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Before I began to write this article, I had planned to cover all possible new features in SQL Server 2008 R2 comparing it to the 2005 edition. This appeared to be impossible because there are so many additions and enhancements to this edition that writing about each of them would fill a book. After I excluded the features that are not included in the edition of the servers we are running in our data centers, those that are disabled for the security or performance reasons, and those that require administrative rights at the instance level, I was still left with a significant amount of information to cover. So here are the additions that in my opinion will be useful to the most users.

New Features in Management Studio

The Management Studio also comes with new features and functionality with the release of SQL Server 2008 R2. The most useful features for developers and administrators are IntelliSense and Regions in Query Editor.

IntelliSense in the Query Editor

One of the most exciting features added to SQL Server 2008 R2 is the IntelliSense support in Query Editor of Management Studio. To be able to use this feature you need to be connected to SQL Server 2008 R2. It is not backward compatible with SQL Server 2005 edition. Unless you are one of those developers or DBAs who like to memorize all objects, their parameters, and T-SQL statements, or enjoy spending hour in books online looking for this information, this feature is a must. Besides completing a word and identifying an incorrect syntax, IntelliSence will list database objects and parameters required by functions and stored procedures as you type.

Query Editor Regions

Regions helps with organizing T-SQL code by grouping certain region of code. Regions can be expanded or collapsed by clicking the '-' or '+' signs next to them which helps navigating and examining the code. A region is automatically created for batches ending with a GO statement, and for each BEGIN / END block.

Going Beyond Relational

There are more and more applications that require storing beyond relational data types. SQL Server 2008 R2 provides the functionality to store, search, and retrieve the beyond relational data types such as XML, Full-Text, Geometry and Geography types, Hierarchies, and Media.

HierarchyID

Object-Oriented class inheritance, organizational charts, Family trees and Bills of Material are all examples of hierarchy which is hard to model with the traditional relational databases. The problem becomes more complicated when you need to implement functionality such as navigating and manipulating the tree or defining many-to-many relationships. Microsoft introduced a new data type called HierarchyID where the entire hierarchy can be stored. Although HierarchyID is a CLR data type, it does not require CLR to be enabled on the instance.

Geospatial Data Types

SQL Server 2008 R2 introduces new GEOGRAPHY and GEOMETRY data types that allow storing geospatial data in the form of points, lines, and polygons in the tables. These spatial types enable users to perform SQL queries and operations on spatial data within SQL Server 2008 R2 directly. You can also index those columns that store spatial data types. The geospatial data types and functions in SQL Server 2008 R2 are based on standards established by the Open Geospatial Consortium. Geospatial data can be imported into SQL server from the following formats: WKT, WKB and GML (Geospatial Markup Language). Geography and Geometry data types are supported by many major GIS (Geography Information Systems) such as ESRI ArcGIS, Mapinfo, Autodesk Map 3D 2007, Manifold, and more.

Working with Date and Time

Until Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, the ability to store date and time was limited. The only options SQL Server 2005 offered were the datetime or smalldatetime data types. The problem with those data type is that they do not allow storing only date or only time. Moreover, they do not account for time difference between physical locations (time zones). The results of those limitations are inconsistent data, storage and coding overhead.

SQL Server 2008 R2 introduces 4 new date and time data types; date, time, datetime2, and datetimeoffset.

datetime2 occupies 6-8 bytes and is able to store dates and times between January 1, 0001 and December 31, 9999 with an accuracy of 100 nanoseconds, whereas datetime takes up fixed 8-bytes and stores date/time in range of January 1, 1753 to December 31, 9999 with an accuracy of 3.33 milliseconds. The new datetimeoffset date type is similar to datetime2, but in addition it stores time zone offset in the range between -14:00 through +14:00.

The range of the date data type is between 0001-01-01 and 9999-12-31, whereas its predecessor datetime could only store the date range between 01-01-1753 through 9999-12-31. The range of time data type is between 00:00:00 and 23:59:59.9999999.

Upgrading to SQL Server 2008 R2

Mainstream support for SQL Server 2000 ended in April, 2008. The mainstream support for SQL Server 2005 will come to an end in April of 2011. If you are considering deploying your web application to SQL Server, we strongly recommend deploying it to 2008 R2 version. If you are currently using SQL 2005, SQL 2008, or even SQL 2000 versions, our advice would be to upgrade to 2008 R2 as soon as you can. The new SQL Server is fully backward compatible with its predecessors while providing better and faster performance for your applications. The steps to upgrade SQL Server are detailed in this community forum post.

Dmitri Gropen
Technical Support

DiscountASP.NET is happy to announce the immediate availability of MS SQL 2008 R2.

 

The "R2" designation indicates that this is not a major release of SQL Server, but there are a number of interesting new features for developers. R2 is different enough from SQL 2008 that we decided to treat it as we would a major release and dedicate a new group of servers to R2 (rather than upgrading the existing 2008 servers).

 

MS SQL 2008 R2 is available right now as an option in Control Panel. You may notice that we have also revamped the "Database Management" section of Control Panel to make it a bit easier to navigate.

 

We are always working hard to stay on the cutting edge and maintain our spot as the best .NET host in the world, and as always we appreciate your support and feedback.

The other day, I read a short article by Clive Thompson entitled “In Praise of Obscurity” in the February 2010 issue of Wired magazine. In the article, Thompson talks about how socializing doesn’t appear to scale. He highlights Maureen Evans, a grad student and poet, who built an active twitter following by tweeting recipes condensed down to 140 characters. Her social network grew into a very active community – a large but close knit group of twitter-ers engaged in many conversations. But then as her followers increased, she recounts that the sense of community died when her social network got up to around 13,000 followers. People just stopped talking to each other and stopped talking to her apparently.

 

It appears that when a social network grows too large, people start to feel estranged and that their contributions to the community are not useful anymore and so the conversation stops. In addition, when there is a large community, people tend to self-censor their remarks adding to that lost sense of community. So that is the phenomena that Thompson was referring to when he wrote that socializing doesn’t appear to scale.

 

The Wired magazine article reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, where he talks about the concept of Channel Capacity and then discusses the idea of Social Channel Capacity.  So let me try to touch on both these concepts.

 

Channel Capacity is a concept in cognitive psychology that refers to the capacity of the brain to store/recall certain information. Without getting into all the different experiments described in the Gladwell’s book, the gist is that our brain, on average, is wired to store about 6-7 categories/bits of information before most people start making mistakes in recalling. That is one of the reasons why our phone numbers in the USA are 7 digits.

 

Gladwell continues in his book to discuss the idea of Social Channel Capacity. The gist is that humans become less effective as a group when they reach around 150 people or more because with a group of this size, people cannot maintain emotional ties with each other. In other words, there is a limit to the amount of relationships one person can have and maintain.

 

And of course there are examples of this Social Channel Capacity. In combat military organizations, the hierarchy is often setup so that any functional fighting group is less than 200 people to maximize cohesion and effictiveness. The average village size of many hunter-gatherer tribes around the world is around 150. The Hutterites, a religious group, strictly maintains a population of 150 because they have found that this is the most effective number of people to function as a group. I’ve also seen some analysis of online gaming guild sizes and they tend to max out at around 150.

 

A modern example is found in the company, Gore Associates, who created the water-proof outdoor fabric, Gore-tex. When the number of employees reaches to about 150 people, they split it off as its own functional division. In fact, they only buy buildings that can comfortably accommodate 150 people with 150 parking spaces. And with this business practice, they are a successful multi-million high-tech company and they've won many "best place to work" awards.

 

OK. Let’s get back to the original idea of this post. I talked about the Wired magazine article and I diverged a little to talk about some concepts in the book, The Tipping Point. I talked about the human minds Channel Capacity which relates to the limit of retaining new data, and then the concept of Social Channel Capacity which relates to the size limit of functional groups.

 

So that led me to ask whether or not there is such a thing as Social Networking Channel Capacity – a human limit to Social Networking communities. As evidenced in the Wired article where 13,000 members seems to be a point where active conversations tend to stop. Could 13,000 be a human limit to emotional ties within communities made up of “weak interpersonal ties”?

 

I don’t know the answer to this question. I just thought it interesting and just wanted to pose the question and see what you all think.

 

Takeshi Eto

VP Marketing and Business Development

DiscountASP.NET

 

I must be a big online geek because this is the first movie, in years, that I am actually excited about:

 

http://www.thesocialnetwork-movie.com/

 

About the rise of Facebook.  Scheduled to be released in October. 

 

Mark Medina

Director, Marketing

DiscountASP.NET

 

Just wanted to spread the word on a new Microsoft program to help students get started with Microsoft certifications.

 

Unlike the more advanced Microsoft certifications that we are familar with, this MTA program targets students with no prior IT or development experience or employment. This program is only available in educational settings and is designed to integrate into the curriculum of existing computer courses.

 

The MTA programs offers:

- 3 IT Certifications in Networking Fundamentals, Security Fundamentals, and Windows Server Administration Fundamentals

- 3 Development Certifications in Software Development Fundamentals, Windows Development Fundamentals, and Web Development Fundamentals

- 1 Database Certification for Database Administration Fundamentals

 

Testing is conducted by Certiport, a commercial testing service, at participating schools.

 

You can get more information at the Certiport website.

 

Takeshi Eto

VP Marketing and Business Development

DiscountASP.NET

 

A big congrats to Christian Hood and Eric Lo who won the Mobile Gaming award at the 2010 Imagine Cup Finals competition in Warsaw, Poland!

 

These two high schoolers from Advanced Technologies Academy in Las Vegas won for developing a 2D game for Wndows Phone 7 called "Droid Assault". They plan to make their game available when the WP7 Mobile App Marketplace opens up. I hope this helps pay for college and beyond.

