PASS Summit Day 3 – Brain on Overload

After the first 2 official days of the Summit the brain is already on overload and then the second part of the keynote by Dr. Dewitt and 45 minutes of Itzik Ben-Gan’s tips and tricks totally fried my brain.

I arrived and sat with Bob Hovious with the plan to connect to the wireless and publish a couple of blog posts I had written the Wednesday night but couldn’t publish because I wasn’t about to pay for internet in the $200/night hotel room.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to publish the posts because when I turned on the laptop I got an error, No boot device found.  I was totally ticked off, more because of the time I had put in on the blog posts than because of the hardware issue.  Fortunately, after lunch when I went to the hotel to print my boarding pass and check to see if I was still under warranty, it booted up, and has worked since.  I am planning on getting an image done at the office on Monday.

Keynote

The day started off with recognition of departing board members: Pat Wright (@SQLAsylum), Greg Low, and Kevin Kline (@kekline).  It was a tearful goodbye by PASS president Wayne Snider to Kevin as Kevin has served on the board since PASS’s inception.  Kevin has been a tireless worker for PASS and deserved all the recognition and the standing ovation given to him.

Following the recognition of departing members was a presentation by DELL.  Unfortunately it was not the best presentation of the week, to put it mildly.

Then, we were taught by Dr. DeWitt.  He talked about the changes in CPU, memory, and storage since 1980 and how while there have been improvements in each the real improvement especially relative to speed vs. size has been in CPU so I/O is the real bottleneck.  One way to offset this, especially in data warehouse applications, is through the development of columnar data stores vs. the traditional row-based database.  Columnar data stores narrow the data so that there are fewer I/O operations required.  To be honest much of this was over my head, but definitely worth learning more about.

T-SQL Tips and Tricks – Itzik Ben-Gan

I was only able to attend about half of this session because I had to be at the Chapter Leader lunch, but what I heard while in there was mind-blowing.  I was sitting in the back with Kathi Kellenberger (@auntkathi) and Tom LaRock (@SQLRockstar) and at one point Tom said, “Where does he come up with this?  He’s like a mad scientist”, that may be somewhat paraphrased, but the meaning is there.  The 2 new tips for me in that time were:

• Using (select null) in the Order By for windowing functions as a constant which eliminates a sort.  Select RowNumber() Over(Order By (select null)).
• ON clause ordering eliminating the need for multiple LEFT JOIN’s.
  
  customers C LEFT JOIN (sales S JOIN products P ON S.product_id = P.product_id) ON C.customer_id = S.customer_id

Just those 2 tips will help me write better performing and more readable code.

Lunch with Chapter Leaders

As co-president of OPASS, I was tasked to sit at our table at lunch.  The idea, I think, was to let people who are not attending chapter meetings where the chapters are located and to meet people involved in the chapters.  There are a lot of chapters in Florida, but it didn’t seem like there were a lot of chapter members at the Summit other than the chapter leaders.  I only had Kendal Van Dyke (@SQLDba) from the Orlando area sit with me, while Scott Gleason from Jacksonville also joined us because the Jacksonville chapter hadn’t gotten the right paperwork in. 

This is definitely a good idea as was the MVP Birds of a Feather lunch.

Proactive DBA: Manage SQL Server Better – Ross Laforte

This session had to do with finding all your SQL Server instances using the MAP tool and using PBM to manage your servers.  Another session that had content that was familiar to me.  Lots of good information shared, but not necessarily new to me.

Advanced SQL Server 2008 Extended Events: Performance Profiling and Troubleshooting Techniques – Adam Machanic

This was a FANTASTIC session.  There was a ton of information, great demos, and humor.  Adam is one the best presenters I have seen.  I have not done anything with Extended Events as I am running SQL Server 2005, but this session inspired me to try to learn more.  Extended Events are powerful, especially when you use Causality.  Causality can help you track down what caused the condition that CAUSED the event to happen.  I think Extended Events are designed to eventually replace SQL Trace and certainly give you much more flexibility.  While I’m not Brad McGehee, I do consider myself to be an expert in Profiler, but I’m looking forward to being able to use Extended Events.

