SuperHappyDevHouse

Auldhouse and Ace are updating their training schedules and were kind enough to let me know what they have scheduled around SQL Server 2008 over the next few months.  Here are the offerings coming up by course with dates (approximate or exact as given).

6158: Updating Your SQL Server 2005 Skills to SQL Server 2008 (3 days)

Location Dates Learning Partner Wellington December 10-12 Auldhouse Christchurch January 19-21 Ace Auckland February 2-5 Ace Auckland February 25-27 Auldhouse Christchurch March 9-11 Ace

6157: Whats new in SQL Server 2008 (Hands on lab) (1 day)

Location Dates Learning Partner Christchurch December 16 Ace Christchurch February 5 Ace

If you are looking to get into SQL Server, these provide good options that allow you to ask questions and get your hands on the product. 

For more details, click on the links in the right hand column and you'll go through to the appropriate page with more details and contact details or instructions on how to register.

Next Wednesday (November 19) the Auckland SQL Server User group kicks off again.  It had a false start last year due to some extenuating circumstances, but now it is back in action. 

Dave and Amanda (this Amanda) are working together to build out the SQL Server community in Auckland.

So, be at the SQL Server User group meeting in Auckland next week - 6pm at Microsoft (22 Viaduct Harbour).

You should also consider signing up to the mailing list for the user group. To do this, just send an email to announce@aucklandsql.com to be signed up.

Registration is now open for the SQL PASS community connection weekend in December.  Details are here and some other information is in the previous blog post I did on it.

If you plan on getting along to this event (and I strongly encourage you to if you have anything to do with SQL Server), you'll need to register at the bottom of this page.

See you there!

If you are on SQL Server 2000 and you've been looking at your six CPU setup thinking "I'd hate to pay for the licenses to upgrade that" it may not be as bad as you think.

With SQL Server 2005 we introduced some license changes (note that there are no license changes from 2005 to 2008).  One of the key changes for highly redundant solutions was that where the server has no active users against it because it is a passive server (i.e. used for DR or in a mirror), there is no licensing requirement.

Lets test this with a scenario (assuming CPU based licensing - it works similarly with Server/CAL licensing). Imagine you have a dual CPU server with a mirrored server (again with two CPU's).  On top of this, you have a DR Server, also with two CPU's.  In SQL Server 2000, you would have purchased SQL Server Enterprise Edition for six CPU's.  With SQL Server 2005/2008, you wouldn't pay for the mirrored server (which simply replicates data unless the primary server is failed over to it). 

Why is this the case?  Because the licensing for SQL Server Workgroup, Standard and Enterprise allows you to install the equivalent number of instances as you license as cold or warm servers - meaning servers that are not accessed by users except when they are failed over to.

So what about the DR server?  In the case above, it would need to be licensed.  However, a work around for this would be to set up the mirror as a single CPU machine and the DR server as a single CPU machine and then license SQL Server for both CPU's on the primary server.

When would the passive server need to have a SQL server license?  If a passive server is being used for anything other than simply absorbing data and information held in another system it needs to be licensed.  An example of this would be when users are accessing the passive server for reporting or other sort of user access.

So if you are looking at upgrading to SQL Server 2008 from SQL Server 2000, and you have a highly redundant configuration - your licensing costs won't be the same as they were when you purchased SQL Server 2000. 

Don't forget that we're just talking about SQL Server here.  You'll still need to license Windows Server 2008 and any other products on the DR server.

Before you go and put together all your licensing around this concept, you'll want to take the time to read the product use rights - particularly the exceptions for SQL Server. 

Note: I am not responsible for your licensing and can't legally advise you :-).

Just a quick note to remind you that we are running the SQL Server Training forum this week. Full details here.

When you walk away from this session, you should have a solid understanding of the product capabilities and features as well as an understanding of what to consider when architecting, building and deploying SQL Server 2008 solutions.

You won't walk away as an expert in SQL Server - but you'll know what areas to invest more training in.

If you have not registered, make sure you do so.  If you have been waitlisted (Auckland is full), I would still come along on the day as I expect some people simply won't turn up.  If you have registered and can no longer make it, please let me know so that those wait listed can be given the opportunity to register.

See you there starting tomorrow!

There is sometimes confusion between what is and isn't supported of Visual Basic 6.  What happens with Vista given it has the VB Runtime built in - how does support for that work?  These are common sorts of questions.

