Search results matching tags 'PASS' and 'pass summit'

Blogging from the PASS Summit Keynote : Day 3

AaronBertrand — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:00:00 GMT

This is a rough morning. Got in at 2:00 AM, then had no water in my hotel this morning. I doubt I will ever voluntarily stay at the Seattle Hilton again. Still, I'm very much looking forward to this keynote - the illustrious Dr. David DeWitt is going to make my brain hurt today!

First, though, Rick Heiges introduces Rob Farley and Buck Woody, who walk out playing a pretty funny acoustic song about query tuning. Then there was a touching tribute to Wayne Snyder, who is retiring after this year.

SQL Rally Dallas will be held May 11th-12th. PASS Summit 2012 will be held November 6-9 in Seattle. Check out the early registration prices valid until November 15th.

Dr. David DeWitt takes the stage and starts his keynote, entitled, "Big Data: What's the Big Deal?" He says that Big Data is 10's of petabytes. I take that as, "Stop saying 'huge' when talking about your 40 GB table." A zetabyte (ZB) can be thought of as a quadrillion megabytes, a trillion gigabytes, or a billion terabytes. No matter your interpretation, that's a lot of data 35ZB, the amount of data we should have by 2020, can be represented by a stack of DVDs halfway to Mars. Some breakdowns of properties managing big data:

eBay: 10 PB, 256 nodes
Facebook: 20PB, 2,700 nodes
Bing: 150PB, 40,000 nodes

NoSQL does not mean "SQL should never be used" or that "SQL is dead." What it means is "Not Only SQL." He talks about the benefits of NoSQL and how it trades consistency for availability. Relational databases provide maturity and stability at the cost of flexibility. Look back at the comparison above: eBay, with roughly half the data Facebook has, requires 10% of the computing power. He explains that relational databases are not going away; we will all still have jobs regardless of how popular NoSQL gets. Dr. DeWitt promises this, and I'm going to hold him to it.

Hadoop and MapReduce offer scalability, high degree of fault tolerance, relatively easy programmability, efficient data analysis, lower up-front software / hardware costs (but not necessarily lower TCO).

HDFS = underlying file system for Hadoop, assuming failures are common. Write once, read multiple times. Actually on NTFS - 64MB blocks. A block is replicated twice - first copy on node that creates the file, second is on another node under the same switch (same rack), third on a different rack. This maximizes risk tolerance at lowest performance cost. He gives a great explanation of the Hadoop fault tolerance model, MapReduce, HiveQL, Hive vs. PDW, Sqoop (a bridge between Hadoop and RDBMS). But I did not even think about trying to reproduce that here. If you didn't see the keynote (live or streaming), you should definitely consider the DVDs.

For next year's keynote, I voted for "Main Memory Database Systems." You can tell him what you want to hear about at dewitt@microsoft.com.

Blogging from the PASS Summit Keynote : Day 2

AaronBertrand — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:00:00 GMT

VP Finance, Bill Graziano comes on stage in a great kilt (but white socks!). No Tina Turner this year.

1,000 people from 53 countries watched the keynote yesterday. He recognizes Tim Radney (@tradney) and Jack Corbett (@unclebiguns) for their outstanding volunteer work over the past year, and then congratulates Lori Edwards as this year's PASSion Award winner.

Next he's on to financials. 45% revenue growth - over $5MM this year. Spending on community programs has increased by over 100%. He reminds us that the PASS Board Meet & Greet is Friday, 12:15 - 1:30, in room 307-308.

They show some videos pimping the various new features in SQL Server 2012. Brent and I have a running bet on whether "PowerView" should have a space. It turns out it does, but I suspect most will spell it like PowerPivot, PowerPoint, etc.

