Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world. Its mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft helps you move to the cloud on your terms, maximizing existing IT investments while offering flexibility to meet evolving business needs. Microsoft provides tools and services for developers to plan, build, and deploy modern applications across any technology, language, or platform.

Microsoft join PASS Data Community Summit as Sapphire sponsor

Once again, Microsoft and the team will be back in the exhibit hall for this year’s PASS Data Community Summit, taking place from 4 – 8 November 2024. 

Hear from Principal Architect, Bob Ward, on why PASS Summit is so important to Microsoft and the data community here.

Bob Ward, Anna Hoffman and Muazma Zahid will be presenting a pre-con on Tuesday, November 5, “The SQL AI Workshop”. Additionally, Bob Ward will be presenting a ‘Brain melting’ 75-minute session “Inside the SQL Server Transaction Log” during the main conference.

This year you’ll be able to learn from multiple Microsoft experts in the Learning Pathway: Becoming an Azure SQL DBA – Advancing the Role of the On-premises SQL Server DBA. Hear from Dr. Dani Ljepava, Niko Neugebauer, Erin Stellato and Bob Ward in their recent video on the PASS TV YouTube Channel.

The full list of Microsoft’s sessions, including their Wednesday morning keynote and breakfast sessions, will be announced shortly. You’ll then be able to find out which experts will be sharing their knowledge on-site, and who you’ll be able to connect with in-person.

More sponsors will be announced in the run up to PASS Summit this November, to see the current list of 2024 sponsors, please visit the sponsor page. 

Meet the team behind PASS Summit

In this blog post, we’d like to introduce the main Event Crew who are working on PASS Summit this year.  

We believe we do our best work in teams, and we thrive on having a group of people who bring different perspectives and experiences. Ultimately, the team aims to ensure all PASS Summit attendees (including speakers and sponsors) have an incredible experience. We love working with the data community and sharing our passion for learning and development in this rapidly changing world. 

Here’s the 2024 PASS Summit Event Crew and a quick summary of their roles on-site:

• Al Shuler – Al will oversee the load-in and set up of the exhibit hall, ensuring every square inch of the hall perfectly aligns with our latest floor plan. You may recognize Al’s dulcet tones as he does the morning voiceover for the keynotes, and he is the MC for the raffles held in the exhibit hall. You’ll likely find Al by the Exhibitor Help Desk alongside Craig, Dylan and Sanj throughout the week.
• Amy Watson – Amy will work closely with Thy on marketing communications, helping to ensure attendees know what’s going on, and when. When she’s not busy behind-the-scenes, Amy’s looking forward to connecting with lots of attendees in-person to see how you’re all finding the conference. 

• Anika Poliseno – Anika is the glue that holds the entire event together! Anika will be working closely with the PASS Summit Event Crew, along with our partners, suppliers and vendors to ensure everything runs smoothly. She’s relishing the opportunity to tackle the challenges that may come her way when working in a new building. 

• Annabel Bradford – Annabel will be overseeing the PASS Summit Event Crew and supporting the Redgate Booth Crew in the exhibit hall. She’s looking forward to re-connecting with the data community this year, and meeting lots of new faces. Her number one priority is making sure that PASS Summit is an incredible event, year in and year out, for all involved. 

• Cara Creek – As our dedicated Code of Conduct Officer, Cara will be on-site to make sure everyone feels safe and comfortable. Cara is looking forward to supporting her fellow Redgate Crew in making the event a success and being energized by the positive atmosphere created by everyone on-site.
• Craig Ellis – Craig will be supporting our key sponsors and partners on-site, and you’ll likely see him enjoying the buzz in the exhibit hall with Dylan and Sanj. Craig’s already looking forward to helping announce the winners for the Expo Expedition on the last day of the conference.  

• Dave Convery – Dave is our website wizard! Dave will be busy working behind-the-scenes to resolve any technical issues. Along with our third-parties, he’ll be on hand to make sure the PASS Summit website and livestream all run smoothly.   

• Dylan Harding – Dylan will be on hand to ensure things are running smoothly for our sponsors and partners in the exhibit hall and to answer any questions around sponsorship opportunities at PASS Summit. You’ll likely spot him with Craig and Sanj at the Exhibitor Help Desk, and this year he is excited to be in our beautiful new home at Summit, SCC, Seattle!

