Cloud computing is more than just the latest buzz word in the IT trade papers. It is a remarkable paradigm shift with as much potential to “turn over the apple cart” of IT computing as client-server had for the world of mainframe and minicomputers. If you’re not spending time to learn about cloud computing, in general, and SQL Azure, in particular, then you’re missing the boat in a big way. (Ha! Two big metaphors in one afternoon. My high-school English teacher would be proud.)
There are mountains, literally MOUNTAINS, of free and high-quality content to be had. For example:
Fire Side Chats are invitation only Live Meetings. They are an hour in length, repeated at different times of day so you don’t need to attend at 3:00am because of time zone issues. Each Fire Side Chat has a key Microsoft individual talking about their area of expertise and answering questions from the audience. The Fireside Chats are aimed at technical experts, MVPs, user group leaders and the like. But they have content of interest for everyone. When looking at the archives, I noticed that there didn’t seem to be many recent chats. But some of the older ones still looked interested. You can register to see one at http://ug.gitca.org/sites/FireSideChats.
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Microsoft Team Blogs of Interest
Do you ever wish that Microsoft consolidated all of their blogs in one easy to find central clearinghouse? Well, your wish was answered, actually quite a long time ago. BlogMS consolidates almost 250 Microsoft team blogs across a variety of Microsoft product and online services portfolio, with usually about 70 – 80 blog posts per week. Yes, children, that’s two to three HUNDRED blog posts per month.
You’ll find important announcements and details of Microsoft news, product releases, service packs and important support issues. On top of that, I really like all of the great links to Microsoft web resources on the right hand side of the website. If you’re like me (and let’s be honest, most rational or just sane people would not want anything of the sort), you’ll probably bookmark quite a few of those links.
The following BlogMS Resource Guides may also be of use:
You might be familiar with the term “Most Valuable Player”, but haven’t heard that MVPs exist in the professional world too. Microsoft has nearly 3,000 designated “Most Valuable Professionals”. These folks are designated experts who know their subject matter at an expert level and, as an added bonus, they don’t smell like a basketball locker room (SQLRockstar, Thomas LaRock, being a notable exception to this rule).
Late last year a cool new tool was launched called Microsoft Desktop Player. The player aggregates contextual technical content (webcasts, podcasts, white papers) from across all sorts of Microsoft websites having an IT Pro adoption lifecycle. In addition, it also provides links to local resources and news for the Developers and IT Pros based on their local settings, helping to drive the local engagement/relationship. You’ll need Microsoft Silverlight to run the website, but it’s oh-so-cool looking. Check out the details here: http://www.microsoft.com/click/desktopplayer.
If you spend any time at all reading IT trade journals and websites, you’ve no doubt heard about the NoSQL movement. In a nutshell, NoSQL databases (also called post-relational databases) are a variety of loosely grouped means of storing data without requiring the SQL language. Of course, we’ve had non-relational databases far longer than we’ve had actual relational databases. Anyone who’s used products like IBM’s Lotus Notes can point to a popular non-relational database. However, part and parcel of the NoSQL movement is the idea that the data repositories can horizontally scale with ease, since they’re used as the underpinnings of a website. For that reason, NoSQL is strongly associated with web applications, since websites have a history of starting small and going “viral,” exhibiting explosive growth after word gets out. [READ MORE]
My employer, Quest Software, Inc. (QSFT26.15, +0.68, +2.65%) today added Apache Cassandra, an open-source NoSQL database, to its list of supported NoSQL platforms with the second beta release of Toad(R) for Cloud Databases. Toad now supports data access and management for Apache Cassandra, Amazon SimpleDB, Microsoft Azure Table Services, Apache HBase, and any Open Database Connectivity-enabled relational database.
Quest Software is proud to announce the launch of the Toad for Cloud Databases community site. You can also get the free Toad for Cloud product here. It’s in beta, but definitely worth a try.
