SSDS at PDC 2008

Soumitra Sengupta — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:53:00 GMT

It is around 40 days to PDC and the excitement is building. We have a ton of work to do between now and then and the team is heads down getting ready for this major event. If you look at the PDC 2008 breakout sessions already announced, it is incredible that we will have 26 sessions on Cloud Services and 6 sessions related to SQL Server Data Services (SSDS). You can look it up here. You can see Mike and Jennifer's interview with Amitabh Srivastava here, where he talks about some of the things his team has been working on. Unfortunately he cannot talk much about it, but I can assure you coming to PDC this year will be well worth it. In my mind this is as big and maybe bigger than when we announced the .Net wave. The cloud wave is a major event and disruption in our industry and you will get to see and hear from the guys driving this wave inside Microsoft at PDC 2008.

That is as much as I can say about our overall Cloud services initiatives. Specifically, as a member of the SQL Server Data Services (SSDS) team, I am psyched to say that we have scheduled 3 talks directly related to SSDS, 1 talk from our Technical Fellow Dave Campbell on how we are evolving and extending our comprehensive Data Platform and the fast growing SQL business to the cloud and another 3-4 talks on technologies like Astoria, Velocity, Sync Framework and Entity Frameworks that are important to our cloud strategy. So here are the key talks and a brief outline of what you can expect from these talks at PDC.

1. Microsoft SQL Server: Data-Driven Applications from Device to Cloud - Dave Campbell. Dave has been through it all. He will present the key trends that are shaping our industry and how we are evolving our Data Platform from devices, desktop, server to the cloud and the services that makes this platform worth betting on. If you ever wondered what software and services have to do with data, you do not want to miss this talk. Dave's talk will set the stage for all the talks to follow on data and tie them together. So this has to be a must attend talk for you if you care about data.

2. A Lap around SQL Server Data Services - Soumitra Sengupta. This will be an advanced technical presentation where I will explain how we got started on SSDS, how it relates to our Cloud and Data Platform strategy, how we see our Cloud services vis-a-vis our on-premises SQL Server offering. You will also learn why SSDS seems like a departure from hosted SQL Server. I get that one a lot. Tables, Columns, T-SQL anyone. I will fly through this material quickly and spend most of the time coding up an application using our REST and SOAP interfaces. I promise there will be one or two surprises during this presentation. I will also explain how we run our service and the trade-offs and questions that should be on developers' mind as they build applications using SSDS.

3. Under the Hood: Building SQL Server Data Services - Istvan Cseri and Gopal Kakivaya. Man what can I say. These guys are going to take the lid off SSDS and really dive under the hood and talk about how this service is built. If you want to see how to build a fault-tolerant, highly available multi-datacenter service, you cannot miss this talk. It will demystify what we have built and how we operate this. This is the first time we will go this deep. These guys are real rock stars and I will not be upset if you miss my talk BUT DO NOT MISS THIS ONE.

4. SQL Server Data Services: Futures - Patric McElroy. If you are curious after listening to the first 3 talks about where we are headed with SSDS, this is the talk for you. There will be lots of surprises as Patric will show you how we are thinking about extending our entire data platform and services to the cloud. This is a real forward looking session but there will be demos on the way to give you a clear idea of the vision and the path ahead.

In addition we will have lunch sessions, lounges, booth and Hand-on-Labs. You will get to meet, greet, ask questions and socialize with the team members who are making it all happen and if there is enough interest, we will try to get a group together and do something fun during PDC. So if you are interested let, David Robinson know. I know he is in touch with Mike Amundsen already about this.

Aside from these 4 talks, we have the following talks where we will establish the linkages between Sync, ADO.Net Data Services (Astoria), Velocity and other Microsoft services and SSDS. So it would be interesting for you to attend these as well.

1. Microsoft Sync Framework: Enterprise Data in the Cloud and on Devices - Liam Cavanagh
2. Microsoft Sync Framework Advances - Lev Novik
3. Developing Applications Using Data Services - Mike Flasko
4. Entity Framework Futures - Tim Mallalieu
5. Project "Velocity": A First Look - Murali Krishnaprasad
6. A Lap around Building Block Services - John Shewchuk
7. Architecture of the Building Block Services - Dennis Pilarinos, John Shewchuk

Obviously there will be the Keynote from Ray Ozzie to set the stage for this wave and you cannot miss that. I also hear Don Box and Chris Anderson are cooking up something using SSDS. These 2 guys have always lit up PDC and I do not think you will be disappointed this time around.

See you all there.

Roger Jennings talks about SSDS in a Visual Studio Magazine Article

Soumitra Sengupta — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:34:00 GMT

Roger has an interesting article on SSDS in the latest Visual Studio Magazine here. It is really interesting to see the performance data between the SOAP and the REST end points of SSDS. It would be really interesting to dig into this.

One bit of correction - the SSDS flexible entity model was developed independent of EDM / EF and the Astoria model. At this point in time, both teams are working together to get this aligned.

I thought Dave Campbell in one of his press interviews had mentioned it but I could not find the reference. Sorry Roger. So here is an aswer to your question - SSDS is built using SQL Server 2005, SP2 as the starting code base. That is the starting point and we made changes to it. Over time, some of these changes will make its way into the SQL Server mainline and SQL Server 2008 will make its way into SSDS. We wanted to proceed in parallel as fast as we could and this was the best way to do it.

Jeff talks about upcoming ETag support in SSDS

Soumitra Sengupta — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:39:00 GMT

Jeff just sent me a note indicating that he has a post on the upcoming ETag support in SSDS. To be clear the bits are not yet released to operations. So we will have to wait a bit longer to get our hands on this feature. You can read all about it here. There are lots more cool things coming once Sprint 3 bits get released. So please stay tuned.

Tudor and Soumitra talk about SSDS value prop with Ryan

kellyalt — Fri, 02 May 2008 00:40:00 GMT

Agility (faster time to market), scale with your need and business ready SLA - Tudor and Soumitra highlight the core value propositions of SSDS on Channel 9. Thanks Ryan for doing the interview.

Jeff has posted some SOAP samples

kellyalt — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:50:00 GMT

Most of the sample code that Jeff, Jason and David Robinson have posted so far show you how to use the REST interface when coding against SSDS. Jeff has just posted his first SOAP example here. We are interested in finding out how many out there will build against REST and how many will build using SOAP. What are the considerations when you think about using one or the other? How can we make these interfaces better over time? These are some of the questions we have in our mind. Would love to hear from you.

SQL Azure Team Blog : SOAP

SSDS at PDC 2008

Roger Jennings talks about SSDS in a Visual Studio Magazine Article

Jeff talks about upcoming ETag support in SSDS

Tudor and Soumitra talk about SSDS value prop with Ryan

Jeff has posted some SOAP samples