SQL Server Team Blog

SQL Server 2008 has been released to manufacturing today!

The official News Release is re-posted here:

REDMOND, Wash. — Aug. 6, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the release to manufacturing of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, the new version of the company’s acclaimed data management and business intelligence platform. This version of SQL Server provides powerful new capabilities such as support for policy-based management, auditing, large-scale data warehousing, geospatial data, and advanced reporting and analysis services. SQL Server 2008 provides the trusted, productive and intelligent platform necessary for business-critical applications.

“Microsoft developed this release of SQL Server with the customer in mind,” said Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Data and Storage Platform Division at Microsoft. “SQL Server 2008 is the only major database that includes comprehensive, tightly integrated functionality for data management as well as advanced business intelligence out of the box. By offering a complete solution, we save customers time and money and allow them to focus on deriving the most value from their data assets.”

With more than 450,000 customer and partner downloads of SQL Server 2008’s Community Technology Previews (CTPs), more than 75 large-scale applications already in production and more than 1,350 applications being developed by nearly 1,000 independent software vendors (ISVs) on SQL Server 2008, it’s clear that customers and partners are excited about the capabilities now available in SQL Server 2008.

Tim Whitehorn, founder and chief executive officer of event management software provider ServiceU Corp., said, “We selected SQL Server 2008 because we can entrust it with our critical business applications. SQL Server 2008 is highly secure and reliable, and offers the best value on the market today. In addition, it accelerates the time frame for deploying new features and enhancements, and that to us makes SQL Server a winner.”

A number of enterprise customers from various industries are testing SQL Server 2008 including Clear Channel Communications Inc., Hilton Hotels Corp., Simon & Schuster Inc., Siemens AG and Xerox Corp., among many others.

SQL Server is an industry leader in both scalability and performance. It is the first and only database management system to be proven capable of delivering scalable results on TPC-E, the Transaction Processing Performance Council’s (TPC) newest and most challenging online transaction processing (OLTP) benchmark, with 13 published benchmarks to date.¹ Also demonstrating the performance of SQL Server 2008, Unisys Corp. and Microsoft set a new extract, transform and load (ETL) performance record by loading 1 terabyte of data in less than 30 minutes using SQL Server 2008 Integration Services. In addition, SQL Server 2008 has proven its scalability in large-scale data warehousing, as demonstrated by its recent 10-terabyte TPC-H benchmark.²

“We saw a 35 percent improvement in throughput on the system that we upgraded to SQL Server 2008, with no code changes on our end,” said Gary Oberg, vice president of IT and development at Applied Discovery (a member of the LexisNexis group). “This translates straight to the bottom line for us, as the more documents we can upload, the more we can process.”

Microsoft is setting additional benchmark records with ISV solutions, including a world record on four-socket industry-standard blade servers in a three-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark, and demonstrated the largest benchmark ever on the Siemens Teamcenter digital product life-cycle management solution, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX and the Camstar Manufacturing Execution System solution.

SQL Server is a key component of the Microsoft Application Platform, a suite of products and technologies designed to help customers build, run and manage dynamic business applications. SQL Server 2008 is available in the following editions:

SQL Server 2008 Enterprise. SQL Server 2008 Enterprise is a comprehensive data management and business intelligence platform that provides enterprise-class scalability, data warehousing, security, advanced analytics and reporting support for running business-critical applications. With this edition, it is possible to consolidate servers and perform large-scale online transactional processing.

SQL Server 2008 Standard. SQL Server 2008 Standard is a complete data management and business intelligence platform that provides best-in-class ease of use and manageability for running departmental applications.

SQL Server 2008 Workgroup. SQL Server 2008 Workgroup is a reliable data management and reporting platform that delivers secure, remote synchronization and management capabilities for running branch applications. This edition includes core database features and is easy to upgrade to the Standard or Enterprise edition.

SQL Server 2008 Web. SQL Server 2008 Web is designed for highly available, Internet-facing Web-serving environments running on Windows Server. SQL Server 2008 Web provides the tools necessary to support low-cost, large-scale, highly available Web applications or hosting solutions for customers.

SQL Server 2008 Developer. SQL Server 2008 Developer allows developers to build and test any type of application with SQL Server. This edition features all of the functionality of SQL Server Enterprise but is licensed only for development, test and demo use. Applications and databases developed on this edition can easily be upgraded to SQL Server 2008 Enterprise.

SQL Server 2008 Express. SQL Server 2008 Express is a free edition of SQL Server that features core database functionality including all of the new SQL Server 2008 data types, in a small footprint. This edition is ideal for learning and building desktop and small server applications, and for redistribution by ISVs.

SQL Server Compact 3.5. SQL Server Compact is a free embedded database designed for developers and is ideal for building stand-alone and occasionally connected applications for mobile devices, desktops and Web clients. SQL Server Compact runs on all Microsoft Windows platforms, including the Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems, and on Pocket PC and smartphone devices.

Pricing and Availability
SQL Server 2008 is now available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers and will be available for evaluation download on Aug. 7, 2008. SQL Server 2008 Express and SQL Server Compact editions are available for free download today at http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver.

As previously announced, pricing for SQL Server will not increase with SQL Server 2008. More information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/sqlserver.

¹TPC benchmarks are produced by the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC). Full results are available at http://www.tpc.org. Results referenced are current as of July 29, 2008.
²HP Integrity Superdome, 63651 QphH@10TB, 38.54 $/QphH@10TB, available Aug. 30, 2008.

PASS Summit 2014 is right around the corner!  Register by September 26^th 2014 to take advantage of the PASS Summit discounted pricing.  PASS Summit is not only a great opportunity to attend the highest rated technical sessions but it’s also one of the best times to get certified.

Why should you get certified at PASS Summit 2014?

1. Certifications help grow your career

With Microsoft Training and Certification you can keep your skills relevant, applicable, and competitive, and with the Certification Central onsite at PASS Summit, you’ll have the chance to learn, practice, and even talk one-on-one with the training experts on a variety of technologies. Microsoft Certification is an industry standard recognized worldwide.

2. Only PASS Summit attendees get special pricing

All Microsoft certification exams will be offered at 50% off the regular price to registered PASS Summit attendees! Take advantage of this great opportunity to fulfill your certification requirements at a 50% discount during PASS Summit 2014. This opportunity is only available to registered PASS Summit 2014 attendees – at just $75 USD per exam, it’s like getting two exams for the price of one.   

3. Free exam prep sessions and practice test only at PASS Summit

WALK-IN TESTING REGISTRATION

In order to secure your desired testing timeslot, pre-registering for your exams is always preferred – but of course you can register for your exams onsite. Visit us at Certification Central to find out which exams and certification paths are right for you, and register to take an exam.

THE STUDY HALL

Not sure you’re ready for that exam yet? Come over to The Study Hall, a dedicated, quiet environment where you can study on your own, take a FREE Practice Test, and select from hundreds of on-demand training.

MICROSOFT CERTIFICATION & YOU SESSIONS – formerly “Cert 101”

Join us for a brand new kind of introductory certification session at PASS Summit. Updated from the original Certification 101 session, we’ll help you navigate through the new certifications, the new question types introduced in 2012 and 2013, the migration paths for individuals already certified, and the benefits of certification in your career. Want to get certified?  This is the place to start!

EXAM PREP SESSIONS

Get ready for your next certification test with these interactive study groups led by MCT Ambassadors onsite at PASS Summit. Your leaders will guide you through the most desired exams to ensure you’re prepared. Check the event session guide for exact dates and times – if you’re planning to take an exam, make sure you fit these into your week!

EVENING EXAM

You don’t have to miss sessions or the parties – Wednesday, November 5^th will host extended exam hours. The Exam Room and Study Hall will be open until 8pm on Wed night.  Space will be limited.

MICROSOFT CERTIFICATION SCHEDULE

Don’t wait to register for your preferred exam time at PASS Summit 2014!   Follow these simple step-by-step instructions.

