Il piacere dell’attesa (degli eventi)

Sono già passati due anni dall’ultima edizione di DevOpsHeroes e fra poco più di un mese questo sarà vero anche per SQL Saturday. Entrambi gli eventi, così tanto seguiti da tutti voi, da tutti quanti siano affamati di conoscenza e condivisione. Entrambi a Parma, in un periodo in cui la nebbia è un valore aggiunto per il nostro territorio (ogni riferimento alla Food Valley è puramente casuale). Entrambi in presenza, seppure io sia un sostenitore della digitalizzazione e dell’approccio in remoto. Entrambi da record di presenze, ma uno solo nato totalmente da noi di Engage

Edizione del 2016 di entrambi gli eventi

Ci sono tanti fattori per cui questi due appuntamenti sono mancati a molti di noi, autori compresi, ma ci sono pochi motivi per cui abbiamo deciso di saltare le ultime due edizioni. Primo su tutti la necessità, secondo la nostra visione, di parlarsi faccia a faccia e di vivere le emozioni direttamente sul campo, sia lato speaker sia lato pubblico. Nelle sei edizioni di sqlsat e nelle cinque di DOH abbiamo visto prime esperienze da palco, persone venute fino a qui da molto lontano, speaker internazionali e audience insolitamente mista per un evento “offline”. Questo è qualcosa di insostituibile, a fronte di un piccolo sforzo in termini di viaggio al sabato. Il networking che si fa in eventi come questo assume caratteri unici in ogni sua versione in presenza, cosa che, almeno personalmente, non crediamo semplice in una erogazione solo digitale. Calore mancante, insomma.

Gianluca durante la sua sessione con il pienone

In secondo luogo, visto il numero minore di eventi a cui partecipare a causa di una logistica più impegnativa, il peso che assume il momento e la preparazione della sessione. Credo che più la frequenza di un evento è minore, più la qualità dei contenuti è alta. Ma è una nostra opinione.

Infine, ma non per importanza, il premio per il duro lavoro di mesi alla fine dell’evento, cena speaker (fortunelli!) annessa. Mi ricordo la stanchezza della sera e la tensione della mattina prima di entrare al Campus. Momenti stressanti, ma che bello vedere persone trovarsi lì, per qualcosa di organizzato “in casa”.

Speaker a cena

Non é mia intenzione sminuire tutti gli ottimi lavori fatti dalla community per erogare ininterrottamente giornate facilmente raggiungibili da tutti, di qualità e quantità, sia chiaro. Anzi, credo che siano stati più coraggiosi del sottoscritto. Però ho scelto una strada, coerente con ciò che pensiamo qui in azienda, che é quella dell’attesa con ansia di un grande ritorno. E se ancora avremo i risultati di un tempo, vorrà dire che siamo stati bravi. In caso contrario, ci avremo comunque provato.

Fra un anno avremo due nuovi eventi, Data Saturday Parma 22 e DevOpsHeroes 22, speriamo di trovarvi pronti per una grande accoglienza come solo voi sapete dare.

Del resto, il piacere dell’attesa non é l’attesa stessa?
Stay tuned!

Two tech events in Parma, the city of food

SQL Saturday Parma, six years in a row. DevOpsHeroes, four. Parma has been a great place to reach, also for technical events. I’ve started organizing the first SQL Saturday in my birthplace in November 2014. After two years I tried to create a brand-new event, when the DevOps culture started to grow and when the agile became strong. DevOpsHeroes was born in 2016, a month before the SQL Saturday event, again, in Parma. Why change? The audience has been great (more than 200 attendees), the feedbacks, too. People who come here look comfortable with everything. Then, thanks to the University, which has been the selected location, both the events are still growing.

Let’s go in deep with the events.

