January 28, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Mistake
January 29, 2008 at 12:37 am
if the SQL2005 SP2 release is to be considered an omen for SQL2008 ....
I'm right there with you :doze::blink:
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January 29, 2008 at 3:05 am
I've been having this discussion this weekend with a few mates in the games industry - their drivers are slightly different from Microsofts but essentially the same - in their case they need to get products out by Christmas in order to make money from them, in Microsoft's case they have a number of factors driving their release dates (as you mention, software assurance, and probably the fact they've called the product 2008 has something to do with it as well), but in both cases there are huge commercial pressures not to slip.
Anyway, I had a debate with the games guys - I was talking about a project of mine where the programmer insisted on developing an offline caching ability, I wasn't in favour of this, I'd have preferred a cut down product delivered on time. He won the argument through sheer bloody mindedness, so the deadline slipped back, in my case the problem we were solving had always been a problem so doing nothing was merely maintaining the status quo, there wasn't too much pain in allowing it to slip.
But the commercial programmers don't have that luxury, instead they work on feature sets and drop them as they approach deadlines - one of my friends is the project manager in charge of a slipping product, his job is essentially to stop the programmers from working on the whistles and bells they want to do and force them to do the "boring" stuff that needs to be done, whistle and bells can wait until release 2. What is interesting in both these cases is it is the programmers wandering about doing "interesting" things and taking their eyes off the ball that caused the slippage. They can't see the big picture, they spend too long staring at code.
It is true that really interesting algorithms and clever code falls by the wayside in favour of stuff that works (which is usually quite boring), but that's just the nature of the beast. Every company has an ideal product they'd love to release, but they usually end up releasing a huge compromise.
Releasing the sequel has a different set of problems - a lot of the great ideas that were never implemented raise their heads again. The trick this time is to implement them without the programmers breaking the original engine..... Herding cats.
So, yeah, I can see a certain amount of frustration at MS and their ever decreasing deliverables, but there has to be a delivery date. I'm not buying the product on that date, I'll wait for SP1 at least, but it doesn't annoy me, it's just the nature of the industry.
Oh - my programmer and his offline cache. Well as it happens the builders raised our factory roof 6 months after implementation, right through my backbone. The software stayed up and retained integrity. Good job, I said. Yes waiting is a pain but it delivers a better product, not that MS have that luxury.
January 29, 2008 at 6:27 am
Richard, I agree that the key issue is keeping the focus on the needed, not the wanted. I don't blame anyone for wanting to work on the "interesting" stuff, but you gotta pay the bills first.
I see a lot of value for companies in upgrading to SQL 2005 now rather than sticking with SQL 2000 or waiting on SQL 2008 (hopefully SP1). Just SSIS alone is worth the upgrade.
Steve, I totally agree that MS marketing on this is abysmal. We make our living on this platform and we want it to be at the least 100% trustworthy. Somehow that's harder to believe/sell when you have stuff like this Feb launch event going on. Kudos to you for using the Voice of the DBA to stand up for what's right on that issue, and I wish PASS would do the same. But is it just a few of us, or are a LOT of us in agreement? How about challenging all the SSC readers to vote their preferences right here in an open forum?
January 29, 2008 at 6:55 am
Great editorial. Thanks for putting it out there.
We're in the early stages of design for a new project and we were honestly counting on a number of features in 2008 to assist us in delivery. Now, I'm going to have to sit down with the project manager and determine if our schedule (because we have one too) can support this change. If not, can we implement everything that we were already starting to promise the business? It's going to be damned uncomfortable to go in and say that we can't supply some function or other now. It really stinks.
If they're this unsure of the release, they shouldn't announce it at all, let alone so far in advance that schmucks like me start to make plans around it.
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January 29, 2008 at 7:01 am
Out of our 20 production SQL Servers only three are SQL 2005. I have been holding off going to 2005 because i believe it is somewhat buggy (I have seen firsthand) AND with them touting that 2008 is coming 2nd quarter 2008 I knew I could not goto my mgt. team for the big $$ to upgrade to 2005 knowing that 2008 version was just around the corner. Now, I will simply stay pat on 2000 and wait for 2008 SP1 to be released.
January 29, 2008 at 7:04 am
I am torn. I look forward to a new version with fixes and new features but expecting customers to upgrade in a timely manner is difficult. The majority of our customers are still on SQL Server 2000 (most are SP4 atleast.) We can't get them to upgrade to 2005 due to cost and the fact that we would prefer them to upgrade their old outdated hardware as well.
