I think I may have set myself an all-but-impossible task: to choose ten bloggers who write about SQL Server, and who have been outstanding in the last year. Nearly impossible, not because I can't find ten, but because there are so many more worthy of recognition.  In addition, many of those I will not be including are friends and colleagues, so the task may be as thankless as it is difficult.

Nevertheless, having set myself the goal, I may as well get on with it. My method was simple enough. I started with those blogs I subscribe to, and, of those, found the ones I bookmark most often. These were neatly objective measures, but I was still left with about 20 blogs to consider. Then I had to find some more subjective criteria: are the blogs helpful, insightful, original, well written, newsworthy, and so on. I excluded official Microsoft blogs, focusing instead on the community blogs, so there is only one Microsoft team member on the list.

Here then are My Top 10 for this last year. To be fair to the others who so narrowly missed out, I'll publish a longer blogroll later of those who I consider to be essential reading. For now, let me know what you think of my top ten, in strictly alphabetical order.

Bob Beauchemin
http://www.sqlskills.com/BLOGS/BOBB/
Like most of the bloggers in this top ten, Bob is an active and excellent speaker and writer. Bob is notably excellent when writing about data access and programmability, areas which require both sound understanding of the database technology and the ability to work with, and explain, the latest programming models. If you're an application developer working with SQL Server, then Bob is essential reading ... and don't miss his conference sessions either!

Rob Collie
http://powerpivotpro.com/
Rob is the only Microsoft employee on My Top 10 list because his blog is really very independent and hosted with a quite separate presence and identity. Rob has set out to create a compelling blog for the new PowerPivot product and he does a great job synthesizing his years of experience in the Excel world with his detailed knowledge of the PowerPivot technology. Even better, Rob presents compelling, easy-to-understand scenarios with a great sense of humor. If you're interested in PowerPivot, you need to follow this blog.

Kasper de Jonge
http://business-intelligence.kdejonge.net/
This blog has been a revelation to me this year. Kasper works in the Netherlands and blogs on BI topics. One outstanding feature of his blog is his use of copious screenshots. Often, with a new product just out in public like PowerPivot or the new Report Builder, Kasper sedulously records his experience with setup and first impressions, all captured with useful screens and comments. Even I learn stuff about setting up our BI products here! It's not just about installation either: Kasper explores many new features with the same careful approach.

Andy Leonard
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/andy_leonard/default.aspx
I really enjoy Andy's blog, not just for the technical posts (especially about SSIS), but for the way he writes with a perceptiveness and passion about the community of SQL users. Andy persuades, cajoles and encourages SQL Server users to get out and be part of something bigger: whether blogging, or simply attending a conference or event. Even better, Andy is always very clear about how community support fits in to an often challenging and difficult career path. 

Sean McCown
http://www.infoworld.com/blogs/sean-mccown
Now this is a kick-ass blog. In fact, often times you get the impression that Sean's key motivation in sitting down to blog for the day is just to kick some ass. But he chooses his victims well! Whether it is Microsoft's product teams, officious auditors, or even himself (for delivering a bad presentation), Sean is typically forthright and on target. Sean is also, like Andy Leonard, excellent at supporting DBAs in their career and personal development, with advice in the last year on technical skills, interview techniques and even office politics!

Adam Machanic
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/adam_machanic/default.aspx
The sheer breadth and depth of Adam's posts are testaments to his knowledge of SQL Server. I have only two things to say: read this blog, and try every code sample Adam posts. You'll be better for it.

Paul Randal
http://www.sqlskills.com/BLOGS/paul/
Paul is a former Microsoftie who often draws on his detailed understanding of the relational engine's internals to give unique insights on his blog. As an expert on DBCC, this blog is simply essential reading if you are interested in recovery or repair  - it's title is, in fact,"In Recovery." Even better, if you want to avoid recovery and repair, you need to read this. Paul also writes very entertainingly, which really helps with the often deeply technical matter.

Jamie Thomson
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/
Jamie's previous blog used to be called "SSIS Junkie." I don't think he has quite kicked the habit, as his technical posts about SSIS are always excellent, but there is certainly a wider range of interests on display here from data warehousing to SQL Azure.

