My friends in Microsoft’s Product Support Services (PSS) group (aka SQL Server Support) are speaking again this year at the PASS Community Summit.  They’re doing some main conference sessions, the PSS Boot camp, and putting on the PSS Service Center again (where attendees can work through hands-on labs designed by PSS that demonstrate how to troubleshoot SQL Server issues).  I’d encourage you to make your way to their offerings if you possibly can.  They’re always some of the best sessions and content at the conference.

They say the ultimate measure of success with an initiative is whether it survives the departure of the person or people who started it.  Since its inception in 2003, I had coordinated the involvement of PSS in the PASS Summit.  This year, I turned over the reigns to a group consisting of Todd DeDecker, a Group Manager within SQL Server Support, Bart Duncan, an Escalation Engineer within the support group and a good friend, and Haydn Richardson in SQL Server marketing.  I’d long felt that PSS mgmt and the SQL Server marketing folks (who handle the product group’s involvement in other conferences) should work together to handle PSS’ presence at the conference.  They had the charter and resources to do so, and I knew they could go to Bart for any questions they might have of a technical nature.  Once the initiative progressed from toddlerhood to adolescence, I felt it was ready to survive without my involvement.

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