Michael Rys : Community and Events

Update on SQL PASS 2007 Presentations

mrys — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:34:00 GMT

I am giving 3 presentations at SQL PASS 2007 in Denver:

Wednesday, September 19th, 9:45am to 11am, room 709:
DBA-317-M The Next Release of Microsoft SQL Server: Beyond Relational
(co-presenting with Kevin Farlee)
Main focus will be the new features in the areas of unstructured and semistructured data management in SQL Server 2008.

Wednesday, September 19th, 1:30pm to 2:45pm, room 709:
AD-407-M Deep Dive into XQuery and XML in Microsoft SQL Server: Common Problems & Best Practice Solutions
This is the same presentation I gave at TechEd 2007, a bit shortened to fit into the timeslot. Focus is on SQL Server 2005 XQuery and XML optimizations, however they also will apply to SQL Server 2008.

Thursday, September 20th, 1:30pm to 2:45pm, room 709:
AD-312-M Building Spatial Application with Microsoft SQL Server
(co-presenting with Isaac Kunen)
This will be an updated presentation of the chalktalk that I gave at TechEd 2007. Main focus is that the demo runs now on the bits that will be shipping :).

We merged the Friday 4pm presentation on managing unstructured and semistructured data (AD-313-M) with the presentation on "Beyond Relational" that Kevin and I will give on Wednesday. Primarily because the two presentations had a large overlap and neither Shan nor Srini were able to attend.

SQL Server 2008 June CTP has been annouced at TechEd 2007

mrys — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:31:00 GMT

At today's TechEd 2007 in Orlando, we have annouced SQL Server 2008's, formerly known as Katmai, first community tech preview (CTP). Unlike SQL Server 2005, where we took over 5 years, SQL Server 2008 will be delivered in less than 3! See here for the official scoop and register here!

What does this bring for XML Support and other interesting programmability support, you may ask. Well, we are doing a bit of XML (not quiet as much as you may would have liked, but we need to also invest in other areas ;-) ), added a new MERGE statement, finally added some more usable date and time datatypes, work on adding support for spatial datatypes and indexing and a slew of other interesting, cool features.

I personally have been working on XML (obviously) and spatial indexing, besides being involved in one way or another with many of the programmability features, and - yes, that's the most important change for the product ;-) - the change of @@version from 9.0 to 10.0 :-).

I am at TechEd as well and will give the following breakout and chalk-talk presentations on XML and Spatial:

Wednesday, June 6 10:15 AM - 11:30 AM, Blue Theater 12:
DAT11-TLC - XML Q&A
Speaker(s): Peter DeBetta, Michael Rys
Two experts, one place to get your questions on XML in SQL Server answered. Interested in what's new in SQL Server 2008 ("Katmai"), or the new FOR XML PATH? Want to know when to use XML? How to index it? Need to know how to write an XQuery? Come to this session, and Michael and Peter will see that you get an answer.

Thursday, June 7 9:45 AM - 11:00 AM, Blue Theater 12:
DAT17-TLC - Spatial Support in Microsoft SQL Server
Speaker(s): Michael Rys, Michael Wang
The next version of SQL Server will include provide support for spatial data. This chalk talk presents the new spatial datatypes and indexing mechanisms so you can fully take advantage of the new capabilities that are being offered.

Friday, June 8 1:00 PM - 2:15 PM, S210 E:
DAT422 - Deep Dive into XQuery and XML in Microsoft SQL Server: Common Problems and Best Practice Solutions
Speaker(s): Michael Rys
This presentation provides a deep dive into the XML, XQuery, and XML indexing support in SQL Server 2005. It uses example scenarios that customers have come across when using XML and XQuery to show how to use optimize XQuery expressions, and provides the best practices on how to address the encountered issues.

Of additional interest should be the following presentations:

Today, Monday, June 4 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM, S320 A:
DAT201 - The Next Release of Microsoft SQL Server: Overview
Speaker(s): David Campbell
This session provides an overview of the next release of SQL Server that is currently under development. We cover the core value-proposition, major themes and scenarios, and some specific improvements. We also cover the new development processes being used to build this release, the release timeline and the disclosure calendar.

