WesleyB's Blog

Project Gemini aka PowerPivot for Excel

2009-10-20T07:23:00Z

Yesterday the official name for Project Gemini was announced during the keynote of the SharePoint Conference, as of now Project Gemini will be known as PowerPivot (for Excel).
Personally I feel this name is very well chosen since it really expresses what Gemini is about, in the end it is a PivotTable (or Chart) on steroids. Of course there is a lot more happening behind the scenes but that is exactly what you should not be worrying about, the 'tricks' behind the scenes are not what Gemini is about, it is about giving flexibility to the end user to get to information and improve his insight. But before all the end users in the world start cheering and partying, remember that IT still has control over the sources and even more insight in what you are doing than before ;-)

And of course, with a new name comes a new website: http://www.powerpivot.com.
I hope you are all looking forward to the next public CTP of SQL Server 2008 R2 including the new PowerPivot add-in.

The hardest part for me is always to stop using the name Gemini, we have been talking about Gemini for over a year internally which makes it kind of a habit :-)

SQL Server Day 2009

2009-10-10T08:27:00Z

The Belgian SQL Server User Group is organizing the second SQL Server Day on the 3rd of December. Last year about 200 people gathered for this event and of course we hope to have even more this year!
Please visit http://www.sqlserverday.be for more information and registration (coming soon).

There will be in-depth sessions on SQL Server 2008 as well as a glimpse of the future with SQL Server 2008 R2, Project Gemini and more! Currently there are 2 tracks, one for the DBA and one for the Business Intelligence people. Obviously there will be some great speakers like Dirk Gubbels, Henk van der Valk, Chris Webb, ...

Hope to see you there!

SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP2 Available for download

2009-08-10T18:05:00Z

We are very pleased to announce the first public CTP (Community Technology Preview) of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 for MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Availability for non-subscribers is planned for August 12th.

This is the first public CTP so it is not feature complete but it sure has enough exciting content for you to explore.
Some of the features that are in this build are:
- Application & Multi-Server Management
- Report Builder 3.0
- Scale Up with support for up to 256 logical processors

The Data Platform Insiders blog has a detailed post with all information regarding this CTP.

Please feel free to download and start using the CTP and help us deliver yet another great product by providing your much appreciated feedback.

Cumulative update package 3 for SQL Server 2008 SP1

2009-07-22T09:48:00Z

The third cumulative update package for SQL Server 2008 SP1 is now available @ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971491.
This will take you to build 10.00.2723.

People using the auditing function will probably be interested in the following fix http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967552.

Data Compression and Heaps

2009-06-17T11:14:00Z

I think we can all agree that Data Compression is a great new functionality in SQL Server 2008. I know many of you have been experimenting with it but there was one little catch I wanted you to be aware of.

When you apply page compression to a table the pages get compressed when they are full but there is an exception as you would have expected. When you have a heap the newly allocated pages are NOT compressed until you rebuild the table (or remove and reapply compression or add and remove a clustered index) unless you are using BULK INSERT.

I have added a test script so you can see it with your own eyes.

First the clustered table:

SET NOCOUNT ON
GO

IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[myClusteredTable]') AND type in (N'U'))
DROP TABLE [dbo].[myClusteredTable]
GO

SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO

SET ANSI_PADDING ON
GO

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[myClusteredTable](
[ID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[TheDate] [date] NOT NULL,
[TheTime] [time](7) NOT NULL,
[SomeFiller] [varchar](256) NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_myClusteredTable] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
[ID] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

SET ANSI_PADDING OFF
GO

--Add some records to the table with varying length
INSERT INTO dbo.myClusteredTable
VALUES (SYSDATETIME(), SYSDATETIME(), REPLICATE('W', CEILING(RAND() * 100) + 1))

GO 15000

--Check the space used
sp_spaceused myClusteredTable

--Now apply compression
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[myClusteredTable] REBUILD PARTITION = ALL
WITH
(DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE
)
GO

--Check the space used
sp_spaceused myClusteredTable
GO

--Add some more records to the table
INSERT INTO dbo.myClusteredTable (TheDate, TheTime, SomeFiller)
SELECT TheDate, TheTime, SomeFiller FROM myClusteredTable
GO

--Check the space used again
sp_spaceused myClusteredTable
GO

DROP TABLE myClusteredTable

As you can see the compression keeps going even when you insert new rows.
But what about the heap?