Post-Event

Since I’m not currently a Friend of Redgate, I didn’t have a party to go to, but did have a great dinner with Bob Hovious, a friend from SQLServerCentral.  After dinner we went back to the Sheraton Lobby lounge to continue our discussion.  We saw a bunch of people and Robert Cain (@arcanecode) and Paul Waters sat down with us for awhile.  These conversations are the highlight of each day.

Friday – Heading Home

Had breakfast with my roommate, Tim Mitchell (@tim_mitchell) and saw some of the board a the restaurant with Bill Graziano (@billgraziano) stopping at our table for a short chat.  Then it was off to the airport where I met up with Pam Shaw, so for the first hour the Summit continued.  I had good flights all the way to Orlando and, while it is great to be home with family, it’s a downer to be away from the SQL family.  I’m already excited for next year’s Summit.  Fortunately I can make a couple of SQLSaturday’s between now and then to get a small fix of Summit and SQL goodness.

PASS Summit Day 2 – What More Can I Learn

I actually slept in on Wednesday until 6am.  This was a change from being wide awake at 4am.  I made my way over to the convention center and was roped into invited to an informal meeting of bloggers with Andy Warren (@sqlandy) and a member of the PASS marketing team.  It was a discussion of how PASS and SQL Server bloggers can work together to get the message of PASS out to the community.  It was more of a brain storming session than a meeting. 

When the meeting closed I spent some time with Gail Shaw and Bob Hovious before the opening remarks and keynote.  PASS recognized some of the key volunteers, Tim Ford (@sqlagentman), Grant Fritchey (@gfritchey), and a few others.  Then it was time for the PASSion awards.  The international PASSion award went to Charlie Hanania while the U.S. award when to Allen Kinsel (@sqlinsaneo), both of whom did yeoman's work for PASS and certainly earned their awards.  After the awards were announced I took a break and worked on blogging my experiences.

Paul Randal – Logging and Recovery

This was my first session of the day.  Because I read Paul’s blog I did know a lot of the material, but he definitely expanded and explained more.  One of his main points is that the Transaction Log is the most important component of the database as ALL changes must be written to the transaction log BEFORE they can be written to the data files.  Some takeaways were:

• Each data page has the last LSN (Log Sequence Number) stamped on the page for recovery purposes.
• While there are minimally logged operations there are NO non-logged operations.
• You can enable trace flag 3502 to see checkpoint operations.
• A checkpoint writes ALL dirty pages from memory to the log file, even pages that are part of an uncommitted transaction.
• The log always reserves enough space to rollback open transactions.
• The log cannot be “cleared” (have virtual log files marked as available) while a Full or Differential backup is occurring, even if there is a simultaneous log backup taken.
• Only log backups “clear” the transaction log, Full and Differential do not.

Very interesting material on the details of the transaction log and how it is used in recovery.

Lunch

I enjoyed lunch with some newly made Christian friends again, Mike Walsh, Brain Moran, Peter Schott, and Erik Veerman.  Always good to spend time with men of faith.

Louis Davidson – Database Design

Louis has an interesting presenting style where he uses a lot of humor to make his point.  His main premise is that taking the time to have a well designed database at the start, saves much time later in the process.

Gail Shaw – Insight into Indexes

Gail’s session was about how to find out information about your indexes using the Dynamic Management Views and Functions.  I did know a bit about this, but I did not know about sys.dm_index_operational_stats which can help you see what is happening to indexes (inserts, updates, deletes) and how they are affecting locking, i.e. the number of locks taken on the resource by type (page, row).  Page Latch (waiting for access to page in memory) and Page IO Latch  (waiting for pages to be written to disk or read from disk) wait information is also available in this DMV.  Gail did a great job using a book to demonstrate how indexes work, a very good visual example.