SQL Saturday Parma (2014-now)

SQL Saturdays, a great format by Professional Association of SQL Server (PASS), is a well-known event all around the world. You can find hundreds of them here. In Parma, the event is completely free, with no pre-conference. It’s located on the Campus of the University of Parma, in order to make also the students as well as the school aware of this kind of events. Unfortunately, the audience doesn’t gather them as does for the professionals, so I’m working to make a better relationship with them, too. About the audience, some numbers:

Event Attendees Track Speaker Feedback
SQL Sat 355 (2014) 128 3 14 4.46/5
SQL Sat 462 (2015) 157 3 18 4.20/5
SQL Sat 566 (2016) 150 3 18 4.48/5
SQL Sat 675 (2017) 210 4 24 4.47/5
SQL Sat 777 (2018) 230 4 24 4.72/5

In 2014 the sessions were driven by, let’s say, classic topics, like DBA, Development, BI. Starting from 2016 the coverage changed a lot. More data visualizations, more automation, more BI in the cloud, more cloud itself. 2017 has been the game-changer about NoSQL sessions (on Microsoft Azure), too. The latest edition of SQL Saturday Parma introduced the AI and this year we are struggling for selecting the right sessions from a bunch of 70 proposals (all over the world). September, 30 the Call for papers (available here) will close and if you are in the area on November 23, or if you want to come in Italy for a weekend of training on Microsoft Data Platform with friends, #sqlfamily and good food you are welcome!

The event is strongly supported by the Italian #sqlfamily, especially my friends in UGISS. A big thanks go to them.

DevOpsHeroes (2016-now)

Started as a one-shot event, this is a four-year-in-a-row one. Riding the wave of enthusiasm derived from the SQL Saturdays in Parma and thanks to my work experience, who moved meanwhile from DBA skills to Data DevOps and automation, this event has been a pleasant surprise, yet it doesn’t gather as many people as SQL Saturday does (SQL Saturdays has got also its noise and the PASS support). The event was born for spreading the DevOps culture, not just the tools. Tools were described there just to pull out the advantages of the culture, which must be “soaked up” before going deeper. So, the event was born for the culture. And this has been (and it still is) one of our mission.

The event is held typically one month before SQL Saturday in the Campus of the University of Parma. It gets more than 120 attendees and this year the organization is expecting more, due to the great sponsors which help the edition.

As you can see, behind the hood there are two main “helpers”. Engage IT Services, which is the company whose I’m a co-founder, and GetLatestVersion.it, a great Italian online community for DevOps and ALM technologies. The event is totally free, and it will get 18 sessions with 3 tracks. The topics will cover Technologies, Methodologies and use cases (or Experience sessions). The call for paper is already closed and we’re finishing the program of that Saturday, October 26.

Wrapping up

SQL Saturday Parma website: https://www.sqlsaturday.com/895/EventHome.aspx

Registration: https://www.sqlsaturday.com/895/registernow.aspx

DevOpsHeroes website: http://www.devops-heroes.net/

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.it/e/biglietti-devopsheroes-2019-66796826105

DevOpsHeroes 2018 – Another brick in the wall

Event details

DevOpsHeroes has been a great event, again! We didn’t expect so many people and we could not imagine that the feedback would be so good. Quick facts:

  • Subscription: 244 (150 the past year)
  • Attendees: 122 (94 the past year)
  • drop: 50% (38% the past year)

Attendee’s satisfaction

The following radar chart is about the event date, location, quality of the sessions, quality of the speakers, food, hospitality, event design, and kits:

As we can see, the overall satisfaction is really high (4/5)! The blue line is related to the audience which already has attended our event (40%) and the orange one represents the first-timers (60%).

Indeed, we’ve got a good feedback also for the following questions:

  • will you attend again?
    • Sure, 45%
    • Most likely, 33%
    • Likely, 22%
  • will you suggest the event to other people?
    • Sure, 76%
    • Most likely, 21%
    • Likely, 3%

Conclusions

We’re really proud of the third edition of DevOpsHeroes. Engage IT Services and Xebir did a great job together, and, hopefully, both companies will cooperate in the future in order to provide new formats and events like this one. A special thanks goes to Scott Ambler, and also to Italian Agile Moviment for sponsoring and supporting the organisation.

Download sessions here.

Last but not least, thanks to GetLatestVersion.it and also WindowServer.it which allowed us to get DevOpsHeroes in the best shape possible.

See you next year!

