SQL Server version 11 CTP1 version is here (Denali)

9 november, the Microsoft® SQL Server® codenamed 'Denali' - Community Technology Preview 1 (CTP1) is released and RTM is scheduled for 2011. The tooling i like a lot is SSIS and luckily Microsoft released quite some improvements in SQL Server version 11 CTP:

• Release of a new deployment model. From MSDN : "The project deployment model provides the ability to define parameters for packages and projects. With this model, a project is the unit of deployment in Integration Services. Build your project, packages, and parameters to a project deployment file (.ispac extension) and deploy it directly to the SQL Server database engine. New dialog boxes in SQL Server Management Studio and a comprehensive set of Transact-SQL views and stored procedures help you manage, execute, and monitor your packages in real time."
• Object Impact and Data Lineage Analysis : From MSDN : "You can now view information about impact and data lineage between supported Integration Services objects that are deployed to the server and supported SQL Server SQL Serverobjects. You extract impact and data linage metadata about Integration Services and SQL Server objects by using extraction points. You use this information to troubleshoot the behavior of an object, such as a slow-running package or a package that does not run, and to anticipate how changes to one object can affect another object 
• Usability Enhancements: From MSDN : "Business Intelligence Development Studio has been updated to help new and experienced users develop packages more easily. A new Integration Services toolbox, designer refinements, and other usability enhancements help new users become productive quickly."
• Reduced Memory Usage by the Merge and Merge Join Transformations. In a former post i compared this with the lookup join and i was not very enthousiastic about the Merge join. Microsoft apparantly still believes that Merge join is still going strong. 
• SSIS : New Data Correction Component. A new component for data quality improvements. 

And other improvements:

• Crescent : the code name of an ad-hoc reporting layer that will be released in the next version of SQL Server – Denali. Crescent is a major enhancement to Reporting Services and Microsoft Self-Service BI strategy. Crescent will change normal eporting behaviour and it will make the reporting experience more interactive and similar to Excel PivotTable and tools from other vendors, such as Tableau. So, Crescent is a code name for a new web-based fusion between SSRS and PowerPivot (to be more accurate Analysis Services in VertiPaq mode).

So i installed Denali and the standard installation is quite easy. Installing is a lot like SQL Server 2008 R2

The only i problem i had was that powershell 2.0 was not installed.  At first it was a warning:

 

 But later on it became an error:

So i installed powershell 2.0.  During the installation i saw the following information. Visual studio 2008 and visual studio 2010 are installed?!

Everything went well and i started up management studio and the look and feel is a bit different i noticed. It appears to me that the look an feel is more like visual studio.

The next thing i did was installing the Denali adventureWorks databases. This went very smooth. No problems here. Then i started visual studio and created a SSIS project. And also the look and feel also changed here. The toolbox is reorganized. Below you can see the control toolbox.

Below you can see the dataflow toolbox. The new datacorrection component is there!

Right below on the screen a slider is introduced and this is for zooming in and zooming out.

Next time more about Denali.

Greetz,

Hennie