17 articles in this selection

2010/11/13

Wow, what a trip. I barely slept. Let’s get right down to it: summary of my thoughts on the whole thing.

2010/11/13

If there is one thing that I don't want to be these days is a program manager on the Analysis Services team. After the WOW announcement at SQL PASS about PowerPivot going corporate under a new name, Business Intelligence Semantic Model (BISM), there were a lot of questions and negativity from the SSAS community and not much encouragement. Your humble correspondent did his own share of bashing and probably burned a few bridges along the way. For some obscure reason, Microsoft this time decided to keep MVPs and community leaders in the dark until PASS, so I was as unprepared as the rest of the community. I was told that corporate BI would be a major focus in Denali, which I interpreted as enhancements to UDM, only to find out that all the buzz is about BISM…To its credit, the SSAS team was quick in its attempt to cover the collateral damages as we could see in the posts below from Amir Netz and T.K. Anand....

2010/11/10

2009/10/13

Migrating from Data Transformation Services (DTS) to SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is a major upgrade. The two engines are very different and developers may find the move daunting as many tasks, including the ActiveX component, require a complete rewrite....

2009/10/08

SQL Server Magazine interviewed Donald Farmer, the principal program manager for SQL Server Analysis Services at Microsoft. Farmer explains the benefits of SQL Server 2008 R2's managed self-service BI piece, currently code-named Gemini. He discusses how Gemini will work for both end users and IT pros, and gives you a peek at what’s up next for SQL Server....

2009/09/30

Microsoft site on their Business Intelligence offerings.

2009/08/12

Technical preview of Gemini, an add-in for Microsoft Excel 2010 that adds "in-memory" capabilities.

2009/07/31

This article is the first in a series of articles that introduce the Microsoft BI stack. In this initial article, I define BI and describe the high-level architecture of a BI solution in general terms. I also provide some insight into the process of building a BI solution. To delve into the SQL Server BI technologies mentioned in this article, you can read the companion articles written by Derek Comingore in this issue (see "Building a Data Foundation for a BI Solution") and by Scot Reagin and me in upcoming issues....

2009/07/31

Tutorial than explains 1) Following the dimensional model to build a data mart 2) Developing ETL processes and data maps 3) Using Integration Services for ETL 4) Creating an Integration Services project in BIDS

2009/07/22

SSRS 2005 is the latest version of SQL Reporting Services, and ships with all versions of SQL Server 2005. SSRS allows you to quickly and easily create reports from multiple database sources. The finished reports can be presented directly from the reporting services website, or they can be displayed in your web- or Windows-based applications. Reports can be exported to multiple formats, including comma delimited text, XML, portable document format (pdf) and Microsoft Excel. This article is the first of four parts, which will provide in-depth coverage of SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services....

2009/07/17

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services provides a complete, server-based platform designed to support a wide variety of reporting needs enabling organizations to deliver relevant information where needed across the entire enterprise.

2009/07/16

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Data Mining Add-ins for Microsoft Office 2007 (Data Mining Add-ins) allow you take advantage of SQL Server 2005 predictive analytics in Office Excel 2007 and Office Visio 2007.

2009/07/09

This article provides general guidelines to help you decide which type of antivirus software to run on the computers that are running SQL Server in your environment.

2009/07/08

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Master Data Services enables organizations to start with simple solutions for analytic or operational requirements, and then adapt the solutions to additional requirements incrementally. We support multiple uses of the same data....

2009/07/05

The Architecture and Design Guidelines for BI Applications provides prescriptive guidance on how to overcome architectural challenges and design issues when building Business Intelligence solutions using Microsoft platform. This guide is intended for software architects and developers who are developing Business Intelligence applications using SQL Server 2005 - Integration Services and Analysis Services....

2009/06/25

I have had a few occasions where I have been using Management Studio, and am suddenly and bluntly informed by Windows that I am demanding too much of the application. Windows is probably right; and it is only partially due to the fact that SSMS can be a resource hog at times, and partially due to the fact that I could have 30 or 40 active query windows at any one time. So what ends up happening is the app stops responding, and "(Not Responding)" gets painted onto the title bar. The temptation is usually to just kill the application via Task Manager, but this can be bad for a variety of reasons....

2009/06/24

The following interview questions have been used on multiple interviewees and seem to work out well in finding the different areas of expertise for an individual. The rating part at the beginning gives you an understanding of where the interviewer thinks he is at in the listed categories. You can then judge yourself after you ask the questions....