There are two very good locations to check up on with VB6 support.  One is this one which has a solid Q&A on VB6 and Visual Studio 6 support for VB.  It covers the most frequently asked questions on VB6.

The other one is this one which outlines and answers most questions about the VB6 Runtime on Vista.  If you are running VB6 you should look through these pages.

If you are looking at migrating or extending your VB6 application, a site that has lots of useful information is http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbrun.

A few years back we had the SQL Server Code Camp.  This year the community is putting on the same thing in a different guise - the SQL PASS Community Connection.

This is a weekend of SQL Server oriented sessions that will cover a variety of topics relevant to anyone working with SQL Server in their day jobs.

When: December 6-7 (Saturday/Sunday)
Where: Whitireia Polytechnic, Porirua, Wellington

Turn up from 8am on Saturday morning.  First sessions start at 9am and go till 6pm followed by an optional dinner.  Sunday is from 9am-5pm.

Topics covered include:

• Managing Data warehouses
• Building a business case for SQL Server (by me)
• Top 15 SQL Server DBA Tasks
• DTS to SSIS migration
• Troubleshooting SQL Server
• Upgrading from SQL Server 2000
• Reporting Services Architecture
• Monitoring with DMV's
• Business Continuity
• Linq to SQL
• Security
• SQL Server Data Services
• And more...

There are also some top speakers going to be there including:

• Greg Low
• Adam Cogan
• Peter Ward
• Chris Auld
• and a bunch of gurus from around NZ

This looks like a great event, so I encourage you to be there.

Registration and more information is available on the .Net Website.

While the rest of the world has been able to purchase and renew Visual Studio and MSDN online for some time, we have for some reason lagged behind.  But now that lag is behind us and we can now order a new subscription or renew your MSDN subscription online.

If you are a small business, this is good news as you don't need to go through a LAR to purchase Visual Studio - all you need is a credit card and an Internet connection (and a Live ID).

To purchase MSDN/Visual Studio, click here and follow the "wizard" (for want of something better to call it).  The pricing on the online store represents about a 10% discount on the standard price, so its not a bad way to purchase.

Do you have an opinion about what we are doing well or badly in the Developer space?  Here is your chance to have your say.

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you love and hate about Microsoft! Every year we use your feedback to improve our products and services. This year, in addition to the annual online survey, we are planning to hold focus groups around the country and are looking for NZ developers to have their say.

Scott Wylie, the Director of the Developer and Platform Strategy Team for Microsoft NZ, will be facilitating these sessions. Scott’s role is to listen and understand your feedback which will enable his team to provide better support and resources for NZ developers.

If you would like to participate, please email your interest to nzeditor@microsoft.com with your contact details and preferred focus group (by session number as listed below) you would like to attend. We will confirm you attendance shortly after via email and phone. You can be assured that all information shared will be kept confidential.

Christchurch Convention Centre / Tuesday 11th November 2008
Kilmore Street, Christchurch

Session 1: 8:30 -10:00
Session 2: 11:00 -12:30

Microsoft New Zealand Wellington Office / Thursday 13th November 2008
Level 12, Vodafone on the Park, Lambton Quay, Wellington

Session 3: 8:30 -10:00
Session 4: 11:00 -12:30

Microsoft New Zealand Auckland Office / Wednesday 19th November 2008
Level 5, 22 Viaduct Harbour Avenue, Auckland

Session 5: 8:30 -10:00
Session 6: 11:00 -12:30

Refreshments and a token of our appreciation will be provided for your participation.  We look forward to hearing from those of you who are interested to participate in the focus groups. Please note that there are limited spaces available so please respond early to secure your space for the focus group.

This is a good opportunity to have a candid chat with Scott (my manager until recently).

If you've got SQL Server 2000 servers and you are looking to migrate to SQL Server 2008, it is possible that you've got a number of SQL Server DTS packages to convert.  For some customers DTS migration is the key reason behind taking a long time to migrate.  SQL Server 2008 includes some tools for aiding the migration process, and there is some good documentation on how to approach and complete the migration too.  I want to highlight some of this here.

Before you start though, you'll want to take a look at the considerations for upgrading DTS Packages to SSIS. Once you've done that you'll be pleased to know that there is a SQL Server Upgrade Advisor that will look at your DTS packages and advise you if you are likely to expect upgrade issues.  For the most part, DTS packages that contain functionality with a directly equivalent in SSIS will have no problems.  If there is no direct equivalent, you'll need to wrap components of a package.  Notes to help you with this are also available in SQL Books online here.

