IT SPACE: SQL Server 2008 - KATMAI

Enterprise Data Platform: Data Collection and Performance Warehouse for Relational Engine

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:21:07 GMT

Hello

Again about Katmai. Today I have started looking at EDP. Especially- performance data collections are really extremelly important for DBA's but also a little complicated.. Iti is only my first look. Pawel Potasinski is going to write an article about this. It will be available on January 2008.

details:(https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=6962)

Data Collection and Performance Warehouse for Relational Engine

Performance tuning and troubleshooting are time-consuming tasks for the administrator. To provide actionable performance insights to administrators, SQL Server 2008 delivers more extensive performance data collection, a new centralized data repository for storing performance data and new tools for reporting and monitoring

Dynamic Development:Registered Servers Enhancements

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 22:24:31 GMT

Let's have a closer look to the another new feature.

(https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=6965)

Registered Servers Enhancements

Enhancements to the Registered Servers tool window in Management Studio include running T-SQL queries and policies against groups of servers and the ability to share a common, centrally stored, server topology (Database Engine only).

Community

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 22:21:24 GMT

Hello. Today I have really great news - Pawel Potasinski introduced Marcin Guzowski from Lublin and me to take part in a program which is called Heroes Happen Here. This is a program dedicated to the community leaders and will prepare us to the SQL Server 2008 launch!!!
I really would like to take part in it!

More details here:
http://www.heroescommunitylaunch.com/

Great thaks Pawel for this recognition

Dynamic Development: Service Broker

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 22:51:51 GMT

Hello , I'm back again

Let's have a closer look to the next feature that you can see in CTP 5.

More details here: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=6963

Service Broker Enhancements

Getting the data to the right place at the right time is important. Service Broker Conversation Priority in SQL Server 2008 gives you greater control over the system by making it easy to configure priority rules so that the most important data is sent first and processed first. In addition, the new Service Broker Diagnostic Utility, ssbdiagnose, analyzes the configuration between two Service Broker services and reports back both the problems and their solutions.

Dynamic development: DMF Enhacements

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:50:07 GMT

Today I start another group on new features that are called Dynamic Develoment. The first one I would like to tell is Declarative Management Framework

(https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=6973). I am writing a quite interesting article about this and hopefully it will be ready next week and available on Polish TechNet site.

I would like to point out that DMF is one of the greatest new features that s been introduced to SQL Server 2008.

Lets look what's new about DMF - according to Microsoft:

Declarative Management Framework (DMF) Enhancements

Enhancements to DMF include more expressive conditions (including support for common functions, T-SQL, and WMI queries), more robust target set filtering, custom messages for policies, and the inclusion of best practice policies.

Pervasive Insight: Integration Services

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:24:57 GMT

Hello

Today let's have a look at the last enhacement CTP5 has brought.

This is very important feature as almost everybody uses SSIS in the every day DBA-life.

Go to the site (https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=7005) for details

Integration Services - Lookup Enhancements

The need to perform lookups is one of the most common extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) operations. This is especially prevalent in data warehousing where fact records must use lookups to transform business keys to their corresponding surrogates. SSIS increases the performance of lookups to support the largest tables.

Pervasive Insight: Reporting Services Enhacements

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:22:31 GMT

Hello - today I am going to continue with new, cool features added in CTP5. Lets look what Microsoft has for us in Reporting Services. All the content you can also find there: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=7004

Reporting Services Enhancements

· Robust Report Server Platform: Reports can easily be delivered throughout the organization with simplified deployment and configuration. This enables users to easily create and share reports of any size and complexity.

· Scale Engine and Robust Server Fit and Finish: A reengineered memory management and scalability infrastructure lays a solid foundation of scalability capability to enterprise customers.

Pervasive insight: Analysis Services Enhacements

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 21:20:28 GMT

Hello folks. Again - what's new in the CTP5. Today lets look athe the AS. I have read much about this on the official site (https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=7003)

Analysis Services Enhancements

MOLAP Performance (FITS): New MOLAP-enabled write-back capabilities in SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services remove the need to query ROLAP partitions. This provides users with enhanced writeback scenarios from within analytical applications without sacrificing the traditional OLAP performance.

Resource Monitoring: This concept is similar to DMV found in the relational engine. Analysis Services DMV addresses immediate needs of DBAs to get answers to the questions like: Who is connected to my server? What are the active sessions and what commands/queries they are running? What CPU consumed by particular query/command? What are the objects being referenced by particular command?

MDX Query Optimizer - Block Computation: Block computations provide a significant improvement in processing performance, enabling users to increase the depth of their hierarchies and complexity of the computations.

