You guys just posted that there is no true Scale Out technology with SS. But
I am curious: does MS have anything in the works? Are there any rumors?

I'm wondering because I get Unix and Oracle guys constantly telling me that
Windows can't scale out because of inherent file and threading limitations.
Is that true?

One of these days, the Unix and Oracle guys should try something more recent
than Windows 95. They might be surprised.

Seriously, I have seen some truly massive SQL installations with very high
processing throughput. Given similar budgets, I can build a SQL system that
can match pretty much any Oracle system for scalability. Even the
much-vaunted RAC has scalability issues on most real-world workloads.

As for what Microsoft has in the long-term back room, your guess is as good
as mine. I would be very surprised if there wasn't something bubbling on a
back burner somewhere they don't tell anyone about. Mainly because:

1) They can see what the competition is doing.
2) They ain't stupid.
3) They can afford it.

--
Geoff N. Hiten
Senior SQL Infrastructure Consultant
Microsoft SQL Server MVP



"CLM" <CLM (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

This issue comes up so often it's not even funny any more. Comments in line.

Linchi

"Geoff N. Hiten" wrote:

Be that the case, the issue is whether you do it 'manually' or let the DBMS
do it for you. I've seen enough problems with RAC, and not a particular fan
of it. But there is an absolute need for scale-out at the DBMS level.

And a lot of times, it is not even a technology question. Without a
scale-out solution, it creates a throny perception problem which gets in the
way when one should be spending time on something else.

Hopefully, it's not on the back burner. And hopefully it's not even on the
front burner. Rather, the burner should be underneath their feet on this
issue. Even Sybase will be releasing its Adaptive Server Enterprise Cluster
Edition in Q1 of 2008, and it is a shared-disk cluster.

Interesting comments from both of you - thx.

"Linchi Shea" wrote: