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Databases Programming Software Microsoft IT

MSSQL 2005 Finally Released 318

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the perhaps-doing-it-right-instead-of-right-now dept.
mnovotny writes "Computerworld reports that Microsoft is finally set to release their belated SQL Server 2005. From the article: 'Despite a two-year delay, several users who have tested the software cited the improved performance and new functionality it brings as positive developments that likely will convince them to upgrade soon.' The free version can be downloaded directly from Microsoft."
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MSSQL 2005 Finally Released More

MSSQL 2005 Finally Released

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  • Before you release the hounds (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Monday November 07, 2005 @06:30PM (#13974696)
    Before the Anti-Microsoft redirect gets out. Please take into accounts. Most People who choose MS SQL Server already have a windows network, Oracle is to expensive for their needs, MySQL 5 just was released with most of the functionality that was in MS SQL 2000, Not many good tools for PostGreSQL, Easier to integrate with .NET, and gives PHB the warm and fuzzies. I have been working with MS SQL 2000 and I must say I was surprising pleased with it, other then the POS that is called DTS, I never had any problems with SQL server, with it crashing or problems handling a lot of data, or configuring security. My only Fear with MS SQL 2005 is that it will break so much compatibility that we well need to redo a lot of stored procedures and all our working around for DTS.
    MS SQL Server Yes it is closed sources, I don't know what type of security holes they will find in it, It is defiantly bloated because it will not fit 5 1/2 single density floppy disk with enough rooms for a 2000 record table. If you already have MS SQL 2000 and in a year or so you need to upgrade it will probably be easer to go to 2005 them migrating to the others.
    • I never had any problems with SQL server

      Yeah? Lucky you! I certainly have.

      If you're not using an MS language, you're going to probably be connecting to it using ODBC, which is slow and often buggy.

      Also, my pet peeve about it is lack of a date type (as opposed to a DateTime type). This is part of the standard, so it should be in there. Its a pain to have to constantly cast your datetime into a date every single time you use it.
      • No problems for light to medium L^hWAMP work either, although for what I use it for (calendar, job listing, light form submission) flat files and a CGI module for VB4 worked fine for a few years before ?AMP became viable to begin with.

      • Re:Before you release the hounds (Score:5, Informative)

        by hey! ( 33014 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:42PM (#13975244) Homepage Journal
        My pet peeve is that bound parameters don't work in subqueries. We have tons of rather sophisticated SQL in our legacy apps; most of them can be rewritten to work on every platform except MSSQL, although often the bound parameter subquery issue can be skirted by rewriting the query as a grouped left outer join.

        My other pet peeve is that T-SQL is so danged orthagonal. It's not that you can't do anything you'd want to do in the language (setting aside the things that are supposed to work but don't). It's just that you have to keep going to the manual to find out what construct works in which context.

        On the other hand, I think most people using relational databases aren't doing very sophisticated RDBMS stuff -- at least in the DB tier. So for those people integration with the MS toolchain is probably more useful than having capabilities they don't use work.

    • Re: "Not many good tools for PostGreSQL" (Score:5, Informative)

      by brennz ( 715237 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:10PM (#13975025)
      This must be in satire, or ignorance.

      Postgresql has a great variety of tools, both OSS and commercial that work great. I've been working on an updated list of all the tools. Here are a few of the most popular admin tools:

      PGadminIII
      http://www.sqlmanager.net/products/postgresql/mana ger [sqlmanager.net]

      DBvisualizer
      http://www.minq.se/products/dbvis/ [www.minq.se]

      EMS Postgresql Manager
      http://www.sqlmanager.net/products/postgresql/mana ger [sqlmanager.net]

      PHPpgadmin
      http://sourceforge.net/projects/phppgadmin [sourceforge.net]

      Sybase Power Designer
      http://www.sybase.com/products/enterprisemodeling/ powerdesigner [sybase.com]

