Yearly Archives: 2012

Speaking at PASS Summit 2012

It’s Not A Repeat

Speaking at the PASS Summit last year was one of the highlights of my career. I had a single regular session initially and picked up an additional session due to a drop in the schedule. Both talks were fun and I got some solid feedback.

The Boy Did Good

I won’t say great, there were some awesome sessions last year. I did do well enough to get an invite to submit for all the “invite only sessions”. I was stunned. I don’t have any material put together for a half day or a full day session yet and the window to submit sessions was a lot smaller this year. But I do have three new sessions and all of them could easily be extended from 75 minutes to 90 minutes. So, I submitted for both regular sessions and spotlight sessions and got one of both! WOO HOO!

The Lineup

I’ll be covering two topics near and dear to my heart.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My SAN [DBA-213-S]
Session Category: Spotlight Session (90 minutes)
Session Track: Enterprise Database Administration & Deployment

SANs and NASs have their challenges, but they also open up a whole new set of tools for disaster recovery and high availability. In this session, we’ll cover several different technologies that can make up a Storage Area Network. From Fibre Channel to iSCSI, there are similar technologies that every vendor implements. We’ll talk about the basics that apply to most SANs and strategies for setting up your storage. We’ll also cover SAN pitfalls as well as SQL Server-specific configuration optimizations that you can discuss with your storage teams. Don’t miss your chance to ask specific questions about your SAN problems.

I’ve built a career working with SAN and System Administrators. The goal of this session is to get you and your SAN Administrator speaking the same language, and to give you tools that BOTH of you can use to measure the health and performance of your IO system.

 

Integrating Solid State Storage with SQL Server [DBA-209]
Session Category: Regular Session (75 minutes)
Session Track: Enterprise Database Administration & Deployment

As solid state becomes more mainstream, there is a huge potential for performance gains in your environment. In this session, we will cover the basics of solid state storage, then look at specific designs and implementations of solid state storage from various vendors. Finally, we will look at different strategies for integrating solid state drives (SSDs) in your environment, both in new deployments and upgrades of existing systems. We will even talk about when you might want to skip SSDs and stay with traditional disk drives.

I’ve spoken quite a bit on solid state storage fundamentals this time around I’ll be tackling how people like myself and vendors are starting to mix SSD’s into the storage environment. Where it makes sense and where it can be a huge and costly mistake.

Finally

I hope to see you at the Summit again this year! Always feel free to come say hi and chat a bit. Networking is as important as the sessions and you will build friendships that last a lifetime.

News Flash! PASS Board Makes Unpopular Decision!

Meh.

(n.) A multi-purpose response, primarily used to imply a degree of indifference. Tone of voice and circumstance often implies a meaning. Can be used when you don’t want to answer an awkward or embarrassing question, or if you just plain have nothing else to say, and you want the other person to interpret the “meh” however he/she chooses. As in: Q: “What do you think of my new dress?” A: “Meh.” or Q: “What do you want to do tonight?” A: “Meh.”

Source: unwords.com

You heard me. I think this whole situation is getting way out of hand. People are making personal attacks, making false statements on the behalf of others and generally being pin heads about the whole thing.

It’s Not The Process, It’s The People

The amount of personal attacks going on is just crazy. Andy wants to change the process, I’m fine with that. You want more transparency, I’m down. What I’m really upset about is community leaders making subtle and not so subtle attacks on the entire board. If you have a beef with a particular board member then call them out. If you have a problem with the WHOLE BOARD maybe, just maybe, its you.

JJ Abrams Runs The Board

Yep, I’m Lost(tm) too. I love a conspiracy theory, I don’t think there is an invisible monster eating people at PASS HQ though. I believe the majority of the board are trying very hard to make the best possible choices for PASS and it’s future. I don’t agree with every choice made, and I despise politics in general, but I don’t think there are 12 odd people colluding to keep out the good guys and run PASS into the ground. Were James and Kendal the last two pieces in a much larger puzzle to control the fate of PASS and SQL Server? We are about to find out….

I’m Gonna Let You Finish, But Sri Was The Best Candidate For The Board!

For a guy that said he was done with PASS politics Brent has a lot to say. I get it, you don’t like the way the bylaws are written. Run for the board and get them changed. You know and I know you would win by a landslide. You also clearly understand that the bylaws are written and approved by the board. You know who I feel bad for? It’s not Sri. He is an awesome guy, this won’t stop him at all. I fully expect him to run again. It isn’t James Rowland-Jones, he has had great success with SQLBits and will make a solid board member with PASS. It is squarely Kendal Van Dyke. Also an awesome community leader and will make a great board member. The problem is he will always have to work harder and have this stigma of being second in the votes but chosen by the board to serve over the next candidate. Who wants that following them around? Would we be having this raging hemorrhoid of a debate if Sri was picked up and Kendal was passed over for James? Kendal was gracious in defeat and would have made a mistake if he had turned down this appointment.

You aren’t going far enough

Andy Warren started the petition. I don’t thing it goes far enough. We need to strip the PASS board of the ability to appoint anyone to the board at all. If it isn’t voted on by the membership there shouldn’t be an appointment to the board PERIOD. I’m serious. All our issues stem from the fact that a few people, that we have voted onto the board, have the ability to appoint more people without the consent of the governed. While we are at it, get rid of the board, all of them. We live in an age where people can vote on topics in real time, a pure democracy, where the governors are the governed. As long as we have a representative form of democracy governing PASS there will always be a group of people to lash out at and a group of people happy to do so.

Fin.

At the end of the day people are ignoring the fact this is a one year appointment. Both James and Kendal will have to face another election if they want to stay on the board for a second full term. PASS has been making changes to the bylaws, not at the speed I would like but they are changing. No matter what, you can’t make everyone happy.