March 2005 - Posts
I was recently introduced to this article from IBM on DB2 Stinger's capeability of hosting the CLR, and later read this short comparison of the differences in Microsoft's Yukon vs. DB2's Stinger.
First, I have to say it is definitely a shock to realize that IBM beat MS to market on this. On the other hand, it bodes well that other DBMS vendors are validating Microsoft's future direction for Sql Server by such actions. Until recently, I have had alot of concerns about whether or not it was wise for MS to tinker with such a successful platform as Sql Server. However, after seeing the recent Sql Server Express CTP and playing with the betas of Sql Server 2005, I have to respect the level of care taken to integrate the CLR rather than making it a simple addon like the IBM has done with DB2.
I wonder if there are any other DBMS's with currentl capeability or future plans to host the CLR...
Much like most of the technologies being released on the v2.0 .NET Framework, I'm intrigued and looking forward to utilizing them, but at the moment I still have to admit that I have never run into a problem where I said "I sure wish that I could use .NET components here". Hopefuly time will reveal the killer-app, or the roadmap to taking advantage of this new found power in the data tier.
A coworker sent me this link recently: www.nerdbooks.com
This company sells most of the major technical books out there, and is often cheaper than Amazon and other rivals. The big perk for me is that they have a location in Richardson, TX where I can pickup the books and save on shipping. The net effect is a good 20% savings per book!
At my normal book buying rate, that would save me at least $200 per year! Woohoo!
Last week I was installing Sql Reporting Services on an existing development box running Windows Server 2003/IIS6.0 and ran into an error during setup that indicated an IIS configuration error. After checking to make sure the service was started, and the usual permissions were correct, I checked the Install Log and found that the install would only work when installed to the "Default Web" (metabase path "/LM/W3SVC/1/1016") which was created when IIS is installed.
Because this was a dev box, I had deleted the "Default Web" at some point and was now operating off a perfectly good hand-created web site (via IIS Admin). All other ASP.NET websites worked perfectly on that site, but still Sql Reporting would always fail during install.
Note: Here is an article by another developer who encountered the same problem.
In the above article, his workaround was to hack the metabase to change the current web site to use the same metabase identifier as the original "Default Web". I had tried the same thing, but with less success due to some additional security related issues that appeared later. In the end, I decided to uninstall IIS, reinstall to get my "Default Web", and was finally able to successfully install Sql Reporting Services.
Does anyone know of a legitimate reason why MS would create an installer so restrictive as this? Is there some magic or voodoo relating to the "Default Web" created by the OS during setup? Can someone throw me a clue, or at least confirm that they too believe this is stupid?
I went googling today looking for info on using WMI to script the configuration of Sql Server 2000 Reporting Services, and found this great post on OdeToCode.com by K. Scott Allen.
<snip>
In general, WMI exposes classes to configure and mange both hardware and software on computers throughout the network. Reporting Services provides WMI classes that let us query and make changes to report server configurations.
WMI is one of those pieces of software that requires a reference manual nearby unless you work with it everyday, but there is a very easy way to get started: Scriptomatic 2.0. Just pick a WMI class and the tool will code-gen a runnable sample script in VBScript, Jscript, Python, or Perl. Scriptomatic itself is an interesting application written as a single HTA file and run in IE.
</snip>
(Read more...)
I hadnt realized that the new Scriptomatic 2.0 already listed the Sql Reporting namespace and classes. Very sweet!
Great post, Scott!
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