1. Start your registration here with Pearson VUE
2. Click:  Register for an exam
3. Select  the exam you would like to take
4. Click:  "Schedule with Pearson VUE"
5. Confirm personal information and Select:  Submit
6. Select:  "I will be scheduling for a future date at a test center"
7. Click:  Next
8. Select Language (if applicable)
9. Verify Exam Details
10. Click:  "Schedule this Exam"
11. Select Test Center:  Microsoft Event Test Center
    Note:  You may need to search for: Seattle Washington first
12. Click:  Next
13. Select Date and Time
14. Verify Exam order details
15. Click:  Proceed to Checkout
16. Verify Personal Information
17. Click:  Next
18. Select:  Microsoft Policies box
19. Click:  Next
20. Click:  "Add Voucher or Promo Code"
21. Add promo code:  sqlpass
22. Click:  Next
23. Click:  Submit Order
24. Click:  Return Home

At the Accelerate your Insights event last week, Quentin Clark described how SQL Server 2014 was now part of a platform that had in-built in-memory technology across all data workloads.  In particular with this release Microsoft has added in-memory Online Transaction Processing delivering breakthrough performance for applications in throughput and latency.

One of the early adopter customers of this technology is Progressive Insurance, a company that has long made customer service a competitive strength.  Central to customer service experience is the company’s policy-serving web app.  As it updated the app, Progressive planned to add its Special Lines business such as insuring motorcycles, recreational vehicles, boats, and even Segway electric scooters. However, Progressive needed to know that the additional workloads wouldn’t put a damper on the customer experience.

Progressive was interested in In-Memory OLTP capability, which can host online transaction processing (OLTP) tables and databases in a server’s working memory. The company tested In-Memory OLTP even before SQL Server 2014 became commercially available. Modifying the policy-serving app for the test was relatively straightforward, according to Craig Lanford, IT Manager at Progressive. 

The company modified eight natively compiled stored procedures, using already-documented code. In those tests, In-Memory OLTP boosted the processing rate from 5,000 transactions per second to 21,000—a 320 percent increase.

Lanford and his colleagues were delighted that the session-state database performance proved four times as fast with SQL Server 2014, adding “Our IT leadership team gave us the numbers we had to meet to support the increased database workload, and we far exceeded those numbers using Microsoft In-Memory OLTP”.  The company will use the throughput gain to support the addition of its Special Lines business to its policy-servicing app and session-state database. With its use of SQL Server 2014, Progressive can run a single, larger database reliably and avoid the cost of multiple databases.

You can read more about how Progressive is using SQL Server 2014 here.

Whether you’ve already built a data culture in your organization, or if you’re new to exploring how you can turn insights into action, try the latest enhancements to these various technologies: SQL Server 2014, Power BI for Office 365, Microsoft Azure HDInsight, and the Microsoft Analytics Platform System. 

SQL Server 2014 introduces the new In-Memory OLTP feature to boost performance of OLTP workloads. In an earlier blog post, Quentin Clark described how In-Memory OLTP has helped customers achieve performance gains up to 30X.

To help you get started with the new In-Memory OLTP feature in SQL Server 2014 we created a sample around sales order processing based on the AdventureWorks sample database. This is an update of the sample we published back in November following the CTP2 release.

Installation instructions and documentation can be found on MSDN:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn511655(v=sql.120).aspx

The sample script can be downloaded from Codeplex:

https://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/114491

We encourage you to download and install the sample to become familiar with the new memory-optimized tables and natively compiled stored procedures, introduced by the In-Memory OLTP feature in SQL Server 2014.

The documentation also contains instruction for running a demo workload which can be used to measure the performance of the sample on your system, and to contrast the performance of the new memory-optimized tables with traditional disk-based tables.

You can post feedback and questions about the sample on the SQL Server Samples Forum.

On February 11-13, Microsoft will join 2,700 of the world’s leading big data scientists, CIOs and executives at the Strata conference in Santa Clara, CA. For some, Microsoft does not come immediately to mind when thinking about leadership in data; however, along with the power of HDInsight, Microsoft is working to democratize big data – connecting companies to previously untouched data sources and enabling everyone to gain insight through familiar and powerful tools in Microsoft Office Excel.

Quentin Clark, Corporate Vice President of the Data Platform Group will share some of that vision in his keynote address followed by an interview with O’Reilly’s Mac Slocum - streamed live from the Strata conference website. Additionally, Herain Oberoi, Director Product Marketing, Microsoft will deliver a joint session with Bryan Hurd, Director of Advanced Analytics, Microsoft Cybercrime Center, highlighting how they use Microsoft’s portfolio of Big Data solutions, including simple, familiar end user tools and cutting-edge cloud technologies, to fight organized crime and BotNets that commit hundreds of millions of dollars of identity fraud ever year (view the Cybercrime Center video on YouTube).  Visit the Strata Website for full Event Agenda.

Microsoft is also hosting a hack-a-thon on February 8-9.  Not limited to technology, this big data hack-a-thon is aimed at spending 1½ days hacking for a good cause. Extra credit will go to those who develop using HDInsight and Power BI, but you are free to use whichever technology you like.  Sign up here.

Join the conversation – attend one of our sessions in person, visit our exhibit booth (#401) and interact with our data experts or follow us on Facebook.com/sqlserver and Twitter @SQLServer. You will how Microsoft’s complete data platform delivers Big Data: enabling you to enrich your data with external data sources; connect any type of data – structured or unstructured; and extend the accessibility of data analysis beyond scientists into the hands of every employee.

Today we are pleased to announce the availability of a community technology preview release of the Microsoft JDBC Driver for SQL Server! Download the preview driver today here.

The JDBC Driver for SQL Server is a Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) type 4 driver that provides robust data access to Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Azure SQL Database.  Microsoft JDBC Driver 4.1 (Preview) for SQL Server now supports Java Development Kit (JDK) version 7.0.

The updated driver is part of SQL Server’s wider interoperability program, which includes the recent announcement of a preview driver for SQL Server compatible with PHP 5.5.

We look forward to hearing your feedback about the new driver. Let us know what you think on Microsoft Connect.

SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) v5.2 is now available. SSMA simplifies database migration process from Oracle/Sybase/MySQL and Microsoft Access to SQL Server and SQL Azure. SSMA automates all aspects of migration including migration assessment analysis, schema and SQL statement conversion, data migration as well as migration testing to reduce cost and reduce risk of your database migration project. 

• The new version of SSMA - SSMA 5.2 provides the following major enhancements:
• Support conversion of Oracle %ROWTYPE parameters with NULL default
• Support conversion of Sybase’s Rollback Trigger
• Better user credential security to support Microsoft Access Linked Tables

Reduce Cost and Risk of Competitive Database Migration
Does your customer have Oracle, Sybase, MySQL or Access databases that you like to migrate to SQL Server or SQL Azure? SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) automates all aspects of migration including migration assessment analysis, schema and SQL statement conversion, data migration as well as migration testing. The tool provides the following functionalities:

• Database Migration Analyzer: Assess and report complexity of the source database for migration to SQL Server. The generated report include detailed information on the database schema, percentage of the schema objects that can be converted by the tool, and hours estimate for manually migrating those schema objects that cannot be converted automatically. The information can be used for your to decide and to plan for migration. Visit SSMA team site for video demonstration of this feature.
• Schema Converter: Automate conversion of schema objects (including programming code inside package, procedure, function) into equivalent SQL Server objects and T-SQL dialect. The tool provides ability to customize the conversion from hundreds of project setting options according to your specific business requirements. A report will be generated at the end of conversion for any object statement not supported for automated conversion. You can drill down to each of the migration issues and obtain side-by-side comparison between the original source code and the converted source code as well as make necessary modification directly from SSMA user interface. Visit SSMA team site for video demonstration of this feature.
• Data Migrator: Migrate data from the source database to the SQL Server using the same conversion logic and type mapping specified in the project setting during schema conversion. Visit SSMA team site for video demonstration of this feature.
• Migration Tester: Facilitate unit testing of converted program in SQL Server.

Simplify Migration to SQL Azure
Customers can simplify their move to the cloud with the SSMA. You can migrate from competitive database directly to SQL Azure. The tool reports possible migration issue to SQL Azure, convert schema, and migrate data to SQL Azure database. SSMA supports SQL Azure migration from Microsoft Access, MySQL, and Sybase.

Receive FREE technical support and migration resources.
Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) provides free email technical support for SSMA. SSMA product web site and SSMA team blog site provides many resources to help customer to reduce cost and risk for database migration.

Download SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) v.5.2
Launch the download of the SSMA for Oracle.
Launch the download of the SSMA for Sybase.
Launch the download of the SSMA for MySQL.
Launch the download of the SSMA for Access.

Just one week from now, PASS Summit will bring together the #SQLFamily in Seattle for the best week of SQL Server and BI learning and networking on the calendar, Nov. 4-7. With a record 200+ technical sessions across 3 jam-packed days of connecting and sharing with 5,000 fellow SQL Server professionals from around the world, PASS Summit 2014 will be the biggest Summit yet.