SET NOCOUNT ON
GO

IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[myHeap]') AND type in (N'U'))
DROP TABLE [dbo].[myHeap]
GO

SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO

SET ANSI_PADDING ON
GO

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[myHeap](
[ID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[TheDate] [date] NOT NULL,
[TheTime] [time](7) NOT NULL,
[SomeFiller] [varchar](256) NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_myHeap] PRIMARY KEY NONCLUSTERED
(
[ID] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

SET ANSI_PADDING OFF
GO

--Add some records to the table with varying length
INSERT INTO dbo.myHeap
VALUES (SYSDATETIME(), SYSDATETIME(), REPLICATE('W', CEILING(RAND() * 100) + 1))

GO 15000

--Check the space used
sp_spaceused myHeap

--Now apply compression
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[myHeap] REBUILD PARTITION = ALL
WITH
(DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE
)
GO

--Check the space used
sp_spaceused myHeap
GO

--Add some more records to the table
INSERT INTO dbo.myHeap (TheDate, TheTime, SomeFiller)
SELECT TheDate, TheTime, SomeFiller FROM myHeap
GO

--Check the space used again
sp_spaceused myHeap
GO

--Rebuild the heap?
ALTER TABLE myHeap REBUILD
GO

--Check the space used again
sp_spaceused myHeap
GO

--What about a bulk insert?
BULK INSERT TestDB.dbo.MyHeap
   FROM 'c:\temp\test.txt'
   WITH
      (
   FORMATFILE='c:\temp\myHeap.xml',
   KEEPIDENTITY,
   TABLOCK
      )
GO

--Check the space used again
sp_spaceused myHeap
GO

--Rebuild the heap?
ALTER TABLE myHeap REBUILD
GO

--Check the space used again
sp_spaceused myHeap
GO

--Seems compression was indeed applied with BULK INSERT, go ahead and drop the test table
DROP TABLE myHeap

This was tested on SQL Server 2008 SP1 + CU2 (build 10.0.2714).

Cumulative update package 2 for SQL Server 2008 SP1

2009-05-20T15:24:00Z

The second cumulative update package for SQL Server 2008 SP1 is now available @ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970315.
This will take you to build 10.00.2714.

And do not forget the "Lock Pages In Memory" change (here)!

SQL Server Kilimanjaro becomes SQL Server 2008 R2

2009-05-11T19:51:00Z

Today at Tech Ed North America 2009 we have officially announced the new name for SQL Server code-named Kilimanjaro.
The official name will be: SQL Server 2008 R2!

More information can be found @ http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/r2.aspx and the "official" announcement can be found @ http://blogs.technet.com/dataplatforminsider/archive/2009/05/11/teched-2009-new-sql-server-innovations.aspx.

Also read the official press announcement @ http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/May09/05-11TechEd09PR.mspx.

"Finally, Microsoft announced that a Community Technology Preview of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (formerly SQL Server code-named “Kilimanjaro”) will be available in the second half of 2009. SQL Server 2008 R2 will empower end users to make better decisions through self-service business intelligence, and help IT drive greater efficiency and reduce costs through new capabilities such as multi-server management and Master Data Services. In 2010, Microsoft will also introduce complex event processing for real-time insight into streaming information. This builds on the outstanding value of SQL Server 2008, which already provides some customers with as much as a 160 percent return on their investment.*"

Next UG event: Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition - The Azure Services Platform and SQL Services - Jun 4th, 2009

2009-05-08T11:34:00Z

The Belgian SQL Server User Group is organizing another great technical evening.
I am looking forward meeting you there.

From their website:

This evening will be split into 2 sessions as follows:

Session 1: Overview of Visual StudioTeam System 2008 Database Edition
Brought by Gill Cleeren , Microsoft Regional Director and MVP ASP.NET
Microsoft's Visual Studio for database professionals was originally designed to fill a gap in database development by providing features for managing lifecycles as well as tools for collaboration and testing.
In this session, Gill will show you the most important features of the product, including data generation, testing and its integration in Team Foundation Server.

