Pass Summit 2011 is not that far away. Unlike years past where all the sessions were picked by PASS, this year, you can take an active part in what sessions may ultimately be chosen to be presented. PASS is asking you to vote for your preferred sessions by May 20, 2011 to help them decide. I think this is a great move. Of course, I hope you vote for all of my sessions, but vote nonetheless. I submitted five sessions: one precon, one of the new half day sessions, and three normal ones. This year, I decided to go big or go home (so to speak) with the topics and abstracts I submitted.

A Deep Dive into AlwaysOn: Failover Clustering and Availability Groups [400]
Session Category: Pre-conference Session (7 hours)
Session Track: Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment
When it comes to the availability landscape, Denali changes the game for SQL Server deployments. There many new enhancements and for traditional failover clustering deployments for instances such as flexible failover policies and multi-site clusters that can and will change the way you plan, deploy, and administer. In addition to the changes to failover clustering, there is a whole new feature: availability groups. Availability groups may enable some scenarios that you have had trouble with in the past, such as using a standby database for reporting and some maintenance. This full day will take a deep dive into these two features and tell you everything you need to know about not only the changes to failover clustering, but the proper way to plan, deploy, and administer availability groups to be successful from day one with Denali. If you do not want a basic “this is failover clustering” or a quick introduction to availability groups, nor do you want just a day of theory but want to see everything live (including combining clustered instances with availability groups to increase availability even more), this day is exactly what you need.

Deploying Highly Available Multi-Site SQL Server 2008 R2 or Denali Using Windows Server 2008 R2 [300]
Session Category: Regular Session (75 minutes)
Session Track: Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment
Planning a failover clustering implementation in a single data center is fairly straightforward, but what happens when you want to span data centers? Introducing distance complicates matters. What you have to do depends on the version of SQL Server you are deploying. Using the combination of Windows Server 2008 R2 with SQL Server Denali can potentially make things much easier. This session will discuss how to plan and deploy either a multi-site SQL Server 2008 R2 or a Denali failover clustering instance, the differences between the approaches, and introduce some new concepts like asymmetric storage and why you need to know about it. In addition to traditional instances, this session will also cover how to plan for a multi-site Denali AlwaysOn Availability Group implementation since it is based on Windows failover clustering even if you are not using a failover clustering instance. A real multi-site cluster will be demonstrated.

Implementing SQL Server Denali Using Windows Server Core [400]
Session Category: Regular Session (75 minutes)
Session Track: Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment
One of the most exciting new features in SQL Server Denali is support for Windows Server Core. Server Core is a minimal installation of Windows which has no GUI. For those who want to reduce patching and increase security, Server Core is the way to go. This session will cover the tips, tricks, and best practices for what you need to do to get SQL Server Denali up and running both for clusters and standalone implementations without any user interface.

Is That A Failover Cluster On Your Laptop? [300]
Session Category: Regular Session (75 minutes)
Session Track: Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment
Over the years, one of the most common questions I am asked is, “How can I configure a cluster on my machine?” Ask no more! Maybe you do not have a cluster anywhere other than production. Production should never be the first place you do certain tasks such as installing a service pack against a clustered instance of SQL Server. Or maybe you are looking to set up a development or QA environment, use such a configuration for demos while speaking, or you just want learn about clustering. This session is for you. Using virutalization gives you the ability to create a cluster without needing lots of expensive physical hardware and is something every DBA should have in their arsenal. This session will demystify the “magic” behind using configuring a cluster on your laptop or desktop using either Vmware or Hyper-V and discuss best practices, tips, and tracks. Demonstrations will include how to configure the virutal hardware via the virtual machines themselves, the domain controller, and the iSCSI storage solution. Note that this session will not be showing how to install SQL Server itself: it is focused on the things you would need to do at base level to be able to cluster both Windows and SQL Server. The discussion will cover multiple OSes and SQL Server versions (including Denali), and touch on how to approach simulating a “multi-site” failover cluster.

Windows Failover Clustering for the DBA [300]
Session Category: 1/2 Day Sessions (3.5 hours)
Session Track: Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment
While there are numerous resources to show you how to run through SQL Server Setup to deploy a clustered SQL Server instance, the most important thing DBAs must understand about the clustering process is absent: how to plan, deploy, and administer the underlying Windows failover cluster. It may be some other person’s job in your company to do this task, but it can make or break your installations. Starting from the ground up, this session is designed to get DBAs up to speed on all of the underlying components and concepts that will affect the performance, security, availability, and stability of their clustered SQL Server deployments up through SQL Server Denali. In addition to understanding and planning, how to properly administer and troubleshoot a Windows failover cluster from a SQL Server perspective will be covered. Did you ever want to know how to properly use the PowerShell cmdlets in Windows Server 2008 R2? Have a question on how to properly deploy DTC with Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2? Do you want to know how to properly configure Kerberos for clustered instances? Want to learn how to approach troubleshooting? Do you want to know why mount points matter and why things like CNOs and VCOs matter (and how to deal with them in different OUs)? These are just some of the questions that will be answered to help you demystify the Windows portion of clustering. Most things discussed will be demonstrated live.