Quentin Clark, Corporate VP, Microsoft

Quentin comes on and recaps what Ted Kummert spoke about yesterday - large scale for all consumers. He goes over his "Fantastic 12" - top 12 features of SQL Server 2012:

1. Required 9s & protection
    SSIS as a server; HA for StreamInsight; AlwaysOn
2. Blazing-fast performance
    Performance enhancements in FTS, FileStream, SSAS & SSIS; ColumnStore index
3. Rapid data exploration
    Power View + PowerPivot; SharePoint administration and reporting alerts
4. Managed Self-Service BI

5. Credible, consistent data
    BI Semantic Model (BISM); Data Quality Services; Master Data Services
6. Organizational compliance
    Auditing; User-defined server roles
7. Peace of mind
    Distributed Replay Utility; System Center Advisor / MPs; Premier Mission Critical support
8. Scalable data warehousing
    Optimized & pre-tuned appliances from multiple vendors
9. Fast time to solution
10. Extend any data, anywhere
      Drivers for PHP, Java, Hadoop; ODBC drivers for Linux & CDC for SSIS & Oracle
11. Optimized productivity
      SQL Server Data Tools ("Juneau") for both OLTP and BI; deployment + targeting "freedom"
12. Scale on demand
      AlwaysOn; deployment across private + public; elastic scale (federation)

We saw demos of AlwaysOn, ColumnStore indexes, semantic search, backup from Azure, federation, and even DACPAC.

Blogging from the PASS Summit Keynote : Day 1

AaronBertrand — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Before the lights came down, I had already hit what will probably be the highlight of my morning: having a brief conversation with Dr. David DeWitt.

Rushabh Mehta, President, PASS

Rushabh Mehta comes on the stage and welcomes us to PASS Summit 2011. His message: "THIS is community." He invites us to come to the PASS Board of Directors Meet and Greet on Friday to help guide what PASS can do for us (I don't think he expects all of us to attend). He tells us that they've delivered over 430,000 hours of education this year and expanded their membership by over 20,000 members.

Some stats about this year's event: 189 sessions in 5 tracks, with 204 speakers - including 93 MVPs and 11 MCMs. Over 300 first-timers were introduced during the welcome reception last night.

He announces the release of SQL Server MVP Deep Dives Volume 2. Book signings by almost all of the authors are scheduled for today at 1:00 PM in the dining hall, and Friday morning at 7:15 AM in the south lobby. Remember that all of the author proceeds go to the charity Operation Smile.

Ted Kummert, Senior VP, Business Platform Division

The title of Ted's keynote speech: "The New World of Data." SQL Server is the most widely adopted database platform in the world. We also beat Google to the cloud by 18 months. He hints at ColumnStore being added to SSAS, and tells us that Crescent's official name is PowerView. The big announcement: the official name for Denali is SQL Server 2012, and will be released in the first half of next year. This is not the official logo, but it was what I could whip up quickly with limited resources on my laptop:

Repeating my guess from @BrentO's blog post challenge, where he asked us to guess the release date: June 15th. Let me state quite explicitly that that is not an official release date; that is just MY GUESS.

Among other things, this means there are some new hash tags for twitter: #SQL2012 and #PowerView. I'm not sure if I should go back and re-tag all of my blog posts currently tagged with the denali moniker...

Microsoft's overall vision is a consistent platform for managing mission-critical scale, regardless of where your data lives and what type of device you're using. He talks about Big Data, and announces upcoming releases: Apache Hadoop-based distribution for Windows Server and Windows Azure (by end of year), Apache Hive ODBC driver and add-in for Excel (November release), and a JavaScript framework for Hadoop. Boiled down this means you will be able to connect Hadoop to SQL Server and PDW. This may also help close the loop on why Microsoft changed their tune earlier this year with regards to ODBC vs. OLEDB. Eric Baldeschwieler talks about Hadoop, predicting that it will store half the world's data within 5 years. Denny Lee runs a demo of HQL (HiveQL) extracting data from a web log using a Hadoop console in Windows, then using the Hive ODBC driver to connect PowerPivot for Excel to the results.

Someone came on stage to demonstrate how they can connect Azure, Excel and the data marketplace for Contoso frozen yogurt. Little jokes about 5-way "vanilla" joins that just aren't hitting home. Noticeably missing from all of these demos: Management Studio; I, for one, do not plan on switching to Excel. Based on the reactions around me I am being relatively kind about this demo.

Thankfully, Ted comes back on stage and then introduces Amir Netz, Technical Fellow. What a cool title, congratulations Amir! He presents a similar demo of ~~Crescent~~ PowerView that we've largely seen before, with a little more digging and mining. The big news here: they've brought back Export to PowerPoint. He then shows the full PowerView experience on his Windows 7 phone and on an iPad. He tried on a Samsung Galaxy, but it didn't seem to do anything. The basics here are browser-based experiences so that we don't have to code apps for every single type of device - as I've talked about before.