Panel Discussion with the PASS Board of Directors

For the first time the BoD made themselves available for a question and answer session, moderated by former board member Joe Webb.  This was a late addition to the schedule, which contributed to the light turnout, about 15-20 people, not counting the board members.  One of the key points to come out is that there needs to be better communication between the board and other parties (members, chapter leaders, and sponsors/partners).  Chapter leaders would like more support from PASS and PASS would like more information from the chapter leaders. 

Steve Jones (@way0utwest) asked for more transparency and publication of the goals and accomplishments for each board member.  His point is that, to be honest, the community really doesn’t know what they are doing/have done, and they should be publishing their accomplishments.

Another interesting issue, raised by Jessica Moss, was that we, the community, need to know who to contact and how to go about presenting ideas we have for the organization.  Kevin Kline (past president) answered that the board was working on a “process” for this.  Jessica followed up by asking “When will this process be available?” and, unfortunately, there was not a concrete answer given, probably the low point of the session.

Lastly I asked about the recent BoD election controversy and if that caused them to consider changing the election process.  There was clear, “Yes”, and that there may need to be changes made to the by-laws to make the election process better.  I also commented that I’d like to see the BoD aim higher for the number of voters than the 1100 or so they are looking for next year.  Granted that would be double the votes cast this year, but still a small percentage of membership (30000).  I took some grief from Andy Warren as I would not/could not provide a realistic number to shoot for for next year’s election.  I’ll be thinking about this later.

It was, I think, a positive experience for both the BoD and those from the community who attended and I applaud the efforts being made by the BoD to be more transparent and make themselves more easily available to the membership.  As a relative newcomer to PASS, I can’t speak for how available they have been in the past, but I do believe that they are doing the best they can.

I certainly haven’t covered everything that was discussed, but I covered what I remembered.

I also want to thank the board for making themselves available for this session, it was definitely a step in the right direction.  I also want to thank Bill Graziano (@billgraziano) for being willing to hang around a while longer to continue the discussion.

Please take the time to email or talk to the board members and bring them your ideas and goals for PASS.  I believe that they truly want to serve the needs of the community, but without feedback they can’t know if they are focusing on the areas we, as a community, are most concerned about.

In the evening

I went over to the party provided by Microsoft at Gameworks, the biggest arcade/game room, I have ever been in.  There was good food and unlimited game play made available.  I grabbed some food and visited with some of my new friends while there and then went out with old friends before heading in for an early evening (10:00pm).

Trying to save up energy for my last day at the Summit where I will get to “host” the OPASS table at the Chapter Leader lunch.

Let the Learning Begin

Finally time for the sessions to begin after a day and a half in Seattle being overwhelmed by the people that I’ve had the opportunity to meet.

I started the day meeting with Mike Walsh (@mike_walsh) and Joe Webb (@joewebb) in the Sheraton living area (lobby) where we had a short time of prayer to start the day.  We then went on to meet with some other men of like faith to discuss Brian Moran’s idea about reaching others.  It was great to meet Brian and encouraging to know others in the SQL Server community that share my faith.  Then it was on to the keynote.

Keynote

I attended the keynote by Bob Muglia and Ted Kummert from Microsoft. Mostly stuff about the new technologies available in SQL Server 2008 R2, Windows 2008 R2, and Visual Studio 2010/.NET 4.  The coolest thing was the LIVE migration of VM’s using Hyper-V.  Move a running VM from one VM server to another without interrupting the virtual server!  Wow!

Session 1

My first session was titled Data Access Layers:  A road map to smarter, efficient, and effective queries.  It was not exactly what I anticipated as it was a session mainly about using Inline Table Valued functions to replace views and direct table access.  I’m not a big fan of UDF’s because they are often mis-used and have to admit I tuned out a little bit and spent time following Twitter so I’d know where the people I wanted to meet were.

