Beyond Relational Interview: Vinod Kumar speaks on SQL Server 2008 Beyond Relational – Part 2
This is the second part of my interview with Microsoft Technology Evangelist, Vinod Kumar. You can find the first part of this interview at here.
Jacob: Could you briefly explain "SQL Server Data Services"?
Vinod: Microsoft SQL Data Services (SDS), formerly known as SQL Server Data Services (SSDS), is a highly scalable, on-demand data storage and query processing utility service. SDS will be offering true relational capabilities through SQL Server’s existing network protocol, Tabular Data Stream (TDS) and existing query language Transact-SQL (T-SQL). This will provide customers direct access to the familiar relational model, T-SQL programming language and the existing development and management tools, while continuing to deliver on our key value props of fault tolerance, high availability, friction free provisioning and pay as you grow scaling. Fundamentally, in a nutshell it is SQL Server on the Cloud beyond imagination the scalability that you can ever imagine in a seamless manner.
Jacob: What according to you, is the future of "SQL Server Data Services"?
Vinod: Well, I am not a astrologer nor can forecast what the pipeline of features which will get included with SDS. Interestingly, if you look at the current feature set of Tables, Stored Procedures, Triggers, Indexes, Views, VS Compatibility, ODBC Compatibility etc makes one feel at home already with SDS. So when people start getting a handle of storing data outside of their premise on the cloud and use the rich capabilities of consuming data this can become really a cheap viable option. Having said that, this opens doors for richer API or Apps to build Data Mining or analysis of data on these data too. So I surely see an opportunity for a lot of scope and usage that can blow the mind away for small departmental applications to enterprise ready applications. I would like to also take a moment on the TDS addition as a great asset because we will start looking at applications build for desktop and then moving to Web and not to cloud entirely giving a very seamless pay-as-you-go model becoming the mantra of the future.
Jacob: Could you give a few real life scenarios where XML data storage is beneficial over relational model?
Vinod: There are tons and tons of customers I have interacted with have used XML in innovative ways. I have seen XML as a powerful addition to SQL Server arsenal for ages and the power is underestimated. For me some of the classic places where XML can be used are where the schema is fluid. I have seen a lot of product companies in specific domains state their product needs to be flexible enough to accommodate extensions of customer requests and in such cases the schema design cannot be locked. I have also seen a lot of web applications use the XML streams very effectively in their products like mad. They take the XML output and directly apply a XLST at the frontend as visual elements. To give you one more dimension, I was recently working with a partially-connected product which uses Smartphone to run their apps and they used XML to store the offline data and an elaborate method to send the XML directly to SQL Server to get it into their database appropriately updating the data.
I personally feel there is enough potential in using XML services in the current generation of products. I also have seen sometimes these get abused because of excessive use. So one needs to be very cognizant of when, where and why one needs to move away from the conventional Relational world into the XML world. Finally, XML is like a swiss-knife and one needs to be cautious enough to know when and how to use it.
Jacob: What is your comment if you hear someone says "XML is evil"?
Vinod: First, I recognize the sentiments when someone tells me this, I next ask – Why, explain? As I told you in the previous question if we don’t understand the genesis of when and where to use we are surely digging our very own grave. One cannot dismiss XML as evil as a blanket statement. Though XML can represent almost everything we represent in Relational, it is not advisable doing so. I recollect vividly at TechEd 2005, someone from the audience asked me about storing the complete Northwind database as a single table, single column structure. One needs to know there are something’s best being relational like hierarchy data, referential integrity etc. The maturity levels in the audiences are better now and they understand these nuances clearly.
I can give real life instances where people have had wrong XML structure or ignorance of using XML indexes or wrong query construct that have degraded performance. But once the user education happens people have had more confidence in using XML. I would highly recommend two whitepapers – XML Best practices for SQL Server 2005 and Performance Optimizations for XML Data Type. These are a good starter for developers working with XML inside SQL Server.
Jacob: Where can we catch you up on the web?
Vinod: This is the easiest question you have asked me today. Well, you can Bing me with SQL Server and you will get to me J. On a serious note, my online coordinates are:
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