This is the largest summit in history, and I'm looking forward to a great week!

Board Members at the 2009 PASS Summit in Seattle

RMehta — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:58:00 GMT

This blog post is part of a series of regular PASS updates to the community that I will be posting on the main PASS Blog and will cross post here.

It feels like eternity, yet only 6 weeks back the PASS community came together in Seattle for yet another exciting summit. The educational content was cutting edge and the company comprised of who's who of the Microsoft SQL Server world. This year's summit certainly did not fail to excite and rejuvenate everyone who attended.

The PASS board and the terrific team at HQ worked extremely hard all year to build the community at large and support various community initiatives. The summit was a time for the entire team to reach into the community, to receive input on how they had done so far and what they should do moving forward. Although the summit itself was demanding, it was also a time to celebrate successes.

As we went through the pictures from the summit, we found this collection of amazing pictures of our board members. We hope you enjoy them as well.

Something to Look Forward to: A Unique SQL Server Conference

RMehta — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:36:00 GMT

A short while back Mosha wrote an interesting blog entry putting together a comparison between the upcoming MS BI conference and the 2008 PASS Summit. This comparison was based on the information that was publicly available at the time. It got me thinking about the upcoming 2008 PASS Summit and the attendee experience planned. I realize that there is a lot of the summit experience that is still under planning or not fully confirmed and so, not communicated out. So, I am going to try in this blog.

When I look at my own reasons for attending conferences in the past, 3 things come to mind - Networking, experience and education, in that order, although, I can see why most companies tend to decide on which conference to send employees to based on mainly the education aspect of a conference. So, I will talk about that aspect of the PASS summit first.

The Education

The PASS summit has over 150 deep technical session (including 14 deep dive pre-conference seminars) dedicated to SQL Server. There is something (or a lot) for everyone to learn. You will have a chance to learn from the experience of your peers in the community based on real facts and implementations – not the marketing spin. You will learn what works and what doesn’t work in a real-life implementation and you will learn best-practices. No other conference can claim to offer that depth of technical training. The summit also features a complete track (12 sessions) dedicated to best practices and implementation that is being delivered by the SQL CAT team. The PASS summit is also quite unique from any other conference that you may attend, in the diversity of speakers. Most other conferences generally have just a few expert speakers delivering multiple sessions. PASS has, at last count, 104 speakers delivering over 150 sessions! These speakers are not only industry experts and Microsoft product group members, but also our peers who have learnt in the trenches and are willing to share their experiences. This is one summit where you can come in and not only learn from others, but share your own experiences.

Speaking of education, the PASS summit also features a Lounge which will contain a theater where experts will conduct chalk-talks in an interactive environment. Additionally, there will be hands-on labs where you will be able to learn how to use new features in SQL Server 2008, including Business Intelligence.

All this great educational opportunity at the PASS summit certainly begs the question for Business Intelligence professionals about which conference to attend. If Mosha’s full day pre-conference session on Deep dive into MDX is not enough of a reason to attend the PASS summit, you should make PASS your summit choice if you are a BI professional that interacts with the SQL Server product stack or manages and administers Business Intelligence components in your organization. Some of the sessions we have include “Building a 100TB+ Scientific Data Warehouse” by Michael Thomassy, “Collecting Analysis Services Performance Data by using Management Data Warehouse, SQL Profiler, and AS DMVs in SSAS 2008” by Carl Rabeler, “Integrating Predictive Analysis throughout the Data Lifecycle” by Donald Farmer and “High Performance Data Warehouses in SQL Server 2008” by Erin Welker. I have in the past 2 weeks spoken to a number of Business Intelligence professionals and colleagues and a large number of them are planning on attending the PASS summit and many have also indicated interest in Mosha’s pre conference seminar! So, register before space fills up.

The Experience

This is the official Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Re-Launch Event! A target attendance of over 3000 professionals makes the upcoming PASS summit the largest global gathering of SQL Server professionals under one roof and a high-energy event you wouldn’t want to miss. Attendees will include a few hundred members of the SQL Server product development team from Microsoft who will not only be interacting and speaking with attendees, but also attending the sessions and in some cases providing perspective on the design aspects of certain features. More importantly they will be listening to your experiences and pain points so that they can enhance the product.

