You are frustrated at having to correct other people's work. You are tired from being woken at odd hours, or needed to work on weekends.

And the better you get at your job, the more likely you cannot advance in your career because they need to keep you and your skills right there in that cube. You feel stuck.

We've all felt that way. And I'm here to tell you the three things you can do RIGHT NOW that will help you give your database career the jump start you've needed. Separately each one will help to provide you a boost in some way. When done in unison the benefits (both immediate and long-term) will result in an amazing transformation for your career.

So what are you waiting for? Get started by...

1. Downloading SQL2012

Have you ever been with a senior administrator and thought "wow, they sure know a lot of stuff"? Well I am here to tell you that they weren't born with all that knowledge. No, they acquired it over time. And often they learned it while it was still new. Guess what? You have that exact same chance right now! With SQL2012 comes new features such as AlwaysOn and Columnstore indexes. You can learn all about features such as these and in three years people will look to you as the expert. Trust me.

2. Joining PASS

The Professional Association for SQL Server is a group of individuals who are dedicated to the use and care of SQL Server as well as each other. PASS members are always looking to connect, learn, and share with one another information about current in-depth Microsoft SQL Server content. Through knowledge sharing and peer-based learning PASS members find themselves growing their careers by leaps and bounds as database professionals.

Joining PASS is free. and chances are you can find a local PASS chapter or SQL Server user group close to where you live or work right now. Before I joined PASS I used to think that the day-to-day struggles I faced were unique due to the fact that I was working alone. After joining PASS and connecting with other individuals I found out that I wasn't alone, and I found lots of great resources to help me be more effective in my role as a DBA.

3. Joining Twitter

If you have not yet joined Twitter, there is still time. if you don't believe in the value of joining Twitter then try an experiment. Register and set up a Twitter account and post a question during a weekday afternoon. You only get 140 characters, so you'll need to be brief, and (this is most important) use the following 'hashtag' at the end of your tweet: #sqlhelp. When you do you will find dozens of people available to help answer your question, in real-time. And often these folks are the top tier of SQL pros out there, such as Paul Randal (blog | @PaulRandal) or Jonathan Kehayias (blog | @SQLPoolboy).

Beyond the use of Twitter to answer questions you will find a community of folks that are just there for each other. Think of it as a virtual watercooler where you can go for a quick conversation on whatever topic of choice you want or need. For folks who work alone (from their homes) or for database professionals that work on small teams (or just by themselves in a cube somewhere) the ability to reach out and share your experiences with others makes your world a little less lonely.

What are you doing here, still reading this blog post? The sooner you get started the sooner you can reap the benefits.

Thomas LaRock
Vice President of Marketing
Professional Association for SQL Server
Blog: http://thomaslarock.com/
Twitter: @SQLRockstar

SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) v5.2 is now available. SSMA simplifies database migration process from Oracle/Sybase/MySQL and Microsoft Access to SQL Server and SQL Azure. SSMA automates all aspects of migration including migration assessment analysis, schema and SQL statement conversion, data migration as well as migration testing to reduce cost and reduce risk of your database migration project. 

• The new version of SSMA - SSMA 5.2 provides the following major enhancements:
• Support conversion of Oracle %ROWTYPE parameters with NULL default
• Support conversion of Sybase’s Rollback Trigger
• Better user credential security to support Microsoft Access Linked Tables

Reduce Cost and Risk of Competitive Database Migration
Does your customer have Oracle, Sybase, MySQL or Access databases that you like to migrate to SQL Server or SQL Azure? SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) automates all aspects of migration including migration assessment analysis, schema and SQL statement conversion, data migration as well as migration testing. The tool provides the following functionalities:

• Database Migration Analyzer: Assess and report complexity of the source database for migration to SQL Server. The generated report include detailed information on the database schema, percentage of the schema objects that can be converted by the tool, and hours estimate for manually migrating those schema objects that cannot be converted automatically. The information can be used for your to decide and to plan for migration. Visit SSMA team site for video demonstration of this feature.
• Schema Converter: Automate conversion of schema objects (including programming code inside package, procedure, function) into equivalent SQL Server objects and T-SQL dialect. The tool provides ability to customize the conversion from hundreds of project setting options according to your specific business requirements. A report will be generated at the end of conversion for any object statement not supported for automated conversion. You can drill down to each of the migration issues and obtain side-by-side comparison between the original source code and the converted source code as well as make necessary modification directly from SSMA user interface. Visit SSMA team site for video demonstration of this feature.
• Data Migrator: Migrate data from the source database to the SQL Server using the same conversion logic and type mapping specified in the project setting during schema conversion. Visit SSMA team site for video demonstration of this feature.
• Migration Tester: Facilitate unit testing of converted program in SQL Server.

Simplify Migration to SQL Azure
Customers can simplify their move to the cloud with the SSMA. You can migrate from competitive database directly to SQL Azure. The tool reports possible migration issue to SQL Azure, convert schema, and migrate data to SQL Azure database. SSMA supports SQL Azure migration from Microsoft Access, MySQL, and Sybase.

Receive FREE technical support and migration resources.
Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) provides free email technical support for SSMA. SSMA product web site and SSMA team blog site provides many resources to help customer to reduce cost and risk for database migration.

Download SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) v.5.2
Launch the download of the SSMA for Oracle.
Launch the download of the SSMA for Sybase.
Launch the download of the SSMA for MySQL.
Launch the download of the SSMA for Access.