Lunch

Today’s lunch was a Birds of a Feather lunch with MVP’s hosting topic-focused tables.  I went to Paul Randal’s (@PaulRandal) table about Corruption and High Availability.  It was very interesting to hear him tell stories and hear the stories of other folks at the table.  It was also great that he was able to give me reason why a restored database with no activity would have transaction log growth. It was AutoShrink!  AutoShrink is evil in more ways than one.  It was also cool that when I introduced myself, after everyone else had left because I was late to lunch, he recognized my name immediately from the SQLServerCentral forums and Twitter and asked why I hadn’t introduced myself earlier!  I really try not to put people on a pedestal, but he and Kimberly Tripp (his wife) are pretty much universally recognized as SQL Server royalty, so it’s definitely cool to meet them and then be recognized as well!  Both are very nice and desire to help people out.  That’s the great thing about the SQL Server community, it seems that the more well-known you are, the more helpful you are.

After Lunch

Because of my discussion with Paul, Kim, and Gail Shaw I didn’t make the first session after lunch so I spent some time in the vendor exhibit hall looking around and talking with some of the vendors.

Next I went to Andy Leonard’s session, A Tale of Careers and User Groups, where Andy explained how he became involved in user groups and the lessons he has learned.  He gave some good tips about how to get people involved in a user group.  A key way is to recruit  encourage those who come early or stay late to be a part of the user group leadership team.

Finally I checked into Kalen Delaney’s session, Indexing Internals.  It was a good session on the structure of indexes.  The interesting thing was that, having read Kalen’s book and some other resources on indexes, I actually knew the majority of the information.  It was interesting to see what I actually know.

After the session I had a great discussion with Lorie Edwards (@lorieedwards) about what to learn in SQL Server and how the size of your environment definitely affects the features you need.

Dinner

I went out to dinner with Andy Warren, Steve Jones, Pam Shaw, Rob, Tim Mitchell and Kendal Van Dyke.  We didn’t talk much SQL Server, but more general conversation.  Always a good time with this crew.

After dinner I went to a party sponsored by SQL Sentry and met a ton of new people.  The guys from SQL Sentry (Greg, Peter Shire), Adam Machanic, Peter Ward, Charlie Hanania, Chuck Heinzelman, and others. 

Finally I went back to the hotel about midnight and crashed.

My First PASS Experiences

Getting to Seattle

I started my travels to the PASS Summit at about 9:30 am (EST) on Sunday and arrived at the Sheraton in Seattle at about 6:30 pm (PST) Sunday.  It was an uneventful trip on Southwest from Orlando to Albuquerque, then on to Seattle.  On the second leg I met up with Tim Mitchell (@tim_mitchell) which made that leg seem much shorter as we had great conversations about PASS, SQL Server, professional development, and family life.  I’m sure we drove the 3rd person in our row crazy as we talked the entire 3 hour flight.  When we arrived at SeaTac we met up with Wendy Pastrick (@wendy_dance) and Damon Ripper (@DamonRipper) and shared a town car to the Sheraton.

Sunday Night

Amazingly enough a lot of attendees made it on Sunday so there were some good networking opportunities.  Tim and I had originally planned to try to get together with Andy Warren (@sqlandy) who was having dinner with “Small Talk” expert, Don Gabor.  Well, since we had met up with Wendy and Damon and then met with a fairly large group of other attendees in the Sheraton lounge we decided to just hang with this crew.  Amazingly, I was able to meet several people on my list during the evening.  Some of the folks I was able to meet were:

• Bill Graziano (@billgraziano) – who organized dinner for about 20 of us.
• Jeremiah Peschka (@peschkaj)
• Grant Fritchey (@gfritchey)
• Wendy Pastrick (@wendy_dance)
• Allen Kinsel (@sqlinsaneo)

Then there all the people who were not on my list including:

• Louis Davidson (@DrSQL)
• Rich Baumet
• Scott Stauffer (@SQLSocialite)
• Todd McDermid (@Todd_McDermid)
• Todd Robinson (@DevSQL)
• Chris Massey (@camassey)
• Andrew Clarke
• Denny Cherry (@mrdenny)

And the people I already knew like Jessica Moss, Andy Leonard (@AndyLeonard), and Pam Shaw.  The only downside was that I stayed up until after midnight, but my body decided that it was still on the East coast and woke up at 4 am and refused to go back to sleep.

