Microsoft outlines SQL Server road map

Microsoft has announced its road map for SQL Server, along with a host of add-ons which the company hoped will ultimately redefine business intelligence and data warehousing.

Code named Kilimanjaro, the next version of the database server would be released sometime during the first half of 2010, focusing on self-service and reporting capabilities for business intelligence (BI).

Microsoft says it would like to have in place a "community technology preview" (CTP) within the next 12 months.

A set of technologies code-named Gemini host the self-service features, and allow users to build business intelligence (BI) applications that can access data from across sources, aggregate it, build charts and reports, and then share the resulting applications through SharePoint.

Microsoft says it also plans to integrate the unified communications capabilities of Office Communications Server to aid the sharing of BI results, and says that a lot of the Gemini technology will be tied to Excel, allowing widespread Excel users access to the self-service analytics.

These announcements were made by Microsoft at its annual BI Conference, currently underway in Seattle this week. The conference is expected to attract around 2,500 users and partners.

Microsoft has been causing some activity in the business intelligence and analytics market, with its stated intent to expand its business intelligence capabilities on its popular SQL server platform, on the back of its acquisition the recently-acquired DATAllegro Inc. Other BI industry giants include Business Objects/SAP, Cognos/IBM, Hyperion/Oracle.

Earlier in the year, research firm Gartner had said in a report that Microsoft "lags behind pure-play vendors in terms of metadata management, reporting, and dashboard and ad hoc query capabilities."

Microsoft now seems to have a plan to attack and defeat those deficiencies, with an immediate goal being extending its BI tools and software in a way that makes them more accessible to users, especially those using the popular Excel and SharePoint.

With Gemini, Microsoft is aiming to bring business intelligence to users without sacrificing IT control. IT would still be able to see how data is being shared, and will have continue to control security on the data, while making data sources available to users. Various data sources could encompass ERP data, mainframe applications and independent software vendor programs.

Another key feature of Gemini is in-memory BI that is capable of analysing large amounts of data in memory in order to speed performance. Officially released in August, SQL Server 2008 has been deployed by 80 companies, according to Tom Casey, Microsoft's general manager for SQL Server business intelligence.