On March 7, 2012 we are hosting the SQL Server 2012 Virtual Launch Event (VLE), to share the latest on SQL Server 2012 and the evolution of the Microsoft data platform. Through our VLE, anyone, anywhere in the world can simply log in and be a part of this amazing experience – consuming content at your own pace while still experiencing all the benefits of a tradeshow event.

What are some great reasons to check out our VLE experience?

You want to learn from SQL Server insiders
Learn more about the new features of SQL Server 2012 through access to more than 30 sessions. Our experts will demonstrate how your business can go further, forward, faster by capitalizing on mission critical capabilities, new features that drive true business insights and the most cloud-ready SQL Server ever.

You want to engage with Partners and Customers
Visit our Partner Pavilion to discuss how partner and pioneer customer solutions integrate with SQL Server 2012.

You want to chat live with product experts and MVPs
Chat live with product experts and MVPs to get the inside scoop. Our team will be on hand to answer questions about SQL Server 2012 and network in the virtual lounge.

You want to engage with the community – and maybe win a prize!
Participate in virtual launch activities like the keynote speech, technical demos and networking lounge, and collect points to earn cool prizes such as cash gift cards, SQL Server Gear, and Xbox systems. The more points you earn, the bigger your prize could be!

Register today at: www.sqlserverlaunch.com

We talk a lot about the features and technical “how to” behind SQL Server, but our favorite topic is showing real-world examples of how it helps our customers achieve their goals and save millions of dollars. One great example of this is The Co-operative Group and their switch from Oracle to SQL Server.

The Co-operative Group operates 5,000 retail stores, and is one of the world’s largest member-owned businesses. The Group’s top strategic priority is expanding its membership base, and they set an aggressive goal to grow to 20 million members by 2020.

But instead of helping the Group achieve its goals, technology and licensing models were a barrier to success. The Group’s previous membership system was an Oracle solution, hosted by a provider that charged per member – a situation where scaling membership would have cost the company tens of millions of dollars. “It would have been financial suicide if we had tried to use the existing solution to accomplish our growth goals,” said Chris Sproston, the head of software development at The Co-operative Group.

To realize the company’s goals, The Co-operative Group turned to SQL Server 2008 R2 and a variety of other Microsoft products and services. Working with Microsoft partner HCL Infosystems, they developed a solution that stores account information, records transactional data and supports web-based self-service account management.

Using this new solution, The Co-operative Group improved member services with enterprise-wide reporting and analysis tools, and increased the security of customer information with highly specific access privileges and transparent data encryption. As a result, the company’s IT department can now spend time innovating and adding features, instead of using its resources to manage new reports or queries.

“Because SQL Server 2008 R2 is so scalable, we can expand from 6 million to 20 million members for 10 percent of what it would have cost on our old solution,” said Chris Sproston, head of software development for The Co-operative Group.

By implementing the Microsoft system, The Co-operative Group will be able to reduce the cost of its long-term growth goal by tens of millions of dollars. And that’s the kind of success story we love to be able to share.

For more information about The Co-operative Group’s solution and how they plan to save millions by switching from Oracle to SQL Server, check out the case study.

In my last post in November on Mission Critical customer implementations of SQL Server, I mentioned that we would include some details on customers already using SQL Server 2012.  Over the last few weeks, we have released some of these first stories highlighting customers that are already realizing the benefits of using new features such as AlwaysOn, Power View and Data Quality Services.  This is an opportunity to bring some of those first stories into one place so you can get an overview of these stories.  Below you will find a short description of the case studies with links to more detailed accounts of the stories.


Mediterranean Shipping Company
“SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn gives us an integrated high-availability and disaster recovery solution that delivers around-the-clock data access and fast performance for less money”
-  Fabio Catassi, Chief Technology Officer

As the second-largest shipper in the world, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) must access and share operational data with global employees and partners all day, every day to deliver excellent service. In 2011, the company began to update core systems with new software from Microsoft to implement innovative availability and disaster recovery capabilities. As a result, MSC can facilitate growth by speeding data access, minimizing downtime, improving security, and reducing costs.

Great Western Bank
“Banks that try to compete against us are simply going to be at a disadvantage if they don’t have the enterprise-ready data-warehousing and BI capabilities that SQL Server 2012 and Power View give us."
-  Ron Van Zanten, VP of Data Quality

To support ambitious growth plans, Great Western Bank needed to increase profitability, simplify compliance, and gain better insight into customer relationships. The bank deployed a Microsoft data warehouse and business intelligence solution because of previous success in building an extremely complex system with the technology. The bank can now more easily attract and retain customers, maximize the amount of money it loans and invests, and prove its growth capacity to regulators.

RealtyTrac
“With SQL Server 2012 Data Quality Services, we will help our customers clearly see all lenders involves in a foreclosure.  This will help our customers make better, more informed buying and selling decisions.”
-  Richard Sawicky, Senior Director of Database Technology

To help its customers make real estate decisions, RealtyTrac needed to provide more accurate property data and a clearer view of each property’s mortgage information. The company deployed a Microsoft solution to take advantage of tools that information workers can use to improve data quality and analysis. With accurate and comprehensive data, RealtyTrac can help its customers make better decisions and improve its own competitive advantage. It also expects to save IT time and costs.

