Since joining our company Mariano Herrera has played more than just a few roles, much like all the other Making Sensers. Here’s his story, plus his account of PASS Summit 2016. In case you’re not familiar with the world of SQL and its PASS Summit 2016, this is the event of the year for professionals and novices alike, who want to find out what’s going on in the world that revolves around the Microsoft data platform.
Mariano’s Background
Before he joined Making Sense back in 2004, Mariano had been working as a Systems Engineer at a professional digital marketing, web development and design company based in San Francisco. In 2011, after five years at Making Sense, he became a Developer and then, two years later, when the new Doppler version was released in 2013, he transitioned to DBA for that project.
For 2016, a major highlight for Mariano was that he was able to attend the PASS Summit event.
Notes From PASS Summit 2016
This year’s PASS Summit took place in Seattle, Washington in the U.S. There were two days of pre-conference events from October 24 to 25, followed by two full days of conference sessions, 17 in all. You can see the full schedule here.
There were several sessions covering Data Base areas, on topics such as:
- Application & Database Development
- BI Information Delivery
- BI Architecture
- Development & Administration
- Enterprise Database Administration & Deployment
- Professional Development
Drones
One of the most popular keynotes covered the many ways in which analyzing data can be beneficial.
For example there’s an electricity company that has put drones to work troubleshooting cable problems. These drones, powered by machine learning techniques, make possible great leaps forward in efficiency. Any time they can avoid having to send a person out to check problematic lighting towers and cables, they’re saving time and money.
Data Warehouse in the Cloud
Another keynote offered a fascinating comparison of the different options for implementing a data warehouse, showing and contrasting the techniques used for the main tools (Microsoft’s SQL Data Warehouse, Amazon Redshift, Databricks y Snowflake Elastic Data Warehouse)
R Language
Making an appearance in several sessions was the R Language. This is a language that is now integrated with SQL Server 2016 and is used to perform graphic charts. Now that it’s being integrated with SQL, we’ll keep an eye out to see what happens and analyze how we can make good use of it.
Showroom & SQL Clinic
The event also had a showroom with different companies who were there to promote management, maintenance and database hardware: SQL Sentry, ScanDisk, Dell, Hewlett Packard, etc.
Finally, there was an extremely useful SQL CLinic where Microsoft representatives answered questions and helped solve problems.
Conclusion
When he’s not attending summits and learning the latest trends in the SQL world, Marinano enjoys catching a movie once in a while. He also enjoys some select TV series, but what really puts meaning in his day is playing with his daughter.
You can connect with Mariano on LinkedIn.