Hi,

Recently, SQLAzure Labs released two projects that could help, in different aspects, on the move, of our databases from the On-Premise stack to the SQLAzure world.

The first project has the main purpose of helping on this move, performing a compatibility assessment against our existing database schema:

Microsoft Codename "SQL Azure Compatibility Assessment"

(NOTE: SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT-CTP4) is available and it is also an excellent development tool that you can use to create your Database projects for any of the desired workloads – On-Premise or SQLAzure)

The second project was created to help on the security area. This service could assess the security of each SQLAzure Database implementation that we perform:

Microsoft Codename "SQL Azure Security Services"

Run your tests and let us know your feedback !

Cheers,

 

Hello All,

There are out there lots of information, already, about the SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn feature. In resume, this feature is related with the enhancement of High Availability and Disaster Recovery capabilities available in SQL Server, at server and client side.

Recently a set of white-papers and posts were released about AlwaysOn:

SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn: Multisite Failover Cluster Instance (SQLCAT Team)

SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn High Availability and Disaster Recovery Design Patterns (SQLCAT Team)

Microsoft SQL Server AlwaysOn Solutions Guide for High Availability and Disaster Recovery 

You can find more information on the AlwaysOn section at the MSDN web site:

AlwaysON - SQL Server AlwaysOn

At Channel9 web site, you can find a set of videos about the AlwaysOn feature:

SQL Server AlwaysOn (Product Group)

Microsoft SQL Server Code-Named "Denali" AlwaysOn Series,Part 1: Introducing the Next Generation High Availability Solution (TechEd 2011)

Microsoft SQL Server Code-Named "Denali" AlwaysOn Series,Part 2: Building a Mission-Critical High Availability Solution Using AlwaysOn (TechEd 2011)

Cheers,

 

Hello all,

Don’t lose the opportunity to attend the SQL Server 2012 launch event!

It will be online and to attend you just need to register yourself following the instructions available on the web address:

http://www.sqlserverlaunch.com

Cheers,

Challenge:
Migrate a table in a MySQL database to a table in a database in SQL Server.

Problem 1:
A column of type “Text” on the side of MySQL.
Solution 1:
Create a column of type “Text”, in this case isn’t Unicode, in SQL Server table side.

Problem 2:
In the package, I cannot assign values ​​to respective OutputBuffer column of type “Text” (source for SQL Server). The “ReadOnly error”.
Solution 2:
You should assign values ​​to this type of columns as follows (You should change the encoding type!):

OutputBuffer..AddBlobData(Encoding.Default.GetBytes(“<SOME_STRING>”);

Problem 3:
How to read the contents of a “Text” column type (in MySQL side), returning a String?
Solution 3:
The following strategy should be used:

string str_notes = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetString(Row.<COLUMN_NAME>.GetBlobData(0, Convert.ToInt32(Row.<COLUMN_NAME>.Length)));

 

I hope it helps and save you time

 

 

A DBA is focused in maintain a database system running, accessible and recoverable in any moment. Obviously, the data is the motivation of a database system and have to be safe in all aspects. As commonly known, a database administrator is faced with very sensitive data, and is not easy to know who is responsible for what…So what are the borders that distinguish the DBA responsibilities?

In summary, is a DBA onus maintains total attention on the following points:

• Security
  The database server security is not a meaning of anti-hacking system (only). Through the operating system is possible to reach the database server and its resources, and through the database server is possible to reach the operation system. For this reason, is extremely important the teamwork between system administrators and database administrators.
• Isolation
  This point could be a part of security, however is particularly important to isolate the access to each single database in the server, even though it is owned by the same entity.
• Recoverability
  As the data is stored in database system managed files, it is required (most cases mandatory) for the DBA to maintainto maintain a reliable backup strategy implemented, to recover the databases when is needed.
• Confidentiality
  All the applications have to be owned by someone at some point, and only these (or those) people can allow changes in the data and sending chunks of data or even the entire database.

