News
Flessner: Meet SQL for CE
- By Scott Bekker
- 10/26/2000
SAN FRANCISCO -- Today at the
PASS SQL Server
users conference, Paul Flessner, senior vice president of Microsoft’s .NET
Enterprise Servers Group announced a brand new Microsoft product, SQL Server
2000 Windows CE. The announcement came in his opening keynote address to
attendees of the conference.
SQL Server 2000 CE is made for handheld
devices and offers flexible access to enterprise data. Like SQL Server 2000 for
the enterprise, it is a full relational database management system, but also
offers wireless HTTP support and a 1 MB footprint.
Flessner talked up several features of the
new product: data access between the CE device and versions of SQL Server 6.5
and up; data is stored locally on the device; the ability to use a database
password and data encryption to protect data on the device; the ability to
connect to IIS over an Internet connection and use SSL to encrypt data over the
wire; and the ability to get access SQL Server 2000 from beyond a firewall.
Other features, dicussed by Kevin Collins of
Microsoft, were embedded Visual Basic in the software, merge replication, and
central administration from SQL Server 2000 in the enterprise.
Merge replication allows the CE user to
replicate data back to SQL Server 2000 that is obtained while not connected to
SQL Server 2000. The CE version also enables IT to set up a subscription
database, which enables the device to receive only data from SQL SErver 2000
that is relevant to the device user -- and not replicating the entire database
onto the device. To do this, SQL Server 2000 CE employs dynamic horizontal
partitions which control what sets of data come to the device, this can be
specific to the device and can be changed by IT at any time.
Licensing of SQL Server 2000 will require
users to purchase SQL SErver 2000 developers edition and pay a fee of $499.
This will give them one developer license for unlimited deployment. Users can
then go to the Micrsoft SQL Server site and download the CE edition. – Alicia Costanza
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.