I'm no Microsoft fanboi, but I noticed an interesting tidbit when I recently wrote a news article about Google Cloud SQL, which adds a MySQL database service to the company's App Engine development stack.
In the comments section of the blog post announcing the new service, was this from reader Jeff King:
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Posted by David Ramel on 10/13/20113 comments
Dear ‹FirstName>,
In these trying times you occasionally just need to take a break from the business of data and have a good laugh. Which is what I did when I received the following e-mail, purportedly from a real data-related vendor. I'll protect that innocent by anonymizing the company/personal details in italics, but otherwise the message is presented as received:
Dear ‹FirstName›,
We're ‹insert emotion› to announce our research is nearly complete. In just a few ‹random time duration›, we'll be announcing the new Company Name Telepathy Source and Destination, allowing the everyday man and woman to read minds into an SSIS data stream.
Imagine being able to:
Read the entire encyclopedia in a matter of minutes
Output your wife's thoughts to find out how she really feels
Learn a new skill in seconds like Neo from the Matrix
Over the past week we've run a contest to see who can be the first to view this amazing research and I'm happy to announce that Person's Name is our winner. If you are Person's Name, please click the below link to see our research. If you are not Person's First Name, please do not click below. We operate solely on the honor system at Company Name.
Person's Name Click Here
‹Emotional Stub›,
CEO's Name, Founder of Company Name
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Posted by David Ramel on 10/05/20112 comments
Talk about driving data: the audience broke into applause at last week’s BUILD conference when some of the new blazing fast data transfer capabilities were demonstrated by Microsoft’s Bryon Surace during a keynote address.
“With Windows Server 8, we can use multiple NICs [network interface controllers] simultaneously to help improve throughput and fault tolerance,” Surace said.
To demonstrate the new speedy data-transfer capabilities, Surace used a server running Hyper-V with two virtual machines, one of which was connected to two disks. One disk was connected using a 1GB Ethernet connection, a setup he described as “very typical, very commonplace in today’s environment.”
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Posted by David Ramel on 09/21/20110 comments
In the continuing effort to reach détente with the open source community, Microsoft is making inroads in the big data movement.
Last month, it released CTPs of Hadoop connectors for SQL Server and Parallel Data Warehouse "to promote interoperability between Hadoop and SQL Server." That's not so surprising--the Redmond software giant has made similar moves with other open source technologies.
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Posted by David Ramel on 09/15/20112 comments
One of the nice things about my day job as technical editor at MSDN Magazine is getting early looks at cutting-edge technologies and how-to guidance from some of the top experts in the world.
This month, for example, Jamie Laflen and Barclay Hill explore “The ‘Juneau' Database Project,” which promises that “you can now perform your database development in the same environment as your application development.” That sounds nice. No more jumping around from one tool to another.
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Posted by David Ramel on 09/07/20111 comments
Pretty much every blog, article or discussion you see about the SQL vs. NoSQL debate includes sage advice from a reasonable voice of authority along the lines of something like this:
Whoa! Let's calm down. No need to fight. It's not a which-is-better issue, because each (tool/approach/language/philosophy) has its use. They should be used together as needed to solve different kinds of problems according to their strengths ...
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Posted by David Ramel on 08/22/20110 comments
I noticed in the comprehensive 16th annual IT Salary Survey that database developers lost their No. 1 spot in the category of average base salary by job title, actually falling three rungs down the ladder to No. 4.
Not that $95,212 is that bad. But still, that seemed like kind of a big drop in statistics that don't usually change that much from year to year. In fact, editor Michael Domingo said "Database programmers have been fairly consistent in the rankings, but dropped from the top spot to fourth from a dollar perspective. Still, based on percentages, they managed to go up nearly 7 percent from last year's result." Besides being consistent, database programmers "often rank highest," Domingo said in the more extensive PDF document, downloadable with registration.
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Posted by David Ramel on 08/04/20110 comments
OK, I need a little help here. I earlier wrote about a nightmare I endured (along with many others) with the evaluation version of SQL Server 2008 R2.
I was surprised to be ripped by readers. Turns out it was my fault. You're never supposed to install beta apps on a system you might want to use again. That was news to me. One reader wrote:
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Posted by David Ramel on 07/21/20112 comments
A couple of interesting announcement were made since I wrote about how some developers were clamoring for Windows XP support in the next version of SQL Server, code-name Denali.
First, in a Monday keynote address at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), the company announced that XP's "end of life" would occur in 1,000 days, on April 8, 2014.
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Posted by David Ramel on 07/14/20112 comments
When I first glanced at the proposed list of OSes to be supported in the next version of SQL Server, code-name Denali, I actually thought: "Windows XP isn't supported? That's odd. There are a lot of XP machines still out there."
My immediate second thought was: "No, that's cool. It's getting too long in the tooth. Time to move on."
But it appears a lot of SQL Server developers agreed with thought No. 1. Yes, the nearly 10-year-old OS still has its proponents in the dev field (it's hard to believe XP was actually released to manufacturers before we all knew about Osama bin Laden).
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Posted by David Ramel on 07/07/201110 comments
I found it interesting that Evans Data chose to lead with the growth of NoSQL in the enterprise when it began hawking its latest North American Development Survey today.
Not programming languages used, mobile development or even the cloud. But rather, the ascension of NoSQL. What does this prove? It's the data, stupid.
The survey reported that 56 percent of respondents were using some flavor of NoSQL and 63 percent planned on doing so in the next two years. The reason, Evans Data, said, was scale. Massive amounts of data become awkward to handle in traditional relational database schemas. And these huge depositories, spawned on explosively growing Web sites such as Google and Facebook, are becoming more commonplace in the enterprise.
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Posted by David Ramel on 06/30/20110 comments
When I (along with many other people) had a lot of trouble trying to install SQL Server Management Studio in an attempt to switch from the SQL Server 2008 R2 evaluation to the free Express version, I became quite frustrated and began looking at free alternatives to SSMS, including PowerShell.
When I wrote about this, one reader replied that my post was a total disappointment because PowerShell, not having a graphical user interface (GUI), was not a suitable candidate to replace SSMS. I found this comment puzzling, as I included a screenshot of the PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE), which looks pretty darned GUIish to me.
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Posted by David Ramel on 06/24/20111 comments