In addition to sessions with top community and Microsoft experts, guidance from Microsoft CSS, SQLCAT, and SQL Tiger teams at the popular SQL Server Clinic, and hands-on instructor-led workshops, Summit attendees can get 50% off Microsoft certification exams onsite. What else can you look forward to at this year’s Summit? Here are just some of the networking activities, onsite events, and opportunities to immerse yourself in the #SQLCommunity like never before.

• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Home.aspx
• https://twitter.com/search?q=sqlfamily
• http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2014/10/08/microsoft-sessions-at-pass-summit-2014.aspx
• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Sessions/MoreLearning.aspx
• https://twitter.com/search?q=sqlcommunity

First Timers

First-time Summit attendee? Don’t know what to expect at the conference? Don’t miss one of our First-Timers’ orientation sessions Tuesday before the Welcome Reception to get an inside look at what’s in store for you at PASS Summit and tips on getting the most from your week. Then, jump into a Speed Networking session with your fellow First-Timers, and start making connections. We’ll also have daily “Get to Know Your Community” sessions on how to navigate Summit and get more involved in PASS and the #SQLCommunity year-round.

• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/FirstTimers.aspx
• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/CommunitySessionRoom.aspx#Community

Speaker Idol

For the first time ever, watch as 12 presenter compete for a guaranteed speaking spot at PASS Summit 2015. With three rounds across three days, a panel of judges from the community will give Speaker Idol contestants real-time feedback and select the finalists for Friday’s “speak-off.” Drop by the Community Session Room (Room 400) to watch this competition and cheer on your favorite speakers.

• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/CommunitySessionRoom.aspx#SpeakerIdol
• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/CommunitySessionRoom.aspx

Community Zone

The Community Zone, on the level-4 Skybridge, is the place to mix and mingle with members of the community. Local and Virtual Chapter leaders, Regional Mentors, SQLSaturday organizers, and MVPs will be on hand Wednesday through Friday to answer any questions you have about PASS. The Community Zone will also feature a different country/language spotlight every hour – come by and talk with community leaders from your area and who speak your native language. Plus, meet community leaders from around the world and you could win a $250 VISA gift card in our SQL Around the World scavenger hunt-style game. 

• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/CommunityZone.aspx

Luncheons

This year’s Summit features two great opportunities tolearn more as you dig into lunch. Thursday’s Women in Technology Luncheon welcomes special guest keynoter Kimberly Bryant, founder of Black Girls CODE, to share her thoughts in a question-and-answer session. And join with MVPs, speakers, PASS Board members, and fellow attendees in our closing day Birds of a Feather Luncheon, focused on bringing people with the same passions together.

• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/Luncheons.aspx
• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Sessions/Keynotes.aspx#WITLuncheonKeynote
• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/Luncheons.aspx
• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/Luncheons.aspx
• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/Luncheons.aspx

Evening Events

The fun continues even after sessions are over, with evening events designed to help you engage with the community and relax after an intense day of training. Help us kick off PASS Summit at Tuesday’s Welcome Reception, and rub shoulders with our sponsors and exhibitors at Wednesday’s Exhibitor Reception. Then enjoy Thursday’s Community Appreciation Party at the contemporary, cutting-edge Experience Music Project Museum, sponsored by PASS and Microsoft as a special thank you for being part of the #SQLCommunity.

• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/EveningEvents.aspx
• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/EveningEvents.aspx
• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/EveningEvents.aspx
• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/EveningEvents.aspx
• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/EveningEvents.aspx
• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Connect/EveningEvents.aspx

Read what community bloggers are looking forward to at the SQL Server event of the year. And if you haven’t already, make sure you register by Oct. 31 to save $200 off the onsite rate. We can’t wait to see everyone there!

• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/About/CommunityBlogs.aspx
• http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/RegisterNow.aspx

I’d like to clear up some confusion from a recent Oracle-sponsored blog. It seems we hit a nerve by announcing our planned In-Memory OLTP technology, aka Project ‘Hekaton’, to be shipped as part of the next major release of SQL Server. We’ve noticed the market has also been calling out Oracle on its use of the phrase ‘In-Memory’, so it wasn’t unexpected to see a rant from Bob Evans, Oracle’s SVP of Communications, on the topic. [Editorial update: Oracle rant removed from Forbes.com on 11/20, see Bing cached page 1 and page 2]

Here on the Microsoft Server & Tools team that develops SQL Server, we’re working towards shipping products in a way that delivers maximum benefits to the customer. We don’t want to have dozens of add-ons to do something the product, in this case the database, should just do. In-Memory OLTP, aka ‘Hekaton’, is just one example of this.

It’s worth mentioning that we’ve been in the In-memory game for a couple of years now. We shipped the xVelocity Analytics Engine in SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services, and the xVelocity Columnstore index as part of SQL Server 2012. We’ve shown a 100x reduction in query processing times with this technology, and scan rates of 20 billion rows per second on industry-standard hardware, not some overpriced appliance. In 2010, we shipped the xVelocity in-memory engine as part of PowerPivot, allowing users to easily manipulate millions of rows of data in Excel on their desktops. Today, over 1.5 million customers are using Microsoft’s In-memory technology to accelerate their business. This is before ‘Hekaton’ even enters the conversation.

It was great to see Doug from Information Week also respond to Bob at Oracle, and highlight that in fact Oracle doesn’t yet ship In-Memory database technology in its Exadata appliances. Instead, Oracle requires customers to purchase yet another appliance, Exalytics, to make In-Memory happen.

We’re also realists here at Microsoft, and we know that customers want choices for their technology deployments. So we build our products that way, flexible, open to multiple deployment options, and cloud-ready. For those of you that have dealt with Oracle lately, I’m going to make my own prediction here: ask them to solve a problem for you and the solution is going to be Exadata. Am I right? And as Doug points out in his first InformationWeek article, Oracle’s approach to In-memory in Exadata is “cache-centric”, in contrast to which “Hekaton will deliver true in-memory performance”.

So I challenge Oracle, since our customers are increasingly looking to In-Memory technologies to accelerate their business. Why don’t you stop shipping TimesTen as a separate product and simply build the technology in to the next version of your flagship database? That’s what we’re going to do.

This shouldn’t be construed as a “knee-jerk” reaction to anything Oracle did. We’ve already got customers running ‘Hekaton’ today, including online gaming company Bwin, who have seen a 10x gain in performance just by enabling ‘Hekaton’ for an existing SQL Server application. As Rick Kutschera, IT Solutions Engineer at Bwin puts it, “If you know SQL Server, you know Hekaton”. This is what we mean by “built in”. Not bad for a “vaporware” project we just “invented”.

As for academic references, we’re glad to see that Oracle is reading from the Microsoft Research Database Group. But crowing triumphantly that there is “no mention of papers dealing with in-memory databases” [your emphasis] does not serve you well. Couple of suggestions for Oracle: Switch to Bing; and how about this VLDB paper as a starting point.

Ultimately, it’s customers who will choose from among the multiple competing In-memory visions on offer. And given that we as enterprise vendors tend to share our customers, we would do well to spend more time listening to what they’re saying, helping them solve their problems, and less time firing off blog posts filled with ill-informed and self-serving conclusions.

Clearly, Oracle is fighting its own fight. An Exadata in every data center is not far off from Bill’s dream of a “computer on every desk.” But, as with Bill’s vision, the world is changing. There will always be a need for a computer on a desk or a big box in a data center, but now there is so much more to enterprise technology. Cloud, mobility, virtualization, and data everywhere. The question is, how can a company called “Oracle” be surprised by the trends we see developing all around us?

-- Nick King, Senior Marketing Manager, Server & Tools

Microsoft will be at the Gartner Business Intelligence and Analytics summit being held in Las Vegas from March 30^th – April 2^nd as a premier sponsor. We’re looking forward to sharing our vision of how we’re making big data real through the familiar tools you already use – SharePoint, Excel and SQL Server – as well as new ones such as Power BI for Office 365 and Windows Azure HDInsight.

Over the last few years, we’ve all had to deal with an explosion in data types and the velocity at which we need to react to that data. In this world of big data, Microsoft has refined our data toolkit – adding performance and scaling capabilities on commodity hardware in SQL Server 2014, as well as the ability to store, process and analyze large volumes of data through Windows Azure HDInsight, our 100% compatible implementation of Apache Hadoop.

