Reed Me : samples

If you absolutely must call a WCF service from inside your database, here’s how you do it...

reedme — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:02:09 GMT

When I was an operations DBA, this would probably fall into the category of “just because you can do something, doesn’t mean that you should”:

Call a WCF Service from SQLCLR (by Niels Berglund)

However, there are probably a couple of good scenarios where I might advocate for doing just this in future projects, especially if the customers have experienced DBAs and don’t have an existing middle tier admin group. (They exist. I consulted for a couple.)

I’m encouraging Niels to formalize this a bit and put in CodePlex or Code Gallery.

Cool stuff!

Thanks, Brian! A couple minor nits to pick, though.

reedme — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:12:01 GMT

Brian, I'm glad y'all are doing videos like this for SQL School!! I realize that you probably recorded this last year; however, the details (specifically of download file selection on CodePlex) in that video about AdventureWorks for SQL Server 2008 have been out of date since October 2008. ;-) We shipped Samples Refresh 1 on Halloween which greatly simplified the entire experience.

Samples Refresh 2 will ship in the second quarter of this calendar, and will consist primarily of bug fixes.

Also, a minor clarification, most of the Books Online examples for SQL Server 2008 still use the original AdventureWorks databases (which is why we ship both versions together for Katmai). For the most part, only the BOL topics which need new features like FILESTREAM, geography, HierarchyID, etc, were updated to use the AdventureWorks2008 family of databases.

Installing Sample 2008 Databases - SQL School Videos - SQL Server Central

We're definitely working to streamline the AdventureWorksKilimanjaro experience, and we're planning to only ship one year-model family of databases for SQL Server Kilimanjaro.

SQL RSS code review coming up.

reedme — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:37:36 GMT

If you haven’t checked out this project, give it a look. We’re having an MVP code review in about a week.

Forum discussion

CodePlex project

Please file your bugs and suggestions as work items on CodePlex.

As always, if you’re interested in being a contributor to this project, let us know!

Samples forum consolidation.

reedme — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:12:37 GMT

Until today, all of the various SQL Server community and samples projects each had their own discussion board on CodePlex. In the interests of simplification that our customers have asked for in our samples experience, we’re consolidating all of those disparate discussion locations to one MSDN forum on the new forum platform.

Microsoft SQL Server Community & Samples Forum

Today and tomorrow, we’ll be closing up the discussion boards on CodePlex and linking those projects to the new forum.

If you’ve got specific questions about community and samples projects or are looking for people or projects to participate with, now you’ve got one place to do just that!

Sybase loves AdventureWorks2008?

reedme — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:24:38 GMT

A SQL Ranger friend of mine in the UK gave me the heads up to this yesterday. (Thanks, Ben!!) Apparently, back in December 2008, Sybase ported some of our samples to SQL Anywhere. Needless to say, I’ve got mixed feelings about Sybase porting AdventureWorks to their platform. Sort of like a cherry-cheese Danish: it’s a pastry and pastries are supposed to taste good, right? But cherries and cheese? Ick. (I’m on a severely calorically restricted diet; sorry for the digression.)

As SQL Server 2008 and SQL Anywhere 11 are two very different database solutions, the ‘AdventureWorks2008’ database will appear slightly different, and offer a few functional differences. These incongruities are the result of different feature sets, which are intrinsic to each database’s design. AdventureWorks2008 Sample Database for SQL Anywhere Download: Mobile Enterprise, Database Management iAnywhere - Sybase Inc

We license AdventureWorks under the Ms-PL, so anybody’s welcome to do whatever they want with our code. It’s out there for learning purposes. Sybase seems to have learned that SQL Anywhere 11 doesn’t do a lot of the really cool things that SQL Server 2008 does! They only ported the OLTP database – I wonder why they ignored DW and LT??

