Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Reflections on SQL PASS Summit 2010

Attending Orycon immediately following SQL PASS Summit was not exactly the best thing for me to do especially since I managed to lose my voice part way though SQL PASS and still haven’t managed to fully recover from the damage despite taking both Monday and today as vacation days from work.
SQL PASS Summit was very educational, and I wish I had the time to personally document all that I learned. However, thanks to my bout with illness, I do not have the time to write all that I should. Fortunately for the rest of us, many SQL PASS Summit attendees already blogged about the highlights and they write much more coherently than I do.
Here is a brief list of the live blogging of SQL PASS Summit events, classes, keynotes and suchlike (in the order I stumbled upon them, rather than in any order of priority or importance)
Various neat things were announced at SQL PASS Summit, including
  • New path to obtaining the Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) certification for SQL Server 2008.
    • Brent Ozar wrote a summary of the changes for those who want a quick bulleted list of the changes rather than the full program description.
    •  Paul Randal and Glen Berry also blogged on the MCM announcement.
    • Many posted the all-important link to the MCM readiness videos, which is required viewing for all MCM candidates.
  • SQL Server Denali Community Technology Preview was released, and all attendees received a CD containing SQL Server Denali CTP1. Brent Ozar was one of the first to post a blog about Denali and its high availability features.
  • SQL Server Tools code named “Juneau” – SSMS BI functionality now available in BIDs.
  • SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse
  • Microsoft “Atlanta” (online service providing proactive alerts for SQL server 2008+). Official site here. Brent Ozar expresses his concerns about Atlanta in a blog he posted within minutes of Atlanta being announced (fast blogger!).
  • Project Crescent – web-based reporting tool
Random photos from SQL PASS Summit 2010. Generally speaking, the photos were taken outside the hours of the classes at social events because we ALL were actually paying attention to the speakers rather than snapping photos. The following are photo albums posted by various attendees.
Wednesday was SQLKilt day. Many of the male attendees showed up wearing kilts in support of the PASS WIT (Women In Technology):
Stuff from other evening happenings
SQL Karaoke:
I got to sit next to Brent Ozar in a panel at SQL Pass. He snapped my picture as I was trying to peek into his birthday gift bag:
LadyRuna(hyperlink to original of photo)  He tagged it “Celebrity  Sighting at #sqlpass and tweeted my photo to everyone. I guess I’m a Celebrity now. Wowza.

2 comments:

  1. I've always thought of you as a celebrity, dear Lady :) I can tell you the most fun moments of the week were spent in your company, and for that I am thankful. Totally nice meeting you, you're a great person. Thanks for allowing me to share in your company.

    ReplyDelete

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