Once you've got your head around what will and wont convert, you can have a crack at using the DTS migration wizard (also included in SQL Server 2008 Standard and Enterprise).

There is a list of known package migration issues available.  More detailed “how to” information about running the package migration wizard is available here. 

Of course, this will all be covered in some detail at the SQL Server DBA Training Forum in November (dont forget to register).

At the Microsoft BI conference this week we announced some of our internal projects.  The two of interest are:

• Microsoft SQL Server v.Next code named "Kilimanjaro"
• Project "Madison"

SQL Server "Kilimanjaro" is focused specifically around BI (hence it's announcement at the BI Conference) and "Madison" is the integration of the DATAllegro technologies with Windows and SQL Server.

CTP drops will start over the next 12 months with RTM (currently) expected in 2010.

For more information on these, read the press release or watch the BI Conference day 1 keynote (Low, Medium, High)

Slow off the mark on this one (Hillary beat me to it).

SQL Server 2008 Enterprise has been supported on Hyper-V since RTM, but the announcement today is that from today:

• SQL Server 2008 and 2005 are both supported on Hyper-V and Hyper-V Server
• SQL Server 2008 and 2005 are both supported on selected third party products

The list of supported third party products is located here and currently includes:

• Cisco WAAS Virtual Blades 4.1.1
• Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2
• VMWare ESX 3.5 Update 2
• XenServer 5

The official landing page for the support policy around SQL on Virtual hardware is here and will be updates if/as things change.

I recently heard of someone who moved their SQL 2005 Server from physical hardware to Hyper-V and saw significantly improved performance. 

The virtualisation story is certainly getting interesting.

Click here to skip to Registration

On November 4-6 we are running three one day training courses aimed at DBA's which are designed to jumpstart your knowledge of SQL Server 2008 planning and deployment.

If you design solutions on SQL Server, maintain SQL Server databases or are evaluating SQL Server for deployment, this training will prove useful.

The training will be run by Jeremy Boyd (SQL Server MVP and all round nice guy).

Agenda/Content

You'll want to be there at around 8:15 for a 8:30am sharp start.  The day will be over at 4:30pm after which you can either hang around for a bit to talk further or head home before the traffic gets really nasty. 

Here is what the day will look like:

8:30-10am – Overview of SQL Server 2008

What is new in SQL Server 2008 that makes it worth seriously considering? What is the difference between Web, Standard and Enterprise?  All these things are covered in this introduction to SQL Server 2008.  This is a 200 level session intended to give you a overview of what the new capabilities and tools are in the product and where they will be useful to you.

10:15-11:30 – Migrating from SQL Server 2000/2005 to SQL Server 2008

There are many new changes in SQL Server 2008, particularly when upgrading from SQL Server 2000.  Is it worth migrating?  If so, where do you start?  How can you approach this?  What about DTS to SSIS migrations?  This session will give you some considerations and approaches to take away with you to help you make the right decisions and the migration to SQL 2008 whether it be from SQL 2000 or SQL 2005.

11:45-1pm – SQL Server Architecture

Architecture is about ensuring that solutions are available and scalable.  This includes thinking through how to allow other stakeholders get the most from the solution.  This session will explore how much developers can do with SQL Server 2008 and how DBA’s should architect their implementation to provide the key features developers will build into their applications without compromising the service the database server provides. We will also look at and discuss the various architectures that you can consider when using SQL Server 2008 technologies.

-- lunch –- 1:45-3pm – High availability and resilience

Mirroring, clustering and replication have come a long way in SQL Server 2008.  In addition there are new features such as the Resource Governor that will ensure that your mission critical applications never suffer from contention with other applications. This session will give you a solid understanding of these technologies and when to use them.

3:15-4:30 – SQL Server Management

Managing SQL Server 2008 servers is easier than ever before. Check out how policy based management in SQL Server 2008 will reduce risks, how configuration servers allow you to group servers together for easier management and get an introduction into SQL PowerShell to really jump start your management framework.

Throughout the day there will be opportunities to ask questions and get expert answers and talk to your peers and see how they've done things.

Registration

To register, click one of the links below.  There is no charge for this training - although no-shows will get the special benefit of being shamed publicly before their peers :-)

Tuesday, November 4 - Wellington - The Brewery Bar (upstairs conference room) (Register)
Wednesday, November 5 - Auckland - The Duxton Hotel (Register)
Thursday, November 6 - Christchurch - Christchurch Convention Centre (Register)

I've been meaning to put up a bunch of posts, but I haven't had time, so here is the quick list of things I was going to post about.

