I’ve already had a few good days in Seattle/Redmond this week, meeting with the Microsoft SQL Server program teams and with other Microsoft SQL Server MVPs. I was as excited as a squeeling Justin Beiber fangirl waiting for his new video, wishing I could tell you all of the cool things I learned at Redmond about the future of SQL Server. But as you’d expect, all of that cool stuff is presently NDA. I’m sure there’ll be some cool announcements from Microsoft this week. So be on the lookout for the good word from Microsoft.
Keynote
Rushabh Mehta, the PASS president, spent a few moments extolling the value of community and the achievements of the professional association. And he’s got a lot to be proud of. PASS has come such a long way. One of the most telling facts about the significance of PASS, to me, is that important SQL Server announcements now happen at the PASS Summit. There was a time, and not very long ago too, in which Microsoft made important SQL Server announcements at other Microsoft events like PDC and TechEd. No longer! PASS is the nexus for Microsoft’s data management users. And it shows.
Ted Kummert, Microsoft’s top data executive, had a lot of exciting talking points about how the community has grown. PASS now has hundreds of chapters worldwide and nearly ninety thousand members. The event has over 4000 paying attendees this year, which means probably around 6000 total attendees including press, exhibitors, speakers, etc. That’s big! In fact, that’s just about the peak capacity for the Washington State Convention Center here in Seattle. No wonder PASS will be at other locations in the future.
It’s Officially called SQL Server 2012
SQL Server “Denali” is officially rolling out as SQL Server 2012. There are a lot of interesting new developments with SQL12 regarding the way the product is splitting into multiple types of appliances designed for specific workloads and customer needs. Need a massive processing appliance, check! That’s PDW. Need a hybrid solution for data housed both on premises and in the cloud? Check. Need processing power for BigData? Need processing for non-relational and unstructured data? Check.
Microsoft’s improving tools will culminate in a new release of development tools called “SQL Server Data Tools”, formerly known as Project Juneau, while the business intelligence side of the house will have a new set of tools in “Power View”, formerly known as Project Crescent. Hadoop figured large in the keynote, as Microsoft acknowledges that many BigData problems are best served by non-relational data stores. Denny Lee, of SQLCAT, proposed an in-house data marketplace during his demos. My face lit up like a kid at a surprise 10-yr birthday party. Really?!? FOR ME?!!? I laugh because I’d been doing that at jobs throughout my career, offering up what I used to call the “data feedstore” to managers within my team. +! for validation of your ideas.
First Session of the Day
From there I headed out to my first presentation of the conference, which I was delivering with my pal Buck Woody (blog | twitter) of Microsoft. Our session was all about Cloud 101 – when it’s appropriate to use the cloud and where you can learn more about the specific technologies like IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. Many IT pros don’t know the difference and are being subjected to the “implement it!” decrees of their bosses who simply read an article on an airplane saying that the cloud is the future. The best quote from the Twittersphere about our session? “Elastic is fantastic” I couldn’t have said it better!
Speaking of conference sessions, my buddy Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) pointed out this great mobile schedule planning resource:
Go to Guidebook and download the app for your iPhone, Windows Phone 7, Android, or Blackberry. After launching it, you’ll be prompted to download a guide. Type in PASS Summit, and we’re near the bottom of the list.
Voila! Instant mobile schedule guidebook to the PASS Summit.
The Energy is Nuts!
After delivering my session, it was off to the Exhibit Hall, where I played the role of booth jockey for Quest Software for the rest of the proceedings that day. I noticed two things of significance. First, the crowds were thicker and more energetic than I’ve seen in years. Wow! I knew attendance was our highest ever, but the crowd was near to bursting out at the seems like a 14-year old kid wearing last season’s clothes. So either the Washington State Convention Center is no longer big enough or more planning is needed to make this venue work. When I was in leadership for PASS, planning and properly utilizing the venue was always a logistical nightmare. So I don’t envy the current leadership in figuring out how to make the PASS Summit scale to an even larger size. The second thing I noticed was how focused the crowd was. Usually, you get a lot of tire-kickers in the booth who, deep down inside, only want your vendor swag. Yes, we had some cute swag this year (a Toad beanie baby and some cool ribbons for your badge). But we also had huge crowds even after we ran out of swag. And, in case you didn’t detect the important part of the previous sentence, we ran out of swag! That’s right we gave out everything on day 1 of a 3 day event. I nearly freaked the freak out. What is going on here, folks? Haven’t you heard that there’s a recession going on?