IoTeams 2018 a Parma, il workshop introduttivo sull’Internet of Things

L’Internet of Things è un argomento di grande interesse ai giorni nostri. Quasi per gioco anche io che non sono un esperto in materia ma più un appassionato, ho iniziato tempo fa a “divertirmi” con un Raspberri Pi3. Il gioco si è trasformato in un tentativo di prototipo che potesse risolvere un problema reale (vedi la gestione della stagionatura dei salumi o delle galline nel pollaio, ecc.). Il prototipo mi ha spinto a comprare una mille fori, una breadboard estesa, dei sensori diversi da quelli disponibili nello starter kit e a studiare meglio in generale l’elettronica legata al Raspberry. Insomma, dalla curiosità ad un interesse di quella che è, come mi piace definirla, l’informatica “tangibile con mano”.

Da qui siamo arrivati all’evento IoTeams a Parma, presso il Fab Lab. Organizzato da Engage IT Services, MF Labs e Officine On/Off, con la sponsorizzazione di Assitek, la giornata di workshop si è rivelata molto interessante. Insieme agli altri organizzatori abbiamo deciso di creare due percorsi, uno introduttivo basato su Windows ed uno interamente dedicato a Linux. Questo per coprire un po’ tutti i modi di accedere al mondo dell’IoT. 13 persone presenti distribuite sulle due track.

20180609_095613

Speaker della track Microsoft sono stati Marco Dal Pino (Microsoft MVP, Nokia Developer Champion, Intel Black Belt and Software Innovator) e Marco Minerva (Microsoft MVP, Co-Founder of DotNetToscana User Group). Con una sessione in co-speech hanno approfondito i concetti legati a Windows IoT Core, all’IoT negli scenari reali e a come in verità tali scenari fossero già presenti da tanto tempo. È importante capire come sistemi embedded avessero una larga distribuzione, soprattutto nel mondo dell’automazione industriale. Dopo la prima parte si è passati alla pratica sul sistema operativo e sulle varie “board” (passatemi il termine) per far capire ai partecipanti quali possono essere le innumerevoli applicazioni possibili. Alla fine si è arrivati alle applicazioni Universal Windows Platform (UWP). Una mattina di panoramiche per arrivare ad un pomeriggio divertente ed interattivo, come si può vedere dai video sottostanti:

Lo speaker della track Linux è stato Mirco Ferrari (CEO & Founder at MF Labs, tech enthusiast) ed ha portato con se un kit Arduino ed una serie di sensori per realizzare, durante l’arco della giornata, una sorta di stazione metereologica. Anche in quest’aula, la prima parte della mattina si è focalizzata sull’introduzione all’argomento. Nella seconda parte sono stati illustrati i protocolli di comunicazione nell’ambito dell’IoT. Di grande interesse è stata la parte in cui Mirco ha mostrato quali sistemi gratuiti esistono per poter allestire un prototipo IoT nel cloud. La dimostrazione ha coinvolto NodeMCU e una monitorizzazione interattiva diretta sui sensori. Anche questo percorso si è rivelato di estremo interesse e, come per l’altra track, oltre che l’utilità, si è proprio percepita la parte di “interazione” e “divertimento tecnico” dei partecipanti.

20180609_103403

Nonostante l’evento fosse un pilota devo dire che è andato piuttosto bene. I partecipanti si sono presentati tutti, puntuali e interessati alla materia, i gadget sono stati graditi, gli speaker sono stati ineccepibili.

001

Un buon progetto, che spero sia destinato a contunuare già a partire dal prossimo anno. Ottimo risultato, insomma.

Stay tuned!

 

 

Events: DevOpsHeroes 2017 and SQL Saturday Parma 2017

It’s September, a month whose the start is the beginning of many things, especially in Italy. Kids start over the schools, Companies invest, and what about projects and events?

You know, I really love to do both. But in this post I’d let you know how I feel proud about my work in the past four years. Thanks to the help of my employees and co-ops, I did organise four SQL Saturdays in Parma (2014/355, 2015/462 and 2016/566), making our small town a big SQL Server City. Who would’ve thought it? Yes, maybe in my mind, there was something that pushed me to try, but it could have an epic fail. However, I did it, and it was an astonishing set of records. It started as a quest in an Role Play game, and now we’re in front of this great SQL Saturday. Something to be really proud of.

Two years ago, I felt the need to add a new event, which would have to support a new way of thinking about the IT roles that I was aware of. And that was when DevOps came out. A new buzzword that needed to get a deep explanation, in terms of culture and approach. Combining my passion to The Simpsons series (especially considering Homer Simpson) and DevOps stuff, I’ve made up DevOpsHeroes, whose acronym is DOH, the Homer’s exclamation. And now, for the second year, Developers, IT Operations people, DBAs and PMOs will share their experience about how to integrate, cooperate and make IT world more productive. Another event, another thing to be proud of.

