November, 2009

Azure, Dallas all the buzz at PDC 2009

The Professional Developers Conference is taking place in Los Angeles this week, and to no surprise, the Microsoft keynotes were all about the cloud. As we heard from Brent Ozar last month, developers are the company’s targets for its current and upcoming slate of cloud-based technologies, so what better place to show them off than PDC?

The crux of this of course is Microsoft’s Azure and SQL Azure programs, which will be available as a paid service starting Jan. 1, 2010. While much of the new improvements surrounding SQL Azure were already talked up during the PASS Community Summit earlier this month, there were also a few new Microsoft cloud developments that made news this week.
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Microsoft shines a light on efficiency in Windows Server 2008 R2

While Windows Server 2008 R2 has certainly gotten its fair share of attention over the past year, it’s hard to argue that it still hasn’t been somewhat overshadowed by the hype surrounding Windows 7. After all, even Microsoft has dubbed it “Windows 7 Server” on occasion.

The new server OS is getting it’s due this week, however, at Tech-Ed Europe 2009 in Berlin. During the opening keynote, for example, R2 was featured prominently. Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet wrote a piece about this very subject, with details on some of the new R2 features Microsoft is touting.

Some of these enhancements underscore the fact that Windows is continuing to become greener and greener, which is evident by the operating system’s increased efficiency and power consumption improvements. Since this is one area that can have a direct (and potentially immediate) effect on the bottom line, it’s no surprise that Microsoft is shining a light on it this week.
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Admins rejoice! Windows 2008 R2 will support Exchange 2007 after all

Who says peer pressure is a bad thing?

Over the summer it was reported that Windows Server 2008 R2 would be out in October — without native support for Exchange Server 2007. Needless to say, this decision had many customers calling for Microsoft’s heads mildly dismayed.

Well guess what? The people have prevailed.
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SQL Server 2008 R2 stars at PASS Summit 2009

The PASS Community Summit 2009 is being held in Seattle this week, and naturally a lot of attention is being given to Microsoft’s upcoming database releases, particularly SQL Server 2008 R2.

We’ve been doing a lot of PASS coverage recently, but for those interested, here are some quick hits on a few of the more noteworthy topics:
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