Know Your Product Specifications

BuckWoody — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:57:01 GMT

As the Data Professional in your organization, the rest of the org looks to you to ensure that the system can handle what the business requires. To do that, you need to know two things: what the business requires, and what SQL Server can do.

But of course there’s a bit more to it than that. Knowing the business side of the requirements – well, I teach an entire course on that. But knowing what SQL Server can do is something you can find out on your own.

SQL Server comes in versions, which are released based on date, and editions, which are based on features and capabilities. It’s that last part that I want to focus on today.

As Microsoft SQL Server matures, you’re going to see even more separation between what each edition of SQL Server can do and where it should be used. In the past, most folks have only focused on three editions – Express (the “free” one), Standard, and Enterprise. The rule of thumb was that if Standard was good enough at the moment, put it in. And it is true (and a good thing) that you can upgrade from one edition to another fairly easily.

But as time goes on, we should spend a little more time understanding what each edition does, what it’s features and capabilities are, and where and when we should put them in. As I study this information, I’ll throw in my 2 cents and you can as well based on what you see. One thing I’ve found so far is that once I have the business requirements, there’s a mix of what I can write in code and what might already be included in a different edition. It’s important to look long and hard at that choice – writing a feature on my own is certainly cheaper in the short term than moving to a “higher” edition, but in some cases it makes sense to let Microsoft handle that lifting.

These links are ones that you should bookmark and take a peek at periodically. They are the “header” links for more information on those features and capabilities:

SQL Server 2008: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143287.aspx

SQL Server 2008 R2: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143287(SQL.105).aspx

In addition, you might start learning a little more about SQL Azure. I’ll talk more about that later.

Spit it out already!

BuckWoody — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:11:11 GMT

You’ve probably seen that commercial where the chewing-gum company van stalks the guy who has been chewing the same piece of gum too long, and they attack him and make him chew another piece.

I feel like that with SQL Server 2000. Almost every shop I go into has at least one primary application running on SQL Server 2000. Now, don’t get me wrong – SQL Server 2000 is a fine piece of software engineering. From over TEN YEARS AGO. In “software time”, that’s like a thousand years or something.

While it was great for its day, the newer versions are faster, more secure, and more robust. And every time it doesn’t get upgraded, SQL Server is perceived as “not as fast/strong/etc” as other platforms (which are upgraded, of course).

Now, I’m not suggesting that anyone upgrade for upgrade’s sake. We all have work to do, and the last thing we need to do is change out a platform when there’s no need.

But there is a need. SQL Server 2000 isn’t in mainline support any more. That means it can be attacked easier and so on. And it doesn’t scale like the new offerings, nor does it have any of the new features the latest versions have.

“Oh”, you might say, “I don’t use those features anyway.” Well of course you don’t – you can’t if you still have SQL Server 2000! How do you know the ways you could help your organization if you don’t experiment with the new stuff?

But it isn’t the DBA I would chase down and steal gum from. It’s the vendors.

Every time I raise my eyebrows when I hear about the SQL Server 2000 installs, the DBA shrugs and says “The vendor won’t certify SQL Server X, so we have to stay at SQL Server 2000 or 2005.” And I say, that’s just lazy. Unless the vendor codes specifically for deprecated features, a simple test run during their software development should allow them to move forward. I’m not saying that’s an easy task, but certainly they’ve tested their software releases once in the last ten years, no? If not, doesn’t that make you nervous?

Anyhoo, spit out the SQL Server 2000. Or I might have to fire up the company van.

Search results matching tags 'Administration' and 'SQL Server 2008'

Know Your Product Specifications

Spit it out already!