Monthly Archives: November 2009

Are You a Giver or a Taker?

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I have been involved in the SQL Server community since 2000, and during the past nine years I have seen hundreds of volunteers donate large amounts of their time to the community. For example:

  • DBAs who answer tens of thousands of questions on SQL Server news groups and forums.
  • DBAs who write blogs and articles for no pay.
  • DBAs who volunteer for the PASS Community Summit. Most Summit attendees don’t realize the thousands of hours that are donated to putting the conference together.
  • DBAs who volunteer to run their local users group.
  • DBAs who volunteer to organize local events, such as SQL Saturdays, TechFests, CodeCamps, among other similar events.
  • DBAs who volunteer their time to speak at local, national, and international events, often spending their own money out of pocket to attend.
  • DBAs who volunteer to mentor others, whether it is someone at work or across the world.
  • SQL Server MVPs who contributed their time to write the MVP SQL Server Deep Dive book for the financial benefit of War Child International.
  • And much, much more.

There are lots of reasons DBAs volunteer their time. Some do it for the networking and camaraderie; others because it’s fun to help others, some do it to learn new skills, and others to market themselves. Whatever the personal motivation, the SQL Server community would not be what it is today without volunteers who step up and take to help others.

If you are one of those volunteers, I want to thank you personally. I have met many of you, and corresponded with many others, and I greatly appreciate your time and effort.

If you are not a volunteer, I would encourage you to give some of your time to the SQL Server community. Yes, there are lots of reasons why you might not have time to give; but there are hundreds of DBAs who do find that time, even if it means giving up their evenings and weekends to participate. Volunteering can be very rewarding, and I suggest you give it a try.

(Originally appeared in the November 30, 2009 issue of the SQLServerCentral.com Newsletter.)

Give SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP a Quick Try for Free

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You have probably heard that the SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP is available, but you may not have given it a try yet because it is such a pain to download the huge install file, find a test server to run it on, and then install it. Under the best of conditions, this is at least a 3 hour job.

Now, if you want to check out the new features of SQL Server 2008 R2 (the August 2009 CTP), you can without going through all this hassle. Instead, you can go to www.sqlserverbeta.com, create a virtual instance of the software, and try it out, all for free.

All you have to do is fill out a short registration form, and shortly thereafter, you will have your own personal instance of SQL Server 2008 R2 to play and experiment with.  So now, you don’t have any excuse to learn about, and try out for yourself, all the cool new features in R2.

This offer is sponsored by PASS, Microsoft, Dell, and MaximumASP.

Thursday at the PASS Community Summit

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The last full day of the 2009 PASS Community Summit was the first day I have had at the conference to attend sessions all day long. My day started with two keynotes. After the obligatory vendor keynote, Dr. David DeWitt presented a keynote on future trends in data and storage technology in SQL Server, which was well-received by the audience.  See Steve Jones’ blog for more information on the keynote.

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Wednesday at the PASS Community Summit

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The second day of the full PASS Summit was packed with sessions. If fact, it was hard to select from the 56 sessions that were available.

The day started with the Rushabh Mehta announcing the 2009 PASSion Awards, an annual award given by PASS to those volunteers that have given a lot of their time volunteering. This year, two awards were made. For the North American award, it was given to Allen Kinsel , who gave a lot of time volunteering for the PASS Program Committee.

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