After I wrote the SQL Server 2008 R2 August Community Technology Preview (CTP) Announced post I noticed that we were getting Google hits for the search term StreamInsight. Well there is good news: SQL Server StreamInsight CTP2 is available for download.
Overview
Microsoft® SQL Server® StreamInsight is a platform for the continuous and incremental processing of unending sequences of events (event streams) from multiple sources with near-zero latency. These requirements, shared by vertical markets such as manufacturing, oil and gas, utilities, financial services, health care, web analytics, and IT and data center monitoring, make traditional store and query techniques impractical for timely and relevant processing of data.
StreamInsight allows software developers to create innovative solutions in the domain of Complex Event Processing that satisfy these needs. It allows to monitor, mine, and develop insights from continuous unbounded data streams and correlate constantly changing events with rich payloads in near real time. Industry specific solution developers (ISVs) and developers of custom applications have the opportunity to innovate on and utilize proven, flexible, and familiar Microsoft technology and rely on existing development skills when using the StreamInsight platform.
Some of the key feature areas are:
- Derive meaningful and relevant information from data/events streams through complex patterns. These patterns can be defined using a declarative query paradigm based on well-defined streaming semantics with LINQ as query language.
- For the development of applications, adapters, and analytics, the user can rely on well-established and powerful development frameworks and tools such as .NET, LINQ, and Microsoft Visual Studio.
- The platform integrates with various data sources and sinks through input and output adapters. The framework to build domain-specific adapters utilizes a .NET API to make adoption of the platform easy. Independence between adapters and queries facilitates seamless integration of real-time and historical analysis.
- The platform architecture supports a variety of deployment options, from scenarios with a low-footprint embedded option to high-end server deployments.
- A rich set of manageability features such as a management interface, a diagnostic interface and a debugging tool are provided as part of the platform.
You can get some more info about the two different methods to complete the installation process and how to download the SQL Server StreamInsight CTP2 here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a3faa562-b6dc-4702-90c6-bf8e08df3b8b&displaylang=en
Denis has been working with SQL Server since version 6.5. Although he worked as an ASP/JSP/ColdFusion developer before the dot com bust, he has been working exclusively as a database developer/architect since 2002. In addition to English, Denis is also fluent in Croatian and Dutch, but he can curse in many other languages and dialects (just ask the SQL optimizer) He lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife and three kids.
