Microsoft Gears Up for SQL Server Launch

by Alex Woodie

The long wait is almost over for SQL Server 2005 (code named Yukon), the next release of Microsoft's relational database technology, which becomes available next month. If history is any guide, business intelligence will be one of the most popular workloads demanded of the new Microsoft database, and to give customers a jump start in this area, Microsoft and partners have teamed up through Project REAL to provide reference implementations for Yukon. Another Microsoft project, called Front Runner, helps ISVs build and go to market with SQL Server 2005 apps.

Project REAL--which stands for Reference implementation, End-to-end, At scale, and Lots of users--is a partnership between Microsoft and eight business partners that participated in building SQL Server 2005-based business intelligence applications at two Microsoft customers. Those customers include a large, unnamed electronics retailer, which migrated a data warehouse from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005, and bookseller Barnes & Noble, which built a sales and inventory data warehouse on SQL Server 2005 to improve forecasting and reporting. Most of the project was devoted to the experience of B&N and its three-month sample of real-world data.

So what can future SQL Server 2005 users learn from Project REAL? According to Microsoft, they can see how SQL Server 2005 is being used in the real world, including business intelligence-specific disciplines, such as extra, transform, and load (ETL) workloads, building relational data warehouses and multidimensional cubes, and doing data mining and delivering reports. The project also explores deployment techniques, including new ways of scaling up business intelligence applications for large numbers of users, and managing the applications through Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) and other tools.

Project REAL also demonstrates how some of the new business intelligence features of SQL Server 2005 can be used in the real world. These new features include the new ETL component of SQL Server 2005, called SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), which replaces SQL Server 2000's Data Transformation Services (DTS). It also shows how B&N used other new and improved features of the database, such as partitioned tables, semi-additive measures, many-to-many relationship modeling, and others.

The B&N implementation also provided a means to put partners tools to the test. These include Panorama, whose GUI visualization tools enable users to see how different dimensions of B&N's sales data, such as book category and sales regions, interact with one another on a single graph. Another tool provider in Project REAL was Proclarity, whose tools provide various ways of visualizing data, including a decomposition tree that changes dimensions as users navigate and drill down through data, and a perspective view that enables the user to spot patterns among thousands of different data points.

In addition to Panorama and Proclarity, other Microsoft business partners participating in Project REAL include Apollo Data Technologies, EMC, Emulex, Intellinet, Scalability Experts, and Unisys.

Front Runner

Business intelligence is not the only application area for SQL Server, and to spearhead the development of other types of third-party business applications on top of SQL Server 2005, Microsoft created the Front Runner program.

Front Runner was created earlier this year as a way to provide independent software vendors (ISVs) with technical and marketing assistance to help them build, test, and sell their SQL Server 2005-based applications. The only requirements for ISVs to participate in the Front Runner program are that they're registered in the Microsoft Partner Program, and that they will have a SQL Server 2005-based application built and tested by March 31, 2006.

In exchange for this commitment, ISVs will receive various benefits from Microsoft, including 10 hours of BetaOne Services technical support for the development of up to five applications, one voucher worth $800 to have their application tested by VeriTest, and 50 percent discounts for the testing of four other applications. ISVs will also be able to tap into the fabled Microsoft PR machine by receiving a "customizable, professional press release template," quotes from Microsoft officials, a customizable "postcard template" and 750 complimentary postcards, and the option of being mentioned in a Microsoft ad. Two hundred ISVs will also be eligible to receive $5,000 from Microsoft to be used for marketing purposes.

For more information about Project REAL, visit www.microsoft.com/sql/bi/projectreal/default.mspx. For more information about the Front Runner initiative, visit microsoft.mrmpslc.com/SqlServerFrontRunner/index.aspx.