Welcome to the February newsletter from Australia's leading SQL Server Specialists

The team at WARDY IT Solutions is taking part in the Leukaemia Foundation's World's Greatest Shave 2009. The funds we raise will help the Leukaemia Foundation to provide practical care and support to patients and families living with leukaemias, lymphomas, myeloma and related blood disorders. You can sponsor our team in this challenge using the online sponsorship form which can be found here.

Microsoft has recently announced the availability of the Community Technology Preview (CTP) for SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1. The CTP for this Service Pack 1 can be downloaded from here. For more information on what this Service Pack means to your organisation and how to effectively deploy it, why not contact Australia's leading SQL Server consultants and trainers WARDY IT Solutions.

If you are based in Brisbane and would like to know how to exploit your investment in SQL Server then why not take advantage of our free lunch time presentations during March. During March WARDY IT Solutions is offering a limited number of free lunchtime seminars onsite in your workplace. Not only will we provide a free catered lunch for your team, we will also provide a free informative 90 minute presentation on some of the new features in SQL Server 2008. To register your interest in a free lunchtime session at your office email contact@wardyit.com.

WARDY IT Solutions will be launching several new initiatives over the next month including SQL Server Insights, so make sure keep your eye out for next month’s newsletter.

PS - Don't forget that Tech Summerfest is running in Brisbane and Hobart this month.

Happy Reading

Peter Ward

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Tech Summerfest

Based on the outstanding success of the Tech Summerfest events last year, WARDY IT Solutions will be extending the SQL Server offering in the Brisbane and Perth Tech Summerfest event to five days. The SQL Server training on offer will include the much anticipated courses Microsoft SQL Server Business Intelligence Launchpad and Integrating SQL Server Business Intelligence with MOSS. For more details and to register for the limited places on these courses refer to here.

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March SQL Server User Groups

At the March QLD SQL Server User Group, David Lean from Microsoft Australia will be presenting a session on SQL Server Business Intelligence. For more details on this event refer here.

For details of SQL Server User Group events in other Australian cities refer to the Australian SQL Server User Groups website.

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SQL Server Audit Trail Triggers

Paul Nielsen author of the SQL Server Bible has released a SQL Server (2005, 2008) Code-Gen utility that creates Audit Trail Triggers. The utility is has been made a CodePlex project and can be downloaded from here.

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Free SQL Server Breakfast

In order to further assist organisations leverage their investment in SQL Server, WARDY IT Solutions will be holding another free Breakfast event on Thursday the 7th of May. Make sure you don't miss the May event that will demonstrate how to utilise the Business Intelligence features in SQL Server, as two lucky attendees will win a bottle of Penfolds St Henri Shiraz valued at over $100.00 a bottle. To register for this free Breakfast event email contact@wardyit.com.

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Kalen Delaney in Australia

SQL Server expert Kalen Delaney, the author of Inside SQL Server and the new SQL Server 2008 Internals, is a special guest in Australia for WARDY IT Solutions. Kalen will be presenting two must see one-day seminars in Australia; SQL Server Index Internals in Canberra on June 17 and Brisbane on June 19; SQL Server Storage Formats in Melbourne on June 15 and Sydney on June 22.

Up until the 27th of March each course registration will receive a free copy of Kalen's new book SQL Server 2008 Internals. Places on these seminars are strictly limited so don't delay registering as Kalen sold out last time she was in Australia. You can register by emailing contact@wardyit.com or calling 1300 WARDY IT (927 394).

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SQL Server Consolidation

As data centres continue to expand, organisations are looking for ways to consolidate the number of instances of SQL Server. Microsoft has recently released an article that describes how the SQL Server consolidation activities of Microsoft IT are contributing to effective resource utilization and environmental sustainability. This article can be found here.

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New Features in VSTS Database Edition GDR

In November 2008, the General Distribution Release (GDR) for Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 (VSTS) Database Edition was released. The GDR installs on top of the initial release of VSTS 2008 Database Edition, but it is more than a minor version upgrade. A description of each of the new features introduced in the GDR can be found here.

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sp_indexinfo Index Information

Tibor Karaszi has recently updated the Stored Procedure sp_indexinfo. This stored procedure was developed to identify additional information about the physical attributes for a table, including index information. The latest version of this procedure can be downloaded from here.

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Understanding Logging and Recovery

Some of the most misunderstood parts of SQL Server are its logging and recovery mechanisms. Paul Randall has recently written an article for TechNet magazine to help explain how the transaction log is used by the SQL Server Storage Engine. This article can be found here.

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SQL Server Virtual DBA

Virtual DBA was recently featured at the Microsoft Enterprise Product Roadmap Event. To find out more about our participation in this event refer to here .

Something you may not know is that our Virtual DBA service can be utilised for phone and email support. So, if your organisation just needs someone that they can call on for advice then why not use a Virtual DBA?

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