The Road To SQL Server 2008
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is the most recent version of the Redmond, Wash., company's data management and business intelligence platform. According to Microsoft, the version provides new capabilities such as support for policy-based management, auditing, large-scale data warehousing, geospatial data and advanced reporting and analysis services.
At the time of the product release, Microsoft reported that there had been more than 450,000 customer and partner downloads of SQL Server 2008's community technology previews (CTPs), more than 75 large-scale applications in production and more than 1,300 applications being developed on SQL Server 2008 by nearly 1,000 ISVs.
SQL Server is a major component of the Microsoft Application Platform, a suite of products designed to help organizations create, run and manage business applications.
SQL Server 2008 is available in multiple editions, including Enterprise, a data management and business intelligence platform that provides enterprise-class scalability, data warehousing, security, advanced analytics and reporting; Standard, aimed at supporting departmental applications; Workgroup, for running branch applications; Web, for Web-serving environments running on Windows Server; Developer, which allows developers to build and test any type of application with SQL Server; Express, a free edition designed for learning and building desktop and small server applications; and Compact, another free version designed for developers and suitable for building applications for mobile devices, desktops and Web clients.
ISVs see lots of opportunities with the new database and are busy preparing new applications to run on the software.
Kineticsware Inc., a Kirkland, Wash., provider of supply chain management applications that run on Microsoft technology, is developing the latest release of its Trade Promotion Management application for the database and plans to ship the product in the first quarter of 2009.
Consumer goods manufacturers use Trade Promotion Management, which is based on Microsoft's .Net framework, to track and store large volumes of order, shipment, pricing adjustments and point-of-sale data to monitor their trade promotion activity.
Kineticsware is excited about the performance improvements with large data sets in SQL Server 2008, according to Richard Barnett, co-founder and chief marketing officer. This will enable the company's customers to use the new version of Trade Promotion Management to more effectively leverage the information they gather.
"Our customers are consumer goods companies that supply [products] into retailers, and with our applications they're examining [many] types of data: sales history, pricing information, third-party market data," Barnett said. "They've got to pull data together from different sources [such as data warehouses from multiple vendors] and analyze it. For us, the Trade Promotion Management application is where we get the most advantage and differentiation."
Kineticsware was involved in the initial beta development program offered by Microsoft for SQL Server 2008 and performed testing to identify enhancements in the technology and how they can best benefit Kineticsware's application, Barnett said.
One of the areas the company reviewed is performance, and the database showed significant improvements in runtime efficiency, Barnett said. Kineticsware also explored the new version of SQL Server from a development standpoint and determined that the migration to SQL Server 2008 would be "relatively straightforward"—involving 100 to 200 hours of development work—because the company's products already run on SQL Server 2005 and are .Net-based, he said.
Next: Reporting Services Kineticsware is looking into how it can leverage the Microsoft SharePoint interoperability of SQL Server 2008 to extend the company's applications and take advantage of multiple data sources for reporting services, Barnett said. "With [SQL Server] 2008, there's a much more manageable way to handle interoperability issues," he said. "This allows us to be the one view of multiple data sources."
Another key benefit of Microsoft's new database is its ability to support an object-oriented hierarchy view and the move to multidimensional online analytical processing (OLAP), Barnett said. "A lot of our customers are doing what-if analyses. With multidimensional OLAP support, we can show those what-if scenarios in the context of [whatever] form someone loads up."
The company is working to ensure that its customers will be able to run older versions of Trade Promotion Management on the new database, Barnett said.
Ignify Inc., a Cerritos, Calif., developer of accounting and e-commerce applications, has completed development work on two products that will run on SQL Server 2008, and both are in its quality assurance and testing area, said Sandeep Walia, CEO. Walia expects one product, Data Archival for Dynamics, to have been released in September and the other, Ignify eCommerce, set for November.
The Data Archival product helps organizations archive and purge data from their ERP and CRM applications, and improves application performance.
Ignify eCommerce is a business-to-consumer e-store program and business-to-business e-commerce solution. The system is currently used by about 200 customers. Organizations such as McDonald's, the Dallas Cowboys football franchise and Aerosoles use the solution, Walia said.
Customers for the most part can run older versions of the Ignify applications on the new database, Walia said. "However, they need to upgrade certain aspects of the application for eCommerce, as the Reporting Services WMI provider is not backward-compatible with previous versions," he said.
After the upgrade, customers can't use the SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services WMI provider with earlier versions of Reporting Services. This is a known issue with SQL Server 2008, Walia said. But it isn't a problem for Ignify customers, he said, because they just have to install the later versions, which he said is fairly straightforward.
For Ignify eCommerce users, the primary benefits of SQL Server 2008 include the encryption capability (data can be encrypted natively rather than via a third party); the capability of compressing data backups, which can result in an estimated time savings of 25 percent to 35 percent for backups; and enhancements to database mirroring, including automatic page repair and improved performance. For Data Archival, the archival process is able to run faster, Walia said.
These improvements will mean improved data protection, faster performance and higher reliability. "This is now a more secure and enterprise-class type database," Walia said.