Just as we’ve added capabilities to our data platform, we’ve continued to focus on making it as easy as possible to get rich insights from your stored data – whether it’s in SQL Server, Windows Azure HDInsight or a 3^rd party data provider such as a LOB system. We’ve built powerful visualizations right into Excel with Power View and have added geospatial mapping capabilities through Power Map. It’s also now possible to query your data with natural language through Q&A in Power BI.

Our focus at Gartner will be on showcasing how all of these innovations are coming together to enable all of your users to find, analyze and use the information they need quickly and easily.

We’d love to speak to you if you’ll be there. Stop by our booth; attend our session on April 2^nd from 10:45 AM – 11:45 AM; or schedule an individual meeting with Microsoft through the Gartner concierge. We’re also co-hosting a learning lab on the show floor with our partner SAP where you can learn about how Power BI connects to SAP BusinessObjects BI Universes, both through small group sessions and hands-on demonstrations.

We hope to see you. If you haven’t yet registered, you may use code BISP7 to get a $300 discount on registration.

For those who want access to the upcoming SQL Server 2014 release as soon as possible, please sign-up to be notified once the release is available.  Also, please join us on April 15 for the Accelerate Your Insights event to learn about our data platform strategy and how more customers are gaining significant value with SQL Server 2014.  There also will be additional launch events worldwide so check with your local Microsoft representatives or your local PASS chapter for more information on SQL Server readiness opportunities.

Mark your calendars for November 28^th to get an inside track on how to make smarter business decisions. Join us for the new webcast “Driving Smarter Decisions with Microsoft Big Data”, presented by Mike Flasko, Principle Program Manager at Microsoft and IDG Enterprise.  Watch the webcast at www.CIO.com on November 28^th and you can earn a chance to win one of three Executive Gift Packs (includes a SQL Server branded jacket, a SQL Server branded laptop case and a non-branded USB hub) through our Sweepstakes Drawing or one of three Xbox/Kinect bundles by participating in our Skills Contest.

To enter the Sweepstakes portion of the Microsoft Big Data Webcast Challenge, you must:

• Watch the Microsoft Big Data Webcast in its entirety on November 28^th between 6am PT and 5 pm PT.
• Limit one sweepstakes entry per person

To enter the Skills contest portion of the Microsoft Big Data Webcast Challenge, you must:

• Log in to your Twitter account.  If you do not have a Twitter account, you can register for a free account by visiting Twitter.com.
• Follow @SQLServer on Twitter to be eligible.
• Watch the Big Data Webcast on November 28^th between 6 am and 5 pm PT.
• During the course of the day, three questions relating to the Big Data Webcast will be posted via @SQLServer on Twitter. Reply with the correct answer to @SQLServer and include the hashtag #bigdatawebcast in your reply.
• You may only answer each question one time. If you submit more than one answer to a question, all of your responses (including your first) will be disqualified.

There is a limit of one Challenge prize per person. The six winners of the Big Data Webcast Challenge will be announced at 5 pm PT on November 30^th via @SQLServer on Twitter.  This Challenge is open to all eligible participants worldwide.  If you are unable or choose not to accept the prize, the prize will be awarded to an alternate winner. See full contest rules below.

MICROSOFT BIG DATA WEBCAST CHALLENGE – OFFICIAL RULES

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING.

By participating in the “Big Data Webcast Challenge” (the “Challenge”) ”, you understand that these Official Rules are binding and that the decisions of Microsoft Corporation (the “Sponsor” who may also be referred to as “Microsoft”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) are final and binding on all matters pertaining to this Challenge. The Challenge includes a skills contest and sweepstakes drawing as described more fully below.

It is your responsibility to review and understand your employer’s policies regarding your eligibility to participate in trade promotions such as this one. If you are participating in violation of your employer’s policies, you may be disqualified from entering or receiving prizes.  Microsoft disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for disputes arising between employees and their employers related to this matter. Prizes will only be awarded in compliance with the employer’s policies.

ELIGIBILITY: You are eligible to enter this Challenge if you meet the following requirements at time of entry:

• You are an IT Professional or a developing IT Professional and you are 18 years of age or older; and
• You are NOT a resident of any of the following countries: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, or Syria.
• PLEASE NOTE: U.S export regulations prohibit the export of goods and services to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. Therefore residents of these countries/regions are not eligible to participate; and
• You are NOT an employee of Microsoft Corporation or an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary; and
• You are NOT involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Challenge; and
• You are NOT an immediate family (parent, sibling, spouse, child) or household member of a Microsoft employee, an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary, or a person involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Challenge.

ENTRY PERIOD: The Challenge begins at 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time (PT) on November 28, 2012, and ends at 5:00 p.m. PT on November 28, 2012. (“Entry Period”).

HOW TO ENTER / ENTRY LIMIT:

Sweepstakes Drawing:

To receive one entry into the sweepstakes drawing, watch the Microsoft “Big Data” Webcast on November 28^th between 6 am PT and 5 pm PT. For finishing the webcast in its entirety, you will receive one entry into the Sweepstakes. Limit one entry per person.

Skills Contest:

To enter the skills contest, you must be logged into your Twitter account and you must be a follower of @SQLServer to be eligible. If you do not have a Twitter account you can register for a free account by visiting Twitter.com. Then visit www.CIO.com, log in to the Microsoft “Big Data” Webcast on November 28 from 6am-5pm PT. During the course of the day on November 28th between 6 am PT and 5 pm PT,, three questions relating to the Microsoft “Big Data Webcast” will be posted via @SQLServer on Twitter. Reply to @SQLServer with the correct answer and include the hashtag #bigdatawebcast. Limit one entry per person per question.

We are not responsible for entries that we do not receive for any reason. We reserve the right to modify the Webcast schedule for any reason.

WINNER SELECTION & NOTIFICATION/PRIZE:

Sweepstakes: On or around November 30, we, or a company acting under our authorization, will randomly select three winners from among all eligible sweepstakes entries received to win a prize package consisting of the following items: A SQL branded hoodie, a branded Laptop bag, and a non-branded USB hub. Approximate retail value, ARV, $150.

Contest: The first eligible entrant to reply to @SQLServer on Twitter with the correct answer to each question will win an Xbox 360 4GB with Kinect. ARV, $299 each. Three contest prizes will be awarded, one for each question. The Xbox/Kinect bundle are US versions.

Limit one Challenge prize per person. If you are a potential winner, we will notify you through your Twitter account, e-mail address, or the telephone number provided when you registered within 3 business days following the random drawing. If the notification that we send is returned as undeliverable, or you are otherwise unreachable for any reason, we may award the prize to an alternate, randomly selected winner. Winners will have seven (7) days to reply to the notification; otherwise an alternate, randomly selected winner will be determined.

Your odds of winning this Challenge depend on the number of eligible entries received.

If you are a winner:

• You may not exchange your prize for cash; and
• If you do not wish to or cannot accept the prize, it will be forfeited and we may, at our discretion, award it to a runner-up. We may, however, award a prize of comparable or greater value, at our discretion; and
• You are responsible for all federal, state, provincial and local taxes (including income and withholding taxes) as well as any other costs and expenses associated with accepting and/or using the prize that are not included above as being part of the prize award; and
• You understand you are accepting the prize “as is” with no warranty or guarantee, either express or implied by us; and
• ·You understand that all prize details shall be determined by us.

WINNER NOTIFICATION: If you are determined to be the winner:

• The prize will be awarded to you and you shall ensure it is used and/or distributed in accordance with your company’s policies (the Promotion Parties (as hereinafter defined) are not responsible for the re-distribution of prizes within your company); and
• You will notified by phone or by U.S. mail, overnight mail, or e-mail; and
• You may be required to sign and return an Affidavit of Eligibility and Liability/Publicity release, unless prohibited by law, within ten (10) days of date of prize notification.

If you are the winner and you: (i) do not reply to such notification or the notification is undeliverable; (ii) do not return the Affidavit of Eligibility and Liability/Publicity release completed and signed within ten (10) days of date of prize notification; or, if you (iii) are not otherwise in compliance with these Official Rules, you will be disqualified and, we may, at our discretion, notify a runner-up. If you are a winner and accept the prize, you agree that we and our designees shall have the right to use your name, city and state of residence in any and all media now or hereafter devised worldwide in perpetuity, without additional compensation, notification or permission, unless prohibited by law.

LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY: The Promotion Parties are not responsible for any liability, cost or injury incurred by Participants arising out of or in connection with the Challenge, including, without limitation, the following:

• Lost, late, incomplete, inaccurate, stolen, fraudulent, misdirected, undelivered, interrupted, damaged, delayed or postage-due reports, entries, mail or other information;
• Any incorrect or inaccurate information or error or defect of any kind regardless of who it is caused by, or the means by which it occurred; or
• Equipment, software, network or systems that fail, have viruses or other problems, are breached or that cause injury or damage to participants or their property.

By entering this Challenge, you agree to, and hereby release and hold harmless Microsoft, its parent company, affiliates, subsidiaries, and advertising or promotion agencies, and anyone working directly on this program, product and promotion, and all of their respective officers, directors, employees and representatives (which for the purpose of these Official Rules will be referred to together as the “Promotion Parties”) from any and all liability or any injuries, loss or damage of any kind arising from or in connection with this Challenge or acceptance and use of any prize. No responsibility is assumed by Microsoft for lost, late, or misdirected entries or any computer, online telephone, or technical malfunctions that may occur. All entries become the property of Microsoft and will not be returned.

GENERAL CONDITIONS: This Challenge is governed by Washington law. You agree that the jurisdiction and venue for the handling of any disputes or actions arising out of this Challenge shall be in the courts of the State of Washington.

If, for any reason, the Challenge is not capable of running as planned for any reason, including, without limitation, the reasons set forth above, we reserve the right at our sole discretion to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Challenge. If a solution cannot be found to restore the integrity of the Challenge, we may, at our sole discretion, determine the winners of this Challenge, using all non-suspect, eligible customer redemption reports and/or entries received (as applicable) before we had to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Challenge.

We may disqualify you from participating in the Challenge, or winning a prize (and void your participation in the other promotions we may offer) if, in our sole discretion, we determine you are attempting to undermine the legitimate operation of the Challenge by cheating, deception or other unfair playing practices, or intending to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass us, any other entrant or our representatives or if you are otherwise not in compliance with the terms of these Official Rules. CAUTION: ANY ATTEMPT BY YOU OR ANY OTHER INDIVIDUAL TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE ANY WEBSITE OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THE CHALLENGE IS A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS AND SHOULD SUCH AN ATTEMPT BE MADE, WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES FROM YOU TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

HOW CAN YOU FIND OUT WHO WON?

To find out if you won, requests can be emailed to v-hesuk@microsoft.com for 30 days following the drawing.

SPONSOR: This Challenge is sponsored by Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052.

Today we are happy to announce the availability of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 for MSDN and TechNet subscribers.

For subscribers, SQL Server 2008 R2 is now available in the following editions: Enterprise, Standard, Web, Workgroup and Developer (English Language availability only). To get started visit -

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions
• http://technet.microsoft.com/subscriptions

As a reminder, customers and partners who aren’t able to attend one of the many worldwide SQL Server 2008 R2 launch events, can view a SQL Server 2008 R2 Digital Tour at www.sqlserverlaunch.com.

PASS Summit 2011 starts this Wednesday and we’re very excited to share all the great content to attendees and the rest of the community who will be tuning in via the web. The SQL Server and Microsoft BI social teams will be present at the PASS Summit and will be very busy getting the word out to the community. Here’s a rundown of what’s going on!

We’ll be tweeting updates during the event. Be sure you’re following the @SQLServer and @MicrosoftBI twitter handles to stay up to date on course schedules, keynote updates, content links, and retweets from our awesome community!

SQL Server / Microsoft BI TweetUp

We are holding the first ever SQL Server / Microsoft BI TweetUp from 5-7pm PT on Thursday, October 13^th 2011 at Rock Bottom Brewery (just prior to the party at Gameworks). We will have members of our engineering, product management and marketing teams on hand for you to engage with and talk about SQL Server Code Name “Denali”! The official hashtag for this TweetUp is #MStweetup, please include this in tweets referring to the event.

We will be taking over Rock Bottom’s bar area from 5-7pm and will be providing free drinks and appetizers along with special gifts for the first 100 attendees. Additionally, we will be doing an on-site raffle (via Twitter on @SQLServer) for great prizes including a Microsoft Kinect, the new Microsoft Touch Mouse, and other great prizes.*

Bring your smartphones loaded up with your favorite Twitter apps to join in on the fun and share what you learn about SQL Server Code Name “Denali” at the event. Be sure to be following @SQLServer and @MicrosoftBI for updates and to win prizes if you are at the TweetUp!

Due to space restrictions, we are limited to 200 attendees, so don’t be late!

TweetUp Details:

• When: Thursday, October 13, 2011 from 5:00 – 7:00pm
• Where: Rock Bottom Brewery (1333 5th Ave St, Seattle)

*Must be present to win

Foursquare Check In’s at the PASS Summit

Be sure to have your smartphones ready to check into Foursquare locations throughout the PASS Summit in the Seattle Convention Center as when you check into key areas at the Summit, you will be provided with tips on places/things to explore nearby.

Key areas to check in at include:

• Keynote Sessions
• Microsoft Product Pavilion
• Hands On Labs
• Focus Groups
• Expert Pods
• SQL Server Clinic

Have you been watching Data Exposed over on Channel 9? If you’re a data developer, Data Exposed is a great place to learn more about what you can do with data: relational and non-relational, on-premises and in the cloud, big and small.

On the show, Scott Klein and his guests demonstrate features, discuss the latest news, and share their love for data technology – from SQL Server, to Azure HDInsight, and more!

We rounded up the year’s top 10 most-watched videos from Data Exposed. Check them out below – we hope you learn something new!

• Introducing Azure Data Factory: Learn about Azure Data Factory, a new service for data developers and IT pros to easily transform raw data into trusted data assets for their organization at scale.
• Introduction to Azure DocumentDB: Get an introduction to Azure DocumentDB, a NoSQL document database-as-a-service that provides rich querying, transactional processing over schema free data, and query processing and transaction semantics that are common to relational database systems.
• Introduction to Azure Search: Learn about Azure Search, a new fully-managed, full-text search service in Microsoft Azure which provides powerful and sophisticated search capabilities to your applications.
• Azure SQL Database Elastic Scale: Learn about Azure SQL Database Elastic Scale, .NET client libraries and Azure cloud service packages that provide the ability to easily develop, scale, and manage the stateful data tiers of your SQL Server applications.
• Hadoop Meets the Cloud: Scenarios for HDInsight: Explore real-life customer scenarios for big data in the cloud, and gain some ideas of how you can use Hadoop in your environment to solve some of the big data challenges many people face today.
• Azure Stream Analytics: See the capabilities of Azure Stream Analytics and how it helps make working with mass volumes of data more manageable.
• The Top Reasons People Call Bob Ward: Scott Klein is joined by Bob Ward, Principle Escalation Engineer for SQL Server, to talk about the top two reasons why people want to talk to Bob Ward and the rest of his SQL Server Services and Support team.
• SQL Server 2014 In-Memory OLTP Logging: Learn about In-Memory OLTP, a memory-optimized and OLTP-optimized database engine integrated into SQL Server. See how transactions and logging work on memory-optimized-tables, and how a system can recover in-memory data in case of a system failure.
• Insights into Azure SQL Database: Get a candid and insightful behind-the-scenes look at Azure SQL Database, the new service tiers, and the process around determining the right set of capabilities at each tier.
• Using SQL Server Integration Services to Control the Power of Azure HDInsight: Join Scott and several members of the #sqlfamily to talk about how to control cloud from on-premises SQL Server.

Interested in taking your learning to the next level? Try SQL Server or Microsoft Azure now.

Microsoft today announced that Azure HDInsight is now available for all customers in China as a public preview, making it the first global cloud provider to have a publicly available cloud Hadoop offering in China. With this launch, Microsoft is bringing Azure HDInsight’s ability to process big data volumes from unstructured and semi-structured sources to China. Both local Chinese organizations and multi-national corporations with offices in China can spin up a Hadoop cluster within minutes. 

Hadoop is an open-source platform for storing and processing massive amounts of data. By using Hadoop alongside your traditional data architecture, you can gain deep insights into data you never imagined being able to access.  As an example, Blackball, a Taiwanese Tea and Dessert restaurant chain was able to combine traditional data from its point-of-sale systems with new data from social sentiment and weather feeds to understand why a customer would purchase their products.  By combining traditional sources with new “Big Data”, Blackball found out that hot/cold weather was not really a factor in its sales of hot/cold drinks and was able to adjust accordingly to customer demand.

