SQL Server User Education : sql server

Announcing SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP

SQLServerUE — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:10:00 GMT

I know I have been remiss is posting here lately, and I do apologize for that. I will try to do a better job of posting here more frequently. But, that doesn't mean we have not been busy! I'm pleased to announce that SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP has now been released and is available to try out.

The Data Platform Insider blog and What's New document describe new and enhanced features
Books Online in the MSDN Library is the official product documentation
Learn more and download the release from the SQL Server Web site on microsoft.com.

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education

SQL Server 2008 Books Online Documentation Refresh 9 Now Available

SQLServerUE — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:35:00 GMT

I am pleased to announce the availability of Documentation Refresh 9 (DR9) of SQL Server 2008 Books Online in the MSDN and TechNet Library. To see a list of the latest updates, please see the topic "New and Updated Topics in SQL Server 2008 Books Online (29 June 2009)".

As mentioned previously in this blog in the posting "SQL Server 2008 Books Online Release Cadence", updates to the SQL Server 2008 Books Online documentation set will be published montly to the MSDN/TechNet Library in English, and quarterly in the other supported languages.

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education

SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 now released

SQLServerUE — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:58:00 GMT

I'm pleased to announce the release of the first Service Pack of SQL Server 2008 is now available. Service Pack 1 (SP1) focuses on essential updates only, primarily roll-ups of cumulative updates 1 to 3 and fixes to issues reported through the SQL Server community. SP1 eases deployment and management of Service Packs by introducing Slipstream, Service Pack Uninstall, and Report Builder 2.0 Click Once capability.

You can download SQL Server 2008 SP1 from the Microsoft Download Center.

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education

SQL Server 2008 Books Online Release Cadence

SQLServerUE — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 01:31:00 GMT

The January 2009 update to the SQL Server 2008 Books Online has now been published to the MSDN Library, TechNet Library, and the Microsoft Download Center. The lists of new topics and updated topics with significant changes are available at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd408738.aspx.

Although this release has been published to MSDN, TechNet, and the Download Center, the SQL Server documentation team has changed its processes to more quickly deliver documentation updates to the Web, so some updates will be delivered only to the MSDN Library and TechNet Library.

We plan to publish Web updates to the SQL Server 2008 Books Online every 4 to 8 weeks. Depending on the amount of critical content changes, these updates may be English-only. We will deliver translated updates to the different Books Online languages (German, Japanese, Spanish, and so on) only if a Web-only update contains critical content changes, such as important security information or content addressing issues that generate a lot of support calls.

We plan to publish our updates to the Microsoft Download Center and Microsoft Update on a quarterly basis. Each of these quarterly updates will be a rollup of all Web-only releases since the last quarterly rollup. The quarterly updates will be translated to all languages, published to the Web, and published to both the Microsoft Download Center and Microsoft Update.

The general pattern should look like this:

Books Online Update 1 – Web-only, translated if critical content.

Books Online Update 2 – Web-only, translated if critical content, includes all changes from Books Online Update1 .

Books Online Update 3 – Web + Microsoft Download Center + Microsoft Update, translated to all languages, includes all changes from Books Online Updates 1 and 2.

...Repeat

With our new processes, information in the Web-only updates will be available on the Web one or two months earlier than it would have been with our old processes. For SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 we did not publish Books Online updates unless we could also deliver each update to local copies through the Microsoft Download Center and Microsoft Update. In practice, the resources needed to build and test the download files limited us to, at best, quarterly updates.

We are carrying forward our conventions for marking new and updated topics. New topics and topics with significant changes are added to the list of New and Updated Topics. We add a line at the top of the topic saying either New: 23 January 2009 or Updated: 23 January 2009. We also add a change history table entry at the bottom of the topic. Topics with minor changes, such as a correction to a single word, are not marked as updated.

Browse the January 2009 update to SQL Server Books Online in the MSDN Library

Browse the January 2009 update to SQL Server Books Online in the TechNet Library

Download local copy of January 2009 Update to SQL Server 2008 Books Online from the Microsoft Download Center

It will also be available as an Optional download from Microsoft Update soon.

Thanks,

Tai Yee and Alan Brewer

SQL Server User Education

Using SQL Server 2008 Table-Valued Parameters (TVPs) from Access

SQLServerUE — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:27:00 GMT

"Table-valued parameters (TVPs) in SQL Server 2008 provide an easy way to marshal multiple rows of data from a client application to SQL Server without requiring multiple round trips or special server-side logic for processing the data. TVPs come in handy when you want to code explicit transactions inside of stored procedures, performing multiple data operations as a single unit of work. You can encapsulate multiple rows of data in a single parameterized command. The incoming data rows are stored in a table variable that can then be operated on by using Transact-SQL."