ServiceU
“The SQL Server 2012 online indexing capabilities alone save us up to 20 minutes a year in downtime, or 38.5percent of allowable downtime. That might not sound like much, but it is huge for us and our customers.”
-  David Smith, Director, Software Architecture

ServiceU, part of the Active Network, Inc. (NYSE: ACTV), needed to increase availability for its mission-critical online event management applications. The company implemented a new Microsoft high-availability and disaster recovery solution, which reduces downtime and gives customers more confidence in the availability of the applications. Also, the company has cut failover time between nodes by half, made IT administration simpler, and expects to reduce development costs.

EdgeNet
“Now, with SQL Server 2012, we can run any data export our customers want whenever they want it, so we’re better able to meet their needs and support new customers.”
-  Michael Steineke, Vice President of IT

To improve customer service and support growth, Edgenet needed to export critical product data more efficiently to online retailers and search engines that provide the data to shoppers. It also wanted to increase employee and customer insight into this data. Edgenet deployed a Microsoft solution for enterprise-level performance, availability, and business intelligence. Edgenet can now serve more customers faster; its network is simpler; and it is improving its competitive advantage.

Are there many other SQL Server 2012 stories coming?

Expect to see a lot more SQL Server 2012 case studies (and earlier versions of SQL Server) published over the next few months.  To make it easier to find these stories, we will be adding a new Customer Stories section to the SQL Server website in the next few weeks, so you can easily find stories that match the Version, Workload, Industry or Country of implementation you are looking for.

David Hobbs-Mallyon
Senior Marketing Manager
SQL Server Marketing

One of our lab project teams was pretty busy while the rest of us were taking a break between Christmas and New Year’s here in Redmond. On January 3rd, their new lab went live: Microsoft Codename "SQL Azure Compatibility Assessment". This lab is an experimental cloud service targeted at database developers and admins who are considering migrating existing SQL Server databases into SQL Azure databases and want to know how easy or hard this process is going to be. SQL Azure, as you may already know, is a highly available and scalable cloud database service delivered from Microsoft’s datacenters. This lab helps in getting your SQL Server database cloud-ready by pointing out schema objects which are not supported in SQL Azure and need to be changed prior to the migration process. So if you are thinking about the cloud again coming out of a strong holiday season where some of your on-premises databases were getting tough to manage due to increased load, this lab may be worth checking out.

There are two steps involved in this lab:

1. You first need to generate a .dacpac file from the database you’d like to check on with SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) CTP4. SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008 R2, 2012 (CTP or RC0) are supported.
   
2. Next, you upload your .dacpac to the lab cloud service, which returns an assessment report, listing the schema objects that need to change before you can move that database to SQL Azure.

You find more information on the lab page for this project and in the online documentation. A step-by-step video tutorial will walk you through the process. Of course, we would love to hear feedback from you!

And we’re always interested in suggestions or ideas for other things you’d like to see on http://wwwsqlazurelabs.com. You can use the feedback buttons on that page and send us a note, or visit http://www.mygreatwindowsazureidea.com/ and enter a new idea into any of the specific voting forums that are available there. There’s a dedicated voting forum for SQL Azure and many of its subareas. You can also place a vote for ideas that were posted if you spot something that matters to you. We appreciate your input! Follow @SQLAzureLabs on Twitter for news about new labs.

-- Christina Storm (@chrissto)

Principal Program Manager, SQL Azure Labs

For the past couple of weeks we’ve been asking you to submit stories about how the #SQLFamily gives back to you. In exchange for each submission we’ve received, we’ll be donating $50 to the Pragmatic Works Foundation to provide SQL training to veterans, the jobless and the underemployed.

Tomorrow is your last chance to submit! Our goal is to reach 400 submissions, which would be a $20,000 donation, but we still need your help to make it.

You can submit your story in one of three ways:

1. Email your story to sqlfamilysubmission@live.com
2. Send a tweet to @SQLServer using the #SQLFamily hashtag
3. Post to our Facebook wall and begin your post with “The SQL Family…”

So submitting is really as simple as sending a tweet our way, commenting on our Facebook wall or shooting us a quick email.

To help give some inspiration, we thought we’d share a few of the more interesting and heartfelt posts we’ve received:

Meme Monday: What #SQLFamily Means to Me
(originally a part of the #mememonday, was submitted via email)
By Doug Lane (blog | twitter)

“My thoughts on #SQLFamily in haiku form:
Family of friends
bound by passion, vision, love.
Success is cheered on.”

SQL Family in Action
By Yanni Robel (blog | twitter)

 “I’m telling you what.   These group of people – they are my professional peer.   They are not the friends I grew up, or my blood family.  We know each other because we have the same passion about the same technology and in this community, the SQL community, we took it to the next level.   We are not just ‘peer’.   We are family.   We helped each other in so many ways.   Today, a handful member of this community were there for me when I was told that I might not be able to run the marathon that I’ve been training for 4 months.   They were there when I broke down in tears, devastated and angry.    Yes, they were virtually there via my laptop – but they were there with me.   They took the time from their busy day, on this h0liday season to login to Google Hangout and be with me.”

What #SQLFamily means to me.
By Justin Dearing (blog | twitter)

  “I hung my head in shame for about a week while fretting over what to do because I knew right away I was the offender. Eventually I decided to simply send an email to Paul saying I realized I was the one that offended him and apologizing. He accepted the apology and sent me the sticker. Like a functional family, when forgiveness was sought it was quickly given, the incident was forgotten, and I’d like to think I’ve been a little more polite and considerate both on and off the internet as a result.”

