Maxx Dopp here. This is the last day of TechEd, and people are already leaving to fly home, and things are winding down.

Yesterday, when the vendor section ended at 3:00 PM, within a few seconds of making the closing announcement, convention center staff were literally beginning to rip off the carpeting on the floor, even before the vendors could clean up their booths. I have never seen such a highly organized effort. If only IT professionals were so efficient, it would be a much more productive world.

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One thing I noticed in the “Ask the Experts” area today is that the level of questions were more complex than previous days. We seemed to have more seasoned DBAs come over instead of novice DBAs. I guess the novices go home early and the professionals stay around until the last moment to absorb everything they can.

And even better deal today was the discounts at the TechEd store. Everything was 20%-50% off the regular prices. I scored some great bargains. If you attend TechEd in the future, keep this in mind. Wait until Friday to buy anything. There seemed to be plenty of stock.

Last night was the TechEd party of Universal’s Island of Adventure. As expected, it did rain some, but only for a short time. Even for a closed party, the park was very busy. Many of the rides had over an hour wait. In any event, it was a nice break from the grind of attending sessions.

As this is my first TechEd, I want to make a comment as the value of TechEd to DBAs. I have attended SQL PASS and SQL Connection conferences, and each has their niche. If you are a solid, card-carrying admin DBA, then PASS is the must conference to attend. If you lean more toward to developer side of database administration, then SQL Connections, with its associated .NET sessions, is a good bet. On the other hand, TechEd is more geared to IT professionals specializing in infrastructure, with a mix of DBA and developer topics.

So if you are a full-time DBA, with a limited travel budget, I would attend PASS first, SQL Connections second, and TechEd last.

Maxx

3:00 PM Orlando, FL

Friday, June 08, 2007