In "Slow in the Application, Fast in SSMS?", SQL Server MVP, Erland Sommarskog, explores the various things that affect Query Plan, compilation of Dynamic SQL and other things that ultimately affect your SQL Server Database Performance. He covers various concepts and scenarios like parameter sniffing, query plan caching, Blocking, saved settings, issues with linked servers and more.
Microsoft has released the SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for MySQL 1.0, and has refreshed SSMA for Oracle v4.2, SSMA for Sybase v4.2, and SSMA for Access v4.2. These toolkits helps customers migrating their MySQL/Oracle/Sybase/Access databases to SQL Server and some even to SQL Azure.
Microsoft has released its first community tech preview for a MySQL to SQL Server migration tool. This tool supports SQL Server 2005, 2008, and Azure.
The SQL Azure Migration Wizard (SQLAzureMW) is a CodePlex project and wizard that can be used to migrate SQL 2005 and SQL 2008 databases to SQL Azure.
SQL Enlight is a tool designed to expedite and facilitate T-SQL development through code analysis and templating. SQL Enlight integrates into MS Visual Studio and SQL Management Studio.
Amazon's EC2 services are no longer offered as beta, but they have been switched into production, Amazon offering a Service Level Agreement (SLA). Windows on EC2 is still available as beta.
Version 1.0 of the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP has been released, allowing greater interoperability between PHP and MS SQL 2005. The driver is available for download on MSDN, and the source code for the driver is available on Code Plex.
Scott Hanselman recently posted a really useful article on his blog covering the NOLOCK hint when using LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities. The problem is actually how to get the SQL generated by LINQ queries to use the NOLOCK hint as SQL developers are accustomed.
