July, 2013 Invitation
Please join us Wednesday July 17th, 2013 for the monthly Charlotte SQL Server User Group meeting at the local Microsoft campus (directions below).
Please RSVP here so we may plan enough food for the event. The event is free, so bring a friend and network with Charlotte’s finest SQL Server experts. If you can attend, please make an effort to introduce yourself to newcomer SQL users in the area and share stories.
Food usually starts at 5:30pm and the presentations start at 6pm and usually last until 7:45pm at the latest. Please sign in and make a name tag when you arrive so we may verify attendance and encourage networking.
Feel free to invite a friend!
Agenda
- 5:30 PM Networking with Food & Refreshments
- 6:00 PM Short Session
- 6:30 PM Long Session
- 7:30 PM Meeting End
The Short Session
Abdulwahab Suleiman, from the Microsoft Commercial Technical Support team will present a short overview of SQL Server Database Projects.
The Long Session
Mark Souza will present: Microsoft Direction for Analytics (Big Data / Cloud)
Microsoft General Manager Mark Souza will informally chat about what Microsoft is doing today and where they are going as it relates to the popular computing analytical space. Analytics (some call it BI or Big Data) is becoming the new mission critical. Expectations on making decisions are the new competitive edge so we need to do it faster, make it always available, and do it at lower cost. The cloud can play a role so we will discuss it.
Mark Souza’s style of informal discussions will give you the most information about where Microsoft is going, and he promises you will walk away knowing something you don’t know right now.
Mark Souza is a General Manager in the Microsoft Server and Tools Business. He is responsible for all Customer/Partner interaction and Community for the business platform products at Microsoft: Windows Azure, Middleware, Data Platform technologies. His team name AzureCAT – Azure and SQL Customer Advisory Teams
The AzureCAT team is the customer and partner facing team out of the engineering organization at Microsoft corporate headquarters. Their role includes ensuring high quality customer validation of Microsoft products as well as management of our customer advisory pools.
Mark started the CAT team in engineering 13 years ago for SQL Server (SQLCAT – http://sqlcat.com) and still manages that team today as we all transition to the cloud. The CAT mission is to be away from Redmond more than 50% of the time assisting customers with the largest, most complex projects built on the Microsoft platform. They help ensure the customer is successful and more importantly learn from those engagements. They have done over 120 Azure engagements to date. The learnings are then shared with engineering to ensure they are building the right product for customers as well as share back with the community in the form of technical implementation best practices.