Monday

Started off the morning with a nice walk with my roommate Tim Mitchell to Top Pot Donuts to meet with Andy Warren and Don Gabor.  While there Robert Cain (@arcanecode), on my list, and Greg Larsen, popped in to talk with us, well, they know Andy, so they stopped to talk with him, but, of course, it was great opportunity to meet them.

After that I headed over to the convention center to check into the event and on the way I ran into Andy Leonard and Jim (from the Northern Virginia User Group) and stopped to talk for bit.  At registration I also saw Buck Woody (@BuckWoody) again and was able to introduce him to Tim Mitchell.  By then it was time for the Chapter Leader meeting, I wasn’t officially on the list, but as co-President of OPASS with Andy Warren I attended.  It was nice meeting where the chapter leaders got an opportunity to discuss what PASS can/should do to help chapters.  The meeting was led by director Greg Low (another person on my list that I met), he is currently in charge of chapters, assisted by Blythe Morrow (@blythemorrow) who is the community coordinator for PASS.  We discussed:

• how PASS can better integrate chapter meetings and events into the PASS event calendar.
• better list and messaging management for PASS-hosted chapter sites.
• re-working the responsibilities of the regional mentors
• holding chapters accountable for meeting and growing
• PASS providing a speaker bureau
• the use and viability of Live meeting as provided by PASS
• training for chapter leaders, especially on using Live meeting and the DotNetNuke chapter sites hosted by PASS.
• If PASS should consider hosting the Summit in locations other than Seattle.

The best part is that most of the items discussed were items I broached about PASS helping local chapters in my blog post, What Should PASS Strive to Be?.  I think it showed that PASS is trying to become more relevant at the Chapter level. 

I then went out to see who else was around and met Gail Shaw, who had the quote of the day, “It’s like a family reunion where you want to see everyone.”.  That might be a bit of a paraphrase, but the meaning was there.  I also met Bob Hovious, Brent Ozar (@BrentO), and ran into Kevin Kline (@kekline) and Steve Jones (@way0utwest).  I went to lunch with Steve, always a good time.  We ended up at the Fox Sport Grill where I got a very good burger.  It’s always good to sit and talk with Steve.  We spend more time discussing family and life in general than technical stuff, which is a nice change.

Let the Networking Begin

After lunch I attended a networking session for PASS volunteers with Don Gabor.  It was a great session about starting conversations and leaving a good impression.  It was fun with lots of exercise to help us apply the concepts.  The biggest thing I got out of it was how to remember names.  He shared his 5-second plan for remembering names, with, in my opinion, the key point being to concentrate on the other person’s name during the introduction instead of thinking about the next thing you are going to say.  During this session I met many people, whose last names I did not get, but there were several people on my list in the session that I did meet and, because they are on my list, I do remember their full names:

• Michelle Ufford (@sqlfool)
• Tim Ford (@sqlagentman)
• TJay Bely (@tjaybelt)
• Pat Wright (@SqlAsylum)
• Tom LaRock (@SQLRockstar)
• Jason Strate (@StrateSQL)

Following the volunteer networking session there was longer, Networking for Business Contacts session with Don, that covered the content from the first session, but also included more information about body language (Smile, Open arms, Forward lean, Touch, Eye contact, Nod).

Opening Reception and SSC Party

From networking to the opening reception where some prizes were given out including the Log Reader Awards for blogging (I didn’t win any).  Then three 2-person teams competed in the Quiz Bowl put together by Tim Ford and Louis Davidson.  It was done Jeopardy-style with all questions having some kind of relationship to SQL Server.  The three teams were:

• Paul Randal and Kimberly Tripp – who, not surprisingly won.
• Brent Ozar and Kevin Kline – they really knew their pop culture.
• Grant Fritchey and Joe Webb

I tried to practice my newly learned networking skills at the reception, especially in one case where I saw someone sitting alone, so I went over and introduced myself to Phil, but I think I failed as I took a quick break to grab some food and one I came back, Phil was gone!  Well Don, I think I need more practice. I also met Arlene Gray (@whimSQL).

