A few hours ago Chris Webb blogged about SSAS Maestro and I’d like to propagate
the news, adding also some background info. SSAS Maestro is
the premier certification on Analysis Services that selects
the best experts in Analysis Services around
the world. In 2011 Microsoft organized two rounds of training/exams
for SSAS Maestros and up to now only 11 people from
the first wave have been announced – around 10% of attendees of
the course! In
the next few days
the new Maestros from
the second round should be announced and this long process is caused by many factors that I’m going to explain. First,
the course is just a step in
the process. Before
the course you receive a list of topics to study, including
the slides of
the course. During
the course, students receive a lot of information that might not have been included in
the slides and
the best part of
the course is class interaction. Students are expected to bring their experience to
the table and comparing case studies, experiences and having long debates is an important part of
the learning process. And it is also a part of
the evaluation: good questions might be also more important than good answers! Finally, after
the course, students have their homework and this may require one or two months to be completed. After that, a long (very long) evaluation process begins, taking into account homework, labs, participation… And
for this reason
the final evaluation may arrive months later after
the course. We are going to improve and shorten this process with
the next courses.
The first wave of SSAS Maestro had been made by invitation only and now
the program is opening, requiring a fee to participate in order to cover
the cost of preparation, training and exam.
The number of attendees will be limited and candidates will have to send their CV in order to be admitted to
the course. Only experienced Analysis Services developers will be able to participate to this challenging program. So why you should do that? Well, only 10% of students passed
the exam until now. So if you need 100% guarantee to pass
the exam, you need to study a lot, before, during and after
the course. But
the course by itself is a precious opportunity to share experience, create networking and learn mission-critical enterprise-level best practices that it’s hard to find written on books. Oh, well, many existing white papers are a required reading *before*
the course!
The course is now 5 days long, and every day can be *very* long. We’ll have lectures and discussions in
the morning and labs in
the afternoon/evening. Plus some more lectures in one or two afternoons. A heavy part of
the course is about performance optimization, capacity planning, monitoring. This edition will introduce also Tabular models, and don’t expect
something you might find in
the SSAS Tabular Workshop – only performance, scalability monitoring and optimization will be covered, knowing Analysis Services is a requirement just to be accepted! I and Chris Webb will be
the teachers
for this edition.
The course is expensive. Applying
for SSAS Maestro will cost around 7000€ plus taxes (reduced to 5000€
for students of a previous SSAS Maestro edition). And you will be locked in a training room
for the large part of
the week. So why you should do that? Well, as I said, this is a challenging course. You will not find
the time to check your email –
the content is just too much interesting to think you can be distracted by
something else. Another good reason is that this course will take place in Italy. Well,
the course will take place in
the brand new Microsoft Innovation Campus, but in general we’ll be able to provide you hints to get great food and, if you are willing to attach one week-end to your trip, there are plenty of places to visit (and I’m not talking about
the classic Rome-Florence-Venice) – you might really need to relax after such a week! Finally,
the marking process after
the course will be faster – we’d like to complete
the evaluation within three months after
the course, considering that 1-2 months might be required to complete
the homework. If at this point you are not scared: registration will open in mid-April, but you can already write to
[email protected] sending your CV/resume and a short description of your level of SSAS knowledge and experience.
The selection process will start early and you may want to put your admission form on top of
the FIFO queue!
