Showing posts with label Denali. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Denali. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Should Denali work on Windows XP


Microsoft release a list of Operating Systems (OS) and SQL Version Upgrade Paths that will be compatible with SQL Denali, SQL 11, aka SQL Next or whatever it will be called,  the next version of SQL.

1) The current support matrix for OSes is as follows:
·    Windows Vista SP2 or later
·    Windows Server 2008 SP2 or later
·    Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 or later
·    Windows 7 SP1 or later
2) Denali will support upgrading from these SQL Server versions:
·    SQL Server 2005 SP4 or later
·    SQL Server 2008 SP2 or later
·    SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 or later
3) The installer is going to block installation on unsupported OSes and it will block unsupported upgrade paths.


“So Balls”, You say, “What’s your opinion?”
Well Dear Reader I’ve got a couple thoughts I’ll give those and then I’ll give you the post I put in place.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CUSTOMERS

No matter what industry you are in you serve a customer.  Every year Microsoft has a lot of people whose sole job is to find out how many Microsoft Licenses you company has and how many it needs to have.  They work out Licensing deals and companies pay money.  When this occurs Microsoft get’s an inventory of sorts that let’s them know what people are using. 

I don’t know how granular that gets, I have no access to that information, I can only speak for myself.  Every job I’ve had since graduating college or while I was still in college has been using computers that ran Windows XP.  It has been around a LONG time.

So I would hope that the numbers Microsoft get’s would tell them what Percentage of customers still running XP.  You would then assume a natural upgrade trend, whatever the average is they see in their analysis.

I would then hope that they look at the number of hours it would take to make Denali work on XP or any other OS, based off the amount of work, the talent and cost of the team (and there is some serious Talent working for them) vs. the Revenues they project to get from licensing. 

Then I would look at the number of shops that run a lot of SQL Server and what their XP breakdown is.  If it doesn’t make Dollars and Sense they shouldn’t do it.

MAYBE THEY SHOULDN’T
“But Balls,” You say, “Earlier you told us you would like to see it support XP?   WTH?”

Ahh Dear Reader, I would like it.  It would make it easier for me to demo at work, and sell to management.  Which would work out to some of those Licensees that I talked about up top.  I’ve Windows 7 at home, and I’ll install it and learn the heck out of it there. 

But what is right for me might not be right for Microsoft.  Or it could be, it would all depend on where their customers are.

Even here at work, there is an upgrade strategy that will eventually be put into place, but that may be months or a year or more from now, those decisions are currently above my pay grade.

So finally here is what I wrote.  In the end it is up to Microsoft.  And as they are with the Clouds so am I with them, when it comes to Microsoft “I’m All IN!”.
Hi Dan,
   I'm going to disagree with the crowd, I think support for XP should be put in place.  I'm on Windows 7 at home, but work is still on XP slowly moving to 7. 

For some of us IT is a fight, it is a fight to get our companies to adopt the latest and greatest, and sometimes the big ships turn slowly.  This would certainly hurt my ability to sell the technology internally and I would assume I'm not alone in this.

As a SQL DBA I feel by default I'm a Microsoft Advocate.  In IT there are 50 ways you can do anything, I choose to do those 50 things using Microsoft and predominately SQL Server.  I Advocate moving to new technology and using the latest and greatest.  But it was a fight to use Powershell 2.0, Mirroring, 2008 R2, and Policy Based Management. 

I won't stop Advocating but it will make my fight more of an uphill battle if I cannot install on XP.

Thanks,

Brad

Monday, November 15, 2010

Denali

Denali CTP1 is available for download, http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/product-info/future-editions.aspx, This will be the latest major Version release since SQL 2008, and will build upon the minor version release from SQL 2008 R2.  There look like some really interesting features that will need to be flushed out more.  Brent Ozar has blogged about Hadron here, http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2010/11/sql-server-denali-database-mirroring-rocks/ .

Hadron will be where mirroring is going for SQL 2011, some new features will be that it is built on top of Windows Clustering, you can have up to 4 mirrors (only 1 in CTP 1), and you can execute read only queries against the mirrors, no need for snapshots. For more info see here, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff877884(v=SQL.110).aspx .
Columnar level indexes, this was teased during the keynote for PASS opening night.  This would be big for Data Analytics for SQL Server, this will allow SQL to scream and compete with Oracle, DB2, TeraData, and Informix.  The TCP benchmarks on this will be unlike anything SQL has seen before.
This will be a really interesting ride.  More to come.
Thanks,

Brad