It is these types of results that are causing a wave of demand for big data. We invite you to try HDInsight today either in China or across the other Azure data centers. 

Learn more through the following resources:

• Microsoft Azure China website (Chinese)
• Azure Trial (Chinese)  
• Documentation Learning Map (English)
• Microsoft Virtual Academy (English)

We are working to make Azure the best cloud platform for big data, including Apache Hadoop. To accomplish this, we deliver a comprehensive set of solutions such as our Hadoop-based solution Azure HDInsight and managed data services from partners, including Hortonworks. Last week Hortonworks  announced the most recent milestone in our partnership and yesterday we announced even more data options for our Azure customers through a partnership with Cloudera.

Cloudera is recognized as a leader in the Hadoop community, and that’s why we’re excited Cloudera Enterprise has achieved Azure Certification. As a result of this certification, organizations will be able to launch a Cloudera Enterprise cluster from the Azure Marketplace starting October 28. Initially, this will be an evaluation cluster with access to MapReduce, HDFS and Hive. At the end of this year when Cloudera 5.3 releases, customers will be able to leverage the power of the full Cloudera Enterprise distribution including HBase, Impala, Search, and Spark.

We’re also working with Cloudera to ensure greater integration with Analytics Platform System, SQL Server, Power BI and Azure Machine Learning. This will allow organizations to build big data solutions quickly and easily by using the best of Microsoft and Cloudera, together.  For example Arvato Bertelsmann was able to help clients cut fraud losses in half and speed credit calculations by 1,000x.

Our partnership with Cloudera allows customers to use the Hadoop distribution of their choice while getting the cloud benefits of Azure. It is also a sign of our continued commitment to make Hadoop more accessible to customers by supporting the ability to run big data workloads anywhere – on hosted VM’s and managed services in the public cloud, on-premise or in hybrid scenarios.

From Strata in New York to our recent news from San Francisco it’s exciting times ahead for those in the data space.  We hope you join us for this ride!

Eron Kelly
General Manager, Data Platform

Data enthusiasts & Microsoft talk about Big Data in the enterprise at Gigaom Structure Data 2014

Last week in New York, our data solutions experts spent a few days with more than 900 big data practitioners, technologists and executives at Structure Data for a conversation how big data can drive business success.

The rich conversations with attendees at the event were inspiring, and the broad range of speakers was impressive.  Our discussions over the two days in New York centered on what the Big Data solution looks like inside an enterprise and the challenges around accessing and processing big data to make better data-driven decisions. 

Structure Data attendees want to combine data from multiple sources to do a couple key things -- to gain deeper insights and to ask new questions and get answers.  However, without the right technology to support that, it can be very challenging to do this.  That's where Microsoft comes in -- and where we continued the dialog with attendees as our data experts used a huge Microsoft touchscreens to show how easy it can be to transform big data to insights using simple, front-end tools (like Excel or Power BI for Office 365) and back-end technology for scale, power and speed (like Windows Azure HDInsight and SQL Server). 

Microsoft Research Distinguished Scientist John Platt also spoke at Structure Data and shared the latest on our work in machine learning, which is quite pervasive throughout many Microsoft products. If you missed it, take a moment to watch the short chat here. 

Our data experts also gave attendees an insiders’ view at how Microsoft’s Cybercrime Center is using data to fight worldwide organized crime and BotNets. (See the video below for more.) 

Take the first step and learn more about Microsoft Big Data solutions:

• Use simple tools, to easily analyze Big Data, experience it by trying Power BI
• Take the latest SQL Server for a test drive
• Use cloud power to work with Big Data, try Windows Azure HDInsight

Or, connect with us on Facebook.com/sqlserver and Twitter @SQLServer and learn how Microsoft’s approach to data, big and small, helps employees, IT professionals and data scientists quickly transform data into insight and action.

And don't forget about the April 15^th Accelerate your insights event where Microsoft will unveil the details of new capabilities for the appliance that has both scale-out relational data warehouse and Hadoop in the same box, thus evolving PDW from a solution built for high performance relational data warehousing to a true turnkey Big Data Analytics appliance.

On the heels of SQL Server 2008 being released to manufacturing last week, SQL Server 2008 Express was made available for download today. As with SQL Server 2005 Express, SQL Server 2008 Express will be released in stages. SQL Server 2008 with Advanced Services and the new SQL Server 2008 Express with Tools edition will be made available in coming weeks.

SQL Server 2008 Express with Tools includes the core database engine and SQL Server Management Studio Basic. This is the ideal edition for people that want the essential tools for developing relational database applications. Advanced features such as Integrated Full Text Search, Reporting Services and BIDS will be available in SQL Server 2008 Express Advanced.

Resource Links

• Download SQL Server 2008 Express (We encourage you to register)
• SQL Server 2008 Express Overview
• SQL Server 2008 Express Weblog
• Visual Studio 2008 SP1

Prerequisites

• .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
• Windows Installer 4.5
• Windows PowerShell 1.0

Overview

• SQL Server 2008 Express  (for Advanced users)
• SQL Server database engine - Create, store, update and retrieve your data
• Available: Now
  
• SQL Server 2008 Express with Tools (Recommended - New)
• SQL Server database engine - Create, store, update and retrieve your data
• SQL Server Management Studio Basic - Visual database management tool for creating, editing and managing databases
• Available: End of August 2008
  
• SQL Server 2008 Express with Advanced Services (for Advanced users)
• SQL Server database engine - Create, store, update and retrieve your data
• SQL Server Management Studio Basic - Visual database management tool for creating, editing and managing databases
• Full-text Search - Powerful, high-speed engine for searching text-intensive data
• Reporting Services - Integrated report creation and design environment to create reports
• Available: End of August 2008

Notes:

* The SqlPS command line tool can be enabled in SQL Server 2008 Express by installing Windows PowerShell 1.0 before installing SQL Server 2008 Express.

** Policies can be created in SQL Server 2008 Express and run manually. There is no support for automated policy based management.

*** Synchronization Services support in SQL Server 2008 Express requires that you install the component separately from the SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack.

At the TechEd North America 2011 conference in Atlanta this week, the SQL Server team is providing details on the SQL Server “Denali” release, including the upcoming public availability of a Community Technology Preview (CTP) this summer.  As part of these announcements, we are providing an update on the SQL Server Analysis Services roadmap that was disclosed during the PASS 2010 conference last November (detailed here).  In the past six months, we have been talking to many people in the Microsoft BI community – customers, partners, developers, and MVPs – to get feedback on the roadmap.  We are seeing lots of excitement about the breakthrough innovations coming in SQL Server “Denali” and the new class of BI applications that it will enable.  At the same time, we have learned that we need to be clearer about how customers can carry forward their existing BI applications and benefit from these innovations.  Based on this feedback from the community, we’ve made a couple of adjustments and clarifications to the roadmap and vision, outlined below.

Analysis Services is an industry leading BI platform and the most popular OLAP engine in the market (see Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms).  It has a large ecosystem of developers, partners, BI tools, and solutions, and it has broad adoption from small businesses to large enterprises.  It is the foundation of the Microsoft BI stack, serving as the semantic model for Microsoft BI tools including Excel, SharePoint Insights and Reporting Services.  Our vision is to build on the strengths and success of Analysis Services, expand its reach to a much broader community, and enable the next generation of BI applications.  We will do this by embracing the relational data model and bringing it together with the multidimensional model under a single unified BI platform – providing the best of both worlds.  Analysis Services, by virtue of its OLAP roots, has tremendous strengths in multidimensional modeling which is capable of tackling the most advanced of BI applications.  On the other hand, the relational data model is widely understood and accepted by developers and IT professionals around the world.  By bringing the two data models together, we will provide a powerful yet flexible platform that can tackle the diverse needs of BI applications – needs such as advanced analytics, sophisticated business logic, professional developer tools, choice of end user tools, performance, scalability, ease of use, and time to solution.  The Business Intelligence Semantic Model is being introduced in Analysis Services for SQL Server “Denali” with the goal to fulfill this vision.