Tuesday, June 5 2:45 PM - 4:00 PM, N320 E:
DAT202 - The Next Release of Microsoft SQL Server: Beyond Relational
Speaker(s): Shishir Mehrotra
As the data your applications work with changes from “words and numbers” to “sights and sounds”, we are evolving our data platform to go beyond relational data, beyond OLAP, to truly support all of the digital data types of the future. We will strive to deliver the best platform for integrated storage, and advanced applications such as spatial data, while also making it dramatically easier for you to build data-driven applications, without needing to invest significant resources in bridging the gap between data and programming language data structures. Come learn about the new enhancements in the next release of SQL Server that will help you manage all types of data.

Tuesday, June 5 4:30 PM - 5:45 PM, S210 E:
DAT312 - XML in Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Speaker(s): Peter DeBetta
XML is now a native type in SQL Server 2005. This session explores this new type, XML methods, new features for shredding and composing XML, and provides an introduction to XQuery, XPath, and some preferred practices for implementing XML, and other XML-related topics.

Wednesday, June 6 3:45 PM - 5:00 PM, Blue Theater 12:
DAT18-TLC - Overview of New T-SQL Programmability Features in the Next Release of Microsoft SQL Server
Speaker(s): Michael Wang
This session offers a high level overview of all new T-SQL programmability features introduced in next release of SQL Server in terms of SQL type system, DDL, server procedure programming, supportability, and globalization.
Friday, June 8 10:45 AM - 12:00 PM, Blue Theater 12:
DAT06-TLC - New T-SQL System Types in Microsoft SQL Server Codename "Katmai"
Speaker(s): Michael Wang
This session focuses on all new T-SQL system data types introduced in next release of SQL Server.

I hope to see you there or at the TLC booth of SQL Server.

Now that we can publicly talk about "Katmai", I will be blogging more about what's new and be available to take your feedback.

Watch out Europe - Here I come...

mrys — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 12:26:00 GMT

Tomorrow I will be on my way to Europe for the SQL Server Launch Events in Zurich and Lausanne (Switzerland) and Athens (Greece). In Switzerland I will be presenting a specially made presentation on "What's new in SQL Server 2005" that will be more technical than the general launch presentation that I am giving in Athens.

In addition, I will be visiting family, speak at the .Net User Group in Kuesnacht on XQuery and XML in SQL Server 2005, and will give two presentations on SQL Server in general and XML in particular at the Swedish SQL Server User group in Stockholm on December 8.

If you are around, feel free to stop by and say hi.

SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 Launches

mrys — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 21:43:00 GMT

Today is the big launch. Steve B. is giving the launch keynote in San Francisco. I am currently sitting in a meeting room at a competitor's place where I am at for a W3C XQuery meeting watching the live webcast during our lunch break :-). I already provided a list of many (but not all) of the new and improved features of SQL Server 2005. Today's launch has some additional cool tidbits:

We broken through the 10$/transaction cost on the TPC-H 100GB benchmark and are also on top in terms of performance.
We have achieved the best price/transaction on the TPC-H 1TB benchmark.
We have the lowest cost per transaction for TPC-C overall at 99cents per transactions.
We have achieved 93'000 certified concurrent users in the SAP benchmark (that is an order of magnitude bigger than the largest SAP installations today! And more than 3 times better than on SQL Server 2000 and the earlier hardware...). Even I was surprised to see how many new SAP installations are going with SQL Server now.

On the XML side, we have no benchmarks yet (we should probably design some). But we have several both internal and external customers that built and deployed applications with SQL Server 2005's XML features. One of our internal sites replaced a 4000 line FOR XML EXPLICIT query with a 300 line FOR XML PATH query. Several of the early adopters of SQL Server 2005 already make use of the new XML datatype for storing documents. Some have documents that conform to their respective industry standard schemas. Others use XML and XQuery to process data that quickly changes its shape or is provided by their customers. Since I have not asked for their permission to be named on my blog, I probably better don't give out their names. I will see, if we can show-case one or two over the next couple of months if there is interest. In any case, such real world customer scenarios are in the end much more important than artificial benchmarks. And your feedback on performance and functionality will help us give you an even better experience in future releases.