From there is was on to the SQLServerCentral party where I met Kevin Boles and Wes Brown and saw many other old friends.  I played some Texas Hold’em and managed to win more than I lost, but not enough to win a prize.  There was no cash involved as you were given a ticket for chips and then played until either time or your chips ran out.  I was also able to meet Marc Beacom (@marcbeacom) and re-connect with Tony Davis and Brad McGehee (@bradmcgehee)

After the Party

Many people went out to karaoke later in the evening, but I stayed late at the SSC party, so I was left behind, and to be honest, I was ready for a break and an earlier night. 

The amazing thing is that my head is already spinning after meeting so many great people (many of whom I have not named because I only remember first names).  I can’t imagine what it will be like when the sessions start and everyone arrives.

Also looking forward to getting together with people of like-faith on Tuesday.

Follow Up to Maintaining Security and Performance Using Stored Procedures Part I – Using Execute As

This is a follow up to Maintaining Security and Performance using Stored Procedures Part I – Using EXECUTE AS because of a comment on that post on the SQLServerCentral syndicated feed by Ken Lee.  He commented:

Like the technique, not the example. ISNULL() is a function, it forces the where clause to look at every record in the table.
SQL is smart enough to identify constants and know the variable name is true or not and will or will not evaluate the second OR statement used below.
First SET @LastName=@LastName+N'%', if it's null it remains null. To make sure it always works declare a nvarchar(51) field and assign it instead. If the field in the table is max 50 characters then this isn't needed.
Replace the function in the first example with "(@LastName IS NULL OR LastName Like @LastName) And" logic and you should get the performance without the dynamic SQL.
Kind of curious about the stats.

Since the purpose of that post was to show how to get better performance using Dynamic SQL without compromising security, I decided I needed to do some testing on his method.  Here are the queries I ran (FREEPROCCACHE was run because the Dynamic SQL query plans were not removed from the cache when the stored procedure was altered):

DBCC FREEPROCCACHE();
GO

Exec dbo.FindPhoneByName @FirstName = 'J', @LastName = 'A';

GO

Exec dbo.FindPhoneByName @FirstName = 'J';

GO

Exec dbo.FindPhoneByName @LastName = 'A';

Go

I don’t know why, but his method DOES generate a different execution plan than my method using ISNULL() when you leave the Person.Contact in, what I believe is, the original state.  In the original state the optimizer chooses to do a scan of the index, IX_Contact_MiddleName, and bookmark lookup on the clustered index.  Here’s the index definition:

CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX_Contact_MiddleName] ON [Person].[Contact] 
(
[MiddleName] ASC
)
INCLUDE ( [FirstName],
[LastName])

While the optimizer chose a clustered index scan for Ken’s query.  This access path required more reads when both parameters were provided, but fewer when only one was provided. 


The Dynamic SQL, however, provided the best of both, using the index when both parameters were provided and using the clustered index when only one parameter was provided.


Intrigued I decided to see what happened if a covering index was made available, so I created this index:

CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX_Contact_LastName_FirstName] ON [Person].[Contact] 
(
[LastName] ASC,
[FirstName] ASC,
[MiddleName] ASC
)
INCLUDE ( [Title],
[Suffix],
[Phone])

With a covering index in place both non-dynamic solutions produced the same execution plan, scans of the newly created covering index.  The Dynamic SQL though had seeks on the covering index for queries 1 and 3, and a scan for query 2.

Lastly I decided to see what happened when there was a non-covering index available, here’s that index:

CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX_Contact_LastName_FirstName] ON [Person].[Contact] 
(
[LastName] ASC,
[FirstName] ASC,
[MiddleName] ASC
)

This case was similar to the first test, my solution did a scan on the index with a bookmark lookup, and Ken’s solution did a clustered index scan.  The dynamic SQL did an index seek/bookmark lookup when both parameters were provided and a clustered index scan when only one parameter was provided.


