Table of Contents

Editorial: Push the Limits by Steve Jones

Clustering in 2005 by Brian Knight Clustering hasn't changed too much in SQL Server 2005, but it remains the number one technology for ensuring a highly available system. See a few of the changes and the things you should consider when setting up your own clusters.
	Mirroring - A New Look At High Availability by Rick Heiges Achieving a highly available database requires quite a few different pieces of technology in place as well as a talented staff. One new feature in SQL Server 2005 to make this easier is database mirroring. This article takes a look in detail at mirroring and how it compares to some other high availability solutions.
SQL Server 2005 Partitioning by Vinod Kumar One of the great new features of SQL Server 2005 is the enhanced ability to partition tables to allow greater scalability and spread the load across multiple servers. This article looks at the various ways in which you can use this technology.
	Clustering the DTC in 2003 by Brian Kelley The DTC service is crucial for certain functionality in SQL Server. However, using it in a Windows 2003 cluster isn't quite as straightforward or simple as one would like. Brian Kelley goes in depth to describe some of the issues he's experienced and how you can work around them.
Database Snapshots: The SQL Server Swiss Army Knife by James Luetkehoelter Database snapshots are a fantastic new feature in SQL Server 2005 that can give you a point in time view of your database for reporting, troubleshooting, even restoring. A look at the pros and cons of using this new technology.
	Comparing Crystal Reports and Reporting Services Design by Trey Johnson and Joe Salvatore Two of the premier SQL Server reporting packages are Crystal Reports and Microsoft's Reporting Services add-on. In this issue we take a look at how these two solutions compare with each other in terms of building different types of reports.
Designing Storage for SQL Server on a SAN by Hugh Scott SAN Storage is being implemented in more and more companies, and this is an important technology for the DBA to be aware of. This article looks at some of the basics of designing a SAN for SQL Server.
	High Availability vs. Disaster Recovery by Jason Hall High availability and disaster recovery as two related, but separate concepts. A few important points to consider when planning a strategy are discussed here.
SQL Server Eye for the Oracle Guy : Part Two of a Two-Part Series by the Joe Young, Scalability Experts Being a database administrator today isn’t quite the monogamous relationship it used to be. With Oracle and Microsoft being the two most prevalent databases installed today, encountering both in the same data center (or laptop) is the norm, not the exception. Whether we like it or not, it is a heterogeneous world out there. So to all the Oracle DBAs who have wondered at one time or another, what the “other” database is like in the trailer next door; this article will provide a high level view of Microsoft SQL Server and how it is similar or different from Oracle.

I think SQL Server is the best database platform on which to develop. Not that I have great experience with the other major platforms, but in reading about them, watching the news, seeing the pros and cons, it just seems to me that SQL Server is the best choice and so I’ve based, and continued to base, my career on it.

One area that SQL Server seems to take most of its knocks is the extreme environments that are in some companies. Situations where it must scale to very high levels, where it must be extremely available, or where someone is pushing the absolute limits of what their systems can achieve. These are the places that I see Oracle and DB/2 bragging about their ability to scale, or MYSQL touting it’s low cost and ability to grow across dozens of machines. I don’t doubt that the creators of these systems have made their technologies work well, but they likely have very talented people in place. That’s something that most of us just don’t have. We have good people, but they’re not the best and most of us need a technology that works in a variety of situations at a good cost point. SQL Server is that technology.

However, SQL Server has made great strides in every edition, and 2005 is no exception, to compete better and better in extreme places. In this issue of the magazine, we’ve taken a look at a few of those areas. Database Mirroring and Snapshots as well as clustering are technologies that help SQL Server to perform extremely well in high availability environments. We’ve also added a look at how the DTC service needs to be setup in a Windows 2003 cluster, a challenge if you’ve been trying to get it to work.

Reporting Services, arguable the most important change to SQL Server since the 2000 release, goes head to head with Crystal Reports, the longtime champion of reporting packages. Two highly experienced BI consultants compare these two products and the results are very interesting.

In my decade plus of working with SQL Server, I’ve seen it grow and mature. There have been times I’ve tipped my hat to another product and said it was a better choice. And there have been times I’ve considered moving my career to another platform to take advantage of its popularity. However with the release of SQL Server 2000, I’ve felt that it could handle pretty much any situation if it was well designed. Maybe not the most extreme situations, but it would shine in 90-plus some percent of the world. So the next time someone says SQL Server isn’t up to the task, tell them to do a little more research and see why companies like NASDAQ, the World Bank, and others have trusted their multi-terabyte databases, that are highly available, to SQL Server.

Steve Jones