 

Is normal to a DBA be faced with data corruption. It can be caused by some database engine fail, by a “wicked” DML/DDL execution or even by the application itself. To take care of data, and protect the DBA, some important rules have to be created:

• Data Changes (DML scripts)
  Is mandatory to any data change be authorized by the application’s responsible. A DBA cannot change the data without the corresponding permission. Adding to it, every data change have to be requested by the application owner and the DML scripts sent to the DBA team to be approved and executed without online modifications.
• Structure Changes (DDL scripts)
  A DDL script doesn’t change data directly, however, it can indirectly break the database integrity, corrupt data or carry performance problems in a non-distant future, because of it, a DBA’s verification before a creation or change of any database object is of high importance subject and must be followed carefully by the DBA.

The objective of this article was to demonstrate some ideas, based on experience, of possible points of protection, because as we know, the DBA is always the first in the line of fire…

Developing each of these point, will help to improve the QoS and protect the DBA team of possible mistakes.

If you have more ideias, critics or suggestions, do not hesitate to contact me!

Hi all, 

Today I was looking for some information about PowerPivot configuration in SharePoint 2010 and found out this old post of Denny Lee from SQL CAT Team that explains the Security Architecture for PowerPivot.

Sometimes is quite difficult to find information for PowerPivot and SharePoint integration but this “poster” is really great even for a SharePoint guy. 

Check the full info at http://sqlcat.com/sqlcat/b/whitepapers/archive/2010/08/17/powerpivot-technical-diagram-powerpivot-security-architecture.aspx .

For the full Client-Server architecture, please refer to http://sqlcat.com/sqlCat/b/whitepapers/archive/2010/04/23/powerpivot-technical-diagram-powerpivot-client-server-architecture.aspx

 

Cheers,

 

Disclaimer: I hope that the information on these pages is valuable to you. Your use of the information contained in these pages, however, is at your sole risk. All information on these pages is provided "as -is", without any warranty, whether express or implied, of its accuracy, completeness, fitness for a particular purpose, title or non-infringement, and none of the third-party products or information mentioned in the work are authored, recommended, supported or guaranteed by Ezequiel. Further, Ezequiel shall not be liable for any damages you may sustain by using this information, whether direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential, even if it has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Hello all,

Last week while I was onsite, I was discussing with a customer about some T-SQL querying misconceptions, one particularly caught his interest.
In the subject of JOINs, I was asked if there are there any known issues using search arguments in the ON predicate instead of a WHERE predicate?

It depends!

If we are talking about INNER JOINs, as a rule-of-thumb I would say use only JOIN predicates in the ON clause.
Refrain from using search arguments in the ON clause, and use the WHERE clause instead.
Performance wise, there is no difference if the generated plan is the same, like in the example below. But imagine you are reviewing someone else code, wouldn’t you read it better like this?

On OUTER JOINs the case is quite different, meaning that it’s not just a cosmetic change, if you will. JOINS can be optimized, as we will see next. One possible optimization with OUTER JOINs is that adding references to the table in the right side of a JOIN to the WHERE clause will convert the OUTER JOIN to an INNER JOIN, just like in the example below:

In terms of time, there was an expected difference between both examples (124ms and 144ms respectively) with these small tables, favorable to the INNER JOIN, but that will also depend on the physical JOIN in use.
One other argument from the discussion was that the WorkOrderID columns where part of the PK on both tables, and that allowed the query optimizer to perform this JOIN transform optimization, in the sense that the search predicate was SARGable.
Well, watch as a similar query goes thru the same optimization even when the search predicate is not a SARG.

With a different spin to this exercise, we can also observe other optimizations. Make notice of the following example:

In the first query, as seen before, the LEFT JOIN was transformed into an INNER JOIN. In the second query, the LEFT JOIN was transformed into a RIGHT JOIN.
In a LEFT JOIN all data is returned from the left table. On the right table, the matching data is returned in addition to NULL values where a matching record exists in the left table, but not in the right table.
The opposite is true for a RIGHT JOIN. As such, we can change either the order of the tables in the JOIN statement, or the type of JOIN itself, and it will still yield the same results.
This optimization weighs the inputs and decides based on the estimated row count from each.
In this case we have 72591 rows from table WorkOrder and 18554 rows from table WorkOrderRouting. Therefore it is cheaper to get the rows from the larger table and match the ones from the smaller, or to put it in other words, the RIGHT JOIN is cheaper than the LEFT JOIN.

For the sake of argument, lets check how the plan would turn out if this optimization hadn’t been done, by adding a join hint that will not allow the optimizer to do its job fully. Notice below how by not optimizing and keeping the JOIN in the statement, the LEFT JOIN would be more costly, and even leverage on parallelism.

