics (not actual data) about your SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 to a secure service in the cloud. You can log in to the portal to view various metrics about your servers, but it also assesses best practices and configurations to provides guidance on preventing incidents, and better enables support to analyze your systems in case you do have an incident.

Bob Ward comes on stage and demonstrates troubleshooting the dreaded "Cannot generate SSPI Context" error message. He says that Atlanta is all about preventing problems, being proactive, and minimizing downtime. He shows that the Atlanta user interface has pointed out an issue in Kerberos configuration and actually guides him to a KB article that solves the problem.

You can sign up for Microsoft Atlanta at http://www.microsoftatlanta.com/ (requires a Windows Live ID, and Silverlight once signed in).

If you're at PASS and you want to learn more about Atlanta, you can attend the following spots:

Breakout Session (DBA226M) Tue 10:15 AM in room 612
SQL Clinic

o   Come talk to the product team and the guys behind the rules
o   Product team (Paul Mestemaker, Tim Ng, Lorenzo Rizzi)
o   Knowledge v-team (Bob Ward, Suresh Kandoth, Adam Saxton)

2 Product Pavilion Showcase Theater Demos

o Tue 6:00pm – 6:30pm
o Wed 1:30pm – 2:00pm

2 Focus Groups (please attend to influence our Wave 3 planning!)

o   FG#1 – Room 305 – Wed 3:00pm – 4:30pm
o   FG#2 – Room 305 – Thu 4:30pm – 6:00pm
o   If you know you’d like to come, RSVP to TimNg@microsoft.com. If you have some free time and want to stop by, we’ll allow you in if there is room. We are targeting about ~8-10 people per focus group.

Next, Ted talks about the cloud, and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). He says the key benefits to SQL Azure in terms of PaaS are that it is self-managed, has elastic scale, and is both agile and familiar. He talks about the new CTPs that were announced at PDC : Web Admin, Reporting, and Data Sync. He talks about Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket - where you can get both public domain and commercial data sets to pull into your own applications. Adam Wilson (SQL Azure PM) demonstrates this feature for a fictional bike store, which pulls sales data and correlates it to weather data pulled from the Marketplace.

Finally, Ted talks about what we're all waiting for: SQL Server Codename "Denali" - the next version of SQL Server. The press release is available here:

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2010/nov10/11-09PASS10PR.mspx

Quentin Clark et. al. will be providing much more detailed information about Denali in tomorrow's keynote, but we are getting some high-level information from Ted today. He talks about Mission Critical, Productivity, and Pervasive Insight.

Amir Netz comes on stage to discuss enhancements in PowerPivot for Denali, and shows off Excel browsing 100 million rows of data. It's very fast and impressive, though I'm curious what type of machine that is really running on. I think a lot of business users are stuck on decrepit hardware that may not exhibit such smooth performance.

Then Amir shows how Visual Studio, Management Studio and BIDS have been combined into a single, unified interface, and how when looking at data on a server, the interface can sort and filter 2 billion rows "in a flash." Again, quite impressive, and garnered a separate round of applause. Then he shows updating reports in real time, representing scanning a trillion rows per minute. Then he talks about a new columnar storage mechanism in Denali. Yes, you heard that right, we're getting vertipaq technologies in the next version of SQL Server.

Next, they talk about Codename "Crescent" - data visualization feature that allows you to represent data in a report in many different ways, including animated charts that can show, for example, the evolution of movie sales over time. Another round of applause here for the animated chart, and what he called "instant replay" - which allows him to slow-motion the chart animation. Then he shows live data being updated inside a PowerPoint presentation - I don't think I'll be able to pull this off using Keynote. I can't really describe this for you, I'm just going to have to figure it out and build out a demo.

The big tech sites already had prepared articles waiting for the press release announcement, where you can read about some of the key features:

ZDNet
The Register

You can download the CTP here, or wait for DVDs available after the keynote tomorrow:

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/product-info/future-editions.aspx

What PASS sessions will I try to attend?

AaronBertrand — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:55:00 GMT

Every year at PASS, I do the same thing. I hmm and haw over which sessions I want to go to, and I end up making some tough choices at game time. This year I believe I'll be pretty busy, so my typical pie-in-the-sky view of how much I'll be able to attend just isn't going to pan out. Instead, I have selected 5 sessions that I really want to try to attend; it may be a lofty goal, but I'm going to do what I can to make it happen. This post is as much of a reminder for myself as it is meant to be interesting to you; probably even more so.

(As a side note, I believe you'll need to be signed in to the PASS web site in order to click any of the below links.)

Tuesday, November 9th

DBA-492S : Tracking Waits with Extended Events : Andrew Kelly
4:30 - 6:00
This was a tough choice; there are a LOT of good sessions in this time slot! In the end, my curiosity about Extended Events won out over interesting sessions from SQLCAT, Adam Machanic, Kevin Kline and Ben Nevarez.

Wednesday, November 10th

DBA-588C : CSS Update Queries - Under the Hood : Conor Cunningham
10:15 - 11:45
DBA-599C : Inside SQL Server Latches : Bob Ward
4:30 - 6:00
These both look to be excellent sessions, and I don't think my brain will have room for much else on this particular Wednesday.

Thursday, November 11th

DBA-449M : Expert Query Performance Troubleshooting : Boris Baryshnikov, Conor Cunningham
1:00 - 2:15
DBA-346M : What's new in T-SQL in the Next Release of SQL Server : Tobias Ternstrom
2:30 - 3:45
Again, I just don't see how I can go wrong at either of these sessions. I always feel I have performance troubleshooting skills to learn, and of course I am interested in what new T-SQL functionality will be coming our way in Denali.