Tips, Tricks, and General Info on the Msft BI Platform : SQL Server 2008

Attend the SQL Server Roadshow - Want the PPTs?

jbasilico — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:49:00 GMT

Did you attend a SQL Server 2008 Roadshow in your nearest city? If you did, you got to hear about SQL Server 2008 and the new enhanced capabilities of the product. Covered in New York's SS2K8 Roadshow was security and database management, how to best manage your data, and what’s new in business intelligence with SQL Server 2008. Thought the content was great...and wanted the PPTs for the two sessions...well here it is! Click here for the RDBMS presentation, and click here for the BI presentation.

Note, you'll need Office 2007 PowerPoint to view these decks; if you don't have Office 2007 PowerPoint, download the free viewer application.

Demo files Used In My BI Conference Session...

jbasilico — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:42:00 GMT

For those that attended my session (Designing Effective Dashboards with Msft BI Platform) at the 2nd annual Msft BI Conference in Seattle, and had asked for the demo files/projects, you can download my demo files here. The zip file contains the SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services project file, SQL Server 2008 Report Builder file for the combined sparkline and bullet graph, PerformancePoint workspace file, and the "minimum" masterpage for MOSS. Keep in mind that you'll need to alter the location of your Reporting Services installation, the Analysis Services AdventureWorks database, as well as the PPS service site on MOSS. Enjoy!

SQL Server 2008's Report Builder (RC1) Released

jbasilico — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 04:22:00 GMT

For those that were looking for the latest Report Builder tool (for use with SQL Server 2008 RTM), look no further...its been published as a web released "released candidate" for a short while already. Get the download here.

Want to know what's in this current build release?

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Report Builder 2.0 supports the full capabilities of SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services including flexibile report layout, data visualizations and richly formatted text. The download includes the following functionality above the RC0 release of Report Builder:

Easy to use wizards for creating table, matrix and chart data regions.
Support for directly opening and editing reports stored on the report server.
Support for using server resources such as shared data sources.
A query designer for Microsoft SQL Server data sources.
Enhancements to the Report Builder 2.0 ribbon.

Have fun!

Upgrading SQL Server 2000/2005 Databases to SQL Server 2008

jbasilico — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:19:00 GMT

Here at the NY Microsoft Technology Center (NY MTC), we recently ran a series of SQL Server Upgrade/Application Compatibility Labs with various customers and ISVs.

To learn more about the labs, watch this video blog entry shot during one of the actual labs: http://blogs.msdn.com/mtcny/pages/sql-server-2008-upgrade-lab-april-2008.aspx.

The two tools used in these labs were SQL Server Upgrade Advisor and SQL Server Upgrade Assistant.

SQL Server Upgrade Advisor helps you prepare for upgrades to SQL Server 2008. Upgrade Advisor analyzes installed components from earlier versions of SQL Server, and then generates a report that identifies issues to fix either before or after you upgrade. Additional information on the Upgrade Advisor can be found here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms144256(SQL.100).aspx.

SQL Server Upgrade Assistant (SSUA) is a tool made available as a free download from Scalability Experts. The tool can be downloaded at the following link: http://www.scalabilityexperts.com/default.asp?action=article&ID=43 . SSUA uses traces to allow an IT professional to evaluate the behavior of an application on different versions, service pack levels, editions, or configurations of SQL Server. The tool can even be used to test the behavior of different version of an application release when a hotfix or service pack is installed on SQL Server. SQL Server Upgrade Assistant currently supports upgrading SQL Server 7.0 and SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005, as well as supports SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008.

SQL Server 2008 Resource Governor - Ease Your Typing

jbasilico — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:21:00 GMT

Well...this is certainly not a normal post. This is a snippet of code for a SQL Server 2005 lab that I'm assisting with...if your in the lab, copy/paste. It will help with the lab "typing".

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.fn_ClassifyApps() RETURNS sysname

WITH SCHEMABINDING

BEGIN

DECLARE @ret sysname

IF (APP_NAME() LIKE '%Low Importance Application%')

SET @ret='Low Importance Group'

RETURN @ret

END

ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR

WITH (CLASSIFIER_FUNCTION = dbo.fn_ClassifyApps)

ALTER RESOURCE GOVERNOR RECONFIGURE