1:30pm - 3:00pm

This session covers the trio of Integration Services, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services.

After a funny intro video (including some snide back and forth between an "IT Pro" and a "Developer". Not sure what an IT Pro was supposed to be, but it sounds like it's the new Microsoft lingo for administrative type roles. The video included comments like the developer calling the IT Pro a "glorified DJ", and the IT Pro saying about development "A monkey could do that". Quite funny), the session got underway. This was a full house, and covered topics like integration services (formerly DTS - which has seen some huge improvements), including a demonstration of its performance improvements (processing and importing 2 million rows in seconds), data cleansing and "AI" abilities, among other advances.

The discussion then moved on to Analysis services, XML/A and unified dimensional model, data mining (such as the demonstrated associative model), key performance indicators, and the dashboard. Very informative.

It then moved to reporting services, demonstrating how developers could create and deploy reports, and how even relatively untrained users could do the same.

[Launch2005]

12:00pm - 1:30pm

Back in the big room again. This was a fairly good session, giving an overview of a huge project lifecycle and integration suite in far too short of a time. The presenters, whose names I unfortunately didn't catch, were a study of contrasts - one seemed poised and prepared, while the other seemed disjointed and constantly at a loss for words. I'd be nervous in front of a crowd like that too, but it was the contrast that made it so evident.

VSTS is far too big of a product to give it justice in a short presentation - or a short blog entry - but the demo was impressive, and if it works as well as it looks in the real world then it will definitely be a marketplace winner.

[Launch2005]

10:30am - 12:00pm

Either through a technical glitch, or an oversight when I was signing up, but I was registered and confirmed for both tracks (despite impossibly concurrent times for several of them), so I went straight through from keynote to 4:30pm, catching all of the SQL Server track, and one of the Visual Studio events. Obviously I'm intently involved with Visual Studio, however I thought the SQL Server track would be more focused and interesting.

For this session we moved over to the other room - a smaller room, half filled with chairs, featuring 2 large, albeit unfocused, ~9'x11' screens and 2 smaller ~7'x9' screens, and a beautiful, tattered green carpet covering. After some very annoying intro music the session got underway, competing with the sounds of transport trucks and low flying aircraft.

This was a great session. Presented jointly by Barnaby Jeans and Damir Basinick, it was a great overview of some of the new administrative features and changes with SQL Server 2005. From the transition from Enterprise Manager to Management Studio, to a side talk about the Toronto SQL Server Users Group, to examples of some of the new administrative reports available in Management Studio, it was a really great crash course in the advantages that SQL Server brings. Strangely the crowd was largely non-responsive, and Barnaby's attempts at getting feedback largely fell to the floor with the thud. Quite a few in the crowd were playing with their cellphone (one I believe was using the new live video functionality). The banter between Barnaby and Damir was awkward and forced, and often out of sync.

At one point Barnaby asked who in the crowd had looked at the technet blogs, and the response rate was enormously low: While this could be attributed to the malaise of the crowd, I think it was actually a pretty valid response - Most corporate developers and IT workers aren't involved in blogs, online forums, or some of the other things that many of us think are the norm nowadays. I don't say that judgementally or derisively, but as a simple matter of fact: For many this career has stabilized to being more like traditional careers, and few accountants, as a similar example, are out reading the KPMG or government auditor blogs every day. Or ever, for that matter.

Some of the other great examples were the xml showplans, filtered views in Management Studio, shared xml profiles, the database engine tuning advisor. The changes in the profiler look fantastic, including the ability to display time synchronized performance monitors (so you can correlate events with CPU saturation, for instance), and xml plans in profiled events, integrated SMTP mail (rather than the infernally terrible MAPI), sqlcmd. Great stuff. Even if you've played with it yourself it still gives great context and focus to know where to really pay attention.

As is the norm for events like this, they gave out goodies to entice the uninterested. To ensure that people didn't get their software and flee, they didn't do the give-outs until the end (apart from the notepad and crappy branded pen that they gave out at the beginning), handing out the bounty in plastic bags as you returned your nametag necklace. This technique worked well, as several times throughout the event I heard people comment on the "carrot" that was keeping them there "if they could stay awake", which really is sad. It's sad because there was a tonne of fantastic content, but people have become so acclimated to the goody bags that they focus far too intently on it.

I laughed to see that there was the standard $5 t-shirt, not surprizingly in the size XL (why do computer/software shows always give out XL?).

