Happy second day of Summit! Holy buckets, yesterday was a busy day. But it was great. After the keynote I headed off to present my DBCC session which went well. Thank you to everyone that attended and to all of those who had questions and provided feedback. I am presenting again today, same time (10:15 AM PST) and same room (618-620), but this time it’s Demystifying Database Statistics. Statistics is another of my favorite topics, I expect the time will fly by just as it did yesterday.
I just finished my PASS TV interview which was short but fun and I am at the blogger’s table again this morning, quite curious to see what the keynote brings. I know we will hear from Douglas McDowell, Thomas LaRock and Quentin Clark. Douglas and Thomas are Vice Presidents on the PASS Board of Directors and Quentin is Corporate Vice President, SQL Program Management at Microsoft.
And we’re off…
8:22 AM Douglas takes the stage first and mentions that he ran into many people yesterday who could not decide what session to attend for a time slot, because there were multiple that were of interest. Douglas’ suggestion? Buy the DVDs. It’s a good recommendation, although remember that if you’ve attended the Summit, you’ll also have access to the sessions online. If you’ll want to watch the sessions when you’re not on the internet, you’ll need to buy the DVDs.
Douglas is talking about finance, as that’s his role, and points out that this year they’ve hired an additional Community Evangelist. Karla Landrum was the first Community Evangelist, but she has been so busy that another person was needed. This past quarter Niko Neugebaur was hired and I know he is thrilled about joining the team. Karla and Niko provide amazing support to the SQL Server community – if you see one of them this week please say thank you!
Douglas has spent some time talking about the revenue and expenses for PASS. The Summit is the largest revenue generator for PASS – not surprising with over 3000 attendees here this week.
8:35 AM Tom LaRock takes the stage and he gets to announce the PASSion Award Winner, who is Jen Stirrup. Congratulations Jen!!
Next year’s Summit will be in Charlotte, NC, from October 15-18. Early registration is already available at a very discounted rate.
Tonight is the Community Appreciation Party at Seattle’s Experience Music Project and it starts at 7 PM (ends at 10 PM). I have never been to EMP and look forward to checking it out!
8:55 AM Quentin Clark has taken the stage and now we’re getting a demo of some new PDW functionality. I know that big data is a hot topic and of interest right now…but I’m still an engine girl at heart. Julie Strauss from Microsoft is on stage for a demo, and she’s talking about movie data (I want that data). There’s a side conversation with Quentin – there’s obviously an ongoing joke about how it’s hard for her to pronounce some words (she’s a Viking). And then she says, “We don’t talk we just do.” Love it.
Ok, I need to head off to get ready for my session. Did I mention that I went to Bob Ward’s session on the SQLOS yesterday? It was three hours of fantastic technical knowledge 🙂