SQL Server Magazine UPDATE, December 1, 2005--Microsoft Architect Certification

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December 1, 2005

1. Perspectives

2. SQL Server 2005 Watch

3. News & Views

4. Events and Resources

5. Featured White Paper

6. Peer to Peer

7. Announcements

8. New & Improved

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1. Perspectives

by Brian Moran, [email protected]

I was planning to spend this week exploring the new Microsoft SQL Server 2005 certification process, which includes new tests and certification options for professionals who specialize in SQL Server administration, business intelligence, and development technologies. Instead, I was sidetracked by the soon-to-be-launched Microsoft Certified Architect Program. So this week, I'll focus on just that aspect of the new certification offerings. I'll cover the SQL Server-specific certifications in an upcoming editorial, and you can review all the options on your own at http://lists.sqlmag.com/t?ctl=1AEA1:285886 if you're too excited to wait for my comments.

I haven't written about Microsoft certification much during the past year or two because Microsoft hasn't added anything all that interesting and new for SQL Server professionals. I'm on record as saying that I didn't think the Microsoft certification process was predictive of a person's ability to be successful in the real world. In particular, I've never thought that any Microsoft certification was particularly useful for measuring a person's skill in advanced topics. (Note: I'm reserving judgment for the newest round of certifications associated with SQL Server 2005.)

But the ideas outlined for the pending Architecture Certification have caught my interest. The certification is scheduled to launch sometime in the first half of 2006, and the existing certification Web site raises as many questions as it answers in some ways. Nevertheless, I'm intrigued.

The main Architecture Certification Web site at http://lists.sqlmag.com/t?ctl=1AE98:285886 explains that the program "validates top industry experts in IT Architecture. These professionals have 10 or more years of experience in IT with at least 3 years of experience as a practicing architect and possess strong technical and leadership skills and form a distinguished community." Candidates for the Architect Certification must pass a rigorous review board made up of previously certified architects. The certification is targeted to people who can use "multiple technologies to solve business problems and provide business metrics and measurements to describe the success or failure of the projects they drive."

Historically, the Microsoft certification process was simply an exercise in memorizing enough facts about a particular product to pass a test on a particular day. I know many people who have good short-term memory and were able to scan one of the exam prep books over a weekend and retain enough information for a passing score. These people didn't achieve mastery--or even understanding--of the subject matter. But take a look at the eight-step certification process outlined at http://lists.sqlmag.com/t?ctl=1AE98:285886 .

A big challenge for Microsoft in launching this program will be getting enough people to cover the logistics. It's one thing to administer certification tests on computer. But this program, like a PhD defense, requires mentors and people to serve on review boards, making the logistics of the process more complex. But if Microsoft can find a way to make a program such as this scaleable, it might end up with a program that has teeth and is a good measure of a person's true skill set and ability to be successful in advanced architectural environments.

To be honest, I'm a bit pessimistic that the initial round of this endeavor will be particularly useful. I'd love to be wrong, but measuring someone's ability as an architect is always going to be challenging. But I'm pleased that Microsoft has recognized the importance of trying to establish a certification process that has value. I'll reserve my final judgment on the success of the initial program until the all details are available next year and I've had a chance to chat with IT professionals who've gone though the vetting process. But even if Microsoft doesn't quite hit the target on their first try, I applaud its move toward the high end of the certification process.

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2. SQL Server 2005 Watch

Uninstalling SQL Server Management Studio to Prevent Duplicates
Microsoft released an article describing how to uninstall SQL Server Management Studio when you're installing SQL Server 2005 Express. A conflict arises when you install SQL Server and SQL Server Express on the same machine: one machine can't run two versions of Management Studio. To eliminate the conflict, you must uninstall Management Studio, then rerun SQL Server Express installation. For information about how to perform the uninstallation, see "How to uninstall SQL Server Management Studio" at
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3. News & Views

Microsoft provided two hotfixes that address errors related to OLAP cube function in SQL Server 2000. The first, "FIX: A drillthrough operation fails, and you may receive an "Unable to drill through" error message after you configure drillthrough permissions on a virtual cube in SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services," ( http://lists.sqlmag.com/t?ctl=1AE9D:285886 ) addresses an error that occurs after you configure drillthrough permissions on a virtual cube in Analysis Services. The drillthrough operation fails, and you might receive an error message such as "Unable to drill through. Access denied to the cube 'BaseCube'," where "BaseCube" is the name of a base cube for the virtual cube. This problem occurs because drillthrough security permissions aren't set on the base cube. When you set security permissions on the virtual cube, the security permissions aren't propagated to the base cube. When the server on which Analysis Services is installed receives a drillthrough request, the server evaluates drillthrough security permissions on the virtual cube and on the base cubes. The most restrictive set of drillthrough permissions is applied.

