February 17, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Round of Applause
February 18, 2008 at 3:03 am
Although SSIS is a very large improvement in regards to DTS sometimes I think it's a beta product shipped out as a final version, but it shows great potential! We use it here for some very critical business processes and relying on it already.. I think the best thing that is in SQL 2005 are the DMV's, I really like to look at the internals of SQL Server and these DMV's are the best thing for that. I didn't have a chance to look at 2008 yet, I hope they improved the DMV's or even have a user interface for them, as was announced at SCAT meeting's I attended to last year.
I'm working already with this product starting version 6.5 and still love it, it had always it's problems but it got better with every new version.
Wim van den Brink
February 18, 2008 at 8:18 am
How much does Microsoft pay you to market 2005? I realize that honesty is not a big part of some people's jobs but really, it is inconceivable that, unless you are marketing "tart", you could assert 2000 is "unstable" and 2005 is "stable". (Spreading a little FUD, are we? That is the Microsoft/Oracle/Sun way isn't it?) It stretches credulity for you to assert that the feature set in 2005 is in any way superior to 2000. Look at the overwhelming addition of complexity to every single task! Do you REALLY think it is a plus to require interface users to click 3,4,5,6 or more times to discover something that previously took 1 or 2 clicks? Do you like the idea of opening multiple windows to view a log file?If so, are you a)crazy, B)just too eager with the crack pipe or c)do you have nothing else to do than click crappy interface designs some amatuer designer did not think thru before imposing them on us?
The facts are that 2000 is stable, it enabled MS to take the market from Oracle, 2005 is a complete re-write of the technology, MS always screws-up the initial write/re-write of a technology and MS will NOT get it right until they have written the new software package 2 or 3 times. As evidence consider that MS did not succeed with SQL Server until 2000. After it got the Sybase source code it tinkered with making it right in 6.0/6.5 and again in 7.0 then finally got it with 2000. It tinkered in the same ways with Windows, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Exchange Server.
The ideas MS demonstrated in 2005 will not likely be of any use until (maybe) 2008 or 2011. That is an historically verifiable, highly likely probability! So, spare us the sycophantic marketing, try to be an honest person about SQL Server and then maybe we can take you seriously again.
February 18, 2008 at 8:22 am
SQL 2005 is a HUGE improvement over SQL 2000. I particularly like the integrated environment that Management Studio provides and the CTE and OUTPUT keywords. SSIS did not win me over at first, but I am getting used to it, and it sure looks pretty.
Having spent a lot of time with "The Oracle" over the years I'd rather work in SQL Server any day of the week.
February 18, 2008 at 8:31 am
Microsoft does not pay me a thing, nor have they ever even purchased any advertising on this site. I believe in the product and think they've done a great job with it. I'm insulted with the insinuations and whiny comments you've written.
Saying that 2005 is more stable than 2000 does not in any way imply 2000 isn't stable. It is a great product, but has had issues under loads. I've had it crash on me, had transactions stick, and plans go haywire. Not often, but it's happened.
Complaining that the interface changed is a personal preference thing. It in no way takes away from the core functionality or performance of the product. Requiring multiple clicks to do something might be annoying to you, but how does that impact the stability or performance? It doesn't.
The increase in complexity, something I've complained about in SSIS, comes at a huge increase in functionality. DDL triggers alone make this an amazing advance in what SQL Server can do. And there's much more that went into this product that was done well. Not everything, but there was much that was done well.
February 18, 2008 at 8:46 am
Are we going to be so politically correct that we can only criticize MS, not compliment them? As as very public and visible person in the SQL community Steve has issued a good bit of criticism about things MS has done wrong and I think this editorial as much as anything is to remind everyone (MS and us) that a lot of good people are working hard trying to make things better and that criticism should be directed (and taken) at the company, not the people.
I see a lot of good stuff in 2005, and a lot of stuff not perfect. SSIS is a great upgrade, but the learning curve is steep and there are parts of the UI that are just horrible. SSMS didn't feel like an upgrade, just a change. DDL triggers are very nice, as is the output clause, and in particular I appreciate the DMV's and the improvements to transactional replication. I can understand why people stick with SQL 2000, and I can understand why people choose to move to 2005. As a group we're about as likely to agree on that as we are about politics.
I guess it comes down to how the community chooses to definie itself. Will it just focus on technical implementation, or will it take a larger view and use it's power carefully to speak about how changes to the product affect us all?
February 18, 2008 at 8:54 am
[RANT ON]
Absolute rubbish!! SQL 2k5 SP2 was a disaster. The number and severity of bugs in (for example) SQL 2005 SP2 is completely unacceptable and unconscionable, IMNSHO. Review the list of the bugs contained in the soon-to-be SIXTH cumulative hotfix rollup and you will find a raft of bugs, including SEVERE ones that can crash the server, return incorrect results as well as cause significant processing delays. Oh, and don't forget that 32bit-on-64-bit systems didn't even APPLY hotfixes correctly until well into the post-SP2 timeframe!
Microsoft truly needs to go back to the basics on service pack testing and rollouts. Things have been awful going all the way back to 2000 SP3!!
[RANT OFF]
Best,
Kevin G. Boles
SQL Server Consultant
SQL MVP 2007-2012
TheSQLGuru on googles mail service
February 18, 2008 at 9:24 am
The BI components of SQL Server 2005 are vastly better than 2000. The UDM model in SSAS enables the modeling of complex relationships and makes it much easier to work with dimension attributes for reporting. Enhancements to the MDX language are terrific. SSIS, while complicated at first, does a first-rate job at building ETL processes. Our company has worked with BI products from Oracle and Cognos. MS SQL Server 2005 is, in our opinion, much superior to these offerings.
For the record, neither my company nor I are in any way associated with Microsoft. We just happen to like their products
February 18, 2008 at 9:43 am
If you ever worked with Oracle products, then you would appreciate Microsoft products.
Years ago, Oracle already had a data warehouse product called Oracle Express, now they called it Oracle data warehouse. It was a GUI interface to build the star schema with the dimension tables and fact table. No matter how hard I tried, even the DBA tried it too, it did not work. Finally we had an Oracle consultant came in to try and it did not work, that guy just told us not to use the product. Oracle actually put out a product that DID NOT WORK at all. They did not even put out patches to fix the product, they scratched it later on.
Even on Oracle data warehouse is terrible. I think that is the reason why they acquired Hyperion.
February 18, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I have not personally worked with any RDBMS other than SQL Server for over 10 years now. I am clearly heavily invested in the SQL Server stack and thus more than a bit biased towards it. But second-hand information from people who do work on other systems such as mySQL, DB2, Oracle, etc. does lead me to believe strongly that we do indeed have the best overall platform - by a pretty good margin.
I am well aware of the fact that we can never have bug-free systems and that MS has to generate revenue/profits and thus hasb to keep moving forward. But I really, really do think they can and should put out a better product from a quality perspective and can do so without losing an unacceptable amount of money. I actually think it would IMPROVE their revenue cycle because companies will be more likely to upgrade sooner rather than later if they had TRUE confidence in the releases. I have clients (and know other consultants that do as well) that are still on SQL 2000 and have no intention of upgrading to 2005. 2k works for them and they have seen the slew of KBAlerts for 2k5.
While we are on the topic of quality, PLEASE consider going to this connect location and voting to have MS release a SP3 for SQL 2005:
http://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=326575
Best,
Kevin G. Boles
SQL Server Consultant
SQL MVP 2007-2012
TheSQLGuru on googles mail service
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