At the Microsoft Partner Conference, the launch date for SQL Server 2008 was announced as the 27th February, 2008.  Although this date is not the release date, it provides a good indication of when SQL Server 2008 might be released.

If you have not yet started to get up to date with SQL Server 2008 then why not check out the weekly screencasts on AskaSQLGuru.com where I will demonstrate a 'feature a week' up until the release of SQL Server 2008.

Have you ever wanted somewhere that you could post a SQL Server question to and then have someone create a personalised screencast that answers your question? For example: How do I enable a trace flag in SQL Server 2005? Well now you can, using AskaSQLGuru.

SQL Server Down Under Code Camp 07 is less than three months away and is once again being held at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga. So if you missed out on Tech-Ed on the Gold Coast this year then this is the perfect opportunity to see presentations on all things SQL Server and Data Access. At this year's event Kevin Kline will be a special guest presenter.

If you are an MVP or MCT and heading along to Tech-Ed, make sure you register ASAP for the FREE Influencer Party on the WARDY IT website  as places to this event are limited. For more details refer to here.

Don't forget to check out SQL Server Aggregator, your one stop shop for all of the best blogs on SQL Server.

Happy Reading

Peter Ward

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WARDY IT Community Dinner

The WARDY IT Community Dinner is a casual event for IT professionals in South East Queensland. It is a fun way to meet new people and find out how other IT professionals are dealing with the challenges that we face every day. Due to Tech-Ed, the August WARDY IT Dinner will be one week later than usual in order to allow everyone to recover from the Tech-Ed festivities, especially the Influencers Party.

The August WARDY IT Community Dinner is being held at the James Street Bistro on Monday the 20th of August. Add this event to your Outlook Calendar.

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August SQL Server User Groups

At the August QLD SQL Server User Group, Mark Morton will be presenting a session on Analysis Services 101. Add this event to your Outlook Calendar.

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

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RSS Reporter 2.0

xSQL Software, who is the company behind the popular data comparison tool xSQL Data Compare, have recently released version 2.0 of RSS Reporter. RSS Reporter is a unique tool for monitoring SQL Server instances as it allows RSS feeds to be generated to report on SQL Server job status, ad-hoc queries, database size and space usage. For more details regarding this tool refer to here.

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Script Repository

The following TechNet site provides sample scripts for managing various tasks with SQL Server 2005. These scripts range from managing and monitoring input and output in SQL Server to the SQL Server buffer cache. A complete list of the scripts that are available can be found here.

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Data Dude Service Release 1

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals (aka Data Dude) Service Release 1 is now available for download. A full list of the issues addressed and the new features in this release can be found here. The Service Release can be downloaded from here.

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Backup Compression and Encryption

Hyperbac for SQL Server is a class leading backup Compression and Encryption solution for SQL Server. If your organisation is struggling with the ever increasing duration and size when performing SQL Server backups then Hyperbac is the perfect solution. Not only can Hyperbac reduce the size of you backups, but also the duration for backup and restoration operations. Why not download an evaluation of Hyeprbac today form here and check out the savings on your own databases, we are sure that you will not be disappointed with the results.

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Database Storage Design

The very nature of a database means that it is an I/O intensive application. The physical storage design guide whitepaper has been written to help database administrators configure Microsoft SQL Server 2005 systems for optimal I/O performance and space utilization. Of particular interest is how each of these hardware components measure up with respect to the design criteria. The white paper can be downloaded from here.

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Analysis Services Stored Procedure Project

Data Warehousing Performance Records SQL Server 2005 continues to demonstrate its ability to push the performance envelope. In a recent test, SQL Server 2005 achieved the number 1 price/performance result for the 3TB TPC-H non-clustered benchmark. For more details regarding this performance result refer to here.

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SQL Internals Viewer

SQL Internals Viewer is a new tool that has been developed by Danny Gould to graphically display database storage internals such as allocation information and actual page contents. This tool allows you to 'pop the hood' and see how data is physically allocated, organised and stored. A Beta version of this tool can be downloaded from here.

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SQL Down Under Mailing List

Despite the popularity of the SQL Down Under Mailing List there still seems to be a large number of people who are not aware of this fantastic resource. The mailing list provides an opportunity to post questions to other SQL Server professionals and then receive a timely response. The advantage of this Mailing List versus a lot of other SQL Server forums is that you no longer need to wait for a response due to difference in time zones. If you'd like to join the SQL Down Under mailing list simplly click here.

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