August 2008 - Posts

• SQL Launch in Jacksonville

  Join us on Friday, September 12, 2008, for a one day look at the new features of SQL Server 2008 as we celebrate the launch of the latest version. Our event will be located at the Modis Building, 1 Independent Dr, Jacksonville, FL. We'll have 15 sessions across three tracks on SQL Server and other supporting technology that will be announced in the new few days. Downtown, there is a fee for parking for the event that will range from $5-10 depending on the parking location you select. Breakfast and lunch will be provided by our event sponsors. This event is being coordinated by members of the Jacksonville SQL Server Users Group ( http://www.jssug.com ) and Idea Integration. Please register at http://www.sqlsaturday.com/eventhome.aspx?eventid=10 . The page is going to be updated over the next week with sessions but we're also opening up quite a few sessions for speakers. If you're interested, please submit your session on the same link or suggest a session. Thanks and we look forward to seeing you there! Posted Aug 26 2008, 08:47 AM by Brian Knight with 1 comment(s) Filed under: SQL Server 2008, SQL Saturday, speaking engagements, JSSUG

• SQL Server 2008 is Here!

  On Friday, Sept. 12, you can hear about all the new features of SQL Server 2008 in this full day of free training brought to you by JSSUG, Idea Integration and Pragmatic Works. We've already had about 100 register for the event and we only have room for about 200 more so grab your seat fast. Each session will dive deeply into new features from a BI, DBA and developer perspective around SQL Server 2008. To claim your free seat (including lunch), go to http://www.sqlsaturday.com and select the SQL Launch (the event is on Friday, Sept 12). Then, click Register. The schedule is still being perfected but you can see a tentative schedule on the site or below. We also have room for two more sessions so if you'd like to speak, please click Call For Speakers. Hope to see you there! Posted Aug 20 2008, 04:09 PM by Brian Knight with no comments Filed under: SQL Server 2008, SQL Saturday, speaking engagements

• SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Lab: Full Text Disabled on Some Databases

  In this series, I plan on sharing a lot of my recent experience with the SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008 upgrade. Part of our ongoing project was to also use some of the new fantastic full text features in SQL Server 2008, which are now fully integrated. We had some difficulties in turning this on after the upgrade. Our upgrade strategy was to backup a database on SQL Server 2005 and restore it on SQL Server 2008. The most important to note about that strategy is you will need to set the databases to 10 compatibility mode after you do the restore and you'll need to rebuild your statistics. After that though, we went to create our first full text and we noticed that our Define Full Text button and all other full text options were greyed out. After some time of troubleshooting, we looked at the sys.databases databases table and noticed that the is_fulltext_enabled was turned off for the database, which was supposedly deprecated (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms403375.aspx). In reading, the Technet articles stated that the enabling full text is no longer supported as well, since it's always on. To get this working, we had to use an older stored procedure which gladly wasn't deprecated yet: sp_fulltext_database 'enable' We ran that on each of the databases, and then we were off and running to the races. I hope this series saves you some time and aggravation. My next one will be on some issues I ran into with the SSIS data providers during the upgrade. - Brian Knight Posted Aug 18 2008, 10:16 AM by Brian Knight with 1 comment(s) Filed under: SQL Server 2008, full text indexing

• GACUtil.exe missing from Windows 2008

  I was trying to deploy a custom assembly today using Windows 2008 and SQL Server 2008 and found a bit of differences in Windows 2008. The GACUtil.exe utility has now moved first and foremost and is not installed by default until you install the .NET and Windows 2008 SDK. After that, you'll be able to find the GACUtil.exe utility in the SDK directory and can call it as shown below: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1\bin\gacutil.exe /i "dllfilename.dll" After then, you'll need to copy your DLL file into the C:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727 (or whatever .NET version you wish to be on) directory and you're golden to use a custom assembly in the Script Component or Task in SQL Server 2008/Windows 2008. Brian Posted Aug 14 2008, 09:23 PM by Brian Knight with no comments Filed under: SSIS, Script Transform

• Bill Baker Leaves Microsoft

  A icon of the business intelligence industry for Microsoft has now left the company to take a CTO role at Visible Technology. Bill has been with the SQL Server team or with in a BI role since 1996. I will truly miss Bill in the community, as he was a BI pillar and his departure to work for his new great opportunity will leave a large gap inside of Microsoft. To show the gap that he will leave, when he left the Microsoft SQL Server team after SQL Server 2005 to go to the office group, a large segment of the SQL Server team left to join him and it caused a domino effect. We'll miss you Bill! Posted Aug 07 2008, 10:10 PM by Brian Knight with no comments Filed under: business

• Webinars now posted

  We’d like to thank all of you for attending our first of many free SQL Server Business Intelligence training sessions. To view the webinar recordings and register for our next free session please click below: Posted Aug 06 2008, 10:08 PM by Brian Knight with no comments

• It's Official SQL Server 2008 Released

  It's official, SQL Server 2008 has now launched and can be downloaded on MSDN, Technet. For more information, you can see the press release here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/aug08/08-06SQLServer2008PR.mspx. In Microsoft tradition with each new release, they have added a new edition: Web Edition. Web edition offers a lower price-point edition of SQL Server for web hosting providers or companies that just want a small SQL Server footprint with moderate scaling. So why upgrade? Well, it depends on your situation. Here are some really compelling cases that are on the top of my list: Are you synchronizing systems two SQL Servers? The Change Data Capture feature will allow you to read the source table and only determine the rows that have changed. (Enterprise Edition) Do you have a data warehouse or a database that's a few hundred gigs in size? The compression feature will compress with about a 3:1 ratio, speeding up read IO (Enterprise Edition) The new star join improvements will speed up query time Do you have more than 10 instances? Your environment may becoming too uncontrollable and the Policy Framework will allow you to determine which servers are not complying with your policies Monitor server usage and across your enterprise to determine capacity Do you reporting against your SQL Server? You can stop a runaway query by using the Resource Governor to put caps on the query. (Enterprise Edition) In Reporting Services, IIS is now gone! A much, much better report builder can be downloaded and used in 2008   For a full feature list by edition, go to: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645993(SQL.100).aspx. Posted Aug 06 2008, 10:06 PM by Brian Knight with 1 comment(s) Filed under: SQL Server 2008