Voice of the DBA

Tag: PASS

  • Making a Donation to PASS

    This year the PASS Summit will be virtual, though not free. Until June 19, the conference will cost $500 for the 3 day conference, $900 with precons, and $349 for a single pre-con. SQL Bits is still scheduled for September, and I wonder if they will move to virtual. Microsoft has moved all events to virtual for the next year, which puts pressure on others. The flip side is Microsoft events are mostly marketing and many other events are fundraisers for their organizations.

    PASS reopened their call for speakers, which is interesting. I wouldn’t expect any speakers to pull out from the event, but perhaps I’m wrong. Or maybe they’re expanding the schedule, since I know time zones will be an issue and I suspect we’ll see some broadcasting across the 24 hour clock. To do this isn’t free, as the infrastructure and coordination of staff to make an event happen cost money. Microsoft can just lose money on staff, but for PASS, SQL Bits, and other events, they need help. Even with volunteers helping, you need some staff. Staff requires money.

    This means the request from PASS this year is for every speaker to essentially donate their time to create a presentation and deliver it for little to no compensation. They can watch other talks for free, there will likely be some speaker gift, and there is some marketing and exposure from speaking at the Summit, but this is different than getting an admission to the live event. I don’t know how employers, clients, etc. view anyone’s speaking experience at the Summit, but it’s on my speaking CV multiple times and I’m proud that I’ve been able to speak there.

    I didn’t submit earlier this year when the call for speakers opened. The timing was bad for me, personally, and I decided to forego attending. When the call re-opened, I decided to submit. I am happy to support the community, and a virtual event means that travel and timing is less of a factor.

    I have seen some speakers question whether being asked to deliver a talk for free that will be behind a paywall is a good idea. They question if this is a fair trade for their time and effort. I think each speaker can make their own decision. I don’t mind if you speak, or if you decide this isn’t for you. It is a fair question, and there are plenty others we can debate: the financial structure of PASS, the decisions about the Summit, and the future direction of the organization.

    PASS already had a deficit in their budget this year. The Summit will likely generate less money and potentially the deficit will be larger. If I can donate a few tens of hours to build a session and deliver it, and help with the financials of PASS, I am happy to do so. I plan to support a few other events later this year as well, helping organizers where I can to weather this difficult time.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • The Cost of SQL Bits v the PASS Summit

    UPDATE: This post originally priced Charlotte, NC, but the Summit is in Houston, TX. I have corrected costs and locations. The difference is about $300 less for a flight and about $20-30 more for hotels.

    Recently I was chatting with someone about SQL Bits. It’s my favorite conference of the year, and unfortunately, I can’t attend again this year because of a schedule conflict.

    Still, I think you should go if you can. I’ve had people over the years think it’s too expensive and too costly to go to England for a conference and my friend was speculating if that was the case. I decided to take a look.

    Cost of Attending

    The costs of attending the conference are (generally)

    • Admission
    • Travel
    • Lodging
    • (some) Food
    • Pre-Conference Days (optional)

    I’ve been fortunate to often not pay admission as I speak at events, but I do attend sometimes. Lodging is expensive, and certainly not all meals are covered by the event. If I’m traveling, I do like to do a pre-con, since it’s a good chance to get focused learning in an area.

    With that in mind, let me price out what it costs for each event. I’m looking forward, so I’ll take a look at SQL Bits 2020 v going to the PASS Summit later this year.

    SQL Bits 2020

    SQL Bits takes place from Mar 31-Apr 4. I’m coaching on the 30th and the 4th, so I can’t actually get there and back. Well, I could get there Tuesday, but I’d have to leave on Friday. The event has pre-conference days on Tuesday and Wednesday (called Training Days), and the conference on Thursday/Friday/Saturday. Saturday is a free day, like a SQL Saturday, and I’ll assume two training days here. After all, if I’m flying to England, I want to make the most of the time.

    Pricing is available, and right now I’d be paying £1199 = US$1600. I’m rounding a bit, but this is roughly my cost in the US. This also includes two training days, which are each around US$490. If I dally and don’t register until after 15 Feb, this is about US$2000.

    Flights for me (on United) would be US$966 from Denver. This is the direct, and traveling 29 Mar to 5 Apr. This is a good time of year to fly to the UK, and I’ve done it often. I’m giving myself a day to adjust. In reality, I’d likely make this a longer trip and take my wife. Let’s also factor in another $50 for the train to and from the airport.

