Tuesday, July 10, 2012 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM (GMT+0200)

Microsoft Bryanston office
3012 William Nicol Dr
Sandton, 2191
South Africa

The agenda for tomorrows meeting will be as follows:

• Welcome: 18:30-18:45 Stephan Lawson 
• Session 1 18:45 - 19:30 Mark Stacey BI For the DBA
• Session 2 19:30 - 20:15 Sean Pearce Statistics !
• PFE Session 20:15 - 20:30

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Yesterday Microsoft announced that the beta of a new version of Visual Studio development suite, called Visual Studio LightSwitch will be available for download on August 23. Visual Studio LightSwitch directly targets business analysis and everyday business users who need to build applications without the typically required development skills.

What's really cool for me is that all this is built on top of .Net and allows you, if needed, to write custom code in either Visual Basic .NET or C# and build applications targeted at the desktop, browser, or Azure when finally released.

Whilst the download will only be available towards the end of the month, there is loads of information and some great introductory video available on the Visual Studio LightSwitch site, with additional videos promised before the download becomes available, so keep an eye on the site.

<Gary>

Yip you heard right the Microsoft PDC event will be running this year on October 28th and 29th in Redmond.

The Microsoft PDC event has been the epicenter of Microsoft’s biggest platform announcements since the first event in 1991. This year will be no exception. Leading-edge developers and architects will gather in Redmond this October to hear firsthand from Microsoft’s leaders about the next generation of Cloud Services, Phone, Tools & Technologies, Internet Explorer and Gaming Platforms.

All the event and registration details are now online at https://www.microsoftpdc.com/

<Gary>

I will be presenting a little something on SQL Server 2008 R2 Master Data Services (MDS), similar to what I presented up in Johannesburg last month. I look forward to seeing you there.

For those that don’t know where the Microsoft Cape Town office is :

Golf Park 3
Engen House
Raapenberg Road
Mowbray
7925

Map: www.microsoft.com/southafrica/mscorp/map_ct.mspx

Check out the temporary website, wile they work at getting the 'real site' ready.

Venue can only accomodate 44 people.  To ensure a seat, please email sqlcape@gmail.com with your name and contact details to ensure a seat reserved. Check back to this wiki page to see your name on the list.

IMPORTANT! Should anything prevent you from being able to attend after you've reserved your seat, please notify us on sqlcape@gmail.com to remove your name and allow people that may be on the waiting list to attend.

You  can follow the user group on twitter for all the event details and updates: https://twitter.com/sqlcape or the Facebook Page.

<Gary>

For those of you who have not used it, the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 5.0 is an agentless tool designed to simplify and streamline the IT infrastructure planning process across multiple scenarios through network-wide automated discovery and assessments. This Solution Accelerator performs an inventory of heterogeneous server environments and provides you with usage information for servers in the Core CAL Suite and SQL Server, SQL Server 2008 discovery and assessment for consolidation, Windows 2000 Server migration assessment, and a readiness assessment for the most widely used Microsoft technologies - now including Office 2010.

What's new with MAP Toolkit 5.0:

• Heterogeneous server environment inventory
• Software usage tracking for Windows Server, SharePoint Server, System Center Configuration Manager, Exchange Server, and SQL Server
• Microsoft Office 2010 readiness assessment
• SQL Server discovery and assessment for consolidation
• Windows 2000 Server migration assessment

Heterogeneous Server Environment Inventory: Know what’s in your IT environment. The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit performs a network inventory of IT assets remotely without the use of agents, identifying heterogeneous server environments consisting of Windows Server and Linux operating systems, including those running in a virtual environment. MAP 5.0 also automates the discovery of Linux-powered LAMP stacks.

Software Usage Tracker: Right-size your IT environment with MAP Toolkit 5.0, and simplify your software license management and compliance processes. MAP 5.0’s new usage tracking feature provides consistent software usage reports for key Microsoft server products: Windows Server, SharePoint Server, System Center Configuration Manager, Exchange Server, and SQL Server. Run updated reports whenever you need to accurately assess current software usage and client access history in your environment. This reduces time and administrative costs for managing your server and client access licenses (CALs) and helps you to streamline the management of your software assets.

