Upcoming PASS Summit 2016

Posted on October 13, 2016 by Amit Banerjee

It’s that time of the year again when data professionals across the world converge at Seattle for one of the largest gatherings of data professionals around the world. This is one week of deep technical sessions delivered by community experts, MVPs and Microsoft engineers. With such a high concentration of data professionals around the world, you cannot discount the phenomenal networking opportunities at the event.

PASS Summit is the must-attend conference for all data professionals. There is a wealth of learning, connections, and immediate solutions gained in 3+ jam-packed and inspiring days. And possibly one of the largest congregation of data professional in the world with over 4000 attendees. Our Corporate Vice President, Joseph Sirosh, will talk about Cloud Intelligence Innovations during his keynote session on Day 1. David DeWitt, a very familiar face at PASS summit and in the community, will talk about Data Warehousing in the Cloud during his keynote session on Day 2.

The SQL Server Tiger Team (@mssqltiger) will be delivering sessions, will be at the clinic and is eager to hear from SQL Server customers. I published a blog post which is a summary of what the Tiger team will be upto at the PASS Summit.

Parikshit and I will be delivering a session on Always On enhancements and how it would help monitor, support and troubleshoot your environments better and even make your critical environment more reliable and available!

My session at PASS Summit

Session: SQL Server Enhancements that Keep Your Environment Always On
Speaker: Parikshit Savjani, Amit Banerjee
Session Code: DBA-313-M
Session Date: October 27th
Session Time: 1:30PM – 2:15PM PST
Level: 300
Duration: 75 minutes
Room: TCC Tahoma 5

What you can expect: SQL Server Always On Availability Groups provides a number of out-of-the-box enhancements in SQL Server 2012, 2014 and 2016 which helps analyze common issues with relative ease. Attend this session to find out more about how the new enhancements can be leveraged to improve reliability, reduce manual effort and increase uptime. This session will also do a deep dive using demos of the new visualizations available for common scenarios leveraging the new diagnostic and supportability improvements that were added. As a bonus, we will show you new visualizations and data analysis techniques for common issues that you face in your Always On environments.

SQL PASS Summit 2012

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Amit Banerjee

Nov 6^th -9^th seemed like a whirlwind with the PASS Summit seeing a record number of registrations and probably a record number of first timers as well! The number of people thronging towards the Washington State Convention Center in the morning was a sight to see! The hotels around the convention center were over booked. If you were one of those individuals who booked late, then you either ended up paying steep prices or not getting your preferred rooms. The evenings of the event days saw most of the eating joints being thronged by the PASS attendees where the networking continue till late into the night!

Not only was this a fun event but I did manage to meet a number of folks (Tweeps) face-to-face that I interact with on Twitter or other technology forums. I did miss out on meeting a few folks that I wanted to but that would have to be now done at another time and place. I also got to meet other folks from the CSS (Bob Ward, Adam Saxton, Rohit Nayak and more) and SQL CAT teams with whom I interact with on a regular basis but hardly get to meet regularly due to the cross geographical locations.

The evening revelry also showed why Twitter is a powerful medium of communication. The venues were decided and broadcasted using the Twitter hashtag #sqlpass. Some of the post event parties had some highlights as well like the flash mob…. The karaoke sessions at the Hard Rock Café…. The Unicorn seemed to be having a ball!! (If you were there, you know what I am talking about).

I had recently co-authored a book, Professional SQL Server 2012: Internals and Troubleshooting, which was launched at the event. There was a book signing session with the authors where we gave 30 books through a lucky draw. Thank you SQL Sentry for sponsoring this! Smile

I was also part of the SQL Server Clinic on all three days. I met with various customers who brought their design and troubleshooting related questions which spanned all areas of the product. We were staffed at the clinic with the engineers from all areas of expertise. So it was just a matter of walking up to the SQL Server Clinic, locating the expert and asking your question. I even looked at memory dumps at the Clinic! Smile Below is picture of one of the peak times at the clinic. The green shirts are the folks that were answering the questions!

#SQLFamily truly rocks! And this year’s #SQLPASS summit was #Awesome! – That is my Twitter update summarizing the event!

SQL PASS Summit 2012

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Amit Banerjee

If you follow SQL Server related hashtags on Twitterverse, then you are already aware of the tweets that have been helping in the building of the SQL PASS Summit being held at Seattle from November 6-9. Rest assured that there will be a flurry of tweets originating from the Washington State Convention & Trade Center starting from Tuesday. And the reason for the excitement is coupled by the fact that I shall be present in person rather than following the event via Twitter or a streaming video session!

You might have already read the various blog posts doing the rounds on the net on why you should attend and what you can look forward to. I shall give you my 2 cents on why I think this is really worth a SQL Server professional’s time.

First and foremost, you will very rarely find the majority of the SQL Server brains in the world gathered under a single roof for a period of three days discussing and exchanging ideas about what you deal with everyday i.e. SQL Server. The session’s line-up will re-emphasize what I just said! Some of the best speakers in the industry will talk about various topics on SQL Server and you stand to gain a wealth of knowledge by just attending these sessions.

I have interacted with a lot of folks on Twitter regarding SQL Server related queries and it would be a great opportunity to connect faces to the Twitter handles that I am familiar with. Networking is one of the key components in SQL PASS and whether you want to or not, you will end up making acquaintances and even friends during the course of the three days (four if you are attending the Pre-Cons). Networking and interacting with the SQL Server community is the biggest motivation for me to attend PASS!

I always love to discuss SQL Server at any given opportunity and I will be available at the SQL Server Clinic on all three days. So feel free to walk up with your queries! Remember no question is a bad question! You don’t know till you don’t ask! You will get the opportunity to discuss your SQL Server related queries with some of the most experienced SQL Server engineers and members of the SQL CAT team)…. So feel free to walk by the clinic. The SQL Server Clinic timings are as follows:

•Wednesday

◦7:00am-8:00am (Early Birds)

◦10:00am – 6:15pm

•Thursday

◦7:00am-8:00am (Early Birds)

◦10:00am – 6:30pm

•Friday

◦7:00am – 2:00pm

We will be in 4C-3 which will be across from the Expo hall and on your way to the meal hall.

The Microsoft CSS team will also be delivering sessions at PASS. So don’t miss out on those. Bob Ward [B|T] will be delivering another session titled Inside SQL Server 2012 on November 7^th: 1:30 pm – 4:30pm. Don’t miss that! For more details on what the CSS team will be upto at PASS, read the post by Adam Saxton [B|T] (yes, he is also delivering sessions).

Hope to see you there!