      ERWIN data modeller
      http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Product.asp?ID=260 [ca.com]

      CASE Studio 2
      http://www.casestudio.com/enu/default.aspx [casestudio.com]

      Postgresql has a vibrant tool community. If you want more info on Postgresql tools see
      http://techdocs.postgresql.org/v2/Guides/PostgreSQ L%20GUI%20Tools/document_view [postgresql.org]

    • Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of [flame]war!!!
    • Forgive me for asking, but if you lace the program up with all sorts of .NET and MS SQL extentions are you not boxing yourself into a corner? Say I produce a commercial product, why not keep it simple and use ODBC so you can connect to almost anything? If it is in house, what if the MS machine runs out of juice, can't take any more and one of those larger 8 processor UNIX boxes could do it in a heart beat. So even if you are a MS only programmer, why limit yourself when it adds so little value? Reminds

    • FUD (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )
      Oracle is to expensive for their needs,

      The Oracle license program itself requires about a day or two of study to understand. This is not the job of the end user mind you, but the consultant and/or reseller. I've actually gone through this exercise for several clients.

      To be sure, you can buy a license Oracles in ways that are eye-poppingly expensive, but you don't need to. You can also license all kinds of add-ons that you don't need. But, once you get down to realistic situations with reasonable choi
    • I work on MS SQL Server 2000. I used to work on MS Access.

      Why don't I use other tools? I don't have access to them. People are forced into using what their companies provide, and from my position I can't drive that sort of change.

      For what I need, Access was good. Now some of my databases are groaning at around 1-2GB, but they work smoothly and well because I manage them carefully.

      SQL Server provides a much better set of tools than Access, and it's better supported by our IT department. It's the best tool I
    • "Oracle is to expensive for their needs,"

      Oracle costs the same as SQL server. For every product level in SQL server there is a corresponding one in Oracle with the same or greater feature set that costs the same or less. Yes there are oracle products that cost more then SQL server ones but they do things SQL server can't.

    • Oracle is to expensive for their needs...

      Umm, Oracle standard edition cost the same as SQL Server standard edition. Oracle lowered the price a while ago. Oracle Enterprise edition costs the same as SQL standard edition, feature-for-feature. However, Oracle offers far more large scale features so you could spend more if you need those features (which most users would not). A 1 processor version of SQL Server Enterprise 2005 costs $24,999.00. You can get a feature-for-feature version of Oracle for that

  • Free 'Express' editions released (Score:5, Informative)

    by RonnyJ ( 651856 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @06:34PM (#13974730)
    As well as the free SQL Server Express Edition, Microsoft have also just released the 'Visual Studio Express Editions', available for free [microsoft.com].

    You can download 'web installers' I believe, but ISO images are here [microsoft.com]

    • I was completely unaware of the free "express editions" of their developer software (or MSSQL). What limitations do these editions have?
      • You could also have downloaded SQL 2000 in a free limited form as well. They changed the name in 2005 to 'express', but they've had that program for quite a while.

        • Formerly "MSDE" (Score:3, Informative)

          by WoTG ( 610710 )
          The name to google for the free limited SQL 2000 engine is MSDE - which stands for MS Data Engine, I think. Note that the limitations have changed between MSDE and the new Express db - overall it's generally similar, i.e it's the same great engine but with limits on size and speed (i.e. processors/clusters). The biggest new "freebie" for me is that the max database size is now 4GB instead of 2GB.
      • As far as I know, the free MSSQL has a 2 GB database limitaton. That would be adequate for most developing purposes (I guess you are expected to buy the full fledged SQL for production).

        Not being a database admin, I can't comment on the advantages of MSSQL over other SQL servers, but I've heard people say that MSSQL is very resistant to data corruption caused by external factors (I guess they mean, hardware failure or filesystem corruption or the like). Can anybody confirm this?

      • The biggest are (for SQL) (Score:5, Informative)

        by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:10PM (#13975028)
        1) 1GB of RAM usage maximum.
        2) 1 Processor usabe maximum (unlimited cores though).
        3) 4GB total DB size maximum.

