The Agenda

This full-day workshop will get you up to speed on powerful features for developers in SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2, and the newest enhancements in SQL Server 2012. Lenni will pull no punches as he rips through the most important SQL Server programmability points in this intensive demo-packed tour.

Part 1—T-SQL Features. We’ll start with a quick introduction to SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT), the brand new database development environment for SQL Server in Visual Studio, and then dive into the many enhancements made to T-SQL. Learn how to use table-valued parameters to marshal entire sets of rows across the network from client to server, and to pass them between your stored procedures and UDFs. Find out about MERGE, a powerful DML statement that combines the capabilities of four (or more) separate operations, and INSERT OVER DML, which enhances your ability to capture change data from the OUTPUT clause of any DML statement. Work with the latest date and time data types, which include support for time zone awareness. Then learn about the newest T-SQL enhancements in SQL Server 2012, such as windowing (OVER clause) enhancements, running and sliding aggregates, 22 new functions, the THROW statement, server-side paging, the SEQUENCE object, and new metadata discovery techniques.

Part 2—.NET Data Access. You’ll need to access your SQL Server data from .NET applications and services, and so we’ll examine the plethora of data access strategies available with the .NET Framework 4. You’ll learn the mechanics of language-integrated query (LINQ), and compare conventional ADO.NET with LINQ To SQL and the ADO.NET Entity Framework. You’ll see how these object relational mapping (ORM) technologies work, and also learn how to use WCF Data Services and WCF RIA Services to extend your data’s reach to the world.

Part 3—Beyond Relational. Then we’ll examine the powerful “beyond relational” features, including the latest additions in SQL Server 2012. These features will get you thinking outside the box with respect to the types of data that can be managed by a relational database system. Learn how to use the hierarchyid data type to cast a hierarchical structure over any relational table. Dig into FILESTREAM and FileTable to discover how you can finally enjoy the native ability to store large binary objects in the file system transparently. We'll then move on to the geospatial data types that enable you to integrate location-intelligence into the database, and we'll build several location-aware applications on top of these data types. We’ll also cover the rich XML support provided by the relational engine, including XSD, XPath, and XQuery.

Part 4—Enterprise Features. We’ll wrap up with powerful enterprise-level data warehousing and security features including Change Data Capture, SQL Server Audit and Transparent Data Encryption. With Change Data Capture (CDC), you can monitor and record changes made to transactional tables without requiring any application changes or resorting to triggers. Enabling Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) automatically encrypts the entire database in the background, without increasing database size, and without requiring any code. And with SQL Server Audit, virtually any action taken by any user can be recorded for auditing in either the file system or the Windows event log.

You’ll learn a ton of new SQL Server features in this information-packed day!