[NOTE: For those who come right in for Launch Event entries and see this first, please jump down to the first post and come forward (up) - I thought that it was a fantastic event, and a great use of the time, and the stars in this entry only apply to the final segment - Q&A]
4:30pm - 5:00pm
If you've ever watched the Daily Show, imagine Jon Stewart saying "awkwarrrrrrd" in that way that he does.
I really don't understand why Q&A sessions continue to be featured in these sorts of events, when they virtually always follow the same clumsy sequence - people ask very domain- and problem-specific questions (the kind that would best be asked in usenet newsgroups or email support), there are communication issues leading to the same wrong answer being provided multiple times and the questioner re-asking the question, and then everyone finally giving up. In the odd case that the question is actually understood, often the prospective answerer dances around it for a while, or gets defensive, because they really don't have a clue (for the reasons covered in a prior post - questioners have an infinite set of questions to draw from, versus the finite knowledge of anyone on the stage).
This one was no exception. Everyone hung around only to see if they won an xbox360 (which they gave out - to be shipped when released - to one person at the entire event who had filled out their evaluation form. They also gave out some Toronto Maple Leaf shirts, but they went over pretty poorly), or to figure out how to get their bounty (previously documented).
As is standard at events with evaluation forms, more than once I heard presenters admonish the crowd with lines like "If you're giving us less than 8 or 9, then please come up and tell us how we could improve the show..." I find these sorts of requests disingenuous and manipulative - the real purpose, obviously, is to guilt people into giving an 8 or 9 (under the guise that if they're too lazy or unmotivated to go up and detail their complaints, then they should suck it up and give a good mark regardless). Event managers should banish these sorts of requests by presenters, because it's basically stuffing the vote and eliminating the value of the feedback - and I'm saying this as someone who gave honest 8s and 9s pretty much across the board.
3:00pm - 4:00pm
Obviously my observations are getting shorter and more terse (I'll probably expand them tomorrow), but this session covered some of the high availability solutions available with SQL Server 2005. For instance the not-yet "released" database mirroring, online reindexing, partial database availability, zero-init improvements, fast recovery, peer to peer transactional replication, snapshot versioning of rows, among other availability improvements. Very exciting improvements that should significantly improve the already impressive availability of SQL Server. The demonstrations were clear and evidentiary of the features, demonstrating a corrupt database, readers simultaneous with writers, taking a server in a mirrored configuration offline, and other new features. Very interesting.
1:30pm - 3:00pm
This session covers the trio of Integration Services, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services.
After a funny intro video (including some snide back and forth between an "IT Pro" and a "Developer". Not sure what an IT Pro was supposed to be, but it sounds like it's the new Microsoft lingo for administrative type roles. The video included comments like the developer calling the IT Pro a "glorified DJ", and the IT Pro saying about development "A monkey could do that". Quite funny), the session got underway. This was a full house, and covered topics like integration services (formerly DTS - which has seen some huge improvements), including a demonstration of its performance improvements (processing and importing 2 million rows in seconds), data cleansing and "AI" abilities, among other advances.
The discussion then moved on to Analysis services, XML/A and unified dimensional model, data mining (such as the demonstrated associative model), key performance indicators, and the dashboard. Very informative.
It then moved to reporting services, demonstrating how developers could create and deploy reports, and how even relatively untrained users could do the same.
12:00pm - 1:30pm
Back in the big room again. This was a fairly good session, giving an overview of a huge project lifecycle and integration suite in far too short of a time. The presenters, whose names I unfortunately didn't catch, were a study of contrasts - one seemed poised and prepared, while the other seemed disjointed and constantly at a loss for words. I'd be nervous in front of a crowd like that too, but it was the contrast that made it so evident.
VSTS is far too big of a product to give it justice in a short presentation - or a short blog entry - but the demo was impressive, and if it works as well as it looks in the real world then it will definitely be a marketplace winner.
10:30am - 12:00pm
Either through a technical glitch, or an oversight when I was signing up, but I was registered and confirmed for both tracks (despite impossibly concurrent times for several of them), so I went straight through from keynote to 4:30pm, catching all of the SQL Server track, and one of the Visual Studio events. Obviously I'm intently involved with Visual Studio, however I thought the SQL Server track would be more focused and interesting.
For this session we moved over to the other room - a smaller room, half filled with chairs, featuring 2 large, albeit unfocused, ~9'x11' screens and 2 smaller ~7'x9' screens, and a beautiful, tattered green carpet covering. After some very annoying intro music the session got underway, competing with the sounds of transport trucks and low flying aircraft.
