Review: TechED 2006
By Stephen WynkoopTechED 2006 is wrapping up in Boston and it's been quite a show. Microsoft started off on Sunday night (!) with the keynote that included Bob Muglia and Ray Ozzie, talking about Software as a Service ("SAAS") and how the convergence of services "in the sky" will begin working seamlessly with local services. The week followed with announcements and clarifications of announcements that directly impact what we'll all be doing in the near future. I'm sure I'll miss things, but I'll do my best to summarize the things that caught my attention.
Visual Studio Team Edition for Database ProfessionalsFor DB folks, this was probably one of, if not the biggest, hits of the show. While not announced specifically
at the show, but rather a few days prior, this was still the talk of nearly everyone I spoke with about SQL tools. What is this? If you haven't heard, VSTEDPro (I made that up) is a new Visual Studio product that will provide some much-needed, long-awaited, fully-integrated functionality to bring together the development and administration sides of responsible SQL Server work.
I spoke with Matt Nunn at TechED about this - he's been integrally involved with building out this product offering. The overall thing that caught my attention is that this software will really help bring together not only the development and administration teams, but also will bring the respective teams together with best practices. How? Well, the things that stand out are security-oriented, with the ability to indicate who can create but not save new objects/functionality to the database. You can also work together between teams to tweak code, then submit it to the dba for review and implementation. There's a lot to be gained from putting the controls in place, and with the software, you can put controls in place without crippling the teams.
One thing that I thought of that I didn't see mentioned anywhere, was that the renaming tool alone is worth the implementation of VSTEDPro. Why? Well, it'll provide some outstanding utility, that's for certain. You can rename objects and the system will go through and catch all references
in SQL Server that point to that object, update their names and you'll be on your way. Hmmmm....
in SQL Server. THIS is big. The reason this is key is because it's going to incent people to pull their code forward into SQL Server where it can be managed with the right tools. If you have dynamic SQL out in the applications, it's time to start formally moving that to SQL Server in the form of stored procedures so they can be managed with these tools. Of course that's typically a goal, but people get lazy, get busy, whatever -- and the next thing you know, you have code out in the applications.
You won't be able to use these tools against that unknown code of course. So, it's time get moving and taking advantage of the leverage you gain by bringing your code into the light.
There are huge other benefits to the software. Schema comparisons and synchronizations, data compare and synchronization, TESTING (including creation of test data), rollback of changes and full integration with source control for schemas. There is more on the collaboration front, on the utility front and other areas. It's a great looking tool.
I'm extremely cautiously optimistic about all this has to offer. I'm not alone - blogs are lighting up with talk about it - and for good reason.
Learn more here. You can download a Community Technology Preview (Beta) at the site too - but keep in mind,
it is Beta. It's due out in final form later this year.
Office 2007 Collaboration and Inquiry PiecesThe Office release this fall will be a major release, and one that will bring with it some very intriguing maturation of the user interface for the office applications. Not really the focus of this newsletter and SSWUG, of course, but what IS is the overall integration with SQL Server in the Office tools. I wrote about this earlier this week - the fact that Excel becomes the center of activity when working with SQL Server. Excel gets smart about schemas, analysis services and more. Theoretically this should make it easier for users to build reports, do queries, work with the data in your systems directly, using security you set up of course, without your required intervention.
I can hear many crying foul thinking this through - having users build ad-hoc queries against the database - ugh. Well, there are things you can put in place (extract data to a secondary reporting server for instance) to help. The fact is though, the tools will be there, and they are going to provide a strong pull from the user audience when they figure out that reporting services, analysis services and the databases in general represent a bigger gold mine than anticipated.
There are those that pooh-pooh the business intelligence arena relative to SQL Server - I think they just haven't seen the light yet. There is competitive advantage to learning more about your data. With the right tools, you can do more analysis, more ad-hoc poking around in the information you have access to. This can not only provide a competitive edge, but it can keep you in business. I would suggest to you that those that don't understand the vast advantage that this can provide haven't taken the time to understand the abilities of Analysis Services, Reporting Services and haven't stood back and watched a user quickly discover new relationships, new data points just because they were given the right tools to do the business intelligence data manipulation.
