Melville Thomson's Blog : SQL Server Express

SQL Server Starter Data Schemas

Melville — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:59:00 GMT

I know this is a repeat of the post form Dan but as he is on MSDN and I am on TechNet blogs I think it goes to a slightly different audience. I was asked about schema design by Andy from BETT 2007 where we did technical support for the Microsoft stand Eileen blogged about it previously.

Andy asked about sample schemas that they could use as a teaching tool. We have released a whole set of schemas for SQL Express. There were 10 when I looked last. These give you a starting point and to support this there is a Webcast tutorial for beginners. Each schema can be viewed or downloaded. As a starting point I think these are really useful.

Install Reporting Services side by side with an earlier version

Melville — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 01:17:00 GMT

I was asked on Monday about issues concerning installing SQL 2000 for the Reporting Service database and using SQL 2005 services. There is a whitepaper covering multiple installations. You need to be careful as there are a few caveats to be aware of.
The SQL Server 2000 version must be the default instance and the SQL Server 2005 can be a named instance.
If you use two versions SQL 2000 can’t use SQL 2005 reports, but SQL 2005 will ask you to upgrade SQL 2000 reports.

Do read the white paper and make sure it will work the way you expect it to.

Resources - 'An introduction to SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services' - Reading Event - 06 Sept

Melville — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 09:59:00 GMT

These are some resources I found to be very useful for you after the Reading event There are two webcasts then a lot of links to various information. Do look at Brian Welcker's Weblog there is lots of useful information there.

TechNet Webcast: Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services (Level 200)
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032301587&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

TechNet Webcast: Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Report Builder (Level 200)
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032289993&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
http://msdn.microsoft.com/sql/bi/reporting/

Direct Reports (Brian Welcker's Weblog) and the related blogs he lists on the left side.
http://blogs.msdn.com/bwelcker/,

BI solutions page
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/solutions/bi/default.mspx

Case Study information
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/casestudies/default.mspx

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services (SSRS) product page
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/2005ssrs.mspx

SQL Server Developer Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/sql/

Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition!!
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vwd/download/

Generate Ad-hoc Reports with Microsoft Reporting Services 2005
http://www.devx.com/dbzone/Article/28047/1954?pf=true

Prologika forums info on reporting
http://prologika.com/CS/files/5/articles/default.aspx

Made in Express Contest community vote

Melville — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 12:31:00 GMT

Some of you may be aware of the Made in Express Contest. This is a competition to write an Application using Visual Studio Express and SQL Server Express. It has been running for a while now and the finalists have been selected. I am really impressed at the applications that have been created.

You now get a chance to vote for your favourite project. There are twelve finalists to choose from. I will reserve my favourite for later as I would not want to influence anyone. The winner can win up to $10,000. Please have a look at some of these as it shows the power and flexibility of our express products. THe SQL Express weblog will give you more information about SQL Express.
You have until the 1st of Sept to vote and only one vote per person is allowed.

MSDE nearing End of Life - No MSDE Support on Vista

Melville — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 20:56:00 GMT

I know this is going to upset quite a few people and it will cause a bit of pain. Eric Has posted this on MSDN Blogs. As you may be aware MSDE is coming to the end of its support lifecycle. It will not be supported on windows Vista. As a replacement SQL Express has been released this is also free to download, deploy and redistribute.

Using SQL Express gives you several benefits over MSDE. See this link to the upgrade site for a full list of features. Some of the differences are a maximum database size of 4GB, removal of the workload governor, a free integrated management tool, SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services then there are a whole host of other features please see the white paper.

The two areas I think will upset you are some of the parts that are missing from SQL Express which are the SQL Agent service and the DTS run time. The DTS runtime can be downloaded and installed along side SQL Express. However to get around the SQL Agent you can use Windows built in task scheduler in combination with the SQLCMD tool to execute system maintenance jobs like database backups and other database access jobs.

02 June 2006: SQL Server 2005- One-day Technical Overview.

Melville — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 03:22:00 GMT

Keith Burns and I presented a one day technical overview looking at upgrading to SQL 2005 to an audience of 200+ at Cavendish Conference centre in London. Jim Gray presented the keynote speech and then left to go to another meeting and have lunch with some of the Microsoft Valued Professionals (MVP). I had a chance to chat to Simon who was there for the start then went on to the lunch with Jim and the other MVP’s.

As we both made ourselves available all day for you to ask questions there were too many to make a note of. Please ask and we will follow those up by email or more general on my blogg here. I was asked several times about other SQL Events. Please contact the event team and let us know what subject and where? The event resources are here

SQL Express Questions
There were a few questions relating to SQL Express and the various editions see my previous post also check out the SQL Server Express WebLog.
Also what is really great is that they have answered another question I had been asked, upgrading to SQL Express from Access. Here is a link to a webcast that may help.
I will get around to some of the other questions once they come through as there were far too many to make note of during the day.

SQL Server 2005 Express Editions and Downloads

Melville — Tue, 09 May 2006 15:38:00 GMT

I had a question from Martin at the roadshow in Birmingham. He had been given a copy of visual studio at an Microsoft Developer event. Now being a SQL DBA Martin was interested in evaluating SQL Express edition that came with it.

Everything installed ok and he could see he had a database but he could not find a tool to manage it. Not all editions have the new management studio.

So I thought I would just clarify what is available. In effect there are three editions of express that you will see, here is a link to the features of each.
Also when you go to the download page it gives you four choices which depends on which components you want to download

You can have just the database engine then add the management studio express.

Or you can have the advanced services edition; this includes the database engine plus the management studio express also you get reporting services and full-text search.

Additionally the toolkit gives you extra connectivity components, Business development studio and a software development kit.

Then you also can add the samples and the BOL as extra downloads.

Do read through the install information before you begin. You can check out SQL Server Express Weblog, for any issues there is the SQL Express Forum on MSDN and Simon also has some articles on SQL Express.