        There are other limits too, like it can't do some enterprise things like a DB cluster, but the major ones are the size and processing limitation. So it would probably work as a web backend, but wouldn't scale without buying a bigger version.
        • Isn't there a maximum amount of connections limitation too?

          Honestly I don't get it. Why would somebody use a deliberately crippled piece of software when you can get uncrippled open source databases for free.
      • Free - but only for one year. Then you need to find budget.
    • Which, believe it or not, actually look like they've had useful new features put into them, instead of fluff.

    • Re:Free 'Express' editions released (Score:5, Informative)

      by RonnyJ ( 651856 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @06:43PM (#13974819)
      A quick addition - apparently, you need to register [microsoft.com] with Microsoft to get a product key for these Express editions.

      However, it seems as if the ISO images may not need such a product key, as this item from that link states:

      If you need to install and use an Express Edition on a computer that is not connected to the Internet, you will need to create an installation CD using the CD ISO (IMG) files that are available on the Express site. The installation CD you create will then allow you to install an Express Edition on a computer that is not connected to the Internet, and that Express Edition will not require a registration key for continued usage.

    • Open Source making waves... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsborg ( 111459 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @06:44PM (#13974828) Homepage
      As well as the free SQL Server Express Edition, Microsoft have also just released the 'Visual Studio Express Editions', available for free.

      Clearly, this (as well as news of Oracle's "free/lite" version of 10g), are good news... that Open Source projects like MySQL, PHP, PostgreSQL, etc are forcing the "cathedral" software shops to re-examine their ways, since they (Microsoft & others) can't rely on piracy anymore (due to impacted profits) to keep the "pipeline full" and "mindshare". It's good for the closed source developers, and ultimately it will be good for OSS developers, as OSS entries in these fields mature. Competition is good, and the developers benefit.

      • Re:Open Source making waves... (Score:5, Informative)

        by LurkerXXX ( 667952 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:00PM (#13974954)
        Sorry. I hate to burst your bubble, but this isn't something new that OS 'forced' on MS. They have offered a free lightweight version of their database for some time. I've been using the free SQL 2000 version on machines for testing for years.

        This isn't some 'new thing' that MS is doing because it's running scared of OSS.

        • SQL 2005 Express isn't what's new. What's new is Visual * 2005 Express for free. Until very recently, they were saying that they were going to charge something like $50 for each edition. This is what was "forced" on MS. Someone in Microsoft finally clued into the fact that giving away this software would make them far more money than selling it ever would.

          On the other hand, expect companies like Borland to be very upset by this move. This will cut into some of their market (what's left of it), and mig

          • The grandparent I was replying too clearly stated that it was "MySQL, PHP, PostgreSQL" putting the pressure on MS. Those have everything to do with SQL 2005, and nothing to do with Visual Studio.

            What do the charge for the regular version of Visual Studio? A decent amount. $50 is peanuts compared when you add in the cost of media/shipping, etc. They dropped from that tiny amount of profit to none on the lightweight version. Not a huge deal for them.

            I guess in your mind they can't possibly decide to

          • Re:Open Source making waves... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by ergo98 ( 9391 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @08:55PM (#13975739) Homepage Journal
            Someone in Microsoft finally clued into the fact that giving away this software would make them far more money than selling it ever would.

            What utter nonsense.

            Firstly, as the other person mentioned - the thread was explicitly about SQL Server Express Edition, which is a variation of something that Microsoft has been doing since SQL Server 7 (when the MSDE first appeared). Not to mention things like the JET engine have always been freely distributable.

            Secondly, Microsoft has offered a free SDK/Platform SDK for years. This is a very comprehensive kit that can be used to develop software.

