I've spent the evening at Grodan, a fashionable bar/restaurant close to Stureplan to Stockholm, for some eating, meating and listening. The Microsoft MEET team together with Magnus Mårtensson, you know the guy I did a TechTalk with at TechEd (on twenty minutes I had about two sentences and some uhhms to say, Magnus did his thing as he should), where he together with a collegue presented Windows Azure, and possibilities, briefly in a nice manor for about thirty of us geeks... *smiles

They did a great job presenting the Windows Azure platform, and ease to migrate a web application to the cloud. Talking about Application Roles and Worker Roles, storage types, availability and more in an easy and understandable way. If you get the opportunity to have a chat with Magnus, please do, he is a great source on the Windows Azure platform. That much of SQL Azure wasn't mentioned, I guess I have a mission there. I'll continue the SQL Azure series as soon as possible. Magnus has, together with collegues at dotway, built a worker role wrapper that empaphase the idle-issue of worker roles. In a clean and cool way their wrapper executes encapsulated jobs/code in available Worker Roles. When he described the method for me I was amazed how easy it really is and got a bit confused why it wasn't done before. Guess that's why some are in the front, and some follow. One great benefit of their wrapper is that traceability and debugging is managed by the wrapper it self.

I'd like to thank Microsoft, the MEET team and Magnus, with collegue, for an excellent evening. Take care friends!

...for us presenters are ZoomIT from the Sys Internals Team at Microsoft.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx

It's free, available for download and the little gadget every presenter need.

It has three features:

1. Gives you the possibility to zoom in on the screen to show important areas during demos.
2. Gives you the possibility to draw on the screen to mark out important areas during demos.
3. Gives you a break timer, helping the attendees to see when you start again.

When ZoomIt is running you just use the Ctrl-key plus the above number-key to activate chosen feature. In zoom-mode you can move and freeze the zoomed area with your mouse. In draw-mode you can draw free lines, blocks and arrows, with key-combos, on the screen.

I want to start out a series on what SQL Azure is, benefits and pitfalls, On premises vs Cloud data and so on. There are a bunch of cool benefits with putting the data in the cloud if your application resides there, SQL Azure delivers a high scalable, high performance and highly secure method of working with data for cloud services. Of course we still need our on premises, sql boxes, bare metal or virtual. But for online services the cloud delivers the technologies for us. And now also a highly competent SQL service.

SQL Azure got commercially available on the 17th of november well aligned with the Pre-Developer Conference in Los Angeles. Unfortunally I wasn't there drue to TechEd in Berlin and business. But I had alot of friends attending and speaking there, as with online content, so I guess in time I'll get all the goods from the event. Maybe next year...

SQL Azure is available in two editions, Web (1GB) and Business(10GB). To get you started you need to know how to create the database.

So here it is: (Snip out from books online) 

Syntax

CREATE DATABASE database_name           [(MAXSIZE = [1 | 10] GB )][;]

 Arguments

database_name

The name of the new database.

MAXSIZE

Specifies the maximum size of the database. In this release, SQL Azure provides two database sizes for users: 1 GB or 10 GB. If the MAXSIZE is not set, a default value of 1 GB is used.

This syntax diagram demonstrates the supported arguments in Microsoft SQL Azure Database.

SQL Azure does not support the following arguments and options when using the CREATE DATABASE statement:

• Parameters related to the physical placement of file, such as <filespec> and <filegroup>
  
• COLLATE on a user database
  
• External access options, such as DB_CHAINING and TRUSTWORTHY
  
• Attaching a database
  
• Service broker options, such as ENABLE_BROKER, NEW_BROKER, and ERROR_BROKER_CONVERSATIONS
  
• Database snapshot
   

Remarks

Databases in SQL Azure have several default settings that are set when the database is created.
CREATE DATABASE statement must be the only statement in a SQL batch.

Read more on SQL Azure, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee336279.aspx.

Howdy ya'll!

It's just another cowboy post on the blog. Right now I'm travelling in high speed on the X2000 from Stockholm to Gotenburg. For one more week of Maintaining SQL Server 2008. As usual I have some new cool ways of doing stuff. This specific class is rather big, heard the number thirteen. Well, it's my lucky number, and it's just a number anyway so I'm feeling comfortable even if it's a big class. Hopefully I get the time needed for the extra, cool stuff I usually do. At least some indexing, bits and bytes of the datafiles and some optimizing SQL Server.

Thursday is the next special day. The Get on the bus, MCT Edition arrivies to Gothenburg. Meet our friends, and start building networks. As part of the team, member of the board and Partner Liasion at MCT Sweden, I welcome you to the event at IHM in Gårda. Check out the http://www.mctsweden.se for further information, register for the event and enter the competition. We have some nice sessions, you'll probably see Mikael Nyström, Alan Smith, Magnus Björk, me, Tibi Covaci among others speaking and socializing at the event.