In this podcast on the uber-popular podcast “RunAs Radio”, host Richard Campbell asks me about what topics are of particular interest at Tech-Ed 2011, focusing the discussion on cloud and SQL Server “Denali”
You can download the MP3 version of the podcast or the transcript here.
I have to confess that I’m incredibly excited about BigData. I haven’t been this excited about new innovations in IT since relational databases first appeared on the scene early in my career. But what is BigData?
Back in those days, I can still feel the echos of adrenaline when I was hired to work on a NASA project that would involve over 100Mb of data. ONE HUNDRED MEGABYTES! Good grief, that was fantastically huge to us on the team. (That database was over 130Mb when I finally moved on to another project). And remember – PC software was installed using 640Kb floppy disks at the time. In fact, my Oracle v5 instance required shuffling through about a dozen floppy disks to get the thing installed on a 286 IBM PC.
BigData today takes on an entirely meaning as database sizes scale into the petabytes. But the emphasis is still the same today as it was back in the 1980′s – turning data into actionable information. However, with BigData, we can achieve amazing new insight from this data and mine for tidbits that would never have seen the light of day with smaller data sets.
The two major themes to remember about big data are 1) the more data you have on a given domain, the more power you have, 2) the better the analysis you can perform on the data, the more power you have. In fact, theme 2 might be the most important thing to consider because lots of data is meaningless unless you can extract knowledge from it. And that’s where better analytical techniques come into play.
Here are some articles about Big Data that you might enjoy:
The article, titled “Real World NoSQL: HBase at Trend Micro,” is the first in a five-part series Guy wrote, spotlighting NoSQL (non-relational) database deployments at five different companies. The other good learning experience for me was hearing about GigaOm for the first time. GigaOm, now on my reading list, is considered an influential and prestigious publication in the NoSQL realm.
There are so many great tools out there for data professionals using Microsoft SQL Server. I really like to see all of these great tools made free to the public. On the other hand, I’m bummed that the tools are cast about in a very decentralized fashion. If you haven’t done migrations before, you might want to start with these good white papers first.
Here are a hand full of cool migration tools worth mentioning:
SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for Oracle: Migrate from Oracle to SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 R2. I’m thinking about installing it on my SQL Servers even without even needing to migrate existing Oracle databases to SQL Server. Why? Well as an old Oracle hand, I came to really enjoy quite a few Oracle PL/SQL system packages (kind’a like a SQL Server system stored procedure, but often more powerful). As it turns out SSMA-Oracle includes stored procedures, extended stored procedures, and CLR routines that reproduce the functionality in most all of the cool and powerful Oracle packages like DBMS_PIPES. It’d be nice to have those on my SQL Servers just because I know them and like them.
Microsoft Services for Mission Critical Customers: Many enterprise customers running mission critical applications on SQL Server have asked for more – more service and support for their environments. This is an add-on that costs extra, but it’s worth it for those running the systems that keep the company in business.
If you’ve tried any of these tools out, I’m keen to hear your experiences. Did they work well for you? Did they work, though poorly? Did they fail utterly? Inquiring minds want to know.
MVP Rob Farley Channeling the Inner Viking at SQLBits, Oct 2010
SQLBITS
One of the top highlights of my year is when I get to visit the great cities of Europe and meet with the great IT professionals there. Last October, I was able to visit several cities in Europe, including my first ever stop in Stockholm and Malmo, Sweden. Last year’s SQLBits event was in the lovely city of York, England.
The Level of Attendees Has Come Up a Notch. See?
This spring, in fact the next two weeks, I’ll be on a whirlwind junket. In just a few hours, I fly out to London and then drive down to Brighton for a couple days of SQLBits. SQLBits has a great lineup of speakers and content this spring.
I’m looking forward to many of the sessions going on as well as the innovative CIO-oriented event that will include facetime with Fusion-IO executive and industry legend, Steve Wozniak.
This Crew Is Crazy!
Our lunch time sessions on Friday and Saturday are ALL ABOUT FUN! If you attended last year, you’ll know to get there as early as you can because it will be standing room only. Bring a good horror story to tell about your experiences in IT because we’ll have some fun prizes to hand out as well.
