Pragmatic Works

SQL Server 2008 is Here!

Brian Knight — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:09:31 GMT

On Friday, Sept. 12, you can hear about all the new features of SQL Server 2008 in this full day of free training brought to you by JSSUG, Idea Integration and Pragmatic Works. We've already had about 100 register for the event and we only have room for about 200 more so grab your seat fast. Each session will dive deeply into new features from a BI, DBA and developer perspective around SQL Server 2008. To claim your free seat (including lunch), go to http://www.sqlsaturday.com and select the SQL Launch (the event is on Friday, Sept 12). Then, click Register.

The schedule is still being perfected but you can see a tentative schedule on the site or below. We also have room for two more sessions so if you'd like to speak, please click Call For Speakers.

Hope to see you there!

Launch Remote SSIS Package Programmatically

Mike Davis — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:15:00 GMT

It can be a pain to launch an SSIS package remotely. So I developed a vb.net standalone application to remotely launch a package. It does require the host computer to have SSIS installed. This is just a beginning program. I am going to be adding other features like variables and config files. Eventually it will allow you to run the package remotely where the package will run on the remote machine. But this will probably require creating a web service.

Please leave comments, this is my first blog and my first program I have posted online.

Thanks

Mike Davis

The source code is attached

SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Lab: Full Text Disabled on Some Databases

Brian Knight — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:16:06 GMT

In this series, I plan on sharing a lot of my recent experience with the SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008 upgrade. Part of our ongoing project was to also use some of the new fantastic full text features in SQL Server 2008, which are now fully integrated. We had some difficulties in turning this on after the upgrade.

Our upgrade strategy was to backup a database on SQL Server 2005 and restore it on SQL Server 2008. The most important to note about that strategy is you will need to set the databases to 10 compatibility mode after you do the restore and you'll need to rebuild your statistics.

After that though, we went to create our first full text and we noticed that our Define Full Text button and all other full text options were greyed out. After some time of troubleshooting, we looked at the sys.databases databases table and noticed that the is_fulltext_enabled was turned off for the database, which was supposedly deprecated (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms403375.aspx). In reading, the Technet articles stated that the enabling full text is no longer supported as well, since it's always on.

To get this working, we had to use an older stored procedure which gladly wasn't deprecated yet:

sp_fulltext_database 'enable'

We ran that on each of the databases, and then we were off and running to the races.

I hope this series saves you some time and aggravation. My next one will be on some issues I ran into with the SSIS data providers during the upgrade.

- Brian Knight

GACUtil.exe missing from Windows 2008

Brian Knight — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:23:54 GMT

I was trying to deploy a custom assembly today using Windows 2008 and SQL Server 2008 and found a bit of differences in Windows 2008. The GACUtil.exe utility has now moved first and foremost and is not installed by default until you install the .NET and Windows 2008 SDK. After that, you'll be able to find the GACUtil.exe utility in the SDK directory and can call it as shown below:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1\bin\gacutil.exe /i "dllfilename.dll"

After then, you'll need to copy your DLL file into the C:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727 (or whatever .NET version you wish to be on) directory and you're golden to use a custom assembly in the Script Component or Task in SQL Server 2008/Windows 2008.

Brian

To Type 2 or Not Type 2?

Darren Herbold — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:38:03 GMT

If you have ever worked on a Data Warehousing project, specifically with being tasked in developing
and loading (ETL) a dimensional model, you will have no doubt encountered the decision to implement
a dimensional type architecture. Basically, you have 2 choices (3 really, but I won't go there) when
deciding on a dimension type in your warehouse. With Type 1, you basically get no history.
For example, consider a Customer dimension called DimCustomer. This dimension may contain address
information. With Type 1, you would never know if a particular customer had changed addresses.
Is this important? Maybe it is and maybe it is not. It's up to your business analysts to decide.
Of course you will always add new customers to the table as they arrive, but no updates, because
that's Type 1.

