SQLPASS Conference Day 1
First day of the official conference started off with Rushabh Mehta (blog | twitter) talking about where SQLPASS is on their 5 year goals:
- Provide 1 Million hours of education, 430k hours provided so far
- Grow to 250k members, 80k so far
- 5 Global regions, 1 so far
PASS Summit is the largest event focused on SQL and BI:
- 189 Sessions, 5 tracks (57 MS, 11 CAT)
- 204 speakers (93 MVPS, 11 MCM)
- SQL Server Clinic : SQLCAT architects, CSS engineers
- Expert Pods: MS Engineers, MVPs, 9 focus areas
- Over 5000 registered attendees
Ended by stating the purpose it to
Build connections that will last you a lifetime
He then introduced Ted Kummert with guests Denny Lee (blog | twitter) and Amir Netz (twitter). Announcements:
- Denali will be released the first half of 2012 and will be called SQL 2012
- Project Juneau office title is SQL Server Data Tools
- Project Crescent official title is Power View
- Apache Hadoop-based distribution for Windows Server and Windows Azure
- ODBC Drtiver and Add-in for Excel, both for Apache Hive
- JavaScript Framework for Hadoop
- SQL Server and SQL Server PDW connectors for Apache Hadoop
- Partnering with hortonworks
Ted went on to describe the focus going forward:
- Any data, any size, anywhere
- Manage and process data of all types
- Mission-critical scale from on premises to cloud
- Common management and development
Lastly they demoed a product codenamed “Data Explorer” which was simply described as a way to enable data discover, enrichment and publishing. They actually demoed it utilizing the Metro UI and showed the ability to do a 5 way join between SQL Azure, Excel, Data Market and WCF calls. The other thing that made this compelling was that it enables interactive mobile reporting with demo’s on an iPad, Samsung Table, Windows Phone and Windows Slate.
After that I went to a Hands on Lab to look at the new SQL 2012 Always on functionality (yes it is turned off by default). Got my copy of SQL MVP Deep Dives vol 2 and ended up in Adam Jorgensen (blog | twitter) session called Zero to Cube – Fast Track to SSAS Development. Adam is just awesome. He’s come up to our SQLSaturday in Chicago and presented and if you have a chance to see a session or just talk to him, do it. Here’s his picture:
Wow.. now thats a cool transformer shirt!!
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