SQL Server Modeling Services ( Oslo ) : Buddy of Application under the label of Database

In the history of mankind, time in divided in two parts : AD and BC, and my time in my career history is divided between .NET (BC) and Business Intelligence (BC + AD). Coming down to the language that humans can understand, I mean to say that I am a child of .NET and SQL Server, so I see any of these technologies from unbiased eyes. Apparently from the title, you can make out the topic of this post is SQL Server Modeling Services.

It was known as Microsoft Codename "Oslo", which is now known as SQL Server Modeling Services. The Nov CTP Release 2 of the same has got released a couple of days back and can be downloaded from here. There are majorly two tools released in this CTP : Quadrant and Intellipad and one major language "M" ( Microsoft Codename M ). Looking at the name and the features it offers, it seems like this package is more intended towards the benefit of the .NET community, but still SQL Server also has got a share of it. It has got quite some level of dependency on .NET 4.0 RC and SQL Server 2008. "M" is a quite interesting language to check out as it can generate T-SQL code from the so-called modeling language, which looks more like a C# code ( bad news for SQL Developers is that vice-versa is not possible). To me it looks like this is where Microsoft has created a hybrid of .NET programmers (C# coders in specific) and SQL Developers.

If you have SQL Server 2008 and VS 2010 installed, it would not be a bad idea to install these tools and check out the use of the same. Quadrant is something of the flavor of Toad for Data Analysts from a functionality viewpoint, but limited to SQL Server 2008 databases only. I am of the opinion that one should at least give a try to these tools, if not to the language "M".

And finally about the comment in the topic of this post, I think that though it's called SQL Server Modeling Services, it's more inclined toward .NET development where developers can validate their data and business tiers using these services and generate a T-SQL code out of the same. This might make a small application team self-sufficient to a certain level, but if it's used with the intention of making the database a slave of application, it would be suicidal attack on the project in my viewpoint :)