The Sybase port of AdventureWorks2008 drops the following features:

They dropped all the spatial columns because SQL Anywhere doesn’t have a geography type.
They dropped Try/Catch error handling in all stored procedures, since they can’t do that.
They dropped DDL triggers, because SQL Anywhere doesn’t have them.
They dropped all stored procedures with recursive queries, because they don’t support them.
They dropped all Full Text indexes and queries, since SQL Anywhere doesn’t do that, either, I guess.
They dropped or modified all tables with HierarchyID columns, because they don’t have that data type.
They dropped all the tables with XML data, or omitted the XML columns, because they don’t support the same XML query lingo and have no XML index support.
They dropped all the indexed views, because SQL Anywhere doesn’t do that,either.
They dropped all the views that use PIVOT, because (guess what?) they don’t have that keyword.
They had to modify a bunch of stored procedures because they don’t support EXECUTE AS CALLER. (Did I mention that they had to drop all the Try/Catch support, too?)
They had to emasculate most of the trigger functionality (not counting the DDL triggers they had to drop outright), because they don’t support those features. Such as dropping Try/Catch support to throw exceptions instead of logging and always updating certain columns (even when not appropriate for the business rules):

HumanResources.dEmployee
Person.iuPerson
Production.iWorker
Production.uWorkOrder
Purchasing.iPurchaseOrderDetail
Purchasing.uPurchaseOrderHeader
Purchasing.uPurchaseOrderDetail
Purchasing.uPurchaseOrderHeader
Purchasing.dVendor
Sales.iduSalesOrderDetail
Sales.uSalesOrderHeader

They had to truncate all the binary image columns to 32,767 bytes (which will break all the ones bigger than that) because SQL Anywhere doesn’t have a large binary type apparently. Whoops!

Anyway, I don’t have a SQL Anywhere installation to try it out on, but that list from their own website reads (to me) like a list of reasons to use SQL Server 2008 instead. It looks like they ported our .NET samples for AdventureWorks2008, too, so I have to wonder if they’re equally limited as the AdventureWorks2008 port?

I do hope that SQL Anywhere customers do get some benefit out of using the port of our sample OLTP database (or switch to SQL Server 2008 where they can get the full functionality of AdventureWorks2008). I’d also like to invite Oracle and DB2 to port AdventureWorks2008 to their platforms so that the world can see how much of our feature set they don’t support, either. Heh.

Now with more open and soon with more source!

reedme — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:24:56 GMT

Over the holidays, the SQL Server community & samples test team in China has been migrating all of our open product samples bugs out of our internal VSTS bug tracking database and into the VSTS database which backs the CodePlex TFS system. There are some non-bug work items which will be migrated (mostly related to the AdventureWorksKilimanjaro improvement) after the 1st of the year.

If you want to see new stuff from the community & samples team (create a work item on CodePlex!) or increase the likelihood that we’ll fix your pet bug with one of the samples, vote on the one(s) that you want fixed most and help us prioritize.

CodePlex Project Work Items for SQL Server Product Samples

Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Analysis Services

Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Data Programming

Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database

Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: End to End

Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Engine

Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Integration Services

Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Replication

Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Reporting Services

Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Scripts

Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Service Broker

Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: XML

In other news, we will be migrating all of the product samples discussion forums to the new MSDN forums platform in January in a single consolidated place to chat about SQL Server community and samples projects.

I’ll be in use-it-or-lose vacation territory this afternoon, hence you may or may not hear from me again until after New Year’s. If not, I wish y’all a merry New Year!!

AdventureWorks2010, anyone?

reedme — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:10:31 GMT

We’re doing planning work for SQL Server Kilimanjaro and the next SQL Server wave that follows it, which means product samples, community projects and AdventureWorks. Some people have suggested doing away with AdventureWorks in favor of something new, but I don’t see that happening... unless there is an enormous groundswell from the community on the subject. You decide.

As it is, about the only thing that we’ve “settled on” so far is that the schema will be based on AdventureWorks2008 and the working name of the database will be AdventureWorks2010. [Maybe it shows my age, but 2010 still feels like it’s a long way off… not just a short year and couple months.] Yeah, we’re decoupling a bit from the SQL Server release vehicle(s) so that we can rev AdventureWorks as needed instead of only at specific release milestones.