To learn more, see the blog posting that one of our documentation Writers, Mary Chipman, has written.

About the Author
Mary Chipman is a programmer-writer for the Data Programmability team at Microsoft. She was recently profiled in Women in Technology for TechEd Online at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/events/teched/cc510243.aspx. You can find the online panel she hosted at TechEd 2008 by going to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/events/teched/cc676818.aspx and searching for: "Are we there yet? Successfully navigating the bumpy road from Access to SQL Server". Mary will also be presenting at TechEd 2009 (http://www.msteched.com) on the topic of working with SQL Server from Access.

SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 and Documentation Released

SQLServerUE — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:51:00 GMT

Hi everybody!

here is a new Christmas present for you all -- the release of SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 (SP3), and supporting documentation, including:

SQL Server 2005 SP3 Download
Updated SQL Server 2005 Feature Pack
Updated SQL Server 2005 Books Online for download on the Microsoft Download Center
Updated SQL Server 2005 Books Online in the MSDN Library and TechNet Library
SQL Server 2005 SP3 Release Notes
SQL Server 2005 SP3 Readme

To see what is new in SP3, see the appropriately-tilted "What's New in SQL Server 2005 SP3" topic in Books Online.

Happy Holidays!

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education

SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Technical Reference Guide Now Available

SQLServerUE — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 02:32:00 GMT

I am pleased to announce the availability of the SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Technical Reference Guide. This 490-page white paper covers the essential phases and steps to upgrade existing instances of SQL Server 2000 and 2005 to SQL Server 2008 by using best practices. These include preparation tasks, upgrade tasks, and post-upgrade tasks. It is intended to be a supplement to SQL Server 2008 Books Online.

In addition to the white paper, a companion list of other Upgrade related resources is also now available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc936623.aspx. This list and the Upgrade Technical Reference guide cross-link to each other.

We hope you find these resources useful in upgrading your earlier versions of SQL Server to SQL Server 2008! Feel free to Comment this blog post with any feedback or suggestions for improvement that you may have.

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education

Announcing New Technology Page Design

SQLServerUE — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:13:00 GMT

The SQL Server Developer Center on MSDN and TechCenter on TechNet contain what are called "navigation pages" because their primary purpose is to navigate you to more information and resources. For example, one path you might take starting from the Developer Center home page is to click Versions under the home tab, then SQL Server 2008.

From this page, you might click one of the technology pages for a technology you were interested in (for example, Database Engine) to get a list of resources and content relating to Database Engine topics.

However, if you had selected Integration Services, you would see the newly updated navigation page design. This design has several great new features, including:

Scoped Search. This may be the most valuable new feature. The Get Help section allows you to enter your Search terms and the results returned to you will be automatically scoped to results that are part of the Integration Services documentation set in the Library.
Get Started. Resources linked from this section were hand-picked by one of our Integration Services Writers as being the "best" learning resources for a beginner.
Recent Releases and Downloads. A fairly self-explanitory section, this will be kept up-to-date with the latest items available.
Community Buzz. Find out what others in the Community are saying about or relating to Integration Services topics.
MVP Corner. This section will showcase an MVP member of the Community each month.
Other items. "Below the fold" you will find links to many other resources including:

More downloads
Technical articles and white papers
Videos
Podcasts and Webcasts
Documentation
Knowledge Base Search
Code Samples
Blog posts
Forums
External Web sites
Books

We on the documentation team are very excited about the new design, and we hope you like it. But even if you don't, or something is missing that you would like to see, please let us know. Our goal is to roll out similarly designed navigation pages for the other technologies, so Reporting Services, Database Engine, and so forth, would all get pages in this design.

To send your feedback on the Integration Services navigation page design, you can do either of the following:

Use the "Rate and Give Feedback" control on the top right of the page. First click one of the stars to give the page a Rating, then a box will open up where you can type your comments and send them in.

-or-
Comment this blog post.

Either way, we'll take the feedback, whether it is positive or negative.

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education

SQL Server 2008 Books Online Now Available

SQLServerUE — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:51:00 GMT

I am very pleased to announce that SQL Server 2008 Books Online is now available for download on the Microsoft Download Center in 11 languages.

The final version of the documentation is now currently being published to the MSDN Library and TechNet Library, and should appear at those locations soon.

To read more about the release of SQL Server 2008, read David Powell's blog post.

