Boycott?

  • Service Pack 3 is coming. It's slated for late this year, as soon as they get 2008 to RTM, lots of resources should move to test this patch.

  • It appears that most of the posted comments are from IT involved individuals. I would like to point out that companies themselves, if they are to survive, are rarely stagnant in the products they produce (be it software or widgets), the way they produce them and the market(s) they serve. Like these fields a company should devote some resources to examining new IT technologies to support the new products .. etc. The best method I can think of is to have IT people carefully and completely examine the inner workings of new software to plan an upgrade path and to prepare the necessary budget to accomplish the plan. When all elements are added into the pot then a meaningful Return On Investment analysis can be performed and the grand scheme of the future can go forward, be that stick with what we have, upgrade or a little of each. All that said it will be the ROI that determines the path to follow and DBA's will have to live with.

    Reading the many comments of those who have remained with 2000 I wonder how many understand or even know the effect of the compatibility level of a database in 2005 and how it could have materially mitigated the upgrade effort particularly when multiple dbs are involved.

    If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

    Ron

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  • bitbucket (5/12/2008)


    ...Reading the many comments of those who have remained with 2000 I wonder how many understand or even know the effect of the compatibility level of a database in 2005 and how it could have materially mitigated the upgrade effort particularly when multiple dbs are involved.

    Compatibility level doesn't matter at all if higher-ups don't buy the higher level of software. If they don't buy SQL Server 2005, then I stay at SQL Server 2000.

    -----
    [font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]

  • I can't see a boycott being effective in this regard.

    Insofar as upgrading to SQL 2008 goes, I see a bunch of features in Enterprise that would be very, very useful to me and the IS dept here, but not at the price tag they're planning on. Thus, it will probably happen when a new server is needed, and 2005 isn't available or the price is the same.

    - Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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    "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

  • In your newsletter on 5/12 you said, "PS: Vote for Service Pack 3 for SQL Server 2005. Right now there are no plans to release it. We need your vote so Microsoft will build it. "

    Was this message queued up from a while ago? You know that there is a plan around SP3... and that plan has been communicated (http://blogs.technet.com/dataplatforminsider/archive/2008/04/15/sql-server-2005-sp3-coming-soon.aspx).

    Boycotting SQL Server 2008 seems rather harsh for requests that Microsoft is already trying to achieve.

    -Paul

  • If a boycott would be necessary to get MS to make changes as you suggest Steve, I'd seriously consider doing it. Hopefully because of the noise they'll do what they should have done anyway.

  • I think that the support cycle fro SQL Server is too short for an enterprise level application. I think that 10 years of support after that next major software version release should be a minimum.

    This is not an unusual thing to expect in the enterprise class software space that SQL Server is supposed to be in. Notice on the link below that HP plans to support OpenVMS VAX Version 5.5-2, released in Nov 1991, through at least through 2012, 21 years after its release:

    http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/openvms_supportchart.html

    In other words, SQL 7.0 should be supported till 2010, SQL 2000 should be supported until 2015, and SQL 2005 should be supported until 2018.

  • Michael Valentine Jones (5/12/2008)


    I think that the support cycle fro SQL Server is too short for an enterprise level application. I think that 10 years of support after that next major software version release should be a minimum.

    This is not an unusual thing to expect in the enterprise class software space that SQL Server is supposed to be in. Notice on the link below that HP plans to support OpenVMS VAX Version 5.5-2, released in Nov 1991, through at least through 2012, 21 years after its release:

    http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/openvms_supportchart.html

    In other words, SQL 7.0 should be supported till 2010, SQL 2000 should be supported until 2015, and SQL 2005 should be supported until 2018.

    I think you have a point. MS corporate culture may be too oriented around desktop software (Windows and Office), and not enough around enterprise server software.

    - Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
    Property of The Thread

    "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

  • The SP3 message slipped in there and this has been queued for awhile. It's been edited a few times since I wasn't really sure how to phrase things. SP3 is coming, hopefully in 2008.

    10 years is an interesting time frame. I've heard that a few times about software and it's something I'd like to see. MS does give 10 years, but it's paid support after 5.

  • My company is in almost the same exact situation. We're just preparing to upgrade to 2005 next month. Unless there is a VERY compelling reason for us to upgrade further to 2008 in the next 3-4 years it wouldn't be reasonable for us to even talk about 2008 any time ... before the next version is released?.. We're skipping it one way or another put differently...

    Paul Ingham (5/12/2008)


    Half of our applications are still running on 2000, we still have a lot to do to move everything to 2005 so will probably skip 2008 unless there is a real need. The one thing that would of tipped the balance is having the resource governor in the standard edition.

  • I too have just completed upgrading our servers to 2005, and while some of the features of 2008 sound flash I can't see a compelling reason to be upgrading again in the near to mid term.

    I'm pleased to hear that SP3 will be released - I get nervous whenever I look at the cumulative updates and see the various warnings about only applying if you're encountering one of the issues specifically addressed by the update. Acceptance testing each of the 20 odd production database I support before applying any update makes this an onerous task, and consequently I prefer to wait for an SP instead.

  • Good bad or ugly, I think the reason for the sql 2008 version was to be in sync with the server operating system features coming out Windows Server 2008 making managing multiple enterprise wide sql servers easier. This equates to cost savings for larger companies, but not a lot of benefit for smaller businesses. This was my observation from the recent launch event. Most of the day was spent discussing these type features.

  • I guess Microsoft just figures that those of us who have 200 databases on a server and run the enterprise edition will actually have a need for the resource governor. I'm personally looking forward to having LINQ and keeping the developers out of the database. A stored procedure is now a method? That just makes too much sense.

    On the other hand, with the rise in hacking activity from China, I'm all for staying with SQL 2000 and classic ASP. Moving to parameterized queries in the .NET world has made it way too difficult for our systems to be hacked and now I don't have enough work to keep me busy. I might lose my job if I'm not busy restoring hacked databases. I will definitely support your boycott, but only if I can install Windows 98 on my desktop.

  • We finally have 2005 installed (on the same server as 2000) in dev and don't have it in production... though that's sched Sunday.

    No one wants to pay for a migration here, no one even wants to do testing of their own apps.

    Sometime soon we will upgrade to something open source or worse... Oracle. It will be an evil day in my opinion, but the big dogs around here are former mainframe people (or something) and cannot understand why we would have to buy a new version and upgrade if we don't need the new features. And trust me, we don't *need* the new features (neither do most of you, IMHO).

    MSFT, if you are listening, be aware that if you don't extend support, this cash cow is going to pasture elsewhere - and I'll be sad, but they don't care what I think about this issue. (Hint: we recently acquired an enterprise Oracle license)

  • I'm not necessarily boycotting SQL2008, but we have no plans to upgrade from SQL2005. I've yet to see any features worth an upgrade of my entire platform (60+ installations). Most of the marketing literature likes to promote the enhancements to the gui, management functionality, tooling (monitoring, backup compression), etc. There's nothing about improvements to the core engine, performance gains (if any) vs. SQL2005, etc. If someone would produce a whitepaper that said raw OLTP performance increased 15-20% by simply upgrading versions, I would be all over SQL2008. Until then, I'll sit and watch and maybe upgrade a few years down the road or just leapfrog it and go straight to SQL 2011.

    LC

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