Webcast: Do It Right: Best Practices for Analysis Services 2005 and 2008
Are you seeking practical, in-depth technical advice for building a BI solution using SSAS? Analysis Services changed tremendously with the advent of SQL Server 2005. It introduced a new way of building dimensions and cubes that required a new way of modeling the solution. This session examines the best practices for properly designing cubes for performance and usability. It discusses some high-level topics but also looks at advanced topics such as alternative approaches to many-to-many dimensions, SCOPE statements, aggregation design, scalability issues, processing techniques, server properties, and more. Craig Utley has been working with Microsoft€™s BI products for 11 years and is a former Program Manager with the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT), where he worked with some of the largest Analysis Services installations worldwide. In this session he brings his real-world experience with large, complex SSAS projects and presents best practices uncovered as companies deploy and use Analysis Services.
Presented by: Craig Utley
> Register Now
> Live date: 12/8/2010 at 12:00 Pacific
Virtual Eduction in SSIS and SSRS
I’ve been sharing this opportunity for self paced training for a little over a week. Have you taken time to see what it’s all about. Go take a look at what SQL Server MVP Eric Johnson has put together with a virtual training series on SQL Server Integration Services (data import, export and transformation tool) and SQL Server Replication. Both of these are BIG topics. Eric provides you with access to these tools for the entire month of December, and you also have an option to purchase a DVD of the course.
Find out more about the SQL Server Integrations Services Virtual Training Course or the SQL Server Replication Virtual Training Course. Don’t wait for someone else to help you extend your knowledge. Dig in now and be ready for those opportunities when they come.
SSWUG Holiday Gift Guide – Submissions End Tomorrow
Companies and organizations! Include your products and tools in our 2010 SSWUG.org Holiday Gift Guide!
As our membership is made up of more than 525,000 database and information technology (IT) professionals with diverse interests in the high-tech industry, the Online gift guide will consist of a variety of items, ranging from the hottest electronics to the coolest tech-toys.
Our gift guide is a great way to showcase the best products of the season. With our reputation and reach to an affluent, educated and tech-savvy group of members, your products and tools will be seen and promoted with the highest standards.
Please submit all publicity requests before Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010, as no late submissions will be considered. Our gift guide will be published on SSWUG.org on Friday, Dec. 10, 2010, which should give shoppers sufficient time to review and purchase your contributions.
Click Here for details and to enter your products to be included in our Holiday Gift Guide.
How was your Holiday?
The holiday is over and today you come into your office and…? Well, how did you find things? I’m guessing pretty good if you have time to read todays editorial. At least I wish that to be the case for all of you.
Today I want to encourage you to get your house (servers) in order. Year end holidays will be here in a very few weeks, and now is the best time to start preparing. So, here is another list to check making sure things run smoothly in your absence. My last list was primarily about monitoring the performance of your system; it was from a reactive perspective. Today, I want to list some things you can do for your servers that are pro-active in performance and up-time.
- Evaluate and/or implement an optimization schedule
!) Defragment the disk at the OS level. It really helps in some cases, especially for direct attached storage
2) Defragment your indexes and tables…Consider a Clustered index on a table if defragmenting the data is best. Make sure this is an automated task of some kind with an audit trail you monitor. Make sure it can complete within your maintenance window.
3) Allocate adequate space in your database for growth. The database will require at least as much space as the largest table for re-indexing if you do not or cannot re-index using tempDB. Generally, leaving this additional space allows room for new data to be introduced.
4) Evaluate and establish an appropriate fill factor in your tables.
5) Evaluate and maintain your statistics. If you have the default setting for auto-generate statistics, any column ever used in a where clause will have statistics created. If ad-hoc queries are enabled, your system may be sluggish maintaining less than useful statistics. - Make sure you have adequate resources
1) Make sure your disk allocations are not going to exceed available disk space
2) Confirm that your memory, CPU and network capabilities are going to be adequate - Test your Disaster Recovery Plan
Actually do it…Build a new system complete from your backups or failover your clusters. Make sure your systems can be recovered. Your server room really can be wiped out. - Document your systems and resources
1) IP Schemes, KVM Switches, etc. All the stuff operators are going to need to know or access in your absence that you may be directing over the phone.
2) Get your call lists in place…who to call for what problem.
3) Familiarize your operations staff with the normal contents of your logs and events so that they recognize when something different occurs.
4) Generate or maintain baseline performance statistics on your systems performance for comparison
These are some of the DBA standards that most DBAs recognize. Some have developed customized methods of any of these tasks. Others simply utilize the capabilities shipped with SQL Server and Windows NT. Customized methods generally perform quicker, but are not required to provide adequate coverage. If you are the accidental DBA, simply use the wizards out of the box and build yourself a schedule. If you are not sure you have things established correctly, find a consultant to outsource or mentor you in establishing your system maintenance plan.
I hit the top priorities here today…why not drop me a line with those things you wish I had included. I’ll be sure to post them for our readers. Send your comments to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben