My Final SQL Server Presentations (until further Notice)
As my regular readers have noticed, activity on my blog has slowed down lately. My new job at Livedrive is keeping me very busy and excited. It’s the opportunity I have been looking for: right in the middle of the Open Source vs. Microsoft cloud battle (and in a hectic development environment). I am greatly enjoying myself in this space.
However, I have precious little time to blog about SQL Server. And quite frankly, by now I feel there isn’t much more left for me to say on this subject. The time has come for me to move on to other subject areas and master new skills.
How will this affect my public speaking appearances?
Conferences
For those of you who have been regular attendees to my public speaking, I am happy to say I will be doing two (maybe three) final SQL Server conference appearances.
These will be:
- SQL Rally Nordics (4th to 5th November) – It is fitting that I end on a Nordic note – in my home countries. At this conference, I also have the pleasure of co-presenting with Adam Machanic during our Optimiser session and with Davide Mauri for the Data Warehousing Course.
- SQL Rally Amsterdam (8th November) – Another area of the world where I have made many friends during my time with SQL Server. I will be repeating the session with Adam here.
- SQL Bits (?) – Assuming the arrangers will let me, I will probably do one final guest appearance at SQL Bits as a presenter. It’s a conference that has supported me ever since it started and I feel honoured to have been a part of the SQLBits story.
Courses
I will continue to run my courses, both the performance tuning one and the data modeling course. These are subjects that are very dear to me and an area where I am still expanding my skills. The two courses planned are:
- Data Warehouse Modeling – During SQL Rally Nordics
- Tuning Course (10th October 2014) – With Technitrain
Just how regular those courses will be is unknown at this point. There are still seats available on the two above. SQL Rally Nordics is getting quite busy though – so hurry up if you want a spot.
Thank you
It’s a bit sad to end and era with SQL Server. But I am happy to have met so many talented people and made good friends along the way. I am grateful for all the opportunities that have been given to me and for the people who have put up with my crazy experiments along the way.
I am at journey’s end with SQL Server – its time to climb the next mountain.
PS: Livedrive are looking for rock star C#/C++ programmers, SQL Server and mySQL DBAs. We are growing at an incredible rate and you will have to work with some extremely challenging databases. If I got your interest and you think you can handle it – send me an email.
Thomas Kejser's Database Blog 
Thank you for all the posts, talks & insight over the years, they’ve been invaluable. Good luck with your next challenges.
Wow, that’s a big one coming from you. Your explorations in SQL Server have always been a great source of inspiration, and you’ve been a consistent highlight at SQLBits over the years. Still, it’s good to be reminded that one doesn’t need to remain married to one piece of technology, and I’m sure you will scale (no pun intended) higher peaks in future. I’ll be watching this space.
Thomas,
It will be sad to see you depart the SQL community, however I guess everyone has to move on.
Secondly, with respect I would say there is still a lot to say about SQL Server scalability and performance:
– the exact tipping point as you move from SAN, to NAS to Ssd to PCIe at which the pergormance benefits of compression go backwards.
– Whether PCIe flash is better deployed as a buffer pool extension or as primary storage and the differences in code paths as viewed through xperf stack traces
– The breaking point for // ism scalabity with batch mode.
Thirdly, being a CTO cant be that hard, all you need to know about being a senior management type can be learned from watched “The office”.
Finally, give me a shout when you are available for a get together.
Chris
Hi Chris
These are subjects that I can now let others explore. I think that the Grade of the Steel idea has taken root in the community 🙂
On the flash work: our new code bases that evolve faster than SQL server shall provide plenty of proving ground for the next generation of storage
Thanks for all the great content you’ve given the community, and good luck with your next challenges.
Thanks for sharing the time you had on SQL Server. I faced a similar challenge 18 months ago (Hadoop vs. SQL Server) and for now have chosen to spend my time with the elephant 😉
Good luck to you!
always a pleasure, sewe you on the next frontier!
Thomas, I’ve already posted, but thanks for your contribution to the community. Regarding the comment aboput putting up with your crazy experiments, I’m sure that the “Crazy experiment” pipeline has not dried up . . . .