Also attending will be top experts from the community including SQL Server MVP’s who will be delighted to spend time answering your technical questions and helping solve those problems that have been plaguing you, at our Ask the Experts lounge. In fact, I am sure that many of your favorite bloggers will be at the summit looking forward to meeting you in person. One of the frequent feedbacks we have received from attendees in the past is that a few minutes of face-to-face time with one of the experts helping them solve their persistent problems have paid for the summit costs many times over. How’s that for value! We are also expecting over 200 Microsoft employees who design, build and manage SQL Server solutions and databases within Microsoft. So, this is an opportunity to find out how they “eat their own dog food”!

Speaking of designing, building and managing solutions and databases, the summit will also feature the largest gathering of vendors dedicated to making products and solutions that allow you to extend your investments in the SQL Server product. You can learn about all these different (and some new) offerings and also compare them under one roof! One of our Platinum Sponsor this year is DELL and I am certain that you will hear about some of their Database solutions for SQL Server. This year, PASS will also (potentially) feature a new and exciting Lounge experience which I cannot talk about yet as details are not finalized – but you can expect to hear about it soon. You surely don’t want to miss finding out all about them!

Part of the summit experience also includes discounted onsite certification exams where you can get certified in SQL Server 2008 product, participate in Microsoft focus groups and buy books at a discount from the book store.

There will also be some very exciting announcements from Microsoft during keynotes featuring top Microsoft SQL Server Management executives, Ted Kummert, Tom Casey and David DeWitt. Ted will provide a sneak peek at the future of SQL Server and Microsoft’s data platform and discuss the latest release of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and new technologies debuting in the short-term, as well as reveal plans for long-term technology developments that will change the data platform landscape. Tom will discuss the overall strategy, design, development and delivery of the Microsoft business intelligence platform with SQL Server 2008 and beyond, while David is expected to discuss his vision for the evolution of the database and Microsoft’s role in changing the face of data management.

For many of us, who are managing mission critical systems back at work, being disconnected from the office is not an option, the venue features a number of internet stations and free wireless connectivity throughout the summit venue so that you can check on your emails and the health of your servers while on-site.

This PASS summit also provides you some opportunity for relaxation and fun. Starting from our Heroes Unite theme, which will enhance your onsite experience, to the parties that we have planned for you (the Welcome reception on Tuesday, Expo Hall reception on Wednesday and a “signature” evening event on Thursday that you don’t want to miss), you are sure to have a blast! We are also hosting the SQL Heroes contest that you have an opportunity to participate in. Additionally, there might be opportunities to attend other vendor sponsored parties. Be sure to walk through the Expo hall and talk to vendors to find out more.

The Networking

Now, this is why I attend the PASS summit. This is my opportunity to get to meet and know my peers and make friends, getting to know people who I can reach out to long after the summit. PASS is where I first met Kevin Kline, Wayne Snyder, Peter DeBetta, Fernando Guerrero, Kirk Haselden and a host of other community leaders who I now consider good friends. These networking opportunities are everywhere at the PASS summit starting from the welcome reception and stretching all throughout the summit, whether at the Lounge, trade-show floor, at one of the various parties or just out in the halls. I encourage all of you to take maximum advantage of this great opportunity to get to know your peers.

It all adds up to real Value!

The education and experience I described above is just a small part of the overall summit experience. The value that this summit provides you reaches far beyond the on-site experience. For example, many of the break-out sessions are recorded and available to all attendees online after the summit. This allows you to review those sessions that you could not personally attend because of the sheer amount of session choices in each time slot. You also have the opportunity to purchase a DVD of the sessions so that you can watch it at your leisure. Many of our speakers are also readily accessible to you. So, you can contact them with specific questions on their sessions even after the summit.

You should register now to reserve your seat at the summit before it potentially sells out due to on-site capacity constraints this year. To make your registration even more valuable, you should be able to find discount codes on some of the community sites that you regularly visit, like SQLBlog.com or SQLTeam.com. Check this link to find even more valuable discount offers from Solid Quality Mentors that you can take advantage of. They will certainly extend the value of your registration $’s.

I would love to hear from you, if you are planning to attend. If you are a speaker or an MVP, please consider writing a short blog about what you are planning on speaking about at PASS or what you are most looking forward to at the PASS Summit.

Consider this your call to action to register now! And oh – be sure to make on-site plans ahead of time using our online scheduler (going live in a couple of weeks) to make the most of your summit experience. See you in Seattle this November!