In just a few hours I will be on a flight off to Seattle, WA for this year’s PASS DATA COMMUNITY SUMMIT. PASS is the perfect time to network, learn, meet new people — and most of all — get some of my questions answered.
This year (my 7th) I look forward to stopping by the AMAZON AWS booth and THANKING the team there for finally making the EMAIL SUBSCRIPTION feature available in their RDS SSRS product. Long story short, I’ve been begging for years for this one.
I count myself fortunate that my company sends me to this valuable conference each year. While everyone is at a different level, I can say without a doubt the conference has more than paid for itself for my employer each and every year.
For example, seven years ago, two weeks before PASS, our IT OPS guy randomly decided that we were switching to Amazon RDS servers. I quickly attended the one an only RDS session that year (there are half a dozen now) only to find out RDS did not have all the features that we use (at that time.) Next I went to the AWS Exhibit and spent over an hour picking the brains of the experts there. When I returned to Orlando, Florida the information I had allowed me to convince our company from making what would have been a costly and disastrous change at that time. (RDS has quickly evolved, nearly 90% of our databases on RDS now, seven years later.) This is just one of many situations where PASS training has paid off.
In 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019, I attended several sessions on backup and recovery and reconfigured database systems across our multiple data centers. The strategies I learned at PASS helped my team when a division was hit with a ransomware event. The databases and systems were back online within hours.
Many of the blog posts I write on this site contain code snippets, modules, theory, and ideas that I picked up at the PASS SUMMIT, a SQL SATURDAY in Florida, or our USER GROUP.
If you haven’t registered yet, there is still time to attend the IN-PERSON 3-DAY CONFERENCE or the ONLINE version.
Grab me and say “HELLO” if you see me wandering about. I LOVE MEETING new people, even when I look like I’m in a bad mood.
PASS DATA COMMUNITY SUMMIT INFO
https://twitter.com/hashtag/PASSDataCommunitySummit?src=hashtag_click
TUESDAY NIGHT UPDATE: After a long 12 hour drive/flight from home to airport to hotel… I am checked in and ready for some intense learning tomorrow. It was great to bump into old friends from the Orlando and Kissimmee user groups at the reception tonight. Unfortunately I did not get to see them at SQL Saturday Orlando, as I was sick in bed from my Covid booster that day. Can’t wait for tomorrow when things get started at 6:30 AM! Off to bed for some shut eye right now.
WEDNESDAY UPDATE:
The Key Note session this morning kicked off with the OFFICIAL RELEASE of Microsoft SQL Server 2022. The 90 minute presentation highlighted a package overflowing with new features and improvements on the old. Developers in particular will like the feature where you can simply type a question into SSMS and it will write the query for you. Maybe we can do away with developers now. (Fat chance! Besides I love the developers in my company.) I’m registered for a couple more sessions tomorrow that will focus on the new SQL 2022. Can’t wait to learn!
Microsoft even gave a free CLOUD 22 t-shirt to everyone present for the launch announcement this morning and then stopped by their booth in the exhibit hall.
THURSDAY UPDATE: Nearly every session I attended today had a focus on new features in SQL Server 2022. It was a pleasant surprise to see Kendal VanDyke presenting. If you ever attended the user group MAGIC PASS in Orlando, you probably know Kendal. He tirelessly headed that up and brought in top speakers for years before his career upgrade to Microsoft.
FRIDAY UPDATE: The last day of SUMMIT is always kind of sad. I’m exhausted after going non-stop for three days in a row, yet I don’t want it to end. My brain is spinning out of control, half of it hurting from so much to take in, yet the other half spinning out of control with a thousand ideas of improvements I immediately want to make upon returning, yet realize will have to be prioritized.
SATURDAY: Now to look back and summarize what went well and what could’ve improved.
Improvements
The ECOSYSTEM STAGE was a great idea. Short 30 minute sessions filled with new important information and easily accessible adjacent the Vendor Exhibit Hall. (See picture of Kindle above.) I did not realize these sessions were NOT video taped and there are no download links to the speaker power points. Had I known that I would have taken way more mobile photos of the screens.
OTHER SESSIONS NOT ON VIDEO: Appears that not ALL of the other sessions are on video either (maybe they just were not live and are still to come – I hope so.) For example I really liked the “Dive into the Buffer Pool and Kill Wasted Space” session, but somehow there is not a video (yet) to go back to. I DID take a lot of screen photos there, so I think I’m good on the info I wanted from it.
Great Stuff
FOOD! While certainly not five stars, in summits past, breakfast and snacks were done away. Good to see breakfast back and the lunch menu was way better than last time (2019.) And the deserts were awesome! At lunch on Wednesday I sat next to an AWS rep and on Thursday a Microsoft rep. Out of 2000 seats, what are those chances? Great opportunity to ask questions.
CROWSD SIZE: While attendance was obviously down, it seemed like the perfect size. Eighty percent of my sessions were scheduled in an appropriate room size. Only one was way over-crowded, but I was able to hop back to the hotel and watch it online. One other had 6 attendees in a room with 600 chairs. All the others were perfectly balanced.
CONTENT: For anyone thinking of upgrading to SQL SERVER 2022, this was certainly the year not to miss! I can’t remember a year since 2015 (for Server 2016) where content was so timely. The number of sessions were overwhelming with no shortage of subject to select.
EXHIBIT HALL: This year with about 30% less vendors, the hall was a perfect size. The vendors I wanted to see were all there and it was easy to find them. In 2019 it seemed almost too crowded.
Next Year
At past summits, they typically announced the dates for the next one on Thursday. With no announcement one can only wonder… Except that Red Gate now owns the summit and they also did not do the historic “Thursday Announcement” last year either. BUT they did put up a link for the 2023 Summit on Friday, where you can sign up to be notified. Hope to see there!