Much to your dismay, the business analysts have decided that they want to track the changing
address attribute of your DimCustomer table. This is where Type 2 comes in. It keeps track of
history. Unfortunately, implementing this type of dimension is a bit more work. Since you are now
tracking history for this dimension, you will need to add 2 date attributes that will define a range
of time when the row of data has changed. A good example of the names for these attributes
would be EffectiveDate and ExpiredDate. You will also need another attribute that will "flag" the
row as the most current. This will of course, make your ETL more complicated from a Dimension
and Fact table load.

So, when deciding between these two dimensions types, the answer lies in the business question.
Is it, for example, important to your decision makers to track a customer's address change between
business transactions? If so, use a Type 2, if not, then Type 1.

SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 Presentation

Darren Herbold — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:29:00 GMT

Last week I had the opportunity to speak on SSRS 2008 at the Midlands PASS chapter in South Carolina.
Given the fact that it was a horribly stormy night, (I got soaked walking, no, running to the building) I appreciate
all the folks who came out for the session. Fortunately, I was working with the RC0 version of the product
which is significantly more stable than the CTP6 version I was previously using. I can't tell you how excited
I am about this latest version of reporting services.

To recap, the presentation covered the following topics:

- Architectural changes
- Designer enhancements
- Tablix
- Charts and gauges

I'd like to share the materials I used in this presentation which includes the project files as well!

Project files: SSRS08.zip
Powerpoint: SSRS08.pptx

SQL Server 2008 Integration Services Book

Darren Herbold — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:51:20 GMT

Recently, I received from the publisher, an updated image of the cover of the forthcoming
book titled Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services. I'm very excited
to have been involved in this project and hope that it gives those the knowledge they need
to start working with this exciting new technology.

I have to admit, seeing my face on the cover of a Wrox Press book (now Wiley Press) is
one of the proudest moments in my life and marks a milestone in my career. (I'm the one
the far right.) While co-authoring this text, I relied on my deep experience with this product
from a consulting point of view to bring "real world" knowledge to the table. Enjoy!

Here's the link on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Microsoft-Server-Integration-Services/dp/0470247959/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218583284&sr=8-1

Bill Baker Leaves Microsoft

Brian Knight — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 02:10:05 GMT

A icon of the business intelligence industry for Microsoft has now left the company to take a CTO role at Visible Technology. Bill has been with the SQL Server team or with in a BI role since 1996. I will truly miss Bill in the community, as he was a BI pillar and his departure to work for his new great opportunity will leave a large gap inside of Microsoft. To show the gap that he will leave, when he left the Microsoft SQL Server team after SQL Server 2005 to go to the office group, a large segment of the SQL Server team left to join him and it caused a domino effect.

We'll miss you Bill!

Webinars now posted

Brian Knight — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:08:50 GMT

We’d like to thank all of you for attending our first of many free SQL Server Business Intelligence training sessions. To view the webinar recordings and register for our next free session please click below:

It's Official SQL Server 2008 Released

Brian Knight — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:06:47 GMT

It's official, SQL Server 2008 has now launched and can be downloaded on MSDN, Technet. For more information, you can see the press release here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/aug08/08-06SQLServer2008PR.mspx.

In Microsoft tradition with each new release, they have added a new edition: Web Edition. Web edition offers a lower price-point edition of SQL Server for web hosting providers or companies that just want a small SQL Server footprint with moderate scaling.

So why upgrade? Well, it depends on your situation. Here are some really compelling cases that are on the top of my list:

Are you synchronizing systems two SQL Servers?

The Change Data Capture feature will allow you to read the source table and only determine the rows that have changed. (Enterprise Edition)

Do you have a data warehouse or a database that's a few hundred gigs in size?

The compression feature will compress with about a 3:1 ratio, speeding up read IO (Enterprise Edition)
The new star join improvements will speed up query time

Do you have more than 10 instances?