That was an interesting talk I though I should share.

Until next time!

Disclaimer: I hope that the information on these pages is valuable to you. Your use of the information contained in these pages, however, is at your sole risk. All information on these pages is provided "as -is", without any warranty, whether express or implied, of its accuracy, completeness, fitness for a particular purpose, title or non-infringement, and none of the third-party products or information mentioned in the work are authored, recommended, supported or guaranteed by Ezequiel. Further, Ezequiel shall not be liable for any damages you may sustain by using this information, whether direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential, even if it has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Have you ever felt the need to check how your reporting services instances are in terms of health? I’m going to give some tips that can start helping you on this subject, but first let’s understand how Reporting Services Logs are structured:

 

Report Server Execution Log - The report server execution log contains data about reports execution status, including when a report was run, who ran it, where it was delivered, and which rendering format was used. This log is stored in the report server database and can be accessed through ExectutionLog2 view.

Report Server Service Trace Log - The service trace log contains detailed information that is useful if you are debugging an application or investigating an issue or event. This log is saved into LogFiles directory in Reporting Services installation folder.

Report Server HTTP Log - It contains a record of all HTTP requests and responses handled by the Report Server Web service and Report Manager.

Windows Application Log - The Microsoft Windows Application log contains information about report server events.

Windows Performance logs - The Windows Performance logs contain report server performance data. You can create performance logs, and then choose counters that determine which data to collect from Reporting Services Objects.

SharePoint trace log - For report servers running in SharePoint integrated mode, the SharePoint trace logs contains Reporting Services information. You can also configure SSRS specific information for the SharePoint Unified Logging service (ULS).

 

 

Here are three useful guidelines you can use in your Reporting Services infrastructure and keep track of common problems you might have in a daily basis:

1. Check the percentage of reports that have errors during execution

With a simple query, check which reports have Status column different of rsSuccess in the execution log view. This can give you an overall perspective of which reports are being executed correctly and which ones are not. A good point to start is parameters combination.

2. Check which reports are running slow

Usually, users are always complaining about reports that are too slow after they make the request to Report Server. In execution log view, check for reports which take more time by doing the difference between TimeEnd and TimeStart columns. You can also see if most of this time is in data retrieval, processing or rendering from the correspondent columns.

This type of findings can take you to the next step of Reporting Services management: start using report caching!

3. Search for general exceptions in your report server trace log

With the help of Reporting Services LogViewer tool you can parse the log files from your installation directory and drill down into log information. This information is useful to get memory problems, report errors and misconfiguration.

The tool can be found here http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=24774.

 

Cheers,

Disclaimer: I hope that the information on these pages is valuable to you. Your use of the information contained in these pages, however, is at your sole risk. All information on these pages is provided "as -is", without any warranty, whether express or implied, of its accuracy, completeness, fitness for a particular purpose, title or non-infringement, and none of the third-party products or information mentioned in the work are authored, recommended, supported or guaranteed by Ezequiel. Further, Ezequiel shall not be liable for any damages you may sustain by using this information, whether direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential, even if it has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Hello,

We are looking for professionals with passion for customers and technology that possess strong interpersonal skills with an enthusiastic and collaborative attitude, initiative and a results driven approach.
These professionals should have a deep technical expertise and proven experience in one of the following areas:

SQL Server 2008 R2 / Active Directory / Windows Client / Lync Server / Security Technologies (Forefront suite) / SCCM

To see the list of open positions click here.

Cheers,

Dear friends,Yesterday I updated my MCTS-BI certification on SQL 2008 version realizing the 70-448 exam with a 972 score. The score and certificate achievement are not important; what is really important for me is to have one more reason to learn new things or to re-learn old things! Take a look at my previous experience doing this exam in the previous SQL version (SQL 2005 – exam 70-445)
How did I study?I spent one day studying hard through the exams provided by the MS Press Training Kit book (written exclusively for this exam) and through the exams provided by uCertify. Both Microsoft Press book and the software provided by uCertify, have very good resources to study and learn into deep detail the subjects required for this exam. The learning method I’ve followed was to read the book on each failed question included in the book and in the uCertify software.The well-known dumps not exist here, and I don’t recommend anyone to use it. Using dumps the merit realized on passing on exam does not exist and mainly, you’ll not learn anything! I cannot understand the logic of using dumps and I think Microsoft should do something about it.


