Join Me at PASS Summit 2016

It seems like it was just yesterday that we all said goodbye in Seattle at last year’s PASS Summit, but the calendar on the wall says that the next event is a mere four months away. This means that it’s that time of year again: the schedule of sessions has been published.

I am happy to announce that I’ll be presenting at PASS Summit 2016 this year. This will be my fifth consecutive Summit as a presenter, but it’s no less exciting – and is certainly still as much of an honor – as the first time.

This year I will be presenting two sessions:

Deep Dive into the SSIS Catalog (General Session – 75 Minutes)

The SSIS catalog is one of the best-evolved features in the SQL Server Integration Services ecosystem. With integrated package storage, Windows ACL-like security settings, built-in logging, and many other features, the SSIS catalog has become an anchor for many ETL architectures. With all this complexity, it is important to understand the inner workings of the SSIS catalog to keep it running smoothly.

In this demo-heavy presentation, we will dive into the details of the SSIS catalog. We will start with a quick survey of catalog features, followed by an exploration of the moving parts (tables, views, and stored procedures) in the catalog database. We will also review the security capabilities in the catalog, and will discuss maintenance operations. Finally, we’ll walk through the mechanics of deployment and execution, reviewing what happens under the covers during these operations.

A Crash Course in Biml (Half Day Session – 3 Hours)

Biml (Business Intelligence Markup Language) is one of the most compelling evolutions of the SSIS development ecosystem. Biml allows SSIS developers to create (or regenerate) dozens, or even hundreds, of SSIS packages with minimal effort. For those working with SSIS, Biml is nothing short of a game-changer.

In this half-day session, we will fully explore how Biml can help you with your SSIS development. We will review what Biml is, walking through the language basics and showing how it fits into your existing SSIS development environment. Once we’ve covered those basics, we will work through several increasingly complex examples to show how Biml can be used to generate, in a matter of minutes, packages that would have otherwise taken days if not weeks.

There are two types of SSIS developers: Those using Biml, and those who will soon be. This session will help you to get started with Biml, and put you ahead of your peers in this revolutionary technology.

I’m very much looking forward to the entire Summit experience, as a presenter as well as an attendee. If you have never been to Summit before (or if you haven’t yet received approval to go this year), check out this post by Grant Fritchey which enumerates many of the benefits of attending, which you can use to help convince your boss that Summit is a good investment. It’s a fantastic experience and a great way to build your skills as well as your network. I hope to see you there!

Photo credit: Howard Ignatius (Creative Commons)