• Fergus Reed – Fergus is excited to be attending PASS Summit for the very first time this year! He’s looking forward to meeting the data community in person, and he’ll be on-hand to support our on-site volunteers throughout the week. 

• Ghalia Al-Ghoul – Ghalia will be coordinating logistics and operations for the event, ensuring everything’s in place and where it needs to be. 

• Jess Hume – Jess is the point person for anything to do with design and graphics on-site, supporting the Event Crew with numerous requests, and helping to ensure everything looks aesthetically pleasing. Jess works closely with vendors, production, and Pat to help bring the PASS Summit design and branding to life on-site.

• Kirsty Roper – You’ll find Kirsty and Louise organizing talks and answering attendee questions in the Community Zone. Kirsty loves making sure that the Community Zone is a great space that offers something for everyone, whether you’re looking to network informally, join a session or simply sit down, relax, and catch up on emails for a little while!
• Louise Domeisen – You’ll find Louise and Kirsty in the Community Zone, making sure attendees are having the best time at the unofficial ‘home of the hallway track’. Whether that’s listening to a Community Conversations talk, connecting with friends old and new, or chilling out between sessions on the infamous bean bags. 

• Marcella McKeown – Marcella is our program maestro! After working all year with our Program Committee volunteers, Marcella will oversee the final schedule, sessions, and speakers this fall.

• Nik von Schulmann – Nik is our Director of Production and has been working with the Community and PASS Summit since 2007. He ensures that all technical production, including audio, lighting, video, internet, recording and on-demand viewing, run flawlessly. Nik also show calls and leads the keynote production.

• PASS Summit Registration Team – Ok, so we’re calling out a team here rather than an individual, but some of the very first Event Crew you’ll come across when you enter the building are the PASS Summit Registration Team. They’ll be on hand throughout the week to help you check in, collect your badge and attendee gift, and of course help answer any questions you might have.    

• Pat Lima – Pat has designed all branding for PASS Summit 2024, she really deserves all the praise! Whether it’s signage, badges, or videos, you’ll see Pat’s beautiful designs everywhere you go on-site. She’ll be working with Sneh to deliver intro videos each morning prior to the keynote (using some of the incredible footage taken the previous day). 

• Sanj Gandham – Sanj will ensure everything runs smoothly for our Sponsors and Exhibitors in the exhibit hall during set–up and the conference itself. You’ll likely see Sanj by the Exhibitor Help Desk along with Dylan and Craig. 

• Sneh Zaveri – Sneh manages the PASS Data Community Summit and Redgate brands, leading the team to ensure a seamless experience both before and after the event, as well as during week of the event. Sneh collaborates closely with Tom, Pat, and Dave to oversee the event, branding, and the successful delivery of the Redgate keynote. Additionally, Sneh coordinates with suppliers to provide on-site photography and videography, ensuring that high-quality footage of each day’s activities is produced in less than 24 hours! 

• Thy Pham – Thy will be working closely with Amy to make sure attendees are kept up-to-date with what’s taking place on-site, delivering messages across email, social media and the conference app.

• Tom Russell – Tom heads up the teams responsible for organizing PASS Summit from end-to-end, from the website right down to crewing on the day. He’ll be busy behind-the-scenes for most of the conference, helping to make sure that the event and key elements, such as the keynotes, run smoothly.

There will likely be some people here you recognize, and possibly some you don’t. The team come from a wide range of backgrounds, some of whom are relatively new to the conference, and some of whom bring many years’ worth of experience having formerly worked with the previous P.A.S.S Association.  Our combined experience helps us draw on the event’s rich heritage, whilst ensuring we deliver something that continues to evolve with the changing needs of the data community. 

If you see us around the venue (we’ll be wearing Event Crew T-shirts), please do come and say hello. We love to connect with the community in-person each year. We’ll be on hand to ensure PASS Summit is a brilliant conference and a safe space for the global data community to connect, share and learn with one another.   

The core organizing team are by no means an island, so this isn’t an exhaustive list of everyone involved! We’d like to say a big thank you to our colleagues at Redgate (some of whom you’ll see in the exhibit hall in Redgate T-shirts), as well as our partners, volunteers, suppliers, speakers and sponsors. We couldn’t do this event with you, your hard work and your expertise!  

Last, but by no means least, we’d like to thank you – the data community – for making this conference such a rewarding event to work on. We look forward to seeing you all this November!  

