Author: way0utwest

From the PASS 2010 Summit Survey: 29% of people want a presentation on backup compression. OK, here it is.

Turn it on:

Turn it off:

That’s it. If you want to script it, go here.

I saw Brent Ozar’s (blog, twitter) interpretation of the PASS Summit Survey and he had a great comment on more people asking for Backup Compression than Filestream, TDE, or Spatial. He noted: “ If I was the product manager for those last three features, I’d be dunking my head in the toilet right now, because that’s just depressing.”

I’m not sure I’d feel that way. Maybe I’d feel more like banging my own head against the wall, or perhaps wandering over to the marketing section of the Microsoft campus and banging someone else’s head against a wall. Or two.

I’m being a little silly. There could be more of a presentation on backup compression. Someone could do a “shoot out” of all the products offering compression. Someone could present some data (quickly, like in 10-15 minutes) on how compression changes the resource usage on some of their real databases. Someone could go into details on effects of different data types and the level of compression reached (10 minutes), and how it works with TDE (5 minutes).

There, we’re up to 25 minutes. Maybe 27 with a slow demo.

Or maybe, someone could compress that into 15 minutes of a talk that includes data compression, and show some real world examples of how compression impacted things, and how you might change designs to use it better.

Seriously, if you are asking for a presentation on how backup compression works, you’re in one of two situations. Either you are smart enough to delve into details and maybe you should go work for Microsoft (or Red Gate or Quest), or you need to just crack open BOL. Look, I’ll give you a bookmark.

Tia thinks I’m crazy to book early, but I like to have a choice of flights, and I like to get things off my plate. I heard back from someone about TechEd today, so I decided to just book the trip. One less thing for me to worry about.

SQL Saturday #22 in Pensacola is the weekend before, and I am speaking there first. A few of the Red Gate people are flying to New Orleans and driving to Pensacola.

That sounds like work, so I booked two one-way flights. I arrive around 2pm in Pensacola on Friday, will speak Sat and then catch a ride back with some Red Gate people to New Orleans where I’ll spend Sun night, Mon, and Tues meeting with people before coming home early on Wed.

No sessions for me, just touching base with authors and saying hi at TechEd, so it should be a light week with the chance for me to get some work done.

I did have a fun 15 minutes wasted on the phone. I had to cancel two trips earlier this year, so I wanted to use my credit. Apparently United doesn’t issue “credit.” What they do is allow you to rebook the flight, charging you $150. However you can’t use the website to rebook the ticket. Instead you have to call an agent.

And oh yeah, they charge you $25 for the agent.

So I call, we get my account up, and 10 minutes later he says that I can rebook one flight. OK, I agree to do that. He gets my info, goes through things, and then says it’s $150 + $25 for $175 and I have $168 credit. Am I ready to book?

Holding my temper in check, I then ask can he waive the agent fee, but apparently he’s a dim bulb, reading from a script or not allowed to deviate. We go around a few times, me using logic, him passing the time reading from his script. I ask can I book two one-ways with this ticket, and get credit from my other flight. No, he can’t handle that, but his grasp of the English language isn’t great, so I hang up.

Book through Expedia, get my itinerary on my phone, just easier.

Good thing I went for a run afterwards.

I hope there will be more surveys, so I’ll tag this as 2010. The results were released recently, and there were some write-ups on the results. There was the release by PASS, and then a great interpretation (and debate) by Brent Ozar. There are others as well (Brian Kelley, Jack Corbett, Tom LaRock).

The survey was flawed, but aren’t they all? I’m sure PASS would like help in getting another one together, and they have asked. Feel free to contact them with feedback.

However. (you knew that was coming, right?)

There’s an interpretation missing. Why don’t we have an official interpretation of the results from PASS? Why hasn’t the board published something that explains how they viewed the results? Shouldn’t at least a couple of the board members have spent time going over the results by now?

There’s a write-up on the PASS blog on the chapter survey (thanks, Douglas). Transparency was on the last Board agenda in March. People have called for more transparency and communication. There’s a short announcement, but no feedback from board members on how they view the survey.

It’s our fault. We get what we allow, and a few of us make some noise about this, but it’s not enough of you out there that contact PASS and let the board know what you’d like. Too many people sit back and just let PASS happen, or in this case, do very little.

PASS can be a great organization for helping the SQL Server community grow, bond, learn, and become stronger. However it takes a little effort from all of you.

If you read this, take 5 minutes and draft a short email to the PASS board. Ask them to blog, ask them for their interpretation, tell them they’re doing a great job.

Are SQL Saturdays falling from the sky? (from Jen McCown, @midnightDBA)
I think so. This past weekend had three events, #39 in NYC, #41 in Atlanta, and #44 in Huntington Beach, CA. That’s unusual, but this weekend we have #36 in Wheeling, WV and #38 in Jacksonville next weekend, then two more in May (#35 Dallas and #27 Portland). That’s 7 events in 30 days, which is amazing. Extrapolate that for the year and you would be looking at 84 events in a year!
That. Is. Amazing.
When Andy (blog | Twitter) and I talked about this three years ago, we were thinking that getting 12 events would be great, and we hoped we could get to the point where we might do 50 in a year.
It looks like that could happen, and I’m hoping PASS continues to push for it. There are, as of now, 23 events scheduled for 2010, and a few more in the works (Denver and Nashville that I know of).
I think it’s cool, and I’m glad to be a part of them. I have plans to hit two more this year, Pensacola and Baton Rouge, and might do another if I can.