SQL Server 2005

kb910437 considered harmful...

u2u — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 21:24:00 GMT

After enjoying SQL Server 2005 for about a month, this morning Analysis Services 2005 refused duty. It claimed that the SQL Browser (the tool which redirects requests to the right TCP port on the server, see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165724.aspx for details) was not running, though this service was up and running (according to the services tool in the computer administrator). If I shut down the service and try to start it manually (with the ...\90\Shared\sqlbrowser.exe -c statement), it reports that it cannot start up the SSRP (redirect protocol) and it also fails in the OLAP redirector.

Weird... how come... A few moments of debugging (and a hint of my colleague Kris) later, it turned out that uninstalling the windows update nr 910437 solved the problem. So if you experience the same problem as I do, be careful with installing this windows update.

Nico

Calling Web Services in SQL Server 2005: how does the final version behave?

u2u — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 16:01:00 GMT

In SQL Server 2005, we can write stored procs, UDFs, aggregates and types in .NET. In some scenarios, it can be interesting to call web services directly from within the database. Since we can call web services easily from within .NET, and we can call .NET from within SQL Server 2005, it seems easy to create a stored proc or scalar UDF to call a web service. However, people who tried this (or attended one of my SQL 2005 courses) know that this was not the case with the CTPs: The proxy class generated by Visual Studio tries to build classes at runtime, and this type of code is not accepted by the SQL Server .NET host. However, there were some rumors on the internet that MS would solve this problem by generating 'well behaving' proxy classes from within the templates for building .NET stored procs, UDFs etc.

Since we have the final release now, it is time to check how things go. And it turns out that the proxy classes still have the same behaviour: building a proxy class by just adding a Web reference from within Visual Studio, gives you an assembly which can be loaded into Sql Server (deployed from within Visual Studio - but make sure you have permissions for creating external reference assemblies, and your database is trustworthy), but when you try to run them, you get this error:

Msg 6522, Level 16, State 2, Line 1

A .NET Framework error occurred during execution of user defined routine or aggregate 'WSFunction':

System.InvalidOperationException: Cannot load dynamically generated serialization assembly. In some hosting environments assembly load functionality is restricted, consider using pre-generated serializer. Please see inner exception for more information.

So, in short, if you want to call a web service from within a .NET stored proc or UDF, you still have to use the approach as described in this article.

Nico

SQL 2005 and Visual Studio: order doesn't matter (anymore)

u2u — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 16:50:00 GMT

Hi,

In the past CTP releases of SQL Server 2005 and beta releases of Visual Studio 2005, it was always essential to install both products in the right order: First the client side tools of SQL Server, then the Visual Studio 2005 beta. If you did it wrong, you didn't get the templates to create and deploy .NET stored procedures, functions, user defined types and aggregates from within VS2005. Last week, I tested this on the final version of both products and... good news: the order doesn't matter anymore: first installing Visual Studio, then SQL Server 2005, and everything I needed was there... a small but soemtimes important detail, because reinstalling VS2005 is something you don't do for the sheer fun of it :-)

Nico