Hardware is stronger and faster than ever. This means that smaller customers\shops can buy a new server and that hardware will probably perform far beyond the hardware supportability. We attempt to keep our customers on a 3 year plan with the assumption that most will start planning at 3 years and maybe will have it replaced shortly after 4.5. The vast majority are financial institutions implementing a document management system. Although it is the end of the world when it doesn't work they are slow to do proactive management.
I am hoping for a slow high quality release that we can phase in. Now if only i can get product management to start planning. That's right... start... they have known it was coming since before the first beta.
January 29, 2008 at 7:10 am
Having been burned before by MS' hype - I was almost ashamed to say - I was entirely expecting this to happen. It's annoying as all get up, and it's not a standard I allow myself to live by, but I can't remember when MS actually hit their planned release dates.
The worst part is that the extra time doesn't seem to buy us anything in terms of stability.....
The big question is whether the name on the package will still be SQL Server 2008 by the time it ACTUALLY hits the proverbial shelves.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
January 29, 2008 at 7:12 am
I agree that the MS marketing is horrible, I also think a 2-3 year release cycle is too fast. How are DBA's and developers supposed to keep up with all the changes being made in this time frame. Most SQL Server DBA's are still spending the majority of their time managing SQL Server 2000 servers. 2005 brought out Service Broker, SSIS (a huge upgrade to DTS with a huge learning curve), CLR Integration, Mirroring, Snapshots, improved reporting services, CTE's, and greater XML support. I am sure I left something out. Now 3 years later I have a new release with new features to learn and I still am not up to speed on 2005 because I have to keep 2000 servers up. I think most of the additions to 2005 are great, but at times I feel overwhelmed. MS should slow down the release cycle so all us normal guys can keep up with features and they can release a product that I can use before SP1.
Jack Corbett
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January 29, 2008 at 7:17 am
I don't think you're considering the implications for the MS marketing department here, they're full time telling implausible lies at the moment, having to do this over a span of 3 years rather than 2 would surely increase their workload by 50%?
January 29, 2008 at 7:47 am
Richard,
As much as I'd like to get up some sympathy for the Marketing guys and gals, I'm sure that they could focus on lying about other products for a year or two and then in the last 12 months come back to SQL Server 😉
January 29, 2008 at 7:48 am
Why rush?
SQL 2005 is working fine. It will be working fine 6 months from now. I'd much rather the new version be right than soon.
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January 29, 2008 at 9:17 am
Steve, give Microsoft a break!!!!! A lot of other software companies have the same problems too, eg Oracle, you think their release is on time, even it is on time, it may not work. Sometimes the patches come out the next day after their release of the new version of the product. How ironic!!!!
When you work on a big system, there are a lot of problems you cannot foresee so I rather they delay the release day than send out a garbage product.
Besides there is a problem between marketing and development group. I used to work for a software company. The marketing department would announce the released date no matter what the development team said. We kept telling them it was not possible, they did not care. Up to the week before the release, then the marketing group realized there was no release, then they sat down with development team and came up with another date. Of course the customers never blamed the marketing group, they always blamed the development team.
January 29, 2008 at 9:37 am
The move to 2008 would be first of all getting platform up to see what is working, and then decide what parts of the tools set with SQL Server 2008 would be worth running.
If SSIS and MS Reporting Services/BI suite will all work running against an 2005 slq server one could upgrade the tools and not the sql server till it was stable.
Realistically, a very high percent of today's projects miss the deliverable date, some by months or years. It is just much more of a big deal when it is Microsoft. It would be nice to know of a release in a reasonable timeframe before the product revs, but at the same time it would be great to know when to start planning for a new version that has tools you might required.
It is a balance, and a monster that no one has been able to tame yet. And till then we work with the business model we have and take the lumps when they come.
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January 29, 2008 at 9:41 am
One thing I've never understood is why the need to version the products by Years instead of incrmental numbers. Assigning 2008 as the version name places an unecessary bruden/stress on all associated with the product because it gives the impression that it will be ready by 2008. And when it's not readh till the following year then when the product is released it looks like it's outdated because of the year. I understand the choice of '2000' for a version name since it plays on the whole New Millenium thing. However they could have used '2000' as the marketing alias for version 8.0 of SQL Server and the smae goes with sucessive versions. This way when Microsft was confident, with the support of the SQL dev team, that version 9.0 was ready for release, they could have called it '2006' allowing for more time to pass before the version name made the prodcut sound outdated.
This may sound like a trivial item when compared to other issues with SQL Server however it is part of thr driving force behind pushing out something that's either not ready yet and or trying deliver on too many promises.
Bottom line, Marketing should not be allowed to make any decsions regarding a products name or feature set or even delivery. They should be limited to determine how best to marekt something that has already been decided on by someone outside of marketing.
Ed C
DBA/Developer
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