If you’ve wondered what’s over the horizon, I encourage you to take a look at this interview with Billy Bosworth, the head of Quest’s database tools group. (Yes, he’s the guy who signs my checks). We are now experiencing more disruptive technologies in the world of data than we have seen in nearly two decades. Perhaps your database is better suited for the cloud or maybe you want to investigate using a data store as part of your application architecture that isn’t even relational. Imagine if you were empowered to take advantage of these new database technologies, when and where it makes sense.
Believe me, cloud databases and the NoSQL movement is not a passing fad. It will have an impact on the way you do business – maybe not today, but not as far in the future as you might think.
Check it out. And as always, I welcome your feedback.
While enduring an endless series of flight delays and disgruntled passengers in the Baltimore airport that was my own personal travel hell on the evening of Thursday, August 5th, I came across this interesting and important article:
Even if you don’t read the article, you can see from the URL that Google has decided to put an end to the collaboration experiment known as Wave. Wave will be available through the end of the year and most of its major components are now available as open source, should any devotees choose to continue developing the code base. However, Wave didn’t reach the critical mass that Google was looking for and, without that critical mass of users, it wasn’t seeing a lot of innovation or updates to the features or UI. I view Google’s reach of 1M users as a “failure” with a bit of grin. How many other vendors out there would consider 1M users too few? Otoh, if they wanted really wide adoption, why in the world did they require a private invitation? Superior products are frequently hampered by inferior marketing and market delivery, this being a really good example.
Slide to the Rescue?
More Fun than Google Slide?
I also feel the need to point out that I have a lot of respect for Google giving the old heave-ho to a product that needs to go. Many companies cling to a great idea, funneling huge amounts of resources into what everyone else can see as a black hole. Failure, under vibrant and forward thinking leadership, is only success delayed. Read Google’s take on the situation here. Certainly, this means we’ll see Google pushing their new social media acquisition, Slide, much more as well. And, since many of the technological bits of Wave will live on, I’m sure we’ll see Slide advance in interesting ways.
Frankly, I found the general idea of Wave to be fascinating and powerful. But after spending quite a bit of time, like at least 20 minutes, tinkering around with it, I still had no idea how to do anything with it. I was so motivated to use it that I almostwatched one of the videos that they’d posted to train you. But honestly, am I just ridiculously jaded or has the overall market for cloud-based apps moved the bar for ease-of-use that anything that takes more than 15 minutes to figure out is drama? I hate to say it, but I think the answer is a resounding “YES”. By extension, I think that this is the main reason that email still trumps all other methods of collaboration. (Yes, that includes Microsoft SharePoint too for all you fanboys.) That is, email does not disrupt any existing workflows, it has a clean UI, it doesn’t make you learn new ways of working, and it’s so widespread that you’re not hampered by a product that has a very limited user base.
Great Idea Leads To Great Product Success, Right?
The Graveyard of Ideas
I also feel that Google Wave is a good example of a technological solution looking for a problem, as well as a product looking for a marketing message. When launching a product, it’s crucial to have a crystal clear message to a well-defined audience. Any ambiguity in the message or muddling of the audience can spell doom. And, IMO, Google clearly missed the boat on both counts. Many of their demos were all about sharing photos. Uh, ever heard of Facebook, n’est pas? Then again, many later PR was about collaboration. Then how come we didn’t get smokin’ hot project management demos? A book that I recommend called The Innovator’s Prescription (website is here) says it very well:
“The graveyard of failed products and services is populated by things that people *should* have wanted–if only they could have been convinced those things were good for them. The home-run products in the marketing hall of fame, in contrast, are concepts that helped people more affordably, effortlessly, swiftly, and effectively do what they already had been trying to get done.” (Christensen, The Innovator’s Prescription, p. 16)
I really like Christensen’s point. So many people who build products focus on the “should” of a product, as in “this should make a lot of people happy”, over and above providing an effortless aid to people’s daily tasks. This leads me to a topic for another day, user-interface design. But enough writing for now. It’s bed time.
So what are your thoughts? Do you think other factors contributed to Wave’s decline?
If you’re wondering whether to hedge your long-term bets on cloud computing, this should help you solidify your thinking.
