SQL Server 2008 Learning Framework.

SQL Learning Framework.

I found some good material suitable for all skills and levels. Here are the details:

Level	Source Link	Details	Estimated time	Scope covered
Basic	http://www.w3schools.com/sql/default.asp	Learn SQL Server Concepts in very simple steps. This site provides very precise information about SQL Server basics, along with good examples, and also a sample environment for testing the concepts.	64 Lessons * 10-15 Min per lesson = ~ 16 hours	Can be referred by the beginners to gain complete understanding about the subject
Intermediate	http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/D/1/CD1648C1-46BC-4C79-B16F-7AF650C186B4/693883ebook.pdf http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2009/05/21/new-book-mcts-self-paced-training-kit-exam-70-433-microsoft-sql-server-2008-database-development.aspx	This 200 page PDF covers good levels of details about various concepts.	10 Chapters * 6-8 hours per Chapter = ~80 hours	Can be covered for certification purposes.
Advanced	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms167593.aspx	These tutorials provides a detail drill-down on SQL Server 2008 R2 with relevant examples.	19 tutorials * 3 days per tutorial = ~ 57 days	Can be referred while working on real-time projects; or for doing research on a particular topic.

Problems in the cloud

Very recently there have been many incidents with the cloud services, which questions against a promising future of a Cloud-based IT world. Customers of many major cloud vendors have faced outage issues including the following:

1) Amazon: Thursday, 21st April 2011. Outage Duration: approx 11 hours + many services partially down for much longer duration (Computerworld)

2) Google: Wednesday, 11th May 2011. Outage duration : approx 30 hours. (ZDNet)

3) Microsoft: May 10 , May 12 2011. Total Outage Duration 9 hours. (eweek)

4) VMware: 25 and 26th April, 2011. Outage time: Several hours (informationweek)

5) Rackspace: June 29, July 7th and then 3 Nov 2009. Total Outage: Several hours (infoworld)


These incidents are not because of secondary issues like ISP failures or natural disasters.

On these corresponding links, Google, Microsoft, Rackspace, Amazon and VMware confessed themselves, that these issues were due to some technical/manual issues at the ultimate source of origin of these services

And customer's problems may not be limited to the cloud service providers, there can be several other factors, due to which the end-customers may find themselves incapable of using the 'Promised' services. Sony's PlayStation Network Catastrophe, Rdio Service Outage, Netsuite Service Outage and just examples from a long list of failures, hitting back against the effectiveness of the cloud services.
Under these circumstances, customer's trust on this upcoming concept and reliability on cloud are under threat.
The cloud is a relevantly new domain, and will certainly face many hiccups before getting stable. So the general recommendation for the customers will be to stick to a Hybrid Scenario, having a backup of all online services and partial (if not full) support for all services in offline mode.

Top Cloud vendors in 2011

In the beginning of this new decade, there are several technologies in focus by the technocrats around the world. These are assumed to be the game changing technologies, and have a huge potential of making substantial impact on our daily lives. One such technology, cloud computing, has seen several transitions, transformations, and turnarounds via various vendors around the globe.

According to Techtarget (www.techtarget.com), following should be the list of Top Cloud vendors in 2011:
#1: Amazon - So far, no company has come close to the cloud-based innovation AWS provides. Amazon still should remain the king of cloud.

#2: Verizon/Terremark - The telco giant had previously built its own cloud; high-quality stuff but with a commensurate price.

#3: IBM - IBM reportedly earned $30 million in cloud revenue last year; few others have the scale of the enterprise user base to ramp up that fast

#4: Salesforce.com - With acquisition of Heroku, salesforces.com keeps its props of doing some innovation in cloud space.

#5: CSC - With its private cloud 'BizCloud', CSC will wheel VCE - the giant cloud-in-a-box system from VMware, Cisco and EMC - into the corporate space.

#6: Rackspace - Still the number two cloud provider after Amazon in terms of revenue, Rackspace may have something in its pocket this year after the launch of OpenStack last year.

#7: Google - Google App Engine has won lots of business among Web, gaming and mobile companies, and is expected to do even more this year.

Other mentionable names in the list, according to the analysis done be techtarget, were BlueLock, Microsoft, Joyent and NephoScale.

(Article taken and adapted from http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/feature/NephoScale-2011-top-cloud-computing-provider#slideshow)

Google's External Referral Program in India- Good Move or Bad Decision?

Google recently posted news about referral bonus to people referring some employee for specific positions, offering up to 1 Lac INR for selecting in it. With this, one question that arises is....do Google really need such attractive offers to get their employees. Let’s do a simple analysis of what’s happening here:

First and the foremost point regarding referral bonus is about money. As know to me, Google is already known for its tough selection procedure, 2-3 tests and 5-7 rounds of interviews for selection of its candidates. In such scenario, the simplest thing that Google could do is to go the some colleges, as done by other companies. In case of many north Indian states like Rajasthan, I have seen concept of Centralized campus, where students from 10-15 colleges are invited for a single campus selection process. If Google gets just 5 people from any such campus event, which will cost it mere 2-3 Lacs, it can still save the same amount, which it would be giving in case of providing referral bonus for same number of candidates.

Second thought about this offer was about getting a database of creamy layer of this country. This lucrative offer is certainly going to gain them a country wide database of many brilliant students across India. But this point also do not justify their Offer completely, since being the most preferred IT Company, Google could have got same database by offering some post study scholarship awards to students and offering them jobs on basis of their academic performance.

But since Google is known for its innovation, this might be another new experiment on its verge of trying something new, which is not by anyone else. And for their experiment, I wish them best regards.

Microsoft to end support for Win XP

NEWS: On July 13, 2010, Microsoft is officially ending its support for Windows XP SP2, windows 2000 server, and windows 2000 client. This means, that the company will no longer be providing hotfixes, security updates or add-ons for this OS applications.

IMPACT: This definitely means something valuable for big companies using 25+ computers. They won't be getting any security or support for their industry compliance win case of any issues. For them, better option is to upgrade to Windows Vista or Windows 7.
But for small 2 room companies, or individual professionals, or also household users, this is not a big thing to worry. Because the current security levels should be enough for their work continuity. Also, all the till-date updates and fixes will also remain available to public for their use in future as well.

HISTORY: Microsoft has done similar thing in past, when support to XP SP1 was stopped on Oct 10, 2006. No more new updates, but still the older ones are available on their download site.

FUTURE: Its again in news, that Microsoft will end its support for XP SP3 as well on April 8, 2014. It means, complete XP will be a past phase in Microsoft's business lines.

REASON: The reason for this shift from XP to later versions (Vista and WIN 7), as suggested by Mr Scheiber from 'workstart.com', will allow company to focus on upcoming technologies, and increasing challenges in their upkeep and maintenance.