Please remember that submissions are due prior to 11:59pm PST tomorrow! Let’s make sure we can add 400 more members to our #SQLFamily.

- The SQL Server Team

There are only a two days left until the New Year, which means your last chance to submit a #SQLFamily story and contribute to the Pragmatic Works Foundation drive is fast approaching. All submissions are due by December 31st, 2011 at 11:59pm PST, and there is still an opportunity to help us reach our goal of $20,000 in donations.

We are so touched by the stories and the generosity of the #SQLFamily. Keep the stories coming!

Whether it’s passing a friend on an escalator, or making a big move, the #SQLFamily comes together to spread joy during the holiday season and beyond.

Check out some of this week’s contributions:

Han SQL

By Wil Sisney (blog ǀ twitter)

“I recently made the very difficult decision to move from my long-time home in Phoenix, Arizona, up to Bellevue, Washington. I’m near the Microsoft campus now, and I’ve already had the chance to participate in some spectacular training events I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to attend. But here’s why our #SQLFamily is so awesome: from the moment I mentioned on Twitter that I planned on moving to Washington, the SQL Server community here welcomed me.”

What is #SQLFamily?

By Tim Mitchell (blog ǀ twitter)

“SQL Family is needing 30 minutes to walk the 150 yards from the hotel entrance to the elevators because I keep bumping into people that I know. It’s knowing that I’ll never ride the escalator without passing a few friends going the other way. It’s the assurance that I’ll never again be that guy in the hotel room at 9pm wishing I was still engaged in the event.”

@Mike_Fal (blog | twitter)

@willtonic (twitter)

@NikoNeugebauer (blog | twitter)

Join your colleagues by submitting your story today in one of three ways:

1. Email your story to sqlfamilysubmission@live.com
2. Send a tweet to @SQLServer using the #SQLFamily hashtag
3. Post to our Facebook wall and begin your post with “The SQL Family…”

If you’ve already submitted, we give big thanks and ask you to encourage some of your other colleagues to join in. There are less than 48 hours left!

Keep those stories coming,

- The SQL Server Team

The holidays are here and the “#SQLFamily Gives Back” Campaign is continuing to pick up steam. The SQL Server community has raised $1,300, which will allow for 26 people to receive SQL training!

Thank you to everyone who submitted this week!

There is still plenty of time to submit your story. Doing so by December 31st, 2011 will help us reach our goal of donating $20,000 to the Pragmatic Works Foundation. That means we could have 400 new members to the #SQLFamily!

These stories are a reminder of the strength of this community and a chance for us to harness this community spirit towards a great cause.

Please continue to submit your stories via email to sqlfamilysubmission@live.com, Twitter or our Facebook wall. Be sure to send the tweet to @SQLServer and include the #SQLFamily hashtag in your tweet. When posting to our Facebook wall, please begin your post with “The SQL Family…” to help us identify your submissions.

Though we can’t share all the submissions we receive, we are grateful for all the stories, tweets, and blog posts. The submissions have been quite moving and inspiring. Below are a few accounts that showcase the heart of the #SQLFamily.

@tjaybelt (blog | twitter)

Meme Monday: #SQLFamily

By Yanni Robel (blog ǀ twitter)

“Earlier this year, I was blessed with good news in my health and I decided that I wanted to go back to my mountain. I had a new goal and started to train for it. I mentioned my goal of summiting Mt. Rainier on Twitter and the support I had from the SQL community, again, was completely awesome and a little unexpected. On the rough day that I just didn’t feel like doing my work out or hike, I had countless encouraging messages, tweets and even phone calls from people on this community! They (again) lifted my spirit! The day of my climb, I had so many people monitor my progress. I carried a GPS that transmitted my location on the mountain and marked the map so people can see where I was. It was completely overwhelming the support that this community, this family gave me.

To summarize — this community, this SQL community is more than just a community for me. They are my extended family. They are there for me, not just during good times, but through my challenging times. Not just when I can’t figure out which index is slowing down the site, but when I am struggling to live life. I love these people.”

#SQLFAMILY

By Tamera Michelle Clark (blog ǀ twitter)

“I got married to the most amazing person I have ever met, one who “gets me” the one who challenges me and the one who loves me. What’s funny is that we had no reservations about getting married at #sqlpass, these were our people. These were the people who understood us the most. Weddings are about family and we got married in front of the family we choose to be a part of, the family that gets it and the one we most wanted to be around for such a special occasion. We have the BEST signatures ever on our marriage license – (@datachick) Karen Lopez and (@MladenPrajdic) Mladen Prajdic with a full audience of #sqlfamily. I am currently onboarding new people where I work, when I tell them this story they are so excited. One lady said “that is really cool – you got married where you needed to be.” I love this family!”

SQL Family is…

By Wendy Pastrick (blog ǀ twitter)

“...not having to explain what your job is when you tell someone you're a DBA
...being a more valuable asset to a company because of the readiness of others to share their expertise
...meeting a friend for the first time in person
...having a shoulder to lean on when things get tough
...knowing there is someone out there who has encountered this problem before and they are willing to share their experience […]
...never eating dinner alone
...knowing that if you screw up, there will be people there to let you know it but they will also get you to the right answer
...giving back and paying forward where and when you can”

There are only 9 more days left to submit a story and make a difference in someone’s life.

Stay tuned, as next week we’ll be sharing more stories from the community.

Happy Holidays!

