By Kalman Toth, M.Phil., M.Phil., MCDBA

November 20, 2005

The huge Mandalay Bay hotel-casino-conference center was the launch site for SQL Server 2005 on the week of November 9. Microsoft, MSDN and SQL Server Magazines sponsored the launch conference. There were around four thousand participants, a mix of developers and dba-s. Microsoft has sent its big guns along with recruiting well-known industry experts for the launch celebration. Mostly though it was very informative training with a few keynote speeches. At one night, one-to-one question-answer "unplugged" session was provided with Microsoft managers.

Among the Microsoft tech generals leading the conference were Scott Guthrie, leader of the ASP.NET team, Matt Nunn, Senior Product Manager for SQL Server, Bill Ramos, Lead Programmer for the SQL Server Tools team, and Len Wyatt, Group Manager for the BI Systems team.

Top industry gurus attended as well: Bjarne Stroustroup, the "father" of C++, Kimberly Tripp, a SQL Server MVP, and Itzik Ben-Gan, Principal Mentor at Solid Quality Learning.

Microsoft has put the emphasis on easy migration to SQL Server 2005 and Business Intelligence. Microsoft Corporation itself, along with many large corporations, is already running on SQL Server 2005. Surely a good way to debug your own software. While most participants were not surprised since beta versions and Community Technology Preview editions are around over a year, there were some attendants who were exposed, and overwhelmed by, to SQL 2005 the first time.

Biggest change for DBA-s is the elimination of Enterprise Manager. Most functionality moved to the Object Browser in Management Studio, while DTS got a rebirth as SSIS in Business Intelligence Studio. When I questioned a Microsoft Manager about it, he responded that they surveyed 2,000 DBA-s prior to making the decision to eliminate Enterprise Manager. That is quite a surprise to me because I have not heard any DBA to complain about Enterprise Manager ever. It is quite obvious that DTS (SSIS) was moved to BI Development Studio for marketing purposes. Apparently Microsoft wants the world to take notice about its entry into the crowded BI field. There are a number of new data mining methodologies implemented in Analysis Services.

Developers have a bonanza with SQL Server 2005. First of all, Management Studio is a template version of Visual Studio 2005, a familiar environment for developers. There is easy integration with SourceSafe in Management Studio. Second, there are a number of new features, which will increase development productivity: CTE-s, CROSS APPLY and recursive tree processing just to mention a few.

On the operational side, SQL Server 2005 will not lock up the table during a reindex process, and implemented disk mirroring as a "Cadillac" version of log shipping with 3 seconds hot switch over to standby.