Tony Bain

I am not a Second Life user (I have created an account, but not it’s not really my thing) but do keep an eye on it as an emerging market of interest.  One thing that has caught my attention is the number of problems Linden Labs has in keeping second life up and running.  With over 2 million registered users, and huge amounts of $ being transacted daily via it’s environment, right now it appears SL has grown bigger than what Linden can effectively manage.

Just in the last 24 hours I notice that the environment has been down due to, apparently, a controller battery, then un-related databases issues just a few hours later.  Currently all these issue are a major headache for SL users which Linden really need to get a handle on ASAP, in the meantime the door is open for another player with a robust infrastructure architecture to capture some of the dejected users.

You are the person of the year

Time magainze has named "you" (when combined with Web 2.0 technologies) the person of the year.

Vista's lack of support for SQL Server a major problem?

There has been a bunch of talk about Vista’s inability to support the current build of SQL Sever, including an article from CNN.

CNN makes the follow comments in this article.

"..But now Microsoft has a problem. Vista, its long-awaited update to the Windows operating system, can't run the current version of SQL Server. The company is working on a SQL upgrade that is compatible with Vista - called SQL Server 2005 Express Service Pack 2 - but it's in beta and can be licensed only for testing purposes. Microsoft hasn't set a release date for the new SQL program.
So companies looking to install Vista, which went on sale to corporate customers Nov. 30, are going to have to get their database management software someplace else. "

This really is a gross exaggeration of the issue, and issue I am not expecting to have any real effect on SQL Server’s market positioning.  SQL Server, like Oracle and DB2 is predominately a server platform and does not run on the desktop PC’s where Vista will be deployed. 

Sure, many business use SQL Server on the desktop in addition to the server environment, especially for mobile and disconnected applications, however this usage is a very small subset when compared to server usage of the database platform.  More likely the effect will be is those business using the desktop editions may delay deploying Vista until the update to SQL Server has been has been released.

Search Database Tips

Thought these had been long taken down, these are my old SearchDatabase Q & A responses:

http://expertanswercenter.techtarget.com/eac/knowledgebaseCategory/0,295197,sid63_tax296802_idx0_off10,00.html

Oracle Sets World Record in Two-Tier SAP® Sales and Distribution Standard Application Benchmark for Four Processor Systems

Oracle today announced a world record two-tier SAP® Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark result for four processor systems. Running HP-UX 11i and the mySAP(tm) ERP 2005 application on an HP Integrity rx6600 server with 4 Intel Itanium 2 1.6 GHz processors, 8 cores, 16 threads, Oracle® Database 10g achieved 2,150 SAP SD Benchmark users(1), delivering 39 percent higher throughput and 41 percent more users than Microsoft SQL Server 2005 running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition on identical hardware(2), as measured by fully processed order lines per hour and the number of SAP SD Benchmark users.

http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2006_dec/SAPSD-wHP-Bmrk.html?rssid=rss_ocom_pr

10g Sets World Record TPC-H 10 Terabyte Non-Clustered Benchmark

Oracle today announced a new world record TPC-H 10 Terabyte (TB) benchmark result for Oracle® Database 10g Release 2(1), representing the fastest performance result for a non-clustered configuration and the best price-performance overall with this benchmark.

http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2006_dec/TPCH-10TB-HP-121206.html?rssid=rss_ocom_dbnews