This year’s event is gearing up to be a monumental occasion as we plan to make some exciting product announcements.

Listen from some of our leading keynote speakers, including Azure Data CVP Rohan Kumar, as they share their knowledge on Microsoft’s data platform products and services, and how to stay on the edge of the changing data landscape.

Only PASS Summit gives you a unique opportunity to hear from industry leaders, as well as Microsoft product teams providing you with deep dives into data solutions.

Make sure you register ASAP and be sure to sign-up to the Data + AI sessions and clinics that are scheduled across the Summit program.

Pro-tip: access the Conference Sessions and get ready to be informed and inspired.

Pre-Conference activities

• Nov 4th: SQL Server 2019 workshop: Bob Ward will give a comprehensive hands-on experience to try all the new features in SQL Server 2019. He will lead you through a day-long workshop on how to maximize the new capabilities of SQL Server 2019. You will walk away from this workshop knowing “what Bob knows” so that you can modernize your skills with SQL Server and teach others in your community or company why SQL Server 2019 is truly a modern data platform.
• Nov 5^th: Modernize your database with Azure SQL: Several members from our Azure SQL engineering team will take you through the data estate options from Microsoft, from on-premises SQL Server to RDBMS options in Azure.

Keynote

• Nov 6^th: Join us for an exciting keynote by Azure Data CVP Rohan Kumar as he deep dives into the latest innovations on Microsoft’s data platform
• Azure Data: Unmatched price-performance and limitless capabilities wherever your data lives

Highlighted sessions

Nov 6th:

• SQL Server and Azure Data: What to use when: In this session, Bob Ward and Anna Hoffman will teach you how SQL Server is both the same and different across these platforms. You will walk away with information, guiding principles, and scenarios that will help you make informed decisions on which technology to use and when.
• Microsoft Power BI: Business Intelligence strategy, vision, and roadmap update: Join Microsoft’s Business Intelligence leadership team, Arun Ulag and Amir Netz, to get the latest information about Microsoft’s strategy, vision, and roadmap for Power BI and o check demos of the latest and greatest features in our Enterprise BI platform.

Nov 7th:

• Enabling end to end scenarios with data virtualization in SQL Server 2019: In this session James Rowland-Jones (JRJ) will showcase how to use Data virtualization, one of the most exciting features of SS2019, can be used in your data estate.
• Introducing the next-generation of analytics on Azure: Join us to learn about the latest cloud analytics innovations from Azure Data from Saveen Reddy and Priyanka Gomatam.

Nov 8th:

• Best, better, Hyperscale! The last database you will ever need in the Cloud: In this session, discover what to use and when, patterns and best practices for moving to Azure with Hyperscale from Jeroen ter Heerdt (Dutch Data Dude).
• Deep dive with data migration tools and Azure Database Migration Service (DMS): This session takes a detailed look at the migration life-cycle and demonstrates how Microsoft has made it easy to migrate SQL Server instances to Azure with near-zero downtime, presented by Charles Christian and Sreraman Narasimhan.

See you @ PASS Summit 2019!

The post Microsoft Azure Data loves PASS Summit 2019! appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

Launched in preview last year, SQL Server 2019 combines SQL Server with Apache Spark™ and Hadoop Distributed File System for a unified data platform that enables analytics and AI over all data relational and non-relational. In addition, SQL Server 2019 will deliver a comprehensive data virtualization solution that enables customers to combine data sets across multiple databases in a performant manner directly through SQL Server. SQL Server 2019 continues to deliver on its promise of delivering unparalleled security and performance across all data with new enhanced security and performance capabilities across both Windows and Linux.

Check out what’s new in the SQL Server 2019 CTP 3.1 preview documentation to learn more.

Database engine

• Graph database: This release extends the graph functionality first released in SQL Server 2017. In addition to the previously-shipped abilities to work with large graphs as nodes and edges, this release extends that capability with the initial release of the shortest path computation capability. Graph tables now support multiple filegroups which should improve performance and scale on larger graph installations.
• Encrypted query processing via the Always Encrypted with secure enclaves feature has also delivered the ability to support indexes to speed up queries running in the encrypted enclaves. This should significantly expand the set of applications which can run fully encrypted with the application owner holding the encryption key so it can’t be seen by the operator of SQL Server or Azure SQL Database. This gives users more options to run applications on untrusted hosting environments without allowing database administrators to have access to the unencrypted plaintext data stored in the database. SQL Server supports both hardware and software enclaves, so it’s possible to test this functionality without having specialized hardware available.

SQL Server big data clusters

The big data clusters feature continues to add key capabilities for its initial release in SQL Server 2019. This month, the release extends the Apache Spark™ functionality for the feature by supporting the ability to read and write to data pool external tables directly as well as a mechanism to scale compute separately from storage for compute-intensive workloads. Both enhancements should make it easier to integrate Apache Spark™ workloads into your SQL Server environment and leverage each of their strengths. Beyond Apache Spark™, this month’s release also includes machine learning extensions with MLeap where you can train a model in Apache Spark™ and then deploy it for use in SQL Server through the recently released Java extensibility functionality in SQL Server CTP 3.0. This should make it easier for data scientists to write models in Apache Spark™ and then deploy them into production SQL Server environments for both periodic training and full production against the trained model in a single environment.

