Skip to main content

My Week at the PASS Summit 2015

Last week the SQL PASS organization held the annual PASS Summit in Seattle, Washington.  The PASS Summit is a week-long conference that brings thousands of SQL Server, Business Intelligence, and Business Analyst professionals together to learn all about best practices in use today and about new features coming in the next version.  I was able to attend by volunteering to help with PASS and by the good graces of my company and had an amazing week!  Many thanks go to all of the organizers, speakers, volunteers, and sponsors who put on another great event.

The conference has two full-day preconference sessions on Monday and Tuesday which can be purchased in addition to the conference.  These trainings are amazing and definitely worth your while if you want more training.  I ended up flying out on Tuesday to start with the main conference on Wednesday.  On Tuesday, I explored Seattle a bit, and even visited the space needle (my first time in all my years visiting Seattle!).  I checked into the conference, visited with some friends at the Denny Cherry Associates and SIOS #sqlkaraoke event, and went to bed early to prepare for the next day.

Wednesday

Wednesday, the first day of the conference, started with some great sessions.  James Phillips and team presented the Foundation Session on Microsoft Business Intelligence, which talked about the new business intelligence vision (consistency and modernization across all of the reporting tools).  Here are a few of my favorite features:
  1. SSRS reports pinning to Power BI
  2. Auto-insights coming in Power BI
  3. DAX will have intellisense, comments, formatting, and new functions
  4. SSAS tabular will optimize DirectQuery querying
  5. Power BI will provide a new visualization every week
  6. Power BI can use data from on premise multidimensional SSAS databases

I attended a few more sessions and closed out the day by attending an executive meet and greet sponsored by Microsoft and the PragmaticWorks #sqlkaraoke event.

Thursday

Thursday was another great session day.  I attended a Microsoft SSIS Focus session on the new features coming in SSIS 2016.  Jimmy Wong presented many of the new features and took feedback from the group on their thoughts.  Some of the cool new things that will be coming include:
  1. Incremental package deployment (no more "all-or-nothing")
  2. Ability to turn on an "optimize buffer size" option in packages
  3. Execution of R in SQL, which can be called through and SSIS package
  4. Ability to adjust how the ForEach Loop loops through files

There were a few other sessions, and then I closed out the evening at the Community Appreciation Party at the EMP museum (an amazing museum if you haven’t been there).

Friday

On Friday, I hosted a Birds of a Feather table, where people working on similar topics (in my case, it was business intelligence architecture and design) sit together during lunch to discuss the topic.  I had a great table with a split between more advanced professionals and newbies to BI and architecture.  We covered topics from choosing products to modeling to ETL performance tuning and more.  Thanks everyone who attended!

Friday was the last day, so I chatted with some friends, explored Seattle more, and relaxed a bit before week 2 at the MVP Summit.  I can't post anything about it, but be sure I'm sharing your feedback with Microsoft as much as I can :)

More information

For more information on the PASS, the Summit, and announcements, visit the following links:
  1. Information about the Summit: http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2015/About.aspx
  2. Watch some session on PASSTV: http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2015/Live.aspx
  3. Reporting Roadmap released during the Summit: http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2015/10/29/microsoft-business-intelligence-our-reporting-roadmap.aspx
  4. Latest version of SQL Server 2016 CTP 3: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-sql-server-2016



Comments

Anonymous said…
Great recap, thanks Jessica! I've worked with SQL and all the MS BI stack for a few years now and I'm kicking myself for never making it out to the Summit. Seems like it's a must-attend, so I hope to next year!

Popular posts from this blog

SSIS Configuration to Configuration to Configuration Schema

I've gotten several requests to put down in writing the configuration schema that I use as the base of my SQL Server Integration Services framework. It contains a set of configurations: an indirect environment variable configuration, which points to an XML configuration file configuration, which points to a SQL Server configuration. I learned this configuration from the Project REAL Reference Implementation . If you're getting started with a BI implementation, I highly recommend that you download it for some great ideas and best practices. Steps to implement: 1) Create an environment variable on your machine with the name of SSIS_CONFIG_FILE and the value of: C:\SSIS\Config\MasterConfigFile.dtsConfig. 2) Create an SSIS configuration file at C:\ SSIS\Config\MasterConfigFile.dtsConfig with the line: <configuration valuetype="String" path="\Package.Connections[CONFIG_SERVER].Properties[ConnectionString]" configuredtype="Property"><configuredv

Execute SQL Task Designer Limit

After migrating a package from DTS to SSIS, I had a problem with an Execute SQL Task. I couldn't change any characters in the SQLStatement property; I couldn't add any new characters; I could delete characters, but not retype them! After googling several variations of "integration services" "read only" and "Execute SQL Task", I deleted about half of the entry in a fit of frustration. Lo and behold, I could type again. Apparently, there is limit on the size or number of characters that can be entered in the SQLStatement property. From my experimentation, I came up with a limit of 32767 characters. The interesting thing is that the restriction only seems to be on the designer. If you set the SourceType to "Variable" and use a variable that contains more than 32767 characters, the task will execute. Also, if you use the "Direct Input" SourceType and modify the package XML to set the SQLStatement longer than 32767 characters,

Reporting Services 2008 Configuration Mistake

To start working with the management side of SQL Server Reporting Services 2008, I decided to set up a report server and report manager. Unfortunately, I made a mistake while setting up my configuration that left me a little perplexed. Here are the steps I took to cause, track down, and solve the issue. Problem: I began by opening the Reporting Services Configuration Manager from the Start Menu. I clicked through each of the menu options and accepted the defaults for any question with a warning symbol, since warning symbol typically designate an action item. After two minutes, all of the warning symbols had disappeared, and I was ready to begin managing my report server. Unfortunately, opening up a browser and trying to open up the report manager resulted in the dreaded " The report server has encountered a configuration error. (rsServerConfigurationError) " message. Sherlock-ing it: I put on my sleuthing hat and went to the log file directory: C:\Program Files\Microsoft