Along with the SQL Server 2012 launch, Microsoft announced xVelocity in-memory technologies , delivering huge performance improvements for data warehousing and business intelligence. The purpose of this blog post is to clarify what xVelocity means for...

This is it! Microsoft SQL Server 2012 has been released to manufacturing (RTM), with an evaluation version available immediately . So download the final bits and see for yourself how the new SQL Server version can help you manage any data, any size, anywhere...

Never had the time to learn DAX? Now is the time! Author Owen Duncan just released a DAX 101 course as part of the DAX Resource Center Wiki to help you learn DAX basics quickly and efficiently. The title says you can do this in 30 Minutes, but don’t...

This article is a follow-up on a previous blog post titled “ How to Build a VSTO-Based PowerPivot Workbook ,” which discussed some of the advantages and disadvantages of building PowerPivot workbooks by using VSTO. A key VSTO advantage is...

Happy New Year 2012, everybody! With the release of SQL Server 2012 ante portas, this is going to be a very exciting year. So, let’s start this year with a release announcement: An updated version of the whitepaper “ Data Analysis Expressions...

Today, we’ve reached the next big milestone on the road to unlocking breakthrough insights across organizations with a cloud-ready information platform—we released Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC0 ! You can find the installation media at the...

I am very pleased to announce that the DAX Editor for SQL Server has been released to CodePlex for general use. It is available at http://daxeditor.codeplex.com/ . Thank you Nick Medveditskov, Karen Aleksanyan, and Sergey Volegov for your hard work in...

A few weeks back, the SQL Server connectivity team announced on their blog that the SQL Server OLE DB provider is being deprecated and recommended that developers adopt ODBC instead. You can read the blog post in detail here . There has been some concern...

The PowerPivot Configuration Tool included in SQL Server Code Name “Denali” CTP3 is undoubtedly a great new utility for SharePoint administrators. This tool doesn’t just enable you to configure or upgrade PowerPivot in a SharePoint farm...

Last week I came across a stunning PowerPivot solution that visualizes research data on top of a world map, as illustrated in the following screenshot. What’s particularly stunning about this solution is that it works even in the browser despite...