Skills Being MeasuredImplementing an SSIS Solution (17%)Configuring, Deploying, and Maintaining SSIS (15%)Implementing an SSAS Solution (21%)Configuring, Deploying, and Maintaining SSAS (17%)Implementing an SSRS Solution (17%)Configuring, Deploying, and Maintaining SSRS (13%)
Courses associated with this exam6236A:Implementing and Maintaining SQL 2008 Reporting Services (3 Days)6235A:Implementing and Maintaining SQL 2008 Integration Services (3 Days)6234A:Implementing and Maintaining SQL 2008 Analysis Services (3 Days)
Key subjects to focus inThe following list shows some of the key subjects that I remember from my exam and I consider very important for all those persons that want to learn and do the exam:SSIS Protection Level Options (about 3 questions)SSIS command-lines DTExec and DTUtil (about 3 questions)SSRS RSConfig and RSReportServer Configuration File (about 4 questions)SSRS Encryption Keys and Configuration toolSSAS Data Mining (about 1-2 questions)SSAS Processing Options (about 4 questions)SSAS Deployment Wizard and XMLA (XML for Analysis) scriptsSSAS IsAggregate, Usage and AtributeHierarchyEnabled propertiesSSAS Roles (about 2 questions)SSAS Usage Base Optimization (about 2 questions)MDX Languages (3-4 questions)
I think the most questions were focused on SSAS and less on Data Mining. The questions I think many persons will have some difficulty during the exam are configuring a SSIS, SSAS and SSRS Servers that are typical tasks more related with SQL Database Administrators (DBA)… Except in small/middle companies, rarely a BI developer needs to administer a SQL database. Although and based on my last experience helping implementing a critical BI system, some DBA’s issues aroused often, and our team needed to do everything including DBA tasks. For that reason, I am planning to take SQL DBA certification next weeks. But before it I’ll take BI exam 70-452 to update MCTIP BI certification for SQL 2008

uCertify ExperienceuCertify kindly asked me some weeks ago to try their product on 70-448 exam. I accepted the challenge but in one condition… use it in real for making the exam! The experience was very interesting and I changed my opinion about these kinds of products. The uCertify product has several exams to test your skils but also a study helper. The exams are not Dumps and if you want to pass the exam learning, I truly recommend that you invest on this product. If you fail the exam, at the end you’ll spend more money. Visit the uCertify software for this exam

If you plan to invest on uCertify testing software, I can send you a 10% discount voucher

Hello all,

Just to share with you a summary with the news, publicly available, about SQL Server 2012 RC:

 

Technorati Tags: SQL Server 2012 RC0,What's new

 

Official Release Information

           

 

SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate is now Available!

http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2011/11/17/sql-server-2012-release-candidate-is-now-available.aspx

 

 

 

Requirements & Specifications

 

 

Hardware and Software Requirements for Installing SQL Server 2012

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ms143506(v=SQL.110).aspx

 

Product Specifications for SQL Server 2012

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143287(v=SQL.110).aspx

 

 

 

What’s New

 

 

What's New in SQL Server 2012 RC 0

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/3783.aspx

 

What's New in SQL Server Installation

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb500459(v=SQL.110).aspx

 

SQL Server 2012 : Changes to system objects in RC0

http://sqlblog.com/blogs/aaron_bertrand/archive/2011/11/18/sql-server-2012-changes-to-system-objects-in-rc0.aspx

 

Analysis Services

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/analysisservices/archive/2011/11/17/announcing-microsoft-sql-server-2012-release-candidate-0-rc0.aspx

 

What’s New In Power View

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/robertbruckner/archive/2011/11/17/what-s-new-in-power-view.aspx

 

Power View (SSRS)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh213579(SQL.110).aspx

 

What’s New in SSIS for SQL Server 2012 RC0

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mattm/archive/2011/11/17/what-s-new-in-ssis-for-sql-server-2012-rc0.aspx

 

The Pivot Transform – Now with UI!

