Voice of the DBA

Tag: PASS

Back to Basics, Reaching for the Clouds, and Leveling Up

The three themes for speakers at this year’s PASS Data Community Summit are: Back to Basics, Reach for the Clouds, and Level Up. The goal here is content that covers a wide variety of areas, with many fewer restrictions from previous years. Perhaps the big thing to note for this year’s event is:

Free.

That’s right, this year’s Summit is free for the general conference. That should boost attendance, and it might mean some incredible audiences for this year’s speakers. I’d recommend you submit something and take a chance, as there are opportunities ranging from 10 minute lightning talks to 2 1/2 hour half day sessions. This is a great chance to speak at the largest Microsoft Data Platform focused conference out there. There are also pre-conference sessions. They’ll cost something, but with all the proceeds going to the speakers, I’m looking to support someone that will teach me a few new skills.

We all need fundamentals, and the idea in Back to Basics is practical, day-to-day solutions. All of us build those on a regular basis. What creative, solid solutions have you implemented at work? What code or configuration do you rely on to keep your business moving? Those are the topics to share with others.

The cloud has really started to prove it’s a fantastic solution for many organizations. Not for everything, but for many things. The modern data professional needs to know about the cloud, and when to move or not move. Many of us have been excited by the cloud, and plenty forced into adopting it, but there are lessons and experiences to be shared here. Good and bad.

Level Up is the internal Redgate Software conference, where we look to improve skills. It’s a theme here where we try to help people advance their careers in some way, whether that’s a technical skill, a soft skill technique, or a new way of thinking. I’m glad to see that among the tracks, we have both a Professional Development and a DE&I (diversity, equity, and inclusion) track. Both are ways to help us round out our ability to work in a team. I hope to see lots of “Level Up” type sessions, both technical and non technical, delivered this fall.

I wasn’t sure there ever would be a Summit again, and I am glad that we have a chance to get a large group of incredibly talented speakers and attendees that all care about data, databases, and building better systems, reports, and employees. I’m excited by the free online Summit, and I look forward to a hybrid event in 2022 when we get the chance to connect and smile in person again.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.

June 2, 2021
Moving the Community Forward
Today is the last day that the PASS and SQL Saturday websites will be active. It’s possible that they will be shut down as this post gets published, and if so, I will be sad for their loss. I’ve already moved my SQL Saturday.com bookmark to https://sqlsathistory.com/, where André Kamman has captured quite a bit of the data.

In any case, the organization will cease to exist, though I expect to learn about the fate of SQLSaturday.com in the next few days. I put in a bid, but I know some other organizations have as well, and I expect one of them to acquire the brand.

I don’t quite know how to move forward, but I have a few ideas here, at the local and global levels, and this is my proposal.

One Day Free Tech Events

SQL Saturday was dreamed up by Andy Warren, with Brian Knight and myself helping to implement it. The idea was to bring a conference experience to many people that would not otherwise get the chance to attend an event like SQL Bits, the Data Platform Summit, or the PASS Summit. The idea was to help the local communities run their own events.

This succeeded beyond my wildest dreams, and I look forward to continuing this work. Whether under the SQLSaturday.com domain, DataSaturdays.com domain, or something else, I hope that these events not only continue virtually, but that 2021 will see some live events in physical locations.

In order to do that, I do think that some sort of organization is needed to help steer and manage the branding and common tools. Many organizers not only appreciate, but need help in running events. My view is that this organization needs to be open and transparent, unlike how the SQLSaturday brand was managed in the recent past.

My hope is that a non-profit organization, with transparency, is formed and can manage any assets in a way that prevents a dependency on any individual or commercial organization. I would envision this as the following public characteristics:
- open proposals from the community or board of directors
- open discussion and debate of proposals
- timely and open voting on issues by the board of directors
- open source tools that enable event coordination and execution
- open books of any and all financial details*
- public guidelines, with limited rules or requirements for association with the brand
- flexibility to allow organizers to run events in a variety of ways.
There are many details to be worked out, and certainly many concerns from the previous way in which the PASS organization operated, but I am confident there are ways to continue to promote and advocate for local events.

