Search results matching tags 'denali', 'SQL Server "Denali"', and 'CTP3'

SQL Server v.Next (Denali) : Putting Juneau CTP3 over Juneau CTP2

AaronBertrand — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:04:00 GMT

Okay, I'll be the first to admit, I tried to install CTP3 on a machine without first cleaning up the CTP2 bits. My primary motivation was to be able to query the catalog views to detect any metadata changes that I hadn't already talked about here. As you might have guessed, this experiment did not go well.

In a couple of cases I have installed CTP3 quite cleanly on new VMs. I haven't installed Juneau yet on those, because I'm a little nervous about what exactly that will do to Management Studio... and I need at least one VM where I can rely on full functionality there. I'm getting there, but I wanted to address the case where CTP2 *was* installed.

In cases where I would prefer to keep my existing VM (which has various other ongoing work other than Denali, making it infeasible to roll back to some snapshot), I've resorted to removing every single CTP1 or CTP2 piece of software using Programs and Features (nee Add/Remove Programs). Once I had removed CTP2 completely, I ran a repair of CTP3. I then realized that I didn't have Management Studio (because the complete removal of CTP2 included shared features such as client tools). So I ran setup again, adding the Management Tools and a few other odds and ends to the instance.

Now, with all traces of CTP2 gone (including Juneau), and a now functional CTP3 and Management Studio, I thought it was time to install Juneau. No problem, I go for the web installer, located here:

http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/install.aspx?appid=JUNEAU10

Unfortunately, all signs indicate that this is going to try to install CTP2:

Fellow MVP Juan Alvarado pointed me to the registry key that was causing this problem (thanks Juan!). It is one of the things that the CTP2 of Juneau did not clean up through the normal uninstall process. The key is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WebPlatformInstaller\ProductXmlLocation\

It will have a value of some folder on your machine (I changed the value to foo because my path was really long)... just change the name of the key to something else, or delete it entirely, and run the web installer again. You should see the right platform now:

I can't fault the team for this problem at all. I shouldn't expect CTPs to remove cleanly, and should know not to put CTPs on important machines or VMs that can't just be rebuilt as needed.

Ultimately, what you *REALLY SHOULD* be doing is installing CTP3 (both engine components and add-ons like Juneau) in a clean virtual machine. But I know how it is, it isn't always practical to dedicate an OS this way. So hopefully this helps some of you work around the issue.

In addition, I am in no way guaranteeing that Juneau will *work* - just that you should be able to get it installed. Once it's installed, I'm afraid you're on your own. If it doesn't work correctly, please read the previous paragraph.

SQL Server v.Next (Denali) : Getting Ctrl+R to work again

AaronBertrand — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:52:00 GMT

Ctrl+R is a good friend of mine - we go way back. It is very handy to use this command not only to hide the results pane away and focus on the query at hand, but to also be able to bring the results back just as quickly - without having to run the query again, or mess with click + drag nonsense.

In Denali, we get a new version of SSMS, tightly integrated into the Visual Studio shell. With that we get some great benefits (and I've talked about them before). In that post I also point out some of the problems - they've fixed the double-click on an error message bug, for example, but they haven't fixed some other things, such as Ctrl+U = lower case, instead of the more logical Ctrl+Shift+L (to match Ctrl+Shift+U for upper case).

The one that really got my goat yesterday is that Ctrl+R has been assigned to some other function. On a freshly-minted virtual machine, with a brand new install of Windows 7 (including 88 items from Windows Update), I laid down a clean install of Denali (very simple - just engine, BIDS, BOL and management tools - no Juneau, Visual Studio, Analysis Services or other BI features, etc etc). On the first launch of SSMS (where I am supposed to be asked for my keyboard preferences, but no prompt appeared), I opened a new query window, typed "SELECT 1;", and hit F5. I received a results pane with (No column name) / 1. Exactly as I expected. Then the trouble begins. I hit Ctrl+R; nothing happens. I wonder if I pressed the wrong letter, didn't fully press Ctrl, or what, so I press it again. My computer beeps at me like I was trying to double-click on the A: drive in Windows Explorer.