Your environment may becoming too uncontrollable and the Policy Framework will allow you to determine which servers are not complying with your policies
Monitor server usage and across your enterprise to determine capacity

Do you reporting against your SQL Server?

You can stop a runaway query by using the Resource Governor to put caps on the query. (Enterprise Edition)
In Reporting Services, IIS is now gone!
A much, much better report builder can be downloaded and used in 2008

For a full feature list by edition, go to: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645993(SQL.100).aspx.

Speaking at PASS in Columbia SC

Darren Herbold — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 02:18:02 GMT

While doing a big ETL project in Columbia, SC, I volunteered to
speak at the local PASS chapter. Brian Kelley who heads up the
group was kind enough to let me speak. The topic of the evening
will be on Reporting Services 2008. Below is the information regarding
the event. If you are in the area, please attend!

The Midlands PASS chapter will hold our normally scheduled meeting on Thursday, August 7, 2008, to host Darren Herbold of Pragmatic Works Consulting and contributing author of the forthcoming Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services from Wrox (Darren is on the far right). Darren will be giving a presentation on SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services. The meeting will once again be held at Training Concepts off of Berryhill Road. We will begin our meet and greet time at 6:15 PM as usual and start the presentation between 6:30 and 6:45 PM. I’ll be sending out an agenda next week as a reminder.

Learning How to Cluster with Virtual PC and ISCSI

Brian Knight — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:21:24 GMT

Yesterday I finished up my Professional SQL Server 2008 Administration book at long last, which makes my 9th book. I've never tried to write two books at the same time but I can tell you I'll never do it again! Writing is always like a bad hangover where you wake up the next day saying, "I will never, ever do that again" and then two weeks passes and you're back with a beer in front of you.

Regardless of the pain, I learned some interesting new things in this book. My most challenging adventure was to simulate a cluster on my laptop using Virtual PC. Previously I had always done Virtual Server but because of me being a stubborn guy, I really wanted to make Virtual PC work. To do this, I first had to find an ISCSI Target. The target's job is to host a shared drive that can be seen on multiple nodes and drive the failover. The software I found to be the easiest was Rocket Division's StarWind target software.

Once the ISCSI software was configured, Windows 2008 or Vista has a ISCSI initiator built into it. If you're running Windows 2003, you can download an ISCSI initiator for free. ISCSI initiators connect to the target and write data to the remote drive.

I will be creating a series of videos on the full clustering process on JumpstartTV.com later next week but let me tease this by saying that Windows 2008 clustering really is amazing. The process asked me two questions during the entire process and all nodes are done in one click without having to go to each node.

Watch this space for videos on the entire process.

Webinar Series. So long and thanks to all the fish.

Brian Knight — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:21:14 GMT

Thanks to the nearly 15,000 people who attended a webinar with me last week! All the webinars were recorded and we'll be posting them within a few weeks. We're just awaiting them for them to be edited since we have full motion videos in them. We were excited to bring this service to the community in partnership with SQLServerCentral.com. Thanks again for coming and we hope to launch a Reporting Services series in the next few months!

SSIS for the DBA Sample Files

Brian Knight — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:17:37 GMT

Thanks to all who came to today's session on Introduction to SSIS. Tomorrow's session is on SSIS for the DBA. If you have not registered, I'm afraid we've maxed out the conference system at this point with 3200 people spread across Wednesday's sessions and we're expecting the typical webinar drop off, which should still be a large number. Hopefully on Wednesday we don't "stress test" the Gotowebinar system like today, bringing it to its knees :).

The Wednesday session has a number of examples for the DBA and how you can use SSIS. For example, one example is a package (see below download) that will loop through a list of database instances and capture the worst performing queries. I've also including some quite ugly but functional reports to show you the worse performing queries. To get this working in your environment, simply run the CreateScript.sql file in a database you want to log all this information into. Then populate the MonitoredServers table with a list of instances that you have access to that you wish to monitor.