Anyway, we’re committed to being more open about our plans for AdventureWorks and our other open source projects. So come see what we’re working on, vote on the work items that are there, propose new work items if there’s something else that you’d like to see us do with the samples databases.

AdventureWorks Issue Tracker

Over the coming weeks, we’re planning to move all of our day2day source control management for all SQL Server product samples and community projects to CodePlex, so look for more activity and more regular activity than you’ve seen in the past.

Simplifying AdventureWorks setup

reedme — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:28:11 GMT

FYI, we’re actively working on improving the setup experience for the SQL Server 2008 sample databases (aka AdventureWorks). We’ve heard your feedback and we’re acting on it. Here are some of the salient points you’ll see for the Halloween update (Samples Refresh 1):

Fewer selections to make to choose the appropriate download.
All the AdventureWorks databases (both versions) in one small package.
Streamlined automatic deployment of databases to your local instance.

Here’s a visual comparison of what the release page may look like the next time you download AdventureWorks:

Some potential future improvements that we’re considering for the next refresh of SQL Server 2008 samples:

Individual selection of the databases to install.
Automated deployment of Analysis Services cubes.
A ClickOnce SQL Server Community Samples browser application.

As always, we value your feedback and want to hear it, good and bad. After all, we’re building these things for you! If they’re not what you want/need, tell us what you do want/need!! That’s why we’re in the process of moving all of our community and samples work items out into the open on CodePlex. Create one and tell us what you want to see us working on!

More AdventureWorks in the blogosphere...

reedme — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:33:16 GMT

Thanks for the plug, Stuart!

Installing the AdventureWorks Sample Databases (Stuart Cox’s Tech Punch)

We’re working on simplifying the setup experience for AdventureWorks in time for Halloween, but we appreciate the assist!

SQL Server Samples in the News and Print

reedme — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:15:35 GMT

The humorous old adage (which my friends in PR righteously deplore) is that "There's no such thing as bad press, as long as they spell your name right."

SQL Server 2008: First Impressions

Desperately Seeking Samples

SQL Server 2008 Transact-SQL Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (Recipes: a Problem-Solution Approach)

You be the judge.

Which reminds me to remind you: If you’ve got good things to say about SQL Server Samples™ and/or AdventureWorks, I'm your guy and I want to hear from you!! If you've got bi-, er, complaints about them, then... well, I'm your guy, too, and believe it or not, I want to hear that not so shiny stuff, too.

We will be hosting MVPs and other SQL PASS attendees for breakfast specifically to get YOUR input about SQL Server community and samples projects. If you're going to be attending SQL PASS this year (they've even got a shiny new website!), let me know so that I can make sure that you get an invite to the samples breakfast (I'm buyin').

<insert_jedi_mind_trick>You will attend SQL PASS this year.</insert_jedi_mind_trick>

If that didn't work and you're still not going to be attending SQL PASS, please let us know what you want to see new or changed from We the Community (yes, that includes you, because I'm not doin' it all alone). The best way to do that is to create a work item here for samples generally or here for AdventureWorks and other sample databases.

p.s. Thanks, William, Michelle and Joseph!!

p.p.s. Lovin' the new Windows Live Writer Beta. Of course, this is just my first post with it. The new preview is awesome. I just wish I could publish from OneNote through Live Writer in some for or fashion other than cut-n-paste… *hint* (Yes, I've tried the blog-from-Word option. It no formattie correctlie when posting to Community Server.) Of course, I can't find the Format Painter in OneNote and Live Writer draft posts are difficult to sync in between different workstations, so… Win some, lose some. I wish I could win more. *pout*

SQL Server 2008 RTM samples are up on CodePlex now.

reedme — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:13:29 GMT

A little snafu delayed things, but they're all signed, sealed and delivered now. I only had to skip a little of the launch party to get them out the door...

