CPL

Microsoft Releases SQL Server 2008

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., Fidelity Investments, 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.
Posted: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 1:35 AM by Anthony Carrabino | 1 Comments
PHP Driver 1.0 for SQL Server 2005 released with source

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Exciting news for PHP developers -- version 1.0 of the much anticipated SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP is now available for download. And to show Microsoft's level of commitment to the PHP community, the full source code has been posted to Microsoft's CodePlex web site. This new driver makes it easy for PHP developers to use SQL Server with PHP applications and this is one of the only Microsoft projects ever to make its source code publicly available at time of launch.

"The SQL Server Driver for PHP represents a new way for Microsoft to help developers access SQL Server from non-Microsoft development environments. The driver is a C++ thin wrapper on top of the Microsoft SQL Server ODBC driver, translating the PHP calls into ODBC API calls. This approach simplifies development and reduces the surface area from a security standpoint.", stated David Sceppa, Program Manager, SQL Server Driver for PHP.

Links

* SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP 1.0 - Download
* SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP 1.0 - Documentation
* SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP 1.0 - Support Forum
* SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP 1.0 - Source Code (CodePlex)
* SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP 1.0 - Team Blog

Posted: Monday, July 28, 2008 9:13 PM by Anthony Carrabino | 0 Comments
Filed under: php, SQL Server 2005
SQL Server to manage 100's of Terabytes effortlessly with DATAllegro acquisition

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Big, big news for SQL Server customers. Microsoft announced intentions to acquire DATAllegro Inc., which is a provider of breakthrough data warehouse appliances. This acquisition will make it easier and more cost-effective than ever before for customers of all sizes to manage and gather insight from the largest data warehouses.

Unlike most data warehouse appliance vendors targeting the 1–25 TB range, DATAllegro specializes in large-volume, high-performance data warehouses. DATAllegro’s data warehouse appliance installations boast some of the largest data volume capacities in the industry.

Microsoft is significantly raising the bar in terms of the scale that customers will be able to support with SQL Server 2008 into the tens of terabytes. This DATAllegro acquisition will accelerate the SQL Server data warehousing roadmap to high-scale deployments reaching hundreds of terabytes.

DATAllegro’s patent-pending technology is designed to support complex workloads including high concurrency and mixed queries. DATAllegro is one of the industry's few data warehouse appliances that are built on nonproprietary hardware platforms including Dell, Bull servers and EMC storage. This flexible architecture makes it well suited to integrate with SQL Server.

This acquisition is a continuation of Microsoft's technology investments in SQL Server 2008 that introduces exciting new features like Resource Governor, data compression, and partitioned table parallelism. These investments combined with today's news re-enforce SQL Server as a leader in data warehousing. Going forward, Microsoft is committed to existing DATAllegro customers and will continue to support them.

* Official press release: Microsoft to Acquire DATAllegro
* Read more about SQL Server 2008 Data Warehousing

Posted: Thursday, July 24, 2008 2:27 PM by Anthony Carrabino | 0 Comments
Filed under: BI, Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, DATAllegro, SQL Server 2008
Attend PASS Community Summit 2008 - Seattle, WA – Nov 18-21

The Microsoft SQL Server Developer Team will be turning out in force for this year’s PASS Community Summit 2008. As the single largest gathering of Microsoft SQL Server professionals in the world, PASS Summit is the most important technical conference of the year for the SQL Server community. With three full days of in-depth learning and access to our developers on the SQL Server team, attendees will receive top-rated industry advice and expertise on the best ways to develop, deploy and manage their entire SQL Server environment The 130+ in-depth technical and skills development sessions, including 6 pre-conference seminars hosted by members of our team, guarantee that PASS Community Summit 2008 is the don’t-miss event for SQL Server professionals.
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Registration

Sessions

Spotlight Sessions

Pre-Conference Seminars

Keynotes

Posted: Thursday, July 24, 2008 12:16 AM by Roni Karassik | 0 Comments
Filed under: communities, events, Launch, pass, SQL Server 2008, sql server 2008 launch, user groups
PDC 2008 - Los Angeles, CA - Oct. 27-30

