SQL Authority News – Updates on Recent Trip to SQL PASS 2017, Seattle

Today is Thanksgiving in the USA and few other countries. Earlier last week I returned from the USA attending various customer meetings and conferences. Here is a quick update about my trip to SQL PASS 2017, Seattle.

SQL PASS

The first time I attended SQLPASS in the year 2009, since then every year I have visited SQLPASS. This year was my 9th year at SQLPASS. This event has been amazing event so far. Just like every year, I had a great pleasure meet my friends. There are quite a few friends, I only meet at this event, hence for me to visit this event has been the single most important thing in the entire year.

This year the event was much smaller than previous years and I noticed much smaller exhibition/sponsor area. I noticed a significant change in the content focus as well. The content was more focused on Developers and Cloud, rather than traditional DBAs. As Heraclitus said “The only thing that is constant is change“, I believe the SQL PASS event is also changing to align with the changing eco-system in data space.

Well, I am a bit sad that I could not meet my friend Tim Radney (twitter) again this second year in the row. I had the pleasure to meet quite a many friends at the event.

Brent Ozar

I was talking to one of my old friends at SQLPASS summit in the hallway and he suddenly interrupted me.

He said – “Look! There is Brent Ozar (blog)! I think he is going to present a session. Do you know him?”

I look towards the direction where he was pointing his finger. We saw Brent walking fast towards the sixth floor.

I just smiled and told my friend – “Who does not know him? If you know SQL, you know Brent. Isn’t it?”

He said – “Ofcousre, I just wanted to check if you know him.”

I replied, sounding a bit irritated – “I know him, but let me tell you he knows me too.”

My friend quickly figured out that I was not irritated and we laughed. We started to walk towards the sixth floor as well.

We entered a huge hall and Kendra Little (blog) was up for presenting. She did an amazing job of presenting about partitioning and index. I really loved how she gave a positive spin to a subject many often talk negatively as they do not know how to use the partitioning feature.

The next session was Brent’s session. The room which was relatively full before suddenly start getting very full. A few minutes before the session about to start, the largest possible room started to get converted into standing room. There was no space to sit and I felt very soon there will be no space to stand as well.

Well, just right then, there was a life changing moment for me – Instead of repeating what happen, I would like to point you to a blog post written by Brent himself.

Please read it here: #PASSsummit Session Q&A Experiment with Pinal Dave

Brent did something which has never been practiced before. Instead of taking questions from the audience during the session, which can be very distracting in the room of hundreds of individuals, he selected one person from the audience who will present audience and ask questions on behalf of them. Well, I was fortunate to be an individual who represented audience.

Once you read the above blog post, you must read my response over here as well.

Just like any experiment, the results of this experiment have been unknown. I was very much nervous on stage with Brent as well for a long time, till I read another blog post where we had received feedback from the audience. Remember, audience is never wrong as they are the ultimate authority in any session.

The audience reacted very positively to the experiment of Brent. You can read an article by Brent about My #PASSsummit 2017 Session Evaluation Ratings & Comments. Lots of people really love how instead of hearing multiple questions from different corner of the hall the questions were from a single source, but reflected exactly the what was in the mind of the most of the individuals.

Finally, I want to say one thing – Thanks Brent for giving me the life time’s experience to be with you on stage and represent the audience. Thanks!

Call to Action – Black Friday Doorbuster

Just like every year there is a Black Friday Doorbusters sale by Brent Ozar this year as well. I strongly recommend not missing this opportunity to get the best possible learning offer. To take the advantage of Black Friday Doorbuster of Brent, visit the following link on Brent’s site – Announcing Our 2017 Black Friday Doorbusters.

My Interview on Performance Tuning

During the PASS, I was interviewed by Paul Turley (Blog) on the topic of SQL Server Performance Tuning. I talked in detail about my experience with Comprehensive Database Performance Health Check. I am very thankful to Paul for asking so many interesting questions about my career and the most importantly about my 11th anniversary of SQLAuthority.

Special thanks to Jeff Honsowetz (twitter) for capturing us on video and audio. Such a fun team. Do subscribe to their channel to hear more interviews from your favorite SQL Server individuals.

I was also very fortunate to spend some quality time with Gogula Aryalingam (twitter). I actually got to spend the entire day with him next day after the event. I must say that I had a great time meeting Zenny Karas (twitter) and Jeff Karas. My friend Jeff is above and beyond SQL and that is why I like him the most. While I was not doing SQL Stuff, I also visited local CrossFit Box with my co-author Rick Morelan.

Well, that’s sums up my trip to SQL PASS, Seattle. 2017.

Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)