Here is an interesting scenario: You are monitoring UAVs in a particular region and you get some intel that correlates to a sector you want to investigate. How do you paint the target? How do you find out which UAV is closest to the target? How do you...

One of the great new features of SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services is the “Export to ATOM Feed” icon on the Report Viewer Toolbar. With it, you can download the underlying data from a report in ATOM format and use it as an input...

SQL Server 2008 introduced the policy based management (PBM) feature which allows DBAs to create policies in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to manage database entities. These entities can be the SQL instance, databases, and SQL objects. These set...

Microsoft offers two mechanisms for tracking changes: Change Data Capture (CDC) and Change Tracking. CDC is an asynchronous process which captures the exposed data from the Transaction log. It not only captures the fact that data changed but it captures...

Microsoft has committed itself to releasing product protocols through its' Open Specifications program. To that end, the SQL Server team just released updates to 25 existing and new specifications on June 29 th , 2010. These are a free download. Here...

The management of SQL is often performed by different skillsets so there are tools for each audience. It is not a question of System Center vs Application and Multi-Server Management (AMM) but rather what is your role and selecting the proper tool for...

I get a lot of questions around what is Microsoft Business Intelligence and I wanted to explain the answer from several perspectives. First, Microsoft BI is not a product, it is a set of capabilities delivered through core technologies that empower all...

SQL 2008 R2 comes with a new technology called StreamInsight. StreamInsight is a development platform that allows you to develop complex event processing applications. Its .NET Framework-based architecture allows you query high-throughput event streams...

There is often confusion as to when to use Sync Frameworks or Replication. Sync Frameworks can be used to synchronize data stores whether they are databases or even a file store whereas replication is about synchronizing SQL databases. These two synchronization...

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) now has a new tab called the Utility Explorer which provides DBAs insights into how enrolled instances and data tier applications are using resources such as CPU and memory. At a glance, a DBA can see the state of a...

Up until SQL 2008 R2, creating Reporting Services reports based on SharePoint list data has been a little tricky. There have been "techniques" and 3 rd -party solutions available ( http://www.bing.com/search?q=sql+reporting+services+sharepoint+list )...

There are so many database tools that can be leveraged with Visual Studio. Microsoft Visual Studio for Database Professionals, which at one time was referred to as DataDude, lets you create data, compare database schemas, and version control the database...

The Data Mining Add-In for Excel 2007 was created at first for the Analysis Services that shipped with SQL Server 2005 SP2 or the subsequent SQL Server 2008. It will work with the Analysis Services that comes with the SQL Server 2008 R2. It will also...

Microsoft offers several Data Warehouse solutions. There is SQL 2008 R2 based solution that is the traditional one where the customer designs and deploys the DW solution using hardware of their choosing. Another option is the Fast Track Architecture which...