Microsoft has been building a dream team for Azure, including the patriarch of Windows (and father of Windows NT) Dave Cutler. Tweets fromseveral Microsofties reveal that another revered technologist, Mark Russinovich of SysInternals fame has also joined the team. When almost all of the heavy hitters in a company like Microsoft go to work on a single exciting new technology, you can easily tell which direction the wind is blowing. I encourage you to get on board soon with cloud computing, at least in experimentation mode. Read more about Russinovich joining the Azure team here.
Protect Your @$#% Content, or, Lots of New Content on KEK.com
I’ve been enjoying two new features of WordPress over on my professional website which is missing here on SQLblog.com – scheduled blog posts and auto-tweets. What got me thinking about using scheduled blog posts and auto-tweets, you ask? For starters, my friend and former colleague, Brent Ozar, put a lot of thought and time into the question “Who Owns Your Content?”. Then, to add fuel to the fire, two of Quest’s best marketing minds, Christian Hasker and Andy Grant, took a survey of all the places I was posting my thoughts and IP, which led to some great advice from Andy. I’d initially thought that by writing in multiple places and on many other websites, it would promote my content. But a quick analysis showed that I was giving without getting anything in return, not even recognition. I was easily writing three or four magazine style articles per month with very little to show for it, not even ping-backs to my website.
The schedule blog posts have come in very handy. First, I’d decided a while back to start talking more about what I do at Quest Software and the products that I’m a part of. Since I don’t want to come across sounding like a schill, I decided that I’d put those posts on my own website and not torture you with those posts where I’m syndicated. If you’re interested in posts about products like LiteSpeed or Toad for SQL Server, you can check for my regularly scheduled posts to appear on Wednesday morning. I’ve now got a nice little queue of Quest-related posts for many Wednesdays to come.
Second, I’ve also decided to attempt to bring in more of the content I’d written for other websites and channels into KEK.com. So I’ve scheduled a series of posts that bring in other content I’ve written and/or recorded elsewhere. For example, Thursdays mornings are the time where I’ll post my YouTube video clips. Since I already had a ton on YouTube, I’m putting those up via scheduled posts for the next several weeks. Of course, I’ll also be posting new videos. But it’ll be good to have all of my old videos up there too in a single place.
Finally, as I mentioned before, I’d written a couple long-term columns without ever getting even one extra website hit from all that work, such as my professional development articles for SQLPass.org. I’m pulling those back onto KEK.com and will continue those columns, but as elements of my own blog. You’ll see more about them here when they’re posted.
The Week In Review
Timeliness has never been a strong point for me. I’m such a procrastinator, in fact, that I’m still trying to decide if I’ll go to my 20th high school reunion in 2005.
Having said that, here are some recent blog posts on KEK.com that you might enjoy:
I’m sorry that I got this out a bit late, but there are still a city or two where you can join in on these great free, 1-day classes on Windows Azure provided by Neudesic. Atlanta, for example, is set for July 28th. You’ll get a deep dive program that will prepare you to deliver solutions on the Windows Azure Platform.
The region’s best Azure experts will teach you how to work in the cloud through training, discussion, review of real scenarios, and hands on labs. Snacks and drinks will be provided; however, you’re advised to bring an extension cord and to you to make your own lunch arrangements prior to the event.
Just wanted to let you know that a TechNet Radio episode and interview I did about cloud computing is now live on TechNet Edge. It was the featured spot on Thursday, June 3rd and is also featured on the TechNet homepage.
I’ve been trying to wear more of an analyst’s hat these days, so this webcast has a lot of my “deep thinking” on issues related to cloud computing – hopefully at a higher level of quality that Jack Handy.
A salient point that I think many analysts are overlooking is the changing nature of data as it exists in the cloud. For decades, data has primarily been about people (and their activities) for consumption by other people. The cloud is enabling a major shift in data generation and consumption where data is produced by machines for consumption by other machines. We’ll soon be looking at situations, now rather rare, in which sensors are extremely commonplace. These sensors, whether they be in traffic signals or high-end medical devices, will create enormous amounts of data far more frequently than ever before, loading that data directly into cloud databases. The cloud databases will consume and process the data and, when automated analysis (made all the easier through features like StreamInsight in SQL Server 2008 R2) will flag important findings for review by a real-live human being. Check out the interview for several real-world examples being played out even as we speak.
