Iron DBA - New Zealand - 2008

Mai and I got back from New Zealand last night after attending the PASS Community Connection event in Porirua (near Wellington) in New Zealand.

It was a fun weekend as always and congratulations need to go to Nathan Pitcher (PASS Chapter leader from Dunedin) for organising it in conjunction with Adrian, Dave, Amanda, Sue and all the gang from the other local chapters as well as the staff of the local polytechnic where the event was held.

Adam Cogan and I got to present the keynote and decided to have a bit of fun by creating an “Iron DBA” competition, inspired obviously by Iron Chef television program from Japan. Chairman Cogan and Chairman Low then asked the audience a series of SQL Server questions (dispelling many common myths) until we had six Iron DBA finalists. Each was then allowed to nominate someone to help them prepare a submission on how SQL Server 2008 might help in a consulting scenario we had created. Nathan had organised a great trophy to go with the prizes. It’ll now be an annual award.

All in all, it was a bunch of fun. Congratulations to the winner for 2008: David Philpott. (David is 3rd from the left, shown with the other finalists).

2008-12-08