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mattm/archive/2011/11/17/the-pivot-transform-now-with-ui.aspx

 

 

 

Downloads

 

 

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Release Candidate 0 (RC0) - ISO

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28145

 

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Semantic Language Statistics RC0

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28148

 

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 RC0 End User License Agreements and Privacy Statement

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28146

 

SQL Server 2012 Developer Training Kit Web Installer Preview

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27721

 

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 PowerPivot® for Microsoft® Excel® 2010 Release Candidate 0 (RC0)

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28150

 

SQL Server 2012 RC0 and PowerPivot V2 RC0

http://www.cubido.at/blogs/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=1481

 

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Express RC0

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28151

 

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 RC0 Master Data Services Add-in For Microsoft® Excel®

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28149

 

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Release Candidate 0 (RC0) Manageability Tool Kit

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28147

 

 

 

Samples

 

 

SQL Server Samples Readme

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/sql-server-samples-readme.aspx

 

 

 

BI Features

 

 

Install SQL Server 2012 BI Features

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh231681(v=SQL.110).aspx

 

Checklists for Installing BI Features

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh231668(v=SQL.110).aspx

 

 

 

ColumnStore

 

 

SQL Server Columnstore Index FAQ

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/sql-server-columnstore-index-faq.aspx

 

Columnstore Indexes

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg492088(v=SQL.110).aspx

 

SQL Server Columnstore Performance Tuning

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/sql-server-columnstore-performance-tuning.aspx

 

 

 

SSIS Manageability & Automation

 

 

SSIS and PowerShell in SQL Server 2012

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mattm/archive/2011/11/17/ssis-and-powershell-in-sql-server-2012.aspx

 

A Glimpse of the SSIS Catalog Managed Object Model

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mattm/archive/2011/07/26/overview-of-the-ssis-mom.aspx

 

SSIS T-SQL API Overview

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mattm/archive/2011/08/12/ssis-t-sql-api-overview.aspx

 

Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.IntegrationServices Namespace

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sqlserver.management.integrationservices(v=sql.110).aspx

 

 

 

Contained Databases

 

 

Contained Databases

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/hh534404.aspx

 

 

 

White-Papers (CTP3)

 

 

New Spatial Features in SQL Server Code-Named “Denali” Community Technology Preview 3

http://sqlcat.com/sqlcat/b/whitepapers/archive/2011/08/08/new-spatial-features-in-sql-server-code-named-denali-community-technology-preview-3.aspx

 

Extracting and Loading SharePoint Data in SQL Server Integration Services

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh368261.aspx

 

 

  

Information & Documentation

 

 

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC 0 Release Notes – Very Important to read before starting any Installation

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/microsoft-sql-server-2012-rc-0-release-notes.aspx

 

Books Online for SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate 0 (RC 0)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms130214(v=sql.110).aspx

 

Tutorials for SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate 0 (RC 0)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh231699(v=sql.110).aspx

 

Developer Reference for SQL Server 2012

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd206988(v=SQL.110).aspx

 

 

 

Forums

 

 

Forums SQL Server (Pre-release)

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/sqlserverprerelease

 

 

 

Product Information (www.microsoft.com/sqlserver)

 

 

Mission Critical Confidence - Overview

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/SQL-Server-2012-mission-critical-confidence.aspx

 

High Availability

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/mission-critical/SQL-Server-2012-high-availability.aspx

 

Security & Compliance

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/mission-critical/SQL-Server-2012-security-and-compliance.aspx

 

 

 

Breakthrough Insight - Overview

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/SQL-Server-2012-breakthrough-insight.aspx

 

SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/business-intelligence/SQL-Server-2012-analysis-services.aspx

 

SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Information Management

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/business-intelligence/SQL-Server-2012-enterprise-information-management.aspx

 

SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/business-intelligence/SQL-Server-2012-reporting-services.aspx

 

 

Cloud On Your Terms - Overview

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/SQL-Server-2012-cloud-on-your-terms.aspx

 

SQL Server 2012 Cloud-Ready Information Platform

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/cloud-computing/SQL-Server-2012-cloud-ready-information-and-intelligence-platform.aspx

 

SQL Server 2012 Programmability

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/cloud-computing/SQL-Server-2012-programmability.aspx

 

 

 

Licensing & Editions

 

 

SQL Server 2012 Licensing Datasheet

http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/5/D/A5D112E1-78FF-491F-9364-F1BC6FAE7D57/SQL_Server_2012_Licensing_Datasheet_Nov2011.pdf

