April 10, 2011
SQLBits – the aftermath
Just got back from SQLBits – it really was a brilliant conference, so thanks to everyone who organised it, and all the speakers who generously shared their knowledge. I learned something from almost all of the talks, but there were some particular highlights…. Marco Russo made an incredibly compelling case for the BI Semantic Model (BISM) which is going to form a major part of the next release of analysis services, and I think I’m going to need to start learning DAX in earnest! His talk on SSAS best practice was also really useful. Jess Meat’s talk on Microsoft BI was good fun too, and I didn’t realise that Visio 2010 can connect up to data and be used to build simple dashboards! I’m going to have to have a play with that when I’m back in the office. Allan Mitchell also gave a super talk on StreamInsight – it’s a technology with such potential, I’m sure it’s going to be re-writing the rulebook on real-time dashboarding very shortly. The schedule was pretty packed, so I couldn’t go to all of the talks I wanted to see….. But thankfully the kind organisers will be putting videos of all of the talks up on their website for free!
I met up with my favourite DBA Richard Munn (perhaps better known as SQLMunkee!) while I was there too, and he has inadvertently given me an idea to make a particularly troublesome report run faster – I’m going to try pulling the data into the report by way of an SSIS package! That’s the great thing about these community events – everyone there has interesting tricks and valuable experience to share, and even going to the bar is an educational experience! I’ll let you know what happens to my report….
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