PASS Summit 2012–My Schedule

Using SSIS 2012 for Data Warehouse ETL

I have been fortunate to be selected this year to speak at the PASS Summit 2012 in Seattle. This presentation will go mainly over 3 new features: The Change Data Capture and DQS controls as well as deploying SSIS projects/packages to the SSISDB catalog. Throughout the presentation, there will be usage of 10-20 more new features all depending on the demo and questions. 75% of this presentation is demos, so come along for the ride. I love presentations that show how to use SQL Server.

Pre-conference Session – Monday

After arriving on Sunday afternoon, I will go to Rod Colledge’s session on BI Dashboards with Dashboard Designer and PerformancePoint. This will satisfy the first goal of the conference; to take back what I learn and create 2 sets of dashboards for a project at work.

Monday night, I am going to the networking dinner Steve Jones and Andy Warren are hosting. I did this last year and it was a great way to sit with 4-6 SQL Server geeks and enjoy a dinner and conversation.

Community Involvement – Tuesday

Tuesday morning, I will be attending 2 round table discussions with Virtual Chapter leaders and SQLSaturday leaders/volunteers. I am the chair of the Data Architecture VC and have helped with the past 3 SQLSaturday’s in Baton Rouge and spoke at the first 3.

House of Bricks is hosting a SQL Server on VMware boot camp which I have decided to attend to help understand the configurations for the VMs we run at Turner Industries in Baton Rouge.

Tuesday night I am going to float between the Welcome Reception, SQLServerCentral.com/Redgate casino night and a speaker reception.

Main Conference – Wednesday

I am going to start out the morning at the Community Area booth which has been expanded this year in size. It will be great to say hi to Karla and other PASS workers and sign people up for Virtual Chapters and PASS.

The first session I am attending is Sean Boon’s Building Compelling Power View reports Lunch will be sitting at the Virtual Chapter tables talking Data Architecture.  The afternoon starts with Stacia Misner’s SSAS Storage followed by my SSIS 2012 presentation and ends with SQL Server and SharePoint: best Frienenies which should be a fun session.

Wednesday evening will be talking with vendors at their reception for attendees which was a hit last year.

Thursday Sessions

The morning starts again at the Community area early in the morning. The first session (10:15) is Carlos Bossy talking Data Modeling Best Practices for Enterprise Tabular Models which should help me with Data Mart designs for PowerView reports which is another goal for work. During Lunch, I will be Live Blogging and Tweeting from the Woman In Technology Luncheon which should be fun.

The afternoon starts with Running Reporting Services in SharePoint Integration Mode which Turner just had a consultant (SparkHound) install with SQL Server 2012 and SharePoint 2010. I really wanted to see Deeper Tabular Models with Wayne Snyder (who is a cool dude), but I think the SSRS is more valuable for work. I can always watch the recorded session when I get the DVDs.

The afternoon ends with Dive into the Query Optimizer and Monitoring Analysis Services which are both part of my daily checklist at work. Thursday evening, Microsoft is sponsoring a trip to Seattle’s Music Experience museum for 2-3 hours. The last couple of years it was at a GameWorks, which was pretty cool. I am expecting a good networking evening this night.

Friday Sessions and Homebound

I am leaving around 3:30PM Friday to spending time with family and friends on Saturday, so I will only be at 2 sessions plus lunch. I am getting married in January, so I need to get back to Baton Rouge, plus we (LSU) plays Miss St. at home that Saturday.

The first session (8AM) will be Power(view)ful Tabular semantic Model Development with Mark Davis, then Tim Mitchell learning me on ETL Gone Bad: Handling Errors and Data Anomalies in SSIS. These are 2 great speakers and consultants.

Lunch will have me sitting at a Birds of a Feather table on Data Warehouse Modeling and SSIS ETL.

WOW!!! That is a lot

That seems like a big schedule, but I am not evening doing everything that is available. The first year I attend PASS (07 in Denver), we spent time at the Microsoft First-Aid room working with replication developers on a problem in SQL Server 2005. The following year, I spent time in the Virtual Lab learning SQL Server 2008 new features. There is also visiting with vendors and collecting swag. The exhibition hall is sold out. Then, there are lightening talks which help speakers get a start with presenting as well as Microsoft Chalk Talks. There are pre-conference sessions on Monday and Tuesday.

The PASS Summit is full of stuff to do during the day and at night. I know a lot of people like #SQLKaraoke and Photo walks plus a #SQLRun on Tuesday morning. It is fun watching the SQL Kilt day and Thursday is wear your SQLSaturday shirt day.

Lastly, meeting and saying hi to friends like John Sterret (That is the back of his head above), Scott Shaw, Carlos Bossy, Patrick LeBlanc, Devin Knight, Erin Welker, Grant Fritchey, Thomas LaRock, Louis Davidson, Sean and Jen McCown, Wesley Brown, Kevin Boles and the list goes on and on. The SQL Community is the best group of technology geeks that love to share the #SQLLove.

Hope to see you there, and please come say hi and introduce yourself to me.

God Bless

Below is a picture from the first SQLSaturday in New York, and little did I know I was with Thoams LaRock, Adam Jorgenson, Grant Fritchey, Andy Leonard and Robert ?