TechInsights 2011

I was a speaker at TechInsights 2011 which was held in Malaysia at Monash University Kuala Lampur.

Well, this is my first appearance out side Sri Lanka and was a great experience.

I did two sessions 1. CDC for SCD and 2. Resource Governor. To be honest, first session was not much participated second one was far better.

Here are few photos of the sessions.

Here are Presentations and Samples

SQL Server 2012 RC0

SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate 0 is now available for download. SQL Server 2012 RC0 (previously code-named Denali) includes several new capabilities (most of which are related to the release’s new features) that weren’t available in SQL Server Denali CTP3, including the following:

• AlwaysOn—SQL Server 2012 RC0 offers multiple readable secondaries in AlwaysOn, which lets you better distribute backup and reporting workloads, and it now supports the FileTable and FILESTREAM data types.
• Resource Governor—According the SQL Server Team Blog, SQL Server 2012’s Resource Governor includes several new capabilities, including support for 64 resource pools, enhanced CPU usage controls, and enhanced resource allocation.
• Cloud Computing—SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) now supports snapshot backups to Windows Azure.
• Data Quality Services and Master Data Services—This release provides Change Data Capture (CDC) support for Oracle.
• Power View—The data visualization tool includes new features with SQL Server 2012 RC0.

For more information about the upcoming release of SQL Server, see Microsoft’s SQL Server 2012 page. You can download SQL Server 2012 RC0 here.

Combining Columns Ignoring Null Columns

Let’s start with an example.

You will see that MiddleName column has NULL values. If you want to combine all four columns and display them in one column you will write following query.

Result is,

You will realize the obvious problems from the above result set. To avoid this what you should is, use the ISNULL function.

Though the above will solve your problem, as a developer you need to keep an eye on nullability of the column.

With Denali, you have a new function called CONCAT.

And the result is,

which is what we were looking for.

Next question is, how about the performance.

To answer that I will display query execution plans for two queries, one with CONCAT and the other with ISNULL function.

So there is no additional cost with the new function.

SQL Server 2012 Editions

SQL Server 2012 users will experience new SQL Server editions called Business Intelligence  to the addition of existing editions, Enterprise, Standard, Web , Developer, Express and Evolution.

If you wish for more news about editions and licensing click it here.