SQL Server, PASS, and other data mishaps
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Growing the pool of speakers
Mar 12th
Following up to Andy’s series about growing the pool of speakers, I thought I would detail an idea we’ve been kicking around for this years summit.
First some history
In 2009 PASS accepted 585 community abstracts submitted for a total of 113 community sessions slots that were available (including 10 pre/post conference sessions) of those 80 were regular sessions, and 23 were spotlight sessions. We had 30 speakers give 2 sessions including the 10 pre/post conference sessions. We normally ask that speakers accepted for a pre/post conference session also present a spotlight session, so that every attendee of the conference gets access to these high caliber speakers. This left us with 20 regular speakers presenting 2 sessions in 2009.
The big idea
In order to give more speakers a chance to present at the annual summit, were proposing limiting all community speakers to 1 primary session per summit. There would obviously have to be exceptions for panel sessions and co presenters since we wouldn’t want to discourage those types of sessions. The benefits as I see them are that we’d open up 20 more slots, give or take from year to year, to new speakers thus allowing others in the community an opportunity to present. The downsides (or risks) as I see them: We stand to potentially loose coverage if we receive no abstracts on a particular subject that would be a currently chosen speakers second session. Cost, that is 20 extra comped admissions to the summit. Pass would need to decide if the value of these extra comped admissions are worth the expense. What I mean to say is if we spend money on those extra comps, that money couldn’t be used on some other priority.
I’d also like to mention that in my years on the program committee, no discussion of comps has ever occurred while deciding to choose one speaker over another. This however is different since it would be a policy.
So, what say you? keep the current limit of 2 per speaker, restrict it to one, make the limit 15?
PASS Program Update #2
Mar 11th
Here comes High Gear
Things have really started to move lately, We’ve officially started the Program Committee for 2010.
We received 53 applications this year from members hoping to help out on the program committee. That’s a huge number for us, When I joined in 2007 I think I was accepted by default because we didn’t have enough volunteers. in 2008 there were approximately 20, last year we had 23. Obviously we’re gaining some attention in the process of making the education program at the annual pass summit the best year after year.
Selecting the abstract review teams
With so many applicants, selecting the teams was quite a chore this year. Its like interviewing for an open position at your company but instead of having 1 position, you have 17 open and instead of a hand-full of qualified applicants, you get a boatload. That pretty much sums up the experience every year but, this year it was twice as bad as I remember it being in the past (possibly because of the doubling in applicants). In the end, the quest to fill these teams took quite a bit of time, unfortunately just like selecting employees for your day job, there is really no best way to make the selections. I should have probably just used a dartboard for the selections but, I didn’t want to disservice those that had taken the time to apply. After quite a few iterations of making sure everyone was in the team that best leverages their skill sets, the new volunteers were notified.
Changes
The program Committee Portfolio changed hands in the PASS BOD this year, the new owner is Jeremiah Peschka. Overall my experience with Jeremiah has been the same as my experience with the prior 2 Board members I worked with on Program, they’ve all been nothing but great. We have already started batting around a couple of major changes to the Program Committee.
Thing 1
I tricked convinced Lori Edwardsto join the program committee as an adhoc project manager unfortunately we haven’t found a jazzy title that sticks yet, so she’s currently known as the task team leader, I hope we can properly anoint her later. With 17 applicants added to the abstract review teams, we moved the other 36 people who applied into a task group that Lori has the joy task of managing. Having a dedicated volunteer leader to manage the side projects that always come up should change the way we get things done and hopefully without me being the bottleneck, things will happen even faster. This year the program committee has many things we want to accomplish, in addition to the regular things that we have to do to put on the summit every year. I am hopeful this setup will prove to be one that works well, and we can refine and document the process so it can be reused in future years.
Thing 2
Abstract Committee Abstention. In the past we didn’t have a policy about the abstract review volunteers submitting abstracts in the same track as they are reviewing abstracts in. This was usually handled internally to each track and that member abstained from all discussion and ranking of their abstract. This year however, we alerted every potential abstract reviewer that they wouldn’t be allowed to submit abstracts to their review track. This rule may exclude some volunteers from reviewing abstracts in the future but, it just made sense from the transparency standpoint.
New Summit Management Software
The new summit software selection is causing some of our critical timeline dates to need to be adjusted. I’m not in a full panic defcon 5 mode yet but, If we don’t have a working environment in the new software by the end of next week, Ill be pulling the panic alarm. Configuring a site to accept abstracts, and manage the speaker experience takes an unbelievable amount of time and right now we’re still waiting for the final paperwork & approvals. Sliding the call for abstracts back doesn’t effect much of the planning for the summit except it compresses our timelines for getting the sessions selected and posted to the summitt website. Currently we’re aiming for a mid April call for speakers opening, with the actual call running approximately 30 days.