The BI Semantic Model is one model for all end user experiences – reporting, analytics, scorecards, dashboards, and custom applications.  All client tools in the Microsoft BI stack – Excel, PowerPivot, SharePoint Insights and Reporting Services (including Crescent) – operate on this model. BI professionals can create the model in Visual Studio and deploy it to an Analysis Services server.  Interestingly, the model can also be created by business users with PowerPivot for Excel and shared via PowerPivot for SharePoint.  PowerPivot and Analysis Services are two different products; one targets business users and the other targets BI professionals and IT.  However both use the BI Semantic Model under the covers.  In the case of PowerPivot, the model is embedded inside an Excel workbook.  In the case of Analysis Services, the model is stored and managed on the server.  Having the same model behind these experiences enables seamless transition of BI applications from Personal BI to Team BI to Organizational/Professional BI.  For example, a PowerPivot workbook built by a business user can be used as a starting point by a BI professional building an Analysis Services application. The SQL Server professional tools (Management Studio and BI Development Studio) make it very simple to import a PowerPivot workbook into Analysis Services.

Before we get into the details of the BI Semantic Model, let me first address an important question: What about existing Analysis Services cubes (also known as Unified Dimensional Model or UDM)?  The answer is very simple:  when you upgrade your Analysis Services project or server to SQL Server “Denali”, every cube automatically becomes a BI Semantic Model. The BI Semantic Model is an evolution of the UDM from a pure multidimensional model into a hybrid model that offers all of the capabilities of the UDM and more. As such, the term Unified Dimensional Model is no longer used with SQL Server “Denali” and is subsumed by the BI Semantic Model. This is a key difference in the roadmap from what was disclosed last November at PASS 2010.

Now let’s get into the details of the BI Semantic Model – how to build a model and the technology that powers the model. The BI Semantic Model can be viewed conceptually as a three-layer model:

• Data Model:  This is the conceptual data model that the model developer and the model consumer work with.  The BI Semantic Model is a hybrid model supporting both multidimensional and tabular data modeling.  The model developer can use BI Development Studio to create a BI Semantic Model using a multidimensional project or a tabular project.  And the client tool can consume the model using a multidimensional or a tabular interface.  Model developers will typically choose between multidimensional and tabular projects based on the needs of their application and their skill set.  On the other hand, client tools will typically use either the multidimensional or tabular interface depending on the nature of the intended user experience.  Rich analytical tools such as Excel will typically use the multidimensional interface while ad hoc reporting tools such as Crescent will use the tabular interface.
• Business Logic & Queries:  This layer represents the intelligence or semantics in the model.  Model developers can embed business logic in the model using MDX (Multidimensional Expressions) or DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) calculation languages.  And client tools consuming the model can express additional business logic using MDX or DAX queries.  MDX was pioneered by the Analysis Services team over the last 12 years and has become the BI industry standard for multidimensional calculations and queries.  DAX is an expression language based on Excel formulas that was introduced in PowerPivot and built on tabular concepts.  Again, model developers and client tools will choose between MDX and DAX based on application needs, skill set, user experience, etc.
• Data Access:  This layer integrates data from multiple sources – relational databases, business applications, flat files, OData feeds, etc.  There are two modes for retrieving and managing this data – cached and passthrough. The cached mode pulls in data from all the sources and stores it in a compressed data structure that is optimized for high speed data access.  The passthrough mode pushes query processing and business logic down to the data source, thereby exploiting the capabilities of the source system and avoiding the need to copy the data. Obviously there is a tradeoff between the two modes and the model developer needs to make the choice based on application needs.
  • There are two storage engines that can be used for caching the data – MOLAP and VertiPaq™.  MOLAP is the storage engine that has been used in Analysis Services for many releases. It is optimized for OLAP and uses techniques such as pre-built aggregates, bitmap indexes, and compression to deliver great performance and scale.  In SQL Server “Denali”, we are introducing the VertiPaq storage engine as an alternative to MOLAP.  VertiPaq is an in-memory column store engine that combines state-of-art data compression and scanning algorithms to deliver blazing fast performance with no need for indexes, aggregates or tuning.
  • There are two options for passthrough – ROLAP and DirectQuery.  ROLAP is complementary to MOLAP while DirectQuery is complementary to VertiPaq.  Both attempt to push query evaluation, as much as possible, down into the data source.  ROLAP is optimized for large fact tables and relatively small dimension tables, while DirectQuery is mostly neutral towards the backend database structure (more on this in a later blog post).

As you can see, the BI Semantic Model is a rich, scalable, and flexible model.  The richness lies in the sophisticated data modeling capabilities and complex business logic that can be expressed using MDX and DAX.  The performance and scalability comes from the MOLAP and VertiPaq storage engines that enable data volumes all the way from a few megabytes up to multiple terabytes.  Flexibility is probably the most interesting aspect of the model.  Model developers can choose between the multidimensional and tabular data modeling experiences, between MDX and DAX for business logic, and between cached and passthrough modes for data access and storage.  Regardless of the model developer’s choices, client tools see a single model and can consume it using the multidimensional or tabular interfaces and send MDX or DAX queries.

SQL Server “Denali” is the first release on the Analysis Services roadmap towards realizing the BI Semantic Model vision stated above. As such, there will be some limitations in this release in the flexibility we offer to model developers. BI Development Studio comes with two projects for building a BI Semantic Model – a multidimensional project and tabular project. The multidimensional project lets model developers use the multidimensional modeling experience along with MDX and MOLAP/ROLAP (this is what existing UDM projects get upgraded to).  The tabular project lets model developers use the tabular modeling experience along with DAX and VertiPaq/DirectQuery.  It is important to note that these restrictions in the two projects are not rigid or permanent; they could very well change in future releases based on customer requirements.  For example, we could offer model developers VertiPaq as a storage option for multidimensional projects or MDX scripts for tabular projects. Another limitation in the upcoming CTP release is that models built using the multidimensional project will not support DAX queries (and thereby Crescent, which uses DAX to retrieve data from the model). We recognize that removing this restriction is very important for customers with existing Analysis Services solutions to be able to upgrade to SQL Server “Denali” and leverage Crescent. The product team is actively working on it and is committed to making this functionality available to customers.

Finally, I’d like to invite you to try out the upcoming Community Technology Preview (CTP) of SQL Server “Denali” and send us your feedback. The product team has been working very hard on it over the past year and we are excited to share it with you. You can check for the availability of the CTP by visiting http://www.sqlserverlaunch.com. In the upcoming months, we will be putting out blog posts and whitepapers that dive into the details of the BI Semantic Model and provide best practices and guidance on building and deploying models. The Microsoft BI community has been instrumental in helping us shape our product vision and strategy and we look forward to your close engagement and partnership as we look to redefine the BI landscape with these new innovations in SQL Server “Denali”.

T.K. Anand
Principal Group Program Manager
SQL Server Analysis Services

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 CTP2 was announced by Quentin Clark during the Microsoft SQL PASS 2013 keynote.  This second public CTP is essentially feature complete and enables you to try and test all of the capabilities of the full SQL Server 2014 release. Below you will find an overview of SQL Server 2014 as well as key new capabilities added in CTP2:

SQL Server 2014 helps organizations by delivering:

• Mission Critical Performance across all database workloads with In-Memory for online transaction processing (OLTP), data warehousing and business intelligence built-in as well as greater scale and availability
• Platform for Hybrid Cloud enabling organizations to more easily build, deploy and manage database solutions that span on-premises and cloud
• Faster Insights from Any Data with a complete BI solution using familiar tools like Excel

Thank you to those that have already downloaded SQL Server 2014 CTP1 and started seeing first hand the performance gains that in-memory capabilities deliver along with better high availability with AlwaysOn enhancements.  CTP2 introduces additional mission critical capabilities with further enhancements to the in-memory technologies along with new hybrid cloud capabilities.

What’s new in SQL Server 2014 CTP2?

New Mission Critical Capabilities and Enhancements

• Enhanced In-Memory OLTP, including new tools which will help you identify and migrate the tables and stored procedures will benefit most from In-Memory OLTP, as well as greater T-SQL compatibility and new indexes which enables more customers to take advantage of our solution.
• High Availability for In-Memory OLTP Databases:  AlwaysOn Availability Groups are supported for In-Memory OLTP, giving you in-memory performance gains with high availability.  IO Resource Governance, enabling customers to more effectively manage IO across multiple databases and/or classes of databases to provide more predictable IO for your most critical workloads.  Customers today can already manage CPU and memory.
• Improved resiliency with Windows Server 2012 R2 by taking advantage of Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs).  CSV’s provide improved fault detection and recovery in the case of downtime.
• Delayed Durability, providing the option for increased transaction throughput and lower latency for OLTP applications where performance and latency needs outweigh the need for 100% durability.