 

And for their prize? How about the first two Windows Phone 7 preview devices outside of Microsoft staff! Way to go!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Takeshi Eto

VP Marketing and Business Development

DiscountASP.NET

 

Silverlight is becoming an important foundational technology for Microsoft and they are betting on Silverlight to power the mobile applications of tomorrow on their upcoming Windows Phone 7 platform. The Silverlight developer will be the core group driving innovation for Microsoft's new mobile platform. Therefore, it is important for Microsoft and the community to have more insight and knowledge about the Silverlight developer.

 

In our previous research paper, Profile of Silverlight Adopters and Implications for Windows Phone 7 Applications Development Strategies, we focused our USA-based customers and reported on their attitudes and perceptions of Microsoft's mobile strategy.

 

Just recently, new research results are starting to get published about the mobile developer's attitudes and perceptions on different mobile platforms and on the mobile application development enterprise. There are interesting findings in studies from Appcelerator and VisionMobile, for instance. We believe that this type of research will accelerate as the mobile marketplace continues to heat up.

 

To add to this ongoing conversation, in our new research article, we take a more global view and report our observations on our customer’s mobile application development experience, interest level in developing Windows Phone 7 applications, and Windows Phone 7 application category interests. We found that the interest level in the types of mobile applications our customers desire to build varies depending on their global region.
 
Here is a link to the research article: 
 
Windows Phone 7 Application Category Interests of Global ASP.NET Developers
 
Let us know what you think.

 

Takeshi Eto

VP Marketing and Business Development

DiscountASP.NET

 

There is always so much stuff happening at Microsoft that it is difficult to keep up and with all the Codenames used things can get very confusing.

 

So, for those that want to try to keep up Mary-Jo Foley, ZDNet's Microsoft watcher puts together a Microsoft CodeTracker Whitepaper that you can download. The June 2010 edition is 22 pages long!

 

Takeshi Eto

VP Marketing and Business Development

DiscountASP.NET

 

This weekend, June 26-27, the SoCal Code Camp will be held at the UCSD Extension Complex. 

 

The SoCal Code Camp is a 2 day event with sessions that start on Saturday morning at 8:45am to 4pm and resumes with sessions on Sunday morning from 9am to 3pm.  Check out the schedule here. 

 

As always, code camps are absolutely FREE, but you must register on their website.
 
For more information and to register, please visit:  http://www.socalcodecamp.com/

Mark Medina
Director, Marketing
DiscountASP.NET

Wow, time just flies by.

 

It was 10 years ago on June 22, 2000 when .NET was unveiled. I wasn't keeping track personally, but I did come upon this article on NetworkWorld.com -

10 years ago today, Microsoft unveiled the .NET Framework.

 

.NET was first released Feb. 13, 2002 and is still going strong.

 

We bet on .NET and launched DiscountASP.NET in 2003. It's been an exciting ride and we look forward to the next 10 years.

 

Takeshi Eto

VP Marketing and Business Development

DiscountASP.NET

 

 

I got to say, SketchFlow is pretty cool.

 

 

 

SketchFlow in 90 seconds from Adam Kinney on Vimeo.

 

Takeshi Eto

VP Marketing and Business Development

DiscountASP.NET

 

Earlier today I was browsing around SearchEngineLand and found this helpful little article about the 29 Worst Practices & Most Common Failures: SEO Checklist.

 

Basically, this article is a simple checklist of 29 worst SEO practices with a brief explanation of why the practices listed are bad.  Some of the practices are pretty basic for well versed search engine optimizers (although some of the practices listed may shock even the more expert SEO marketers), but for those who are new to the SEO game, this list is pretty helpful.  I’m not exactly sure how many of our customers are SEO experts and how many are SEO newbies, but regardless of your expertise, I would recommend printing out the check list and see where you and your site stand. 

 

Mark Medina
Director, Marketing
DiscountASP.NET

We are interested in understanding more about Silverlight adoption because Silverlight is becoming an increasingly important technology for Microsoft's business strategy. Our interest in Silverlight is further fueled by the announcement that Silverlight will be a key development platform for Microosft's next-generation mobile phone OS, Windows Phone 7.

 

In our research, we only found data on the statistics of users that can consume the Silverlight experience but didn't find information on Silverlight adoption within sites that are delivering the Silverlight experience.  So we decided to do our own research on Silverlight adoption and we published a Research Paper on the State of Silverlight previously, based on a survey targeting customers who hosted their web sites at DiscountASP.NET for two or more years.

 
In April 2010, we conducted a similar survey for DiscountASP.NET customers who hosted their web sites with us for less than two years and we use this data for a second Research Paper. In this study, we focus in on the USA-based customers and look at Silverlight adoption trends, explore the characteristic differences between the Silverlight adopter and our general customer base, and get a measure of customer attitudes toward Microsoft's mobile strategy.

  

Here is a link to the research paper: 
 
Profile of Silverlight Adopters and Implications for Windows Phone 7 Applications Development Strategies

 

Let us know what you think.

 

Takeshi Eto

VP Marketing and Business Development

DiscountASP.NET