Microsoft's premier developer event, the Professional Developer Conference, is just over 3 months away. PDC 2008 will feature more than 160 sessions covering a wide range of topics for professional developers and architects. Each session is delivered by Microsoft engineers, so attendees can expect to receive a high-quality in-depth technical understanding of Microsoft’s future platform along with practical guidance for helping plan the evolution of products and technologies. Microsoft's Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie, is set to kick off the event with the keynote. With all the excitement around Visual Studio 2008 and Windows Server 2008, and with SQL Server 2008 set to RTM in Q3, this PDC should prove to be a very exciting event. Don't miss it!
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Sessions

Registration

Sponsors

Social Connections

Keynote
Posted: Monday, July 14, 2008 2:08 AM by Anthony Carrabino | 0 Comments
Filed under: events, pdc
Demystifying Data Mining and BI for Enterprises

Rafal Lukawiecki demystifies the perception that data mining is complex by showing IT Professionals how data mining can be used in IT to support real business scenarios. This has become possible since Microsoft has made data mining and BI accessible by all. Four easy-to-understand sessions packed with practical information explain what data mining and Business Intelligence can do for IT Professionals working in the enterprise. Click here to learn more.
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# Rated 5/5 Data Mining & Business Intelligence for Enterprises (1hr 20min)

* Introduction to Data Mining
* Working with Data Mining (login required)
* Using Data Mining in Your IT Systems (Part 1)
* Using Data Mining in Your IT Systems (Part 2) (login required)

Posted: Saturday, July 12, 2008 12:26 PM by Anthony Carrabino | 0 Comments
Top Web hosting companies offer SQL Server 2008

Customers can have their web sites hosted using SQL Server 2008 today with top Web hosting companies. These certified Microsoft partners provide customers with low-cost options that enable a fast and easy way for anyone to start using SQL Server 2008. Customers can take advantage of SQL Server 2008 features including support for managing new geo spatial data, new HierarchyID support for managing self-referencing tables, support for large User Defined Data Types, support for LINQ, new support for PHP developers, Business Intelligence support that provides deep insights into data, and much more.

The following Web hosting companies offer SQL Server 2008 hosting options:
ausiehq

"We are very excited about the launch of Microsoft SQL 2008 and the cutting edge advantage it provides for our clients. Our close partnership with Microsoft is the foundation for AussieHQ to continue innovating as Australia's leading web hosting provider."
- Michael McGoogan, Managing Director
Web site: Aussie HQ
disc_aspnet

"Under the SQL 2008 Go Live program, we are giving our customers a free SQL 2008 beta database account for testing purposes. The beta program provides our customers with the opportunity to get a jumpstart in testing SQL 2008 in a live hosted environment before its official release."
- Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing
Web site: DiscountASP
maxasp

"We have been offering SQL Server 2008 since November of 2007 and have been very impressed by the substantial improvement in performance. We are also excited by the multi-server administration and the declarative management framework features which has already exponentially reduced administration time in our hosted environment."
- Sarah Barela, Manager of Database Services
Web site: MaximumASP
myhosting

"The hosted services model is all about, “Your Data, Any Place, Any Time”, so deploying SQL 2008 for our hosted customers was an easy decision for myhosting.com. SQL 2008 along with Windows Server 2008/IIS7 has enabled us to provide a solid platform for our customers that will meet their needs today and evolve as the world of hosted services grow, both in size as well as complexity."
- Dmitri Gaikovoi, Senior Hosting Specialist
Web site: myhosting.com (SoftCom)
mosso

“As a part of Microsoft’s Early Adopter Program for SQL 2008, we believe the new capability it offers will help drive the adoption of cloud solutions all the way up to the enterprise. As Rackspace's cloud computing division, Mosso is committed to making cloud computing as easy as possible for our customers and the next generation SQL Server 2008 will help us reach our goals. The scalability, performance, security and manageability improvements SQL 2008 offers will benefit our customers that leverage SQL Server. For example, the new resource governor is a key feature which will help us better manage server workload and system resource consumption which in turn will improve system performance for multi-tenant customers in our SQL environment. We can also take clustering to the next level with new abilities which reduce hardware and infrastructure requirements.”
- Todd Morey, Co-Founder
Web site: Mosso
localweb

“With SQL 2008, Locaweb is offering new functionality to our customers as early as the SQL 2008 RC, and we’re happy to work in partnership with Microsoft to bring value added solutions to our customers.”
- Fernando Zangrande, Product Manager
Web site: LocaWeb
uolhost

"The new features in SQL Server 2008 like Resource Governor will help UOL Host to decrease operational costs by allowing us to better monitor and manage our hosting clients.”
- Marcelo Imai, Manager
Web site: UOL Host