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education

Annotating SQL Server Books Online

SQLServerUE — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:40:00 GMT

With Release Candidate (RC0) of SQL Server 2008, we have now enabled the Community Content feature on the SQL Server 2008 Books Online. This is the same feature that has been enabled on the SQL Server 2005 version of the documentation for about a year now.

While not intended as a means to ask questions and get answers (please use the Forums for that), if you want to add additional information, such as a sample, then by all means please do so!

Here is a really good blog posting from an MVP about how he uses the wiki and the value that can be derived from it: http://tfl09.blogspot.com/2008/06/msdn-wiki-1100-edits-later.html.

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education

SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate Now Available!

SQLServerUE — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:22:00 GMT

We're getting very close to the final release of SQL Server 2008, and I am pleased to inform you all that as of today the Release Candidate (RC0) version is now available for download. SQL Server 2008 RC0 is available in the following languages:

Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
English
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Spanish

In addition to the product itself, there is also a Feature Pack which contains many useful tools such as the Upgrade Advisor, and the Books Online containing the latest updates to the documentation.

You may also want to review the Readme and Release Notes files to get started as well.

Entering the home stretch for release -- see you at the finish line!

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education

SQL Server Driver for PHP (May 2008) now released!

SQLServerUE — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:34:00 GMT

Hi everybody!

Just because we're very busy putting the finishing touches on the SQL Server 2008 documentation, doesn't mean that we stop releasing other things too! In fact, we just released the next Community Technology Preview (CTP) release of the SQL Server Driver for PHP. Documentation for this release is included in the package which you can download from the Microsoft Download Center. Or, you can also read the documentation online in the MSDN Library. To find out the latest updates and changes from the February CTP release, be sure to check out the What's New topic.

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education

Tagging SQL Server documentation

SQLServerUE — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:26:00 GMT

If you've ever happened to find a SQL Server documentation topic that you were looking for and wanted to be able to come back to it later, you very likely have created a Favorite or Bookmark to it. But if you do that very frequently, your list of Favorites will end up growing very large and it may become difficult to find specific items. Did you know that you also have the option to Tag the Books Online topics in the MSDN or TechNet Library? For example, if you frequently use Transact-SQL topics in the Books Online, you can tag them with tsql or t-sql or whatever you like. Then you can easily find them later, without having to create lots of separate Favorites to individual topics.

As more people tag topics, and certain tags grow in popularity, they will be shown more prominently in the Tag Cloud. Currently, the Tag Cloud is shown at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/tags-cloud.aspx, and it is for all of MSDN content. MSDN is working on having separate Tag Cloud lists for individual content sets, so in the future there will be a separate Tag Cloud for just the SQL Server documentation. Also, currently only the SQL Server 2005 Books Online is enabled for tagging. The next release of the SQL Server 2008 Books Online will have this functionality enabled as well.

So in the meantime, tag up the SQL Server documentation to get it more prominent in the all-up MSDN Tag Cloud!

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education

New SQL Server 2008 Scoped Search Macro

SQLServerUE — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:21:00 GMT

Awhile back, I wrote about a SQL Server 2005 Scoped Search Macro that uses Windows Live Search to help you narrow your search to just the SQL Server 2005 Books Online documentation and eliminate extranneous results from other sources.

Now, we have created a new scoped Search macro that does the same thing for the SQL Server 2008 Books Online documentation. You can find this new macro at http://search.live.com/macros/sql_server_user_education/sql2008bolsearch/.

As I am sure everybody has heard by now, SQL Server 2008 is the next release of SQL Server, which is due to be released this year. Currently SQL Server 2008 is available as a Community Technology Preview (CTP) release, and the Books Online CTP documentation is available both in MSDN Library online and for download at the Microsoft Download Center.

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education

Particpate in the SQL Server 2008 Bug Bash for a Chance to Win an X-Box

SQLServerUE — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:13:00 GMT

As you all know, the next version of SQL Server, SQL Server 2008, is due to be released this year. We recently released the latest Community Technology Preview (CTP) version of SQL Server 2008 in February. A CTP release is very similar to what used to be known as a "Beta" release. Customers can download the CTP software, and try it out. If you find any bugs while using the CTP, you can file them so that our developers can fix them prior to the actual release of the product. This is a great way to drive improvements to SQL Server and make it the best it can be.

Now, there is a "Bug Bash" contest underway, so those who file the most bugs in different categories will win an X-Box. For the full contest details, please see: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=7734&wa=wsignin1.0. The contest ends at the end of this week, so hurry and find those bugs!

good luck!

Tai Yee
SQL Server User Education

p.s. oh, and you can download the CTP software itself from the Microsoft Download Center.