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In future, more and more solutions will have data that is not stored directly in a SQL database but rather in cloud EAV (Entity Attribute Value) data stores, caches, client storage, document databases and so on.  Usually it is the existing DBA’s and other SQL biased database experts that are the custodians of corporate data and, in general, ...

Of late one may have noticed that I have become very interested in high-brow, generally vaporous, disciplines such as RESTful data services, data interoperability and cloud computing whilst coincident with that has been the inexorable rise of the term “mashup” in the information technology lexicon. “Mashup” means different things to different ...

Jamie and I gave presentations last night at the London SQL Server users group.  It was a good evening but I think I managed to upset about half the people there.  I suppose when your first two slides are these… …then you can expect a bit of an uphill battle. But, the other half seemed to enjoy it, and besides, if I am not pissing ...

On Thursday this week Jamie Thomson (of SSIS Junkie fame) and I will be presenting at the London SQL Server User Group which will be held at Microsoft’s offices in Cardinal Place and you can still register for the event online.  The pre-planned topic is ‘SQL Server in the Cloud’ and JRJ, who normally organizes the event, is out of town – so ...

By scratching deep enough into available material on SQL Data Services (SDS) you will uncover the limitations of the platform that make it very difficult to scale. It does not scale upwards because of the size limitation of the instance and it does not scale outwards because the SQL model does not handle partitions very well. The data has been ...

This week I am finalising my preparation for the talk that I am giving at SQLBits this weekend. ‘Finalising’ means taking the points that I want to make and other things floating around in my head and produce some meaningful slides so that I don’t go off track too much – so I still have some work to do this week. In preparing for a presentation ...

Earlier this week The Register posted an article “'Full' SQL Server planned for Microsoft's Azure cloud” which included a few unsurprising comments about the feedback cycle that SQL Data Services (SDS), which is still in beta, is going through.  An interesting read, but not much news – and besides, The Register, could be called the IT Tabloid ...

There is no doubt that SQL Data Services (SDS) looks, feels and smells very different to the SQL Server that we have grown accustomed to over the years.  The model is obviously different but there is little formal and clear description by Microsoft on what that model is – the pros and cons and the reasons for the change within the context of ...

There have been some snippets of information trickling out of the Microsoft PDC this evening about SQL Server Data Services (SSDS). Namely: That’s not its name anymore. Its now called SQL Data Services (SDS) SDS is the data layer in Windows Azure You can now do joins between different entities. Just by the very nature of cloud services ...

I should have mentioned it earlier, but the Microsoft offerings are based around Windows Server 2003 R2 and SQL Server 2005. I wonder why this is not Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008? Were Microsoft unwilling? Did it take a long time to certify the Amazon Machine Images and the 2008 editions are on the way? James Simmonds mentioned to me ...