Or SSIS 2012? SSRS 2012? SSAS 2012? There’s no substitute for getting your hands on the product, in my opinion. I can hear you thinking, “But Andy, I can’t afford to purchase a copy of SQL Server 2012.” Are you sure? What if I told you that you can get a full-feature version of SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition for $50? Well, you cannot… it’s ...

For the past two years, I have had the honor and privilege or authoring SSIS Design Patterns alongside Jessica Moss, Michelle Ufford, Tim Mitchell, and Matt Masson. Publication of the book – like many projects of this scope – has been delayed. The current publication date is 27 Aug 2012 and I have high confidence in this date. I take ...

I am installing SQL Server 2012 Evaluation Edition on a virtual machine as I type. You can do this. Here’s one way: Grab some virtual machine software. I like Oracle VirtualBox. It’s cool. It’s free. Install VirtualBox. Download the 180-day free trial of Windows Server 2008 R2. Also cool. Also free. Once Windows ...

Last week Microsoft announced a new licensing schema for SQL Server 2012. If you are interested in an extensive discussion of the new licensing scheme, Denny Cherry wrote a great blog post about that. I’d like to comment about the new BI Edition license. Teo Lachev already commented about the numbers and I agree with him. I generally like the ...