            The whole focus is wrong anyways - the Express editions of Visual Studio, which have some killer limitations (e.g. complete lack of optimization), are targetted at dabblers. These dabblers would never, in a million years, try getting going with Eclipse or the like. At the most they'd warez an ISO of Visual Studio Pro.

            Which brings up the next point - Microsoft has always been relatively hands off about piracy of Visual Studio. That is their tacit real "Free" version. Even Visual Studio 2005 doesn't include activation or any other anti-warez measures.

      • VS.NET Express is only free for one year [microsoft.com].



        /me stops download

        • Re:Open Source making waves... (Score:4, Informative)

          by nachoboy ( 107025 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @08:28PM (#13975583)
          Why stop downloading? It means they're going to offer it free for at least a year. From the site:
          You said "free for one year" -- what does that mean, exactly? Will you be charging for this later?
          We originally announced pricing of Visual Studio Express at US$49. We are now offering Visual Studio Express for free, as a limited-in-time promotional offer, until November 6, 2006. Note that we are also offering SQL Server 2005 Express Edition as a free download, and that this offer is not limited to the same promotional pricing period as Visual Studio Express.
          and
          Do customers who acquire the Visual Studio Express products during the free promotional pricing period have to pay after the first year if they want to continue to use them?
          If you acquire Visual Studio Express products within the one-year promotional period, you will enjoy the rights granted in the applicable license at no cost for the term of that license.
          The license is perpetual, so you don't have to pay for it later, regardless of how long you use it.

    • Wow.. more mis-information... Again... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dan_Bercell ( 826965 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @06:56PM (#13974917)
      Ok, ok, ok... People, we have talked about this last week.

      http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166 851&cid=13914395 [slashdot.org]

      Clearly, this (as well as news of Oracle's "free/lite" version of 10g), are good news... that Open Source projects like MySQL, PHP....

      MS HAS ALWAYS OFFERED A FREE DATABASE ENGINE, its no secret. SQl Server 2005 Express is just the new version of this product which has been available for years. Because of its easy transition to Sql Server its used a lot as a started Database for companies trying to sell in the SBM market. A lot of software application make use of MSDE (which is what the engine was called before Express edition)

      For more information here http://www.microsoft.com/sql/msde/default.mspx [microsoft.com]

      Now as for the Express editions being free... They are not (someone let me know if I am wrong here). They cost like 40 bucks or so, I had the beta installed on my system, once beta was over it prompted me to register/pay for it within 30 days..etc the usual MS registration.

    • Re:Free 'Express' editions released (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jalefkowit ( 101585 ) <jason@NosPam.jasonlefkowitz.com> on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:25PM (#13975123) Homepage

      Yes, if by "free" you mean "free to use for one year [microsoft.com]":

      You said "free for one year" -- what does that mean, exactly? Will you be charging for this later?

      We originally announced pricing of Visual Studio Express at US$49. We are now offering Visual Studio Express for free, as a limited-in-time promotional offer, until November 6, 2006.

      Do customers who acquire the Visual Studio Express products during the free promotional pricing period have to pay after the first year if they want to continue to use them?

      If you acquire Visual Studio Express products within the one-year promotional period, you will enjoy the rights granted in the applicable license at no cost for the term of that license.

      That "for the term of that license" sounds like a loophole to me. Anyone seen the licenses that these "free" versions come with? Do they have a time period written into them?

  • Sigh. Stored procs in C# (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Reality Master 201 ( 578873 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @06:40PM (#13974778) Journal
    Stored procedures are one of those things that are like antibiotics or LSD - they're wonderful and valuable when handled carefully and responsibly, and cause big problems when they're not.

    The limited stored proc language that SQL server had before was actually a good thing; you could do some limited stuff in the DB. Thus, you weren't often able to give in to the tendency to stick application logic in the database tier.

    And this quote pretty much says it all: Raichura said the support for Microsoft's Common Language Runtime technology via Visual Studio will let him avoid having to go to multiple developers with different specialties. "I can natively write stored procedures straight into software," he said. "This increases my resource pool because it reduces the distinction between software developers and architects."

