In a few days I’ll be heading up I-5 to Seattle for PASS Summit West, November 9–11, and I’m excited for the week ahead!
Part of that is for the event itself. PASS Summit West has a new home this year at the Hyatt Regency Seattle, with sessions, meals, the exhibit hall and evening events all under one roof. The shorter, three-day format means less running between buildings and more time for the hallway conversations that have always been the real heart of PASS.
The biggest part of the event is the people. This community has been part of my career for a long time, and every year I come home with new ideas, new friends and a reminder of why I still love this work. This year I get to give back with four sessions and a bonus event at the end of the week. Three of them circle the question I can’t stop thinking about: how do we bring AI into our databases without losing control of them?
Cleared for Takeoff: the Redgate keynote
Wednesday, November 11, 8:15–9:30 AM, Columbia Ballroom
Being part of a PASS keynote is an honor I don’t take lightly. I’ve been lucky enough to do the keynote for the last couple of years and this year, I’ll be on stage again with Steve Jones, Tushita Gupta, Chris Hawkins, James Murtagh, Shelby Vaught and Tom Hodgson for Cleared for Takeoff: Database Estate Governance and Control Alongside AI.
Most of us that will be in the ballroom aren’t managing one tidy database. We’re managing an estate with multiple platforms, half-finished cloud migrations, inconsistent processes and teams with very different skill levels. Now AI is landing on top of all of it, so our message is that you don’t have to choose between moving fast with AI and keeping control. With the right visibility and governance across the database lifecycle, you can do both, and do it with confidence.
AI;BDR: the Redgate AI Luncheon
Tuesday, November 10, 12:45–2:15 PM, Columbia Ballroom
Yes, the title is AI;BDR (AI; Because Didn’t Read), and yes, it’s based off of a twitter post that I saw. I’ll be on the panel with Kevin Feasel and Jonathan Stewart, and a luncheon makes it all the more fun. People say things over a sandwich many things they might think twice about in a formal presentation room.
We’ll be tackling the question every data team is being asked right now, such as “when is it defensible to put AI into the data layer?” and “When an AI agent or assistant queries a production database, what does it see, who invoked it, and where does that data go?” Observability, auditability and governance aren’t the exciting part of AI, but they’re the part that keeps you employed when something goes wrong. I want this to be an honest conversation about where AI is genuinely helping, where it’s being oversold, and how we make sure the people who built this industry aren’t left behind by it.
Who’s Really Logged In? Practical governance for AI
Tuesday, November 10, 4:00–5:15 PM, Room 405 Kachess
My third session, with John Martin, is where the governance conversation gets hands-on.
AI assistants and MCP servers are already connecting to production databases, often through a shared service account nobody quite remembers creating. We’ll walk through a realistic scenario where an AI’s access quietly grows beyond what anyone intended, and show the good practice at each step: giving every connecting entity its own identity, monitoring what it does, and setting security baselines. We’ll also cover the question you hope you never have to answer: after an incident, how do you work out what the AI assistant actually did?
These aren’t new problems. They’re the same identity, security and auditing questions DBAs have always handled, now moving at AI speed. That’s why I believe data professionals belong at the center of AI, not on the sidelines, and I want everyone to walk out with steps they can put in place the week they get home.
Living on a Floating Home: my Hobby Huddle
During lunch in the Community Zone on Wednesday
And then there’s the session that has nothing to do with databases at all, and more about my day-to-day lifestyle. It’s one of the new Hobby Huddles, informal mini sessions in the Community Zone where people gather over lunch to talk about life outside work.
I live on a floating home in Portland, Oregon. Whenever it comes up, the questions never end and hopefully I’ll answer some of them in this session. Does it rock? What happens in a storm? How does the plumbing work? So I’m finally giving the whole story its own session. I’ll share what floating home life is really like, the good, the surprising and the parts nobody warns you about, and why I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Community sessions like this are one of my favorite things about PASS. They remind us that we’re whole people, not just job titles, and some of the best connections I’ve made at this event started with a conversation about something other than work.
Day of Data Seattle, PG edition
When PASS wraps up, I’m not heading home just yet. On Friday, November 13, I’m staying for Day of Data Seattle, a free community event at the Seattle Public Library, with a focus on PostgreSQL this year.
My session there is about something I see more teams facing, which is how to keep your sanity when you’re migrating from SQL Server to PostgreSQL. On paper, it’s just one relational database to another. In practice, there’s so much to uncover. Unquoted identifiers fold to lowercase. T-SQL becomes PL/pgSQL. There’s no clustered index to lean on. Vacuum becomes part of your life. Habits that served you well for years suddenly work against you.
None of that makes PostgreSQL a bad choice. It’s a powerful platform with a passionate community. But a migration goes far better when you know where the surprises are before you hit them, and when you plan for the people side as much as the technical side. That’s what I want everyone to leave with: a clear map of what changes, and the reassurance that they’re not the first to find it hard.
See you in Seattle
Four sessions at PASS Summit West and a bonus day of Postgres afterward. It’s a full week, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
At this point in my career, I get to choose where I spend my time and energy. I choose this community, because it keeps choosing to show up, share what it knows and lift each other up. If you’re going to be in Seattle, come find me: at the keynote, at the lunch table, in the governance session, at the floating home talk, or on Friday with the Postgres crowd. I’d love to hear what you’re working on.
Peace Out,
~DBAKevlar