This sample is provided "as is" with no warranty. Please modify it however you wish and run at your own risk. One thing to keep in mind that it does flush the procedure cache after it runs for statistical purposes so don't run this that often. I'm more showing this to you as an learning example.

Download the example:

SSISfortheDBA.zip

The setup for this will all be covered in Wednesday's session (http://www.dtsxchange.com/freebisessions.asp) and we will be recording the sessions for those who can't make it. Expect the recordings by next week on this site.

Oops! In the zip file, I left out the ChangeTracking table, which can be found here in this script:

IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[ChangeLog]') AND type in (N'U'))
BEGIN
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[ChangeLog](
    [ChangeID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [ChangeTitle] [varchar](150) NULL,
    [ServerName] [varchar](25) NULL,
    [SchemaName] [varchar](25) NULL,
    [ChangeDescription] [varchar](2000) NULL,
    [ChangeDate] [datetime] NULL,
    [ChangeUser] [varchar](50) NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_ChangeLog] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
    [ChangeID] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
END
GO
SET ANSI_PADDING OFF

Thanks!

Brian Knight

Files from Introduction to SSIS Webinar

Brian Knight — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:38:47 GMT

Thanks to the 1500 + people who attended today's webinars. The recording will be posted on PragmaticWorks.com or SQLServerCentral.com next week. In case you're following along with the example I had on the webinar, you can download the code below.

Download : IntroSSISWebinarSample.zip

Making the SSIS Data Reader Source Query Dynamic

Brian Knight — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:21:47 GMT

I was recently working with FoxPro for Unix as a data source using ODBC in SSIS (story for another day) and found some interesting scenarios inside of it. We wanted to pull the table name dynamically, thus changing the SELECT statement inside the SSIS Data Reader Source. Whilst this is quite easy in OLE DB Sources, there's no obvious way to do this in the Data Reader Source for ODBC or legacy connections as you can see in the below screenshot.

There's still a workaround, which feels like a hack but it works great. Before you start, change the name of the Data Reader Source to something that you're fine leaving it as because you're about to create a dependency on this name. To make the query dynamic from an SSIS Data Reader Source or ADO.net Source, select the Data Flow Task and in the Properties window, you'll see the name of the Data Reader Source with your query inside of it as shown in the below screenshot. This shows you which property you want to make dynamic, which in my case is the [DataReader Source].[SQLCommand] property. You then want to set the expression on that property by clicking the ellipsis button next to the Expression property. Lastly, create an expression like this, which makes the query dynamic using a variable:

"SELECT * FROM " @[User::TableName]

You may find yourself needing to turn off the ValidateExternalMetadata property if don't want your query to parse until execution instead of during the validation stage. You can set many properties this way in the data flow to be dynamic but it does require the names of the components you're setting to be static.

Brian Knight

Free SQL Server 2008 BI / Admin Cert Test (beta)

Brian Knight — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:14:38 GMT

If you're interested in becoming certified in SQL Server and are really, really driven, there's a free test for BI and SQL Server for this month only. You have to register soon to get one of the available open beta slots though. If you do pass, you'll be credit with the test once it's out of beta. If you fail, you're not out any money at all if you choose the promo code. I'm taking the BI one Thursday the 3rd and will post how it goes. The admin one I'm taking the following week.

See more information about how you can claim one of the slots here: http://blogs.msdn.com/gerryo/archive/2008/07/01/sql-server-beta-exams-extended-open-invitation.aspx

For the test use the promotion code of: 943F6 and there are lots of restrictions.

Webinar Summer Series Extended - 5 Days, 11 Hours of Free BI Training

Brian Knight — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:07:36 GMT

Due to popular demand, many of the webinars have reached the capacity of more than 1500 registered guests. To make sure everyone could participate, we have added an additional hour each day for those who missed the first session. You must register in order to attend and the second session is expected to reach capacity as well!

More information can be seen here: http://www.dtsxchange.com/freebisessions.asp

I've never done a webinar before with anywhere near this number so I'm curious how the technology scales :). It should be a great case study to put 1000 geeks on a concall and screen capturing system at once. If you can make it, we've added the extra slot and session for you but please register soon to get in.

