SQL Server Immersion Events are coming up in August. I deal with two different groups of people, developers and DBAs, on a variety of topics. When it comes to the specialized SQL Server topics (like SQLCLR, SQLXML, Service Broker, etc), I though that it would be best to address the seperate groups, each with a different focus. And I've been asked "what's the difference" in coverage? Both groups may have input into feature usage, so they both want to know WHAT it is they are dealing with for planning purposes. And both want to know "how do you make it run fast"? That's where the similarity ends.
Developers want the know how to program using a feature and learn about the use cases where it makes sense. Does it have it's own non-SQL language (like .NET or XQuery)? And how do I program that, what is the new syntax, new DML statements? Where do I look if I don't get the "right answer"? When is it best to use this feature as opposed to rolling my own equivalent in SQL? Does an equivalent in SQL even exist? How is this feature exposed within SQL (i.e. full-text CONTAINS, etc) and do these predicates, TVFs, etc, work well with other SQL constructs? Are there special constructs in the APIs I use, like ODBC or ADO.NET?
DBAs want to know how a feature affects a running server, and special considerations for backup/restore/reorganization and capacity planning. They look at a feature and think, how much disk space does this use and how much memory? What does the DDL look like? Are there new database objects, especially indexes? How about DMVs, metadata, trace events, and performance monitor counters to troubleshoot when things go wrong? What are the security repercussions?
That's why I've divided the topics more-or-less in two for the Immersion Events. IEDev is all about development, where IE4 covers some of the same topics for the more administratively inclined. Each one contains additional topics of interest to the corresponding group.
Hope this clears things up…
@bobbeauch