Microsoft Office 2010 Readiness Assessment: Streamline your migration to Office 2010 with MAP 5.0’s hardware compatibility proposal document. The MAP Toolkit provides readiness details and specifics of your IT infrastructure inventory, including hardware and OS requirements and upgrade recommendations for planning a seamless deployment of Office 2010. The actionable recommendations and assessments presented shorten the time it takes to plan your Office 2010 migration and prepares your IT environment for Office 2010 deployment and migration scenarios.

Database Discovery for SQL Server Consolidation: MAP 5.0’s new database discovery feature gives you the information you need to optimize your database resources and investments. MAP helps you simplify database administration and provides wide-ranging details of databases and server instances—information you can utilize for consolidation. Use the MAP Toolkit’s proposals to better utilize hardware and database resources, reduce administrative costs, and streamline your software licensing needs—all essential for cost-effective IT planning and operations.

Windows 2000 Server Migration Assessment: As support for Windows 2000 Server ends soon, MAP 5.0’s Migration Assessment feature helps you prepare for migration to Windows Server 2008 R2 by assessing the Windows 2000 Server environment and legacy workloads in the form of proposals and reports. The MAP Toolkit’s actionable recommendations help you to understand the potential business impact of maintaining legacy workloads and the benefits of migrating to the robust Windows Server 2008 R2 environment. With migration to Windows Server 2008 R2, you’ll be able to utilize the increased IT flexibility and efficiency from such technologies as Hyper-V and Remote Desktop Services, as well as tap into power-savings features to decrease TCO.

In order to add the MAP Toolkit 5.0. to your toolbox check out the product web site  for more information or download it for free.

<Gary>

What makes this release interesting to evaluate (obviously only in non-production environments) for me is the inclusion of support for enlisting SQL Server 2008 instances into the SQL Server Utility and Data-tier Application support.

• SQL Server Utility The SQL Server 2008 R2 Utility supports SQL Server 2008 instances that have SP2 installed. The SQL Server Utility models SQL Server-related entities in a unified view. Utility Explorer and SQL Server Utility viewpoints in SQL Server Management Studio provide administrators a holistic view of resource health through an instance of SQL Server that serves as a utility control point (UCP). 
• Data-tier Applications SQL Server Management Studio in SQL Server 2008 R2 supports all data-tier application (DAC) operations for SQL Server 2008 instances that have SP2 installed. DAC is an entity that contains all databases and instance objects used by an application. A DAC provides a single unit for authoring, deploying, and managing the data-tier objects instead of having to manage them separately. A DAC allows tighter integration of data-tier development with the development of the associated application code. It also gives administrators an application level view of resource usage in their systems through the utility control point.

One additional piece that for me was unexpected was the inclusion of the

• Reporting Services in SharePoint Integrated Mode (Feature Pack) The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2) Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Products 2007 allows you to connect to SQL Server 2008 R2 Report Servers.

For more details and the service pack itself check out the download.

<Gary>

<Gary>

The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 BPA provides similar to the functionality provided by SQL Server 2005 BPA diagnostic tool and performs the following functions:

• Gathers information about a Server and a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 or 2008 R2 instance installed on that Server
• Determines if the configurations are set according to the recommended best practices
• Reports on all configurations, indicating settings that differ from recommendations
• Indicates potential problems in the installed instance of SQL Server
• Recommends solutions to potential problems

<Gary>

Inus du Preez will be discussing SQL 2008 R2 deployment strategies.

<Gary>

I have received many requests for additional technical training material for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse from customers and partners when I introduce the capabilities as part of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 roadmap discussions. The good news is that I now have a really good  resource to refer you to, today Microsoft Learning released the new “Clinic 10333: Introduction to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse” and best of all its free.

<Gary>