New Hybrid Cloud Capabilities and Enhancements

By enabling the above in-memory performance capabilities for your SQL Server instances running in Windows Azure Virtual Machines, you will see significant transaction and query performance gains.  In addition there are new capabilities listed below that will allow you to unlock new hybrid scenarios for SQL Server.

• Managed Backup to Windows Azure, enabling you to backup on-premises SQL Server databases to Windows Azure storage directly in SSMS.  Managed Backup also optimizes backup policy based on usage, an advantage over the manual Backup to Windows Azure. 
• Encrypted Backup, offering customer the ability to encrypt both on-premises backup and backups to Windows Azure for enhance security.
• Enhanced disaster recovery to Windows Azure with simplified UI, enabling customers to more easily add Windows Azure Virtual Machines as AlwaysOn secondaries in SQL Server Management Studio for greater cost-effective data protection and disaster recovery solution.  Customers may also use the secondaries in Windows Azure for to scale and offload reporting and backups.
• SQL Server Data Files in Windows Azure - New capability to store large databases (>16TB) in Windows Azure and the ability to stream the database as a backend for SQL Server applications running on-premises or in the cloud.

Learn more and download SQL Server 2014 CTP2

SQL Server 2014 helps address key business challenges of ever growing data volumes, the need to transact and process data faster, the scalability and efficiency of cloud computing and an ever growing hunger for business insights.   With SQL Server 2014 you can now unlock real-time insights with mission critical and cloud performance and take advantage of one of the most comprehensive BI solutions in the marketplace today.

Many customers are already realizing the significant benefits of the new in-memory technologies in SQL Server 2014 including: Edgenet, Bwin, SBI Liquidity, TPP and Ferranti.  Stay tuned for an upcoming blog highlighting the impact in-memory had to each of their businesses.

Learn more about SQL Server 2014 and download the datasheet and whitepapers here.  Also if you would like to learn more about SQL Server In-Memory best practices, check out this SQL Server 2014 in-memory blog series compilation. There is also a SQL Server 2014 hybrid cloud scenarios blog compilation for learning best practices.

Also if you haven’t already download SQL Server 2014 CTP 2 and see how much faster your SQL Server applications run!  The CTP2 image is also available on Windows Azure, so you can easily develop and test the new features of SQL Server 2014.

Predictive analytics has greatly empowered organizations across industries. One of the key benefits of predictive analytics centers on the ability to shorten decision cycle times, which enables organizations to improve risk management, customer responsiveness, marketing, and supply chain. This is not a small feat given that the ever growing stream of data can be daunting, but when data is effectively captured and analyzed, organizations can gain a distinct and game-changing advantage.

How are financial services, life sciences, retail, technology, and manufacturing organizations increasingly perfecting the art and science of insights generation at scale from event streams and real-time data? Find out by attending our upcoming webinar: Real-time predictive analytics in the cloud.

During our live webinar Krishna R, Regional Head, Mu Sigma, and guest speakers Mike Gualtieri, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research, Inc. and Roger Barga, Group Program Manager, Microsoft will shed light on the rapid, seamless and cost-effective deployment of real-time predictive analytics on the cloud. 

Register for Real-time predictive analytics in the cloud – June, 25, 2014 9AM PST

More than 900 big data practitioners, technologists and executives will gather at Structure Data in New York March 19-20 to investigate how big data can drive business success, and Microsoft will be there to take part in the conversation. 

Around the world, big data and big compute are coming together to help enterprises and organizations create better products, make cities run smoother, advance disease prevention and treatments, and much more. 

Today, Microsoft is working with customers to do just this. In the process, we’ll bring the power of big data to a billion people – connecting companies to previously untouched data sources and enabling everyone to gain insights through familiar and powerful tools that now simply live in Microsoft Excel.

At the event, John Platt, distinguished scientist at Microsoft Research, will share the latest on Microsoft’s work in machine learning in a fireside chat.  We’ll also have data experts on hand to give attendees a taste of how easy it is to turn big data into beautiful visualizations and insights.  Attendees will also get a peek at how Microsoft’s Cybercrime Center is using data to fight worldwide organized crime and BotNets. (Get a sneak peek by watching the video below!) 

So please, join the conversation by attending the event and visiting with one of the Microsoft experts on hand. You can save 25% off your registration by using this special sponsor link. 

Or, connect with us on Facebook.com/sqlserver and Twitter @SQLServer and learn how Microsoft’s approach to data helps employees, IT professionals and data scientists transform data into an organizational advantage. 

The cloud is creating radical changes in how information technology is architected.  And its next big target just might be business continuity. Explosive data growth and new application types are causing enterprises to consider cloud as a strategic alternative to growing on-premises storage for backup and disaster recovery.

Many enterprises view backup and disaster recovery (DR) as an IT function that seems to provide little value, even though they must do it to support critical applications. Exponential data growth, shrinking backup windows, static budgets, and increasing deployments of business critical mobile, cloud and web applications are changing the backup and DR requirements. Traditional on-premises approaches for backup and DR cannot keep up with this explosive demand for new database administration requirements.

Join Forrester Research analyst Noel Yuhanna in this webinar as we talk about cloud and database trends, and why enterprises should make database cloud backup and DR part of your enterprise database strategy.

Register now for this webcast on improving business continuity by going to the cloud! The event takes place Wednesday July 2 at 9:00 AM Pacific.

SPEAKER:

Noel Yuhanna
Principal Analyst Serving Enterprise Architecture Professionals
Forrester Research

Noel serves Enterprise Architecture Professionals. He primarily covers database management systems (DBMSes), infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), data replication and integration, data security, data management tools, and related online transaction processing issues. His current primary research focus is on customer usage experiences and broad industry trends of DBMS, IaaS, data security, enterprise data grids, outsourcing, information life-cycle management, open source databases, and other emerging database technologies.

As part of SQL Server’s ongoing interoperability program, we are pleased to announce the general availability of two SQL Server drivers: the Microsoft JDBC Driver for SQL Server and the SQL Server Driver for PHP are now available!

Both drivers provide that robust data access to Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Azure SQL Database. The JDBC Driver for SQL Server is a Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) type 4 driver supporting Java Development Kit (JDK) version 1.7. The PHP driver will allow developers who use the PHP scripting language version 5.5 to access Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Azure SQL Database, and to take advantage of new features implemented in ODBC.   

You can download the JDBC driver here, and download the PHP driver here.  We invite you to explore the latest the Microsoft Data Platform has to offer via a trial evaluation of Microsoft SQL Server 2014, or by trying the new preview of Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

To allow developers in Visual Studio to more easily incorporate the benefits of “big data” with their custom applications, Microsoft is adding a deeper tooling experience for HDInsight in Visual Studio in the most recent version of the Azure SDK. This extension to Visual Studio helps developers to visualize their Hadoop clusters, tables and associated storage in familiar and powerful tools. Developers can now create and submit ad hoc Hive queries for HDInsight directly against a cluster from within Visual Studio, or build a Hive application that is managed like any other Visual Studio project.

Download the Azure SDK now for VS 2013 | VS 2012 | VS 2015 Preview.

Integration of HDInsight objects into the “Server Explorer” brings your Big Data assets onto the same page as other cloud services under Azure. This allows for quick and simple exploration of clusters, Hive tables and their schemas, down to querying the first 100 rows of a table.  This helps you to quickly understand the shape of the data you are working with in Visual Studio.

Also, there is tooling to create Hive queries and submit them as jobs. Use the context menu against a Hadoop cluster to immediately begin writing Hive query scripts. In the example below, we create a simple query against a Hive table with geographic info to find the count of all countries and sort them by country. The Job Browser tool helps you visualize the job submissions and status.  Double click on any job to get a summary and details in the Hive Job Summary window. 

You can also navigate to any Azure Blob container and open it to work with the files contained there. The backing store is associated with the Hadoop cluster during cluster creation in the Azure dashboard. Management of the Hadoop cluster is still performed in the same Azure dashboard.

For more complex script development and lifecycle management, you can create Hive projects within Visual Studio. In the new project dialog (see below) you will find a new HDInsight Template category. A helpful starting point is the Hive Sample project type. This project is pre-populated with a more complex Hive query and sample data for the case of processing web server logs.

To get started visit the Azure HDInsight page to learn about Hadoop features on Azure.