Visual Studio Team Developer and Database Combine
This is big news, and I should have mentioned this last week... The news is that if you own a subscription for Visual Studio Team Edition for Database professionals or Developers, these two products have now combined, meaning you get two products for the price of one.  This was actually announced in the "futures" announcement (below), but more details about what this means is on the Data Dude blog.

Developer Tools futures news
Last week we provided a little more information about .Net 4.0, Visual Studio 2010 and Windows Server, code named "Dublin".  You'll find the details on Steve Martins blog, but there is also an overview in word format you can get from here.  There will be lots more futures news when PDC hits later this month.

BizTalk Server 2009
A month ago we announced that the next release of BizTalk Server will be called BizTalk Server 2009 rather than BizTalk Server 2006 R3.  Personally I'm really happy about this, and it validates the importance of this release of BizTalk.  Fore more on what will be in this release (and there is some cool stuff) check out the roadmap.

I've had a few questions about SQL Server Web already, so here is an extract from a licensing white paper that explains what it is and where it fits.

"SQL Server 2008 Web is a new version specifically geared for the hosting industry. It may be used only to support public and Internet-accessible Web sites, pages, applications, and services."

What is the difference between SQL Server Web and other editions?  I pulled this chart which gives a pretty good comparison.  You can also see from this chart that there is lots of value in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise.

For more information on what is and is not in SQL Server 2008 Web Edition, check out the datasheet.

One of the questions when selecting a version of SQL Server is what edition do I need and what can I get away with.  For customers deploying solutions on SQL that are intended to be mission critical the question is generally a question of SQL Standard or SQL Enterprise?

In SQL Server 2005 there was significant difference between Standard and Enterprise for Business Intelligence and SQL Server Integration Services, but most people weren't too worried about what they missed out on (full comparison here)

In SQL Server 2008, there are significantly more reasons to go for Enterprise rather than Standard Edition.

Bear in mind that the key scenarios targeted by SQL Enterprise is described as:

"SQL Server 2008 Enterprise is a comprehensive data platform for running mission critical online transaction processing (OLTP), data warehousing (DW) and business intelligence (BI) applications. SQL Server 2008 Enterprise provides enterprise class scalability, high availability and security to meet the high demands of these applications."

Having said that here is a quick list of some of the key features in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise that are not found in SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition:

• Hypervisor support (in Hyper-V)
• Database snapshots
• Indexed views
• Resource governor
• Compression (both data and backup)
• Partitioning
• Transparent Encryption with 3rd party key management
• Transaction auditing (excellent for compliance)
• Change data capture
• Report scale-out
• Grouped server management (one command can be sent to multiple servers)

The full list of differences can be found here.  Over the next few weeks I'll be explaining what these features do at a high level.

I've spent a little time with Greg Low recently and one of the things he's involved in is the board directing the SQL Server Master certification.

This program is the elite certification program for SQL Server DBA's and consists of a rigorous three week training course delivered by guru's in SQL Server (Greg does a couple of days worth, Kim Tripp and Paul Randall are doing the first week).  This training is deep and technical - Greg spends half a day explaining tempdb.

Because the master certification is about to go through its first public Beta the team are offering a 50% discount on the first scheduled event in October.  The October course starts on October 20 and finished on November 8.  Given the fees are nearly US$20k, this is a significant discount.

For more details on the master program, start here.  To see what it takes to register, check this page out, register here.

There is going to be a bunch of stuff around the Windows Campaign come out.  Here is one that came out today :-)

I quite like some of the new stuff that I've seen on this - time will tell what everyone else thinks though.

Pride - I'm a PC

Update: Check out the updated windows.com site for more, also links to all the videos are now up on the press pass site.

I've just got the Tech Ed evals back in and thought I'd put up some of the results for all to see.  Before I do that - if you are a speaker, you should expect to see an email from me in the next 24 hours with full session feedback including all your comments.

