SQL Server ‘Denali’ CTP3 Install Experience

This week during the Microsoft Worldwide Partner (WPC) 2011 Conference, Microsoft released the CTP3 public release of the upcoming SQL Server codenamed ‘Denali’ product.  This release is for the most part feature complete and now includes some of the additional BI components that were not part of the CTP1 release that came out late last year like Data Quality Services (DQS), Analysis Services Tabular mode, Reporting Services as a SharePoint Shared Service, Project ‘Crescent’ the new Silverlight based reporting tool, SSRS Data Alerts, new PowerPivot and DAX enhancements, and much more.

Here is a walkthrough of the installation setup which contains a couple of new changes based on the CTP1, SQL Server ‘Denali’ SQL11 CTP1 Install Experience, setup (particularly for the Analysis Services and Reporting Services sections):

Express is the other option available here besides Evaluation (Enterprise)
checks to see if it is okay to install the setup files (in my case a restart was required because I had recently updated my antivirus software)
6640 MB required	Analysis Services account name information was initially blank, I added my account for this to run under and I switched the SQL Server Agent service from Manual to Automatic. Notice that a separate named account is setup for each service.
Added my user to the administrators group	I switched the two log entries from Data to Log directory to separate out the files
	New option here in the Analysis Services step for choosing what type of model you will be working with, Multidimensional or the new Tabular, so you don’t have to modify the DeploymentMode value setting in the msmdsrv.ini file (0 = Multidimensional, 1 = PowerPivot for SharePoint, 2 = Tabular). I also added my account to the Administrators group.
No changes are needed for this data file locations since they are all separated out, I wish the database engine one did this as well	I am going to eventually setup the SharePoint Integrated mode which is now a Shared Service in SharePoint, so it is completely managed and configured in SharePoint 2010 now like Excel Services, PowerPivot, PerformancePoint, etc. (no more SSRS Windows Service and not part of the Reporting Services Configuration Manager tool anymore). Even if you want to install the Native mode it appears that you do not get an option to install the SharePoint add-in component at all (bottom menu choice – no way to deselect it).
Added my account to the Administrators group	I entered my machine name for the controller name
	Here we go, let the fun begin
Everything installed successfully on the first try!	Took me around 1.5 hours for the install process going from start to finish, but that includes the whole process going through the wizard.  The actual install started at around 7:24, so around 20 minutes to install all components in a virtual environment, not bad at all.
BIDS is now in the Visual Studio 2010 IDE with Analysis Services Multidimensional and Tabular Project types. Goodbye Report Models, hello BISM!	And just like in CTP1, SSMS is also in the Visual Studio IDE
Current build number is 11.0.1440.19 for CTP3	And don’t forget, a new product offering now – Data Quality Services (DQS)

 

One thing to remember here now is that with Analysis Services we have two options, the Multidimensional and the Tabular (including the PowerPivot SharePoint option).  So if you are building a standalone sandbox test environment you can have up to three instances of Analysis Services running (one for each type of deployment mode).  This is probably not recommended (especially from the memory management side of things), but this is what you would see.

In the next few posts I will be diving into some of the new features and items in particular with project ‘Crescent’, PowerPivot v2 (lots of cool new stuff), SSRS SharePoint integration changes, and the new BISM Tabular (the new enterprise/corporate level PowerPivot version).

Here are some resource links to check out in the meantime:

• SQL Server code-named “Denali” Resource Center
• What’s New (SQL Server “Denali”)
• SQL Server Developer Tools, Codename “Juneau”…
• Project Crescent Overview
• Microsoft® SQL Server® code name ‘Denali’ CTP 3 Feature Pack
• Tutorials for SQL Server ‘Denali’
• Samples for SQL Server Denali CTP3 on CodePlex

The build number for the CTP3 release is 11.0.1440.19.

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