Archive for category: Blog

 If you are subscribed to Microsoft Beta, you can downoad the SQL Server September CTP and Visual Studio Release Candidate (plan for a day or two given the 30K connection speed) from the Microsoft betaplace website.

Here are the steps I was taking to install both SQL Server CTP and Visual Studio.NET RC that you may find helpful. I had SQL Server 2005 June CTP and Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 installed prior to installing the new bits and the upgrade went fine for me. You may not need to be so reboot-oriented but I like to start from a clean state just in case J. 

1. Uninstall SQL Server 2005 by running the Cleanup Wizard (Setup Tools\Build Uninstall Wizard\sqlbuw.exe on the SQL Server 2005 CTP CD). Make sure to select .NET 2.0 and Native Client (Microsoft SNAC) options.
   
2. Reboot
   
3. Remove all files from the C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data folder.
   
4. Uninstall VS.NET 2005.
   
5. Reboot
   
6. Go to Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel and remove the rest of the VS.NET 2005 and SQL Server 2005 components, including:

• MSDN Product Documentation
  
• Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office System 2005 Runtime Beta 2
  
• Microsoft Device Emulator 1.0 Beta 2
  
• Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 2.0 Beta 2
  
• Microsoft SQL Mobile 2005 Development Tools
  
• Microsoft Visual J# Redistributable Package 2.0 Beta 2
  
• Microsoft Visual J# Language Pack 2.0 Beta 2
  
• MSXML 6.0 Parser and SDK
  
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 64bit Prerequisites Beta 2 (Only on 64bit)
  
• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 SDK Beta 2 (Only on 64bit)
  
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 64bit Remote Debugger Beta 2 (Only on 64bit)
  
• Microsoft Data Access Components 2.8 SP1 (Only on Windows 2000)

7. Install SQL Server 2005 CTP September Server components (D:\Downloads\SQL Server\CTP Sep\Servers\Setup.exe)
   
8. Install SQL Server 2005 CTP September Server components (D:\Downloads\SQL Server\CTP Sep\Tools\Setup.exe)
   
9. Reboot
   
10. Install VS.NET 2005 RC
    
11. Reboot
    
12. Install Visual SourceSafe 2005 from the VS.NET DVD.

There are only a few breaking changes I have come across so far with the previous release. The VS.NET Unit test namespace have changes and the WinForm Report Viewer has dropped some properties.

As you probably know, Microsoft has made a great effort to scale down the SQL Server 2005 components and provide more features at a lesser cost. Here are some links worth checking.

SQL Server 2005 Feature Comparison

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2005/productinfo/sql2005features.mspx

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Enhancements

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/2005ssrs.mspx

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Features Matrix

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2005/productinfo/rsfeatures.mspx

As far as Reporting Services is concerned, here are a couple of important points.

1.      Reporting Services 2005 will run on the Express Edition of SQL Server 2005 (previously known as MSDE in SQL Server 2000). What it means to you is that you can build and distribute reasonably feature-rich reporting solutions for free. This could be nirvana for many software vendors and integrators. Now you can build a report enabled-application and distribute the SQL Server components at zero cost to the client.

2.      Different editions support different feature sets. The last link provides a detailed comparison about supported reporting features. Extensibility and several export formats are not supported on Express and Standard editions.

Aren’t you excited? It is really do more with less!

Happy reporting.

I couldn’t sleep well last night. My neighbor on the left was talking on her cell phone until midnight and I can hear every damn word through the thin wall. My other neighbor was watching a horror movie. A double impact. Not to mention that the cell phone of my left neighbor  rang and woke me up at 6. Luckily, today is not presentation day.

In the morning, I went to see the Managing Analysis Services 2005 Using Analysis Management Objects (AMO) presentation by Alex Lim. Alex is also a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional. We introduced to each other and talked briefly about South-east Asia. I spent three years in Singapore, so we had a lot in common. I liked the demo code that Alex used for his presentation. For those who are new to Analysis Services 2005, AMO is a .NET-based object library which allows you to manage SSAS programmatically. It is a successor of DSO. Cool stuff, if you ever need it.

I had a great lunch with Brian Welcker to catch up on the latest on RS and beyond. Lately, I haven’t been buried in my book and SSAS, so I’ve neglected RS 2005 a bit. It turns out that there is plenty to learn.

Next, I went to see Developing SQL Server 2005 OLAP Applications with ADO MD.NET presentation by Andrew Brust (another MVP). An excellent presentation! ADO MD.NET is a thin managed wrapper on top of the XMLA protocol. It is what you need to send MDX queries to SSAS from a .NET application.

Finally, I attended the Custom Reporting Services Items presentation by Andrew Bryan (a Product Manager of Dundas Software). These are the same guys who did the RS chart region. I didn’t have time to look at this extensibility area in RS 2005 so I found the presentation useful. It turns out that you can write a custom report item and plug it in RS just like you can do this with ASP.NET. Unfortunately, you cannot re-use existing ASP.NET controls. Writing custom report items could be very useful for ISVs, I suppose.

Next, I went to have a session rehearsal since my presentation is tomorrow. Today is also the Tech Ed Attendee’s party in Universal Studio. I hopped on the bus to see the latest and greatest rides. I didn’t have much time since I wanted to get back to the hotel by 10:30. First, I saw Shrek since it happens to be my favorite movie. I enjoyed very much. The 4D effects were awesome. The idea was that the Lord Farquad is not dead and he’s now a ghost. He kidnaps Fiona and Shrek and Donkey are chasing him with the dragon.

Next, I went to see Twister which simulates a class 5 tornado. Got soaked up pretty well. Next, I saw the Mummy. This was a hell of a intensive roller coaster ride. I thought I would vomit at some point. I wanted to see Men In Black but the wait was one hour! So, I went to see Terminator. I’ve been in Universal about 5 years ago, so I thought they may have upgraded the show. I was the same stuff but nonetheless pretty good.

I went back to the hotel and slept like a baby. Tomorrow is my presentation.

First, I went to see the Paul Flessner’s keynote. I learned that Reporting Services will be available in all editions of Yukon, including Express! And, custom security will be available in RS Standard Edition as well! Now, we are talking! For more information about how different versions of Yukon will stack against each other, read this comparison document.

Next, I went to see Brian Welcker’s presentation about the new report viewer controls in RS 2005. The presentation was in one of the biggest conference halls and it was almost full (with perhaps some 600 people). This speaks by itself about the traction RS is getting. Brian actually wrote a whitepaper about the new features in RS 2005. It is nice to see Reporting Services evolving!

Next, I went to see the real-time OLAP presentation from the Analysis Services Team and shake hands with Amir Netz and Richard Tkatchuk. The presentation made a great case for real-time OLAP with proactive caching. The motto was “no more explicit cube processing!”. In my opinion though (my sole opinion, mind you), pro-active caching may not be that useful with data warehousing where data is loaded in a deterministic fashion. In this case, it may be more appropriate to process cubes explicitly, once ETL processes are done. That said, I can see real-time OLAP being really useful if the cube is built on top of the OLTP database. Something to think about…