    Read: Now, I can pay people less to create a complete fucking pigsty that will perform well enough that the app will appear largely stable.

    • Re:Sigh. Stored procs in C# (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tonyr60 ( 32153 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @06:46PM (#13974839)
      And paint them even further into a corner such that migration to another DB is next to impossible.
      • personally, I don't see why that's such a big deal. who sells or markets their product as 'easy to ditch for someone else's product'? Hell, you can still use PHP to connect to an MSSQL 2005 server and run that SP which is written in C#
      • Not really. The way .NET (C# anc vb.net) stored procs work is you basically write you logic just like you would for a regular application and upload it to the database with a few extra decorating tags. From what I've seen it should be trivial to rip this code out and put it back in your application should you wish to do so.

        That said, you'll still have to make some changes to make it talk to something other than sql server, but if you've written your code with that in mind that also should be trivial.
    • The only time I really get annoyed with the limits of standard SQL stored procedures is when I need an array of values to be passed into it. For instance, there are many times where a stored procedure that uses an "IN" statement could really benefit from passing in an array of values for the "IN". To get around this, you basically have to write a data access layer that creates SQL on the fly.

      I'm all about separating "logic" from the data access layer, but simple things like that are probably possible using
      • After oracle 8 its possible to pass in arrays in your PL/SQL using the varray type. Here's a link [com.com] that shows it in action.
      • Postgres already does this.
      • Amen brother!

        I believe this is true for any SQL statement in .net. Not just stored procedures. ODBC supports arrays as input parameters, so the problem isn't in SQL Server. I think the problem is that ADO.net doesn't support it. One would presume that they will sooner or later. Who know's they might even support it with the version that was released today? I don't really know.
    • If you didn't have stored procedures or functions, you couldn't do any of the following:

      -user defined type
      -functional index
      -user defined aggregate
      -trigger
      -complex constraint

      If it's code that maintains your data integrity, and is fundamental to the meaning of the data, put it in the database. Else put in application.

    • Re:Sigh. Stored procs in C# (Score:5, Informative)

      by LurkerXXX ( 667952 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:03PM (#13974975)
      Keeping the business logic out of the database may be good for you if the only thing your database ever talks to is a web app, but lots of us have databases that talk to a LOT of different applications. Rather than reinvent the wheel implementing the buisness logic in a million apps, we keep it in the database, where it keeps everthing consistant, no matter what app is talking to the database, and where it can run fast.
      • > and where it can run fast.

        Until you want to scale and realize you can no longer just farm data logic servers, or web servers, and instead have to invest in large scale databaes clustering. Oops.

      • Re:Sigh. Stored procs in C# (Score:5, Insightful)

        by EraserMouseMan ( 847479 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:23PM (#13975108)
        You must not be into Object Oriented programming where you separate out the logic into tiers: Persistence Layer, Biz Logic Layer and Presentation Layer. Also, you must have been a DB admin before you were an app developer. Or maybe you've never been an app developer.

        • I'm well aware of the different layers. I'm also aware that a lot of times places need to have applications that they didn't write inhouse plug into the database. If the only things you are ever going to have interact with the database are apps you write in-house it's one thing. Not all of us are working in that situation.
          • So that means that because you have apps that aren't written in house, the business logic for the apps that *are* written in house must therefore be completely in the DB. That sucks in my opinion.

        • Re:Sigh. Stored procs in C# (Score:4, Interesting)

          by mixmasterjake ( 745969 ) on Tuesday November 08, 2005 @12:39AM (#13976772)
          The persistence layer is nice for separating the logic in the app, but it doesn't mean you have to sacrifice the database server's built-in power & functionality. Persistence layers can map to stored procedures, views, etc.

          Also, like the man says, sometimes there's other types of apps connecting to your DB, maybe not all within your control. If you're responsible for the health of the data and the system, you may not be able to trust that every developer or system is playing nice.