As a true sign of my insanity, I keep trying - expecting a different outcome with the same input. Then I notice the status bar changing as I fruitlessly try to make the results pane go away. On first press of Ctrl+R, I see this in the bottom left corner:

And when I press it again, along with the beep, the status bar changes to this:

Okay, so now we're onto something - it seems this change was intentional. So off I go to Tools / Options / Keyboard / General to see what's what. In the middle box, select Window.ShowresultsPane, change the "Use new shortcut in:" dropdown to SQL Query Editor (Global did not work for me), put your cursor in the "Press shortcut keys:" box and hit CTRL + R. You should see the following:

So I'm not sure what this Edit.SwapAnchor command is supposed to be, or why I give a rip about some DataWarehouse Designer - as I thought I had voted, simply by my installation choices, that I'm not crazy into BI. I'm sure this command is important to someone, and for them, the default will work just fine. For the other 99.99% of Management Studio users, you can fix this now by clicking Assign and then OK. Unlike some other changes that still require an SSMS restart to take effect (e.g. experimenting with font choices in grid results can be fun), the change takes effect immediately.

If you want to fix many of these keyboard shortcuts in one swoop, see this post from Denny Cherry (@mrdenny), where he provides a settings file you can import easily (just be aware that not all of his customizations match the original 2008 R2 settings exactly):

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/sql-server/resetting-ssms-shortcut-keys-in-sql-server-denali-ctp-3/

I am hoping that the RCs or, at the very least, the RTM versions, show a keyboard scheme that says "SQL Server settings" instead of a generic "default." And that this default does not include Ctrl+R being assigned to a DataWarehouse Designer operation unless I say I want it that way.

EDIT
Microsoft has published the official instructions for resetting the keyboard, should you find yourself in this situation, and there is in fact a SQL Server mode (the choices in Tools/Options, "default" and "Visual Studio 2010 Compatible" are not that obvious - again, I'm hoping this gets changed to match the reset dialog). See the following blog post for more info:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlrem/archive/2011/07/13/enhanced-keyboard-shortcuts-in-ssms-in-denali.aspx

SQL Server v.Next (Denali) : Juneau CTP3 is now available!

AaronBertrand — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:32:00 GMT

SQL Server Developer Tools (SSDT) - code-named "Juneau" - is now available. Many (including myself) believed that Juneau was simply a part of BIDS in CTP3, but after trying to use Juneau-specific functionality that this was not the case. As indicated on the Developer Tools page, and on the SSDT blog, you can download Juneau now through a Web Platform Installer.

According to this page, if you're already using Visual Studio Professional, you need to install Visual Studio 2010 SP1 *FIRST* (though if you've installed Denali, you've probably already done this), otherwise your shell gets downgraded to only have Juneau functionality - at least that's how I've read it. In any case, suggest being up to date on Windows Updates and make sure that SP1 is installed before installing Juneau. You'll also want to be sure you install the CTP3 version of Juneau on a machine that has never had a previous version of Juneau installed - even a proper add/remove does not truly get rid of all of the pieces, and you're likely to end up with a quite crippled installation. All the more reason to use a VM for Denali stuff, since it is easy enough to throw away and re-create those.

You can start the Web Platform Installer by clicking on the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/install.aspx?appid=JUNEAU10

First, you'll be asked by Internet Explorer if you're sure you want the Web Platform Installer to go about its business:

Then you'll be asked again, if you have UAC enabled:

Once you allow the program to run, you will see this introductory screen:

It says the download size is 8.51 MB, but that is a lie. To see the true download size, click on the "Items to be installed" link in the bottom left corner. You will see something like this:

My first observation here was that the local database runtime actually points to the SQL Express installer. It is not supposed to be a standalone instance, and it's interesting that they are finding a way to make Express support non-Express features that Juneau will have to support (e.g. partitioning).

When you click Install, you will be prompted (of course) to accept a license agreement. This screen also shows a summary of the items that are going to be downloaded and installed. You can click on the individual links to download each package and install them yourself, but I recommend against that because some need to be laid down in a specific order.

