Microsoft brings big data to life at SQL Server 2014 launch

By Rich Edmonds
published

Microsoft tied an immersive experience into its launch of SQL Server 2014. The Infinity Room was installed in San Francisco for three days, enabling members of the public to witness a visualisation of the insights that can be gained through Microsoft's new data analysis tools. Universal Everything, partnering up with data journalist Simon Rogers, created a narrative experience on the power of big data.

The experience was running in real-time, telling the story of how the simple US quarter contributes to society and the world as a whole. It was a carefully choreographed push on data analysis by Redmond, combining LED animations with sphere lighting and the immersive narrative experience. Microsoft has created an online virtual tour, should you wish to check it out for yourself.

Source: Microsoft, via: The Verge

Rich Edmonds
Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.

32 Comments
  • Seems slower
  • Ok honestly I didn't know what was presented out there. It looks good but they could've done better if they used Cortana's voice instead. Then it ends with either the Cortana circle or the Cortana hologram from the game. Just my quarter cents.
  • Time to let the boss know there's a new SQL server we should do some testing with.
  • Finally better than Paradox.
  • SQL 2014 Cortana enabled? :P
  • That would be awesome!
  • my office hasn't upgraded to 2012 yet....2014 is already here....geez my office works at such a snail pace.... :P
  • Yup, tell your company new releases are now every 18-24 months.
  • For many business needs older versions of SQL Server are more than adequate. Always having new stuff is the mindset of the consumer. Running your company efficiently and profitably is the mindset of business.
  • Don't forget new software also helps a company run more efficiently too. The don't release new software just for the heck of it. They're usually improvments on the old.
  • Sure, a smart business would evaluate new software, but you don't go out and buy it just because it's new.
  • I never suggested that. But also dont stick with old even though you know the new is better, or refuse to acknowledge the need for something new/better.
  • Also many of the new features require that the data be structured in a new way or that the application running on top of the database be written to use the new feature. Often, the 3rd party application vendors are years behind incorporating those new features. If its in-house stuff you can move faster, but you need funding for the new stuff, your developers need training in how to make use of the new features - it takes a while.
  • "Also many of the new features require that the data be structured in a new way or that the application running on top of the database be written to use the new feature. Often, the 3rd party application vendors are years behind incorporating those new features." None of this is true. You can upgrade SQL Server and not have to change a thing in your app or data and 3rd party vendors are always ahead of the game not behind. If your 3rd party vendor is years behind he's probably going out of business anyway and you need to move off that old stuff.  
  • lol, ok. Yes, you can upgrade your database, but if you dont put your data into the new columnar storage format, you wont get the advantage of the new columnar storage capability. The same for many other new features. Code has to be changed to make use of the new things. I dont know what world you work in, we still have vendors sell MAJOR enterprise software that tell us the only support IE8, and SQL 2008R2. I havent seen a single application that claims to be supported on SQL Server 2012 yet. If you ask, they may say it works, but its not on the documentation. We are still fighting through client software for many of our products that require special accomodations to work on Windows 7 because they were built for Windows XP. There may be industries where things are more cutting edge, but not in healthcare. I hear banking is the same.
  • My point is you don't have to change your code or your data. Meaning if your are not required to change anything for it to continue working unless something gets deprecated. It seems we are on 2 different pages in two different books. No sense in continuing this discussion. 
  • I'm a database admin in a fairly large environment. We have 3 intalls of 2012 and probably 75 running 2008 R2, a handful of  2005 and one or two still on SQL Server 2000.  Once you install and deploy a critical application inproduction, there's really no reason to updrade to a newer version if the applications are running without issue. You only introduce risk. We have done some consolodation recently - taking small databse servers and moving their DBs to either virtual or large consolidated physical machines. When we do that, we take the opportunity to upgrade, but we wont start using 2014 any time soon. Enterprise never jumps on a new release immediately.
  • I agree. We've just started to upgrade the data warehouse servers to 2012 and that's only because the BI team needs the Power BI stuff.
  • Yep - our 2012 installs are for new features in BI and SSRS one of our teams wanted.
  • You should also look for "India election Twitter around the globe" on Bing. It is hosted by CNN in India. The data analysis is done by Microsoft, a technological partner in this. It showed tweets about each Indian party from January to May in a time lapse of blinking lights around the globe. It was fascinating!
  • This is what being a spoiled MSDN account holder is like, I forgot SQL Server 2014 wasn't officially out yet!
  • Can anyone tell me what the heck I'm looking at in this vid? Is this just animation?
  • You can't handle the truth! Unless you have SQL Server 2014. :-D
  • Hell yeah....Microsoft is awesome...!
  • Impressive. Two decades ago Oracle and IBM were kings of RDBMS, now MS is sitting comfrotably at the second position. It's market share can grow more if MS would target non-windows market as well.
  • That was the most pointless 4-minute video I've ever seen.  Pure marketing fluff.  There is no "there" there.  There was nothing about analysis in that video.  I think the folks at Microsoft who have been doing the consumer products marketing must have moved over to enterprise marketing.  That was pathetic.
  • If they had went technical, it would not have interested regular people. Us techies love the detailed specs but the video was obviously meant for the non technical, who just want to know if it can do what they want it to do. 
  • Yeah, they didnt describe any capabilities in that video that you can't already do with any RDBMS out there already. 2014 just adds some new ways to do things faster.
  • Is that Morgan Freeman's voice?
  • But wait, it's using Windows... which, restarts your machine on Updates... that completely breaks the idea of a "SQL Server" if your products/sites/services goes down after every update...   BROKEN PIPE!
  • Not all updates require a reboot and clustered DBs can be patched without downtime.
  • Does it have hadoop baked in? They can't hang with the big data kids without it...