We had a great week at PASS Summit 2011, a SQL Server and BI user conference. During the day 1 keynote Ted Kummert, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Business Platform Decision, talked about Microsoft’s roadmap for helping customers manage and analyze any data, of any size, anywhere -- on premises, and in the private or public cloud.

Kummert announced SQL Server 2012, formerly Code Name “Denali,” and how it addresses the growing challenges of data and device proliferation by enabling customers to rapidly unlock and extend business insights, both in traditional datacenters and through public and private clouds. Extending on this foundation, Kummert also announced new investments to help customers manage “big data,” including an Apache Hadoop-based distribution for Windows Server and Windows Azure and a strategic partnership with Hortonworks Inc.

“The next frontier is all about uniting the power of the cloud with the power of data to gain insights that simply weren’t possible even just a few years ago,” Kummert said. “Microsoft is committed to making this possible for every organization, and it begins with SQL Server 2012.”

Finally, Ted discussed our much awaited roadmap and specific Microsoft investments for Mobile Business Intelligence. Microsoft is committed to delivering highly interactive and immersive BI experiences across different devices to all users wherever they are. Our approach and roadmap for fulfilling this vision consists of:

  1. Ensuring our existing corporate BI web based solutions run in browsers across iOS and Windows devices in the first half of 2012.

  2. Delivering great touch-based data exploration and visualization capabilities in a browser on iOS, Android and Microsoft platforms in the second half of 2012.

  3. Delivering the best in class rich and immersive experience of the Microsoft BI platform on Windows 8 slates

Day 2 of PASS Summit 2011 resumed with Quentin Clark, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft SQL Server Database Group, delivering a keynote address that focused on how customers can benefit from simplified data management and migration to the cloud with SQL Server 2012.

“It’s our goal to help customers achieve ultimate scalability, performance and deployment flexibility for mission critical workloads running in public and private cloud. Built from the same code base, SQL Server 2012 and SQL Azure provide a complete database solution for the enterprise. The latest releases offer huge advancements that address the evolving needs of IT.”

Clark also announced the new, cloud-ready capabilities of the platform, including integration with SQL Azure and upcoming appliances including the following:

  • General Availability of HP Enterprise Database Consolidation Appliance Optimized for SQL Server: Microsoft and HP announced the November availability of the HP Enterprise Database Consolidation Appliance optimized for SQL Server, which offers a complete solution to speed deployment an simplify management of thousands of databases with a private cloud. This first-in-the-industry database consolidation appliance helps customers deploy databases in minutes instead of weeks; reduces operations costs up to 75 percent through savings in floor space, energy, and infrastructure; and requires no application or database changes when consolidating databases.

  • New SQL Azure CTPs and features: enables developers to use familiar tools to create and deploy operational reports to the cloud, which can easily be embedded in an application or browser. This CTP is available today for trial directly within the Windows Azure Management Portal. Newly increased 150GB database capacity for SQL Azure. Available by the end of 2011 in the next SQL Azure Service Release.

  • SQL Server 2012 snapshot to Windows Azure Platform: Microsoft also shared that SQL Server 2012 will enable customers to easily back up their SQL Server databases directly to the Windows Azure Platform from SQL Server Management Studio, providing customers with cloud based solution for database backup.

  • CTP of the ODBC Linux driver: Will further Microsoft’s commitment to interoperability by enabling customers with Linux-based applications to more easily migrate to SQL Server. The CTP is expected by the end of the calendar year.

These were a couple of the very exciting days with lots of great announcement, customer conversations and sessions– please visit SQL PASS TV channel to see some of the videos from the PASS Summit.      
 
 

      

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