Office will bring big collaboration tools to bear on the user-front too - making it possible to build the reports, then share them readily - along with the underlying data links - with others using Office. This advances way beyond Reporting Services and moves into the collaborative environment, where you're working together, not just sharing information, to solve a challenge.
Bit LockerBit locker was only really mentioned in passing in a few presentations, but it's the tools that you'll be able to use to lock down systems to prevent someone stealing a laptop and ending up with those 27,000,000 names, social security numbers and dates of birth that have been so commonly talked about of late. Bit Locker is a great move forward and will provide some much-needed protection. The number that was offered up at the show was 600,000. That's the number of laptops stolen each year. We only hear about a handful of egregious data losses. You have to wonder just what all those other laptop's information would add up to if known. Bit Locker looks to address this, at the OS level. Nice.
Clearer, or At Least to me, Vision on SQL Server "Everywhere"
...and always on. You see the SQL Server Everywhere release, and you hear Always On as a slogan for SQL Server lately. These represent a couple of different important messages for SQL sever. The first, SQL Server Everywhere, is talking about the fact that you can build applications that work whether connected or disconnected, and that will automatically synchronize when re-connected. SQL Server Everywhere is an update and relabeling of SQL Server Mobile Edition - but the intent is to make it so that your SQL Server applications can work on intermittently connected devices just as well as they can work on fully-connected devices. These abilities will indeed be important going forward as we build more applications that live in smart phones, PDAs, scanners and the like. You need to be able to keep working and have the system recover for you when it comes back in range or online with your SQL Server through other means.
Think of the SQL Server Everywhere initiative as making SQL Server connectivity more like Outlook --> Exchange connectivity. Outlook knows how to continue working, allowing you to work, in an offline state. When re-connected to your Exchange server, things fire up to synchronize and bring things up to date on the two cooperating environments. That's really what SQL Server Everywhere is. It's the piece of the SQL Server puzzle that deals with not-always-connected applications.
The Always On portion of the message is referring to a combination of SQL Server Everywhere, standard SQL Server features, mirroring and fault tolerance and better up-time in general for SQL Server. Combining these makes it possible (so goes the messaging) to have more consistent and scalable uptime, while at the same time providing better and better utility.
Overall Show ThoughtsI think there is an uphill battle ahead for getting the word out and helping everyone understand all of the very significant things on the horizon. From Windows Vista to Exchange to Office, Sharepoint, Groove and even the Compute Cluster Server, there are some significant updates and upgrades looming for all of us. Learning what needs to happen, what the benefits are, how they help in our collective environments and what they mean to our businesses will be a Microsoft job-and-a-half.
From all indications, the products really do deliver. I hope this remains the case through RTM and that they deliver on all of the things you'll be hearing about here at SSWUG and other places literally around the world. If they do, the next year will be a home run for Microsoft.
PROs for the ShowThe content was great - the interaction with Microsoft in the Technical Learning Centers (TLC, get it?) was outstanding. Access to the right people to answer your questions, access to labs to test and play with technologies - it all came together. This is what TechED is all about - access to technical resources to answer questions, get help, make new acquaintances, learn, interact. TechED is a fantastic conference for these things.
CONs for the ShowThe show itself was good, but not great. It was hampered by a hosting city (Boston) that simply couldn't keep up. The transportation was pretty dismal and and the convention center was so huge it almost dwarfed the show. It was odd knowing how many people were there, but still feeling like, at times, it was empty. I've heard estimates of approximately 13-14,000 on-hand - clearly it was well-attended. The biggest talk of the show was the transportation issue - it could take as long as 45 minutes to an hour to get to the show via shuttle from some hotels. It simply overwhelmed the town.
Rating:
4.25 Stars
I rate the show 4.25 stars because of the facilities issues - the show content and presentation was good, the facilities and logistics were the chink in the armor.