Speaker Resources
Brad started working on this years update/changes to the speaker resource pages on the sqlpass website. These sorts of changes are always interesting since they cross over a couple of portfolio’s. I’m hoping that we can collapse the 2 pages currently posted into one page that is less confusing, or potentially 2 pages that work better together and don’t overlap as much as the existing pages.
Lots of new ideas coming, expect a new blog post tomorrow outlining one of the more controversial (potentially) Ideas I’d like to get some community feedback on.
Whose got my DAC?
Mar 4th
What is the DAC?
The Dedicated Admin Connection, Commonly called the DAC is used to manage SQL Server when a regular connection wont succeed. Here’s what SQL Books Online (BOL) has to say about the DAC “This diagnostic connection allows an administrator to access SQL Server to execute diagnostic queries and troubleshoot problems even when SQL Server is not responding to standard connection requests.”
DAC Errors
Occasionally, while troubleshooting SQL servers in a large environment, especially one thats managed from many different geographic locations you could come up with this error, if more than 1 person is using the DAC. It should also be noted this only happens if you have remote DAC enabled in your environment
Error 17810
Could not connect because the maximum number of ’1′ dedicated administrator connections already exists. Before a new connection can be made, the existing dedicated administrator connection must be dropped, either by logging off or ending the process. [CLIENT: 127.0.0.1]
Since I could still connect with a regular connection currently, I set out looking for a query to determine who was using the DAC connection. I whipped this up, and since I couldnt find anything in search, I thought id blog it
select conn.session_id, sess.login_name, sess.nt_domain, sess.nt_user_name, conn.connect_time, conn.last_read, conn.last_write, sess.host_name, conn.client_net_address
from sys.dm_exec_connections conn
join sys.endpoints edp
on conn.endpoint_id = edp.endpoint_id
join sys.dm_exec_sessions sess
on sess.session_id = conn.session_id
where edp.is_admin_endpoint = 1
This should return everything you need to know about who is using your DAC connection so you can ask them to disconnect, or KILL their connection.
Convincing your boss to pay for your training
Mar 1st
Things are tight
It seems like budgets are being cut everywhere, and IT training seems to be one of the first places cut. In an earlier post I outlined where you could get a lot of valuable training for relatively little cost. In this post I will explore a few methods that have worked for me over the years to get your boss to say YES to paying for you to refresh your fountain of knowledge.
The direct approach
It may seem obvious but, if you don’t ask your employer, they cant agree to send you to a SQLSaturday, or to the annual SQLPASS Summit. So sometimes its just as simple as broaching the subject with your boss. But before you try that continue reading!
Explain the ROI
Many times the people who make the final decisions about training forget what a struggle it can be to not only stay current on technology but to actually excel with it. Last year PASS put together a very good list of ROI points This could be used for any SQL event, make it work for you.
Volunteer
If you volunteer for SQLPASS (at the local or national level) you may be eligible for a discount admission to the annual summit. This discount can range anywhere from 100$ all the way up to a full comp (free) admission. Armed with the discount, and your ROI documentation it can be quite a bit easier to convince your boss to send you to a weeks worth of invaluable training that they perceive to be discounted.
Offer to partner
A few years back this might have been unheard of but, I’ve recently decided to start trying this method to get approval for some training. Try to combine the ROI documentation with an offer to pick up 1/2 the tab for the training. For instance, split the cost, ask them to pay the airfare to a SQL Saturday, while you pick up the hotel, food and ground transportation. Another idea, offer to pay the airfare/conference registration(Free if you volunteer enough) and let them pick up the rest to send you to the SQLPASS Summit. Either way its a win-win for both parties, you get to make a small investment in your career, and it shows your employer your serious about that career.
Mix and Match
Hopefully you can take a few of these ideas and mix-n-match them to reach the ultimate goal of getting your desired education.
Accessing Top Quality Training
Feb 24th
Where did the Training go?
With the economy being what it is, many companies are cutting back on training budgets yet our need for knowledge as database professionals never stops. Luckily the SQL Server community is one of the liveliest around and there are solutions.
Online
I’d estimate that almost everyday of the week you can find live webcasts about various subjects in the SQL Server arena, the problem here is that many of these top quality training events aren’t well publicized. I never knew about them until joining Twitter a few years back. As it turns out, many SQL user groups around the world stream their meetings online via live meeting, there are PASS VC’s webcasts, Vendor sponsored webcasts, and the list goes on and on.
Local Events
Local events usually put on by your Local PASS Chapter, these are usually monthly events put on by your local PASS Chapter. The added bonus is that these events provide networking opportunities.
Regional Events
For the time being these usually are SQL Saturdays. Held at various metropolitan areas across the US these are currently one of the best bets going for very cheap, very good, education. I would highly recommend that you consider traveling to one of these if they are within a reasonable drive, or better still, a cheap flight
National Events
Generally speaking these are SQLPASS and SQL Connections. I’ll just say that these are topflight, all in wonderful opportunities, and if you have the chance Id highly recommend that you attend, everything I said about the other training events, is 10 fold when dealing with a week long immersive opportunity.
