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July 20, 2006 12:00 AM

The Best of TechEd 2006

SQL Server Magazine honors Microsoft’s outstanding partners
SQL Server Pro
InstantDoc ID #53851

Finalist SoftArtisans OfficeWriter for Reporting Services
SoftArtisans OfficeWriter for Reporting Services enables the design and delivery of reports directly from Microsoft Office, avoiding the need for tools such as Visual Studio or Report Builder—or IT staff for development.You can create and publish reports in Reporting Services by using the OfficeWriter Designer, a freely distributed, lightweight toolbar that's integrated within your Microsoft Word documents and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. Users develop reports by using a toolbar add-on within Excel or Word. OfficeWriter uses native Excel and Word formats to simplify the design process and preserve the macros, pivot tables, and dynamic charts in reports. The integrated toolbar lets users easily query a data source and easily add merge fields and repeat blocks. Once they've designed a report, users can save it to a hard drive, view it instantly, or publish it to a server for distribution. Users can also develop reports for distribution to the enterprise by using Web-enabled Reporting Services. OfficeWriter works with Reporting Services to preserve all the Excel and Word elements within your spreadsheets or documents while taking advantage of a direct connection to the database.The application integrates with ASP.NET and supports the full code library.

Finalist Dundas Chart for .NET
Dundas Chart for .NET provides advanced charting solutions designed to make reporting applications developed in the .NET Framework more functional and appealing. Chart for .NET has full Asynchronous Java-Script and XML (AJAX) support,a Chart and DataWizard, full animation effects, advanced UI support, and sophisticated data-manipulation and formula support. Chart for .NET is the charting engine that Microsoft selected for integration with Reporting Services. This developer toolkit provides robust functions that are ready to plug into a reporting application,eliminating hours,days,or months of code development. The product helps developers get the most out of data by offering advanced technology for implementing charting into internal projects or building applications. This technology helps developers add advanced, feature rich, visually appealing charts to all types of ASP.NET and Windows Forms applications.

Best Database Development and Administration Tool
Quest Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise

Best Database Development and Administration Tool
Quest Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise
Quest Software

949-754-8000
http://www.quest.com/spotlight_on_sql_server_enterprise

Finalists
Database Utility for SQL Server
PolyServe

877-765-7378
http://www.polyserve.com/sql_server_consolidation.php

Oracle 10g Express Edition
Oracle

800-672-2531
http://otn.oracle.com/xe

Quest Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise provides real-time monitoring and diagnostics for SQL Server installations of all shapes and sizes. The product helps DBAs quickly resolve problems by combining data from multiple sources including SQL Server, Windows performance counters, Windows registry data, and SQL traces. User-defined performance thresholds help you rapidly spot server bottlenecks and other performance problems.The product's graphical dashboard display gives you a quick overview of the overall system health, and it lets you quickly drill down to the underlying server processes. Dashboard icons display key SQL Server statistics and metrics while graphical flows between interface elements represent the rate of data moving between the elements. The enterprise edition of Spotlight on SQL Server lets you continuously collect performance and diagnostic information from a middle-tier machine. This feature means that database performance information is readily available from any networked client system. In addition, the online Help you get with Spotlight on SQL Server gives you detailed information to use for tuning SQL Server and diagnosing system performance problems.

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Finalist PolyServe Database Utility for SQL Server
PolyServe's Database Utility for SQL Server is a server-consolidation and high-availability solution that can reduce your SQL Server infrastructure costs and provide increased SQL Server availability to your end users. By using a feature called dynamic rehosting, which uses a shared store architecture, the Database Utility for SQL Server lets you shift SQL Server instances between host servers in seconds. Dynamic rehosting provides for high availability of SQL Server services as well as one-click system maintenance.This product also won the special Most Innovative Product award.

Finalist Oracle 10g Express
The Oracle 10g Express Edition (XE) database is Oracle's entry-level database product. Like SQL Server 2005 Express and MySQL 5, Oracle 10g XE is free for downloading, development, and deployment. Likewise, because it's targeted at ISVs, developers, and hobbyists, the product is quick to install and easy to administer and use. Built from the same code base as Oracle Database 10g Release 2, Oracle 10g XE offers high performance and scalability. But XE is limited to 4GB of user data (not including Oracle system data), 1GB of RAM, and a single CPU. The database can run on multiple CPU systems but will use only one processor. Unlike SQL Server 2005 Express, Oracle 10g XE is a multi-platform product. A 32-bit version runs on Windows, and there's also a 32-bit Linux version.

Best Developer Tool
Compuware DevPartner

Best Developer Tool
DevPartner Studio Professional Edition
Compuware

800-521-9353
http://www.compuware.com/products/devpartner/studio.htm

Finalists
AppSight
Identify Software

800-364-5467
http://www.identify.com

XML Spy
Altova

978-816-1600
http://www.altova.com

Compuware DevPartner Studio Enterprise-Edition enhances the capabilities of Microsoft's Visual Studio Team System by adding software-quality and code analysis capabilities for .NET, Java, and unmanaged applications. DevPartner Studio Enterprise Edition includes the DevPartner Studio Professional Edition, Track Record, and Reconcile products. DevPartner Studio accelerates the development and quality-assurance process by combining automated error detection, code coverage, and performance testing. In addition, built-in expert coding advice, standards, and best practices guide the developer to producing higher quality code throughout the software development life cycle. Dev-Partner can review source code against predefined rules and standards as well as track and optimize system resource usage and identify application performance problem areas. A built-in fault simulator lets you simulate hard-to-duplicate .NET Framework call errors so that you can make sure your error-handling code works correctly. TrackRecord extends the capabilities of DevPartner Studio by letting you track project milestones as well as features, defects, and assets. TrackRecord automates time-consuming software-development administration tasks such as documenting and reporting defects and communicating project status and priorities.The Reconcile product tracks a project's goals against its current status, enabling better communication and management of software projects.

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