Other top Internet hosting companies that offer SQL Server 2008 include, Hosting.com, HostMySite, Hostbasket, and Swizzle.
Posted: Thursday, July 10, 2008 9:11 AM by Anthony Carrabino | 0 Comments
Filed under: SQL Server 2008, Web hosters
7 New SQL Server 2008 Technical Articles

The following are 7 new deep technical articles focused on SQL Server 2008:

Best Practices for Data Warehousing with SQL Server 2008
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc719165(SQL.100).aspx
There is considerable evidence that successful data warehousing projects often produce a very high return on investment. Over the years a great deal of information has been collected about the factors that lead to a successful implementation versus an unsuccessful one. These are encapsulated here into a set of best practices, which are presented with particular reference to the features in SQL Server 2008. The application of best practices to a data warehouse project is one of the best investments you can make toward the establishment of a successful Business Intelligence infrastructure.

Build a Metadata-Driven ETL Platform by Extending Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc313017(SQL.100).aspx
SQL Server 2008 Integration Services (SSIS) provides a flexible and scalable architecture that enables high-performance data extract, transform, and load (ETL), which is a crucial process in data warehousing. ETL involves extracting data from outside sources, transforming it to fit business needs, and ultimately loading it into the end target, usually the data warehouse. Some of the most common scenarios of using SSIS are building data warehouses (DW) and developing business intelligence (BI) solutions. The Microsoft Business Intelligence Center of Excellence has extended SSIS to a metadata-driven platform to more effectively build, deploy, and manage ETL processes in large data warehousing environments.

Database Encryption in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc278098(SQL.100).aspx
With the introduction of transparent data encryption (TDE) in SQL Server 2008, users now have the choice between cell-level encryption as in SQL Server 2005, full database-level encryption by using TDE, or the file-level encryption options provided by Windows. TDE is the optimal choice for bulk encryption to meet regulatory compliance or corporate data security standards. TDE works at the file level, which is similar to two Windows® features: the Encrypting File System (EFS) and BitLocker™ Drive Encryption, the new volume-level encryption introduced in Windows Vista®. This white paper compares TDE with these other encryption methods for application developers and database administrators. While this is not a technical, in-depth review of TDE, technical implementations are explored and a familiarity with concepts such as virtual log files and the buffer pool are assumed.

Introduction to New Data Warehouse Scalability Features in SQL Server 2008
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc278097(SQL.100).aspx
SQL Server 2008 makes a major advance in scalability for data warehousing by meeting data warehouse needs of the largest enterprises more easily than ever. SQL Server 2008 provides a range of integrated products that enable you to build a data warehouse, and query and analyze its data. These integrated products include the SQL Server relational database system, Analysis Services, Integration Services, and Reporting Services. This paper introduces the new performance and manageability features for data warehousing across all these components. All these features contribute to improved scalability.

An Introduction to New T-SQL Programmability Features in SQL Server 2008
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc721270(SQL.100).aspx
This paper introduces key new Transact-SQL (T-SQL) programmability features in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 as well as SQL/Common Language Runtime (CLR) enhancements. New T-SQL features provide improved performance, increased functionality, and enhanced globalization support. T-SQL programmability enhancements in SQL Server 2008 address the needs of both OLTP and data warehouse environments.

Scaling Up Your Data Warehouse with SQL Server 2008
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc719182(SQL.100).aspx
SQL Server 2008 introduces many new functional and performance improvements for data warehousing. This paper discusses how to use SQL Server 2008 to get great performance as your data warehouse scales up. We present lessons learned during extensive internal data warehouse testing on a 64-core HP Integrity Superdome during the development of the SQL Server 2008 release, and via production experience with large-scale SQL Server customers. Our testing indicates that many customers can expect their performance to nearly double on the same hardware they are currently using, merely by upgrading to SQL Server 2008 and compressing their fact tables. We cover techniques to improve manageability and performance at high-scale, encompassing data loading (extract, transform, load), query processing, partitioning, index maintenance, indexed view (aggregate) management, and backup and restore.