      • Say goodbye to the 80's (Score:5, Insightful)

        by 3770 ( 560838 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @08:12PM (#13975478) Homepage
        It is pretty easy to scale most things in a big n-tier system. Just buy more servers. The database however is really hard to scale. You quickly get to a point where twice the money will buy you only very little extra performance.

        Therefore I treat the database as the "sacred resource". This almost always means that business logic is kept outside the database.

        Your approach was right in the 80's when client/server was the norm. Today you should have an n-tier system and have the business logic in an application server.

        You can still have lots of different applications while using centralized code. Only, now you call the application server instead of the database.
    • I can see the value in anti-biotics, but LSD?
    • I for one have no plans to use C# for stored procs ;-) Lets remember this is just a new OPTION. Standard SQL (or I should say T-SQL) is still there and is what I plan to use. But hey, who knows perhaps there'll be something I need which just cannot be done with T-SQL (assuming I for some reason need it done in a stored proc), then having the ability to write procs with any .NET language and leverage the .NET framework could be a nice option to have.

    • "Stored procedures" written in C# should really be thought of in the same way as the extended procedures from SQL Server 2000. In otherwords, you probably will never use that feature, and if you do find that you need it you must really scrutinize why and the security implications of doing so. In most cases, you're better off with straight T-SQL procedures, and that hasn't changed for SQL Server 2005.

      Personally, I haven't yet found a good reason to use C# stored procedures, but I'm also not using SQL Serv

    • What's worse is that you have upload your assemblies into SQL server for that to work. How much you want to bet they don't replicate? Can you even imagine what will happen if you break the current assemblies?

      Sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen.

      I should say though that this is great for MS. They charge per CPU for the database, the more they can chew up your CPU with non database related code the more likely you will add CPUs and pay the additional licenses.

      I would prefer to have my business logic in a

  • Any ideas on UK availability? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chicane-UK ( 455253 ) <chicane-uk@ntlwor l d . c om> on Monday November 07, 2005 @06:42PM (#13974796) Homepage
    I was under the (apparently mistaken) impression that this was already out.. our system admin called our software supplier today and the person on the other end of the line basically said that they have the prices for the product but Microsoft has told them not to actually divulge the pricing information until the end of the month! Excuse me??

    So what gives. The product is apparently out.. we want to buy it.. Microsoft have set the prices out.. so can we buy it or what?!

    The favourable (p)reviews for SQL 2005 seem to be in stark contrast to those for Visual Studio 2005.. bloated, resource hungry, and bug laden.. apparently.

  • New clustering licensing (Score:3, Informative)

    by PIPBoy3000 ( 619296 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @06:43PM (#13974812)
    We were talking about this today. We have a need to cluster our main Intranet server and our current SQL 2000 Standard license doesn't allow clustering. With Enterprise, you can cluster up to four. That all changes with SQL 2005 - you can have a two node cluster with the standard edition, which is far cheaper.

    The catch is whether or not we want to be one of the first servers to adopt SQL 2005. New releases scare the hell out of me, but we've also had some recent downtimes that a clustered server might have helped with.

    Decisions, decisions . . .
    • This release has been in testing for quite some time. Though I admit to not using it for massively complex queries, I havn't gotten any grief from it.

      Here is a snip from the last email I got on it:
      Our goal was to have 30 customers deployed on SQL Server 2005 by the time we launched. Today, we have more than 50 customers deployed on SQL Server 2005, including Barnes & Noble, Mediterranean Shipping Company, Xerox, and others in the process of migrating or upgrading their systems. These customers rang
    • Cluster what? Or perhaps you mean making it highly available. Unless somebody sneaked it by me windows cannot do real clustering.

  • So... (Score:3, Funny)

    by rewt66 ( 738525 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @06:43PM (#13974814)
    This is really MSSQL 2003?

