The lineup for the PASS Data Community Summit is out, and in addition to my pre-conference workshop on Mastering Parameter Sniffing, I’m also teaching two sessions:

Everything You Know About Parallelism Is Wrong. Just because you see parallelism icons on execution plans doesn’t mean the query went parallel. SQL Server doesn’t load-balance work across CPU cores. CXPACKET isn’t a problem you fix by changing MAXDOP. Hell, even the term “MAXDOP” doesn’t mean what people think it means. It’s not that SQL Server’s parallelism is bad, it’s just not what you think it is.

Fragmentation Explained in 10 Minutes. Short, fast-paced lightning talks require difficult choices for presenters. If things go even the slightest bit off the rails, you are completely screwed. You have to viciously edit down your material to get the right points across, and no more than that. Then, you have to rehearse, rehearse, rehearse to get the timing right. The last lightning talk I did at PASS, I was wearing a Bob Dylan costume, a wig, and a harmonica. This year, no costumes – just aiming for ambitious delivery.

I’m really excited because I still think of the PASS Summit as the best-of-the-best, the place where the sharpest presenters show their top work. I wanna bring my A-game to this premier event, and I’m so psyched to share it with you.

See you in Seattle!