Nate's Stuff

Pat is an excellent presenter and a friend.  I am also excited about SQL Server and Pizza so this meeting was a winning combination for me!  It was also nice to see some familiar faces and had a small but decent turnout. 

Environment

The meeting started late (as expected with almost anything I attend now days) but was forgivable due to unexpected traffic situations.  I personally arrived 5 min's late and was there in enough time to help setup.  The pizza came pretty late in the meeting which was a little annoying because I usually eat well before 7:30pm.  Also the drinks were all caffeinated (which is usually fine for programmers) but I like the non-caffeinated sort.  Also, I liked in the past how those rooms were setup with tables and chairs rather than just tables.  I usually like to take notes on my laptop but find the literal term "laptop" rather unworkable. 

Microsoft SQL Server 2008

The first question almost asked universally is "when is it going to come out"?  Although none of us had any insight into Microsoft it was generally agreed that we had heard 4th quarter 2008.  Perhaps even in time for Microsoft's PDC event.  Also RC0 is currently available for download. 

New features in SQL 2008 include:

• New data types for Date and Time with enhanced precision
• Compressed Backups (YAY)
• New MERGE keyword for simultaneous Insert Update & Delete
• New Table Variables allow you to pass arrays of objects into procs reducing round-trips
• New Code Insight for the SSMS studio
• New Transparent Data Encryption provides more control over encryption in the database
• New Change Detect Capture (CDC) functionality for audit logging
• New Data compression for compressed tables
• New Policy-based management to enforce the stupid naming standards people sometimes put into a database (ughh!)
• New Hierarchy ID field for Parent / Child / Grandchild, etc. Data
• New FileStream Data (remains of WinFS) allows large amounts of binary data to be stored with (but not really in) the database
• New Large User-Defined Types overcomes the 8KB limit for UDT's
• New Spatial Data Types to store lat/long style data
• New Grouping Sets allow multiple GROUP BY statements
• Improvements to SQL Server Reporting Services

We did not talk about every point in that list, spending most of our time split between the new data types and their capabilities and the new MERGE statement.  We also had a fun discussion about http://www.sqldumbass.com/ and all of the 'unfortunate' database architectures we have encountered.

Summary

It was a really fun meeting.  It was a small crowd with an open atmosphere where we felt like we could ask questions.  Pat is more than knowledgeable about such questions and did a great job answering some of those.  Of course some of his answers left us scratching our heads as we can't follow a real DBA that deeply! 

Links

NUNUG Site: http://groups.google.com/group/nunug

Content Download: 2008DevPresentToNorthernNET.rar

Pat Wright Blog: http://insanesql.blogspot.com/