I was very fortunate to get last-minute approval to attend the Summit. This is my third year attending, but the first time that I’ve represented my employer.
I arrived late on Tuesday evening, so I couldn’t go to the Welcome Reception. I heard it was a lot of fun, with everyone receiving a coloured sticker with a number on it. The goal was to find the other person with the same number. In a room with a thousand people, that can be quite daunting! But apparently someone added an index to the crowd,which helped things along.
This year the keynotes of the Summit are being broadcast live so everyone who isn’t able to attend can join in on the fun. See the Summit home page.
First up in the morning was the keynote. There was a fair bit of derision on Twitter about the content of the keynote, as Microsoft seemed to be intent on wowing a customer with cute charts, instead of providing the technical meat wanted by their audience. Some of the demos were badly done, with fonts that were too small to read, but no zooming done by the demonstrator.
The highlight of the keynote was the official announcement of SQL Server 2012, formerly known as Denali. They also demoed Data Explorer and the link to Apache Hadoop. Microsoft will be contributing to the Hadoop project.
The wowser announcement of the morning was Redgate’s DBA in Space contest. They’re going to send a DBA into suborbit!
I attended the following sessions:
Karen Lopez (Twitter| website) – Five Physical Database Blunders and How to Avoid Them
Database design will always come down to cost, benefit and risk. Can you justify why you’re doing what you’re doing? There can be many ways to accomplish something, but each method has pros and cons that have to be taken into account when making design decisions.
Denise McInerney (Twitter) – “BEGIN… COMMIT” is not Enough: Understanding Transactions
This was a great demo-heavy session. I use transactions, but they always frustrate me. This explained some of the unexpected behaviours and how to use transactions correctly.
Andy Warren – (Twitter | blog) Building a Professional Development Plan
Do you have a professional development plan? I should, but I don’t (yet). Goals need to be written down, along with milestones and tasks, just like a project plan. You should treat your employer like a client with a one-year contract – do you have the skills to renew that contract? You need a minimum of 100 hours just to learn one new skill well, so if you want to move into a new role, you need a serious investment in time to get up to speed in new skills. Make a budget every year for how you will spend money to develop – conferences? books? courses? speaking engagements?
I must remind myself – networking is an investment, networking is an investment….
Brent Ozar (Twitter | website) – BLITZ! The SQL – More One Hour SQL Server Takeovers
Brent’s presentations are always a hoot to attend, with half the fun being on Twitter as friends tweet comments throughout. Brent has such an infectious enthusiasm for his topics that you can’t help but get excited along with him. I was aware of the script that he posted about how to investigate servers that have been tossed your way with no documentation, but he’s gone much further by bundling his code into a single stored procedure that generates a very readable report that’s easy to archive or point the boss to.
Every year at Summit my goal is to get a bit better at networking. I was pleasantly surprised that a few people do remember me from previous years, so it was good to chat and catch up. I also talked to a few new people, some of them first-timers, offering to answer questions for them, or recommended some sessions to attend.
An early night tonight, despite invitations to SQL Karaoke. Save that for Thursday night.