Monday, July 14 @ 11:30 AM EDT 1hour
Upgrading DTS Packages to SSIS
The session will include an actual DTS package conversion using DTS xChange and other strategies. DTS xChange offers the latest automated DTS to SSIS migration technology used to complete SQL Server 2005 upgrades.
Sorry, session is full. Please attend afternoon session

Monday, July 14 @ 1:30 PM EDT 1hour
Upgrading DTS Packages to SSIS
The session will include an actual DTS package conversion using DTS xChange and other strategies. DTS xChange offers the latest automated DTS to SSIS migration technology used to complete SQL Server 2005 upgrades.
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/976091722

Tuesday, July 15 @ 11:30 AM EDT 1hour
Introduction to SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
This session will get you past the learning curve of SSIS. Brian covers creating an end to end package that covers many of the concepts in SSIS. He covers, looping over a set of files, processing each file and then archiving. You won't want to miss this if you're new to SSIS.
Sorry, session is full. Please attend afternoon session

Tuesday, July 15 @ 1:30 PM EDT 1hour
Introduction to SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
This session will get you past the learning curve of SSIS. Brian covers creating an end to end package that covers many of the concepts in SSIS. He covers, looping over a set of files, processing each file and then archiving. You won't want to miss this if you're new to SSIS.
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/471645031

Wednesday, July 16 @11:30 AM EDT 1hour
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) for the DBA
Brian will start by showing you the basics of SSIS then quickly jump into common DBA tasks like trying to integrate SSIS with dynamic management views (DMVs) to determine the worst performing queries across multiple databases and servers. If you're a DBA and have SSIS in your environment, you won't want to miss this presentation.
Sorry, session is full. Please attend afternoon session

Wednesday, July 16 @ 1:30 PM EDT 1hour
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) for the DBA
Brian will start by showing you the basics of SSIS then quickly jump into common DBA tasks like trying to integrate SSIS with dynamic management views (DMVs) to determine the worst performing queries across multiple databases and servers. If you're a DBA and have SSIS in your environment, you won't want to miss this presentation.
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/301757498

Thursday, July 17 @ 11:30 AM EDT 1hour
Performance Tuning SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
In this demo-rich presentation, Brian shows you some of the common and not so common ways to tune SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). Learn how to tune the data flow using some of the advanced SSIS options and how to avoid common SSIS mistakes. See how to measure performance and how to keep SSIS from monopolizing your server's resourcing. Lastly, discover SQL Server 2008 features that will make SSIS more efficient.
Sorry, session is full. Please attend afternoon session

Thursday, July 17 @ 1:30 PM EDT 1hour
Performance Tuning SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
In this demo-rich presentation, Brian shows you some of the common and not so common ways to tune SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). Learn how to tune the data flow using some of the advanced SSIS options and how to avoid common SSIS mistakes. See how to measure performance and how to keep SSIS from monopolizing your server's resourcing. Lastly, discover SQL Server 2008 features that will make SSIS more efficient.
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/220829813

Friday, July 17 @ 11:30 AM EDT 1hour
Administrating SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
In this session for DBAs, Brian Knight shows you how to configure your SSIS packages for a zero-touch deployment. Then Brian covers how to deploy, schedule and administer SSIS in production.
Sorry, session is full. Please attend afternoon session

Thursday, July 17 @ 4:00 PM EDT 1hour
Administrating SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
In this session for DBAs, Brian Knight shows you how to configure your SSIS packages for a zero-touch deployment. Then Brian covers how to deploy, schedule and administer SSIS in production.
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/296733568

Friday, July 18 @ 3:00 PM EDT 1hour
What's New In SQL Server 2008 Business Intelligence
This session will get you past the learning curve of SQL Server 2008. Brian will cover each of the BI platforms' best new features: SSIS, SSRS, and SSAS. Additionally, he'll cover many of the T-SQL new features that will effect business intelligence.
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/742337468

Follow Brian on Twitter

Brian Knight — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:15:08 GMT

I just signed up for a service called Twitter, where you can follow your co-workers through mini-micro posts throughout the day. If you interested in following the truly boring life of Brian, you can go to http://www.twitter.com/brianknight.

