PASS Summit

One (Last) Trip to the Emerald City for #SQLPASS

On Monday, I’m flying out to the Emerald City (Seattle, WA) for the annual gathering of Microsoft database geeks known as the PASS Summit; as always, I’m excited to see friends and learn new stuff. However, this will probably be my last Summit. Over the last few years, my career trajectory has taken me away from database development and administration, and it’s time that I start investing in the things that now interest me (technology management, and operational culture). My goals for the next year are to attend conferences like the DevOps Enterprise Summit and the SRECon; I want and need to learn more about making IT efficient, and managing large-scale applications.

I’m not entirely disconnecting from the SQL community; I still plan to stay active and involved in our local chapter (AtlantaMDF), and part of the organizing committee for our SQL Saturdays. I still want to be a data-driven professional; I’m just not a data professional. That’s a subtle distinction, but it’s important to me. I’ll still sling code part-time and for hobbies, but I’m really trying to hone in on what I enjoy these days, and it’s process, procedures, management, and cultural change in IT (all IT, not just SQL Server).

So, this year will be different for me; instead of trying to network and schmooze and elevate my own SQL skillset, I’m going to hang out in sessions like “Overcoming a Culture of FearOps by Adopting DevOps” ,“Agile Development Fundamentals: Continuous Integration with SSDT“, and
“Fundamentals of Tech Team Leadership“. I may visit some courses on Cloud development and Analytics, but mostly, I want to enjoy spending some time with folks that I may not see again for a while.

I truly hope to see you there; I owe a lot to all of you, so I’m probably going to have a huge bar tab after buying rounds. Should be an exciting week.

2016-10-21 by Conferences PASS Professional Development SQLServerPedia Syndication 0

#SQLPass #Summit15 Gear: My KarmaGo

Just a quick post as I’m packing up for the Professional Association for SQL Server Summit 2015; this year, I’m carrying a mobile hotspot with me: my Karma Go.  Just to state the obvious, yes, I am aware that the Washington State Conference Center has free wifi. I also know that wifi gets horribly overloaded in certain areas (like the keynote rooms) when thousands of device-carrying database people begin tweeting at once.  I also know that most people have hotspots on their phone, but I don’t (corporate phone; unlimited data, no sharing).

So why the Go?  Besides the fact that I want to stay connected with more than just my phone, I also like the fact that it offers a reward for sharing.  You see, Karma’s data plan consists of two parts:

  1. Pay-as-you-go data.  I filled up with a bunch of data (mostly to use when my home internet goes down), and I refill when I run out.  No monthly subscription,  so I’m not paying twice for unused Internet.
  2. Sharing earns data.  If a new user connects to my hotspot, they get 100MB of free data, and I get 100MB of data added to my account.  Easy-peasy (my SSID is “Free Karma By @codegumbo”) .

Checking the coverage maps (Karma runs on Sprint LTE), it looks like I’ll have great coverage.   Let’s see if I can stay connected through the keynote this year 🙂

2015-10-26 by Blogging is FUN! Conferences PASS Professional Development 2

Speaking at the #SQLPASS #Summit14

I know I’m a day late with this announcement, but I haven’t blogged in months, so what’s the rush?  I am very excited, however, about presenting a full session and a lightning talk at the PASS Summit in Seattle in November.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: A DBA’S GUIDE TO HADOOP AND BIG DATA

Speaker(s):  Stuart Ainsworth

Duration: 75 minutes

Track: BI Platform Architecture, Development & Administration

You’re a SQL Server DBA working at Contoso and your boss calls you out of your cubicle one day and tells you that the development team is interested in implementing a Hadoop-based solution to your customers. She wants you to help plan for the implementation and ongoing administration. Where do you begin?

This session will cover the foundations of Hadoop and how it fundamentally differs from the relational approach. The goal is to provide a map between your current skill set and "big data.” Although we’ll talk about basic techniques for querying data, the focus is on basic understanding how Hadoop works, how to plan for growth, and what you need to do to start maintaining a Hadoop cluster.

You won’t walk out of this session a Hadoop administrator, but you’ll understand what questions to ask and where to start looking for answers.

 

TEN-MINUTE KANBAN

Speaker(s):  Stuart Ainsworth

Duration: 10 minutes

Track: Professional Development

The goal of this Lightning Talk is to cover the basic principles of the Lean IT movement, and demonstrate how Kanban can be used by Administrators as well as developers. Speaker Stuart Ainsworth will cover the basic concepts of Kanban, where to begin, and how it works.

Kanban boards can be used to highlight bottlenecks in resource and task management, as well as identify priorities and communicate expectations. All this can be done by using some basic tools that can be purchased at an office supply store (or done for free online).

2014-06-26 by Conferences PASS SQL Server SQLServerPedia Syndication 0

quick blog from #sqlpass #summit13

Been a busy couple of days; hell, the last few weeks have been just nuts. I’m pausing for a few seconds to type a quick post from sunny Charlotte, and just fill in a few thoughts.

First, I think my XQuery session went reasonably well; I got bit by the demo gods, and shouldn’t have tried to use the magnifier without more practice, but I had a lot of questions and a few nods of approval. Overall, I think it was a B effort, and am hopeful that I can improve it.

Second, it’s always exciting to be back at Summit; kind of like New Year’s Day. I make lots of resolutions about how I want to get involved with an active and dynamic community. Let’s see how many of them stick. Mostly, I like being around smart people, and it’s been quite exciting to talk to some of the smartest people I know. I’ve had some great technical conversations with lots of people, and its given me a lot of things to mull over in terms of where I want to go and grow.

Third, I also got sucked into a lot of conversations about the whole PASS election/membership issue. My post about Allen Kinsel’s campaign seem to have kicked off more of a firestorm than I realized. I’ve had lots of people ask me what my thoughts were on the issue, and really, it’s kind of simple: We’re database people, and we need a plan to fix a data problem. I don’t have that plan, but there are lots of people who do (see my second point above about smart people).

Fourth, keynotes\sessions are awesome. I’m learning a lot, and I hope others are as well.

More to come soon.

2013-10-17 by PASS SQL Server SQLServerPedia Syndication 4