Amplify Your Voice: Strategies for Visibility and Influence at Work

By Jes Chapman

 

 

My first PASS Summit was in 2011. I was beyond excited to be there. I participated in every event I could, from the photo walk and #sqlrun to the welcome reception and every keynote. I distinctly remember that I had the honor of moderating the WIT luncheon panel that year. Over the years I’ve make a point to attend, live-blog, and ask questions of the panelists and presenters. It’s one of my favorite events, highlighting the amazing women we have in our community and all of the allies that support us.

This year, I’m delighted to be returning to the WIT luncheon to present on a topic I’m very passionate about: how to be visible in your career!

You do great work, and you are the only person that knows everything you do and the impact it has. How can you make sure that your manager, your leadership, and even potential employers or customers know about it? I’m going to help you create a strategy to do just that. There are three main building blocks I’ll delve into:

• Building and maintaining a network, both inside and outside of your employer. This includes mentors and sponsors.
• Creating a system to document the great work you’ve done, the recognition you’ve received for it, and sharing it.
• Developing strategies to work through impostor syndrome (it strikes us all!) and learn from failures.

In my career, I started as a help desk technician at a small ISP with no college degree, decided to focus on data, pivoted into consulting, and am currently working as a cloud solution architect at Microsoft. The common thread I’ve had is being able to articulate the knowledge I have, the results I’ve produced, and what I want next at work. I want to help everyone who attends this keynote have the same power in their career!

 

August’s Sponsor of the Month: AWS

By Frank Wang, AWS

Let’s welcome AWS as our August Sponsor of the Month! Here Frank explains the long-standing relationship AWS has with PASS Summit, and the educational content their team will be bringing to this year’s event. 

AWS is thrilled to announce our presence at PASS Data Community Summit 2024 as a Platinum sponsor. This year, we continue our tradition of empowering organizations with the best of both worlds—the robust capabilities of migrating & modernizing SQL Server and the limitless potential of AWS, the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud. Since 2008 and longer than anyone else, AWS has been at the forefront of helping hundreds of thousands of customers transition their SQL Server workloads to the cloud, offering optimized price performance, license flexibility, ease of use, unmatched reliability and security, and unparalleled innovation. 

As organizations continue to embrace cloud computing, the need to migrate and run mission-critical  SQL Server workloads in the cloud has become increasingly prevalent. When it comes to finding the right cloud provider to host and transform your SQL Server workloads, Amazon Web Services (AWS) stands out as the clear leader. A recently-released IDC Infobrief – Running SQL Server Workloads in the Cloud – reports that a clear majority of Microsoft SQL Server users chose AWS as their primary cloud provider when polled. In fact, data shows AWS is the top cloud provider of choice (52%) – more than the next six cloud providers combined. 

At AWS, our commitment to advancing data management and cloud computing remains unwavering. We understand that data is growing faster than ever, posing challenges in extracting value. That’s why we’re dedicated to helping customers build modern data strategies that enable them to manage, act on, and react to data, making better decisions, responding faster, and uncovering new opportunities. With the most reliable, scalable, and secure cloud, and the most comprehensive set of services and solutions, AWS is the best place to transform your data into insights. 

Our long-standing relationship with PASS Data Community Summit has allowed us to witness the incredible growth and innovation within the community.

This year, we are excited to continue to bring our educational content to the community, including technical breakout sessions, in-booth deep dive sessions, demos, and customer success stories. Our goal is to share our extensive experience in migrating and transforming SQL Server workloads to the cloud, along with the latest advancements in databases, infrastructure, and analytics. 

We have helped businesses of all sizes, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, leverage SQL Server on AWS to drive their digital transformations. Companies like BMW, NASDAQ, ADP, and United Airlines have all benefited from our innovative solutions, optimizing their operations and unlocking new insights from their data. Our continued focus on innovation ensures that as technology evolves and data continues to grow, we remain at the forefront, providing you with the tools and services needed to embrace the future of data management with confidence. 

As we approach PASS Data Community Summit 2024, we want to express our profound gratitude to the PASS Data Community members, our customers, and partners for their trust and collaboration. Your feedback and successes drive us to continuously improve and innovate. Join us in Seattle to connect with AWS experts, learn about our latest offerings, and celebrate our journey together. Let’s make this year’s PASS Summit an unforgettable experience! 

 

Sponsor Success Stories