Business Intelligence and Report Ramblings...

SQL Pass – Seattle 2009 – Day 4

2009-11-06T20:51:42Z

Keynote : Wow… I feel smarter now. David Dewitt, a Microsoft Technical Fellow who works in the Data and Storage Platform Division, presented this morning all I can say is WOW. If I had professors in college that could speak half as well as David, I would have a couple of PhD’s at this point. His presentation focused on how to change the way database engines store data based on research he and his students have performed in analyzing bottlenecks of today’s hardware. He...(read more)

SQL Pass – Seattle 2009 – Day 3

2009-11-06T02:12:57Z

Bright and early this AM. I couldn’t sleep this morning and found myself up and awake at some crazy hour of the dark. Not wanting to force sleep when I’ll be going home to the east coast soon enough, I decided to take a walk and went down to Pike St. Market before the rest of Seattle woke up. Really neat place to see when no-one is there. Keynote : This Morning’s keynote presentation was from Tom Casey who is the GM of BI for Microsoft. His presentation focused on the improvements...(read more)

SQL Pass – Seattle 2009 – Day 2

2009-11-04T22:35:05Z

OK… I’ve started to follow up on my promise to document my experiences here at SQL Pass. So on for my breakdown of my day 2. Keynote : Attended the keynote presentations from Bob Muglia and Ted Kummert. Bob brought a great history lesson to the “youngsters" in attendance by reviewing the roots of SQL Server. A history lesson can always help show how far we’ve come in the past 20 years and where his vision of the product is as we move forward. (Scary to think...(read more)

SQL Pass – Seattle 2009 – Day 1

2009-11-03T21:24:24Z

Well… I realize that it has been a little while since I’ve blogged. Apologies for the delay, but I’ve been slightly distracted at work. Since I’ve last posted, I’ve spent a great deal of time working in SQL 2008 and have had the opportunity to work on some interesting challenges. Additionally, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a couple of whitepapers. Sorry folks, both are available internally only. I the first I worked was specific to recommendations on virtualizing SQL...(read more)

SQL Server 2005 SP3 - Shipped

2008-12-18T15:10:00Z

After much waiting and grumbling from the SQL Server community, the much anticipated service pack 3 for SQL Server 2005 shipped on 12/15/08. Finally we have a single avenue to apply all of our rollup packages that is fully regression tested. I've been running the beta patch for quite some time on my personal stuff and the patch is really solid. I've had no unusual activity / hiccups in using it and things just keep running along without issues. You can read my original post regarding SP3 here . You...(read more)

SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Information

2008-12-10T17:06:31Z

I came across a fantastic piece of information for those who are looking to upgrade their existing SQL Server 2000 or 2005 instances to SQL Server 2008. I know from past experience that it is no fun flying into this type of upgrade blind so this is a must read before jumping into the upgrade analysis. All of the good juicy details about the upgrade process are documented with great detail in the SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Technical Reference Guide . This is no light read, it has an amazing amount of...(read more)

Security Guidance for SQL Server

2008-12-05T16:48:28Z

In my eager attempt yesterday to post my findings on SQL Server 2008 great new security features (read more here ) I neglected to provide some valuable security information I have accumulated over the last couple of years for the other editions of SQL Server. Here is my list of resources I turn to when working on securing SQL Server for a customer: SQL Server 2005 Books Online - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms161948.aspx SQL Server 2005 Security Best Practices - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/sql2005secbestpract.mspx...(read more)

Security Features in SQL Server 2008

2008-12-04T19:30:43Z

As most DBA's are aware, applications sometimes store sensitive information. This may be Social Security numbers, credit card information, salary information... and data owners have a concern that prying eyes may be reviewing this sensitive data without cause. While performing a little research on this topic, I came across two new features of SQL Server 2008 that absolutely blew me away, column level encryption and native auditing. OK, so the concept of these features are nothing new, but the implementation...(read more)

SQL Server 2008 Features by Edition Breakdown

2008-11-25T19:28:23Z

I've been helping people with SQL Server for quite a while now, and I continually hunt for information regarding what features are available in which edition of SQL Server. Well, SQL Server 2008 has improved in many ways, including new edition packages that will allow you to choose a solution that is going to meet your needs and stay within your budget. To me, the even better part about SQL Server is how easy it is to move between editions. For example, if I create a database for a customer on my...(read more)

Report Builder Gotcha'

2008-11-18T23:17:00Z

Using SQL Server 2005 sp3, running on 32bit Vista with sp1. I'm creating report models using Business Intelligence Development Studio and as I go to edit an expression I find that I get a message "Access to the path 'C:\Windows\system32\config' is denied." So, I try the next logical thing and close BIDS, re-open with admin privileges (yes, like a good boy I'm still running with UAC enabled) try to edit the expression again and get the same thing. Looking at the permissions on the folder in question,...(read more)

Best Practice Guidance

2008-11-17T21:15:00Z

Ok... more often than not, I'm asked about best practices for SQL Server. I figured I'd share my best practices bookmarks in no particular order to hopefully give you a new resource to find these. I'd love to hear from you on what you use and what you find useful in this area. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/bb331794.aspx - Obviously one of my first choices. Get the data from the horses mouth! http://sqlcat.com/ http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Administration/sqlserver2005bestpractices/2183/...(read more)

SQL Server 2005 SP3

2008-11-13T19:04:03Z

Patch time for SQL Server... Well almost. SP3 for SQL Server 2005 has been in CTP for a while now (10/27/08) and all is appearing to be really good. I finally got around to installing the beta patch the other night on my home servers and experienced no issues at all. So... what is this going to give us? Lets crack open the What's New section and dissect. All cumulative updates (CU9) See related links below for a listing of bugs fixed in the cumulative updates since SP2 shipped. Updates to DBCC CHECKDB,...(read more)

Changes in SQL Server 2008 Clustering

2008-11-07T17:29:21Z

First and most important thing to remember when working on designing a SQL Server cluster is it is entirely dependent upon the underlying base architecture that you choose to implement for the operating system. Here, it really pays to do your homework as the newer versions of Windows Server have some AMAZING features that will change the way we have traditionally thought about clustering. In my opinion, Windows Server 2008 changes the story that can be told surrounding clustering and disaster recovery....(read more)

Embrace the use of Conditional Formatting

2008-11-04T19:31:00Z

One of the most underused functions I have found in Reporting Services is the use of conditional formatting. Lets face it, in today's Ridilin influenced ADD society, we need to draw attention to significant events. Lets face it, Outlook, pops up alerts for calendars, new messages, tasks, the phone rings, pagers, bosses.... you get the idea, people are distracted. When developing a report that is going to contain important information, the use of conditional formatting can help "direct" traffic to...(read more)

Funny use of Excel

2008-10-29T19:43:00Z

Technorati Tags: Excel Ok... I'm going to stretch a little bit on this one. Everyone knows the power Excel brings to the table in terms of data processing and crunching numbers. Someone pointed me to a funny web-site where the band AC/DC has created a music video using Excel. http://www.acdcrocks.com/excel/ Definitely a first for me. I did have to allow unsigned macro's to run to get it to work. Before I did, I did review the macro code as each person downloading it should do. :) Now go take the...(read more)