Of course, the biggest fun for me is time spent with other SQL Server people. Lots of great speakers and Microsoft SQLCAT team members will be on hand, too numerous to name them all, in fact. And of course, I always enjoy a visit with my colleagues at Quest, such as Iain Kick (at left).
We were so inspired by winning a Trivia Pub Quiz that we decided to do one at SQLBits!
DUBLIN
After SQLBits, I head out for a day long session in Dublin on Monday, April 11th with my old friend Niall Flanagan at the Microsoft European Development Centre, South County Business Park, County Dublin starting at 09:30 am. If you’re in old Eire, I hope to see you there! Registration details are HERE.
COLOGNE (KOLN)
At the conclusion of the Irish event, I head directly to the airport for a flight to Cologne, Germany. The next day, on April 12th starting at 09:30, we’ll do another day with the expert. The agenda is a bit different, but all the details including registration are available HERE.
MALMO
My final stop before heading home is on Wednesday, April 13 in Malmo, Sweden. The user group in that area is lead by the very talented Johan Ahlen, whose blog is located HERE. I especially enjoyed his posts about FileStream late last year. I’m looking forward to more good sessions and, again, to learning as much from the attendees as they do from me. Be sure to register for the event HERE.
It’s always interesting to see the guestimations of the big brains about figures and facts that are hard to verify. Here’s an example – how much data is computerized today? I’m not talking about ancient stuff, like the Codex Synaticus (which, incidentally IS on-line at www.codexsinaiticus.org). I’m talking about the new and really important stuff, like the fourteen pictures that my step-daughter posted on her FaceBook account from our recent trip to Rock City.
Well, IDC figured that overall digital data was up to 1.2Zb (Zetabytes!) at the end of 2010. My mind is boggling. Ok, so that’s only 1.2 trillion gigabytes! Doctor Evil, please put your pinky to your mouth and say this huge number . . .
1,319,413,953,436 Gb
Another way to say it is that it’s about 1,228 Exabytes.
You can get other numbers by extrapolating from storage purchases from the major storage vendors. Of course, not all of their storage sold is actually filled up right away. But it’s still an interesting number to hear. So just on scuttlebutt from a friend of a friend of a friend I heard numbers like this:
Online data back in 2002? around 5 Exabytes
Online data expected in 2011: around 700 Exabytes
And, again we’re surmising these values based on published storage sales from various vendors, this data growth is hurtling along at ridiculous speed, with data doubling every fifteen months or so. Who knows where this will take us, but if we assume a constant rate of data growth (which is a bad bet, IMO), we’ll have 996,000 Exabytes of data online by 2020. Hey, but that’s 8 years after the Mayan calendar, and the world along with it, is supposed to end, right?
Quest Software’s latest community initiative, Windows Azure-based Project Lucy, has debuted! Project Lucy is part infrastructure analytics, part social media experiment, and part performance data warehouse.
The best things about Project Lucy include:
It’s Free – just like our SQLServerPedia website, Project Lucy is free to anyone who wants to upload a trace file
It’s 1oo% web-based – you don’t have to download or maintain anything and updates roll out seamlessly, all the time
It really helps – just generate a SQL Trace on a SQL Server 2000, 2005 or 2008 instance, upload it on www.projectlucy.com, and see for yourself
This initiative empowers DBAs and IT professionals to gain a better understanding of their database performance through automated analyses and collaboration with their peers. Our goal is to allow users to go beyond the benefits of installing and using a commercial product, and tap into an online community to share and compare experiences and results.
Our goal is to test the best ways we can help users learn and understand what their performance data really means, and how they should act upon that data – if at all – in a collaborative, meaningful way. For this debut, Project Lucy will accept SQL Trace files, or zip files containing multiple traces, and will provide a summary of the content and areas where performance can be improved. As y’all use the service, information will become available to help you compare your performance and engage in meaningful discussions with others about the issues you are facing.
Your feedback, your feedback, and participation will drive how Project Lucy evolves. Get involved by participating in the pilot program! And let me know what you think.
Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) and I did an interview with TechTarget’s Brendan Cournoyer at last summer’s Tech-Ed, which as turned into a podcast titled “Cloud efforts advance, SQL Server evolves.” The podcast covers all the major trends at the conference (like BI), virtualization features in Quest’s products (like Spotlight), Brent’s new book and MCM certification, and more.