Perhaps I can persuade you to blog, tweet, or place a link to it in your Facebook or team newsletter? Maybe with a few deep thoughts? Please? Pretty please?
And I welcome your deep thoughts and responses here.
Toad for SQL Server Wins Best of TechEd 2010 in the Database Development Category
Toad and I go way back. I first started with Toad as a user on the Oracle DBMS back in the early 1990′s. When I started at Quest Software back on January 2nd of 2002, one of the first products I tackled as a SQL Server product architect was Toad. How do we make this very popular Oracle product one that users in the SQL Server world will love too? And this challenge was made that much harder by the fact that Microsoft SQL Server ships with fantastic tools right there in the box. I haven’t worked directly on Toad for many years now, but the tool marches on with new features and capabilities that push the envelop with each new release.
L to R: Jason Hall, Qsft head of SC's; David Gugick, director of Architecture; and me
Want to try Toad for SQL Server for free?
The 5.0 version of Toad for SQL Server that we showed at TechEd is the latest beta, available at ToadWorld.com (build 387 at the time of this writing). It can coexist with Toad for SQL Server version 4.6, if you’re already using it. The beta is quite stable and has a bevy of new features, including:
SQL Azure support for most modules including data compare and schema compare, including comparing regular SQL Servers to SQL Azure and back, also with Firewall management (under Server Security properties panel).
Much improved code completion that’s faster and allows for column selection, multi-table selection, with tooltips for parameters. Don’t forget, all of these features work on SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008, and 2008 R2.
Updated Schema Compare with better exposed snapshots.
Group Execute enhancements that include database-level selection so you can execute across databases, an option to only show selected servers/databases, option to merge results (or not), improved merging, etc.
New Idle Connection Timeout – to close connections after a period of inactivity.
Result Set Pinning.
Improved Trace support with features like Import Trace File to Table and Open in Profiler capabilities.
New Debug Trace – traces all activity occurring inside of Toad, including storing all variable info in a replayable file.
Twitter Integration (under the View – Collaboration panel) with Yammer integration coming in a future beta release.
You can also see a lot more details about the tool here. And my long-standing offer still stands. If you want to try Toad for SQL Server or its brethren (such as Toad for Data Analysts, Toad Data Modeler, or Benchmark Factory), drop me an email and I’ll get a long-term license key straight over to you.
But wait, there’s more!
There are so many great resources for you to tap into. And best of all, they’re all free! Check these out:
In this white paper, renowned Oracle PL/SQL expert and fellow O’Reilly author Steven Feuerstein provides dev managers with guidance on how to help developers write the best software possible.
Live Product Demo:Toad® Data Modeler
Date: Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Time: 11:00 a.m. PT / 2:00 p.m. ET
I was honored to be recently interviewed by the crew at Consortio Services. You can find my portion of this particular webcast at http://www.cstechcast.com/podcasts/cs-techcast/episode99/ beginning at 17:24. In the interview, I discuss a number of thoughts and opinions about the future of cloud computing, where our profession is headed, and more.
When I first became aware of the website, they were audio podcasts only. Since then, they’ve changed up their format a bit, and now have a video portion along with the audio. They now included a visual “slide” with your headshot and title (not a pretty sight, in my case). Also, they some scrolling shots of other things I’m involved with such as Quest Software, my blog here, my Tool Time column on SQL Server Magazine, and the SQL Server MVP Deep Dives book, and my personal website.
I encourage you to add this podcasting site to your list of favorites. There’s lots of great information waiting for you there.
Enjoy!
-Kevin
P.S. I just got the word that I have been re-granted MVP status for the upcoming year. Thanks to Microsoft and all my fellow MVP colleagues for making the MVP program such an awesome credential!
And, since many of the technological bits of Wave will live on, I’m sure we’ll see Slide advance in interesting ways.