Once you accept, installation will begin. This took a surprising amount of time on my system (equipped with 8GB RAM and an SSD), even after all the downloading had finished.

(A funny observation here: this is my laptop, which I use for presenting, and it is yet another example where dialogs are not tested at non-default font settings - I have my fonts set to 125%, and the text no longer fits within the dialog.)

Depending on the state of your system (including Windows Updates), you can expect several reboots to be required during the installation of various Juneau prerequisites. If you have any failures installing the dependencies (which will prevent Juneau itself from being installed), you can try running their installers manually by clicking on the download links in the failure dialog - just make sure you run the Juneau installer last. I had a heck of a time installing the .NET Framework 4.0 update from KB #2468871 using the Web Platform Installer, but after running the EXE from the KB article manually, I finally had success:

I then re-applied Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (again), just to be on the safe side. Of course I had to clear out some space first, as this is on a tight SSD - the SP1 installer apparently needs close to 6 GB free just to run.

So now when I launch my BIDS shortcut, this is the splash screen I see:

Once I opened Juneau, my experience with connecting to a server and performing various operations has not been great, so I'll leave my evaluation and description of those things for another post.

SQL Server v.Next (Denali) : CTP3 Installation Walk-Through

AaronBertrand — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:07:00 GMT

In case you missed my previous post, you can now download CTP3. The delivery mechanism this time is a little different. Instead of downloading an ISO, you download a very small EXE, two .box files, and an HTML file that currently contains a set of links that aren't fully functional. You run the EXE by double-clicking it, and it extracts the box files into a folder in the same location called SQLFULL_x64_ENU:

Don't do what I did. In order to easily expose the CTP to all of my virtual machines (including Server Core), I took the four files and made an ISO file. When I tried the above process using the ISO file exposed to the VM as a DVD drive, it ran through the unloading process, then went away silently. I tried this a couple of times before I realized what was going on - Windows will not let you write output to a "DVD" - and that the unloading was being attempted in place (and I haven't examined the exe to determine if there are any arguments you could pass to tell it where to send the output - I tried /x, which is the argument used for cumulative updates, and that didn't work). I'm kind of surprised that there isn't a prompt for output location, and I'm absolutely amazed that the unloading process whistles along happily - with no error message or any indication whatsoever that it couldn't create the output folder or extract the files there.

Anyway, now I am off to make an ISO of the *result* of that operation. The lesson here is, copy the four files to a location where you have at least 6GB of free space, since you won't be able to run the command from one location and have it extract the contents to another.

[Also, please be sure to check out my notes on operating system support and prerequisites; also, consider installing Denali in a virtual machine, especially if you are worried about compatibility with your existing applications (Visual Studio, BIDS, etc.) or other instances of SQL Server.]

Once you have done that and you have your SQLFULL_x64_ENU folder ready, double-click SETUP.EXE. You will eventually be right back in to the SQL Server Installation Center you know and love. Click on the Installation tab (for any of the following screen shots, click on them to embiggen in a new window):

Then click on "New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation" - you'll go through Setup Support Rules, which will hopefully all pass with flying colors:

(Remember to not close the Installation Center dialog until after setup is complete. This window needs to remain open as it keeps the temporary folder used by setup, though it can be minimized. See Connect #388671 for more details.)

Click OK. Next you will have the choice to enter a product key or choose a free edition. It is pre-selected to Evaluation edition:

Click Next. Check the box that says you accept the license terms. I would never suggest to not read them from start to finish, but I'll let you guess how long I spend on this screen. (I usually do uncheck the box about sending feature usage data to Microsoft.)