Another SSIS Webinar: Administering, Deploying and Configuring SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) Packages

Brian Knight — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:12:57 GMT

In this session by SQL Server MVP, Brian Knight, you’ll learn how to make a package that needs zero configuration as you migrate from development to production. He will then show you how to deploy your packages and administer the SSIS service. You’ll also learn how to:

-Create configuration entries for dynamic configuration of packages
-Deploying SSIS packages to various environments
-Administering the SSIS service
-Scheduling packages

Register for this free session at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/430701585

5 Hours of Free Training - The BI Series

Brian Knight — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:08:54 GMT

Nothing gives me more pleasure than teaching and getting the "aha" moment out of a student when the student gets over the learning curve of a potentially difficult product. That feeling on a larger scale is what is exciting me most to announce a free business intelligence webinar series during the week of July 14th to get you ramped up to SQL Server business intelligence and especially SSIS. Each day for an hour, I'm going to provide you with free training on exactly what you need to know to do your job as a BI Developer or DBA. Below, you'll see a list of upcoming webinars that are very demo intensive to get you past that slight learning curve and after the week, you'll be able to create SSIS packages that are applicable to your job. More may be added but I wanted to guarantee one a day and measure the response.

Registration is on a per-day basis to only the sessions you want to attend so if you'd like to register for more than one days, please click each of the links for the sessions you want to go to below.

Registration is open to the first 1000 people and due to a number of places promoting it, we do expect to hit that number so please reserve your virtual seat fast!

Upgrading DTS Packages to SSIS

Mon, Jul 14, 2008 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM EDT

Join SQL Server MVP and SSIS author Brian Knight to discuss the strategies of upgrading DTS packages to SSS. The session will include an actual DTS package conversion using DTS xChange and other strategies. DTS xChange offers the latest automated DTS to SSIS migration technology used to complete SQL Server 2005 upgrades. Attendees to this session will all receive a copy of DTS Profiler (a $495 value), which will help you scope your DTS migration project.

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/520992041

Introduction to SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)

Tue, Jul 15, 2008 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM EDT

Join SQL server MVP and SSIS author Brian Knight in this webinar that will get you past the learning curve of SSIS. Brian covers creating an end to end package that covers many of the concepts in SSIS. He covers, looping over a set of files, processing each file and then archiving. You won't want to miss this if you're new to SSIS.

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/359086032

SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) for the DBA

Wed, Jul 16, 2008 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM EDT

Join SQL Server MVP and author, Brian Knight to see how you can use SSIS to complete and automate a number of common DBA tasks. Brian will start by showing you the basics of SSIS then quickly jump into common DBA tasks like trying to integrate SSIS with dynamic management views (DMVs) to determine the worst performing queries across multiple databases and servers. If you're a DBA and have SSIS in your environment, you won't want to miss this presentation.

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/328130178

Performance Tuning SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)

Thursday, July 17, 2008 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM EDT

Join SQL Server MVP and author, Brian Knight to see how you can get the most out of SSIS. In this demo-rich presentation, Brian shows you some of the common and not so common ways to tune SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). Learn how to tune the data flow using some of the advanced SSIS options and how to avoid common SSIS mistakes. See how to measure performance and how to keep SSIS from monopolizing your server's resourcing. Lastly, discover SQL Server 2008 features that will make SSIS more efficient.

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/248774021

What's New In SQL Server 2008 Business Intelligence

Friday, July 18, 2008 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM EDT (note the different time!)

