Edwin M SarmientoSQL Server 2008 R2 – Edwin M Sarmiento

Building a Scale-Out SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Farm Whitepaper Now Available

Edwin M Sarmiento — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:49:54 +0000

Back in 2009, I wrote a 4-part series article on installing SQL Server 2008 Failover Cluster on Windows Server 2008 and, for the past two years, has been on the Top Ten Tips. I think one of the reason is because of the fact that we humans learn easily with the use of visuals (the articles are packed with screenshots and explanations). And since the internet has provided us with the opportunity to explore different types of media – graphics, videos, animations, etc. – our demand for these different types of media has increased with our need for continuous learning.

Last year, I was searching for official documentation on building a scale-out SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services farm from both the Microsoft TechNet and MSDN sites. However, the amount of documentation and the way they were written were too much for me. I guess that’s because they were written for a more highly technical and advanced audience. In more cases than not, I’ve been frustrated when I can’t even understand the jargon used in the documentation. And I’m guessing I’m not alone. More and more IT professionals want to try out new stuff but are taken aback by the complexity of the documentation available out there. And, so, with the same motivation behind the SQL Server 2008 Failover Cluster series of articles, I wrote a document on building a scale-out SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services farm. I thought, since I’ve been doing it or SharePoint, why not do it for Reporting Services. This was the basis of the five-part series article made available on MSSQLTips.com.

You can download the whitepaper from here. I would, however, request that you’d fill in your information here for my reference and feedback. Print out as many copies as you like, share it with your friends who you think will benefit from it or send them the PDF version. If you would be using this document for purposes other than personal – presentations, blog posts, articles, etc., please provide proper attribution to the original source.

I definitely would love to hear from you as this helps me improve my work.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Has Been Released

Edwin M Sarmiento — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:29:53 +0000

I just found out recently that SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 has been released. Microsoft KB article 2528583 lists all of the bugs that are fixed by the service pack. SQL Server MVP Aaron Bertrand blogged a few months back about the features that were added to the database engine. Hopefully, after installing this service pack on your test environment, you’d be able to try out those different features.

One more thing, in case you decide to do so, this service pack is only applicable to the R2 version of SQL Server 2008, not the RTM version. Every now and then, I see questions on newsgroups and forums about installing service packs and this has caused confusion to everyone (yes, including me). You have been warned.

Building a Scale-Out SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Farm using Windows Network Load Balancing Part 2

Edwin M Sarmiento — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:57:00 +0000

Part 2 of the series is out. The rest will probably take quite some time as I’m still wrapping up a few items on the ASP.NET aspect of SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services. Stay tuned

Building a Scale-Out SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Farm using Windows Network Load Balancing Part 1

Edwin M Sarmiento — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 19:32:00 +0000

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on a series of articles on building a scale-out SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Farm. Part 1 of this series is already available on MSSQLTips.com. This was inspired by the SQL Server 2008 Failover Cluster installation series as I’ve been searching for available guides online but was frustrated for not finding a lot of information (or maybe I just wasn’t looking hard enough).

Enjoy!