It’s two weeks until Pass Summit 2015!
It feels a little weird this year, it’s the first year in quite some time where I’m not presenting in Seattle. The reason for that’s pretty simple, I didn’t submit any abstracts. It still feels strange to be going as an attendee, to be able to pick and chose sessions as I like, rather than having to work around the slots that I have to speak in, and to be able to spend time just wandering around the conference rather than rushing from place to place as is usual.
Still, that gives me a good opportunity to attend sessions I’m interested in. Looking over the schedule, my 5 must-attend sessions are (in no particular order)
- Run, Total, Run. It’s Itzik and he’s talking T-SQL. Is any more reason needed?
- Inside Wait Types, Latches, and Spinlocks. Bob Ward’s famous level 500 session. Guaranteed to make your head spin
- Diagnosing SQL Amnesia: Where Is Your Memory Going? SQL memory management is an area I’ve always struggled with, let’s see if this session fixes it
- Advanced Analytics with R in SQL Server 2016. R is a fascinating language, and one I’ve just started learning recently. R in SQL Server? Bring it!
- Optimizing SQL Server Performance in a Virtual Environment. Almost all of my clients have virtual SQL environments, hence I have to be at least familiar with hypervisors.
Plus the keynote with Dr DeWitt and Dr Nehme is an event not to be missed!
Of course, there aren’t just the sessions. There’s the Birds of a Feather lunch, the Women in IT lunch, the SQL Clinic and the CAT team to ask difficult questions of, and the hundreds and thousands of ad-hoc conversations in the corridors, many of which may be more interesting than the sessions themselves. Not to mention the multitude of parties and events in the evenings.
Oh, and there will be Crazy Hat day as well. For those who don’t know what I’m taking about, it’s Argenis Without Borders, version 2. Please donate if you can, I really want to see Argenis dancing to music from a trombone.