A few months back we announced SQL Server 2012 availability on Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Since that time we are seeing more momentum worldwide as other service provider partners are going live with SQL Server 2012 for their customers in their cloud leveraging the latest SQL Server 2012 RC0 release. A few examples we are seeing from have recently launched, in talking to these partners SQL Server 2012 is generating a lot of excitement with their customers.

• Discount ASP.NET a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in the US has announced the opportunity to try SQL Server 2012 RC0 for free, "We are proud to be one of the first hosts to offer our web hosting customers with an opportunity to get a jumpstart in testing next generation SQL Server technology,” said Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing and Business Development at DiscountASP.NET.
  
  
• Peer 1 Hosting a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in the US, Canada, UK and Europe and Latin America recently launched SQL 2012 RC0 for their managed hosting customers.
  
  
• WebCentral a part of Melbourne IT and a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in Australia is also providing its customers with access to SQL Server 2012 RC0 for a small monthly fee.

We are hearing from other service provider partners around the world that are coming on line in the coming weeks. For the SQL Server community, the benefits are more choice and flexibility in how and where you deploy SQL Server. Look for future updates as we learn of other service provider partners offering SQL Server 2012.

Try SQL Server 2012 RC0 today!

Craig Wicks
Group Product Manager
SQL Server Marketing

Wow #SQLFamily…just wow.

The SQL Server Team has been overwhelmed by the amazing outpouring of support from the #SQLFamily. In just a few days, the community is off to a great start in sending us submissions that have raised money for the Pragmatic Works Foundation, a non-profit that provides free technical training to veterans, the jobless, and underemployed. We will donate $50 to the Foundation for each of the first 400 submissions we receive from the SQL Server community. We are off to a good start and we encourage those of you who haven’t submitted your stories so that we can reach our $20,000 contribution goal by December 31st, 2011.

We are now making it easier for you to submit your story! In addition to sending submissions via email to sqlfamilysubmission@live.com, you can now send your submission via Twitter as well on our Facebook wall. Be sure to send the tweet to @SQLServer and include the #SQLFamily hash tag in your tweet (one tweet is all it takes).When posting on our Facebook wall, please start your post with “The SQL Family…” to help us identify your submissions. If you didn’t see our first blog post in announcing this campaign, you can get all the details it here.

We truly appreciate all the stories and blog posts submitted thus far as a part of “#SQLFamily Gives Back”, as well as the tweets and blog posts helping us promote the cause. The stories have been so touching, we’re compelled to share a few excerpts with the community.

#sqlfamily

by Grant Fritchey (blog | twitter)

“After a 40 minute drink from the fire hose, I had a much better understanding of extended events, as well as several pages worth of notes and links to information I had previously missed. Why did this person do this? Because someone they knew needed some help. That’s #sqlfamily to me.

You gotta think of it like this. Technically, we’re all competing for jobs. If I know something really well and you don’t, that makes me more marketable than you so I’ll be damned if I’m going to give you a leg up for free. And there are technical communities out there that behave exactly that way. We don’t. We share. We share our knowledge, our time, our struggles, our passion. And the funny thing is, we all get better for it.”

What @SQLFamily Means to Me

By Dustin Ryan (blog | twitter)

“Since that day my life has never been the same. I won’t ever be able to thank Brian enough for giving me my shot. Because of Brian’s generosity, optimism, and faith in me, my life has changed for the better. And it’s because of Brian’s tremendous example that you can find me speaking at SQL Saturday and Code Camp events or answering questions on my blogs or the forums of BIDN.com. If I can have a fraction of the impact on someone else that Brian had in my life, then maybe in that way I can say thanks.

So that’s what #SQLFamily means to me. It means helping others because someone somewhere at some point gave you a helping hand. Whether it was a coworker who answered a question for you or someone who proofread your resume, take the time to say thanks and pay it forward to someone else who just needs a little faith, optimism, and a helping hand.”

Email Submission

From Jess Borland (blog | twitter)

“I'd like to think that I was brought into the #sqlfamily when I went to SQL Saturday #31 Chicago 2010. Until that day, I had been blogging, I was on Twitter, I was attending a user group, and I was chatting with a few local people. But attending a SQL Saturday showed me how much more I could tap into. There were, of course, the sessions, with excellent presenters; the vendors; and the volunteers. But the people I met...they have become friends and family. I no longer felt like I was on the outside of this really great group, looking in. I felt like I was truly part of the community.

I've gotten help with everything from setting up database mail to configuring clusters to data modeling tool recommendations. The #sqlfamily has cheered me on as I started new jobs and ran half marathons. They've also been there for me on bad days, when I thought there was no way a report would get written in time or a restore could be completed successfully. I wish every person that worked with SQL Server would join the family.”

Please encourage your #SQLFamily to keep the stories coming. You still have plenty of time—until December 31st—to submit a story and make a difference in someone’s life. Each submission enables Pragmatic Works to provide someone in need with the financial resources for training and hardware to start a career in the IT field. Think of it this way: your contributions can add a new member to the #SQLFamily!

Stay tuned, as next week we’ll be sharing more stories from the community. Let’s keep giving back!

In October at the PASS Summit 2011, Microsoft announced expanded investments in “Big Data”, including a new Apache Hadoop™ based distribution for Windows Server and service for Windows Azure. In doing so, we extended Microsoft’s leadership in BI and Data Warehousing, enabling our customers to glean and manage insights for any data, any size, anywhere. We delivered on our promise this past Monday, when we announced the release of the Community Technology Preview (CTP) of our Hadoop based service for Windows Azure.

