Voice of the DBA

Tag: travel

  • Speaking at SQL Saturday Austin 2025

    SQL Saturday Austin 2025 is in just a few days. I am honored to be speaking there, and glad to be going back. I’ve missed a number of the Austin events with schedule conflicts, but things worked out well this year, and I’ll be at the event.

    The schedule is out and it’s packed with some great sessions. I’ll be talking about zero downtime deployments, but there are some other nice ones:

    • MS Fabric and SQL from Bob Ward
    • AI for the data professional from Ginger Grant
    • SQL DBs in Fabric for Dashboards and Marts from Joey D’Antoni
    • Defending against Ransomware from Jeff Iannucci

    and plenty more. I’m sad to miss Conor Cunningham’s talk, but we’re at the same time.

    There’s also a Pre-con on Friday about Fabric if you want to attend. It’s a great chance to get very reasonable training at a low cost.

    If you’re anywhere near Austin, some out this Saturday and join us for a great day of learning.

    Now I’m off to pack as I leave tomorrow to head to the Redgate office in Austin for the rest of the week before the big event.

  • Back in the UK

    I flew overnight and am in the UK this week. It’s a time for me to get into the office and get some facetime with various other Redgaters while I’m over. I usually go a couple of times a year to the office and spend time with co-workers, which I find valuable to build bonds and relationships.

    I was chatting with a friend recently who is remote. Most of his data team is remote, but there is a main office in another city. They are debating Return-To-Office guidelines, and they’ve required any new hires to be in the other city.

    That’s a concern to this person, and others. Should he consider moving or look for a new job? Is there a lack of growth in this position if RTO becomes mandated. In this case, this person would rather have a remote team that gets together once a year.

    Interesting idea, and I’ve seen this in the past when different positions when there were remote teams. It can be expensive, but it can be an investment. I’ll need to think about this and maybe write a piece.

    Not much blogging this week, as it’s been a busy time, so I’ll be back next Monday with a set of more regular posts.

  • A Quick Trip

    I’m sure some of you have gone on a quick business trip before, maybe even regularly. I’ve had a lot of travel over the last few years, and quite a few short trips to various cities for events or customer visits. I’m expecting a few other stretches this year that will be busy, but not like this.

    I’m off to London today, actually I left last night, and I’ll be there around 940a local time today. I am jumping on an 1130a flight Wednesday to return, so this will be a 50 hours trip to London. I’m going for the Redgate Summit, and I’d usually make this a week trip and get to the office in Cambridge, but I am bookended by prior commitments.

    Yesterday (Sunday) had to coach a team at a volleyball tournament in Denver. This coming weekend, I need to be in New Orleans Friday to coach over the weekend. I guess I could try to stay one more day and get to Cambridge, but I would like a minute to decompress at home. So back Wed and head to New Orleans for the weekend.

    Fortunately this type of trip is a rarity, but it has happened a few times in the past and I’m sure it will happen again.

  • Off to Live 360

    I am off to Live 360 today, on my last trip of the year. I’m excited to deliver two presentations tomorrow (VSTH03 and VSTH12), but a little sad this is a very quick trip. I’m coming back Friday, so in total I’ll be in Orlando for about 43 hours, I need to sleep, so my time is less than that.

    I haven’t been to this conference in a few years, but I’m looking forward to going back, even though it’s a short trip. I always enjoy these multi-tech conferences because I get the chance to learn something completely out of my area. In my limited time, I’ll learn about Shift Left DevOps security, because it’s interesting and Brian is a friend. I will also try to hit a GraphQL session since I know nothing about it and it works with various db stores. If I can, I might do some prompt engineering as well.

    If you’re at the event, I’ll try to swing by Wed afternoon and be there all day Thur. Feel free to stop me and say hi.