  • My first impression... (Score:5, Informative)

    by BladeMelbourne ( 518866 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @06:43PM (#13974818)
    I installed SQL Server 2005 Enterprise downloaded from the MSDN last week.

    The Management Studio Interface is pretty good, although not as responsive as I would like on a 2.8 GHz P4. Thankfully stored procedures can be edited in a non-modal window (in tabs).

    SQL server also comes with MSXML 6 and SQLXML4. The upgrade analysis tool is very neat.

    Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional is much more CPU intensive than the Management Studio. They do look rather similar.

    Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005 has an updated inteface, however many screens still look the same.

  • Free? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by caluml ( 551744 ) <slashdot@spamgoe ... g ['ere' in gap]> on Monday November 07, 2005 @06:44PM (#13974823) Homepage
    Free? Only if you buy their other products.
  • From the at-least-it’s-not-December-31-yet dept.

  • SQL Server Reporting Services and Report Builder (Score:5, Informative)

    by Larthallor ( 623891 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @06:54PM (#13974893)
    One of the most exciting features in SQL Server 2005 for me is the new Report Builder [microsoft.com]. SQL Server 2005 includes a new ClickOnce WinForms app called Report Builder that allows end-users to design their own reports from a business-user friendly data model. It is very similar to Business Object's WebIntelligence [businessobjects.com] for those of you familiar with that product, but with an apparently more affordable licensing arrangement.

    Essentially, the data architect takes the OLTP or data warehouse and abstracts it via metadata into Business entities with which end users are familiar. In Business Objects, this semantic layer is called a Business Universe and in SQLServer Reporting Services it's called the Data Model. Because this semantic layer understands how the data should be put together, it writes the underlying SQL necessary to give the user the answer they want. In principle and demos, it is very slick. We'll soon see how the two stack up in reality at my place of business, as we're setting up both this week to play with.
    • but with an apparently more affordable licensing arrangement.

      Yes, MUCH more affordable ;-) Free with your SQL Server license.
    • hmmm, I've found that particular form of reporting to get quickly unmanageable - with an explosion of hundreds of almost identical reports created, but not maintained by users. At one shop I visited they had so many that we could only test a sample of them - and found almost 50% to give incorrect results.

      Since most reports of this type are created by users looking for answers to simple questions, i've found that creating dashboards with great navigation & drilling between graphs, charts, and tables to

  • New toys (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MarkNijhof ( 926299 )
    How I love those new toys :) been playing with them for a week or so now. The SQL Server Management Studio is less Access like, with is good :) -Mark

  • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Open Source, People (Score:2, Interesting)

    by KodeJockey ( 928302 )
    I've used both SQL Server 2000 & MySQL 5.0.15 (and some others). Unless you want to make pretty pictures with DTS why wouldn't you decouple yourself from Bill Gates's teat and use MySQL 5? The major difference: limited support for triggers (which are generally a bad idea anyways as they hide code from lower-level developers).
    • Probably because MySQL is missing features present in other databases?
    • Tell me when mysql has table variables, compute by, dynamic sql calls or at least a row count variable, or let me put an index on a view. Mysql is great for some casual web site but comparing it to oracle or mssql is really an insult to enterprise level databases.

  • Feature changes from MSDE 2000 to SQL express? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Precipitous ( 586992 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:07PM (#13975007) Journal
    It appears that MS has done some interesting feature shuffling in their various free editions.

    http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/features/com pare-features.mspx [microsoft.com]

    Has anyone out their tested out what is available in SQL express as far as job scheduling , DTS (now ETL) and replication?
    Does anyone want to flame me for unashamedly using MS SQL?

    As best as I can tell from their spec sheet, the following features of MSDE 2000 are not available in SQL Express:
    * No job scheduler in SQL express. SQLAgent worked fine in MSDE 2000.
    * Replication: MSDE for SQL could public and subscribe (as far as I understand), while SQL Express 2005 can only subscribe.
    * They've changed the name of DTS to "Enterprise ETL Platform" or SSIS or something. While I haven't tested it out yet, it appears that DTS functionality is limited to basic import and export. For the really useful stuff (DTS to web services, for example) you need the pro edition.