While the bus head down to Copenhagen for a similar event on friday evening I'll stay in Gotenburg for the last day of training. With some luck, great effort and mutual understanding with the class I might get on another train to Copenhagen by lunch, and be at the evening event. If not I hope you're gonna enjoy it anyway.

Late friday night we're taking the bus to the ferry in Rodeby and get on the boat to Rostoc for further transport to Berlin and Tech Ed 2009 EMEA.

I finally got my session, Preparing for the exam 70-432 SQL Server Administration, ready. It's one of a series of prep-session at the HOL-area in Berlin. It's scheduled for Thursday, so if you're down in Berlin, and aiming for the certification MCTS: SQL Server 2008 Administration don't miss the session. I'll give you all the check this out's needed to pass the test. Close enough at least. I'll be working in the HOL-area too, as a TLG. TLGs was previously know as the ATEs if you remember them from earlier Tech Ed's. There will be twentytwo of us, aiding you people in working through the labs. Don't miss this opportunity, it's a nice break in attending the usual sessions at the event.

My goal with Tech Ed is of course gain new and cool stuff about SQL Server. Some of it I allready know, but not everything. One thing about new products, new features and the future, is that even if you get ahead through TAP-programs, BETAs and CTPs. And read all the blogs there are, and the first looks and so on, you only get your view of things. By attending other presentations and listening to other presenters as well as the product teams, you'll get the others opinions as well. Everyone who knows me understand that I also take the opportunity to discuss with other SQL-geeks too. By doing this you'll probably get a more accurate and wider opinion on the new product.

Another reason of attending is to meet with both old and new friends, collaborate and network. I especially looking forward of meeting a new, old friend that I missed while he was in Stockholm. Matt, we need to have some fancy, spancy drinks and talk some metal. And I promise I'll keep business on office hours, if you have some. One thingy I want to know is if there will be any MCITP-level SQL Courses, I've been awaiting them for some time know. If still uncertain, may I help out delivering them?

I'll try to keep you all updated through the blog...

Auf wiederseen or how it's proununced,

Mattias

PS: If you guys wonder how I ended in the Nordic Championship of Cowboy Action Shooting? I got one nice, shiny 1st place plaquet for winning the Duelist Category. Close to 300 shots fired, and only six misses. It's a new record for me...

It's been a while, working right now on a big, secure and innovative reporting solution for one of the biggest security firms in Europe. More of this when it's ready, just wanted to inform you all why I've been a non-blogger...

Anyway, TechEd EMEA. This year in Berlin, Germany, in the middle of november. Two years since the previous TechEd EMEA visit, last time in Barcelona, Spain. More tempting weather in Spain than Germany. But then again, even if I love the sun and the close-to-be summer in Spain my visit for TechEd is always to hear about new technologies. Or technologies, more like new SQL things. Last time wasn't all that enjoying new stuff. Well, I was looking for SQL Server 2008 after been looking at the pre-releases for about six months or more by then. Nothing new in those sessions, more like acknowledge of already gained experience. Well, that was the past. Let's talk about this trip to Berlin instead.

First of all I'm looking forward for this trip, haven't been abroad for about six months. I enjoy travelling. This trip will be adventurous. As part of the board of MCT Sweden we're planning a bus tour through Europe to Berlin. We'll start in Stockholm five days ahead of the event with a small event for techies, with a trip to Gothemburg and another small event, and with a final event in Malmoe/Copenhagen with sessions about certification, Windows 7, BizTalk and more. I'll be in Gothemburg and probably in Malmoe/Copenhagen too, not with a session. More like a rep of MCT Sweden. But then again, I'll probably preach some SQL too. At least on request.

This TechEd is just not for visit, it's for work aswell. I'll be situated at the HOLs as a Technical Learning Guide, formerly know as ATEs. Helping people out with the labs and questions about certification. I'll probably deliver som SQL exam prep sessions, not yet acknowledged but probably. I'll will try to attend as many SQL sessions as possible. If I'll learn something new I'll keep you all posted. If you're in Berlin, try to locate me. I'll stay at a cheap, possible sleazy hotel just 800 meters away. If you have a nice room, and want a roomy, contact me.

Ok, back to the bus tour. Have you heard about the "Get on the Bus, MCT Edition"? If not hurry up and visit the http://www.mctsweden.se site while the competition still is running. You can win a transport down to Berlin and back to Sweden and a pass to TechEd. You only need to win the competition we are running. Don't miss this exclusive opportunity, you'll meet me on the bus.

After completing the three certification tracks for MS SQL Server 2008, both in MCTS- and MCITP-level, I decided to learn something new. I'm not that kinda codejunkie, so it's a challenge for me. I will learn coding like a pro, C# is the language, and Visual Studio is the IDE. I believe I'm gonna have long nights with strange code, old heavy metal and alot of coffee.

With some effort it will help me in further evolvment with SQL Server.

See yah!