{Heros Happen 08}

Attending a product launch evening is always fun, and when Microsoft puts on the drinks you are sure to have a great evening.

The "Wave" as this evening had been called certainly did not disappoint, we got to meet lots of industry folk, engage Microsoft Australia staff on issues and give praise where due.

Windows Server 2008

As the bulk of the audience was in awe at what is in the box of this new operating system, we knew we had made the right decision. Two months ago, we decided to pilot Windows Server 2008 for all our web servers.

Eduka has built a test server incorporating the virtualisation technology (called Hyper-V) that is out of the box in the Standard and enterprise versions of server 2008.   We have built a Sharepoint Farm, the host, a domain controller, SQL server, IIS server and ISA server all one physical machine. Normally this would have required at least 3 physical "boxes". We care for the environment and our wallets, so combining all 4 into one piece of hardware makes sense on both fronts. Stay tuned as to where we take Hyper-V and the next generation of Windows server technology.

Visual Studio 2008

Eduka have already moved all the developers to .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008, however this evening highlighted why it is important to go to industry events.  We discovered some of the nice new things about our favourite IDE, such as the tool set that can be used by Project Managers in combination with Team Foundation Server or on its own. Gone are the days when a project manager, has to give a gut feel answer of how much a project has been completed.

With the code metrics and code coverage areas of the IDE, Project Managers can quickly look at the quality of code and determine what is and what isn't ready as well as how far away the project is in terms of development - all without putting a propeller hat on - even project managers can be heroes!

SQL Server 2008

Well well well this is the year Geography and Geometry comes to our much loved SQL sever. There is no more need of having to work on complex maths to work out triangles, shapes or measure distances and having to resort to expensive GIS software for mapping.

A typical Business Intelligence example was shown during the event to highlight the power of SQL Server 2008. The demonstration showed how integration to Virtual Earth can graphically display sales of coffee in different towns. This might not mean much to many but it highlighted how important it is to create a visual aspect when combining hard-to-read raw data. With mapping, you can quickly grasp distance and surrounding infrastructure etc, to identify reasons as to why sales are not happening.

Another common problem - identifying the closest store to a given postcode, can also be overcome simply by using the power of SQL Server 2008.

As the product nears release (we believe it will be Q3 2008) we will have a full review of the server. Stay tuned.