1. Investigate the SQL Server 2008 architecture available from the Dreamspark website. This database case study presented the student with a number of options in terms of the database to examine as a case study. I have very limited exposure to databases and database servers, and the exposure I have had is extremely dated. As such, my knowledge of the more current databases and servers is limited. With this in mind, and noting that this blog is be drafted from the view of an IT Manager, rather than a developer, I thought I would go with Microsoft SQL Server Express (you think i would have learnt my lesson with Microsoft over the years with the issues with XP when it was released, and that debacle known as Vista which I think most of us would like to forget). My SQL experience, I ashamedly have to admit, is somewhat on par with Dilbert's manager in the below strip.
However, I did not let this lack of experience disuade me, and I navigated to the Microsoft Dreamspark website, so far so good. For those who might be interested a link to the website is included below.
To Microsoft's credit, the website looks user friendy and appears to offer a great array of Microsoft applications available to students to inform their studies. Included amongst these applications are Windows Server, SQL Server Express, SQL Server Developer and Visual Studio Ultimate among others. I chose to download SQL Server Express 2008 to my new netbook, as this is where I spend most of my time (usually on the road with work) working on my university assignments. The download of Microsoft SQL Server Express 2008 went relatively smoothly. This lured me into a false sense of security as I then went to install SQL Server Express, but to my surprise I received a message saying that I required Windows Installer 5 or greater on my PC in order to run SQL Server Express. On the face of it I thought this minor obstacle shouldn’t be too difficult to overcome as I'm not a complete computer numpty. Boy was I wrong!!!! Two hours later, and after pulling out of much hair I was still wrestling with my Netbook, trying to install Windows Installer 5 on my Netbook. I had downloaded it and attempted to install it, but the installer would get to a certain point, stall, and then just magically disappear without any explanation. I consulted the Microsoft knowledgebase, many forums and messed around with my Windows Update settings and script with no succes. Does anyone else find it ironic that I am having trouble installing that latest version of Windows Installer?
After many failed attempts, I bit the bullet and elected to install SQL Server Express on my old laptop. This also required a Windows Installer 5 update, but thankfully I was able to install it without incident on this particular PC. I then downloaded the SQL Server Express 2008 installer to my laptop and then commenced install. Two hours later, the install was complete, but with some errors. At this particular juncture, five hours had passed since I began this activity, and as yet, I had not even commence exploring the wonders that lie within SQL Server Express. Given that I was at the point of throwing my laptop out the nearest window and allowing gravity to assist in dissecting it into sub atomic particles, I decided it would be best if I retired for the evening, had a good nights sleep, and returned the following day to continue to wrestle with Bill Gates.
2. Test out the SQL Server Express as a lightweight application development tool. SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and report your findings.
The following day, armed with a good nights sleep and a refilled glass of patience I return to my laptop. To begin with I watched a ten Minute "propaganda" style You Tube video which provides good basic overview of SQL Server 2008 and its capabilities.
Microsoft says that SQL Server Express is powerful and reliable with a rich set of features. Microsoft also says that it is the ideal platform for learning they say that it is ideal for building desktop applications and small server applications. With my limited experience, I am no position to question these claims, but after playing around with it for a couple of hours and taking a couple of introductory turorials it would seems to be that it is easy enough to learn and would be well suited for the development of small server applications. Having said this, it does appear to have a number of technical restrictions which make it undesirable for large-scale deployments including the fact that it has a maximum database size of 4 GB per database and has a number of hardware limits including single physical CPU only utilisies1 GB of RAM regardless of the amount of RAM installed. However, beggars shouldn't be choosers as this software is free. Should would be developers require something more powerful, I would imagine that would spring the $100 odd dollars to by the developer versions of SQL Server.
These descriptions limitations should not dissuade anyone from using SQL Server Express 2008. From my brief exposure to it, it seems a full featured and robust SQL Server engine. I followed through a number of You Tube introductory lessons which stepped through querying of databases, creating tables and a number of other basic database functions.
From working through these introductory lessons and experimenting with SQL Server Express 2008 it would seem that the use of SQL Server is relatively easy to learn, however is not completely intuitive and requires some instruction. For someone like me, who has a limited background in SQL, this presented a steep learning curve initially, but after repeating a few functions they seems to become second nature relatively quickly. Given the fact that the install of the application was harder than it should have been, I probably did not examine the application with the rigour that I probably should have. However, I did toy with ity long enough to discover, despite my install probelms, that it is a well put together and developed application. For those used to the Microsoft style interfaces, the use of SQL Server Express 2008 presents and attracting option as your databse server of choice. All in all, it seems that SQL sever express 2008 would besuited as a lightweight application development platform. However, developers would need to seek a more powerful application for anything greater than lightweight application development due to the limitations dicussed previously.
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