Microsoft Azure set to capture open source revenue streams

Three weeks ago I wrote that Amazon RDS was going to eat into MySQL's revenue potential. I also pointed out that Amazon's RDS was but a precursor to future Amazon cloud service offerings for other popular open source products. While that post was centered on Amazon, it wasn't a stretch to predict that any of the big IT vendors (IBM, Microsoft, HP, Google, Cisco, EMC/VMware, and Sun/Oracle) would offer RDS-like cloud services in the future.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source/microsoft-azure-set-capture-open-source-revenue-streams-087

Why Windows Azure is the Future of Microsoft (and Enterprise Software as Well)

One of the advantages of a being a relatively ancient industry analyst is the ability to look back on over 25 years of innovation and spot the real paradigm shifts amidst the updates, revisions, and otherwise mundane changes that attempt, but never deliver, something radically new

Basking in the nerdacopia that is Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference this week, which has marked Windows Azure’s coming out party, it’s clear that Azure is one of those shifts, on a par with just about anything Microsoft has done in my decades of covering the gang from Redmond, particularly with respect to enterprise software. The trick will be in getting the rest of the world to understand, and, true to the Microsoft model, prove Microsoft right by building the apps the justify, and thereby define, Azure’s ascendancy.

more at http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/4165/why-windows-azure-is-the-future-of-microsoft-and-enterprise-software-as-well/

Designing High Availability for SQL Server 2005

The end of downtime, period! Job No. 1 for database administrators (DBAs) is making sure that the data they're responsible for is available all the time.That's because for anyone who implements database systems with Microsoft SQL Server, be it 2000 or 2005, data availability quickly becomes mission-critical. This is why DBAs must ensure that they have some form of protection in place for these systems, be it a rapid-recovery or a high-availability system. They know that, should any outage occur, they will be held responsible and faced with the repair of the system. What if you could completely avoid downtime? What if you could go home knowing that the system would always be up.Well, if you're a DBA and you want database peace of mind,read on.

more at http://whitepapers.silicon.com/0,39024759,60827031p,00.htm

White paper: Microsoft SQL Server on Unisys Servers using Intel chips

Unisys partnered with the Microsoft Analysis Services development team to run a series of performance tests. The tests were executedover a period of several months, consequently some tests were run on beta levels of Analysis Services (64-bit) and others on the released version of Analysis Services (64-bit). Similar Unisys ES7000 server systems were used for all of the tests, having up to 16 64-bit Intel® Itanium® 2 processors and up to 40 GB ofmemory. In addition, the tests used Microsoft® SQL Server Accelerator for Business Intelligence (SSABI) for Sales and Marketing (using real-life sales data), and were performed with varying numbers of processors (8-, 12-, and 16-CPU configurations).

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/11/19/239352/White-paper-Microsoft-SQL-Server-on-Unisys-Servers-using-Intel-chips.htm

Get the SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP

SQL Server 2008 R2 delivers several breakthrough capabilities that will enable your organization to scale database operations with confidence, improve IT and developer efficiency, and enable highly scalable and well managed Business Intelligence on a self-service basis for your users.

more at http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/R2Downloads.aspx

SQL Server Management Studio Support for SQL Azure

The long awaited build of SQL Server Management Studio with support for SQL Azure is available today for MSDN and TechNet subscribers and will be generally available for the rest of the world as of tomorrow.

The download page can be found here. This support is included as part of the November CTP release of SQL Server 2008 R2.

 

http://silverlight.sys-con.com/node/1181561

Microsoft's 'Oslo' Becomes SQL Server Modeling

Microsoft has found a home for its "Oslo" modeling technology – in the SQL Server database family.

Microsoft has found a home for its "Oslo" modeling technology—in the SQL Server database family.

The project code-named Oslo is Microsoft's ambitious data modeling initiative that consists of three parts: a modeling language known as "M," a modeling tool known as "Quadrant" and a repository. These components will now become part of the SQL Server family and will be available in a new Community Technology Preview (CTP) that will become available at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, which runs Nov. 17-19 in Los Angeles.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Microsofts-Oslo-Becomes-SQL-Server-Modeling-117207/