Recap – SQL Saturday 258, Istanbul
After SQLSaturday 258, Istanbul, finally I get some rest and find a free time to write about great success of this event.
If you would ask me “Can you describe SQLSaturday 258, Istanbul with only one word?”, I would probably say “It was just FANTASTIC! ”. Continue reading If you want to understand why I described it as “FANTASTIC” :)
It’s 3rd time we held SQLSaturday in Istanbul and the first time we have accepted international speakers and PreCon training day with Andreas Wolter (blog | twitter) a SQL MCM from Germany.
SQLSaturday 258,Istanbul Precon with Andreas Wolter
First of all, I have to say that having international speakers was really great idea according to feedbacks we received. This was so important milestone for us to pass the next step that having such a bigger event in Istanbul such as SQLRally, 24 Hours Pass so on.
22 Speakers (8 International speakers from Germany, Portugal, UK, Austria, Ukraine, Russian, Bulgaria) including 4 MCMs, 8 MVPs and 6 Microsoft Engineers presented 23 sessions on 5 parallel tracks including DBA, DEV, BI, SQL Server 2014 and Azure. You can find a portion of speakers below (some of them were absent due to some reasons I don’t know :) )
A Portion of Speakers at SQLSaturday 258, Istanbul
As you probably recognize, 6 GBS engineers appeared as speaker at this event. I would like to thank Belkıs Özhorasan, Sibel Nal, Batuhan Yıldız, Işıl Efe, Kağan Arca and Serdar Altuğ for their commitment to help the Turkey SQL Server community by offering their spare time and valuable insights to support this event. And another special thanks goes to Ümit Sunar (blog | twitter) who is a Windows Azure Evangelist at Microsoft and one of SQLPass Turkey Chapter Leaders. He did great work especially on speaker t-shirts :)
MS GBS SQL + Window Azure Guys at SQLSaturday 258, Istanbul
(Serdar – Batuhan – Sibel – Işıl – Ümit – Turgay - Belkıs)
More than 160 attendees from almost all over Turkey had a chance to learn key features of SQL Server from most experienced presenters. In addition, during the event attendees had a chance to increase their network.
Keynote : Gokben Utkun – Yiğit Aktan – Turgay Sahtiyan
The event started with keynote and I had a chance to talk about Microsoft Premier Support service and Microsoft GBS – Global Business Support team (which team I’m currently work in). And also one of the TAM in Turkey, İlke Savaşan supported us whole day and gave additional information about MS Premier Support service to potential premier customers.
Keynote : Turgay Sahtiyan is talking about Microsoft Premier Support
After keynote, 5 parallel tracks started and most of the time attendees were complicated about which session they should attend J
SQLSaturday 258, Istanbul Agenda
Sure I had a session and presented one of my famous topic: “Top 10 Performance Tips for SQL Server developers” to more than 50 attendees.
Turgay Sahtiyan is talking about “Top Ten 10 Performance Tips for SQL Server Developers”
As usual, the event was closed with a raffle with great prizes such as XBOX Kinect, SQL ToolBelt, SQL Source Control and various prizes.
Raffle Time!
And I also would like to post this photo. I call it as “Turgay’s Angels!” :)
Turgay’s Angels! (Gokben – Belkıs – Turgay – Işıl – Sibel)
Yes I know, this post is going to be endless post. Ok I stop writing more but let me say it again.
The event just was totally AWESOME and I have to say that without attendees, sponsors (TCM, BilgeAdam, MechSoft, Confio, idera, AGTek, CozumPark, pluralsight, redgate, ApexSQL, ASPOSE) and of course these great speakers we could not make it happen. Many thanks!
And final thanks and the biggest one goes to Yiğit Aktan (blog | twitter) who is the current president of Turkey Pass Chapter and one of my great friend. “This is the Guy!” of this event!