Click Next. The Install Setup Files dialog checks for updated setup files; is it possible this is the first clue that we are going to have automatic slipstreaming in Denali? I hope so:

Then shortly after my first "SQUEEEEE" moment, I get my first "BOOOOO" moment:

Click OK. Sheepishly. In fact, I implore you to click OK sheepishly. :-)

Now we see the Setup Support Rules dialog. Click Next unless you want to see the details (or any of the rules failed):

Next we choose the Installation Type. Since this is my first taste of CTP3, I will choose the [Perform a new installation of SQL Server "Denali" CTP3] option:

Click Next. n the Setup Role tab I'm going to keep things simple and choose the [SQL Server Feature Installation] option:

Click Next. On the Feature Selection tab, again for simplicity, I'm going to choose Database Engine Services, Books Online Components, and both Management Tools options (see more about Books Online toward the end of this post). I'm tempted to add DQS and Distributed Replay here, but my first instance is going to be pretty bare bones (note that if you have BIDS, Visual Studio, or Juneau from a previous CTP installed, you'll want to select as many of those options that seem relevant - most importantly Business Intelligence Development Studio):

Click Next. We'll let the Installation Rules succeed (unless you are unlucky):

Click Next. Now we select our instance name. I'm way beyond the ability to choose a default instance here, and I'm not all that creative:

Click Next. Simple summary screen showing disk space requirements. I clearly need to learn to build bigger VMs:

Click Next. You can change the service accounts and startup type on the Server Configuration tab. For local testing instances I rarely find it necessary to do this, especially during setup, since they can be configured later if need be. I also don't touch the Collation tab, leaving the default in place (though for pure development environments I will probably be getting more in the habit of switching to case sensitive):

Click Next. On the Database Engine Configuration screen, you can change to mixed authentication, add an sa password, and add yourself and other Windows accounts as SQL Server Administrators:

And on the Data Directories tab, you could change the location for new databases, tempdb and backups. On a normal system I would be changing these appropriately, but since I am on a VM with a single C:\ drive, I'm a little limited to what I can do to spread this I/O around. Thankfully I am not planning to do any heavy activity on my workstation:

I'm not going to use FILESTREAM for this instance, once again for simplicity, so I'm going to leave this tab alone. Click Next.

The Error Reporting dialog allows you to choose whether to send error reports to Microsoft. I'm going to leave this checked (though I unchecked it earlier in the beta cycle because I assumed there would be a lot more "that's already on the books to get fixed" type of exceptions):

Click Next. We get another rules screen, this time the Installation Configuration Rules screen. These might fail if you're still using FAT32, for example, so I can't imagine too many people will get blocked here:

Click Next. Finally we are at a summary screen which lists all of the options we've chosen and what SQL Server setup thinks it's going to try to do:

Click Install. Progress is indicated (you'll see various status message whiz by, faster than you can read them, for about 10 minutes - or less if you are on an SSD):

And finally, completion:

Click OK, click Close, and sheepishly (yes, sheepishly) reboot. Now you can launch Management Studio and start sniffing around:

Note that if you start sniffing around before you've rebooted, you may get some strange errors when trying to connect:

I know you're impatient, but just reboot. I also noticed that I had to manually start the service for the new CTP3 instance, even though it had been set to start automatically. Not sure if I just didn't wait long enough, but starting it manually worked fine.

Finally, I am finding the following error occurs when I try to launch a new query by right-clicking a database or server in Object Explorer and selecting New Query (if I try to modify an existing stored procedure, the dialog is identical, but it's a yellow exclamation point instead of a red x):

The error dialog is only slightly different (an additional top-level error message, and now it isn't an error, it's an informational dialog) if I try File > New >Database Engine Query:

And the error is once again an error, but still a slightly different dialog (I can no longer copy the text) if I use Ctrl + N or try to open an existing .sql file using File/Open:

For searchy goodness, here is the text of the error message:

TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
------------------------------
Failed to create new SQL Server script.
------------------------------
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Method not found: 'System.Collections.Generic.List`1<System.Object> Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.UI.VSIntegration.GenericUtilityView.get_OpenedEditors()'. (mscorlib)
------------------------------

I tried to fix this by re-applying Visual Studio Service Pack 1, as I had recommended in my previous post (once again, do as I say, not as I do). The SP1 update package complained about a missing silverlight_sdk.msi:

Microsoft Silverlight 4 SDK

The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable.

