{"id":2033,"date":"2013-09-12T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-12T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2024-01-22T22:49:10","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T06:49:10","slug":"lets-talk-pass-summit-with-microsofts-conor-cunningham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/sql-server\/blog\/2013\/09\/12\/lets-talk-pass-summit-with-microsofts-conor-cunningham\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Talk PASS Summit with Microsoft\u2019s Conor Cunningham"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you know, the SQL Server event of the year, PASS Summit<\/a>, is coming to Charlotte, North Carolina this October.\u00a0 The event promises a range of top notch training and networking opportunities that are designed to take your SQL Server skills to the next level.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Conor<\/a>In today\u2019s post, we are excited to present this interview with Conor Cunningham, a principal software architect at Microsoft on the SQL Server Query Processor Team about the Summit.\u00a0 He’s worked on database technologies for Microsoft for over 10 years and holds numerous patents related to query optimization and query processing. Conor is the author of a number of peer-reviewed articles on query optimization techniques. Recently, he wrote a chapter for the book “Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Internals” on how the query optimizer works. He also publishes a blog called “<\/span>Conor vs. SQL<\/span>“, where he answers questions about databases.<\/span><\/p>\n

Please read on to hear more from Conor Cunningham on PASS Summit, and be sure to include Conor\u2019s sessions on your PASS agenda: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>SQLCAT: Windows Azure Data Platform Technical Immersion Day<\/span><\/a> (Cloud Application Development & Deployment)
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>OLTP Sharding Techniques for Massive Scale<\/span><\/a> (Enterprise Database Administration & Deployment) <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Tell us about your current role and why you are excited about the Windows Azure Data Platform?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I am an architect for the SQL team, which effectively means I help make the whole service \u201cwork\u201d.\u00a0 Sometimes that means working with engineering teams to design specific extensions to the software.\u00a0 Other times, this means working with big customers on hard problems to creatively find solutions to problems that we haven\u2019t yet officially added features to solve in the service.\u00a0\u00a0 I get to work on a wide range of problems every day, and it is both challenging and fun.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Azure Data Platform is compelling because there we rarely have opportunities for large changes in the industry.\u00a0 Cloud computing forces us to re-think design assumptions and to aggressively try new ideas.\u00a0 I go to work each day knowing that Microsoft is serious about being a major player in the space, and getting a chance to help grow a new business is a huge opportunity.\u00a0 This kind of change only happens every 20 years or so, and many people in the industry have never had a chance to work on something like this.\u00a0 Every day, I have to learn something new, and it\u2019s rare to find a job where I get paid to work on cool problems and solve new problems each and every day!<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Is this your first PASS Summit?\u00a0 What are you most looking forward to in Charlotte?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been going to PASS for enough years that I honestly don\u2019t really remember how many I\u2019ve attended now.\u00a0 PASS is a great chance to have people from the SQL team talk directly to customers and learn what they are doing.\u00a0 To me, I always make a point of trying to go have lunch with a random table of people I don\u2019t know and just ask them what they do with our software.\u00a0 I learn a lot of things doing this, and it helps me calibrate my work when I go back to building future services to have specific use cases which I can use to tune the software.\u00a0 PASS Summit brings the largest collection of members of our community together, and the resulting energy is great for me \u2013 On the days where perhaps I am a little tired or worn down by a problem, I really love reflecting on the customer cases to focus my energy to make better software.\u00a0\u00a0 On a personal level, I am a big fan of BBQ and I am very interested in trying some in Charlotte.<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: What topics are you planning to cover in your Windows Azure deep-dive pre-con and sharding sessions at PASS Summit?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The pre-con idea is a result of some discussions that I had with the Customer Advisory Team (CAT) over the past year or two as we were working on some of the first big customers migrating to our cloud platform.\u00a0 We had a lot of lessons learned and war stories, and we wanted to find a new way to present that material in a format that would jump start the platform a bit.\u00a0 We came up with this idea to do a set of sessions where Microsoft rolled up the best practices from the people who had done the actual implementations, and then go out and spend a full day teaching people all of the key techniques we use to build a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) ISV.\u00a0 It takes more than 60-90 minutes to really go deep on the material, and often having a slightly smaller room where you can take more questions helps people get engaged and take more out of the session.\u00a0 The key material will cover techniques for how to build a solution on a range of services, how to architect solutions for scale and to be resilient to failure, concepts that are more critical in cloud models like building telemetry systems and dashboards, and working with people to understand how to think about scale-out architectures instead of scale-up architectures (which is more common in the SQL Server model).\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The sharding talk I will do is related to the pre-con, but I will be doing that one by myself and I will go deep on the key patterns and practices that are used to set up your data model for scale-out architectures.\u00a0 I get to work with the largest customers with some of the biggest scaling requirements, and one thing I\u2019ve found over the past few years is that not everyone immediately sees the power of what they can do with a sharding model and specifically they can make mistakes in how they design the core pieces.\u00a0 Getting those early design choices right can make or break a project, and I aim to go through how to think about the design of sharding models such that you can achieve maximum uptime, perform granular live updates to a service, and allow your system to scale almost arbitrarily for whatever big problem you want to solve.<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: What are the 3 biggest things you want your pre-con attendees to walk away with?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Attendees of our pre-con should be able to leave that day with a great understanding of how to:<\/span><\/p>\n