In 2018, I entered Speaker Idol at the PASS Summit, and because I forgot to start my timer I was disqualified for running over the five-minute limit (say “five-minute limit” fast ten times in a row). I also took part in promotion for a book my friend Melody spearheaded, where all proceeds went to charity.
In 2019, I was accepted to present the third session of the Linux learning pathway, along with Hamish Watson (blog | Twitter) and Kellyn Pot’Vin-Gorman (blog | Twitter). Additionally, I was selected to present a session on backups for people who aren’t data professionals. Two sessions at Summit! Amazing!
Now it’s 2020, and this time I have been selected to present a pre-con. For those of you who don’t know what that is, a pre-conference session is a paid half-day or full-day session prior to the main event, usually in a classroom environment. That means — assuming we all survive COVID-19 — you will pay me to teach you about SQL Server on Linux from A to Z from the comfort of your own laptop.
My plan is to get you started with a plain old virtual machine running a version of Ubuntu that SQL Server can use, and go from there (ideally it’ll be in the Azure cloud so you won’t have to do anything fancy on your laptop except open a web browser). It’s like setting up a Windows Server the right way to run SQL Server, except it’ll be on Linux! Then we’ll get into installation, configuration, and management of SQL Server on your new virtual machine.
As Docker containers are based on Linux, I’ll cover those as well and explain how they’re different, but mostly how they’re the same. It’s just SQL Server after all.
There are some challenges around making the PASS Summit into a virtual conference (and given the pandemic, that is a very real possibility), not the least of which is that most people will be watching me on the same screen they’ll be trying to copy and paste command-line instructions on, so I will try to keep that in mind as I flesh out the coursework.
Register on the PASS website now to get a chance to learn what’s new in the Microsoft Data Platform, and I’d love to see you at my pre-con.