Someone should file a bug on this; the exclusion of this MSI file is especially annoying in this case because I don't care about the Silverlight SDK. Anyway, the fix: download the Silverlight 4 Tools, run the exe from a command line with the /x argument, specify a folder when prompted, and then you can point the SP1 installer at that folder. What a mess. And it gets even worse; I next got a similar complaint about WCF RIA Services V1.0 SP1 - like I'd know where to get that even if I knew what it was. One time, okay; I wasn't going to repeat this for who-knows-how-many files. So the real fix is: download the whole VS2010 SP1 ISO, mount it or extract it using your favorite utility, and point SP1 setup at that folder whenever prompted. Ugh. Again, what an absolute mess - and yes, yet another reboot. And for whatever reason, the re-application of SP1 took longer than the whole Denali install, including the time to take screen shots of every single dialog!

And I still have the same issue when launch a new query. *sigh*

(This only happened on the machine where I left CTP1 installed - because I wanted to easily compare DMVs and other things. I guess that plan is a bust.)

For some information about installing Books Online locally, in case I led you to believe that selecting the box above really installed Books Online, see this blog post from Geoff Hiten (@SQLCraftsman):

http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/geoffh/archive/2011/07/12/the-first-thing-you-will-hate-about-sql-denalihellip.aspx

Stay tuned for more posts about other tools (e.g. Juneau), changes to Books Online, and CTP3 engine features as I discover them.

SQL Server v.Next (Denali) : CTP3 is here!!!

AaronBertrand — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:45:00 GMT

The CTP3 of SQL Server Code-Named "Denali" is now available. You can download the bits here:

Download SQL Server "Denali" CTP3
(You will need to use File Transfer Manager on Windows, and a Java applet on Mac OS.)

If you are just interested in the Express version, you can go here (no FTM required):

Download SQL Server "Denali" Express CTP3

There were release notes available last week, but they were taken down when they became too publicized. They have been made available again:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/3711.aspx

Right now, after the download starts, you will see this:

But that link just leads to the SQL Server Learning Center, which still only has information on 2005, 2008 and 2008 R2.

In the meantime, I've assembled my own release notes for you, summarizing some of the more salient points, adding my own two cents where appropriate, and leaving out several of the obscure issues that are unlikely to affect a large number of users. I will follow up with my install experiences (I posted a setup walk-through here) and what else I notice. For the first time in a while, I'm getting the bits at the same time as the public, so I don't have a ton of posts queued up and ready to go. I can tell you that the build number is 11.0.1440:

Microsoft SQL Server "Denali" (CTP3) - 11.0.1440.19 (X64) 
    Jun 24 2011 17:31:09 
    Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation
    Enterprise Evaluation Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.1 <X64> (Build 7601: Service Pack 1)

Operating System Support & Prerequisites

I talked about Microsoft's plans in this area several weeks ago, and wasn't surprised when I saw the list of supported operating systems in the release notes for CTP3. Here are the different sets of operating systems that are supported (or not supported), and what else you need to know to get Denali up and running on them.

Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2

Denali is officially supported on Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1. It will install and run fine if you don't have Service Pack 1 installed, but you will probably get one of those nasty-gram "known compatibility issues" dialogs that suggest you update your operating system. Nip that in the bud now, and install SP1. If you don't already have .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installed, you will need to install it. You will need to enable both the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and .NET Framework 4.0 (which should already be installed) in order to install most of the common Denali components on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. You can get away with keeping them disabled for a couple of components, but I would suggest just making sure they're enabled regardless of how much or how little you plan to install.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core

Denali is supported on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Server Core. This is the first time SQL Server has been officially supported on a Server Core operating system. There were hacks around that would allow you to install SQL Server 2008, for example, on Windows Server 2008 Server Core, but this configuration is *not* supported. (And if you're not aware of the benefits of Server Core, I strongly recommend you take a peek.) Note that the setup UI is not supported; you need to use Quiet (/Q) or Quiet Simple (/QS) from the command line, as well as an /Action parameter, in order to continue. If you are installing the Express version of Denali on server core, you will need to download and install the standalone installer of .NET Framework 4.0 for Server Core before proceeding with Denali setup. Unlike the "full" version of Windows Server 2008 R2, and unlike Denali setup when run against those other operating systems, the framework isn't present by default on Server Core - and the Express version of Denali will not install it for you. I'm hoping there is a clear and easy way for folks distributing Express-based applications to both normal and Server Core installations, without a whole lot of extra hassle for their users.
If you're going to install on Server Core, I highly recommend this post from Microsoft's Sethu Srinivasan:
http://sethusrinivasan.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/sql-server-denali-ctp3-on-windows-2008-r2-server-core/

Windows Vista & Windows Server 2008

Denali is supported on Windows Vista Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2. I suspect installation may be blocked if you are at Service Pack 1 or RTM (though it may just be a warning like above), so please make sure you are at Service Pack 2 if possible. Unlike previous versions of SQL Server, you will need to install the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and then this update from KB #956250 before you run setup. Denali will, however, install the .NET Framework 4.0, if you don't already have it. Note that CTP3 (because of PowerShell 2.0 requirements) cannot be installed on Vista & Windows Server 2008 for these operating system languages: Bulgarian, Estonian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Thai, or Ukrainian. In these cases setup won't be blocked per se, but you will get an error message that simply says, "This package is not applicable."

Windows XP & Windows Server 2003

Denali is *not* supported on Windows XP (or Windows Server 2003). If this is your preferred operating system, or if you have legacy applications that won't work on newer operating systems, you will need to use virtualization software (Virtual PC 2007, VirtualBox, VMWare Workstation) to run a more modern operating system, and install Denali there. You also might consider upgrading to a newer version of Windows, running Denali there, and running your legacy apps under XP mode. In Windows 7, you can run the newer version of Virtual PC, with or without XP Mode. In fact it is probably wise to consider one of these approaches regardless of what operating system you're running - it is a beta, after all.

Windows ME, 98SE, 98 & 95

Ha ha, just kidding.

All Operating Systems

If you're not already running PowerShell 2.0, you will need it for both the database engine and Management Studio. Unlike previous versions, setup will not install PowerShell for you. Everything you need to be sure PowerShell 2.0 is enabled on your machine can be found in KB #968929. If your operating system is x64, make sure to choose the 64-bit Management Tools and 64-bit Windows PowerShell Extensions for SQL Server. The 32-bit extensions will not work.

Time Bomb

The CTP is furnished in Express and Evaluation Editions. While the Express Edition does not expire, it is likely against the CTP EULA to run it beyond the 180 days. If you want the full product, be aware that it is a hard stop at 180 days - the product will stop working the next time you restart the service or reboot your computer. Unlike Windows, there is no secret command-line switch to re-arm the evaluation time bomb as you approach the 180 day limit. I wrote about this issue regarding CTP1 in April, and had a ton of fun trying to uninstall SQL Server 2008 R2 Evaluation Edition last October. So, just something to keep in mind.

Other issues you are likely to encounter

(I'm going to leave out potential issues with Analysis Services, Reporting Services, Data Quality Services, Master Data Services, and several less common issues. For full details on these things, please see the release notes when they come out.)

If you are running IPv6 only, the Help Viewer will not run correctly. The simplest workaround is to enable IPv4; there is a much more tedious workaround listed in the official release notes..

Saving a maintenance plan in Denali's designer will make it so that earlier versions of SSMS will not be able to edit it (or perhaps even open it). No word on whether the plan will still run on the previous version - I assume so since it is a breaking change in the designer, not the code it produces.

Because not all of the Visual Studio-related components are complete, after installing CTP3 on a system that is running Visual Studio 2010, you'll need to (re-)apply Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1.

Double-clicking on .SQL files will open a new instance of Management Studio, every time. If you want to open multiple .SQL files in the same instance of SSMS, use File > Open. IIRC this symptom was present in CTP1 as well.

In order to debug queries, you need to use the "Run as Administrator" option when launching Management Studio. This was also true in CTP1.

To take advantage of all of the features of AlwaysOn Availability Groups, in addition to this set of requirements, you'll need to be running under trace flag 9532. This is because not all of the features are finished in CTP3; it reminds me somewhat of how database mirroring was not quite ready in the initial release of SQL Server 2005, not really being supported until Service Pack 1.