Today this preview is available to an initial set of customers. Those interested in joining the preview may request to do so by filling out this survey. Microsoft will issue a code that will be used by the selected customers to access the Hadoop based Service. We look forward to making it available to the general public in early 2012. Customers will gain the following benefits from this preview:

• Broader access to Hadoop through simplified deployment and programmability. Microsoft has simplified setup and deployment of Hadoop, making it possible to setup and configure Hadoop on Windows Azure in a few hours instead of days. Since the service is hosted on Windows Azure, customers only download a package that includes the Hive Add-in and Hive ODBC Driver. In addition, Microsoft has introduced new JavaScript libraries to make JavaScript a first class programming language in Hadoop. Through this library JavaScript programmers can easily write MapReduce programs in JavaScript, and run these jobs from simple web browsers. These improvements reduce the barrier to entry, by enabling customers to easily deploy and explore Hadoop on Windows.
  
  
• Breakthrough insights through integration Microsoft Excel and BI tools. This preview ships with a new Hive Add-in for Excel that enables users to interact with data in Hadoop from Excel. With the Hive Add-in customers can issue Hive queries to pull and analyze unstructured data from Hadoop in the familiar Excel. Second, the preview includes a Hive ODBC Driver that integrates Hadoop with Microsoft BI tools. This driver enables customers to integrate and analyze unstructured data from Hadoop using award winning Microsoft BI tools such as PowerPivot and PowerView. As a result customers can gain insight on all their data, including unstructured data stored in Hadoop.
  
  
• Elasticity, thanks to Windows Azure. This preview of the Hadoop based service runs on Windows Azure, offering an elastic and scalable platform for distributed storage and compute.

We look forward to your feedback! Learn more at www.microsoft.com/bigdata.

Val Fontama
Senior Product Manager
SQL Server Product Management

Back in November, the SQL Server team witnessed an outpouring of support for the #SQLFamily meme started by Thomas LaRock (aka @SQLRockstar) and Karen Lopez (@datachick). For an installment of SQL Rockstar’s “Meme Monday,” they asked the SQL community to share the meaning behind #SQLFamily. The responses were heartwarming and painted a picture of a passionate community who help and support each other both professionally and personally, as well as share a laugh and pint (or two) when they get together.

The SQL Server team would like to do a little something to help recognize all of you who make the #SQLFamily amazing.

Keeping in line with the theme of giving back, we’d like to keep the stories of the #SQLfamily going through December. What other stories do you have about ways someone in the #SQLFamily community has gone above and beyond to help you or another member of the community? For instance…

• Did you ask a question of the #sqlhelp hashtag at 1am and get an answer in 5 minutes?
• Did a member of the #SQLFamily take time out of their day to help you debug something you just couldn’t figure out?

We just learned about the Pragmatic Works Foundation, a non-profit that provides free technical training to veterans, the jobless, and underemployed.  In 2012 the foundation will be embarking on a campaign to bring better jobs for returning veterans. The classes will be taught at military base hotspots around the United States and will primarily focus on introductory technical training for SQL Server and soft skill training and interview guidance. At the end of the class, job placement assistance is given to help the veterans find jobs. The cost to train each veteran for a week is approximately $50. 

So, for the first 400 submissions*, the SQL Server team will donate $50 per submission to the Pragmatic Works Foundation. You can submit your #SQLFamily stories to sqlfamilysubmission@live.com, along with your name and email address. Or, send us a link to your blog or your Twitter handle if you post your story online. We will feature a selection of submitted stories weekly on this blog into the New Year.

Lastly, if this giving “campaign” is well received by the #SQLFamily, we’d like to do this again to celebrate SQL Server 2012 RTM. If you would like to see us do this again, we are now accepting suggestions for charitable organizations that you are familiar with that could benefit from a donation. We may select one or more charities based on their charter, use of Microsoft Technology, and history of impact, as well as eligibility to receive Microsoft donations. Charitable organization suggestions can also be sent to sqlfamilysubmission@live.com, but of course we can’t guarantee that your submission will be selected.

Thank you.

* Microsoft will donate $50 per qualified story, up to $20,000, to Pragmatic Works Foundation during this promotion. To qualify, the story must be truthful and relevant to the theme. This offer ends December 31st, 2011 or when 400 qualified stories are received. Microsoft reserves the right to alter or cancel this offer at any time. Limit one submission per person and email address. By sending your story to sqlfamilysubmission@live.com you agree that Microsoft may read, share, modify and post your story on the SQL Server team blog and identify you as the writer by first initial and last name or as anonymous. When submitting their story, senders may indicate that they wish their story to be anonymous if published on this blog.  The names and email addresses submitted will not be used for any other purpose.  Microsoft is not responsible for verifying the validity of submissions.  Microsoft is not responsible for the content of public commentary about this offer.  Any other inquiries about this offer should be directed to sqlfamilysubmission@live.com.

We are pleased to announce the release of the Microsoft Codename “Data Transfer” Lab. Microsoft Codename "Data Transfer" is an easy-to-use Web application to import your data into SQL Azure or Blob storage. Whether you’re:

• Preparing data for cloud analytics
• Uploading files to power your Azure service or Web application
• Propagating your data to SQL Azure for publication through Windows Azure Marketplace
• Simply testing the Azure platform

Importing your data into Azure is the first step. With Microsoft Codename “Data Transfer” Lab you can now transfer your data into Azure using any standard modern browser.  The data transfer service transports files up to 200 MB in size through an HTTP SSL connection. You’ll need to supply your Windows Live ID credentials and Windows Azure account information to the service. If you don’t have an account, click here to sign up for a free trial.

