Beyond Binary

Microsoft wants SQL Server to scale new heights, and it is hoping an add-on code-named Kilimanjaro will help.

Microsoft VP Ted Kummert, earlier this year as he made good on a pledge to dye his hair orange if the engineering team got SQL Server 2008 out by the company's revised deadline. He's holding the team's mock-up of what his hair might look like.

Due out in the first half of 2010, Kilimanjaro improves SQL Server 2008 with a series of business intelligence enhancements to the database. Microsoft, stressed though, that Kilimanjaro is not the next version of SQL Server, which is due out two to three years after SQL Server 2008. SQL Server 2009 was released earlier this year.

"You should think about this as new capabilities, not a refresh or upgrade," said Microsoft Vice President Ted Kummert, who heads the SQL Server team. Microsoft has not said how Kilimanjaro will be sold. The goal of Kilimanjaro is to make it so more workers in a company can create business intelligence features like charts and so forth.

Microsoft, which is making the Kilimanjaro upgrade at a business intelligence conference in Redmond, Wash., also plans to show its efforts at integrating its Datallegro acquisition with Windows Server and SQL Server.

The Datallegro acquisition will allow SQL Server to go from databases that are in the tens of terabytes to ones in the hundreds of terabytes or even a petabyte of data, Kummert said. The first integrated product, known as "Project Madison," is due in the first half of 2010.

Although Microsoft is showing the demo at the BI conference, Kummert said the data warehouse itself, which consists of a 100 terabyte database with over a trillion rows of data, is running at Datallegro's offices in Aliso Viejo, Calif.

"Moving that much storage is a bit problematic," he said.

Microsoft said on Wednesday that it has finished work on SQL Server 2008, the latest version of its database software.

The software maker in a statement said it has reached the "release to manufacturing" stage, meaning that it has finalized the code for the software.

Although its release was delayed from its initial target, Microsoft said it was able to meet its goal of having a new version within 24 to 36 months from the release of SQL Server 2005.

SQL Server 2008 comes in a number of editions, ranging from the free SQL Server 2008 Express to SQL Server 2008 Enterprise. Other editions include standard, work group, developer, Web, and compact, which runs on both PCs and Windows Mobile devices.

Microsoft VP Ted Kummert, making good on a pledge to dye his hair orange if the engineering team got SQL Server 2008 out by the company's revised deadline. He's holding the team's mock-up of what his hair might look like.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Pricing is comparable to what Microsoft charged for the prior version, SQL Server 2005. One edition, the Web version, is new. Microsoft Vice President Ted Kummert said in a conference call that hosting customers had complained of not having a version that met their needs, in terms of features and pricing, and that the Web edition was an attempt to meet those needs.

"We nailed it, and that just feels so good," said Dan Jones, a member of the product's engineering team. "This is such a great day. The sun is shining in Redmond."

The release is important for Microsoft, as the database product has been a standout in the company's financial results for many quarters, helping the company gain ground against rivals.

Kummert declined to give a specific target in either units or dollars of what it hopes the release will mean, but he said the company hopes to continue the growth it has seen with the prior version of the database software.

"We expect SQL Server 2008 to continue the growth trajectory," Kummert said. "We are focused on winning with customers of all sizes."

The downside of having the announcement via teleconference was, there was no way to see Kummert's hair, which was dyed bright orange. Kummert had promised the that if the engineering team met its deadlines, he would sport the new 'do.

LAS VEGAS--While Internet Explorer 8 demos, Silverlight progress and a Monkey Boy reprise from Steve Ballmer captured much of the attention at Mix 08--it was a database announcement that could be the sleeper announcement of the show.

Dave Campbell

(Credit: Microsoft)

What Microsoft announced was a database-in-the-cloud service where Web developers can store their data. Those attending the Mix show here were able to sign up for a beta test that is set to begin in three or four weeks, with a final version aimed to be launched by the end of the year, according to Dave Campbell, a technical fellow in Microsoft's SQL Server division.

"We're taking SQL Server we're pulling pieces of it apart and we're putting it back together," Campbell said in an interview. One of the challenges is taking software designed to run highly reliable servers and storage and turning it into a commodity service.

But, Campbell said, that's also where the opportunity lies. "In this world, dumb and fast rules."

"If you give up a tiny bit in terms of the degree of consistency in the architecture, you can get tremendous resiliency and scale, but you want to retain enterprise-class quality around data service," he explained. Factoring data into classes of data or tiers is one way to improve the class of service using commodity gear, he said.

What Microsoft is doing in this case with its database is also the kind of thing it makes sense to imagine the company doing with a variety of "building block" services.

"SQL Data Services is a building block for Microsoft's longer term vision of a services fabric for developing and deploying applications," Campbell said. "Imagine at some point a version of Visual Studio with a services palette in the toolbox and wiring up and composing services."

Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff said that it's important for Microsoft to be a player in this area.

"A lot of computing and storage is going to be moving online," he said. "For them not to get into this game would be suicidal at some level."

Campbell downplayed the notion that Microsoft was competing with Amazon.com's S3 service.

Haff said that there are some differences, since Amazon targets largely unstructured data and Microsoft is aimed more at structured and semi-structured data, but said it's not like the two don't overlap.

"They are targeting a somewhat different market, but everyone competes at some level," he said.

Campbell wouldn't get into how Microsoft would price the service, but said it some type of usage model that takes into account both the amount of data stored in the cloud as well as the bandwidth used in transferring information.

CNET News.com's Dan Farber contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES--Microsoft brought out former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw on Wednesday to kick off the launch of Windows Server 2008.

In explaining his appearance at a server launch, Brokaw said he was trying to redeem himself after his recent Saturday Night Live appearance, in which he was interviewed by Will Farrell as Anchorman character Ron Burgundy.

Tom Brokaw speaks at the outset of the Windows Server 2008 launch.

(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News.com)

"I'm not here to write new code, to design new apps," Brokaw told the crowd at the tony Nokia Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Instead, Brokaw spoke for several minutes on the radical transformation of society being brought about by technology.

Brokaw pointed to an NYU doctor that will soon program remotely a cochlear implant for a child in East Africa and a farmer in America's heartland that tracks global commodity prices from his computer in order to ensure he can produce a profitable crop.

He also talked about the limits of technology, saying that we can't hit delete to end global poverty or backspace to erase the effects of global warming.

"Technology alone is not the answer," Brokaw said. "It will do little good to wire the world if we short-circuit our conscience."

Microsoft is using the event to formally launch Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008, although that last product's release has been pushed back until the third quarter of this year.

The software maker also detailed several other server products including its version for computing clusters, Windows HP Server 2008, which is slated for the second half of the year and Windows Storage Server 2008, also due out before year's end.

Microsoft has reached another milestone on the road to the release of Windows Server 2008.

On Wednesday, the company made available the Release Candidate 1 version of the software and promised the final version will be ready in time for the product's February 27 launch. Microsoft plans to launch the product, along with SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008, at an event in Los Angeles.

The event is themed "Heroes happen here" and is planned as a love fest celebrating all the work done by the IT crowd. The software maker also said it will spend more than $150 million worldwide to help market and build demand for the new products.

"This is the largest enterprise launch in our history, and both Microsoft and many of our industry partners are making a significant investment in a worldwide rollout," Microsoft Vice President Andy Lees said in a statement.

Microsoft originally planned to have the operating system completed by the end of the year, even pulling out some key virtualization features to try to meet that deadline. However, it announced in August that the product would not be finished until early 2008.