Introducing Myself

Hey There - Welcome to my new blog, before I start posting, I'd like to tell you about myself so you know a bit about how I think and what I'd like to accomplish with this blog.

I'm a true local, born and raised and educated in the Seattle area. I have a bachelor's degree in Business Management and more or less picked up computer skills along the way. My first real job after college was at a company called Microrim that shipped the first truly relational database product called R:Base System V, which was PC Magazine's Product of the Year around 1988 or so. I've been at Microsoft since 1990, and my first role was supporting Windows 3.0 during its first release. Around 1993 I joined the SQL Server product group as a software test engineer, and was the ONLY tester for the SQL Server Engine and the TSQL programming langauge (it takes about 300 people to fill that role now:), and shipped SQL Server 4.2, 6.0, and 6.5. Then I was a technical writer (gag) during SQL 7.0 owning half of the TSQL Reference and conceptual material. Then a tester in the Replication team during the creation of the Merge Replication feature set for the 8.0 release, and was the test lead when I left. Following that I was a test manager for the SQL "Integration Testing" team, a test lead for the Execution Engine through the 9.0 release. Since then I've been a test lead in the Reporting Services team, and own the "Server and Management Tools" components that includes the RS Windows and Web services, the SOAP and WMI APIs, the RS catalog, setup/upgrade, Report Manager, Config tool, Sharepoint Integration, and several other misc components and features.

To the core I'm a database guy and love working with relational database application develeopment and implementation, but my passion for the last 4 years or so is creating reports with Reporting Services. I'm intimately familiar with all of the databases that support the SQL Business unit, primarily the applications for tracking bugs and managing the test automation, and have written hundreds of reports to help us run the business and ship great software. I also own the production Reporting Services server that supports the business unit, and spend a lot of time monitoring the server and helping others in the unit with their reporting needs.

I have many very talented peers who have much more depth in the core Reporting Services technologies, and also love to blog, so I'd like to take a slightly differently approach than them. What I hope to share with you in this blogs is what I've learned creating reports, using the other RS features, managing a production server, and playing with the catalog.

Please feel free to contact me and give me feedback on my blog, other questions you have about these areas, and any disagreements, corrections, or enhancements to my postings.

Take care, thanks, and of course "This blog is provided 'AS IS' with no warranties, and confers no rights."