Here’s the results from statistics IO:

		IsNull() Solution		Ken’s Solution		Dynamic
		Scans	Reads	Scans	Reads	Scans	Reads
Query 1	Original	1	593	1	1116	1	593
	Covered	1	201	1	201	1	13
	Uncovered	1	457	1	1116	1	359
Query 2	Original	1	7783	1	1116	1	1116
	Covered	1	201	1	201	1	201
	Uncovered	1	7647	1	1116	1	1116
Query 3	Original	1	3031	1	1116	1	1116
	Covered	1	201	1	201	1	13
	Uncovered	1	2895	1	1116	1	1116

Conclusion

As you can see from the results above Ken’s solution does provide more consistent results than my original solution, while the Dynamic SQL still provides the best performance.  I should note that there is a tradeoff with the dynamic SQL solution, you get better plans because you get a plan for each option that is run, so depending on the number of parameter combinations you could get procedure cache bloat.  In most 64-bit implementations this shouldn’t be an issue, but you may see more compiles with a dynamic solution. 

As always test your options, monitor, and change as needed to keep your systems running as well possible.

All the files (except the AdventureWorks database, on CodePlex) can be found here.  Included are the queries, the results from statistics IO, and a trace file showing the activity and query plans.

What Should PASS Strive To Be?

Steve Jones had a good editorial earlier this week entitled, What Do We Want from PASS?.  It didn’t generate as much discussion as I would have thought, but the discussion is worth reading.  A couple of the posts mention how PASS does not seem to do anything to make the daily life of SQL Server professionals better.  I have to agree with that sentiment.  Until about two years ago I wasn’t even aware PASS existed.  I had heard about the Summit in passing, but never even considered attending.  Unfortunately I think this is a common occurrence with PASS.  What can be done to change this?  Here are some things I think PASS should be doing:

1. Make sure people refer to the conference as the PASS Summit not PASS.  If you follow SQL folks on Twitter or many blogs you see people saying “See you at PASS” or “Are you going to PASS?”.  PASS needs these people, the influencers, to refer to the PASS Summit so that others understand that PASS is more than the Summit.
2. PASS should be THE voice for SQL Server Professionals.  When there is an issue that affects our profession, PASS should be speaking for us.  Regulations, best practices, salary information should all be found at PASS.
3. PASS should build from the bottom up.  If PASS really wants to be relevant it needs strong local Chapters.  This is where the majority of the interaction between professionals will always be, make it a priority.  Here are some ideas on how it can be done:
   1. Speaker list
   2. Sponsor contacts
   3. Training for Chapter Leaders on how to interact with sponsors and how to market the group.
   4. How to be a Technical Speaker seminars at a local/regional level
   5. Regional events.  SQLSaturday is filling this void, and I’m a big fan of SQLSaturday, but this is really an area where PASS should be.  Not everyone can go to the Summit, especially east coast people when it is in Seattle every year.  Give them something to go to.
   6. SWAG, especially for startups.  PASS should be able leverage its reach to get vendors, publishers, recruiters, etc… to get some money and items.
4. PASS should provide a growth path for leaders.  In addition to the international Board of Directors there should be regional boards that help implement the vision of the international board.  These groups can also be the one in charge of regional events.  Then you have a growth path from chapter leadership to regional leadership to national/international leadership.
5. PASS should rotate the location of the Summit.  East coast, Central, and West Coast.  This will give people who can’t travel to Seattle a chance to go.  I’ll be honest, if SQLConnections continues to have a spring conference in Orlando (where I live), I’ll choose that over PASS some years.  I don’t have to pay for hotel and airfare or lose 2 days in travel.  I can fly to Boston in 3 hours.  Seattle?

There are some things that PASS does very well:

1. The PASS Summit.  This year will be my first one, but everyone I know who has gone raves about it, so it must be good.
2. Virtual Chapters (formerly known as Special Interest Groups).  Online communities based on areas of interest instead of geographic location.  There are regular Live Meetings that are are fantastic.
3. 24 Hours of PASS.  Literally 24 straight hours of online training from some of the best SQL Server minds in the world.