Overall Averages

This year we seem to have done much better with the overall feedback than in previous years.   The average speaker and session scores are in the table below;

  Tech Ed 2007 Tech Ed 2008 Session Score 7.36 7.5 Speaker Score 7.68 7.79 Top 10 sessions

One of the surprising things is the feedback on the lunchtime sessions this year.  The lunchtime sessions were a bit mixed this year - some technical sessions and some not so technical sessions.  The feedback overall - including the lunchtime sessions gives us the following top 10:

Code Name Speaker Score GEN201 Microsoft New Generation Certifications Trika Harms zum Spreckel 8.67 SVR380 HP Insight Dynamics Darren Wood 8.67 SEC200 Do these 10 things or get 0wn3d Steve Riley 8.62 UNC303 Going Big! A discussion on deploying large mailboxes with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 without breaking the bank Sandy Millar 8.59 SOA310 Implementing RESTful services with Windows Communication Foundation 3.5 - Security, scalability and controlling the URI (Part 2 of 2) Rob Bagby 8.49 SEC201 21st Century Networking Steve Riley 8.45 ARC209 How IT will change in the next 10 years Miha Kralj 8.43 SEC305 Virtualization and security: What does it mean for me? Steve Riley 8.38 SEC306 Privacy: The why, what and how Steve Riley 8.37 GEN202 How to make your blog suck less Scott Hanselman 8.33

Its interesting to see Trika's session rate well - certification is clearly of interest to customers!  If we take lunchtime sessiosn out of the equation we get the following as the top list of breakout sessions.

Code Name Speaker Score SEC200 Do these 10 things or get 0wn3d Steve Riley 8.62 UNC303 Going Big! A discussion on deploying large mailboxes with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 without breaking the bank Sandy Millar 8.59 SOA310 Implementing RESTful services with Windows Communication Foundation 3.5 - Security, scalability and controlling the URI (Part 2 of 2) Rob Bagby 8.49 SEC201 21st Century Networking Steve Riley 8.45 ARC209 How IT will change in the next 10 years Miha Kralj 8.43 SEC305 Virtualization and security: What does it mean for me? Steve Riley 8.38 SEC306 Privacy: The why, what and how Steve Riley 8.37 OFC342 Project and Application Portfolio Management: What, why, how Youssef Mourra 8.31 DEV375 Reactive Programming Ivan Towlson 8.27 UNC309 Advanced protection of Exchange Server with Data Protection Manager Jason Buffington 8.27

Its great to see Ivan's session on Reactive Programming make the top 10 breakout sessions - well done Ivan!

Top 10 speakers

If we roll up the speaker scores to get the top 10 speakers for Tech Ed NZ we get the following list.  I hereby announce that these are officially the kings of Tech Ed!

Speaker Average Score Sessions Delivered Steve Riley 8.79 4 Trika Harms zum Spreckel 8.76 1 Scott Hanselman 8.72 3 Miha Kralj 8.52 1 Rob Bagby 8.49 3 Johann Kruse 8.48 2 Greg Low 8.47 2 Yossef Mourra 8.44 1 Sandy Millar 8.38 2 Jason Buffington 8.34 3

The only session in this list from a lunchtime session is Trikas, for what it is worth the next top score in the list is Gary Gross who delivered a single session on Systems Center Mobile Device Manager and scored 8.27.  This was followed by the top NZ community speaker who was Ivan Towlson with an average speaker score of 8.21 from two sessions. 

My congratulations to all the speakers, but particularly to those speakers who scored in the top 10 with more than one session - this is particularly difficult and shows polished presentation skills that are consistent.  Having said that, dont underestimate how hard it is to be in this list - the average speaker score is extremely high - so well done to all those speakers mentioned above!

I've had a heap of emails asking about the availability of the Hands On Labs that we used at Tech Ed.

So, can you get hold of the HOL's at Tech Ed?

Unfortunately the answer is no.  There are a couple of reasons for this. 

1) Branding.  Many of the labs are branded with Tech Ed and we've been asked not to publish or give them out for this reason.

2) Expiring Evaluation copies of Software.  Most (if not all) the eval copies of Windows Server are set to expire today, which means you can't start them anyway.

However, it is not all lost.  A good number of the HOL's are also available as Virtual Labs, which means you can run through the material any time using Microsoft servers to run the VM's.  There are Virtual labs for both IT Pro and Developer content on a wide range of products (exceeding the ones we had at Tech Ed) and they are available free of charge from the Virtual Labs page.  Note that some of the very large labs (e.g. the Security lab with six VM's) may not be available via Virtual Labs.

 

Finally, if there is a specific lab that you are keen to get hold of, we can release the lab manuals for you to go through in your own time.  If you are keen on this, contact Mike using this contact form and he will give you details on how you can get hold of the lab manuals.