    2020-01-10 10_25_19-Review trip itinerary _ United Airlines

    Lodging is always pricey in London. I usually stay ion Hilton hotels, and the DoubleTree near the venue is £122, or £620 for the week. That’s about US$810-ish. Call it $900. I usually travel back to Heathrow that night, so another US$150 for a night there.

    If I were to look for something else in a hotel, I see similar rates. As low as US$90 for a Holiday Inn to $160 for Aloft (where I’ve stayed). AirBnB in this areacan be as low as a room for $30-50 to a flat for about $100.

    Food can be pricey in London. The lunches are covered by the conference, and two dinners at the Thur and Fri night events. Breakfast is provided all the days and there are lots of snacks. I’ve eaten really well at SQL Bits.

    That means I’d be looking at these meals

    • Breakfast – Sun
    • Lunch – Mon
    • Dinner – Mon, Tue, Wed, Sat

    Let’s say $12 for breakfast (it’s a big city) and $50 for dinner. Lunch, call it $20. That’s a total of $242. I do like a few drinks, though you might be able to get sponsors to cover some of your costs here. I’ve roughly included a drink with dinner. I’m guessing that I’d spend another $150 in drinks.

    Total for attending, in round numbers: US$4,062

    • Flight $1020
    • Lodging: $1050
    • Conference: $1600
    • Food: $392

    You could do better by shopping around a bit, but these would roughly be the costs I’d need to go to my boss to cover. Or split the cost with them.

    If I spoke, this would be closer to $2000. Maybe more of you ought to try and speak Winking smile

    The PASS Summit in 2020

    Let’s look forward to the Summit. Their pricing is more staggered, and if you can register really early (like now), it’s cheaper. US$2599 now, but I’ll assume I won’t be able to get this until summer. At that time, the cost of attendance is US$3299. This includes two pre-con sessions as well.

    This year the event is in Houston, TX. For me, this is a nonstop flight from Denver, but not that cheap. I can get a $350 flight if I want to travel early, but I don’t. There are flights around $400 as well. The convenient flights for my schedule are around US$475. The exact pricing for me is $476.80, call it $480 after I tip the car guy. You’ll need a couple Uber/Lyft items, so say $50 here.

    Lodging is better in Houston than Seattle, where the event usually is held. It’s still pricey. A hotel for me is around US$200 a night or more. I want to be close, so I’ll split the difference with a Garden Inn. This givers me a cost of $1,395.23. Call it $1400 ish with a few tips, as I’ll go over this.

    Other hotels are similar, as low as $125 and well into the $300 range. AirBnbs are like London. I see lots of $50-60 a night for rooms or small 1 bedroom places. Closer to downtown we’re more into the $120 range and up.

    Food will be similar. Charlotte has cheap and expensive places. The conference does cover breakfast and lunch. Dinner is two nights, the opening and the next night in the exhibition hall. I’d need these:

    • Breakfast: Saturday
    • Lunch: Sun
    • Dinner: Sun, Mon, Thur, Fri

    If I go with similar costs, I’d be with a similar $242 + $150 for drinks.

    Total to attend PASS: $5,6921

    • Conference $3299
    • Flight: $480 + $50
    • Lodging: $1,400
    • Food: $392

    The big difference here is the cost of the conference, which overwhelms the small flight difference.

    Conclusion

    It’s cheaper to attend SQL Bits from the US than the PASS Summit. I think so, and while you can do it cheaper than I’ve outlined, you can still likely make SQL Bits cheaper. What’s more, you get to experience another country and culture, along with many, many more people from even other, different cultures. That means a lot to me.

    I also find that SQL Bits is a more casual conference, with less security and hassles. People have been able to bring their wives and kids to the event, or at least the party. Dressing up on Friday night at SQL Bits is a blast.

    ENJJCcTXsAAvm54 orig

    The PASS Summit is an iconic event. I’ve been very lucky to attend most of them, and it’s a huge gathering place for SQL professionals. I enjoy going, learning, and seeing lots of friends. However, it has grown to be an expensive event.

    No matter what you choose, you’ll see some amazing speakers, meet lots of experts and get the chance for incredible networking. If you’ve been to one, consider the other.

