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Since my team started work on Project Houston hardly a day goes by I’m not in some discussion about the Cloud. It also hits me when I go through my RSS feeds each day: cloud this and cloud that. There is obviously a significant new trend here, it may even qualify as a wave; as in the Client/Server Wave...

As Mary Jo Foley recently reported migrating to SQL Azure just got a little easier with the latest version of the SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA), released on August 12. Included in the update are the typical cast of source databases: Oracle, Sybase, and Access. But there are two new things. First...

At this point there should be no question that Microsoft is fully embracing the cloud. Windows Azure and SQL Azure launched earlier this year and have been receiving positive feedback. I’ve been happily using SQL Azure for several months. One of the great aspects of SQL Azure is the integration with...

I’ve been using SQL Azure for several months now both for messing around (kicking the tires if you will) and for hosting a real database. I have a database with research data running in SQL Azure and I use Excel to connect to the database. I even share this out with others on my team. It works great...

I monitor a number of different database discussion forums and you can always find a healthy debate on the best database platform. The problem with this question is the answer is always, it depends. It depends on the business and technical requirements today and over the next few years. We just published...

Mary-Jo Foley recently wrote a blog post about being better together. At Microsoft this is something we take seriously. In her blog post she includes some snippets of an interview with Donald Famer. Donald discussed how we exchanged some team members with the Excel team in order to have a great integration...

As announced a few weeks ago on the SQL Azure blog , SQL Azure now supports Data-tier Applications which are introduced with Visual Studio 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2. Here’s a quick tour of the feature. Here’s what I did: Launch Visual Studio 2010 and create a new Data-tier Application project Import...

Though short, this article in PC World makes an important point: the PowerPivot feature in SQL Server 2008 R2 is incredibly valuable to small businesses. I mentioned in a previous post that in another “life”, in enterprise IT for a Fortune 10 company, I built a “BI” app using a SQL Server backend and...

This past week we released SQL Server 2008 R2 to manufacturing. This is a huge accomplishment for the team and our customers are anxious to get their hands on it. I came across one blog post that expressed disappointment that the only thing they could download was the evaluation edition – they couldn...

If you want to learn more about SQL Server 2008 R2 this collection of videos is a terrific resource. There’s one covering an overview of the release and subsequent videos that drill in to specific feature areas. Each video is between 3 and 6 minutes long. The site also contains links to other resources...

I originally posted this on my blog but I think this audience might find it interesting. Yesterday I was having a conversation with the User Experience Program Manager on my team regarding two icons where one is supposed to represent an override of the other. It’s a deceptively simple problem. First...

One of the most exciting times in a product release cycle is when the launch festivities begin. In the product development team it means that we get to start the celebration! That is until we start work on the next release, which for us has already begun. The SQL PASS European conference in Neuss, Germany...

In my last posting I spoke about changing databases. In this posting I want to jump into a little more detail on some things to improve the success of your migration project. I’ll spare you the lecture on planning – but remember the best way to improve the success of any migration project is ensure you...

I’m not sure why but there seems to be a lot of chatter lately about changing DB platforms. Information Technology Intelligence Corp ( ITIC ) recently ran a survey about DB migrations. You can find the result here (search the page for “ ITIC Sunbelt 2010 SQL Server Survey Results ”). At the risk of sounding...

In a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory , Sheldon was excited to spend the evening reinstalling the OS and apps on his laptop. My wife asked me if I would find that fun. I had to admit that it wouldn’t suck but there were a number of other things that I’d rather do. Last week I reviewed a soon to...

I’ve always loved getting new things. And when it comes to software it’s no exception. I enjoy exploring a new release of my favorite app – see how things have changed and advanced and discovering new features. There are two new things that I want to call your attention to. First, this week we released...

Yesterday the was the final day of the SQLPASS Summit. Today we have our last Insiders’ Session. There are numerous conference statistics I could site but the one I think says it all is 2,200+. This is the number of attendees. That’s a lot of people gathered in a single place to talk about SQL Server...

The SQLPASS Community Summit is one of the most exciting annual conferences for the SQL Server team. Bringing together thousands of professionals to talk about SQL Server is simply amazing. Last year I had the honor of standing on stage with Ted Kummert (Senior Vice President for the Business Platform...

November is the month of conferences. There are four pretty major conferences going on and we have SQL Server Manageability sessions @ all of them. Here’s the run down: SQL PASS When: November 2-5, 2009 Where: Seattle, Washington Site: http://summit2009.sqlpass.org/ Sessions: 2 focused on SQL Server...

In early 2001 I worked @ a start-up company with about 150 people. I call it a start-up because it had no revenue but did have free breakfast, lunch and dinner. @ the company there were five people named Michelle and six named Dan (including yours truly). One day the VP of operations got confused about...

Hello, I've always found introductions, especially virutalductions, awkward. But since it's good for you to know who's sitting at the keyboard I'll give it a shot. My name is Dan Jones, I'm a principal group program manager on the SQL Server product team focusing on SQL Server Manageability...