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

We are extremely proud that our Virtual DBA service was nominated in the QLD ICT Awards for Service Delivery and Training.  Of the thousands of IT companies in Queensland, we were one of four finalists in this year's award. The Service Delivery and Training Award recognises excellence and/or innovation in the provision of ICT services.

Virtual DBA is a cost effective solution to meet the day-to-day challenges of availability, performance and administration of Microsoft SQL Server. To find out more about how your organisation can benefit from this award winning service why not contact us today on 1300 927 394.

This month WARDY IT Solutions has also been featured in the 2009 year book for Business Acumen Queensland as a Microsoft SQL Server partner of choice. Business Acumen is Queensland's largest circulating business magazine. If you would like a free copy of this Yearbook, email contat@wardyit.com as we would be delighted to mail you a free copy.

We had an overwhelming response to our free brownbag offer last month, so we have decided to extend this free lunch and training offer - 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 April and May. 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.

Happy Reading

Peter Ward

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April SQL Server User Groups

At the April QLD SQL Server User Group, Greg Low will be presenting a session on Full-Text Indexing. 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.

For details of the Wellington SQL Server User Group in New Zealand refer to here.

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Tech Summerfest Perth

There is still time to see some of Australia’s leading trainers in Perth at the end of April. The SQL Server training on offer includes the much anticipated course: Microsoft SQL Server Business Intelligence Launchpad. Also on offer is SharePoint and Visual Studio Team System training. For more details and to register for the limited places on these courses refer to here.

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ClearTrace

Bill Graziano has released a new version of ClearTrace for SQL Server 2008. ClearTrace imports SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 trace and profiler files into SQL Server and displays summary performance information. It is designed to provide the same performance summary as Read80Trace but in a graphical environment. To download this free utility refer to here.

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SQL Server Data Services

One of the big announcements at the PDC conference last year was the launch of SQL Server in the cloud known as SQL Server Data Services (SSDS). The feedback was that the release lacked direct relational database capabilities such as SQL queries, relational schema and stored procedures. It appears that this feedback has been heard and there are plans to accelerate the availability of relational features in SSDS. For more details refer to 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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Price/Performance Benchmark

Unisys and their latest enterprise server, the ES7000 Model 7600R has set a new record for price/performance in the Transaction Processing Council’s (TPC) TPC-H benchmark test running on Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008. The benchmarks achieved were a performance of 80,172.7 QphH@10,000GB and price/performance of $18.95 per QphH@10,000GB. For more details refer to here.

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Data Warehousing Leader

Forrester Research has named Microsoft a leader in The Forrester Wave report: Enterprise Data Warehousing Platforms, Q1 2009 (February 2009). Forrester noted that “Microsoft’s substantial presence in the DBMS, OLAP, portal, spreadsheet, collaboration, and browser markets provide a strong competitive advantage”. To read the full Forrester Research report refer to here.

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Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide

Microsoft has recently released its first Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for SQL Server 2008. This guide discusses the planning and design considerations for SQL Server 2008 infrastructure. This guidance helps identify which SQL server roles are needed and provides insight to server placement and fault tolerance configurations. This guide can be downloaded from here.

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Assessment and Planning Toolkit

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit is an inventory, assessment and reporting tool that can be used to simplify the migration and planning process for upgrading to SQL Server 2008. For more details on this tool refer to here.

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Kalen Delaney in Australia - Data Change

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 August 17 and Brisbane on August 19; SQL Server Storage Formats in Melbourne on August 15 and Sydney on August 22.

Due to the change in course dates the early bird offer to receive a free copy of Kalen's new book SQL Server 2008 Internals has been extended until the 30th of April 2009. 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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