Kimberly Tripp
http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/kimberly/
Kimberly is inimitable, both on stage and in her blog. I wouldn't know where to start recommending her work - and if I started I could hardly stop. Let me take one example. Want to know about indexing? Read this blog - for the examples, the technical detail, the good humour, and the sheer practicality of the advice. And that's only one topic. Read the blog, every post.

Chris Webb
http://cwebbbi.spaces.live.com/
Chris is an OLAP guy, and if you know OLAP (whether in the form of SQL Server Analysis Services or any other vendor) you really should subscribe to Chris's blog for its breadth. For those specifically in the SQL Server sphere, Chris's posts on the MDX query language, and more recently on the use of PowerPivot DAX, are not only practical and perceptive, but help to stretch your skills and cover challenging scenarios.

So that's the list. What do you think? Anyone I missed out that you feel really needs to be there? And if so, who would you remove? I'd be fascinated to hear from you.

Some things just really work well together. Peanut butter and chocolate. Abbot and Costello. Coffee and...well...anything. You get the idea. But there are some real advantages in using SQL Server 2008 (and of course the upcoming SQL Server 2008 R2 release) with Windows Server 2008 and higher. It's not just that they are both better than their predecessors, SQL Server actually takes advantage of the improvements in Windows Server 2008.

One practical example is in how Windows Server 2008 handles the infamous "drive offset". This is a small block size movement from the first part of the hard drive sectors - it's an internal thing - but it causes real issues with software that exercises the I/O subsystem, and makes its own calls there. Like SQL Server. In the past, the data professional had to follow a process called "Partition Alignment", and this had to be done when the system was set up. That's all now a thing of the past - with SQL Server 2008 and Windows 2008 Server, this just happens.

Another example is in how Windows 2008 Server deals with the "sliding TCP/IP window". This enhancement directly affects how fast SQL Server can send large frames of data - especially with Replication and large binary objects. At Microsoft we noticed tremendous speed gains just by moving to Windows 2008 Server.

There are lots of other examples - from new virtualization and consolidation changes in both products to clustering enhancements, and now in SQL Server 2008 R2 the ability to run the "sysprep" utility after SQL Server has been installed.    

You can read more about this "pairing effect" in this White Paper.

And be sure to check out John Kelbley's Post on the Windows Server blog where he also talks about ways that SQL Server and Windows Server work "Better Together".

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’t wait to get their hands on a fully licensed edition, which will be available shortly.

Rather than go into a laundry list of what’s in the release here are links to a few of the RTM stories:

• Mary-Jo Foley: Microsoft: SQL Server 2008 R2 crosses the finish line
• PC Mag: Microsoft’s SQL Server 2008 R2 To Hit RTM in May
• SQL Server Magazine: Microsoft Releases SQL Server 2008 R2 to Manufacturing

Even though I’m a Manageability Guy and there are some terrific manageability features in R2 the most important feature, in my opinion, is PowerPivot. PowerPivot is going to change everything about business intelligence for IT and information workers. Early in my career as an IT Pro I designed a system that used Excel Pivot Tables that were loaded with massive volumes of sales data. Unfortunately I had to have tens of Pivot Tables spread out across an almost equal number of Excel Workbooks. Since there were so many files and tables I had to build a monthly process for refreshing the data. Plus if one of the users wanted a new view of the data I had to craft it by hand for them. It’s an understatement to say this was a pain. If I had PowerPivot back then it would have greatly simplified my life and better supported the needs of my users. As you read up on PowerPivot you’re going to think it’s too good to be true, take it for a test drive to convince yourself how truly remarkable this technology is and how it’ll transform the way you think about BI.

It's here!  The latest version of SQL Server is out, and it's a big release. This is an exciting time for us - this release is an "R2" - a first for SQL Server. No, it isn't a service pack, and no, we didn't change the product so much that it affects anything that you've already installed in SQL Server 2008. You're still able to upgrade from SQL Server 2000 and higher, you get all of the benefits of moving from an earlier platform. Why this kind of timing and naming for the product? And what is different in this release than in SQL Server 2008? And Good questions all.

