Introducing SQL Server Data Services ( SSDS ) by Nigel Ellis - Mix08 Video Download of Presentation
by David Hayden, ASP.NET Web Developer
There was a bit of cross-promoting being done at various Mix08 Presentations that I mentioned before:
The speakers for the Microsoft Sync Framework, ADO.NET Data Services, and SQL Server Data Services mentioned the one-two punch you get from leveraging these services together.
SQL Server Data Services is a web facing data storage and processing utility to be launched by Microsoft during the first-half of 2009. It uses REST and a very simple and flexible entity model for describing items in your data container.
Nigel showed off the data synchronization one can achieve between an Access Database, SQL Server Data Services, and Outlook Contacts in his presentation.
SQL Service Data Services uses the REST semantics we are all used to:
- Get
- Query
- Post - Create
- Put - Update
- Delete - Delete
and the concept of the Entity is very simple:
- Flexible Entity Model
- No schema required
- Property Bag of Name / Value Pairs
- Smallest Unit of Storage
- Metadata properties
- ID - unique within parent container
- Kind - type Customer, Order
- Version - update timestamp on each operation
- Flex Properties
- Can change instance type or add additional properties
- Support for simple types: decimal, string, bool
- All properties are indexed
Combine SQL Server Data Services with the Microsoft Sync Framework and ADO.NET Data Services and you have a really powerful combination of services.
The SQL Server Data Services concepts seems similar to the Amazon SimpleDB service. Per the Amazon Website:
"Amazon SimpleDB is a web service for running queries on structured data in real time. This service works in close conjunction with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), collectively providing the ability to store, process and query data sets in the cloud. These services are designed to make web-scale computing easier and more cost-effective for developers.
Traditionally, this type of functionality has been accomplished with a clustered relational database that requires a sizable upfront investment, brings more complexity than is typically needed, and often requires a DBA to maintain and administer. In contrast, Amazon SimpleDB is easy to use and provides the core functionality of a database - real-time lookup and simple querying of structured data - without the operational complexity. Amazon SimpleDB requires no schema, automatically indexes your data and provides a simple API for storage and access. This eliminates the administrative burden of data modeling, index maintenance, and performance tuning. Developers gain access to this functionality within Amazon's proven computing environment, are able to scale instantly, and pay only for what they use."
Very cool.
News Feed: http://www.davidhayden.com/