Ready to learn more?

• If you want to run SQL Server 2019 CTP 3.1 in production with full support from Microsoft Support and you’re already enrolled in the Early Adoption Program (EAP), please contact your assigned Program Manager to get set up for production support.
• To get started with SQL Server 2019 CTP 3.1, you can download instructions on the SQL Server 2019 web page or use a SQL Server 2019 CTP virtual machine in Microsoft Azure.
• Watch the recent webinar on Running SQL Server on Linux and Kubernetes
• Watch this free on-demand webinar to discover how SQL Server 2019 big data clusters can help you gain business insight.

The post SQL Server 2019 community technology preview 3.1 is now available appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.

Be a part of the largest SQL Server professional gathering in Europe at SQL Bits 2019. At SQL Bits, you have the unique opportunity to meet with community leaders sharing their real world experience and Microsoft product teams providing deep insights into Microsoft data solutions.

For those attending this year, we’ve put together a quick guide below on some of the Data and AI sessions you can look forward to. Can’t wait until SQL Bits? Check out the conference sessions to get a taste of what you won’t want to miss at SQL Bits 2019.

SQL Bits is also running a promotion right now to share their love for data. Save 50% when you add an extra day using the code: welovedata

Keynote

Friday, March 1

Data Never Rests

Speaker: Buck Woody and Bob Ward

In today’s world, the growth of data is ushering in an era of rapid innovation. Microsoft’s goal is to bring the best hybrid data platform to help data professionals in building a data infrastructure that supports their organization now and into the future.  Join Buck Woody, Bob Ward, Anna Thomas, Alain Dormehl, and Adam Saxton as they demonstrate the latest advances from Microsoft across SQL Server, Azure Data Services, Business Analytics, and AI.

Pre-conference activities (training days)

Wednesday, February 27

Modernize your database with SQL Server 2019

Speaker: Bob Ward

Earlier in September, we announced SQL Server 2019 preview, the first release of SQL Server to create a unified data platform by packaging Apache Spark^TM and Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) together with SQL Server as a single, integrated solution. In this session, come join us for a deep dive into SQL Server 2019.

Building a modern database architecture with Azure

Speaker: Jes Borland

This session will review the key foundations of Azure and introduce various Azure database options like SQL Server MI, Azure SQL DB, Cosmos DB, etc.

Thursday, February 28

Microsoft SQL Server Big Data Clusters architecture

Speaker: Buck Woody

This session is a  deep dive into the concepts of big data analytics and data virtualization in SQL Server 2019. You will also learn about the architecture to enable machine learning to train your models within SQL Server 2019.

Data science from scratch with Azure Machine Learning

Speaker: Mithun Prasad

This will be a crash course to create data science solutions and apply machine learning algorithms to real world scenarios.

SELECT * FROM Azure Cosmos DB

Speaker: Theo van Kraay

This pre-conference session will provide in-depth training on Azure Cosmos DB. At the end of the training, you will be equipped to build your applications on Cosmos DB.

Deep dive into Azure Data Factory with SSIS

Speaker: Sandy Winarko

This session will focus on modernizing your extract, transform, and load (ETL) workloads with a deeper integration of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) in Azure Data Factory (ADF).

Highlighted sessions during the conference March 1st and 2nd

Inside SQL Server 2019

Speakers: Bob Ward, Buck Woody, Anna Thomas

Come learn all the new capabilities of SQL Server 2019 directly from the Microsoft engineering team.

What’s New – Query Performance Insights

Speaker: Pedro Lopes

Come and be a rockstar at troubleshooting query performance with all the latest innovations in intelligent query processing.

Hyperscale for Azure SQL DB   

Speaker: Kevin Farlee

In this session you’ll learn how the Hyperscale service tier in Azure SQL DB removes many of the practical limits traditionally seen in cloud.

A dive into the architecture that is Azure SQL DW Gen2. How does it work?

Speaker: Philip Beaumont, Neil Millington

Come learn how you can turbocharge your query performance and concurrency with a fully managed cloud data warehouse.

Getting intimate with the Power BI desktop

Speaker: Patrick LeBlanc, Adam Saxton

Join us in this session, where we will dive deep into the Power BI desktop.

Enterprise BI with Power BI Premium and SSAS

Speaker: Christian Wade

Join the two-part series to learn about the new features landing in SQL Server Analysis services and also learn how to use Power BI premium to create semantic models.

There are over 44 sessions from Microsoft data platform speakers, and we invite you to come hear from Microsoft and community experts at SQL Bits 2019.

The post Join us at SQL Bits 2019 February 27-March 2 in Manchester, UK! appeared first on Microsoft SQL Server Blog.