Join SQL server MVP and SSIS author Brian Knight in this webinar that will get you past the learning curve of SQL Server 2008. He'll cover each fo the BI platforms' best new features: SSIS, SSRS, and SSAS. Additionally, he'll cover many of the T-SQL new features that will effect business intelligence.

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/742337468

Speaking at JSSUG Meeting

Brian Knight — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:22:27 GMT

JSSUG will be meeting next week on Wednesday the 25th at 6PM at the BOA campus.

Where: "Driftwood" room (2nd floor) in Building 500, Bank of America, 9000 Southside Blvd: Map and Directions

Topic: New Features in SQL Server 2008 - In this session, Brian will show the best SQL Server 2008 new features for DBAs, developers and BI engineers. He will cover some of the new T-SQL enhancements like Merge, CDC and others, the performance warehouse, Policy framework and the new Reporting Services.

1 Lucky winner will win: TechNet Direct Subscription. TechNet Plus Direct offers full version non time bombed Microsoft software. Windows Vista, Office 2007, Exchange 2007,SQL, ISA, Windows Server, and so much more. Subscribers can download ISO images of the software, burn them to DVD?s and then install them.

As always JSSUG meetings are free but we ask that you please RSVP so we can order enough pizza. Please RSVP to bknight<AT>pragmaticworks.com

Bootstrapping a Business

Brian Knight — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:13:30 GMT

All of my ideas seem to come to me on drives to clients or work. About 3 years ago, I was driving to work when I had the idea for JumpstartTV.com. The site was going to be a central how-to hub for videos on the web. The old saying is once you come up with an idea, you have to implement it in 18 months or you'll lose it to someone else. With bandwidth becoming so cheap, 18 months was unrealistic. In this world of the Web 2.0, in hindsight, we had to react in 6-8 months. So, I formed a team of trusted developers and we set out to make a website and a business.

Our first decision after we formed a rudimentary business plan was whether to fund the website ourselves or through an option like venture capital. Having funded my first few companies like SQLServerCentral.com successfully with a $50 investment from the partners, I decided to lean towards bootstrapping the business. In other words, spend my weekends and nights growing and building the business with minimal investment by pulling up my bootstraps and loosing sleep. We leaned towards this strategy because we didn't want to give up more than 50% of what we thought was a fantastic idea. The strategy worked well during the development cycle, allowing us to release the website in 4 months.

While we worked on our version 2.0 of JumpstartTV, other websites began to launch with similar concepts and on an accelerating scale. These other websites had a massive amount of funding behind them. Two such websites had received 35 and 40 million dollars of investment capital to scale their efforts. We began to fight to keep up with them on the amount of content we could produce "on the side" bootstrapping.

Knowing we couldn't keep up, we struggled. At a certain point, it was difficult to justify putting more money into generating content but then at the same time, I received letter after letter of gratitude for the site, justifying the site's purpose. Ultimately, there wasn't enough people pulling the cart and we stalled.

What I learned from this entire experience I thought I'd share in this blog post. My first lesson learned was to really know your competition. If you have a business where people are probably going to be pouring money into, you've better be willing to match that momentum. Bootstrapping works great but in some cases, if your competitor has $40 million, it will not work unless you're particularly blessed. If you can't match them in funds, try a different route. Find a more unique idea or become more focused. In my case, I had a broad website that had thousands of how-to videos about everything from how to make a drink to how to restore a database. If I had focused on a given market first and really conquered it first, you'd be reading a different post here. In other industries this may mean to not start just another dating site. Instead focus on baby boomer or divorced parents dating.

In case you were wondering also what happened to JumpstartTV.com, well it is about to relaunch in a big way after I merged it into another company with new partners. These partners (Steve Jones and Andy Warren) you may recognize since they helped me put SQLServerCentral.com on the map. Because of this, we now have a full time staff working on the site's relaunch, scheduling this week. It will be more focused on technology and will have a new level of content that I could never have done bootstrapping :).