The second hotfix, "FIX: You receive a 'Connection timed out or lost' error message or a 'COMException' error message when you use ADOMD.NET to connect to a remote OLAP server in SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services," ( http://lists.sqlmag.com/t?ctl=1AE9E:285886 )addresses a cube-connection error such as "Connection timed out or lost" or "Exception Details:
System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: There was an operating system error: 5."
For more information, visit the ADOMD.NET Web site at http://lists.sqlmag.com/t?ctl=1AE89:285886 .

Results of Previous Instant Poll: Learning About BI
"Which of the following BI-related topics are you interested in learning about?" Here are the results from the 75 votes (deviations from 100 are due to a rounding error):

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4. Events and Resources

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5. Featured White Paper

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6. Peer to Peer

by Brian Moran, [email protected]

Q. Is it possible to perform a reverse DNS lookup in a stored procedure or from a SQL Server Agent job?

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We love to know how much money everybody's making and we also like to know that we're being compensated fairly for our own jobs. The most effective path toward that knowledge is to directly survey the fellow professionals in our field. In his December article "How Much Cash Are You Raking In?" senior editor Jason Bovberg takes a close look at the results of SQL Server Magazine's 2005 Salary Survey. He examines how such determiners as job title, experience, gender, and age affect the size of your paycheck. He also shows you some ways you might consider--based on the survey's findings--to increase the amount of money you make. Read this article today and post your comments at
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The 64-bit world can be scary and intimidating if you've never tackled it before. In his blog "PerfMon Counters in X64," Kevin Kline gives a comforting piece of information about using PerfMon. Read this and other blog entries, and let Kevin know your opinions today at
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Hot Threads: Check out the following hot threads, and see other discussions in our 30 SQL Server forums.
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Administration: Restoring Logs on a Standby Server
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T-SQL: SQL EXEC
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Performance: Slower Using TOP
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OLAP/Data Warehousing: Migrating Cubes Between Two Servers
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Replication: Replication Between SQL Server 2005 and 2000
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DTS: Data Appended to Destination Table in DTS
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7. Announcements

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8. New & Improved

by Blake Eno, [email protected]

Improve Performance for Application Monitoring and Reporting
Heroix announced Heroix Longitude 2.0, agentless system and application performance-monitoring software that lets you improve performance without installing the software on each server. Longitude lets you define and monitor Service Level Agreements (SLAs), based on established system and application performance metrics. The SLA dashboard provides you with an up-to-the-minute, graphical view of service-level performance, historical reporting, and drill-down capabilities so that you can investigate shortfalls in service compliance. The product also includes out-of-the-box SLA definitions for performance problems or concerns such as CPU usage and server availability. This release also features user-definable transaction monitoring that lets you measure and report on HTTP URL availability, response time and content, DNS name resolution, and other common transactions. The product also provides added database and infrastructure monitoring capabilities, including support for MySQL, Active Directory (AD), and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). Heroix offers a 14-day trial. Pricing for Heroix Longitude 2.0 starts at $299 per monitored system. For more information, contact Heroix at 800-229-6500, 617-527-1550, or [email protected].
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Altova announced that Altova XMLSpy 2006, XML development software, includes full support for Visual Studio 2005. This release lets developers access the functionality of XMLSpy to build XML-based applications from within Visual Studio. This release contains updated XSLT 2.0, XPath 2.0, and XQuery support in compliance with the latest World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Working Drafts on XML Query Use Cases, released September 15, 2005. Integration with Visual Studio gives you access to five editing views including Advanced Text View, Enhanced Grid View, XML Schema/WSDL Design View, Authentic View, and Browser View. These views let you work with any XML document in a way that best suits your needs. The editing features of XMLSpy support auto-completion, context-sensitive syntax help, entry helpers, and syntax coloring. Altova offers a 30-day trial. Pricing for Altova XMLSpy 2006 starts at $499. For further information, contact Altova at 978-816-1600 or [email protected].
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