Sunday 22 April 2012

NOTE: SAS Global Forum 2012 #sasgf12

It's Monday morning; this is where the conference really starts.

Last night we had the opening session with SAS CEO Dr Jim Goodnight running through the now familiar Big Data themes such as minimising movement of data and increasingly sending code to the data. Products and tools such as the new Visual Analyser and PROC HPLOGISTIC (high performance logistics) were used to demonstrate these themes, with Visual Analyser using the LASR server,and HPLOGISTIC using in-database computations.

Tradition ensures that this morning kicks-off with a technical session wherein SAS staff are able to shows attendees under the hood of some of SAS's latest and greatest technologies. An 8am start means an early rise from bed after last night's lively mixer, but it'll be worth it.

It's been an interesting acclimatisation process since I arrived in The Sunshine State on Saturday afternoon. It was raining! I'm pleased to say that the sun has since made an appearance. I'm doubly pleased to see the rain go away because my hotel room is a 10 minute, outdoor walk from the hotel's restaurant and bus stop for transfer to the conference hotel. Yes, I tried to save money by staying at a local hotel rather than the conference hotel. I only have myself to blame, though I have to say that the walk around my hotel's lake each morning and evening is a very pleasant one.

I was hopeful of watching the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday, using the BBC iPlayer. Sadly, the BBC knows I'm out of he UK and tells me that iPlayer is not available. Frustrating, and surprising to see adverts on the BBC news pages - we don't get those when back home in Blighty! Anyway, I got my motorsport fix by watching the NASCAR race from Kansas Speedway. I enjoyed the race, and the high energy commentary team.

The lights are dimmed, here we go...