James works at Microsoft as a big data and data warehousing solution architect where he has been for most of the last nine years. Before that he was an independent consultant working as a Data Warehouse/Business Intelligence architect and developer. He is a prior SQL Server MVP with over 35 years of IT experience. Check out his book Deciphering Data Architectures: Choosing Between a Modern Data Warehouse, Data Fabric, Data Lakehouse, and Data Mesh.
LinkedIn is a great resource to improve your career. It has definitely worked for me as the last 5-6 jobs I have been hired for was because a recruiter found me through LinkedIn or I noticed a job posting on LinkedIn. And … Continue reading →
Microsoft PivotViewer is a really cool Silverlight web-based control that provides a visual way to interact with massive amounts of data (download). It allows you to present thousands of things at once and visualize them in a way that exposes value from the … Continue reading →
As a business intelligence architect consultant, I have met many people out there who are as good or better than me in building business intelligence solutions, yet earn much less than I do. Why you ask? In the past 18 … Continue reading →
If you are using partitions in SQL Server, be aware that “partition switching” is a great feature to quickly truncate partitions or to load data in parallel. To truncate a partition: Create a staging table with the schema structure matching the … Continue reading →
In the multidimensional model in SSAS, there is a storage mode called relational OLAP (ROLAP), which is the multidimensional solution for allowing real-time access to relational data sources and uses MDX queries. In the tabular model in SSAS, the solution … Continue reading →
SQL Server Data Quality Services (DQS) is a knowledge-driven data quality product that is new to SQL Server 2012. The technology was from Microsoft’s acquisition of Zoomix in 2008. DQS enables you to build a knowledge base and use it to perform … Continue reading →
The requirements for Power View state that it can only use tabular models as data sources. So if you want to use Power View against a multidimensional cube, you are stuck. But there is a work-around: Create a PowerPivot for SharePoint … Continue reading →
All the videos for this popular conference are online or will be soon (69 of them). Take a look at the recorded sessions at http://sqlbits.com/content/Event10. All are free to watch!
Continue reading →When using the Tabular model in SSAS, the deployment options screen offers four choices for “Query Mode”: DirectQuery, DirectQuery with In-Memory, In-Memory, In-Memory with DirectQuery. Query Mode is used to specify the source from which query results are returned when … Continue reading →
Microsoft has posted ALL the session videos for TechEd North America 2012 and they are available for free! What a great way to learn all about SQL Server 2012. Check them out here. Also check out the Top 10 Lists for … Continue reading →
Having done a number of presentations, I have accumulated a list of items to go over before each presentation to make sure I am full prepared: Bring my laptop that has my PowerPoint presentation, mouse, powercord If the in-person session … Continue reading →
Microsoft SQL Server Master Data Services (MDS) is a Master Data Management (MDM) product from Microsoft. Master Data Services is the rebranding of the Stratature MDM product titled +EDM, which Microsoft acquired in June 2007. Master Data Services is architecturally … Continue reading →
I have a desktop computer, a laptop, and a iPhone. I frequently add meetings to my Outlook calender on my desktop computer, but sometimes enter them on my laptop. And I frequently use my iPhone to alert me about upcoming … Continue reading →
Columnstore indexes are built and processed completely in memory. You will receive an out-of-memory error if you do not have enough memory to build the columnstore index. Column store processing is optimized for in-memory processing, however, they do not reside in memory … Continue reading →
If you are using the Tabular model in SSAS, it will use the xVelocity technology to load your entire database in memory (greatly compressing the database). So what happens if your database is too big to fit in memory? You … Continue reading →
A big headache in SSAS, especially when dealing with a large cube, is making a change that when deployed, causes a cube to become unprocessed, forcing you to do a full process so the cube is usable. Nothing is worse … Continue reading →
I see a lot of confusion on what exactly is the difference between a data warehouse and a data mart. The best definition that I have heard of a data warehouse is: “A relational database schema which stores historical data … Continue reading →
I have previously blogged about Fast Track Data Warehouse, a reference configuration optimized for data warehousing (see Microsoft SQL Server Reference Architecture and Appliances). That was version 3.0 of the reference configuration that was for SQL Server 2008 R2. Just released … Continue reading →
I received this error the other day when trying to process a particular SSAS cube: Error 18 File system error: The following file is corrupted: Physical file: file:///\\%3f\E:\SQL\OLAP\Data\Options”>\\?\E:\SQL\OLAP\Data\Options BI QA.0.db\Dim Date.0.dim\1.Year No.bstore. Logical file . 0 0 I also could … Continue reading →
Thanks to everyone who attended my presentation “Scaling SQL Server to HUNDREDS of Terabytes” at Houston SQLSaturday. Here is the PowerPoint presentation: Scaling SQL Server to HUNDREDS of Terabytes Scaling SQL Server to HUNDREDS of Terabytes Learn how SQL Server 2008 can … Continue reading →