James works at Microsoft as a big data and data warehousing solution architect where he has been for most of the last ten 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.
PerformancePoint is an important BI Tool in the Microsoft world and it will continue to be Microsoft’s solution for creating interactive, context-driven dashboards with balanced scorecards, key performance indicators, analytic reports, and filters. There is no doubt it is an integral part of … Continue reading →
There have been a few times when I have created SSAS partitions outside of BIDS using script code in an SSiS package, then later made a change in BIDS and deployed the cube, wiping out those partitions (since they did … Continue reading →
In the same vein as my blog post about Syncing your calendars, I wanted to post how to sync your contacts in Outlook, Gmail (Google Contacts), and iPhone: – Transfer your Outlook contacts to Gmail via Transfer contacts between Outlook and … Continue reading →
UPDATE 3/6/13: VS 2012 now supports BI! Check out Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools – Business Intelligence for Visual Studio 2012 In the same vein as my post Watch out, Visual Studio 2010 does not support BI, Visual Studio 2012 does … Continue reading →
Microsoft has posted ALL the session videos for TechEd Europe 2012 and they are available for free! What a great way to learn all about SQL Server 2012. Check them out here.
Continue reading →Starting with SQL Server Reporting 2008 Reporting Services (SSRS) was the removal of the Internet Information Services (IIS) dependency, so you do not need to install IIS on the machine that you will install SSRS. This only applies when you configure it … Continue reading →
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 →