Let's Talk about .. SQL Server 2005 & 2008

Last Thursday, I participated the meeting of MS SQL Server 2008 Presentation by Mr.Nicolas and Mr.Jason , engineers from Microsoft.


Because my office member have started using Reporting Services in our systems, thus we would like to discuss about it and the problems we found.


The first one they suggested is "Scale Out". They recommended us to use many report servers to point to the report catalog.


The important one they suggested us to use was Report Catalog. The Report Catalog consists of Reporting Services Database (RSDB) and Reporting Services Tempolary Database (RSTempDB). It has a lot of I/O of transaction.


1.RSDB stores the report's metadata, including snapshots. It is long living, thus it should be backed up.
2.RSTempDB stores tempolary snapshot while running reports. It is highly volatile. And since its volatile, we need the report lifetime policy of data by setting session timeout value (10 min): Clean up Cycle Minutes guides background clean up thread.


Then, how different between RS2005 and RS2008.
For RS2005,

-Many insert to Chunk Data

-Many insert to Snapshot Data

-Many insert to Session Data Table

For RS2008,

-Many insert to Segment; take majority of transation of RSTempDB


Some trip to optimize the Report Performance

-Remove the unnecessary columns

-Bring rendered report to user, for example, doc, pdf, etc.


They showed us the new tool, MS SQL Server 2008 Report Builder. It looks like MS Office 2007 Application because of its theme. In the future, users can design and use the reports themselves. I asked them if there are any features that we still need Visual Studio 2008 to develop the report. They answered me that the Report Builder can do anything VS2008 can except debugging and creating and using several data sources.

SQL Server 2008 & Application Compatibility

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 comes with the concept "Your Data, Any Place, Any Time."

SQL Server 2008 provides a trusted, productive, and intellisent data platform that enables you to run your most demanding mission-critical applications, reduce time and cost of development and management of applications, and deliver actionable insight to your entire organization.

Yesterday I participated SQL Server 2008 & Application Compatibility seminar at Microsoft (Thailand) presented by Mr.Chulladej Aramsri.
I summarized this seminar as the following information..

SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Technical Value Proposition
Minor change:-
-Data/Backup Compression or even transaction by DB Server resource (Needs more CPU)
-TDE: Transparent Data Encryption by creating encrypted key which one of the easy ways is certificate (Needs more CPU)
-Resource Governor (Uses memory and CPU)
-Filtered Indexes / Statistic-Query Optimizer
-Auditing for database, object, and schema level (no coding) but it needs space for audit logs
-Reporting Services e.g. cube in many partitions and in many servers

Moderate Application:-
-Policy Based Management i.e. it can register as group of servers
-Performance Data Collection (PDC) which is a data warehouse to collect all database data for example, cube usage (SQL Profiler needs more time to process)
-Enhanced data and time, we can select only date or time. And there is new data type, Datetime2, which keeps in nanosecond unit
-New SQL commands and Intellisense in SQL Studio
- Sparse Column, it will not keep the column whose value is null, thus it needs less disk storage
-Service Broker Enhancements-SSIS/SSRS/SSAS Enhancements: For SSRS, no needing of web server

Significant Application:-
-Spatial Support: it can keep Geographic data
-File Stream Support: it can keep unlimited size of file stream depended on your hardware
-Hierachy data type
-CDC (Change Data Capture) and Change Tracking
-LINQ Support: LINQ is a new computer language that makes developers do connection easier.
-Entity Framework Support
-ADO.Net (Only Data Services Support)

Develing on Vision
1.Enterprise Data Platform e.g. Nasdax
2.Beyond Relation
3.Dynamic Development
4.Pervasive Insight

ImprovePerformance:-
-PDC
-Backup
-Partition
-Star Join
-Plan Guides
-Minimally Logged Insertion

Scalability:-
-Up to 64 bit CPU and 1 TB RAM
-Scale out by Data Dependent Routing, Service Broker, and Peer-to-peer replication
-Table Locked Escalation
-File Stream
-Data Compression

Availability:-
-"Hot-Add CPU", which was Hot-Add Memory in SQL Server 2005. Anyway, users has to log off, then log in after adding the CPU.
-Auto Page Repair in Database Mirroring
-Improve Online Operation, for example, Online Restore

Security:-
-Extensible Key Management

Managiability:-
-Policy-based Management

Resource Governor:-
-Control COU and Memory

It reduces Support Costs since Policy, Data Collection, and Plan Guide & Validation

What's new
-T-SQL:- -MERGE command (aka UPSERT)
-Table-Valued Parameter
-Row Constructors
-Change Data Capture
-Peer-to-peer: Graphic design
-Extensive Key Management
-Report Designer Client (GUI like Office 2007)which is called Report Builder 2.0
-TABLIX (=Table + Matrix) Dynamic number of columns-Data Minding: drill-through to structure

New Market for SQL Server 2008
-Build location-aware Application
-Build Occasionally Connected System
-Expand Content Management Solution

Important Trends
1. Consolidation
2. Virtualization (SQL Server 2008 supports 100%)
3. Data in the Cloud

Upgrade Methodology

Identify requirement
1. SQL Server Edition
2. HCL (Hardware Consideration List) Run Upgrade Advisor
3. Perform Application Compatibility Testing

What's not in SQL Server 2008
-Undocumented system stored procedure
-Virtual Cube
-DUMP/LOAD database
-Backup with TRUNCATE ONLY
-Some are deprecated
e.g. Notification Services

More info..SQL Server 2008
TechCenter
http://technet.microsoft.com/sqlserver
SQL Server 2008 Developer Center
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/sqlserver