Session 2: The Azure Services Platform and SQL Services
Brought by Kurt Clayes, Solution Architect and Competence Leader ‘CloudServices’ at ORDINA.
A new initiative for a development platform is coming from Microsoft. The Azure Services Platform. This platform enables to build applications for the cloud and offers a scalable hosted infrastructure for deploying and managing these applications and their data stores. Microsoft SQL Data Services (SDS) is a cloud-based relational database platform built on SQL Server technologies. With SDS, you can easily provision and deploy relational database solutions to the cloud, and take advantage of a globally distributed data center that provides enterprise-class availability, scalability, and security with the benefits of built-in data protection, self-healing and disaster recovery. In this session we will have a brief overview of the Azure Service Platform and see the new concepts behind Microsoft’s SQL Services vision. We will discuss the infrastructure architecture to enable scalability and the global reach of data sources.
Kurt CLAEYS is MVP Connected System Developer, MCT, MCSD, MCDBA. Solution Architect and Competence Leader ‘CloudServices’ at ORDINA.

Click here to register.

Lock Pages In Memory in SQL Server Standard Edition

2009-04-27T12:30:00Z

Until now "Lock Pages In Memory" was an option only available to SQL Server Enterprise Edition customers. Very simply put it prevents SQL Server from paging out the memory it has allocated (a deep explanation can be found in the references below). We got a lot of feedback from customers who wanted to have support for this in SQL Server Standard Edition too. So we are very pleased to announce that it will be available in SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition too (as of SQL Server 2005 SP3 CU4 and SQL Server 2008 SP1 CU2). As with everything do not just enable this option by default but carefully plan and test.

More information on this can be found on http://blogs.msdn.com/psssql/archive/2009/04/24/sql-server-locked-pages-and-standard-sku.aspx

Slava Oks did a great job in explaining the Lock Pages In Memory (and AWE) mechanism on http://blogs.msdn.com/slavao/archive/2005/04/29/413425.aspx and http://blogs.msdn.com/slavao/archive/2005/08/31/458545.aspx.

Cumulative update package 1 for SQL Server 2008 SP1

2009-04-16T11:08:00Z

Wow, the guys in the SQL Server team are working really hard.
The first CU for SQL Server 2008 SP1 has already been released and will take you to build 10.00.2710.

More information here.

SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1

2009-04-08T09:10:00Z

We are very proud to announce the release of the first service pack for SQL Server 2008.

With the release of SQL Server 2008 we have also made great investments in the installer. I am sure you have all noticed that the setup experience is completely different from the previous version of SQL Server. By doing this we have made way for a long requested feature for SQL Server, slipstreaming of service packs. Our good friend Peter Saddow has listed the steps to follow to create your own slipstreamed install package here.

Other nice improvements are the ability to uninstall the service pack and the support for click-once deployment of Report Builder 2.0. Also notice that SQL Server 2008 SP1 has 80% fewer fixes than SQL Server 2005 SP1!

So big thumbs up for the SQL Server team!

The official announcement can be found on the Data Platform Insider blog.
You can download SQL Server 2008 SP1 here.

*EDIT*
This post is an absolute must-read regarding SQL Server 2008 SP1 (thanks Bob!)

Cumulative update package 4 for SQL Server 2008

2009-03-17T13:09:00Z

The guys that deliver the CUs sure do a great job, yet another one delivered on time.
This one will take you to build 10.00.1798.

More information here.

Next UG-evening on Thu, March 19th: MDX From Zero To Hero

2009-02-25T22:51:00Z

The next SQLUG evening will take place in our Microsoft Belux offices. So please feel free to drop by and ask your nasty questions or just have a chat with me ;-)

From their website:

MDX, from zero to hero. This session is brought to you by Franky Leeuwerck.

MDX is the language that allows you to query a SQL Server Analyses Services multi-dimensional data structure or OLAP cube. In this session, after a brief review on the concepts of an OLAP cube, the MDX syntax for querying a cube will be explained and demoed step-by-step.

This event is sponsored by and takes place in the offices of Microsoft Belux in Zaventem. We want to remind that registration is obligatory. You can register here.

SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 - CTP

2009-02-24T11:16:00Z

We are very pleased to announce the first CTP of Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2008.

Apart from all the fixes we also made a couple investments that you will appreciate. The change that will make many of you very happy is that we now allow slipstreaming of service packs and hotfixes!!!

Cumulative update package 2 for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3

2009-02-17T10:42:00Z

Time to take SQL Server 2005 SP3 to build 9.00.4211 with this new CU2 for SP3.
More information here.

For those of you who are still on SP2 there is a cumulative update package which takes you to build 9.00.3315.
More information here.