CREATE BLOG dbo.SqlServer

So Microsoft is starting to give us more meaningful details of Katmai and it sounds interesting - not as ground breaking as SQL 2005 (thankfully!) but interesting. Here's a data sheet that's listed as "final" - download it here (PDF). There are also a few other links of interest:

• The "Future Version" page outlines MSFT's goals for the next release
• Press Release about Katmai including time lines and features

The time line looks to be 2008, not "every 18-24 months" as Steve Ballmer had suggested a year ago or so. From the looks of it, here's what appears to be in the next version:

• More natural encryption
• DBAs won't have to worry if their backup/data/log files are accessed by other systems since these will be encrypted
• What happens when I move machines? Dunno...
• Policy-based management and security
• I think this is wonderful - it will make it far easier for Windows network sysadmins to understand how SQL Server security works
• Policies can be synchronized among servers making it easy to keep a set of servers aligned
  
• Also, you can define policies on naming conventions, index management and backup/restore
• This last bullet point seems like one of those things they put in the marketing materials that doesn't ever seem to actually make it into the final release
  
• More BI and more BI tools integrating with MS Office
• This is a deficiency currently so I'm looking forward to the new tools
• You will be able to create reports in Word and Excel for Reporting Services and share them with SharePoint
  
• Won't this require a new version of Office?
  
• Document management will be "native"
  
• Dunno anything further - the marketing materials are quite vague
• Geographic data will be more easily stored
• .NET folks will use "a higher level of data abstraction"
  
• LINQ integration is built into VS.Next ("Orcas")
  
• Even tighter integration with SharePoint
  
• No details on what that actually means
• "Comprehensive data auditing" will be built in
• "...comprehensive data auditing enabling organizations to answer common questions like 'What data was retrieved?'"
• ??? That sure seems unlikely given the current way SQL works but perhaps with event notifications they could do auditing
• Introduction of a "Resource Governor"
• Sounds promising but what is it? Who knows... The documentation so far is quite vague: "The Resource Governor will allow organizations to define resource limits and priorities for different workloads which enable concurrent workloads to provide consistent performance."

All in all this seems awesome - a little too awesome lol. It just seems as though there's too much for a 3-year release cycle to include, especially if you consider how many bugs/problems/logic flaws are in the current SQL Server 2005. My personal wish list is that they would focus more on building a strong SQL 2005 than integrating all this other "stuff" but I do understand the pressures to release these new features/products. Perhaps SQL 2008 will be what we all hoped SQL 2005 was going to be: ready to use in production at RTM?

Don't worry about my whining about SQL 2005 though - I've been disappointed since Day 1 with SQL Server 2005. I suggest you just take what I say about the reliability and development tools for SQL 2005 with a grain of salt :)

I just published a wishlist of items for SQL Server 2008 as well. Check it out here.