9-11-2001 – Never Forget

Never forget my friends, never forget…

Free Microsoft SQL Azure training and a cool Migration Wizard utility

MSDev – Recent SQL Azure Posts

Microsoft SQL Azure Tooling
Course Type: Web Seminar
Available On Demand Starting on October 5th!

This session will cover the following topics:

• SQLCMD Basics
• Deployment
• Development
• Management
• Provisioning

Microsoft SQL Azure Security Model
Course Type: Web Seminar
Available On Demand Starting on October 5th!

This session will cover the following topics:

• Authentication
• Authorization

Microsoft SQL Azure Overview for the Technical Decision Maker
Course Type: Web Seminar
Available On Demand Starting on September 28th!

This overview gives attendees an understanding of SQL Azure and will highlight core functionality.

Microsoft SQL Azure Overview for Developers
Course Type: Web Seminar
Available On Demand Starting on September 28th!

This session will cover the following topics:

• SQL Azure Overview
• SQL Azure Data Access
• SQL Azure Architecture
• SQL Azure Provisioning Model

Microsoft SQL Azure RDBMS Support
Course Type: Web Seminar
Available On Demand Starting on September 28th!

This session will cover the following topics:

• Creating, accessing and manipulating tables, views, indexes, roles, procedures, triggers, and functions
• Insert, Update, and Delete
• Constraints
• Transactions
• Temp tables
• Query support

Microsoft SQL Azure Programmability
Course Type: Web Seminar
Available On Demand Starting on September 28th!

This session will cover how to programmatically interact with SQL Azure using the following APIs:

• ADO.NET
• ODBC
• PHP

Wade Wegner - SQL Azure Migration Wizard

“In my opinion, SQL Azure is the “secret sauce” of the Windows Azure Platform.  Through SQL Azure, you have the ability to store your data in a true cloud-based relational database.  It’s as simple as deploying your database to SQL Azure and updating your connection string to point to the new database – done!  I think this really provides a core differentiator between the Windows Azure Platform and other cloud vendors.

Nevertheless, despite all the benefits you get from SQL Azure today, we’re still in CTP – SQL Azure is not yet released!  Consequently, there are a few places where it’s a bit rough around the edges.  In particular, the tooling through SQL Server Management Studio leaves a bit to be desired and some of the differences between what’s supported in SQL Server 2005/2008 versus SQL Azure can be a bit confusing.  It took me hours to manually modify the SQL script of a moderately complex database so that I could deploy it into SQL Azure.  What was missing was a good tool that would help with this process.  Fortunately, my good friend and coworker George Huey has made this process much easier by creating the SQL Azure Migration Wizard.

At it’s core, the SQL Azure Migration Wizard help you migrate your SQL Server databases into SQL Azure.  Point to your local database, walk through the wizard, and the end result is a SQL script you can deploy to SQL Azure – in fact, the tool will even deploy it for you.  I used this tool against the same database that took me hours to manually migrate and the process only took a few minutes.

…”

Since Azure is nearing commercial release (< Confessions of .NET Junkie Eric Golpe /> -  Less than 75 days left until Commercial Launch of Windows Azure at PDC 2009) I thought I’d capture and share a cool SQL Azure utility and some free training…

Please Note: Windows Azure != SQL Azure. They are related, kind of, but in the end are separate services. Please see Windows Azure Platform for more information on Windows Azure, SQL Azure and the other services that are part of the Azure platform.

 

Related Past Post XRef:
SQL Data Services, now a “real” SQL Server in the cloud – Change the connection string to point to SDS and “have it just work”
SSDS SDK Released (Beta)

.Net Code Contracts + XML Comments = (as good as) peanut butter and chocolate?

Peli's Farm - Pex, Stubs, QuickGraph, MbUnit, Reflector Addins - Code Contracts.Net to Xml Comments!

“The new release of Code Contracts is out and brings a very cool feature: Xml comment generation. This means that you do not have to worry about keeping the comments in sync with the code, the compiler takes care of this.

Contracts to Xml Comments in action

Unless you invest a lot of work in them, Xml comments are most often worthless. …

…

However, the body of the constructor contains Contracts that state the pre-conditions and post-conditions of the constructor: source and target should not be null, etc… With the new xml comment generation, these contracts will be added to the xml documentation and ultimately will show up in the compiled documentation.

…

Finally, we run the documentation file through Sandcastle*** to get the final result..

…”

Now that’s pretty cool and very logical. It seems a prefect way to extend and enhance our generated doc’s.

.Net Code Contracts is something I’ve been lightly following on a low priority background thread, waiting for it to bake a little more. Seeing this, I think I’m going to have to increase the priority on that thread. (Yeah it’s a little thing, but little things add up to some pretty big things… ;)

A Feed You Should Read #2 - Chris Alcock’s Reflective Perspective (The Morning Brew)

In my second “A Feed You Should Read” I’m continuing with some of the link bloggers I read.

One of the early must read blogs was the “Daily Grind” which sadly is no more (we miss you… ). Yet all is not lost.

Taking up the mantle of the Daily Grind, Chris Alcock jumped into the breach with “The Morning Brew”. While we miss the Grind, the Morning Brew is a great blend and has an outstanding flavor… ;)

Chris Alcock - Reflective Perspective

Background:

Chris’s The Morning Brew has been about for almost three years now, since January 2007, and I’ve been follow it since its start, or close to it at least (looks like my first link to it was to #37)

The Morning Brew is a link blog, but with a twist. In addition to the links, there’s brief description of that link’s content. Think of it like a Link Blog++

Why do I like this feed and think you might also?

It’s both the content of which Chris links to, which is basically Microsoft development/tech related, and the “extra” depth he provides.

Not only are well focused and categorized links provided, but an extra level of depth.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if a link in a link blog is worth a click-though just based on its title. Yet each click-through that isn’t what you might have thought it was costs you time. The extra descriptions Chris includes with his links help a great deal toward determining if you should invest your time or not.

You can think if it like links with description attributes being applied… (sorry… a dev joke… ;)

As icing on the cake, he and I seem to read many of the same blogs, yet being in the UK, provides a different perspective on things, which helps me broaden my own. There have been a number of times where I’ve missed something, or glossed over it, but in reading about it on his blog realized that I needed to take a second look.

If your time is limited, yet would like to keep up on the goings on in the Microsoft Development sphere, I recommend you place Chris Alcock - Reflective Perspective and The Morning Brew in your “must read at the start of the day” feed folder.

Snap of today’s post:

The Morning Brew #426

 

Blog Information:

Name:	Reflective Perspective - The caffeine fueled thoughts of a UK Software Developer and home of ‘The Morning Brew’
URL:	http://blog.cwa.me.uk/
Feed:	http://feeds.feedburner.com/ReflectivePerspective
Post Types:	Primary – Links (The Morning Brew) Secondary - .Net, SQL Server, Microsoft based development related topics