Handy Links for SQL 2008 R2 & .NET Development

This post is not about a unique body of work, it is just a list of links to materials I’ve found useful. I hope it may make it easier for me to point people here rather than have them write down or remember URL’s

If you are looking for SQL Add-in’s, Utilities, Sample Code & education, perhaps you will find this useful to you too.

 

SQL 2008 R2 Links

Microsoft SQL Server – Official Microsoft SQL server Site
      Resources for 2008 R2 – Handy Resources (Marketing, Pricing & Technical)

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 Feature Pack (7th Jun 10) includes :-

  • SQL Server® 2008 R2 Best Practices Analyzer
  • SQL Server® 2008 R2 Upgrade Advisor
  • SQL Server® 2008 R2 Books On-line
  • SQL Server 2008 R2 Report Builder 3.0
  • PowerPivot for Microsoft® Excel & Sharepoint
  • SQL Server® 2008 R2 Policies
  • SQL Server® 2008 R2 Remote Blob Store
  • SQL Server® 2008 R2 Native Client
  • SQL Server® 2008 R2 Command Line Utilities
  • SQL Server® 2008 R2 Shared Management Objects
  • SQL Server® 2008 R2 Analysis Management Objects
  • SQL Server® 2008 R2 ADOMD.NET
  • SQL Server® Service Broker External Activator for SQL Server® 2008 R2
  • SQL Server® 2008 Data Mining Add-ins for Microsoft® Office 2007
  • Sync Framework 2.0 Software Development Kit (SDK)
  • SQL Server® Compact 3.5 SP2
  • Windows PowerShell Extensions for SQL Server® 2008 R2
  • Datamining Viewer Controls For Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008

Interoperability

  • Microsoft® SQL Server® Migration Assistant
  • JDBC Driver 3.0
  • Microsoft® SQL Server® Driver for PHP 1.1
  • Microsoft® Connector 1.1 for SAP BW for SQL Server® 2008 R2
  • Microsoft® OLEDB Provider for DB2
  • Microsoft® Analysis Services OLE DB Provider for Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2
  • Microsoft® System CLR Types for SQL Server® 2008 R2

Microsoft Report Viewer 2010 Redistributable Package 
      Lets you embed SQL Reports into your Windows Forms & Web applications.
      Brian Hartman's Report Viewer Blog – Nice value add on adding reports into your application.

Sample Databases for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (RTM) – Updated Adventure Works, Northwind etc.

 

SQL 2008 Performance Tools

Not a comple list but a few of my favourites

Replay Mark-up Language (RML) Utilities
      RML Utilities for SQL Server (x86)
      RML Utilities for SQL Server (x64)
      RML is an awesome utility for analysing load on SQL Server & for creating a load.

 

SQL Load Test – This is a handy utility for creating Visual Studio Load Tests from a SQL Profiler Trace. While far from a complete solution (as it doesn’t handle a lot of SQL Syntax) it does speed the process somewhat. I hope to enhance it in time.

NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel – I find this handy to visualise the SQL Object Dependence within a database. ie: Quickly seeing that this SP calls 2 others & they call a function or two that reference views & tables. OR how many objects touch this table & how many reference them all.

I see huge potential in using Visual Studio to perform Load tests, Stress Tests & to ensure quality when you are rewriting TSQL code. Unfortunately it is missing a small number of features &/or hooks that make the whole exercise marginal value. One day, soon I hope to have coded up extensions to fix those feature gaps.

Using Visual Studio 2005 to Perform Load Testing on a SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Report Server – Old article but helps setup Web Testing on SQL RS

Introducing New Features In The VSTS Database Edition GDR

Apply Test-Driven Development to your Database Projects – This article shows how to write the 2 custom tests that make DB tests kinda useful. (Without them, don’t bother)

Database Unit Testing with Team Edition for Database Professionals – Walk thru on creating a DB Unit Test.

Microsoft® Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition Power Tools – Tantalisingly nice add-in, likely to not work on your system as the GDR release broke much of it.

How to get Database Edition Power Tools to work on Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR

SQL 2008 Samples, Training, Whitepapers

 

Microsoft SQL Server Community Projects & Samples - Loads of great Code Samples

 

SQL Server Customer Advisory Team - SQL Server Best Practices – Whitepapers from the SQL Dev Team tasked with tuning the largest SQL Customer implementations.
      SQLCAT Community Projects and Code Samples – Nice set of handy add-ins

SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Training Kit (June 2010 Update) 
      Videos, Presentations, Demo’s & Hands-On-Labs to get you up to speed on using the new capability of SQL Server 2008 R2. Includes the 2008 stuff too.

Windows Azure Platform Training Kit - June Update
      Includes materials for SQL Azure. Videos, Presentations, Demo’s & Hands-On-Labs.

General Dev Resources

Tech-Ed Online Great technically deep Webcasts on a vast number of topics.

MSDN Magazine – Good articles on new technologies that all developers should scan.

 

Development Samples, Training, Whitepapers

All-In-One Code Framework! -  framework and skeleton of Microsoft development techniques through typical sample codes in three popular programming languages (Visual C#, VB.NET, Visual C++).

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit – Presentations, Hands-On Labs, Demos on; Entiry Framework, C#, VB.NET, F#, ADO.NET Data Services, WPF, WCF, Parallel Extensions, Windows Workflow, ASP.NET, VS Team System & More.

ADO.NET Entity Framework & LINQ to Relational Data – Samples for EF & Link

 

Microsoft Patterns & Practices - Enterprise Library - The Microsoft Enterprise Library is a collection of reusable software components (application blocks) designed to assist software developers with common enterprise development challenges.
      Enterprise Library Contribution Project – Extensions people have added to make it even easier.

Silverlight

Microsoft Silverlight – The Official Microsoft Silverlight Site. Good Tutorials, SDK, Downloads, Samples. etc

Silverlight 4 Training – Detailed Whitepapers & Labs to guide you to build business level applications

Microsoft XAML Toolkit CTP - July 2010 - Microsoft XAML Toolkit is a set of libraries enabling easier manipulation and analysis of XAML for .NET 4.0 and Silverlight.

Blacklight - Controls for Designers! Blacklight is a UX focused code sharing project. collection of controls, samples, visual assets and ideas that has been put together by User Experience designers and developers to both show you what the technology is capable of (from a UX point of view),

 

ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit rich set of 40+ controls that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications.

ASP.NET QuickStart – Sample ASP Apps for Web folks

 

WindowsClient.NET – The Official Microsoft Site for Windows Forms & Windows Presentation Foundation

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) - WPF Toolkit and the WPF Futures releases.

 

Expresso 3.0 – Brilliant tool to assist anyone writing Regular Expressions (REGEX). Essential for Data Cleansing, Screen Scraping & a variety of SSIS uses. (free tool from Jim Hollenhorst of Ultrapico)

 

Excel Programming

VBA for Excel (Macros) – Nice set of 33 lessons that cover how to get VBA Macros working in Excel.

Excel VBA Macro Codes Tips & Tricks

Julian's Excel Macro (VBA) Tips for Beginners

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Thought for the post:
If a Bedding Store is having a 50% off sale, & you buy a Double bed, will they deliver a Single bed?
If you buy a single bed with a “2  for 1” coupon & they deliver a Double bed, did you get what you paid for?