This was a great session. Presented jointly by Barnaby Jeans and Damir Basinick, it was a great overview of some of the new administrative features and changes with SQL Server 2005. From the transition from Enterprise Manager to Management Studio, to a side talk about the Toronto SQL Server Users Group, to examples of some of the new administrative reports available in Management Studio, it was a really great crash course in the advantages that SQL Server brings. Strangely the crowd was largely non-responsive, and Barnaby's attempts at getting feedback largely fell to the floor with the thud. Quite a few in the crowd were playing with their cellphone (one I believe was using the new live video functionality). The banter between Barnaby and Damir was awkward and forced, and often out of sync.
At one point Barnaby asked who in the crowd had looked at the technet blogs, and the response rate was enormously low: While this could be attributed to the malaise of the crowd, I think it was actually a pretty valid response - Most corporate developers and IT workers aren't involved in blogs, online forums, or some of the other things that many of us think are the norm nowadays. I don't say that judgementally or derisively, but as a simple matter of fact: For many this career has stabilized to being more like traditional careers, and few accountants, as a similar example, are out reading the KPMG or government auditor blogs every day. Or ever, for that matter.
Some of the other great examples were the xml showplans, filtered views in Management Studio, shared xml profiles, the database engine tuning advisor. The changes in the profiler look fantastic, including the ability to display time synchronized performance monitors (so you can correlate events with CPU saturation, for instance), and xml plans in profiled events, integrated SMTP mail (rather than the infernally terrible MAPI), sqlcmd. Great stuff. Even if you've played with it yourself it still gives great context and focus to know where to really pay attention.
Remarkably very little was said about .NET integration, and some of the other easily abused elements - integrated xml and web services - were downplayed and pragmatically presented.
One thing about the presentation that I thought was odd was the impression given that the occupants of the room were "IT Pros" or DBAs, in contrast with the "developers" in the other room. As a software developer, I bemoan the lack of database knowledge amongst many developers (which leads to an endless cycle of terrible databases), and I wish more of them were in sessions like this.
As is the norm for events like this, they gave out goodies to entice the uninterested. To ensure that people didn't get their software and flee, they didn't do the give-outs until the end (apart from the notepad and crappy branded pen that they gave out at the beginning), handing out the bounty in plastic bags as you returned your nametag necklace. This technique worked well, as several times throughout the event I heard people comment on the "carrot" that was keeping them there "if they could stay awake", which really is sad. It's sad because there was a tonne of fantastic content, but people have become so acclimated to the goody bags that they focus far too intently on it.
I laughed to see that there was the standard $5 t-shirt, not surprizingly in the size XL (why do computer/software shows always give out XL?).
Overall Value of Time Spent and Benefits Derived:
As a super quick executive summary (I will provide longer descriptions of the events that I attended) it was a very beneficial, productive day, and I'm very happy to have gone. The information was top notch and well presented, and (as Mark Relph mentioned in the comments) there was the benefit of the free copy of SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition (you also get VS2005 Standard Edition, but most devs already have a development-legal copy of a better version of that via MSDN. The SQL Server can actually be used in production, or so I am led to believe). I'm writing this as someone who has been using Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 in various incarnations for quite a long time - I've actually given corporate presentations on the benefits that SQL Server 2005 brings to the table. Nonetheless, I still found the session very valuable.
As always, they gave out pens and notepads. Why are the branded pens they give out at these sorts of events always the cheapest, worst pens that money can buy (or maybe that you don't even need money to buy)? I realize that the obvious answer is "because they're cheaper", but I really think that's the wrong place to save money. When I'm sitting there looking at your branding on a pen, and it's tearing through paper with its rusted, cubical, ultra-cheap nib, it rubs off poorly on your brand: I'm correlating something cheap and shoddy with your brand. Pony up for some nice gel pens or something.
All of these pictures were shot on a little P&S Sony DSC-P150, and to avoid being a jerk they were all shot with the flash disabled. It's remarkable that most of them turned out as well as they did (I've gotten good at being remarkably still when taking the shot). I didn't want to be a pretend-journo with the digital SLR, though the ISO 1600 and much brighter lens would have been very beneficial in this environment.
It is amazing how long it takes to drive anywhere in Toronto. Given that the Launch Tour here in town was hosted beside the airport, driving was the only real option (versus being at the TO convention center, which would have been a much more convenient GO commuter train ride). I left at 7:30 in the morning, and still didn't get there until 9:15am. Thankfully getting through registration and into the keynote was a breeze, and I really didn't miss anything.
