The next SSAS Maestro course is coming to Milan, Italy on July the 9th-13th and is open for places!
For anyone serious about Analysis Services, this is a MUST attend course.Sure it’s €4,500 euro, but the early SQL Ranger courses were about €20,000 excluding accommodation and having to take a few weeks off work as a billable resources. This is only a week for a chance to learn from some of the top SSAS minds on the planet.
I really like how the Maestro has evolved from an MS internal and SQLCAT initiative into a privately run offering. I was lucky enough to attend the second series of internal rotations and it looks like Chris, Marco and Thomas have taken on board a lot of feedback from earlier attempts:
- Its now open to anyone, but you’d probably need to have at least a good few years experience to get the most out of the course
- It has been expanded to a full week. The original was only really three days and bulleting through 60 slides and hour its hard to soak as much in as you need to.
- Most importantly Marco and Chis have committed to have results out within three months (with 2 months for time to submit homework). This is a breath of fresh air as marking on the first two rotations was a lot longer than anyone would have hoped for, up to 9 months!
- On my rotation the Instructors didn’t get a lot of prep time to own the content, as it was shorter notice for them. Marco, Chris and Thomas will have delivered this a few times now and ironed out any kinks I am sure. As well as adding a lot of unique value from their own backgrounds.
- I like Redmond myself as you get more guest appearances from developers like Akshai, but Milan looks like a good setting as well. Not that you will get much spare time to sight see.
- It has been expanded to include some Tabular content
An old complaint about Analysis Services is we don’t really have as many “rock stars” as the SQL Server DB Engine community like Paul Randal and Kimberly Tripp who have arguably the most slick, professional, and high end courses with their flawless MCM track record and the “immersion” series. This Maestro course is definitely the closest there is 
Personally I would love this to be expanded to a three week course and cover a broader area such as: SSIS, SSRS, SharePoint, and more on MDX and DAX tuning. This will help it grow into the “BI MCM” Maybe there could be 2-3 weeks with each week optional – this is the format that the immersion now follows.