Microsoft SQL Server Community & Samples - Release: SQL Server 2008 RTM

Enjoy!

Cool (Free, Open) Tools: SQL RSS

reedme — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:15:40 GMT

Even if nobody has asked you for an RSS feed of data in one or more of your databases, it won't be long before they do! When they do, you can grab this configurable, easy to use data-driven RSS feed widget.

A couple ideas for using this application:

Business intelligence updates delivered to Microsoft Outlook 2007 for management.
Proactive application event logs to your Vista Sidebar news gadget FTW!

I'm sure you can think of more... Check it out!

SQL RSS on CodePlex.com (Microsoft SQL Server Community & Samples)

It's also a great way to get a solid introduction to these technologies:

Change Data Tracking (CDT) feature of SQL Server 2008
SQL Server Reporting Services
The syndication feed feature of WCF
LINQ to XML
ADO.NET

Join us!
This project is a bit different than other SQL Server-sponsored projects. We want YOU to contribute to it. We are actively seeking other people (i.e. not on my team) to enhance and grow this project. Whether you work for Microsoft or not, let us know if you'd like to help!

SQL Server 2008 RC0 Samples are up!

reedme — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:11:39 GMT

I'm still recovering from three weeks OOF, but my teammates in Redmond and Beijing have done a great job getting the next preview of SQL Server 2008 samples ready for you.

The main CodePlex portal for SQL Server Samples has links to all the individual projects. But if you want to just grab the whole kit-and-caboodle at once (~200MB including sample databases), they're all there to download.

Geocoding semi-imaginary data points

reedme — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:49:00 GMT

As improbable (and humorous) as it may seem, this is an exercise that I recently engaged in: geocoding semi-imaginary data points.

For those of you who are familiar with the original AdventureWorks database, you'll remember that there are a large number of fictitious addresses mixed into the database. For the updated schema AdventureWorks2008, we added a GEOGRAPHY column to contain the lat/long for each address to show off one of the new spatial types... which is the point at which it landed on my desk. Thump. Heh.

Although I fully intended to construct Service Broker-enabled sample built on triggers and CLR stored procedures that leverage the MapPoint web service to keep the Person.Address.SpatialLocation evergreen, I ran out of runway when CTP6 got it into its purty little head to go early... Doh! I still plan to go back and finish the skeleton solution that I started, but y'all know what happens when timelines get compressed...

Fortunately, the Virtual Earth and MapPoint SDK came to my rescue. Formatting the files for uploading isn't clearly documented in the SDK, IMO, but if I can muddle through and figure it out, I'm sure that you can, too! Heh. Using the web-based Virtual Earth developer tools (which you can sign up for to use for free), I extracted all of the AdventureWorks2008 addresses to a flat file (which was much easier in the new, more normalized model that put all of the addresses in one table) and uploaded it to MapPoint for geocoding. Which is when the big surprise arrived!

MapPoint reported that it had matched more than 2% of our known imaginary addresses AT THE ADDRESS LEVEL... Whoops! That shouldn't happen. My spidey sense was tingling because I already spend waaay too much time talking to legal as it is. In the immortal words of Scooby Doo, "Ruh-roh!"

I was hoping for matching at the city or postal code level at best. Fortunately, upon further examination, they all seemed to be false positives on street names with very similar spellings or other similar "close but not quite" matches. Relieved that I didn't have a legal issue on my hands, I turned to the "lazy database developers tool" (a.k.a. Microsoft Office Excel 2007) to crack open the 20k rows of flat file that I needed to produce a raft of update statements similar to:

UPDATE Person.Address SET SpatialLocation = geography::Point(42.0231369319282, -118.535265856701, 4326) WHERE AddressID = 1;