SQL Server 2008 will also give Ignify's applications greater scalability, especially in the areas of retail and distribution, Walia said. "This will ensure that the system can scale up to a higher volume of transactions or visitors on the Web site with comparable hardware infrastructure," he said. That means customers can rapidly expand their business, even globally, using their existing infrastructure.
Another ISV that's benefiting from the release of SQL Server 2008 is iQ4bis Software Inc., Irvine, Calif. At press time, the company had its datamart and cube building tool, DataServer, in the final stages of testing for a September release, which will be fully SQL Server 2008-compliant. Its cube browsing tool, iQ4bis Analysis, will have a 2008 compliance release in October, said Jeremy Dean, director of product development.
Work on iQ4bis DataServer "took a minimum of development effort to ensure it is compliant with 2008," Dean said. "iQ4bis Analysis is yet to be tested, but we don't expect any significant issues."
Next: iQ4bis Feature A feature of iQ4bis products is seamless movement from SQL Server 2000, 2005 to 2008 and back again, Dean said. "Our software hides the complexity and variation of the underlying database, and an iQ4bis system will run on any of the three versions without modification," he said.
Compliance with SQL Server 2008 will enable the company to introduce features that optimize the products for the new database. For example, Dean said, the improved query engine will speed processing capabilities. "We also plan to add new controls like the gauges in the reports we generate," he said.
Not all ISVs will see as big or immediate an impact from the release of SQL Server 2008. One such ISV, i3 Business Solutions in Grand Rapids, Mich., supports third-party products that use SQL Server as their database engine, and develops custom Web-based applications for customers.
For the ERP packages the company supports, i3 will need to wait for the individual software vendors to approve their product usage for SQL Server 2008, said Mike Sansottera, SQL Database specialist and programmer at i3.
For existing custom applications written by i3, "there are generally no adaptations required to move to SQL Server 2008," Sansottera said. "Only a short test phase is required to ferret out problems that might arise due to a change in how Microsoft handles a particular security issue or a change in how the database engine interacts with specialized functions to perform nonstandard tasks. Standard database code will not require changes."
Sansottera said i3 will begin using SQL Server 2008 immediately for new custom applications. But he notes that i3 will not adapt any code or upgrade unless requested by a customer, "and customers generally don't request an upgrade unless i3 makes a business case for them to do so. While SQL 2008 has some nice programming features, for example, it is generally not worth it to our customers to have us rewrite code using the latest and greatest features and techniques only to accomplish the same end."
The release of SQL Server 2008 is comparable to the differences between Microsoft Office 2007 and Office 2003, Sansottera said. "There are plenty of new features, but the product has matured to the point where the average business may just not need them," he said. "In contrast, SQL Server 2005's release was huge, with significant enhancements usable by just about everyone. Unless there is a need for specific new features, SQL Server 2008 will be most beneficial to customers who are still on SQL Server 2000."
Nevertheless, SQL Server 2008 "is advantageous because it's more than just a database engine, it is a suite of products," Sansottera added. "Any application i3 builds using SQL Server 2008 can automatically leverage the ability to create and publish additional reports, build a data warehouse or seamlessly integrate with other data sources or applications."
He said the largest untapped market to date for i3 is small businesses that use departmental Microsoft Access databases and Excel spreadsheets to store business-critical data. These data sources should be placed within the confines of a database server where the data is secure, authoritative, validated and able to be published according to business need, Sansottera said. "SQL Server allows businesses to get accurate and timely answers to business questions."
While some ISVs have run into challenges writing applications for the new Microsoft database, most of these have been relatively minor.
"We didn't hit many bugs at all and there are very few backward-compatibility issues in this release," said Mike Altendorf, joint managing director at Cochango, a U.K.-based provider of Web design and business technology solutions. "The main challenge during the pre-release was that there wasn't much documentation of some of the new features," Altendorf said. "That, plus the usual challenge of any project on the cutting edge—no accumulated experience to draw on. We had good support from Microsoft engineers and extra time for research and testing was something we built in to the project plan."
Cochango is testing against SQL Server 2008 and aims to have its applications—Digital Commerce Platform, a retail buyers' toolkit that serves as a business intelligence application, as well as Operational Excellence Dashboards, which are used in the oil and gas industry—available by the end of the year.
"The betas of 2008 were quite stable, so development has been very productive and a lot of development work has already been completed," Altendorf said.
For Ignify, while the Data Archival upgrade was fairly straightforward, the company had more challenges with its eCommerce product, since it relies heavily on SQL Server reporting services reports and there were significant changes with the new version, Walia said. "Mainly we had to make some code changes in our database and report queries, and, of course, that took additional time," he said.
Kineticsware identified several "low-level" bugs during its beta test, mainly having to do with implementation and use of the IntelliSense capability of the database and the management of reporting services. These were minor and have been resolved, Barnett said.
For some ISVs, familiarity with SQL Server has helped in development efforts. "We tend to use the core features of SQL Server that are largely well-tested and well-used so [we] don't run into problems or weaknesses," Dean said.