SQL Server 2005: Users will upgrade … eventually (Wednesday, October 19, 2005)
With less than a month to go before the first major SQL Server upgrade in five years, users seem to be divided into two camps: those who are going into production as fast as they can and those who will upgrade sometime in the next couple of years.

According to Noel Yuhanna, senior analyst for Forrester Research Inc., in Cambridge, Mass., the difference reflects Microsoft's success in interesting larger customers with more critical databases in SQL Server. It's the heavy hitters who need the enhanced features of SQL Server 2005, while the small to medium-sized businesses that have been SQL Server 2000's mainstays will probably wait.
searchwin2000.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid1_gci1135399,00.html

Next SQL Server Stop: Katmai (Thursday, October 13, 2005)
As in Katmai. That's the internal name for the successor to Yukon--the soon-to-ship SQL Server 2005. In a PDC interview with CRN, none other than Bill Gates said that the WinFS server implementation will come sometime in the "Katmai" wave. At that time the WinFS client and server technology will unify all the various data repositories, he said. If that moniker rings a bell it might be because it's already been used. Intel called the Pentium III chip the same thing. As in the national park in Alaska. Speaking of code-names, the StoreSpy bonus app shipping with early WinFS bits is not the same as the one Microsoft talked about while back in the Longhorn context, according to WinFS guru Quentin Clark. (Although in some posts it sure sounds similar.). The current StoreSpy may or may not ship with the final WinFS client, Clark said.
www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=170702999

Windows-Based Databases Earn Trust in World's Largest Deployments (Thursday, October 13, 2005)
The largest Windows-based production data warehouses are more than twice as big as they were two years ago, and Windows as a platform is becoming trusted for a growing percentage of the very largest database systems, according to a survey by an independent organization. At the same time, the results of the latest Winter Corp. survey of the world's largest databases shows that Oracle, Unix and mainframes continue to be the choice for the absolute largest systems. Meanwhile, Linux-based databases, which weren't even a blip in Winter Corp.'s last survey, rival or surpass Windows-based systems in many categories.
entmag.com/reports/article.asp?editorialsid=91

When Applications And Databases Collide (Thursday, October 13, 2005)
Once thought of as two separate worlds, applications and database software are converging due to the increasingly distributed nature of modern computing.

Bill Baker, general manager of SQL Server Business Intelligence, said the proliferation of service-oriented architectures (SOA) and Web services prompted his team to consider how to rearrange the architecture of SQL Server 2005.

During his keynote at VSLive Tuesday, the engineer said the demand for large, monolithic applications is being replaced by nimble data services of heterogeneous natures that need to be loosely coupled to span an array of computing devices. This is causing end-user-facing applications to mingle with functions in the back-end database world.

"The world of the database and application programming is completely opaque," Baker said. "Now database designers and architects are using the same process as the application programmers. Things that used to be in the domain of the database programmer are falling into the domain of the application programmer and vice versa."
www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3555386

In a Big Year for BI, Microsoft Ups The Price/Performance Ante (Sunday, October 02, 2005)
I was still in my twenties when Microsoft started talking up Yukon, now known as SQL Server 2005. It was, Microsoft said, going to allow huge OLAP cubes on PC architectures and perform other minor BI miracles. Now that I'm solidly in my mid-thirties and have seen many major new versions of BI platforms come and go from the headlines, Yukon's imminent release (set for November 7) feels unreal even though Microsoft released several preview versions of the server for free download in the past year. Parts of it are still coming together: Microsoft recently announced, for example, that the promised data mirroring won't be ready for the first general release; it's now expected in 2006.
www.intelligententerprise.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=171000661

Microsoft Gets REAL on SQL Server 2005 (Thursday, September 29, 2005)
With the launch of SQL Server 2005 coming in November, Microsoft has formalized the implementation guidance and marketing support it will provide to its partners and customers. The support comes in the form of two initiatives, Project REAL and SQL Server Front Runner, both highlighted by Bill Baker, Microsoft general manager of business intelligence, during a keynote at the 2005 Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference in Grapevine, Texas.
www.redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=6954

Panorama Software Continues to Demonstrate Business Intelligence Leadership on the Microsoft Platform (Thursday, September 29, 2005)
Panorama Software, a global leader in business intelligence (BI) solutions, announced the beta release of Panorama 5.0, the company’s flagship BI solution. . Panorama 5.0 is Microsoft SQL Server 2005 ready and integrates analytics, reporting and performance dashboards into a single comprehensive solution. This latest release includes numerous key enhancements and new functionalities that provide enterprises the ability to implement BI solutions faster and more cost effectively.

