The SS SLUG met for the 7th consecutive time on the 17th of October, 2007. As customary we conducted two sessions and the special bimonthly session on a selected red-gate product. The sessions were as follows:

• Declarative Management Framework by Gogula Aryalingam: This session introduced the Declarative Management Framework to be released with SQL Server 2008. The DMF is a framework for administrators to manage SQL Server instances and objects using policies, much like what is used in Windows. Based on SQL Server "Katmai", this session introduced to the audience the concepts and how-tos of this feature
• Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Data Mining by Dinesh Priyankara: This session introduced to the audience the Data Mining capabilities of SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services. It brought to the participants the different data mining models and how and where they could be used in areas such as forecasting, trend analysis etc.
• red-gate SQL Compare by Dinesh Asanka: This month's selected red-gate product was SQL Compare. SQL Compare is the industry-standard tool for comparing and synchronizing SQL Server database schemas. It's used by over 150,000 developers, DBAs and test engineers worldwide because it's easy to use, it's fast, and it saves time.

Each session ended with a Q&A session where the participants were given chances to win from a set of fantastic and valuable gift items, including a 1GB USB drive, T-shirts, a mug and our star prize: a red-gate SQLCompare Pro License worth US$595!

October 18, 2007