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SQL Server 2014 Event at Microsoft Redmond - Day 1

Firebrand Training

19 November, 2013

I couldn't quite believe my luck when I received an email from Microsoft inviting me to attend the SQL Server 2014 Trainer Enablement event at Redmond, Seattle.

Of course my answer was "YES YES YES I would love to attend" !!

It was an early start arriving on campus at 8:30am, seeing that Microsoft sign as the shuttle bus entered campus sent me into geek overload, and as expected Microsoft really looks after it's visitors.

So after a long day I am now relaxing in my hotel in downtown Bellevue digesting the information of Day 1 and the roadmap for SQL Server 2014 Data Platform.

The first speaker was Ramink Gulati who presented the story of SQL Server 2014, a story that would wet the appetite of many customers proving that SQL Server is not a "toy database" as many do see it but a true runner to go up against the likes of Oracle, IBM and SAP.

Over 600 business's in the last year have moved from Oracle to SQL Server and we are not talking a hybrid database environment but pure SQL, this strengthens the position of SQL Server in the market place, soon to be Number 1 and knock it's competitor off the top spot once and for all. Currently SQL Server is 2nd in the marketplace and that's pretty good.

The second speaker was Darmadi Komo a senior technical product manager who presented the new standards for mission critical platforms.

For me the most exciting aspects of Darmadi presentation was SQL Server 2014 and it's hybrid capabilities, on-premise and cloud.

My top hybrid features covered today:

SSMS built-in tools for moving an on-premise SQL Database to an Azure VM, just a few clicks of the mouse and the database is in Azure, a good reason to implement Contained Databases now in SQL Server 2012 for ease of migration into Azure when upgrading to 2014.
Implement an AlwaysOn Availability Group with a asynchronous readable secondary in Azure for reporting requirements.
Backup an on-premise SQL Database to Azure storage and encrypt the backup.
Take an on-premise database and move it's file structure into Azure Storage but still keep the compute environment of SQL Server local.

Let me expand on the last point as this was mind boggling!

So you have an on-premise database which has many data files and a log file, as a DBA I can choose to move all or some of these files into Azure. Why would I do this I here you ask? We'll maybe 1 of those data files has archived data and is read infrequently so rather than using local disk space we can just move that 1 data file into Azure while the rest remain in local storage. An application does not need to be aware of this remote file as SQL will just pull the data down from Azure, all you need is good bandwidth.

That's just amazes me that an on-premise database can have local storage and Azure storage, I think this will keep me thinking for many hours if not days.

The in-depth dive on day 1 into the Data Platform roadmap for SQL Server 2014 has strengthened my love affair with SQL Server and as an Instructor I am looking forward to sharing my knowledge
with my SQL classes.

A good nights sleep is needed after day 1 as tomorrow is all about Data Warehousing and more cloud features and a trip to the campus shop, so more to follow soon.

About the Author:

Angela works for Firebrand Training as a subject matter expert and instructor for SQL Server and System Centre. For over 10 years Angela specialized in SQL Server, delivering training and consultancy services to a number of companies throughout the UK and Europe guiding and mentoring customers to follow Microsoft Best Practice and assist in their understanding and adoption of SQL innovative features.