    What I would say is that SQL Bits is my favorite, and if you’re in the US, it’s not that expensive to go, even to London. When they move the event to other locations, the transport cost will rise, but hotels will be cheaper. I’d expect I’d save another $300-400 on the trip in Liverpool or Nottingham.

    You do need a passport, so factor in $100 and 4-6 weeks, but you should have one anyway. Traveling is a great way to enjoy and experience more of life.

  • How Did I Do?

    I made a number of predictions for the opening keynote at the PASS Summit. I wrote the predictions a week before the event, making my own guesses about what might be revealed. I was busy in pre-conference sessions on Monday and Tuesday, so I had to write something well in advance of the event. I was flying home yesterday, so I had no chance to watch the keynote until later, so this is a look back after catching up Wednesday evening at home.

    How did I do?

    With the Ignite conference taking place this week, I had guessed that SQL Server 2019 would release there and then be a part of the Summit keynote. I was right. On Monday, as I was taking a break during the SQL in the City Summit, I saw that SQL Server 2019 had been released. A milestone, and perhaps one that I think changes the data platform. It’s an inflection point, and I agree with this tweet from Distinguished Engineer, Slava Oks. Rohan Kumar did announce it at PASS as well, so maybe half credit here?

    I didn’t mention Hyperscale yesterday, as I wasn’t sure what I knew as NDA and what was possible. The demonstration of Azure Arc, and Hyperscale for PostgreSQL, is pretty cool. While I used to think Hyperscale was only for the largest of the large databases, I now think that many smaller, 2-4TB systems (I can’t believe I think of that as small), might consider moving to Hyperscale and preparing for future growth into the low single digits of TBs. BTW, Azure Arc is amazing. I knew about it previously, but didn’t expect it this year. I did mention Azure Stack deploying on premise, and I think the Azure Arc covers this, so 1 1/2 right.

    Azure Synapse was something I didn’t expect. I have been looking at Big Data Clusters as a game changer with the relational platform. Synapse combines the Azure SQL Data Warehouse and Data Lakes into a platform. Since these were both the places where we first got compute separated from storage, this makes sense. Both of these platforms seemed similar to me, so combining them and letting customers drop structured and unstructured data.

    The Edge is a bigger deal than I thought. This was mentioned as a private preview during Build, and I should have guessed this would move to public preview. This as one of those areas that I haven’t been as focused on and wasn’t sure about information I’ve gotten under NDA, so I didn’t include this. Certainly a miss here, but I do think the demo in the keynote with Zeiss and making decisions from sensor data is something more organizations will do. Sensors generate too much data and trying to move all that across a network to the cloud doesn’t make sense. Train models and let some low power SQL Server Edge engine make a few decisions without moving data.

    There was more in the keynote, and it’s worth watching. If nothing else, I think both the opening Ignite keynote and the opening Summit keynote are inspiring for us as data professionals. You can dream about possibilities and truly see that data is an important asset that Microsoft is empowering us to make better decisions about based on analytics.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Voting for the PASS Board

    Voting is open for the PASS Board, as of yesterday (Nov 6). The candidate page is up, and there are 6 amazing candidates for 3 slots. They are:

    I’ve linked to their applications, so you can read what they’ve written about their candidacy. I know all of these individuals, and I think they would all do well. In other years, I’d likely have voted for all of them against others.

    I can only choose 3, and it was a hard choice for me. This was really one of the best total groups of candidates I’ve seen.

    I am endorsing, and I have voted for these candidates:

      • Hamish Watson
      • Johan
        Ludvig Brattås
      • Melody
        Zacharias

    You might notice a trend here in that I’ve picked all three non US candidates. This was a factor for me because I do think PASS has been too North American focused, with less appreciation and understanding of the rest of the world. I also think these are the individuals least influenced by the way the organization has been run in the past.

    They talk about diversity and transparency and communication, which ultimately are very important to me. I don’t think that PASS has done well with any of these in the past, though certainly they have made strides at times.

    I am hopeful these individuals can find ways to differently influence the board to be more open and transparent, to be more of a collaborative group with the community than bit aloof about ideas, directions, proposals, and disclosure.

    This in no way implies Chris, Mindy, or William aren’t qualified or would not do a great job. I think they would, but I had to make choices, and those were mine.

    Please read all the applications, think about what you would like from the organization, and then vote.