I should note that I am good friends with Andy Warren who is on the PASS Board of Directors.  We have discussed what PASS should be doing before, but most of these ideas will be new to him as well.  I hope to meet and talk with all the members of the board at the Summit and share these ideas with them and hear their vision for PASS.

What do you think PASS should strive to be?

Where Will We PASS Each Other?

In my a post on Monday, I talked about who I want to meet while at the PASS Summit.  Today I’m going to post where I plan to be while at the Summit.

Sunday

I’m scheduled to fly into Seattle at 6pm, which means I hope to be at the hotel (Sheraton) by 7:30pm.  I’ll probably try to find someone in addition to my roommate, Tim Mitchell, to have dinner with once I arrive at the hotel.

Monday

I’ll be looking for folks to meet up with for breakfast.  Then I’ll probably head to the convention center and depending on who I meet up with, either hang there for lunch or go out.

In the afternoon I have the Networking Seminar for Volunteers with Don Gabor and then the full Networking to Build Business Contacts seminar with Don Gabor.  I believe there are still some seats left for this session (only $60) and I’m sure you’ll get your money’s worth.  That session leads into the Welcome Reception and Quiz Bowl.  I’ll be finishing the night at the SQLServerCentral party (instructions on how to get a ticket are here).  I’ll likely pack it in after this party.

Tuesday 

I’ll be starting Tuesday by meeting with a group of people of like faith at breakfast, and event I’m really looking forward to.  Then I begin my sessions, of course if I get in the right conversation, I’ll skip a session or two.  Here’s the plan for the day:

• Data Access Layers: A road map to smarter, efficient and effective queries.
• Birds of a Feather Lunch with MVP’s.
• Dr. DMV: How to Use Dynamic Management Views to Monito and Diagnose Performance Issues with High Volume OLTP Workloads.
• A Tale of Careers and User Groups.
• Exploring Index Internals.

Nothing planned for the evening so if you know of any good events to crash let me know.  I’ve already been told to follow Wendy Pastrick (@wendy_dance).

Wednesday

I’m not a morning person normally, but I plan to start with the Quest Vendor-hosted Breakfast with a discussion of DMV’s.  I may not get anything out of it, but I know Brent Ozar (@BrentO) and Tim Ford (@SQLAgentMan) will be there so at least I’ll meet them. Then my session plan for the day:

• Understanding Logging and Recovery in SQL Server
• Lunch with the people of like-faith.
• Database Design
• Insight into Indexes
• Nordic – turn SQL Server into an Object DB – I want to make sure I meet Paul Neilsen.

Again nothing planned in the evening.  Feel free to let me know what’s going on.  Wendy will tire of me following her around.  She may think I’m a stalker.

Thursday

Nothing planned for breakfast, but I’ll probably try to get some time with Mike Walsh (@mike_walsh) to start out the day with some Christian fellowship.  Then the sessions I’ve picked out for the day:

• T-SQL Tips & Tricks
• Lunch  - Featuring Regional Chapter Leaders.  I’ll be the host of the OPASS (Orlando PASS) table as my co-President, Andy Warren, has other responsibilities during this time.
• Troubleshooting applications accessing SQL Server
• Proactive DBA: Manage SQL Server Better
• Advanced SQL Server 2008 Extended Events: Performance Profiling and Troubleshooting Techniques.

Again, nothing planned for the evening.  I figure I’ll be following Twitter to findn out where everyone is.

Friday

My flight home is at noon, so I’ll probably try to meet up for breakfast, then pack up and head to the airport. 

Wow, when you type up the week it seems short.  I’m sure that the week will pass much more quickly than I anticipate.  I’m looking forward to meeting people and getting as much information as I can process.

If you are on Twitter be sure to have a search for the #sqlpass hash tag.  I know I will.

See you in a few days!