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24 Hours of SQL Server 2008

Webcast Series: Trusted. Productive. Intelligent.

Throughout the 24 Hours of SQL Server 2008 series, we use Contoso (Container Overseas Shipping Operation) LTD as our scenario customer while we explore the features that make SQL Server 2008 a productive data platform.

24 Hours of SQL Server 2008 Webcast Series

Contoso is a (fictitious) shipping company that delivers all kinds of items around the globe, from small individual items to large manufactured items. While they are happy with their in-house applications and believe they provide a significant advantage over competitors, Contoso wants to ensure that these applications are running on the most productive platform to maintain this advantage, especially as their business grows worldwide. Their recent growth has been mirrored with the growth of its data, from client voice mails to scanned and e-mail documents which has led Contoso to look at options for its storage, access, security, and searching needs.

Ensuring Your Data Is Secure with a Trusted Platform

Ensuring Your Data Is Secure with a Trusted Platform

Audience: IT Professionals
Duration: 90 Minutes

In this part of the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 series, we focus on IT professionals and the SQL Server 2008 the Trusted Platform. In the first part of the series we spent time looking at how Contoso was using SQL Server 2008 as a productivity platform. Now we change direction from developers and look at how Contoso's IT operations embraced the new and enhanced features to make sure that SQL Server 2008 was a trusted platform. The first two parts address security, which is a main theme for Contoso as they have large amounts of critical data that needs to be protected against both internal and external threats. Either data loss or compromise would be a nightmare scenario. In this session, we look at features such as surface area configuration policies, external key management, and Network Access Protection (NAP), and Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption, which Contoso could use to protect its data.

Presenter: Bryan Von Axelson, Partner Solutions Advisor, Microsoft Corporation

Securing Your System

Securing Your System

Audience: IT Professionals
Duration: 90 Minutes

While it is extremely important to secure your data, it is also vital to secure your system also. One without the other is not a secure solution. In this webcast, we look at the systems on which Microsoft SQL Server relies and runs. Contoso made two major decisions concerning their data: the first was to use Microsoft SQL Server 2008, the second was to move to Windows Server 2008 at the back end and Windows Vista at the front end. These two operating systems together offered the best solution going forward. In this session, we focus on the Windows Server 2008 part of the combination to look at the features that enabled Contoso to secure their systems that run SQL Server and its required services. Key security features that we cover are: surface area configuration policies, external key management, Network Access Protection (NAP), and Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption.

Presenter: Chris Avis, IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation

Ensuring Business Continuity

Ensuring Business Continuity

Audience: IT Professionals
Duration: 90 Minutes

Contoso expansion over the past years increased the challenges the IT organization faced with regard to the increased number of offices and data growth. As jobs come in and consignments travel around the globe, different external organizations require information 24-7. The Microsoft SQL Server systems have to be available around the clock around the world. In this session, we look at high availability options in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 that help ensure that these systems are there when they are needed--regardless of what component has failed.

Presenter: Bryan Von Axelson, Partner Solutions Advisor, Microsoft Corporation

Predictable Response to Your Users

Predictable Response to Your Users

Audience: IT Professionals
Duration: 90 Minutes

At any given time, Contoso's servers provide multiple services to users and applications. Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Contoso would like to achieve better performance with its workloads. In this session, we look the Resource Governor, which enables administrators to define limits and assign priorities to individual workloads that are running on a SQL Server instance. We also look at Plan Freezing in SQL Server 2008, which enables greater query performance stability and predictability by providing new functionality to lock down query plans. This enables organizations to promote stable query plans across hardware server replacements, server upgrades, and production deployments.

Presenter: Bryan Von Axelson, Partner Solutions Advisor, Microsoft Corporation

Performance Troubleshooting

Performance Troubleshooting

Audience: IT Professionals
Duration: 90 Minutes

An area of concern for Contoso is the monitoring and troubleshooting of any performance issues it may encounter on Microsoft SQL Server 2008. In this session, we cover the tools available for IT departments as they troubleshoot performance. We look at Performance Studio, the features available, and how to use them to analyze performance. We also cover how to use the Best Practice Analyzer for SQL Server, and utilizing the results it provides.

Presenter: Bryan Von Axelson, Partner Solutions Advisor, Microsoft Corporation

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