Microsoft is updating the branding for SQL Services and SQL Data Services. Effective immediately, SQL Services will be called Microsoft SQL Azure, and SQL Data Services will be Microsoft SQL Azure Database.

There will be more news and updates related to our Software + Services strategy next week at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. For those of you not attending in person, all the news and information can be found at: http://www.digitalwpc.com/ . Check back often starting next Monday, July 13, for daily updates.

More about TSQL Support in SQL Data Services can be found here. Another announcement of this can be found at “SQL Azure – Same great platform, just a better aligned name”

Apparently its a ‘Cloudy’ week

Gareth

• Mono on the iPhone…. To say this is exciting is an understatement. Unfortunately I’m a little afraid that Apple wont like it too much (read allow it in their TOS).
  

  “3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)”

  .Mono is normally an interpreted language very similar to Java and the TOS explictly disallows running byte code on the machine.  So this could be VERY interesting, or it could be a nice concept and not never to hit the Apple store. Definitely watch this space!Otherwise we will end up with a compiler than generates Object C code

• Firefox 3.5 should be out tomorrow.
• Another EDW appliance comes into the fold with Aster Data.
• Simple problems highlighted with “SQL Server 2005 reporting in management studio“.

Gareth

UPDATE 2009-06-29: It seems there are similar issues with SQL2005 as well, have a look SQL Server version has a known compatibility issues with Windows 7 RC. This warning is genuine and applies to all SQL Server editions, including all Express editions.

Gareth

Some may consider this a non-event, while it may seriously turn the world upside down for others. The latest set of Oracle drivers can be found here http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/windows/odpnet/index.html

The Oracle Data Provider for .NET (ODP.NET) features optimized ADO.NET data access to the Oracle database. ODP.NET allows developers to take advantage of advanced Oracle database functionality, including Real Application Clusters, XML DB, and advanced security. The data provider can be used with the latest .NET Framework 3.5 version.

ODP.NET makes using Oracle from .NET more flexible, faster, and more stable. ODP.NET includes many features not available from other .NET drivers, including a native XML data type, array parameters, RAC optimizations, and statement caching. ODP.NET is designed for scalable enterprise Windows solutions by providing full support for Unicode and local and distributed transactions. Distributed transactions are supported using the Oracle Services for MTS.

Frankly this package ranks as #1 & #2 when using Google to search for “oracle .net provider” so I suspect a lot of developers who use Google will have gone straight to this approach anyway.

Update

It seems this story is gathering momentum now:

• http://cwebbbi.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!7B84B0F2C239489A!4573.entry
• http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/18/microsoft_kills_oracle_connector/

Gareth

Brad’s Sure Guide to Indexes

If you know all that is to know about indexing and just want the SQL 2008 stuff that is towards the end of the article.

It certainly saves me from personally writing this up , and I hope this becomes a growing reference guide for everyone out there. I will add some additional information in some future posts.

Have a read and bookmark away!

Gareth

I would much prefer if the Microsoft team where able to provide a performance grid of how two systems performed against each other with performance and cost values applied to each. Without this it just doesn’t seem balanced, and as such any good points they may be making in the document will be enviably missed or dismissed.

Update June 3: Interestingly I see others have the same opinion – http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jonathan_kehayias/archive/2009/06/02/rant-one-sided-whitepapers.aspx

June 5 – Joe Chang Wrote: http://sqlblog.com/blogs/joe_chang/archive/2009/06/05/microsoft-s-thinking-oracle-rac-think-again-whitepaper.aspx

Have a read and see what you think,

Gareth

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The RSS feed announcement can be found here

So for all those out there developing, supporting, thinking about Teradata as a platform I recommend subscribing to this site. I hope this becomes a defacto point for all Teradata knowledge.

Gareth

# Guest Failover Clustering is supported for SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 in a virtual machine for Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, and SVVP certified configurations provided both of the following requirements are met:

* The Operating System running in the virtual machine (the “Guest Operating System”) is Windows Server 2008 or higher
* The virtualization environment meets the requirements of Windows 2008 Failover Clustering as documented at The Microsoft Support Policy for Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters.

Guest Failover Clustering is when you create a SQL Server failover cluster inside a virtual machine where the nodes are running as a virtual machine. A non-SVVP configuration that meets these requirements will receive support from Microsoft CSS per the policies documented in

897615 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897615/) Support policy for Microsoft software running in non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software

Very cool, the Data Center guys are going to love this one!

Gareth

Check out this blog about eBays datawarehouse. About all I can say is wow.. How things have moved on in just a couple of years. They are talking petabytes and 17 Trillion rows – for the data mart!!

Stunning!!

Gareth