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SQL Server Team
Published 
3 min read

Microsoft sessions at PASS Summit 2014 

Got SQL Server 2005 running on Windows Server 2003?  We have fantastic pre-con and general sessions to help you plan your upgrade and migration strategies. Interested in the new Azure data services like Azure DocumentDB, Azure ML, and Azure Search?  We have awesome people lined up to give you all the details. Want know the nitty-gritty about Azure SQL Database? We got you covered.
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<1 min read

#SQLHaikusweeps – We have a winner! 

Thank you for participating in our Twitter sweepstakes. As always, the creativity of our community never fails to amaze.  Congratulations to @dragonfurther for the winning haiku.   Notable mentions include entries from @John_Deardurff and @sdevanny       We look forward to seeing everyone at PASS Summit 2014.  Can’t make it in person?
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1 min read

SQL Server 2008 R2 SP3 and SQL Server 2008 SP4 are now available! 

Microsoft is pleased to announce the release of SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 3 and SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 4 . The Service Packs are available for download on the Microsoft Download Center. As part of our continued commitment to software excellence for our customers, this upgrade is available to all customers with existing SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 deployments.
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8 min read

2014 PASS Summit Haiku Contest Rules 

Contest time! Need a pass to PASS Summit? Tell us why with 140 characters in the form of a HAIKU. Contest starts Friday October 3, 2014. Read the official rules below.   COMMON TERMS USED IN THESE RULES: These are the official rules that govern how the Microsoft “Why I should win a pass to PASS Summit 2014” Haiku Contest promotion will operate (“Contest”).
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2 min read

Using SSDs in Azure VMs to store SQL Server TempDB and Buffer Pool Extensions 

A common practice on-premise to improve the performance of SQL Server workloads is storing TempDB and/or Buffer Pool Extensions (SQL Server 2014) on SSDs. The former improves the performance of workloads that use temporary objects heavily (e.g. queries handling large recordsets, index rebuilds, row versioning isolation levels, temp tables, and triggers).
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3 min read

3 reasons to get certified at PASS Summit 2014! 

PASS Summit 2014 is right around the corner!  Register by September 26th 2014 to take advantage of the PASS Summit discounted pricing.  PASS Summit is not only a great opportunity to attend the highest rated technical sessions but it’s also one of the best times to get certified. Why should you get certified at PASS Summit 2014? 1.
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1 min read

Microsoft Azure Offers HDInsight (Hadoop-as-a-service) to China 

Microsoft today announced that Azure HDInsight is now available for all customers in China as a public preview, making it the first global cloud provider to have a publicly available cloud Hadoop offering in China. With this launch, Microsoft is bringing Azure HDInsight’s ability to process big data volumes from unstructured and semi-structured sources to China.
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1 min read

New Optimized OLTP and Data Warehousing SQL Server Images on Azure 

Microsoft Azure continues to offer customers more reasons why  Azure Virtual Machines are an ideal place to develop, test and run your SQL Server applications.  This promise is further enhanced with the release of new workload optimized images for SQL Server that provide greater performance and simplified setup when it comes to running data warehousing and OLTP workloads in Azure.
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3 min read

New VM Images Optimized for Transactional and DW workloads in Azure VM Gallery 

We are delighted to announce the release of new optimized SQL Server images in the Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines Gallery. These images are pre-configured with optimizations for transactional and Data Warehousing workloads respectively by baking in our performance best practices for running SQL in Azure VMs. What preconfigured VM images are available?
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5 min read

2014 winners: 24 Hours of PASS 

Thank you to everyone who took the time to enter the contest #pass24hop Challenge!  As always, we had a great time listening to such passionate community speakers. Congratulations to all the winners!  You will be notified via a Direct Message (DM) with details on how to redeem your free Microsoft Certification Exam.
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7 min read

Announcing the PASS 24 HOP Challenge 

Calling all data junkies! How smart are you?  Want to get smarter? Play along with #pass24hop Challenge on Twitter starting at 5:00 AM PT Tuesday, September 9, 2014 to win a free Microsoft Exam Voucher!  Simply watch 24 Hours of PASS and be the first to answer the question correctly.