 

SQL Server 2012 Licensing

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/sql2012-licensing.aspx

 

SQL Server 2012 Editions

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/sql2012-editions.aspx

 

 

 

Resource Centers

 

 

Technet SQL Server 2012 Resource Center

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/denali_resource_center.aspx

 

Learning Center Resources

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/learning-center/resources.aspx

 

 

           

Codeplex

 

 

Microsoft SQL Server Community Samples: Integration Services

http://sqlsrvintegrationsrv.codeplex.com/

 

Microsoft SQL Server Database Product Samples

http://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/

 

 

 

 

SQL Server Wallpaper

 

 

http://twitpic.com/7d7y08  - 1024 x 768

http://twitpic.com/7d7x8d  - 1280 x 800

http://twitpic.com/7d7wiy  - 1400 x 900

http://twitpic.com/7d7vwh  - 1680 x 1050

 

 

SQL Data Tools (aka Project “Juneau”)

 

 

http://sqlblog.com/blogs/aaron_bertrand/archive/2011/11/21/sql-server-2012-the-data-tools-installer-is-now-available.aspx – Installation Information

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/hh297027 – download page

 

Cheers,

Hi guys!

Here comes a simple script to show a list of all columns of each table in a database.
It could be useful to help the know about database model.

DECLARE @obj_id INT
DECLARE @obj_name VARCHAR(300)
DECLARE @columns AS VARCHAR(MAX)

IF Object_id(‘tempdb..#tmp_table’) > 0
BEGIN
DROP TABLE #tmp_table
END

CREATE TABLE #tmp_table
(
table_name VARCHAR(300),
columns VARCHAR(MAX)
)

SET @obj_id=100

WHILE EXISTS (SELECT TOP 1 1
FROM sys.tables
WHERE object_id > @obj_id)
BEGIN
SELECT TOP 1 @obj_id = object_id,
@obj_name = Schema_name(schema_id) + ‘.’ + name
FROM sys.tables
WHERE object_id > @obj_id

SET @columns=”

SELECT @columns = @columns + name + ‘, ‘
FROM sys.columns
WHERE object_id = @obj_id
ORDER BY name

INSERT INTO #tmp_table
SELECT @obj_name,
Substring(@columns, 0, Len(@columns) – 1)
END

SELECT table_name, columns
FROM #tmp_table
ORDER BY table_name

One more season, one more success!This success is merit of the 24 talent student’s with willingness to learn and share their knowledge with everyone. Last week, was held the awards ceremony where congratulations were made to all students for their efforts over the last year especially to Carlos José Monteiro who got the best result. The ceremony was then followed by a final convivial dinner offer by the University. The 3rd edition took off at the same day with 25 students enrolled, which is proof that this graduation is on the right path and is becoming increasingly a national BI reference on this field. This success is far beyond the interest of students who have gone there, but also due to the magnificent organization exists in this University primarily to Filomena Lopes. For my part, I thank the confidence placed on me and it is with great pride that I accepted the invitation to re-join the team of the 3rd edition
This success has allowed dreaming up with new projects that would make this graduation getting more visibility at national and international levels... One of the main projects for this purpose, is underway and I hope it becomes reality with the students support.
Special thanks to the post-graduation partners, which allowed some approximation between “real” and academic world through several seminars and mentoring the students in their final projects

Hi again,

Do you know you can add interactive features to your dashboard in PerformancePoint with SSAS actions? It’s really easy, fast and it can give your business analysis the 5 stars user experience.

 

PerformancePoint can use Bing. Add a new SSAS URL action to your cube and allow users to get more information about the current dimension members in the web. You can define your URL dynamically with selected members and open an internet site. Use Bing engine to search for more information!

More information at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188935.aspx

 

 

Create drill through actions to see more details in your cube. When you have a PerformancePoint chart and you right click on it, you can find the option “Show Details”. This option gives you the ability to add an analytical grid with the details for your information analysis. It’s an easy way to give drill down capabilities into cube data and avoid creating more dashboards.

More information at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178458.aspx and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms166579.aspx.