Some other noteworthy SQL Server 2005 tidbits from the launch:

The SQL Server 2005 Express Edition has a management tool! It is currently a CTP release, but mainly to be able to give it a beta cycle. It is available for download from the MSDN site for free (as are VS 2005 Express and SQL Server Express).
About 50 hosting services will provide support for VS 2005 and SQL Server 2005 starting today. Maybe I should find some spare time to build something myself :-).

As to my launch involvement: I will be speaking at the two Swiss launch events later this month and I will also give the launch keynote in Athens, Greece on December 6th. On the way back I got invited to speak at and meet with the Swedish SQL Server user group in Stockholm. If you hang out in any of these areas, I am looking forward to meet you!

Welcome Jinghao Liu to the Blogosphere

mrys — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 23:33:00 GMT

It is my pleasure to introduce you all to Jinghao's weblog. He is our test lead and so far seems to cover the SQL Server 2005 XML support in Chinese :-).

Please go and take a look and say 你好.

First Wars, then Tsunamis, Famines and Hurricanes, and now Earthquakes

mrys — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 05:19:00 GMT

The last year has been tough on many. Many people have been and are getting killed in wars and conflicts (Iraq, Sudan/Dafour), got devastated by Tsunamis, starve due to famines and loose their lively-hood and sometimes even lives due to Hurricanes and Taifuns such as Kathrina and Stan. And now we have the devastating earthquake in the northern Pakistan/Indian/Afghanistan area. My thoughs and wishes are with all the people that have suffered greatly and I hope they will be able to rebuild.

I am glad that Microsoft is very generous in matching donations (and now even time) and that it has a yearly Giving Campaign (hint: it is currently on. MS employees: please consider giving [internal link]). I would recommend that everyone who can give, thinks about giving to at least one of the causes to help the affected and asks his or her employer to provide matching funds. As often, unless you can provide a specifically needed skill, it is often better to donate money.

Here is a list of some organizations that can benefit (feel free to add in the comment section, but please only list no-strings attached, well-regarded organizations):

And please do not forget the long-term issues (refugee issues, long-term famines, forgotten wars, inequality and injustices, the need for environmental protection of our biosphere) over the short term catastrophs.

Thanks.

Presentations at SQLPASS 2005 (Grapevine, Tx)

mrys — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 19:35:00 GMT

As many others in the SQL Server community, I have travelled to Grapevine, Texas to attend and present at this year's SQLPASS 2005 (site seems down while I write this). Since some people were unable to attend or had to leave early, I am now giving an additional presentation on Friday:

Friday, September 30
228: SQL Server 2005: Deep Dive Into XQuery
Michael Rys, Microsoft Corporation
4:00 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.; Texas 1-2

Note that this presentation is basically my PDC 2005 talk, that I will slightly adjust on the fly depending on how many people have attended the other XML and XQuery related talks. The goal is to make it complementary (while providing a bit of overlap for those that have not seen the other presentations).

Please continue here for a quick overview of talks at SQLPASS that should be of interest in people that want to understand the XML support in SQL Server 2005...

The PDC F5 Network Interview is now online

mrys — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 07:51:00 GMT

The friendly folks of the F5 Networks Dev Central team interviewed me at PDC 2005. The 5 minute interview is now online (please accept my apologies for the rambling, but I seem to be recovering from the attendee party :-)).

News from the PDC 2005: XQuery, LINQ and friends, SQL Server 2005 September CTP

mrys — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 01:50:00 GMT

First, we have released the September SQL Server 2005 CTP for download. This is the last CTP before the final release. Yeah!

I will write my customary change blog on what has changed in the XML area a bit later this week.

This year's PDC again is quite exciting. First my presentation on XQuery in SQL Server 2005 (slides) was very well received, second there is some cool stuff being presented - which I knew of before, but seeing it publicly announced and seeing the audience getting excited is still cool and exciting, and third - and most importantly - I am getting some high-quality interactions with our customers. If you are at PDC and want to talk with me, feel free to come by the DAT track lounge in the great hall and ask for me (I will be there Thursday for much of the day).

My code samples that I used during my demo are now up on the COMMNET session download page. I will also place them on my blog for those that want to see the code.

For more details, including my report and my take on the exciting new developments around LINQ and friends please continue here...

PDC 2005 XQuery Deep Dive talk outline

mrys — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 05:54:00 GMT

Here is the high-level outline of the talk I am planning on presenting. Note that there is lots of ground to cover and only limited time. Thus, I am not planning on giving an in-depth XQuery tutorial but rather show several XQuery statements to give a feel for the language and talk about how to use it in the context of SQL Server and how to optimize it by use of XML indices.

Please continue on for the table of content outline...

Channel 9 and Ken North Videos

mrys — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 03:08:00 GMT

I am back from vacation (no shark encounter :-)). I had a good time and have much more photos and dive reports to upload.

While I was gone, Robert Scoble and Channel 9 published the video they took in my messy office before I went on vacation to give you your XML and SQL Server 2005 fix while I was gone :-). We chat about XML, SQL Server, my role as a program manager, security and XML etc. I also include some simple demos.

Also, Ken North published two videos he taped during the town hall meeting during the XML 2004 conference last year.

Enjoy!

Get your scuba gear for PDC 05 and get ready to dive into XQuery

mrys — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 03:07:00 GMT

Get your scuba gear for PDC 05 and get ready to dive into XQuery, because I will be presenting a deep dive into XQuery in SQL Server at PDC.

Here are some PDC links:

If you are interested in XQuery, XML-oriented programming languages and data management, I can also recommend the following two sessions:

The .NET Language Integrated Query Framework: An Overview
Using the .NET Language Integrated Query Framework with Relational Data
Using the .NET Language Integrated Query Framework with XML Data
Future Directions: Data Access and Storage

There are also SQL Server CLR and SQL Service Broker presentations.

As always, please let me know if you have anything you want me to cover during the presentation.

See you in LA!

TechEd 2005 Tidbits

mrys — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 22:35:00 GMT

This posting is aggregating my TechEd 2005 weblog postings. I will update it over the duration of the Event with new links, so if your weblog reader does not mark updated postings as new, either refresh often or subscribe to either my SQLJunkies weblog (RSS), just my TechEd 2005 feed (RSS) or the TechEdBlogger site (RSS).

Here are the postings:

More speaking events: TechEd Europe and SQLPASS 2005

mrys — Wed, 04 May 2005 00:06:00 GMT

Here is an update on two more events where I will be speaking and where I hope to meet some of you:

TechEd 2005 Europe, Amsterdam (The Netherlands), July 5-8, 2005

I will be giving the presentation on Together at Last: Combining XML and Relational Data in SQL Server 2005, probably give a chalkchart talk on some of the T-SQL extensions (assuming the organizers find some space on the schedule) and also give Pablo Castro's 2 ADO.Net TechEd presentations (so time for me to ramp up on all the good stuff the data works team did for ADO.Net v2!). Note that since these will be repeats from the TechEd 2005 US presentations, they will hopefully be slightly improved based on the feedback we will have received.

SQLPASS 2005, Grapevine (Dallas), Texas, September 27-30, 2005

To answer Don's implicit question: I will be attending and presenting. In fact, they invited me to give a Spotlight presentation (what an honor). The presentation will be

S208: Managing unstructured and semistructured data in SQL Server 2005 on 9/28/2005 from 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM

The presentation is an update on my last year's presentation on this topic, so if you have any specific requests, please let me know.

They also have me on the list for the backup presentation (alternate presentation) 1834 - Inside XQuery. And I may also get to deliver a Microsoft presentation (to be determined).

Material for my MSDN WebCast "Making the Most of XQuery with SQL Server 2005"

mrys — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 10:31:00 GMT

You will be able to get the WebCast recording and copies of the slides from the MSDN website (registration required). My apologies for the interruption during the WebCast.

Here are the code snippets I used during my WebCast demo (please use in order and don't forget to follow the links to the estimated query plans):

Database Initialization (Example documents: Customer1.xml, Customer2.xml; Example schema: Customer.xsd)
XQuery and XML-DML expressions
Impact of XML Indexing (Estimated Query Plans)

And as always, the general small print disclaimer:
THIS CODE AND INFORMATION ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.