    Added:
    * A user interface. MSDE 2000 basically had none. If you didn't have visual studio, or a developer's license to MSSQL, or some 3rd party administration and query tool, you basically had to use osql (command line).
    * You get 4GB instead of 2GB.

    Now, I have access to a few large corporate MS SQL servers, so this shouldn't really be a problem. However, large corporate servers have complex change-control processes.

    Consequently, I rely on the desktop editions for all my ad-hoc stuff, development, and stuff that hasn't quite made it to production. I also run a database for a non-profit on MSDE, and was hoping to keep the replication features while moving up to SQL Express.

  • Free MSSQL?? MySQL... beware ;)
    I find it funny that company name products with years/dates when it is rule #2 that doing something will always take two times longer than your worst estimates :D

  • Two years late, hunh?? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Stephen Samuel ( 106962 ) <samuel AT bcgreen DOT com> on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:19PM (#13975085) Homepage Journal
    This is a rather old (IBM in the '70s) trick -- promise a new product that will do everything, including cleaning the kitchen sink -- and it's due in a year or so.... or 6 months ... real soon now.

    It's used as the eternal carrot... to keep the CTO from moving to a competetor's product that's already there and better. As long as 'real soon now' continues to inch ever closer, you can keep this up for an incredible length of time.

    The mantra is: It's easier to stay with our junky product for X months than to go through the pain of migrating to their superior product. -- then, 6 months later, it's X-2 months.

    If it finally comes out missing a couple of promised features (cut because 'we had to finally ship something!'), that's OK because it'll be in the next release ((due in X months).
    Rinse-repeat.

  • Interesting? (Score:4, Funny)

    by codepunk ( 167897 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:22PM (#13975105)
    A database release especially a MS database is about as interesting as somebody releasing a new ftp client.

  • meh! Meh! MEH! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MagicMerlin ( 576324 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:34PM (#13975176)
    great. Microsoft to deprecate t-sql for C# stored procedures. As a bonus they encourage you to not write orr understand SQL at all, well visual studio writes it for you. Well guess what, they want to obscure and redefine what a database is and what it is supposed to be. t-sql is a great language, queries are first class and it is designed from top to bottom to perform quickly and well.

    What problem are they trying to solve...I'll tell you what. SQL works well and is defiened by a standards committe outside their control...why don't we all do everything in vb instead. I betcha one of the reasons it took so long to get out was they couldn't make it run anywhere as fast as 2000 without tons of tweaking.
    • What problem are they trying to solve... ...lack of vendor lock-in?
    • Microsoft to deprecate t-sql for C# stored procedures.

      No they are not. They have made great enhancements to T-SQL in 2005 and every message I've heard is that T-SQL is the primary language for interacting with the database. C# sprocs exist for edge cases that used to required unmanaged extended stored procedures, as well as some other small use cases such as intense data manipulation using complex logic that is not suited for T-SQL. However the vast majority (I recall a manager stating "about 90%" at PDC 2
    • Please tell me how to implement MD5 in T-SQL. How about writing to a file? Calling an XML Web Service? I'm sure all of these are possible in T-SQL, but they are simple 2 line jobs in C#.

      C# and the .Net framework will be a wonderful addition to SPs, but not a replacement. I see .Net used mostly for Functions and simple one-row SPs. SQL will still be king for set operations.
    • You do know that the c# stored procedures have embedded SQL in them, just like other code that acesses the database, right? And that wrapping SQL in C# for a simple query will never ever be faster or simpler?

      What this is aimed at is stored procedures that to complex calculation and processing, or anything where the stored proc is forced to use a cursor or a DLL call.

      For set-oriented data manipulation, SQL will always be a better language, and this remains so for the majority of stored procedures. Sure, some

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