Microsoft Learning (MSL) announces the availability of 16 skills products designed to help customers and partners assess and build their Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 skills. Developers and database pros can take these free (until launch date) skills assessments and e-Learning products to prepare their skills for the upcoming product releases. This is the first time Microsoft Learning has done pre-launch content on such a big scale in support of a product launch.
The E-Learning products are more than 62 hours of in-depth online training on the newest features of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005, hands-on virtual labs and offline functionality.
By taking a skills assessment, individuals obtain a personalized learning plan to help them understand if they are ready to implement specific business solutions. Personalized learning plans include Microsoft Official Curriculum courses, Official Microsoft E-Learning Courses, Microsoft Press books, and other technical resources that will help them with their preparation.
E-Learning:
Visual Studio 2005
- Clinic 2551: Introduction to Visual Studio Team System
- Course 2924: Building Data Components in Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005
- Course 2925: Building Managed Code for SQL Server 2005 and Creating SOA Applications with Visual Studio 2005
- Course 2928: Implementing Data Access and Security in an ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application
SQL Server 2005
- Course 2936: Installing and Securing Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005
- Course 2937: Administering and Monitoring Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005
- Course 2938: Data Availability Features in Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005
- Course 2939: Programming Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005
- Course 2940: Building Services and Notifications Using Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005
- Course 2941: Creating the Data Access Tier Using Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005
- Course 2944: Updating Your Reporting Skills to Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 Reporting Services
Skills Assessments
Visual Studio 2005:
- AS27A: What's New in Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005
- AS27B What's New in ASP.NET 2.0
SQL Server 2005:
- AS22A: Introducing Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 for Database Administrators
- AS23A: Introducing Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 for Database Developers
- AS24 A: Introducing Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 for Business Intelligence Developers
[Updated] Microsoft E-Learning for Visual Studio 2005 is free until November 8, 2005. Microsoft E-Learning for SQL Server 2005 is free until November 1, 2006. Internet connection time charges may apply.
Yesterday at TechEd US Paul Flessner announced that the SQL Server 2005 June CTP was posted to Microsoft.com. This means that all customers, not just MSDN subscribers and beta testers can download the bits. Microsoft will also be doing fulfillment via DVD to customers who cannot download the bits. The fulfillment is developer edition only. The downloads will be developer, standard and enterprise editions.
Below an outline of the announcements:
- SQL Server 2005 June CTP. The June CTP is the first public CTP for SQL Server 2005. The SQL Server 2005 June CTP is feature complete.
- SQL Server 2005 benchmarks. We also announced the first TPC benchmark results for SQL Server 2005 with HP, NEC Corp. and Bull. These companies are leading the way in demonstrating the performance that SQL Server 2005 will provide. Although the tests were conducted using early builds of SQL Server 2005, the results are indicative of the scalability and cost effectiveness you can expect to experience with SQL Server 2005. In three TPC-H benchmarks, SQL Server 2005 had up to 162 percent higher performance than SQL Server 2000 and 38 percent higher performance than Oracle's best result on a 16-processor Intel® Itanium® 2 server at a cost that is 20 percent less per query. In addition, HP also posted a TPC-C result on SQL Server 2005 that is the highest TPC-C result ever for Windows, beating the one million transaction-per-minute mark. The result had 7 percent better performance and cost 37 percent less per transaction than Oracle's best result on a 64-processor Intel® Itanium® 2 server. The benchmark information is available at http://www.tpc.org/.
- Changes to the SQL Server 2005 product line. In February, Microsoft announced the product line for SQL Server 2005. As part of this announcement, Microsoft revealed that Reporting Services would ship with Standard and Enterprise Editions and that Report Builder would be available with Enterprise Edition. Based on your feedback, and because we believe that reporting is a core scenario for all customers, we've made the decision to include Reporting Services in all versions for SQL Server 2005 including Express, Workgroup, Standard and Enterprise Editions. In addition, Report Builder will be available with Workgroup, Standard and Enterprise Editions.
- SQL Server Migration Assistant for Oracle. To address your requests for automated tools to help you migrate your higher TCO Oracle installations to SQL Server, we also released the SQL Server Migration Assistant for Oracle. This migration tool, now available for free download, provides a faster, easier and more automated way to migrate from Oracle to SQL Server. Customers such as Motorola Inc., Simon & Schuster Inc. and Atento Brasil S/A have successfully migrated from Oracle to SQL Server using the SQL Server Migration Assistant and are already seeing a significant cost savings.
- RFID initiative. Finally, we announced an initiative to offer a scalable, wireless RFID technology server infrastructure, enabling customers and partners to easily connect line-of-business applications with RFID sensors and devices. The infrastructure is being built using Microsoft .NET and Windows Server System technology and is designed to connect devices, capture and interpret data, manage business events, and integrate systems and processes more easily than ever.
SQL Server® 2005, Visual Studio® 2005 and BizTalk® Server 2006 will launch the week of November 7.