SQLAuthority News – Summary of TechEd India 2009 – A Grand Event

TechEd India 2009 was undeniably a magnificent success! The 3-day grand event was adorned by delegates, sponsors, partners, customers, media as well as celebrities from cross the world. The event was marked by the CEO of Microsoft Steve Ballmer‘s keynote, Academy Award Winner Film Sound Designer of Slumdog Millioner Resool Pookutt‘s talk, not to forget the numerous technical sessions, Community Lounge, Partner Stalls, Demo Extravaganza, and the gaming zone. TechEd India 2009 was one event where community involvement was at its zenith.

Organizations such as INETA APAC, Culminis, PASS and Microsoft India came together to bring all user group leaders together under one roof, their purpose being to promote all the user groups and provide a huge networking platform for the leaders and attendees. In this event, local Microsoft wanted to engage as many leaders as possible. They offered free entry to TechEd for all leaders of groups in India.

On Day 1 of TechEd India I had a technical session on “SQL Server Management Studio 2008 New Features” which was attended by a hall packed with SQL enthusiasts. Vigorous participation of people made my session interactive throughout. As the session was progressing at one point the whole room was crammed and we ran out of chairs. I must thank Abhishek Kant (MVP Lead) and Abhishek Baxi (MVP Program Manager) for their speedy arrangement of additional chairs to accommodate all the attendees. My 40-min session was followed by discussion, addressing future issues with SQL Server, and interacting with SQL Server Product Team of Hyderabad.

SQL Server Cheat Sheets, which were prepared along with me by Digi-corp, were available for free pickup. Unexpectedly, it was so much in demand that we ran out of them right during the session. It was quite a happy surprise for me to find that just like my cheat sheets my autograph was also in demand. When I started giving autographs I did not realize when the number crossed 125! On Day 1 itself I got the opportunity to meet several people I always wanted to meet such as Vinod Kumar, Jacob Sebastian, Satya Shyam K Jayanty, to name a few. I even attended two TV interviews and one community jam event as well.

Day 2 of TechEd India was even better than Day 1. I got the chance to meet some renowned industry leaders. Apart from having real-time conversation with Industry Leaders, I had a great time attending the various Tech Sessions. The highlight of the day was Vinod Kumar’s session on “Reducing the size of your database using Data Compression/Binary Compression in SQL Server 2008”. Further, day 2 saw a community event in the evening. There were separate meetings of SQLPass, Ineta, and Culminis. There was yet another big event where all the three community groups together addressed all the participants. The day was marked by another follow-up community party where there were numerous opportunities to do networking with Microsoft Product Team, Evangelist, Community Leaders, and Active Participates. This event was restricted and by entry only. I along with my other friends – Nauzad and Suredra – guarded entrance to this exclusive event.

Day 3 at TechEd India was the most significant day. I learnt some vital information from the SQL Server product group, which is very exhilarating and important. The day set off with meeting MVP friends. Though are friendship was just 2-days old we felt connected to each other. On Day 3 I attended one of the most talked-about sessions of “Advanced Data Recovery and Troubleshooting with SQL Server 2008” by Vinod Kumar. Satya – a SQL Domain Expert, an MVP, an International speaker and one of the most down-to-earth people – had also come to attend TechEd India from UK.  He presented his enriching session on Highly Availability and SQL Server Upgrades. Besides, I attended an important meeting with nearly 10 very senior members from Microsoft SQL Server Product Team, who has actually created SQL Server.

The action-packed TechEd India 2009 was successful in engaging all TechEd attendees and promoting use groups and leaders through interesting contests, such as Culminis, INETA APAC, PASS, Leader Hunt Contest for TechEd India 2009 and INETA APAC True or False Contest. The event even had a fun-filled activity in the form of a dart game where participants bagged loads of goodies like T-shirts, Caps, among others.

One of the things that makes TechEd India 2009 truly memorable and special is the networking opportunity it provided to speakers, attendees, UG leaders and volunteers. I thoroughly enjoyed the three-day event and I feel very fortunate to be part of this great event. I got the chance to meet my role models and learn new information from great people. Most importantly, TechEd India gave me the platform to share my knowledge with other participants and perform my duties of being an MVP.

I hope you have followed this event on my Twitter.

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