Performance Point Basics Part 1

Darren Herbold — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:45:02 GMT

As we all know, our friends in Redmond have publicly declared their intention to "own" the BI market.
Their latest offering to obtain that ambitious goal is a product called Performance Point Server.
Admittedly the name of the product doesn't readily reveal its function or purpose, which leads us to
the question: What is Performance Point Server?

Performance Point Server in short is a set of client tools (and a server component) that empowers
end-users to create rich business intelligence structures and reports without the requirement of
possessing data warehousing experience (sort of). The reason I say "sort of" in regards to DW
experience, is that even though Microsoft has done a great job in abstracting complex data ware-
housing concepts in the tool (by design), having some knowledge of data warehousing will most
certainly be helpful, but again not necessary.

While past or current experience in data warehousing is not a requirement to successfully use
the product, a solid background in accounting is. Performance Point's main bent is toward financial
reporting and thus, accounting functions of an organization. It's safe to say that Performance Point
is a tool to aid financial and accounting departments to get the most out of their data from both a
planning and a forecasting perspective plain and simple.

In the next series of articles, I will explain all the pieces and elements of Performance Point, their
purpose, and how they all work together to form a complete solution.

Creating a Charting Report from Analysis Services Cube Data in Reporting Services 2008

Darren Herbold — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:22:42 GMT

Reporting Services in 2008 has provided some exciting new enhancements that will really
spice up your reports. In this example, we will create a charting report that uses the new
charting controls (Dundas charts that MS bought. Sweet!).

The cube data was created from Analysis Services using the AdventureWorksDW database.
Its a fairly simple cube that contains Internet Sales as the fact table, and Date and Product
dimensions. The Date dimension contains a hierarchy with year, month, and day levels. The
Product hierarchy contains Product Category and Product Subcategory levels.

Start a new Reporting Services Project and then select New -> Data Source from the Report Data
menu on the left.

On the "Type" drop-down, choose Analysis Services. Once you
have done that, edit the credentials and select the Analysis Services database that you created.

Once you have created the data source properly, you can now create a Data Set
for your Chart to consume. Locate the Data Source you just created from the
Report Data window, right click on it and select Add Data Set.

Adding a data set will prompt you for more information to create the data set.

You may notice that this property page says nothing about Analysis Services,
but don't worry, it's just a click away! Click on the Query Designer button
to build your "query", in actuality it will allow you to choose your dimensions
and measures for the report as shown below. From here you can really let
loose. From the Dimension column drop-down from the filter section, select
the Dim Product dimension.

Select a product hierarchy that contains a Product Category level. In the
Filter Expression, select the "ALL" level. Next, expand the fact Internet
Sales measure group and drag over the Sales Amount measure onto the
query designer below.

Next, expand your Dim Product dimension from the available dimensions on
the left. In this example I have a Product hierarchy called: E2E Product Hierarchy
that contains the category, subcategory, and product levels. Expand your
product hierarchy and drag over the Product Category level onto the query designer.

For the next dimension, I have a Time dimension with a time hierarchy that
contains Year, Quarter, Month, etc.. If you have created a similar one, expand
the dimension and also expand your hierarchy. Drag over the year level onto the
query designer to finish off our query. Your data set should look similar to the
results below. If your results differ, revisit your hierarchies in Analysis Services
and make adjustments where needed. Click OK when finished.

Back in the Dataset Properties window you will see the created MDX in the
query window. Unfortunately, you can't modify from here as it is grayed out!
Click OK to return to the Report Designer.

Displaying the dataset we just created in a chart is the easy part now!
Drag over a chart control from the toolbox onto the report designer.
Once the chart has been placed on the designer, the only thing you have
to do now is drag over the fields from the dataset onto the Chart landing
areas.

Drag the fields from the dataset from the dataset you created onto the chart
areas as shown below. Drag the Sales_Amount field to the Data Fields area,
drag the Product Category field to the Series area, and drag the Calendar
year to the Category area of the chart.

When you are finished dragging over the fields, simple click the Preview tab to view the results!