SQL Server Mobile Edition

Posted October 14, 2004

Chat Date: October 12, 2004

Please note: Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity

Introduction

Moderator: mikefos (Microsoft)
Welcome to today's Chat. Our topic covers SQL Server Mobile Edition and SQL CE. Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome.

Moderator: mikefos (Microsoft)
Let’s introduce our hosts for today.

Host: KevinCol (Microsoft)
Kevin Collins is a senior program manager on the SQL Server Mobile team at Microsoft focusing on all aspects of the product. He has been involved with database technology for over 19 years, with over ten years working on database technology at Microsoft.

Host: chrisze (Microsoft)
Hi, my name is Christoph zelazowski and I'm a dev lead in SQL Mobile. I work on programmability interfaces (ADO.NET), connectivity (merge replication and RDA) as well as tools integration (SQL Management Studio and Visual Studio).

Host: tomerv (Microsoft)
Hi, my name is Tomer Verona and I'm a dev lead on SQL Mobile. I work on the storage engine and query processor components.

Host: lemo (Microsoft)
Hi, I'm Leonard Mosescu, developer for the SQL Mobile storage engine

Host: songxue (Microsoft)
Hi, my name is Song Xue. I am a query processor developer.

Host: briansa (Microsoft)
Hi, I'm Brian Sabino a Program Manager w/ the SQL Mobile team. I work primarily on the client APIs

Moderator: mikefos (Microsoft)
Welcome everyone, let’s get started!

Start of Chat

Host: KevinCol (Microsoft)
Q: Dumb question perhaps, but to kick things off, what's new with SQL Mobile over SQL CE.

Host: KevinCol (Microsoft)
A: The key new features for SQL Mobile are

1) Tight integration with SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005,

2) Significant performance improvements with the new SQL the new SQLCEResultSet

3) Multi-user support.

Demos and full information can be seen at https://blogs.msdn.com/b/glengordon/archive/2005/02/22/378043.aspx.

Host: chrisze (Microsoft)
Q: Will there be a way to create SQLCE databases on the desktops to include in a deploy package? (I think I read somewhere it is possible. I just want to verify).

Host: chrisze (Microsoft)
A: You will be able to create databases on the desktop using either SQL Management Studio, Visual Studio Data Designers or programmatically using ADO.NET (in conjunction with Merge Replication / RDA if needed). However, there is no automation built-in for any kind of deploy package.

Host: KevinCol (Microsoft)
Q: You have added many features, which would be now the "minimum scenario required" for a good response? Do we need a Bulverde processor, or would a SA 1100 be sufficient?
A: There are no specific processor requirements. SQL Mobile will run on PocketPC 2003 devices, the next release of PocketPC and SmartPhone and WindowsCE v5.0 embedded devices and TabletPC.

Host: briansa (Microsoft)
Q: Can we expect a significant speed enhancement over the current version?
A: Performance is always heavily dependant on your scenario (amount of data, schema, query complexity, bufferpool size, etc). There's no way we can guarantee that you'll see a performance improvement in all cases. That said we do expect SQL mobile to be faster in most cases than V2.0. There are also some new features that will make certain scenarios significantly faster (e.x. bulk loading or displaying a large amount of data using the SQLCeResultSet.

Host: KevinCol (Microsoft)
Q: There is a short reference to Smartphone support. Can you give us more specific info regarding this? Will it work with the current Smartphone OS or there will be an upgrade to the SP OS?
A: SQL Mobile will support the next release of Smartphone. That release of Smartphone has not yet shipped though.

Moderator: mikefos (Microsoft)
Hello. For those just joining the chat - Our topic covers SQL Server Mobile Edition. Questions, comments and suggestions are welcome.

Host: KevinCol (Microsoft)
Q: So forgive my ignorance, what are the alternatives to SQL mobile for device development? What is the full slate of database-type alternatives?
A: Sybase and IBM are the mainstream alternatives.

Host: KevinCol (Microsoft)
Q: So no other Microsoft solutions? Pocket Access is dead?
A: Pocket Access is really CEDB. That product is not being enhanced. The storage engine for SQL Mobile (eDB) will be the replacement for CEDB long term.

Host: chrisze (Microsoft)
Q: Will the query plan be available to be seen directly on the device?
A: You can not render the showplan directly on the device. You can however render it on the desktop from within SQL Management Studio while being connected to either device or desktop database. Another alternative is that you can save the showplan as XML

Host: KevinCol (Microsoft)
Q: Are there any plans to make setting up Merge Replication between SQL Mobile 3 and SQL Server 2005 easier?
A: Yes, it is substantially much easier. There are also sample demos on the web cast.

Host: lemo (Microsoft)
Q: How do you compare with CEDB?
A: eDB is sharing the technology with the SQL Mobile engine, and it benefits from all the improvements implemented for SQL Mobile 3.0: full ACID transactions, better performance compared to CEDB (for most scenarios), improved tracking and notifications. Keep in mind that the eDB API is close to CEDB like so some concepts are mapped different than through SQL Mobile APIs.

Host: KevinCol (Microsoft)
Q: Can you give us an approximate idea about the footprint, or the size of the files that will be needed to install the RDBMS on the device?
A: The plan of record for the next release of devices is that SQL Mobile will be in ROM. Thus the footprint would only increase if you were going to use Sync. If you were going to use a PocketPC 2003 device, the footprint is roughly the same as it was for SQL CE v2.0 (1.5mb).

Host: KevinCol (Microsoft)
Q: in ROM? So, in order to update it we must go through the flash process? What about the vendors? The flashable software was only available thru OEM channels (for instance, OS upgrade..).
A: This whole process is being re-evaluated for the next release of devices to make it easier to get updates. The details on this are not public yet.

Host: KevinCol (Microsoft)
Q: Do you guys have pointers to any particular success stories? I'd like to see who is using SQL CE and the stuff that they're doing with it - how they're architecting their solutions.
A:https://www.microsoft.com/SQL/ce/productinfo/casestudies.asp

Host: Ginny (MVP)
A: I know of an app in Australia that contains the complete very large database of medicines for use by doctors. Performance is quite good.

Host: chrisze (Microsoft)
Q: You stated that there will be no need to use the dataset with the new SQLCeResultSet. Will this resultset be seen as a typed dataset, or will inherit the constraints of the CF datasets (lack of serializer prevents typed ones).
A: The SQLCeResultSet and DataSet are orthogonal classes, hence the result set does not inherit constraints from the data set. Instead, the constraints that you see through the result set are the constraints defined on base tables in your database.

Host: KevinCol (Microsoft)
Q: And how would I provide feedback or ask further questions?
A: there is a public beta news group for SQL Mobile in VS 2005. Posting your questions or bugs get back to us. If you don't like that newsgroup, you can post to our general newsgroup and we will answer.

Host: KevinCol (Microsoft)
Q: If I use pre-release stuff, can I actually deploy anything? Or are there limitations?
A: MS does not allow Beta's to be redistributed. However, there is a good likelihood that VS 2005 will have a "Go Live" program again that will allow developers to deploy beta code.

Moderator: mikefos (Microsoft)
Thanks for joining us today and thanks for the questions.

Moderator: mikefos (Microsoft)
If you have any questions or comments regarding this chat format, we’d love to hear your feedback in the newsgroups.

Moderator: mikefos (Microsoft)
Please see the chats schedule for upcoming topics.

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