SQL Server and SharePoint in the news

Over the last few weeks there have been four articles in the news that I wanted to point out – if you look around you’ll find more, but these are ones I wanted to highlight.

SharePoint Elite Initiative

Firstly, of course, there is the SharePoint Elite Initiative which featured in today’s Reseller news (with a link from Computerworld).  Since we met with Amanda, we have also had Gen-i commit to joining Intergen, Datacom, Provoke, Fujitsu and Information Leadership in the SharePoint Elite Initiative.  Their logo will go up on the Elite partner page next week along with a few minor clarifications. This article focuses on introducing the SharePoint Elite initiative to the New Zealand partner community.

PowerCo (with case study)

Next up is a fantastic story in Computerworld about PowerCo, who have recently replaced their Oracle infrastructure with Microsoft SQL Server.  Like many large IT departments, they had both SQL Server and Oracle and decided to rationalise down to just one platform.  Given they were wanting to reduce costs, they chose SQL Server instead of Oracle.

Some people object to Microsoft SQL Server on the basis that it only runs on Windows, but this is one of the reasons PowerCo were able to save money – because by removing Oracle from their infrastructure, they were able to remove HP UX as well and consolidate to a single platform, easing management overheads and saving considerable rack space. 

There is a case study about PowerCo available from the Microsoft Case Studies website which explains more about what they did and the benefits they received – including almost $400,000 in savings per year. Look out for this case study in an up and coming edition of CIO magazine.

Express Couriers

Express couriers were speaking at Tech Ed this week and they emerged in Computerworld (lots of Computerworld articles).  This story highlights the spatial capabilities of SQL Server which were implemented by e-Spatial, a local company specialising in SQL Servers spatial capabilities.  Look out for a podcast with Matti from e-Spatial in a few weeks on more details about what SQL Server delivers out of the box for spatial solutions.

TradeMe

A few weeks back there was also a more generic story in Computerworld about the advantages that the latest databases are delivering to customers.  The article features TradeMe, and the MetService (choosing to continue paying Oracles fees).  TradeMe have a fairly substantial database environment and have some significant transaction figures and statistics by New Zealand standards. 

Watch out Monday for a podcast with Matt van Deventer who manages TradeMe’s Database team where we talk about their infrastructure and the load it manages along with what Matt is thinking about for SQL Server 2008 R2.