Wednesday, April 23, 2008

SQL Server Connections Wrap-Up

Wow - what a great show!

Today was the last day of the SQL Server Connections conference in Orlando, Florida. I've been in Orlando since Sunday and am ready to go home, but wow, what a week it's been.

First of all, I've had the opportunity to meet tons of people, including people who have been instrumental in shaping my skills over the years - people like Itzik Ben-Gan and Bob Beauchemin. As you likely know, Itzik is the Godfather of Transact-SQL, and knows more about T-SQL than I will ever forget.[1] Bob was the lead author on one of my favorite SQL Server 2005 development books and is a leading expert in his field. It was awfully exciting.

But I also had a very exciting time during my "SQL Server Integration Services Deployment Best Practices" session as well. My session was scheduled at the same time as sessions by Bob Beauchemin and Kimberly Tripp and Paul Randall. I figured my session would be empty, scheduled on the last day of the conference, and coming up against such well-known heavy hitters. Instead, I presented to a packed room, with people sitting in the aisle and standing against the walls. I guess I'm not the only one who has felt the pain of building a repeatable deployment process for SSIS solutions. ;-) There were lots of great questions during the session, and quite a few people followed up with me afterward. It was a great crowd and an incredible experience for me - I just wish there could have been more time.

With that said, there will definitely more time in June in Orlando for the Microsoft TechEd IT Professionals conference. I'll be delivering two breakout sessions (including an updated and refined version of the session I delivered today - thanks for the great feedback everyone!) on SSIS. If you're going to be at the conference (and you should be) make sure you attend my sessions.

And now, it's time to catch my flight home...

[1] Or something like that.

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