Local and Virtual Chapters

Most local chapters have operated very independently with few dependencies on PASS, and I expect they will continue to do so. I do hope that they maintain connections with each other for mutual assistance and knowledge sharing.

I would recommend that chapters ensure they have a mailing list that is accessible by at least two individuals. I would also say that they should ensure they have a public website. There are a few options available from different sources if anyone does not wish to manage their own. Please sign up with one or both of these.
- Microsoft – Offering resources to help
- SQLUGS.com – A free service provided by DCAC
I would encourage user groups to also register their meetings with https://callfordataspeakers.com/ to help them find individuals that might present at their meetings.

Andy Warren has other thoughts, and I would encourage chapter leaders to read and share them.

Speakers

Many speakers maintain their own schedules, lists of resources and more. The growth of many speakers and their willingness to present at events all over the world has been one of the incredible things that came about as SQL Saturdays grew and spread. I hope this continues, and that means speakers need to continue to find opportunities to practice and deliver their sessions.

I would encourage all speakers to do the following:
- Register with sessionize
- Register with callfordataspeakers
In addition, everyone should ensure they have a place to share code and Powerpoint/PDF/session materials. I have seen many options, and these are good options:
- A blog (WordPress or otherwise)
- OneDrive/Box/DropBox/etc.
- GitHub repos/pages
- YouTube – Save recordings of your sessions
There are many ways in which people share, and I would certainly encourage speakers to share their own methods that others might learn from and implement on them.

A Final PASS Chapter

I’ve seen a few people write about the end of PASS and the future (Andy, Andy, Tim, Brent, and more). I’m disappointed that there isn’t an organization (right now) that promotes things, but I am glad PASS ended. It hasn’t been run well or with a primary focus on community good in a long time.

Hopefully we can move forward in new ways that improve on what we’ve had and continue to drive the community forward.

* I do recognize that the timeliness of financial disclosures can be difficult at times, but any and all filings, revenue received, and expenses incurred should be available.
January 15, 2021
Saving PASS Pro Videos

PASS will close down their websites on 15 Jan 2021. That’s just a couple weeks away, and if you’re someone that paid for a year of PASS Pro access, like me, you might want to save the videos so you can still go through the courses. I have no idea if someone will buy the assets and make them available, but I did contract for a year of access, so I believe I can save them for personal use.

NOTE: DO NOT PUBLISH OR DISTRIBUTE THESE TO ANYONE ELSE. That would be illegal and a copyright violation. It may also break other laws.

Here’s what I did to save off my own personal copies.

First, you need to log into the PASS site. In your dashboard, you should see a PASS Pro section. Click that.

This take you to the PASS Pro site. Here, you need to click “Learn” and then pick the item you want. I was more concerned with the current videos than older ones, so I chose the Educational Series.

From here, I pick one. For example, I was interested in Dr. Greg Low’s Cloud Transformation. For the series, you need to go through it quickly, but there are some assessment gates. For example, I couldn’t easily pick Item 4, because I hadn’t started item 3.

Design issues aside, click on an item and view the video.

This opens a popup with the video. Click Play, and once it starts, you can right click and “Save Video As”.

If you don’t click Play, you’ll be saving the HTML page, which isn’t what you want.

I went through the series, and it took just a few seconds to start a video and save it off. I could then close it and do the next one. Once I’d started a video, even for 3-4 s, I could get to the next one.

The caveats here are that there are assessments, and you cannot get past them until you go through them. Take some guesses, as you have a few chances, but note your answers. Maybe you can answer well enough to get past them. If not, here were my quick guesses on module 1 for cloud:

I passed:

On to module 2.

Hopefully this helps. If someone gets an automated way to grab these, I’ll update this post.

January 4, 2021
Speaking: PASS Virtual Summit 2020

Delivered 3 talks for this event. One on database devops, a lightning talk on the future of database development, and a talk on classifying data.

Wednesday schedule – Classify Data

Thursday schedule – Lightning talk

Thursday and Friday – Classify rebroadcast and devops

December 21, 2020