02Dec 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Dr. DeWitt’s Key Note at the PASS Summit

PASS
If you missed this, here's your chance to make it up. If you were there, and like me, you need to rewatch it about six to eight times to try to understand everything that was presented, here's your chance. Dr. DeWitt's key note was probably the high point of the Summit or at least in the top 5. It's not to be missed.
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04Nov 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Summit Wednesday Key Note 3

PASS
More demos using Analysis Services from R2. They're showing how you can refresh data & reports without having to write a bunch of SSIS packages. That's pretty cool too. You can actually connect to Excel now and pull data into SSAS to manage the data like it was a database. You're going to have to spend time managing these files like they were servers. Analysis services is starting to manage itself? I hate to say this, but I've heard that kind of statement before from MS. It wasn't true then. Is it true now? No idea yet, but the small part of me that doubts these things just fired up. The reports can be animated. Data in motion is pretty darn slick to watch. Powerpivot is a freebie that runs…
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04Nov 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Summit Wednesday Key Note 2

PASS
Tom Casey of Microsoft on BI. 20% of people that are decision makers within organizations have the tools and information they need. That means that 80% don't have it. I believe those numbers. Microsoft is very focused on getting BI built into the information platform. You can tell from the stuff released in SQL Server 2008. Part of the proof he's putting out is the PASS Summit itself. There's 2 dedicated BI trackes, 50+ sessions, and 30% of attendees said they were interested in that track. For some information Ron Vanzanten. He's sporting identical clothing to Tom Casey. 4 million card holders and 3200 employees. They'll be working through 600,000 credit card applications in a month. Woof. 24tb of customer data in a SQL Server BI environment. Woof X2. Unfortunately,…
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04Nov 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Summit Wednesday Key Note 1

PASS
Nice phot montage, included so many friends. I love PASS. Rushab Mehta launching the Wednesday key note. Unfortunately, this is the DULL, but important, stuff about finances. PASS is a non-profit, volunteer run organization. I'm not going to track this stuff. You can find the full financials on the PASS web site. Celebrating volunteers. You do need to thank the people that make this thing run. I'm especially amazed by the work done by the Program Committee. The outstanding volunteers for the year are: Tim Ford - Program Committe, Quizbowl Me - SQL Server Standard, Editorial Committee Amy Lewis - Co-leader & Volunteer Coordinator for BI Virtual Jacob Sebastian - Chapter Regional Mentor The PASSion Award is going to two people this year: Charley Hanania - International Recipient Allen Kinsel…
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03Nov 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Tuesday Key Note – Part 3

PASS
Now up is Ted Kummert of Microsoft. He's giving us a good overview of some of the technology coming up. He's showing us his Top 5 reasons to be at PASS You are part of the world's largest gathering of SQL Server Professionals - way too true. why aren't you here? You can take your questions directly to the "Source" - Yes, this is very useful We've got Wayne & Rushabh - Instead of Arnold Schwarzenneger at the Oracle conference. Eh You can work hard & play hard at Gameworks - Oh lord, we're in a DOT COM. Please no. You will build skills & knowledge on the #1 Database in the world - Yes. Most of these are pretty good reasons to be here. #1 and #5 especially. The Information…
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03Nov 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Tuesday Key Note – Part 2

PASS
Bob Muglia opened with January 13, 1988, when the Microsoft Sybase Ashton-Tate SQL Server program was launched. Apparently Bill Gates was very nervous about the speech at the time, but Steve Ballmer jumped up and down like a chear-leader. WOW. He's holding a box with 51/4 and 31/2 inch floppy disks (yeah, I'm old enough to know what he's talking about, kids, ask your grand-dad). Mr. Muglia just said that there were limitations to the product. That's an odd thing to hear from a software company. Nice to hear it though. He's showing how 128 differnt machines can be added to the system. They've got some kind of load generator that is maxing out 128 processors. Then they jumped it up to 192 processors. You'd be surprised how little space…
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03Nov 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

PASS Summit Tuesday Keynote – Part 1

PASS
Set up and and ready to go. Wayne Snyder is going to open the ceremonies and the key note will be from Bob Muglia and Ted Kummert of Microsoft. There are almost 3000 registrants here this year. They're in from 46 different countries. It's really an amazing collection of people. Between twitter, the blogs, the people, the show... it's not good for anyone's ADD. Cool intro with the quick history of the previous locations of the PASS Summit. Wayne's talking about newsgroups as the source of information "back in the day" of 1999 and SQL Server 7.o. Wayne's showing the growth over the last three years. 1528 in 2007, 2445 in 2008 and 2200 this year. That's pretty amazing since most conferences are running 50% down this year, PASS is…
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