DOH_logo

After the introduction, let me give you some important details about these events, sorted by upcoming date:

DevOpsHeroes 2017 – Parma (http://www.devops-heroes.net/)

Sql Saturday 2017 – Parma (http://www.sqlsaturday.com/675)

  • Date and Location: Saturday, 18th November @ Univeristy of Parma
  • Hashtag: #SQLSAT675
  • Entrance fee: free (lunch included)
  • Duration: from 8am (registrations until 9am) to 6.30pm
  • Registration link: https://www.sqlsaturday.com/675/registernow.aspx
  • At the registration desk:
    • you will use the SpeedPASS
    • you will receive the lunch ticket
    • you will receive the welcome kit
  • session languages: ITA/ENG

However, this year I’d to thank my helpers at Engage IT Services Srl,  the great support of Upgrade Srl (Andrea, Federica and Riccardo, that organised with us the DOH event), HPE and also many communities, like DotDotNet.org and mostly our great community GetLatestVersion.it. A special thanks goes to Windowserver.it, which will record sessions, live streaming and interviews. Speaking about SQLSaturday, the sponsor page depicts how the event is supported. A big thank goes to all of them!

What the future will reserve to us in Parma? I think that I could try to add another event, maybe on IoT topics, because I feel that the world will change following that direction and also, hopefully, my newborn Giulio will play with my and some robot 🙂

Alternatives could be changing the format, like with a TED event or something like it. Who knows? I’m pretty sure that I’ll get a lot of help from now on. This year has been a demonstration of it. I started alone, and now we work in five. The last thing to be proud of. Wonderful!

SQL Server 2016 CTP3 – new features and the JSON support improvements

SQL Server Community Technology Preview 3 has been released some days ago.

The SQL Server team added a lot of features related to:

  • SQL Server Engine (Query Store, Temporal Tables and In-Memory improvements)
  • Cloud-ready stuff (Transactional replication from and to Azure SQL Databases, Stretched database enhancements)
  • New releases of Management Studio
  • Analysis Services
  • Reporting Services (great, let’s say, “new entry”)
  • Integration Services

Continue reading “SQL Server 2016 CTP3 – new features and the JSON support improvements”

PASS SQL Saturday in Parma (#sqlsat462) – Second Edition

The 28 of November, PASS SQL Saturday will be held in Parma, in the north of Italy. This year event will be important, due to the new releases of SQL Server 2016.

SQLSAT462_print

Location

Parma University Campus, Computer Science department

Marchio_uni

Continue reading “PASS SQL Saturday in Parma (#sqlsat462) – Second Edition”

A 2015 full of DLM

After SQL Saturday Pordenone, I’ll keep speaking about DLM (aka ALM on databases) during the following events:

PASS Italian Virtual Chapter, April 14. I’ll demonstrate the SQL source control usage on SQL Server database
PASS SQL Saturday Torino, May 23, I’ve proposed two sessions (source control and unit testing on database)
.Net Campus a Roma, May 30, I’ll speak about continuous integration with SQL Server (source control, unit testing, deploy).
There’s a lot of work to do. But I’m thinking now about two or three new sessions. I hope to finish them in the last months of the year, and I hope to meet you in one of  these events, at least online.
Stay tuned!

 

SQL Saturday Parma – English Slide decks available to download

My SQL Saturday Parma slide decks are available to download on SlideShare.

The main topic of those presentations is database lifecycle management (DLM) on SQL Server.
Concepts: ALM/DLM, team work, differences between code and databases.
We’ve demonstrated the usage of the following tools: Visual Studio with SQL Server Data ToolsRed-Gate ed ApexSQL.
Second session: “Unit testing su database“.
Concepts: unit testing, database testing vs code testing.
We’ve demonstrated testing tools like Red-Gate SQL Test and Visual Studio Unit test projects, and the TSQLUnit framework.
Additionally, I’ve created a set of sample scripts with T-SQL and TSQLUnit on MSDN Code Samples.
Stay Tuned! 🙂