I've been working with SQL Server since it was running on OS/2 and had a dozen client utilities to manage the product. All that for relatively little functionality, and a not very stable product.
Since then I've watched the product grow, enhance it's utilities and greatly expand its feature set to where it's going in SQL Server 2008. And while I think SQL Server has built a world class, best-of-breed product, it's also bloated itself quite a bit.
As I began to cover the stories and enhancements in SQL Server 2005, and continuing with SQL Server 2008, I noticed something that has confused me every since. When I was trying to categorize and classify content for SQL Server 2005, I often found myself confused by where to put things. It's easy to say an article on Service Broker goes under a "Service Broker/SOA" category, but what about an article on Database Mirroring? Is that HA or SS2K5 Administration?
What's even more confusing is that I used to have SQL Server 2005 categories for some topics, like SSIS, SSRS, HA, and more, but now many of those features are carrying through to SQL Server 2008. And they're really separate products and we don't have a SQL Server 2005 database server.
We have a SQL Server 2005 Data Management Platform.
Integration Services could be a specialty for someone's job with them rarely touching the database server or even understanding how it works. Reporting Service could be an administration responsibility or a developer job. And the platform has grown way beyond these "add-ins", which really seem more like complete products in and of themselves.
By my count, we now have these products in the SQL Server platform:
- Integration Services (SSIS)
- Reporting Services (SSRS)
- Analysis Services (SSAS)
- Service Broker (SSSB)
- Notification Services (SSNS, removed in SS2K8)
- High Availability - You could argue clustering, mirroring, and log shipping are part of the core product, but they're almost their own beasts.
- SQL CLR - Most DBAs won't program in here, so the development aspect of this is really a separate system.
- XML - I don't completely understand everything here, but there's a whole slew of XML features, functions, and capabilities that are barely being scratched.
- T-SQL - It's not just the SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE stuff. Now there are so many enhancements and additional commands that it's a separate system in and of itself.
- SQL Server Express - A fee, cut down edition, but almost a separate system due to the way it will be deployed and managed.
- SQL Server Compact Edition - An embedded version running inside your application.
- Data Mining - Part of SSAS, but almost requiring different skills than working with cubes.
and don't forget the plain old database engine with it's myriad of T-SQL changes and capabilities. Plus we've got an extremely high end auditing/tracing system in SQL Trace/Profiler which has been enhanced with DDL triggers and Event Notifications. We could end up with some position that's a data security expert dealing only with those tools.
My view is that from this point forward people will begin to specialize in a few subsystems while retaining some general knowledge of the rest of them. The generalists will still have employment as those that run the overall systems, but there should be all sorts of opportunities, especially for short term consulting, for those that are highly specialized in one or two areas.
I'm glad to see SQL Server growing so rapidly and being used as a platform in a huge variety of applications. And I hope Microsoft continues to enhance these various lines of sub-systems, maturing them as we move forward.
My job from this point seems to be writing and reporting on the various subsystems themselves, and less about the versions. While the differences in Service Broker 2005 and Service Broker 2008 need to be pointed out, we're really dealing with Service Broker as the primary entity rather than SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008.
And that's a good thing since the versions are coming as fast as I can learn about them.
Steve Jones
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
The podcast feeds are now available at sqlservercentral.podshow.com to get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.
or now on iTunes!
- Video Podcast - 14.8MB Quicktime
- Video Podcast - 16.4MB WMV
- Audio Podcast - 4.8MB MP3
Today's podcast features music by Joe Sibol. If you like it, check out his stuff on iTunes or at www.joesibol.com.
We welcome comments, ideas, and thoughts about the podcasts. Feel free to send them to me. If you like them, feel free to also tell the boss!