In 2001 we first demonstrated Object Relational Mapping (ORM) technology for .NET – ObjectSpaces . However it has taken 6+ years to get to the point where we have released an ORM. Actually we released two. The release of Visual Studio 2008 in November 2007 gave us our first shipping ORM – LINQ to SQL...

Just started the day with a swift play with my original concept map .

Ok – I will be honest, I forgot it hadn’t actually released (It is tough keeping on top of the staggered releases we have at the moment!) This is a shameful cut and paste from http://blogs.msdn.com/sync/archive/2008/08/06/top-new-features-in-sync-services-for-ado-net-v2.aspx Microsoft Sync Framework...

Whoops – I nearly missed this one. I previously mentioned our more friendly approach to PHP back in Nov 2007.The good news is we have made version 1.0 of the PHP driver available for download .  We have also posted the source code for our driver to Microsoft's CodePlex site. Interesting that we...

Which is why I thought I would point you at this great video resource. You may well get to use it before I do (I think I have my hands full learning to code again - but I have started to skim them). These sessions were presented to 20 Countries across the EMEA region and the presenter got some great...

When I first joined Microsoft in 1996 I was lucky enough to work with Compaq to create a SQL Server scalability lab for ISVs. I learnt a lot about both SQL Server and how to run scalability exercises that year. I also learnt that in such exercises you spend a lot of time waiting for long jobs to finish...

Back in November I blogged about a training offer my US colleagues had struck with Total Training. Our good friends at InnerWorkings contacted me to share some more good news - 10% off their training courses until end of Jan. A couple of my colleagues have tried the InnerWorkings courses and spoke very...

When I started working with UK developers many years back, one of my focus areas was ASP vs PHP. 10 years on from those days and both technologies are very successful with huge fans of each technology (ASP becoming the much more powerful ASP.NET). But on IIS, the favourite is by far ASP.NET. On Unix...

My colleagues in the US have struck up a deal with Total Training where we can offer a discount of 25% off a year’s training subscription on MS developer products. The series range from 4 hours to 8 hours and are project oriented - they cover SQL Server development to ASP.NET to Expression Blend...

A month or so back I was lucky enough to find myself in a SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence lab with Andrew Wiles of IT Workplace ( http://www.it-workplace.com ). Andrew was working on their new MDX control which they have now released as a product and also represents the basis of two additional...

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week we are working with a number of UK ISVs around the broad topic of BI - spanning Integration Services to Data Mining. Most of the ISVs have been using their own machines but a couple have been using a MS internal VPC - with the challenge that they wouldn't be able to...

Curious about what will be in Katmai? Then check out the two page overview .

When looking at architecting for on-demand, the subject of single tenancy vs multi tenancy always comes up. When looking at multi tenancy, the subject of row level security often follows. Why? Well - multi tenancy at its extreme means all the tenants data co-exist in a single schema - mingling data from...

This scenario is simple and relatively frequent. A solution that is normally deployed into a single site with a single central database, now needs to be accessed from many sites in many geographies over some kind of WAN or perhaps even public Internet. In each geography (e.g. UK, Hong Kong) there is...

A colleague pointed me at this great article which talks about how the architecture of MySpace evolved as the site became more successful. The site started out initially as a Perl/Apache/MySQL prototype, moved to SQL Server for live (2 Web servers and 1 DB server - which handled up to 500,000 accounts...

Details and download information available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downloads/servicepacks/sp2.mspx . SP2 makes SQL Server 2005 fully compatible with Vista - which is great news for ISVs making use of SQL Server 2005 Express on the desktop. Enjoy. (Oh - and it adds some...

I have been watching carefully traffic around "MSDE doesn't run on Windows Vista". In the main I have been pleased to see constructive comments coming in - but I have also seen a fair share of comments along the lines of "This proves it - Microsoft is evil", "I am right, MS is always wrong", "Doesn...

In my previous post I explained that MSDE would not be supported on Windows Vista . I have answered a number of questions inline - but I wanted to move the dicussion on from "why?!" to "how do we do that?". When I owned the UK efforts on early adoption of SQL Server 2005 for ISVs we overall had a...

[Updated 22nd July to expand on MSDE on Vista] MSDE is the free lightweight version of SQL Server 2000 which many ISV use as part of their overall architecture - typically for roaming users or "edge" data synch. Its limitations are that it is purely a database engine with no management tools, it has...

Last week I was presenting at Devweek on Analysis Services. As part of that I created a cube which I reported against using: - The browser in AS - A report generated in Report Designer - An Excel sheet using PivotTables - A web page saved from Excel using Office Web Components - and finally, a report...

I delivered a session to a full house on Tuesday which included a small demo on Service Broker. A big thanks to all who showed. I hope to see some of you again on Thursday in my intro to BI session. I promised to post the code - enjoy. CREATE DATABASE TestSB go USE TestSB go ALTER DATABASE...

My group is delivering in March our first 2 day conference just for Architects near Newport (thats just off the M4 a touch west of London :-)). The agenda is looking great with six tracks and some great speakers including Ivar Jacobson (errr.... and yep, I seem to be doing a couple of sessions as well...

Recently I have been asked the same question by technical folks I bump into in my travels - "What should I do to start to look at SQL Server 2005". The places I tend to send them to are: Overview of What is New - take a few minutes to get a feel for what is new in SQL Server 2005 http://www.microsoft...

This week we are running SQL Server 2005 Application Compatibility Labs in the UK for our ISV partners. An opportunity for an ISV to work with subject matter experts to ensure their solution which is today using SQL Server 2000 will work without issue on SQL Server 2005. I imagine many of you are now...

For the last two years I have been working with UK ISV early adopters of SQL Server 2005 - a great product and a very fun two years. However come January 2006 my focus pretty much switches entirely to development for Windows Vista/WinFX and then later in the year I will also pick up Office 12 development...