Because the vast majority of my data was geocoded only to the city or postal code, it wouldn't look very "purty" (a technical term) on a map to have all the points in one big dollop for each city or postal code, so a small amount of randomness was in order. (In retrospect, 15% might be a bit too much potential randomness.) Add a formula to my table, Fill|Down and Excel 2007 did it's little magic for all 19,614 rows:

="UPDATE Person.Address SET SpatialLocation = geography::Point(" & G2+(RANDBETWEEN(-15,15)/100)*G2 & ", " & I2+(RANDBETWEEN(-15,15)/100)*I2 & ", 4326) WHERE AddressID = " & A2 & ";"

Where G2 is the original latitude of the city or postal code and I2 is the longitude. (At least as long as the order is lat/long and not long/lat.) And, of course, A2 is the integer identity of the row in Person.Address.

The +/-15% randomness may result (in this iteration) in addresses that fall inside water boundaries or other undesirable locations; however, time constraints limited my options and ability to visually check the alignment. For future releases, time-permitting, we'll consider taking the time to lay them all out with MapPoint and adjusting for a desired level of "purtiness."

I did manage to encounter an interesting CLR error during my testing. After running the same script a few too many times in my Virtual PC environment with an early pre-CTP6 build, I apparently managed to exhaust the RAM available to the CLR (and thereby to the GEOGRAPHY data type):

Msg 10316, Level 16, State 1, Line 11521

The app domain with specified version id (100) was unloaded due to memory pressure and could not be found.

Whoops! With a pre-CTP6 build 10.00.1098.11, bouncing the service didn't help, but restarting the virtual environment allowed me to recover (of course). FWIW, I have not been able to kill the CTP6 build 10.00.1300.13 the same way (yet)... I'll keep trying, though. Heh.

How do I use Feature X in SQL Server?

reedme — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:20:18 GMT

Buck's got a great point about how SQL Server's development themes are managed from the top down:

It isn't a matter of thinking up single features or changes to the product, it's a cohesive direction we all want to go.
Carpe Datum : Why on earth are you working on that?

Reading his blog always make me wish that I could translate the pun in the title of my blog into Latin, too. Heh.

However, when it comes down to actually using SQL Server's new features du jour (see how I get my exotic language points in, too?), it's all about the individual features and changes to the product. Which is where the product samples and community projects come in... We (collectively) have got to take the roadmap and figure out the simplest way to show people how to use individual features and changes to the product in 2008.

Here are of the new features that we're fixin' to show off in the AdventureWorks 2008 family of databases. (Yes, I just moved from Tejas to Redmond, so we're fixin' to. Deal wit' it.)

Support for Entity Framework
Integrated full text indexing support
New data types

New date/time types
ORDPATH
FILESTREAM
GEOGRAPHY

Backup compression

At least that's the current plan. We're working through some changes that we tentatively plan to ship in the CTP6/joint launch timeframe. Among other things, I'd like to figure out how to get transparent data encryption and some others in there, too. BUT some of the self-imposed constraints for the AdventureWorks family of databases are that they have to be easy to deploy... and easy to understand. I've got half a mission statement for the AdventureWorks databases drafted, but those are two of the core principles.

Easy to understand is the driver that prompted Bonnie last year to create the newest member of the AdventureWorks family of databases: AdventureWorks LT. We (before I was part of we) had received feedback from customers that there are some folks who are new to the database universe who struggle with a higher level of normalization that the AdventureWorks OLTP database demonstrates, so AdventureWorks LT was born. It's a subset of the AdventureWorks data in a greatly denormalized format that is easier for instructors to demonstrate simple T-SQL concepts with and easier for new students of database technology to grasp. But I digress... If you yearn for the simplicity of Northwind or pubs, check out AdventureWorks LT and let me know what you think.

If you've got a favorite Feature X that you'd like to see in the AdventureWorks 2008 schemas, now is the time to voice your opinion. Let's hear it!

[Obligatory Disclaimer: Like the Any Key of legend, the name Feature X is a convenient placeholder or wildcard term. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a part of SQL Server called Feature X. As far as you know.]