TechFest 2006 Developer Track - SQL Server 2005

Kathrine Lord presented on SQL Server 2005 from a developer's perspective.

• SQL Server 2005 Surface Area Configuration may be the first place to go when installing SQL Server 2005 - since one of the things that can be managed here is enabling remote connections.  The option for configuring features allows for turning on|off (or managing) items such as CLR integration, Database Mail, Native XML Web Services, and Service Broker (to name a few).
• Begin Try, End Try - Begin Catch, End Catch support for exception handling (Finally clause not supported).
• Under management option in SQL Server Management Studio, it is easy to filter Log data for viewing and troubleshooting.
• Reporting available from SQL Server Management Studio for getting information about data such as disk usage, index info, and transaction data.
• Synonyms allow for referencing complex qualified names with a simple name.
• Integration Services projects within Visual Studio 2005 (screenshot below)

It was obvious to me that Kathrine is much more a DBA than a database developer.  Considering this was a developer track, I felt there was too much admin discussion (although it was good info, just not the right context).