Overall Value of Time Spent and Benefits Derived:

As a super quick executive summary (I will provide longer descriptions of the events that I attended) it was a very beneficial, productive day, and I'm very happy to have gone. The information was top notch and well presented, and (as Mark Relph mentioned in the comments) there was the benefit of the free copy of SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition (you also get VS2005 Standard Edition, but most devs already have a development-legal copy of a better version of that via MSDN. The SQL Server can actually be used in production, or so I am led to believe). I'm writing this as someone who has been using Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 in various incarnations for quite a long time - I've actually given corporate presentations on the benefits that SQL Server 2005 brings to the table. Nonetheless, I still found the session very valuable.

As always, they gave out pens and notepads. Why are the branded pens they give out at these sorts of events always the cheapest, worst pens that money can buy (or maybe that you don't even need money to buy)? I realize that the obvious answer is "because they're cheaper", but I really think that's the wrong place to save money. When I'm sitting there looking at your branding on a pen, and it's tearing through paper with its rusted, cubical, ultra-cheap nib, it rubs off poorly on your brand: I'm correlating something cheap and shoddy with your brand. Pony up for some nice gel pens or something.

All of these pictures were shot on a little P&S Sony DSC-P150, and to avoid being a jerk they were all shot with the flash disabled. It's remarkable that most of them turned out as well as they did (I've gotten good at being remarkably still when taking the shot). I didn't want to be a pretend-journo with the digital SLR, though the ISO 1600 and much brighter lens would have been very beneficial in this environment.

It is amazing how long it takes to drive anywhere in Toronto. Given that the Launch Tour here in town was hosted beside the airport, driving was the only real option (versus being at the TO convention center, which would have been a much more convenient GO commuter train ride). I left at 7:30 in the morning, and still didn't get there until 9:15am. Thankfully getting through registration and into the keynote was a breeze, and I really didn't miss anything.

Getting the day started. Yes, this car is a mess. It's a 225,000km commuter car that has served me well.


Since I'd never been to the congress center. I accidentally printed the maps on 8 1/2 x 11 glossy photo paper, but the quality of the printout was superb.


The Microsoft Canada mothership, visible en route


Parked in Section 10


Registration (or rather scanning of online pre-registrations). Here you receive a little nametag necklace, in which you place your printed registration.


Keynote


Keynote. 7 screens, all about 9'x7'. Remarkably they all are bright and clear. While there are empty seats evident, this was due to the very large number of late arrivals - the place was packed to the brim at the halfway point.


Keynote. While Biztalk appeared in many of the slides, at all of the presentations I went to it was largely MIA - barely mentioned. That makes sense given that it doesn't actually come out until next year, so I wonder why it was included with the branding of this event: Did they originally think they could pull it off and release it now when they originally planned this?


HMV is using it. Why aren't you? BTW: Have you heard about HMVs online music store?


Trusted Business Platform


Intel vs AMD (a 32-way Intel box is used to demonstrate the high-end, and a 4-way AMD Opteron is used to show the immense power available even on a "low-end" box, in this case servicing 18,000 simultaneous SAP users)


Quick Break


Ask The Experts

[Launch2005]

AdSense, for those living under a rock, is advertising revenue for the little guy - You display Google ads on your micro-site, and Google gives you a piece of the action. It's the reason you see those "Ads by Goooooooooogle" all over the place, and it really changed the landscape of the web: Previously the only monetary action on the low-end was referral type activity (e.g. GoToMyPC or Amazon books).

Given the proliferation of click-fraud, I was sure that AdSense would go the way of the dodo, or would see significant changes, and I wasn't alone. Surprising, then, when I see that Google has now spread out to a referral system as well, where once you sign up for AdSense (use that handy button up above!), you can refer others and start, err, monetizing their income to a small amount as well. Of course Google's business plan with AdSense largely revolves around their $100 minimum payout (which relates to referrals as well): Millions upon millions of small sites and dreamy blogs get into the Google Adsense game, displaying billions of ads, and the reality is that the overwhelming majority of them will never hit $100. They'll never need to be paid.

Pretty sweet deal for Google. Unfortunately it's yet another incentive for the spammers and miscreants, and you can expect to see advertisements even more pervasively than the current glut. When will Google's honeymoon end?

Mark Relph, of Microsoft Canada fame, left a couple of comments under "Blogging from Launch Tour 2005" regarding the software, and connectivity. Should find out about the connectivity issue later today.

[Launch2005]