Aggregation Design: SQL Server 2008 drives broader analysis with enhanced analytical capabilities and with more complex computations and aggregations. The AS Aggregation Design improvement exposes Aggregation Design objects in SQL Server BI Dev Studio and SQL Server Management Studio and provides tools for users to better work with these aggregation designs. In addition, an advanced view in the new Aggregation Design tab of the cube editor provides the ability for an advanced user to view and manually edit individual aggregations within an aggregation design.

Analysis Services Cube Design: New cube design tools help users streamline the development of the analysis infrastructure, enabling them to build solutions for optimized performance. The AS Cube Design improvement introduces a new Cube Wizard which helps users create better cubes in fewer steps. The new wizard focuses on having the user answer a few questions to create leaner cubes that better targets their needs. It also unblocks the previously difficult scenarios of creating a cube a cube based on a single, de-normalized table and creating a cube containing only linked dimensions.

Pervasive insight: Partition - aligned indexed views

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 21:56:03 GMT

There are several improvement accordinpervasive insight in SQL Server 2008.

Detailed infromation is available here: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2008/bi/index.html

This is a show where you can find any important information in high level overview.

Partition - aligned indexed views

Partition-aligned indexed views allow you to create and manage summary aggregates in your relational Data Warehouse more efficiently, and use them in scenarios where you couldn’t effectively use them before, improving query performance. This is a significant improvement over SQL Server 2005, where you must drop any indexed views defined on a partitioned table before using the ALTER TABLE SWITCH operation to switch a partition in or out of it.

Visit the link: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=7006

CTP5 has been released

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:47:03 GMT

Microsoft has released the CTP5 of the SQL Server 2008

You can downoload the product there: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3BF4C5CA-B905-4EBC-8901-1D4C1D1DA884&displaylang=en

There are several improvements, lets say more than in the previous four together.

You should visit the link: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=5470 to check out what has been recently added.

New features in Katmai, but not the big ones

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:44:44 GMT

Hello

It's me again. Today two new cool features, but not that type as table variable:

a) quick variable initialization

b) multirow insert

a) DECLARE @variable2008 int=5
that's all

INSERT INTO someTable
VALUES(100,101,102),(110,111,112),(121,122,123)

that's all

What can I say - it is maybe not a big thing if you look at this. But in my opinion - this is the right step that Micrrosoft did as such small things really helps us in everyday life.

The greatest features added to SQL Server 2008 (so far) - Table variable

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 11:03:44 GMT

Table variable parameters

With SQL Server 2005,XML variables can be passed into stpored procedures and parsed with XQuery.The XML variable, as you probably know, can hold a table. In SQL Server 2008 there is possible to pass a table into a stored procedure directly:

use AdventureWorks
go

IF TYPE_ID('Person') IS NOT NULL
DROP TYPE Person
GO

CREATE TYPE Person AS TABLE
(
name varchar(20)
,surname varchar(20)
,BirthDate int
)
GO

--create a stored procedure to test if a table can be passed as a parameter
IF OBJECT_ID ('Test2008') IS NOT NULL
DROP PROC Test2008
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE Test2008
(
@person_instance Person READONLY --cannot be modified
)
AS BEGIN
SELECT * FROM @person_instance
END
GO

--declare a table variable
DECLARE @people as Person

--insert some data
INSERT INTO @people
VALUES ('Piotr','Nowak',1999),('Marek','Wolski',1988)

--run the stored procedure
EXEC Test2008 @people

How it works now, using SQL Server 2005:

first - a stored procedure that accepts an XML parameter

IF OBJECT_ID ('Test2005') IS NOT NULL
DROP PROC Test2005
GO

CREATE PROCEDURE Test2005
(
@personXML XML
)
AS BEGIN
SELECT C.value('@name','varchar(20)') as ImieXML
,C.value('@surname','varchar(20)') as NazwiskoXML
,C.value('@BirthDate','int') as RokUrodzeniaXML
FROM @personXML.nodes('/*') T(C)
END
GO

declaring an xml variable

DECLARE @xmlOsoba XML

put some data to the XML:
SET @xmlOsoba =(
SELECT name, surname,BirtDate FROM aTable AS L
FOR XML AUTO)

EXEC Test2005 @xmlOsoba

Well, look at the code for SQL 2008, escecially at the stored procedure body. It is easier to manipulate tables that do magic on xml....

What's New for XML in SQL Server 2008

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 21:02:27 GMT

Microsoft introduced XML-related capabilities in Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with the FOR XML and OPENXML Transact-SQL keywords, which enabled developers to write Transact-SQL code to retrieve a query result as a stream of XML, and to shred an XML document into a rowset. SQL Server 2005 extended these XML capabilities significantly with the introduction of a native xml data type that supports XSD schema validation, XQuery-based operations, and XML indexing. SQL Server 2008 builds on the XML capabilities of previous releases and provides enhancements to meet the challenges that customers have faced when storing and manipulating XML data in the database.

