WhenI visit a conference, I make it a point to try out some new things, see some new people, and perhaps find a great speaker that's worth seeing. There are a few people that are worth going to see speak that I recommend, but I've seen so many seminars and sessions that aren't good that I have to force myself to see new speakers rather than picking sessions I know will be informative.

Day 2 was a little quieter than day 1, with no keynote and lots, and lots of sessions. Even as I've retreated to the hotel to write this in the early evening, there are sessions that will continue on until almost 9pm tonight. Considering the first ones started at 8:30am, that's a long day. And one that most people take advantage of, packing in lots of learning.

Today I decided to start the day by seeing Andrew Kelley's IO and Wait Stats talk. I'd seen it on a monitor as I was leaving Tuesday night and thought it would be interesting. Andrew and I have had some good discussions in various restaurants and conferences, but I hadn't heard him speak, so this was a good opportunity. And well worth it.

I haven't done a lot of work with the IO DMVs in SQL Server 2005, mainly because I haven't needed to have systems perform highly here at SQLServerCentral.com. We've never really been IO, memory, or CPU bound with the relatively small amount of data we have and good-sized hardware. I knew that there is a lot of information available in the DMVs, but I wasn't sure exactly how this was used and if it was really something that those of us "average" DBAs would use. Andrew is a high-end, very smart and talented DBA, working with large clients, and tends to work on hard problems.

I was pleasantly surprised. Andrew does a great job presenting and he's one person I'd recommend you see at the PASS Summit, Connections, or anywhere else you can find him. I learned quite a few things and some of them I'm sure I'd be implementing next week if I had production servers to watch. From there I went to an old standby, Paul Randal of SQLSkills, who used to work on the SQL Server Storage Engine team and is a great presenter as well. Paul makes it to quite a few events, so I'd highly recommend him as well. I learned not only how to corrupt a database, but some ways to fix things, but my opinion and advice is that if you find corruption, do what I'd do: call Microsoft. Watching Paul work, I'm amazed at how little I really know about how SQL Server works.

The rest of the show for me was working the Microsoft booth, helping people walking by with questions, or passing them off to one of the very knowledgeable Microsoft developers there as well. I did see a couple of bugs found in RC0, though they were, IMHO, very minor bugs. I met some interesting people doing things with SQL Server. Someone at a gaming company, a young lady from ESPN who does SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL, someone that had a cluster with 3 instances, 2 named 2005 instances and 1 SQL 2000 that he wanted to upgrade. I was glad I wasn't in his shoes.

I had a great discussion on Diskeeper and SQL Server (I recommend don't run it) that went on for some time. A lot of people asking what's new in 2008 and so I learn a bit myself by having to explain it, or asking someone else to help me, and having them teach me as well. I also got persuaded to be on a TechNet Online panel tomorrow, which I think will be live on TechNet in the video area and probably available for download. Hopefully that goes over well, and it should be a fun experience. I get to talk about Policy Based Management, which I've used very little, but I think is a great direction for SQL Server.

Tonight is party night at TechEd, with lots of vendors giving out invitations to customers and interesting people they've met. These are usually fun and despite the party atmosphere, you'll hear some very technical arguments, err, discussions, going on. It's a chance to network, bond, and probably some of the most valuable time I've found at conferences, getting to know someone new that might bring about a long term friendship.

No great announcements I heard today, Q3 is still slated for SQL Server. If you haven't upgraded to 2005, skip it and go to 2008. If you've been testing or are ready to upgrade to 2005, I'd really consider moving future servers to 2008 instead. It's so similar to 2005, with very little changed, that it won't take much testing. A lot has been added to 2008, but you don't need to use that stuff if you're not sure about it.

TechEd is still disappointing for me this year, with about 6000 people instead of the 11,000+ there has been in the past. That many people bring crowds, connectivity issues, crowded rooms, and more, but the excitement is palpable and I wish it were that way this year.

Steve Jones

Podcasts

Once again no podcasts, though not for a lack of time. Tony has my camera doing interviews, so I'm unable to shoot any video, but look for some next week.