One of the goals we have for this lab is to take the complexity out of typical operations, such as loading structured data in CSV and Excel files into SQL Azure. In the interest of optimizing your time and resources, we’re providing simple parsing, type discovery and conversion over your files. You can choose to keep the defaults we provide, or override them. The transfer service first analyzes the file and presents you with our best guess. You’ll be able to change the table name, column names, and data types before saving the file to SQL Azure.

We’ll be evolving this lab over the next few months. We plan to support larger file sizes, multi-file transfer, simple conversions for more types of files into SQL Azure, and reliable transfer that handles dropped connections. If you have feedback or suggestions, please feel free to contact us directly at labsupport@microsoft.com, take the survey, or add your suggestions and issues to the SQL Azure Labs Support Forum. We look forward to hearing from you. 

Happy Transferring,

Shoshanna Budzianowski and the “Data Transfer” Labs team

Twitter: @SQLAzureLabs #sqlazurelabs #datatransfer

What’s inside the new HP Enterprise Database Consolidation Appliance?

On Sept 13th, we launched the new HP Database Consolidation Appliance which supports deploying 1000’s of workloads in a private cloud infrastructure. The solution is specifically designed for I/O intensive workloads and can load balance a complex mix of workloads across multiple racks that are required in a true private cloud appliance deployment.

I’d like to spend a few minutes talking about my favorite aspects of the appliance.

The First Private Cloud Appliance – Factory Built
It takes an imagination to really grok what we mean by “factory-built” appliance. It is easy to imagine that the hardware is racked, powered, and wired, but one of the key investments we’ve made in the factory process working with HP is to make sure the software is installed and configured in the factory. What does that mean? It means when the appliance is first powered up, it is an operational multi-server Hyper-V failover cluster. You won’t see some BIOS screen asking for boot media, or a sysprep’d OS asking pre-installation information, rather the appliance is functional pending security and network configuration to complete the delivery process. The complex configuration of the host environment, management software components, and private cloud infrastructure has been completed in the factory. That means customers can expect a consistent appliance experience when they take delivery of their private cloud appliance. We believe this especially important given the complexity of the appliance which integrates more than 25 software components.

Elegant, High-Performance, Cost-Effective Hardware
One of my favorite aspects of the appliance is how well we evolved the hardware solution. The finished solution changed from what we initially expected and in fact we were able to eliminate 12 switches and more than a hundred cables per rack in the final design. Here’s a picture of what would be a ½ rack or the bottom of a full rack appliance.

If a customer were to build this out of typical 2U servers, there would be somewhere around 18-20 cables per servers connected into 8 different pairs of switches – the appliance design eliminates a rat’s nest of cables without compromising performance. In the end we developed a more reliable, serviceable appliance that supports a scale-out model. It also is optimized so that upgrading a ½ rack to a full rack requires ZERO new cables to the servers; simply connect the storage blocks together and to the storage switch. To me that is “Elegant” enterprise systems design.

Scale-out Design
The elegant hardware design also allows a scale-out architecture. Not only can a customer purchase a ½ rack as a starting point, that ½ rack can be upgraded to a full rack without shutting down the running appliance. Additional racks can be added and for customers with substantial needs they can even put many racks into an HP POD – a container-based datacenter with the opportunity to add custom L2 network and optional UPS infrastructure. You can think of this private cloud appliance as supporting a “thin provisioning” model – you can buy as much as you think you need and add more if you need to, when you need to. This is an interesting attribute, for some customers it means they can start with a ½ rack without knowing exactly what they need, use the built-in tools to help size their workload needs and then add capacity as needed when needed.

Well that covers my short list. If you want to learn more take a look at www.microsoft.com/appliances and take a look at this video.

D. Britton Johnston
Principal Group Manager
SQL Server Appliance Engineering Team
Twitter: @brittjohnston

We are pleased to announce that SQL Server 2012 Express LocalDB Release Candidate 0 is now available for download. Try it here today!

LocalDB is a new version of Express created specifically for developers. It is very easy to install and requires no management, yet it offers the same T-SQL language, programming surface and client-side providers as the regular SQL Server Express. LocalDB was created so that developers that use SQL Server no longer have to install and manage a full instance of SQL Server Express on their laptops or other machines. Plus, developers can take this into production as it also serves as an embedded database. Click here for more technical details.

Originally introduced in CTP3, LocalDB now offers a brand new installer in RC0. With this dedicated, 33MB MSI package, it is now possible to install LocalDB in under a minute. Click here for more details on the installation process.

For questions, log onto our SQL Server Express Forum and for more on SQL Server Express and which version may be right for you, visit our SQL Server Express page.

Download SQL Server 2012 Express LocalDB today!

In our continued commitment to interoperability, we are very excited to announce the availability of a preview release of the SQL Server ODBC Driver for Linux! This release will allow native developers to access Microsoft SQL Server from Linux operating systems. To assist our customers with native applications on multi-platform we have ported our existing, reliable and enterprise-class ODBC for Windows driver (a.k.a. SQL Server Native Client, or SNAC) to the Linux platform.  Download the driver today here!