Download the official whitepaper:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/c/d/acd8e043-d69b-4f09-bc9e-4168b65aaa71/WhatsNewSQL2008XML.doc

Managing Unstructured Data with SQL Server 2008

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:52:53 GMT

According to Microsoft:

The proliferation of digital content has significant implications for the way in which organizations store and access business data. Increasingly, databases that are at the core of business applications must be integrated with unstructured data in the form of documents, images, video content, and other multimedia formats. Organizations increasingly need to be able to store and manage digital data of all formats in order to manage the information lifecycle, meet compliance requirements, and implement content management solutions.

Microsoft SQL Server™ 2008 provides a flexible solution for storing unstructured data and combining it with relational data to build comprehensive solutions that encompass the full range of data across an organization

Download the official whitepaper:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/c/d/acd8e043-d69b-4f09-bc9e-4168b65aaa71/SQL2008UnstructuredData.doc

Delivering Location Intelligence with Spatial Data

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 12:57:46 GMT

The growing ability of businesses and consumers to quickly absorb large volumes of data, together with the increased availability of digital maps and spatially-enabled applications has created an unprecedented opportunity to incorporate geographic factors into decision making processes and analysis. The new spatial support in Microsoft SQL Server™ 2008 can help you to make better decisions through visual analysis of location data that can be stored and manipulated in a SQL Server database.

Download the official whitepaper:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/c/d/acd8e043-d69b-4f09-bc9e-4168b65aaa71/SpatialData.doc

SQL Server 2008 Performance and Scale

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 22:58:03 GMT

Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2008 incorporates the tools and technologies that are necessary to implement relational databases, reporting systems, and data warehouses of enterprise scale, and provides optimal performance and responsiveness. With SQL Server 2008, you can take advantage of the latest hardware technologies while scaling up your servers to support server consolidation. SQL Server 2008 also enables you to scale out your largest data solutions.

Download the official whitepaper:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/c/d/acd8e043-d69b-4f09-bc9e-4168b65aaa71/SQL2008PerfandScale.doc

SQL Server 2008 Manageability

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 07:21:48 GMT

Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2008 builds on the management capabilities of previous versions and provides a variety of tools and frameworks to help you manage your enterprise data environment. The comprehensive management automation capabilities of SQL Server 2008 reduce the administrative overhead that is required to maintain data services and ensure compliance with change management policies. A new end-to-end performance monitoring and analysis suite helps you to optimize the responsiveness and scalability of your SQL Server services across the enterprise, and the scalable management interfaces and tools help you to reduce server management effort and focus on higher value activities.

Download the official whitepaper:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/c/d/acd8e043-d69b-4f09-bc9e-4168b65aaa71/SQL2008Mngblty.doc

Free Course!!! e-learning

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:31:01 GMT

Follow that link:

https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/courseDetail.aspx?courseId=78337

Title: Clinic 7045: What's New in Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2008

Course Type: Self-paced Course

Available Offline: Yes

Estimated Time of Completion: 2 Hours

Language: English

Description:
In this clinic, you will learn about the new and enhanced features included in SQL Server 2008. You will explore the new data types and the data management features. Additionally, you will learn about the enhanced Integration Services, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services included in SQL Server 2008. This online clinic is composed of a rich multimedia experience.

To get the most out of this clinic, it is recommended that you have:

Knowledge of general SQL database concepts that are largely independent of a specific version of SQL Server.
Knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 features.
Knowledge of deploying and upgrading database solutions.
Knowledge of how to solve performance issues related to SQL Server hardware.
Performed the job role of a SQL Server 2005 database administrator or database developer.
Product or technology experience in Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005.

Objectives:
At the end of the course, students will be able to:

Describe the features of SQL Server 2008 and their benefits.
Describe the features of enterprise data platform that help you to secure data in applications.
Describe the dynamic development features that facilitate the development of database applications.
Describe the features of SQL Server 2008 that provide data storage solutions beyond relational databases.
Describe the enhanced features in SSIS that help you to integrate data effectively.
Describe the enhanced features in SSAS that help you to improve the BI infrastructure.
Describe the enhanced features in SSRS that help you to improve the scalability of the reporting engine.

Install SQL Server 2008 CTP 4 on your Virtual environment

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:42:05 GMT

This download comes as a pre-configured VHD. This allows you to trial SQL Server 2008 CTP 4 in a virtual environment

Just go and install:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6a39affa-db6e-48a9-82e4-4efd6705f4a6&displaylang=en&tm

Visit the new SQL Server official site

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 22:40:24 GMT

Hello

GO and visit the official site of the new SQL Server:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/bb498264.aspx

You should also go here to find really good stuff: materials, white papers, videos:

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2008/default.mspx

New !!!!

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 21:54:28 GMT

I would like to inform that strating from now almost everything on the blog will be about new SQL Server - KATMAI

Hope, you appreciate this soon!!!