Talking about Service Broker at SQL Saturday #101: Kansas City

I am happy to share, that SQL Saturday #101, Kansas City has offered me the opportunity to be a first time speaker! After being a first timer at the PASS Summit this year, speaking at SQL Saturday is going to be another exciting first timer activity for me this month.

A few days before the PASS summit, the good folks at SQL Saturday #101 accepted my session. I got to meet with Bill Fellows at the PASS summit and thank him for giving me this opportunity. I will be speaking about "Asynchronous programming with Service Broker" - a beginner level session. Without divulging too much detail, I am just going to say that SQL Server professionals who also happen to be Food Network fans and asynchronous messaging enthusiasts, are going to love it !

I was fascinated by Service broker, after attending Arie Jones "Getting started with Service Broker" session at SQL Saturday #82, Indianapolis earlier this year. I have been a Service broker enthusiast ever since. I found a lot of good use for service broker in a wide range of applications, learned quite a few things while setting them up and had to put out a lot of fires! Now, I am looking forward to share some my experiences.
 
I have been spending the past couple of weeks refining my slide deck, setting up a good demo, practicing my public speaking skills and bothering my colleges/SQL buddies to review my material. I am starting appreciate how much effort goes into creating a session for a such an event. Makes one wonder how the speakers at the PASS Summit manage to make it look so easy!



The session line up for SQL Saturday#101 is pretty impressive. I am definitely looking forward to a Saturday of SQL learning as well as some Kansas City Barbecue. It's only been two weeks since PASS, but I was starting to miss the SQL Server Community. If you haven't already registered for it, please register and make every effort to attend. It's only 4 days away, on 10/29. You can stay updated using the twitter hashtag #sqlsaturday101. I can assure you that it will be worth your time!

A First Timer at SQL PASS 2011

Could there be a better time to start blogging, than to share my first timer experience at the SQL PASS Summit in Seattle ? So here is my very first blog about the very best SQL Server event on this planet !

Yes, I was super excited when my boss picked me to go for the PASS Summit 2011, but nothing could really prepare me for the magnitude of the event. I was lucky enough to be able to attend a pre-con on Tuesday, so I landed in Sea-Tac on Monday evening and couldn't help but compare it to Lambert-St.Louis. Went for the networking dinner that night at Lowell's - had the best Alaskan Salmon of my life & of-course met a ton of SQL professionals.



Next up on Tuesday was my very first full day pre-con, which left my brain completely saturated with the mind-blowing new features in SQL Server 2008 R2 & 2012. The welcome reception was truly a Red Carpet event for us first timers, we literally walked in on a Red carpet !

The next 3 days of the main event were a constant buzz of activity, full of key-note speeches , sessions , vendor demos, raffles and networking events. I not only learned a ton of cool technology from the experts, but also mingled with  database professionals from Ukraine, Indonesia, Belarus, India & Netherlands ! And then there was the party at Gameworks...... I don't remember the last time I played so much Air Hockey and flight simulation !

I did manage to find some time to visit the Public market, specifically to shop at Chukar Cherries and Market Spice, where I found the most exquisite green tea. We even got to see the Occupy Wall Street rally there ! Before I knew it, four happening days had passed and it was time to head back home. I now understand why people want to keep going back to the PASS Summit year after year. I sincerely thank the SQL community for this summit .I bid farewell to all my SQL friends at the summit and I am hoping to meet some of them again at  SQLSaturday #101 in Kansas City.