TechEd Wrap up
I am writing this from Orlando airport waiting for my flight (and hoping that the effects of the approaching storm doesn't delay the flight).
Today we finished the last of our 3 sessions. We (Ashvini and I) delivered sessions on:
- Loading a Data Wareshouse using SSIS
- Deploying and Managing SSIS
- SSIS Scalability and Perfromance
All three sessions went off quite well with a lot of nice feedback (both verbally and written in the evaluations) from attendees. It was really nice to be able to show and talk about the product to such a large number of people and listen to their questions and feedback. As I look back at the past 5 days, it is pretty clear that there is a great deal of curiosity and excitment around SSIS. Every day many people came up to me and said that they were excited to see and in many cases use the product. As the conference went on, this number kept increasing. Our informal "cabana" talks were pretty much packed. I had not anticiated this sort of attendance in these talks and had only planned for a simle Q&A with a few customers. I loved the format though. A few chairs, a hand-held mike and a flip chart was all we had, instead of the huge rooms and bright lights of the formal sessions. We did have a large flat screen monitor to show demos (and show demos we did), but the setting was much more intimate. My favorite moment was when some one asked "How does SSIS compare to products like Informatica, Ascential etc. ?". I just could resist and launched into (in retrospect) a bit too forceful description of the advantages of SSIS, beyond the obvious cost effectiveness. I am not sure I could have done the same during the larger sessions.
In addition to our sessions, there was the "BI Power Hour" where Bill Baker was the master of ceremonies for an incredible array of demos from all parts of the SQL BI paltform (AS, IS, RS and NS). Donald did the SSIS demos with his usual wit and preence. This was quite a session. It went at a breakneck pace, with the rest of us (from the BI team) throwing t-shirts, frisbees and beach balls into the audience. The audience loved it and very vocally showed their appreciation.
It was very gratifying to talk to the attendees and answer their questions and hear about their experiences, scenarios, concerns, feedback etc. The energy from such a large number of people is palpable and the buzz around SSIS was unmistakable. To me this buzz made this TechEd one of the best conferences I have been too. Extremely tiring and demanding, but still worth it.