First, the reason for the release schedule was to properly align Microsoft's flagship database product with Microsoft Office, and with Microsoft's "cloud" strategy. One of the strengths of the SQL Server platform is that it works well with our other products, and in Microsoft Office 2010 and the latest release of SharePoint we have included amazing array of Business Intelligence features for the "non-IT" worker. This means your business users can get at the data they need and want, and the IT department can still control and protect the data the way it should be. It's the best of all worlds.

But it doesn't stop there. As you may have heard, Microsoft is "all in", with a comprehensive cloud strategy.  We have not only a complete cloud development platform (Azure) but also a relational database offering (SQL Azure) that goes beyond just hosting a SQL Server Instance in a rack somewhere. SQL Server 2008 R2 allows you to connect to SQL Azure like you're connecting to a local server. You now have capacity on demand, without losing any of your local systems or control.

And there's more - this release also includes the "Datacenter" edition, with support for up to 256 logical processors, data and backup compression (from SQL Server 2008) and the ability to use SQL Server with "Live Migration" - a virtualization technology that lets you move virtualized servers without downtime. These features, along with rapid adoption in the most mission-critical, enterprise-class environments means that you should consider SQL Server as a "Tier 1" application platform.

These are indeed exciting times for the data professional. Make sure you hit these links to learn more - your organization is counting on you as the data professional to know what's new and useful in the data world. You can also post any questions you have on this post - I'll try and make sure someone gets back with you:

SQL Server 2008 R2 Launch Site: http://www.sqlserverlaunch.com/

Official Microsoft Site for SQL Server 2008 R2: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/R2.aspx

A friend insists that we'll only know the recession is over when software vendors no longer start every whitepaper with the phrase "In these tough economic times ..." It may be as reliable an indicator as any.

Meanwhile, in these tough economic times, I often read of factories suffering so badly that they are "operating at only 50% of capacity." For a manufacturing plant, such low utilization is a disaster. So, gentle reader, what do you think would be the average utilization of your data center's capacity? Nothing like 50%, that's for sure. Typical enterprise servers run at about 10% utilization according to a recent McKinsey report. They may, just may, be able to reach as high as 35% with a concerted effort.

There are many good excuses for this situation, with both business and technical justifications. Enterprise applications on the same server do not always play together nicely. One will demand all the memory it can get, sulking unresponsively in a corner if it can't get it; another will push over less aggressive applications in order to grab more CPU. In the SQL Server world, we're working on that continuously, with every version adding better resource governance and management. (See http://bit.ly/ss2008rg  for specific information about SQL Server 2008.) Then again, these same applications are often mission-critical and it is business requirements which force us to isolate them: from the risk of downtime, or other disruptions. Approaching our problems in this way, it's quite easy to add a new server for this app, and another server for that one, and sure enough, the result is soon 10% utilization.

It won't do. There's a capital cost, and fixed running costs, for every server we add, not to mention the environmental considerations of wasted energy and resources that weigh heavily on many of us, recession or not. I have visited datacenters in emerging economies from Egypt to China where simply having enough power available is a problem and resource management is imperative.

In the database world, we have traditionally approached these problems by running multiple native instances of servers on the same box. This can indeed consolidate hardware and reduce costs. Nevertheless, IT managers and DBAs are increasingly looking to virtualization. Why? There are numerous advantages. For example, with virtualization each application can have a dedicated, rather than shared, Windows instance: especially useful for mixed workloads; and with virtualization, instances are limited only by the capacity of the machine, rather than the native 50-instance limit.

 SQL Server 2008 works exceptionally well with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V to deliver effective virtualization. In SQL Server 2008 R2 (shipping in the first half of 2010) we will support up to 256 logical processors on that platform to scale those solutions even further. There are some great scenarios for this. Business Intelligence applications such as Analysis Services and Reporting Services are prime candidates, especially when mixed BI and operational workloads peak at different times. Virtualization has other benefits for the database user: for example, the lifecycle from development to test to production becomes easier to manage with a consistent, virtualized, environment.

It's really worth considering virtualization, and building up your understanding of the technology and requirements. There's a great whitepaper at http://bit.ly/sqlcatvirtual with sound advice and background for any SQL Server 2008 DBA considering this technology. Good material to have to hand, in these tough economic times.

• Donald Farmer
• Twitter: @donalddotfarmer