SQL Server 2008 Full-Text Search: Internals and Enhancements
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc721269(SQL.100).aspx
Databases need to move forward and grow beyond the traditional realm of relational data to support an increasing amount, and variety of, unstructured and semi-structured information, be it speech, documents, XML, bioinformatics, chemical or multi-media. Search has proven itself as a key technology capable of working with vast amounts of such data: it is scalable, low-latency and very user-friendly. It is just what we need to make a database the best place to store all types of data. SQL Server 2008 introduces a new integrated Full-Text Search engine (iFTS) into the relational database, which makes Search as fully integrated a feature of SQL Server as any other traditional database service. The goal of this document is to cover the iFTS architecture in detail, explain its benefits, highlight new features, explain changes from previous solutions (SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005), and outline existing limitations and best practices for deploying iFTS-enabled applications.
Posted: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 10:15 PM by Anthony Carrabino | 1 Comments
Filed under: full-text search, Analysis Services, ETL, Integration Services, iFTS, Data Warehousing, encryption, t-sql
SQL Server 2008 Available on August Price List

Today at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston, we announced that SQL Server 2008 will be on the August price list. This means that customers and partners will soon be able to place their orders for SQL Server 2008 as we get ready to RTM in Q3 of this year. The whole SQL Server team is really excited about this! We’ve spent the last two and half years developing the next version of Microsoft’s data platform and it’s really rewarding to see all the hard work come to fruition.



We’ve put a lot of great new enhancements into the next release. We’ve been talking about them in terms of Trusted (Protect valuable information, Ensure Business Continuity, Enable Predictable Response), Productive (Manage by Policies, Simplify Application Development, Store Any Information) and Intelligent (Integrate Any Data, Deliver Relevant Information, Drive Actionable Insights). I could go on and on listing out all the cool new features in SQL Server 2008, but it would probably take up the rest of my day to do so. There’s a page on our main site that gives a good summary. It’s a great read. Better yet, download the Release Candidate so you can experience it yourself.


Posted: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 4:20 PM by fausto_ibarra | 1 Comments
Filed under: partners, SQL Server 2008
Free DTS Packages Migration Webinar on July 15th, 2008

Join SQL Server MVP and SSIS author Brian Knight to discuss the strategies of upgrading DTS packages to SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). The free session will showcase an actual DTS package conversion using DTS xChange and other strategies. DTS xChange provides automated DTS to SSIS migration technology for complete SQL Server 2005 upgrades. The company is hosting a free Webinar on Tuesday July 15th at 11:30am to 12:30pm EDT. Attendees to this session will receive a free copy of DTS Profiler ($495 value) to help scope DTS migration projects.

* Sign up for Webinar
* Learn more
* DTS xChange website

Migrating DTS Packages is an important topic for our customers, so we hope people find this Webinar useful.
Posted: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 9:35 AM by Anthony Carrabino | 1 Comments
Filed under: DTS, SSIS, webinar, tools
New tools enhance SQL Server security

In collaboration with SQL Server, IIS, and Hewlett Packard, the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) announced a set of tools that customers can use to defend against SQL injection attacks on their ASP websites and identify and mitigate root ASP code vulnerabilities. These tools are available through Microsoft Security Advisory 954462. These tools provides customers with automated assistance in defending against these attacks and for correcting the root cause. The following three tools are available for immediate download:

* Microsoft Source Code Analyzer for SQL Injection
New static analysis tool that identifies SQL injection vulnerabilities in ASP source code and suggests fixes. Enables customers to address the vulnerability at the source.
* URLScan 3.0
Updated version of the IIS tool that acts as a site filter by blocking specific HTTP requests. Can be used to block malicious requests used in this attack.
* Scrawlr
New scanning tool from Hewlett Packard that scans websites looking for SQL injection vulnerabilities in URL parameters.

Posted: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 2:06 PM by Anthony Carrabino | 1 Comments
Filed under: security, tools
Microsoft prepares to grow IT Pro communities worldwide

Microsoft has a deep commitment to growing and nurturing communities organized around supporting users of our products and technologies. Several popular not-for-profit Microsoft technical communities include INETA for developers, PASS for SQL Server users and Culminis for IT Pros. SQL Server users and enthusiasts will be happy to learn that Microsoft has announced a major initiative to align internal support for IT Pro communities, such as Culminis and PASS, with our proven model for supporting INETA's developer communities.

This is a very exciting initiative that will bring improvements to how Microsoft supports IT Pro communities worldwide and to how members connect with Microsoft. With SQL Server 2008 set to RTM later this year, there is no better time to get involved. The benefits of joining a local Culminis or PASS community devoted to helping you learn and connect with people that share your technical interests and background is immeasurable.