The beta release of Panorama 5.0 will be available in early October 2005, and the product will be generally available in November 2005.
www.panorama.com/pdf/092905_Panorama_5Beta_Release.pdf

Business Intelligence Gets Smarter (Wednesday, September 28, 2005)
Q&A: A new partner initiative, Project REAL, demonstrates how Microsoft SQL Server 2005 solves many of the real-world challenges that companies face when analyzing large data sets.



Business intelligence (BI) is the silver bullet that renders overwhelming quantities of enterprise data manageable, meaningful and useful. Transforming data into knowledge is the aim of any BI application; at its best, BI empowers decision makers with deep real-time insight into the organization’s finances, customers, inventory, supply chain and other critical business measures.

The forthcoming release of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 – scheduled for Nov. 7 – provides many new enhanced BI features designed to give users a competitive edge by increasing productivity while reducing costs. Though SQL Server 2005 is not scheduled for wide availability until November, Microsoft and a number of industry partners in the BI space have been working for months on a large-scale implementation based on actual customer scenarios to discover best practices for creating BI applications based on SQL Server 2005.

Project REAL (Reference implementation, End-to-end, At scale, and Lots of users) is an innovative exercise in system development, deployment and testing. It provides lessons in analyzing large data sets that are applicable to many customers seeking powerful BI tools. The project is already well documented on the Web at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/bi/ProjectREAL and will be demonstrated in a series of hands-on sessions at this week’s 2005 PASS (Professional Association for SQL Server) Community Summit, the largest event of the year exclusively dedicated to SQL Server education.

PressPass spoke with Bill Baker, general manager of SQL Server Business Intelligence at Microsoft and the keynote speaker at this year’s PASS Community Summit, about Project REAL and putting business intelligence into practice.
www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/sep05/09-28ProjectReal.mspx

Roundtable Q&A: Microsoft Invests in Leading-Edge ISVs: Microsoft introduces a program to provide industry partners technical and marketing support for applications built on Microsoft SQL Server 2005. (Wednesday, September 28, 2005)
As Microsoft nears the launch of Microsoft SQL Server 2005, scheduled for November 7, the company is taking additional steps to ensure that the industry is ready for the new version of Microsoft's complete data-management and analysis platform. To help the database industry understand the significant enhancements to enterprise data management, developer productivity and business insight, Microsoft is reaching out to the core technology community through the Independent Software Vendor (ISV) ecosystem that will provide best-of-breed solutions to support SQL Server 2005.

Microsoft has created the SQL Server 2005 Front Runner initiative to encourage U.S. ISVs to bring their applications to market effectively and in a timely manner by offering incremental technical and marketing offerings to early-adopting ISVs. The quantity and quality of the applications that ISVs develop for the platform and have available for deployment in a corresponding timeframe will be a measure of success for Microsoft's goal of helping customers get more from their technology investments.
www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/sep05/09-28FrontRunner.mspx

ProClarity Launches Global Beta Program in Support of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Release (Tuesday, September 27, 2005)
ProClarity 6.1 Expands on Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform to Provide Complete Solution

ProClarity Corporation, a leading innovator of business intelligence (BI) technology for the enterprise, today announced that a public beta version of ProClarity 6.1 is now available. ProClarity 6.1, the next major release of the ProClarity® Analytics Platform, is being developed in conjunction with the advancements of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Community Technology Previews in order to expand upon the enhanced business intelligence functionality of the Microsoft platform.

ProClarity provides a simple, powerful and adaptable interface that allows organizations to harness the complex BI features available in SQL Server 2005. Interested parties can download the latest version to take advantage of new features including Advanced support of the Unified Dimensional Model (UDM), Redesigned dashboard, and New charting engine.


www.proclarity.com/news/pressrelease.asp?pr_ID={E5B7831C-16AF-408F-B204-913FCEE1735F}