Katmai Is Coming -- Visual Studio Magazine

Desmond File

Katmai Is Coming

When SQL Server 2005 hit the pavement a couple of years ago, it was a major -- and majorly overdue -- upgrade to Microsoft's flagship database management system. Now, the next version of SQL Server, code-named "Katmai," is gathering steam as it approaches its first Community Technology Preview (CTP). And where SQL Server 2005 focused heavily on scalability and business intelligence, Katmai is attacking the proliferation of data types and structures, offering ways to move unstructured and spatial data from warehouse to devices.

According to Microsoft SQL Server Product Manager Francois Ajenstat, Katmai users will be able to "natively store documents within SQL server. You'll be able to query it and do standard things you do in a database -- select, inserts, updates, deletes -- to documents. It means you'll be able to use our standard management tools. You'll able to use the security policies that you implement in SQL Server directly on those documents."

Currently scheduled to ship some time in 2008, Katmai may also end up debuting Microsoft's ADO.NET Entity Framework (EF), which enables developers to program against data defined in a conceptual fashion instead of directly interacting with traditional table-and-column data. The framework is based on Microsoft's Entity Data Model specification, and was originally slated to launch with the next version of Visual Studio, code-named "Orcas." But delays in the EF Designer prompted Microsoft to pull the functionality. At the moment, it appears EF could debut with Katmai.

Microsoft has been busy on the data access front, what with LINQ, EF and now the Katmai version of SQL Server. What are your thoughts on Microsoft's data efforts? Let me know at [email protected].

Posted by Michael Desmond on 05/23/2007

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