In this release, the SQL Server ODBC Driver for Linux will be a 64-bit driver for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. We will support SQL Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2012 with this release of the driver. Notable driver features (in addition to what you would expect in an ODBC driver) include support for the Kerberos authentication protocol, SSL and client-side UTF-8 encoding. This release also brings proven and effective tools and the BCP and SQLCMD utilities to the Linux world.

This SQL Server ODBC Driver for Linux provides a Microsoft-supported solution for C and C++ applications that target SQL Server. It also provides a mechanism for applications and runtimes that leverage ODBC to access SQL Server from Linux platforms. For customers who want to move from Sybase to SQL Server, the SQL Server ODBC Driver for Linux allows C and C++ code to continue running in Linux environments. For additional information on the first release of Microsoft ODBC Driver for Linux please refer to our ODBC Driver on Linux Documentation.

This release marks a big milestone in Microsoft’s continued commitment to interoperability and our alignment with ODBC as the preferred way to access SQL Server. Download the driver today; please provide your feedback and ask us questions via our forums; or post a comment via Microsoft Connect. We look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Shekhar Joshi
Senior Program Manager
Microsoft SQL Server ODBC Driver For Linux

A few weeks ago we released a new “lab” on a site which some of you may be aware of called SQL Azure | Labs.  We created this site as an outlet for projects incubated out of teams who are passionate about an idea.  The labs allow you to experiment and engage with teams on some of these early service concepts and while these projects are not committed to a roadmap your feedback and engagement will help immensely in shaping future investment directions.

Microsoft Codename "Social Analytics” is an experimental cloud service that provides an API enabling developers to easily integrate relevant social web information into business applications. Also included is a simple browsing application to view the social stream and the kind of analytics that can be constructed and integrated in your application.

You can get started with “Social Analytics” by exploring the social data available via the browsing application. With this first lab release, the data available is limited to two topics (“Windows 8” and “Bill Gates”). Future releases will allow you to define your own topic(s) of interest. The data in “Social Analytics” includes top social sources like Twitter, Facebook, blogs and forums. It has also been automatically enriched to tie conversations together across sources, and to assess sentiment.

Once you’re familiar with the data you’ve chosen, you can then use our API (based on the Open Data Protocol) to bring that social data directly into your own application.

Do you want to learn more about the Microsoft Codename “Social Analytics” Lab? Get started today, or for more information visit the official homepage.

Building on our announcement at the PASS Summit 2011 in early October, today we are excited to announce the SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate (RC). SQL Server 2012 RC is the first release which is feature complete and represents an exciting milestone for customers and partners looking to experience the full value of SQL Server 2012.

Over 100K customers have downloaded the SQL Server 2012 Community Technology Previews to date which, through customer feedback, has helped Microsoft deliver a high-quality Release Candidate.

As the foundation of the cloud-ready information platform, SQL Server 2012 will help organizations unlock breakthrough insights across the organization as well quickly build solutions and extend data across on-premises and public cloud backed by mission critical confidence.

The SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate delivers great value to customers:

• Greater availability. Deliver the required 9s and data protection with AlwaysOn, delivering added functionality over CTP3 that allows customers to experience multiple, readable secondaries for distributed scale of reporting and backup workloads and support for FileTable and FILESTREAM which brings first-class HA to complex data types.
• Blazing-fast performance. More effectively govern performance in multi-tenancy environments like private cloud. Resource Governor enhancements include support for 64 resource pools, greater CPU usage control, and resource pool affinity for partitioning of physical resources and predictable resource allocation.
• Rapid data exploration. Empower end users with new insights through rapid data exploration and visualization. Discover new insights at the speed of thought with more feature/functionality in Power View, the highly interactive, familiar browser-based data exploration, visualization, and presentation experience for end users. 
• Credible, consistent data. In addition to CTP3 functionality delivered for Data Quality Services and Master Data Services, customers can better support heterogeneous data within Data Warehouses through new Change Data Capture (CDC) support for Oracle.
• Optimized productivity.  Optimize IT and developer productivity across server and cloud with the new SQL Server Data Tools, a unified development experience for database and business intelligence projects, and cloud-ready capabilities within SQL Server Management Studio for snapshot backups to the Windows Azure Platform.  Additionally, SQL Server 2012 offers a new version of Express – LocalDB. SQL Express LocalDB is a lightweight version of Express with all its programmability features, yet runs in user mode with a fast, zero-configuration installation and short list of pre-requisites.  For more information and to try it out, go here.

Today, you have the chance to download, preview and deploy the full marquee capabilities being delivered in SQL Server 2012. RC is a production quality release that includes access to upgrade and migration tools like Upgrade Advisor, Distributed Replay and SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA). Upgrade Advisor and Distributed Replay allow you to perform thorough analysis and testing of your current SQL Server applications before upgrading so you know what to expect. You can also use SSMA to automate migrate non-SQL Server databases to SQL Server 2012.

Download SQL Server 2012 RC today here.  Learn more about SQL Server 2012 at www.microsoft.com/sqlserver

CALLING ALL SQL SERVER PROFESSIONALS

Do you want Microsoft to come to your city? This March, Microsoft is teaming with PASS to bring you the SQL Server 2012 Special Ops Tour, a cross-country, technical training roadshow that will take us to 12 cities across America. But this is your tour, and we want hear from you, our SQL Professional operatives, on where we should go and what we should talk about.

Take our Survey today, and help shape our course of action. You're our eyes in the field, and we're counting on you to rise to the occasion. IT’S GO TIME.

Visit us today: www.specialopstour.com