 

 

Add Reporting Actions to show custom reports in Reporting Services. In the Additional Actions option in PerformancePoint dashboards, you can define a call to Reporting Services report for drill down information. You just have to define the Reporting action in SSAS cube with the desired conditions and integrate it with your Reporting Services instance in just a few steps.

More information at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms189378(v=SQL.105).aspx and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175345.aspx.

 

Cheers.

Disclaimer: I hope that the information on these pages is valuable to you. Your use of the information contained in these pages, however, is at your sole risk. All information on these pages is provided "as -is", without any warranty, whether express or implied, of its accuracy, completeness, fitness for a particular purpose, title or non-infringement, and none of the third-party products or information mentioned in the work are authored, recommended, supported or guaranteed by Ezequiel. Further, Ezequiel shall not be liable for any damages you may sustain by using this information, whether direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential, even if it has been
advised of the possibility of such damages.

Hello,

In the past I posted the new SharePoint SP1 features for PerformancePoint Services which included the new cascading filters option. In this post, I’m going to show you the basic steps to achieve this goal with Dashboard Designer in SharePoint 2010 SP1.

Goal: Create a set of two or more filters where the output of one filter becomes the input of another; or more precisely, the choices made in one filter limit the choices available in another. A good example would be filters in the same hierarchy such as time or geography.

Pre-requisites: You must have created a Business Intelligence Center site in SharePoint 2010 with PerformancePoint Services features enabled and have a SSAS connection file to AdventureWorks cube.

First of all, go to your Business Intelligence Center site in SharePoint 2010 and click Create Dashboards and choose Start Using PerformancePoint Services. Then, go to the PerformancePoint Content library add a new filter. In the “Select a Filter Template” window, choose “Member Selection”.

Click Next, and choose the already created data source for SSAS cube. Next, in the “Select Members” window select the “Products.Products Categories” in “Filter Dimension” field and select children members below All Products in “Filter Members” field. For the example, choose “Internet Sales Amount” in the Filter Measure combo box. Click on Next button and choose All Categories for example. In the “Select Display Method” window choose List. Name it Product Category Filter.

Now repeat the same steps for Product Sub Category Filter and Product Filter.

NOTE: Select only the children members bellow each option in order to design a complete tree options for each tree level. Name the filters Product Subcategory and Product Names respectively.

To show the result of our design let’s create a new PerformancePoint dashboard and add the previous filters to the recently created page. Add a new dashboard to workspace with two zones and name it Product Sales such as the main page for the dashboard. Add the three filters to the dashboard content area.

Now the important part: Connect all filters using their hierarchy. Drag and drop the Member Unique Name from the “Product Category Filter” filter onto the “Product SubCategory Filter” filter. If you prefer, use Create Connection for the “Product Category Filter” filter (from the Ribbon's Edit section or its triangle menu) to send values to the “Product SubCategory Filter” filter, with a source value of "Member Unique Name".

Connect the "Product SubCategory Filter" to the “Product Filter” filter, using Member Unique Name. Connect the “Product Filter” filter to any desired reports and scorecards.

Deploy the dashboard, and the whole system will now be ready for use.

With the SP1 upgrade you now have the ability to add the Apply Filters button to a dashboard from within Dashboard Designer which ties in very closely well with Cascading Filters.

What really makes the Apply Filters button a good addition to Cascading Filters is that it lets you settle all the filter choices before the scorecards and reports "repaint" event, so you aren't waiting for the scorecards and reports during every adjustment of the filters. When we change the “Product Category Filter” filter to Clothing, the “Product SubCategory Filter” filter adjusts to the new upstream values and the Apply Filters button turns on, but the report doesn't change at all. Clicking the Apply Filters button makes the report update to the new value and the button go back to its inactive state.

Hope you find this post useful.

See you next time.

Disclaimer: I hope that the information on these pages is valuable to you. Your use of the information contained in these pages, however, is at your sole risk. All information on these pages is provided "as -is", without any warranty, whether express or implied, of its accuracy, completeness, fitness for a particular purpose, title or non-infringement, and none of the third-party products or information mentioned in the work are authored, recommended, supported or guaranteed by Ezequiel. Further, Ezequiel shall not be liable for any damages you may sustain by using this information, whether direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential, even if it has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Kalen Delaney with Paulo Condeça on SQL PORT Meeting.

More information about Kalen Delaney @ AboutKalenDelaney .