There are now 4 weeks until the PASS Summit and a few times now I’ve discussed ( 1, 2, 3 ) some of my thoughts as it approaches. The goal here is to make sure that you will know as much as possible about the summit to get the most out of it.
Of course, this won’t be as helpful if you haven’t registered to attend. I would really recommend getting… registered! If you need some reasons to attend outside of this post, I wrote a post on some of the reasons I attend the PASS Summit.
Let’s Talk About Lunch
Every day at PASS you’ll have an opportunity to have lunch with a few thousand people that are fairly like minded. Like yourself, they are SQL Server professionals that are interested in learning. Lunch provides a chance to refuel for the afternoon sessions but it also a chance for so much more than that. Over each lunch there is an event that you can join to expand your PASS experience.
Birds of a Feather
On Tuesday, you can join MVPs and members of the SQLCAT team as they sit down to host table discussions over lunch. Each of the tables will be focused on one of the topics below. The discussions will offer insights and an opportunity to share your thoughts and experiences.
For detailed information on the luncheon check out Mike Walsh’s (twitter | blog) recent blog on the lunch. As of today, here are the table discussions that you can look forward to:
Allan Hirt: SQL Server Manageability Tips for the DBA
Ami Levin: Performance Management Tools
Andy Leonard: SSIS Frameworks (or design patterns or getting started)
Andy Warren: Statistics
Arnie Rowland: Community – TechNet Wiki
Brad Schulz: Interpretting Query Plans
Bruce Loehle-Conger: SSRS Lessons Learned
Chris Webb: Performance Tuning SSAS
Christian Bolton: Hyper-V with SQL Server
Christopher Shaw: Professional Development for the Data Professional
Darren Gosbell: SSAS Triple A – Administration, Automation and APIs
Davide Mauri: SQL Server & NoSQL Alternatives
Dean Vitner: Write-Ahead Logging & The Transaction Log
Denny Cherry: SQL Service Broker
Eduardo Castro: HA In Virtualized Environments
Edwin Sarmiento: Why you need to distinguish yourself from the rest
Erland Sommarskog: Practical T-SQL Programming
Geoff Hiten: Advanced SQL Clustering
Gianluca Hotz: Oracle to SQL Server DBA
Glenn Berry: Database Mirroring
Grant Fritchey: T-SQL Tuning & Optimization
Greg Galloway: What’s the Coolest Business Problem You’ve Solved with a Cube?
Jason Strate: Querying The Procedure Cache
Jeff Moden: Black Arts T-SQL (Like the Tally Table)
Jessica Moss: Fixing Bad Data Using SSIS
Jesus Gil: Geo-Spatial Data on SSRS (en espanol)
Jonathan Kehayias: VMWare With SQL Server
Justing Langford: SQL Server Consolidation
Kevin Boles: Performance Tuning
Kevin Kline: Help for the involuntary DBA
Louis Davidson: Database Design
Michael Coles: SQL Encryption (pending ATE schedule question)
Michael Steineke: High Performance DBs on Shared Storage
Patrick LeBlanc: CDC
Paul Turley: BI Tool & Visualization Choices
Peter Ward: SQL Server Migration and Upgrade Planning
Plamen Ratchev: Implementing Hierarchies in SQL
Rafael Salas: PowerPivot: Where/How Are You Using It?
Rob Farley: Tables don’t exist, so join me at my index
Scott Klein: Data Development in SQL Azure
Sean McCown: PowerShell For the SQL Server DBA
Ted Krueger: Cheapest DR/HA Options on SQL Server
Tim Chapman: SQL Security Best Practices
Tim Mitchell: Care and Feeding of your SSIS Infrastructure
Tim Ford: DMVs
Todd McDermid: Data Warehouse ETL with SSIS
Tomislav Piasevoli: The Past, Present and Future of Microsoft BI
Women in Technology Luncheon
Then on Wednesday you can join the Women in Technology virtual chapter for a panel discussion on Recruiting, Retaining, and Advancing Women in Technology. The panelists are Nora Denzel, Michelle Ufford (twitter | blog), Denise McInerney (twitter), and Stacia Misner (twitter | blog).
In this discussion you’ll get to hear about why it matters to have women in technology and what you can do to help this issue. The panel discussion was greatly talked about last year and I expect more of the same this year.
Meet the Chapters Lunch
Finally on Thursday, you will get a chance to meet with the chapter leaders from PASS chapters across the world. From the Australia to Russia to the United States – there will be chapter leaders from all over available to meet and greet. A good chance to find out if there is a local chapter that you aren’t aware of that you can participate with between PASS Summits.
I’ll be at each of the lunches – taking in the experiences and enjoying the food. Make sure you get these on your agenda. Feel free to stop by and chat. At the last lunch, I’ll be at the Minnesota PASS table.
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