Rick Heiges

After 2 breakout sessions so far plus a very good lunch in the exhibit hall, my brain is already starting to feel “full”.

The exhibit hall area is very lively with some neat games like PLINKO and wheel of fortune.  Already got one t-shirt and a pen plus several other little trinkets.  I love SWAG!

In the High Availability Session today by Mark Souza, Database Mirroring was the focus of the portion I attended before I was pulled away by another meeting.  The neat thing I learned here was that the other system databases like msdb could by mirrored - but  still not the master database.

Bill Baker delivered the keynote address this morning at PASS.  The BI Tools were highlighted during his speech as many improvements are coming in SQL Server 2005. 

There were 2 Demos.  One featured a new Report Generation Tools that will be available in SQL Server 2005 that is more “User Friendly” than the Reporting Services project in .NET today.  When you create a basic aggregate type of report, the system will also automatically create drill-down reports that you can click on inside the report you write.  It will most likely be available in Beta 3.

The second Demo was on Integration Services (formerly known as DTS).  The demo featured a new “wizard” to help you define slowly changing dimensions.  It took about 5 minutes to create it with the wizard!  Cool!

I am currently sitting in a session called “Operational OLAP”.  It has some neat discussion on if a data warehouse structure is needed.

I hope to blog more later today!

PASS kicked off today with 5 pre-con sessions.  I attended Trey Johnson's session on BI.  Since I do not play in this space as much, I picked up quite a few tips. 

The welcome reception went on in the main atrium of the Gaylord Palms where the main highlight was a “Quiz Show” like game.  The acoustics in there weren't very good, but everyone seemed to enjoy the game.

The good folks from SQL Server Central had a reception following the general welcome reception for anyone who registered with their promotion code.  It was a lot of fun too.  They had several XBOX consoles to give away.  In order to win one, they had a game where you had to find another person at the reception with the same number as you had on your star sticker when you came in.  It reminded me a lot of a stock trading floor scene.

It looks like it will be a good week!