SQL Server 2008 R2 is RTM
A co-worker of mine told me the other day that SQL Server 2008 R2 had gone gold. A bit of research revealed that Ted Kummert, senior vice president of the Business Platform Division at Microsoft apparently announced the RTM status in a conference call. Customers will be able to get this latest version of SQL Server as of the 13th of May and MSDN adn TechNet will be able to download it the 3th of May. The free express edition can already be downloaded. Even though official prices haven’t been revealed yet, it is expected that they will rise by 15 to 25% in comparison to R1. Read more
An extra tool to improve SQL Server’s performance
Microsoft published a new white paper on Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server.
Microsoft has finally decided what to do with PerformancePoint Planning
A while back Microsoft created quite a stir in the BI scene when they announced that they would stop further development of PerformancePoint Server 2007. At the time I was studying for the exam and, as you can imagine, was pretty pissed off (and stopped any further preparations for the exam immediately). The analytics part was swiftly moved to SharePoint and what was to become of the Planning part was unknown, until now.
Messenger + A-Patch + Messenger Plus! = Four
I’ve been using Messenger in combination with A-Patch (Allah is great) and Messenger Plus! for a long time and it’s definitely a winning combination. I know there are other IM tools out there. I’m not sure if they’d do the job better though. Does anyone have anything sensible to say about it?
BI history
The Microsoft BI team uploaded a video to YouTube about the history of my field of expertise. It’s a bit flashy, but useful if you’re new to the business or want to explain to someone else what it is you’re exactly doing. Read more
Childhood memories
Aah, nothing like some childhood memories (warning: probably NSFW). Back then I was definitely not trying to sneak a peek in the book stores for the articles. Nowadays, however, I wonder what the added value is of a magazine like Playboy. Could it be the articles? It almost has to be with all the smut out there on the internet. Nice Silverlight app by the way.
> 1 TB in < 30 min
Last year, with the introduction of SQL Server 2008, Microsoft broke the existing ETL World Record, doing a load of data using SSIS. Over 1 TB of data was loaded from flat files in less than 30 minutes.
At the time the team promised a white paper on the subject, which is now available on MSDN. It’s quite an interesting read (even for people like me, who don’t normally work with DWHs of that size).
Latest All Up BI VPC (7.1)
I was recently made aware that there’s a newer version of the Microsoft All Up VPC than the one I’m running. Apparently it’s been out for some time now, but I thought I’d mention it. What is it you might wonder? It’s a (in my opinion) very cool VHD that, once mounted and set up, contains literally everything Microsoft has to offer in the field of Business Intelligence. The image runs Windows Server 2003 en contains, among others, SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP1, ProClarity Analytics Server 6.3, Office 2007, ProClarity Desktop Professional 6.3 and lots and lots of demos. Unfortunately there image hasn’t been upgraded to Windows Server 2008 and/or SQL Server 2008 and is missing some Service Packs, but I’m sure this will come in the next version (whenever that is). Read more
I finally found out how to use Hyper-V Manager in Windows 7
I installed the Windows 7 Beta a while back on my notebook and haven’t looked back since. I did so on a separate partition thus still being able to use my XP Pro on the other partition, but I must admit that I’ve only booted up the Previous Windows Version
(that’s what it says on the boot up screen) a handful of times. What I’m trying to say is that that over the last few weeks I’ve become a fan of Windows 7. It feels a lot faster and more intuitive than XP and I’m sure the same goes for Vista as well (I’ve never actually used Vista as I’d never gotten around to it).
SSAS 2008 Performance Guide
A useful white paper if you ask me.