Sql-Server

This is really exciting. One of the complaints from those using the BI tools (SQL Server Data Tools) has been that they were tied to the Visual Studio 2010 shell, when the rest of their development work had moved to Visual Studio 2012.

The SQL Server BI team has now released the VS2012 versions of these project templates. You’ll find details the download here:

(NOTE: no longer available)

The Reporting Services team blog about it is here:

2013-03-07

Scott Guthrie blogged yesterday about a raft of new changes to the Azure platform.

Of interest to SQL folk are really three main changes:

* SQL Reporting has made its way into the new portal (ie: you no longer have to flip back to the old portal to work with it. Hopefully Data Sync will do the same soon).

* Better options now exist for downloading blobs from Azure Storage. (This could include, for example, SQL Server backups made using BACKUP TO URL).

2013-03-06

I recorded another podcast today with Thomas LaRock, aka SQL Rock Star.

In this show, Tom and I discussed the migration of many DBAs into architect roles, the challenges in constant learning (and useful resources for doing so), the hype around big data, the role of Windows Azure in our future, and upcoming PASS events.

It’s online now: https://podcast.sqldownunder.com

Enjoy!

2013-03-02

One aspect of SQL Server related development that I see done quite badly when visiting client sites is source code control. So many sites have almost nothing in place for this important aspect of development. By comparison, it’s rare now that I visit an application development organisation that doesn’t have at least reasonable source code control in place. Many DBAs seem to have grown up in environments where source code control systems weren’t in use.

2013-02-23

I recorded another podcast today. This time it’s SQL Server MVP Erin Welker discussing dimensional modelling and being a BI consultant.

The show is online now: https://podcast.sqldownunder.com

Enjoy!

2013-02-23

Over the last few months, I’ve been a tech reviewer on John Sirmon and Heidi Steen’s new whitepaper.

It’s published today on MSDN: Hardware Sizing a Tabular Solution (SQL Server Analysis Services)

Its goal is to help you determine the amount of memory and CPU resources needed to accommodate query and processing workloads in a production environment.

Recommended!

2013-02-13

There are some terms in IT that make their way straight into the hype stratosphere. Unfortunately “big data” is one of these. I see very few systems that I’d contend are actually “big data”. However, I endlessly see the term applied to data stores that are trivial by today’s standards. This might help the marketing teams but it’s sad none-the-less. There are some technological challenges that really do start to bite as the data volume really does start to become large, and as the proportion of unstructured and semi-structured data increases. There are also some very interesting new tools that allow us to process larger volumes of data faster, particularly in relation to analytics, and a large market building around Hadoop and its derivatives.

2013-02-10

SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2 and SQL Server 2012 SP1 introduced sys.dm_db_stats_properties. This DMV is a new way to check the number of rows that have been modified since the last time a set of statistics was updated. It is described here: ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj553546.aspx )

In the latest version of Ola’s tools, he’s made use of this new DMV for customers that are on one of these SQL Server versions. For customers on earlier versions, he continues to use sys.sysindexes in the same way he did previously.

2013-02-08

Sysprep has been a useful tool to allow the preconfiguration of SQL Server environments, along with the rest of the operating system. This can be very useful for templated Azure VMs as well as for on-premises systems and private clouds.

One of the limitations has been that not all SQL Server components were “sysprep-able”.

Another important change in CU2 for SQL Server 2012 SP1 is that more SQL Server components are now able to be “sysprepped”. In particular, SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) and SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) can now be part of this.

2013-02-05

One of the things I always tell people that I love about consulting/mentoring work is that you see things that you just can’t make up. They provide interesting material for training classes.

This week I came across something that I wasn’t expecting. I was migrating data from DB2 and in my scripts, I had made the presumption that a table would have at least one column. Turns out that in DB2 you can have a table with no columns.

2013-02-04