How Do YOU Find Bottlenecks for Performance?
Figuring out what is causing the biggest drains on performance means you need to be able to see information about queries, execution times, resources and more. Getting this information on your own is, well, tough. When you realize that you have to be able to pull this information historically, as well as what’s happening right this minute so you can spot trending and root causes, you quickly see how much time it can take to even begin finding answers. Check out SQL diagnostic manager from Idera – it’ll make this all straightforward and easy to see exactly what’s happening. Take a look here – what will it tell you about your own systems?
PowerPivot Experiences with SQL Server
I’ve been working with PowerPivot on some reporting applications we’re building internally. I thought it would be a good chance to apply the technology to some real-world reporting that we need to build out.
I’ve been surprised, more than once, by accidental relationships and information I’ve found! There have been several times where I pulled the raw data to the PowerPivot side of things, then, when working with the pivot tables in Excel, stumbled across ties between information bits that I didn’t expect. Just moving things around using the filter, column and slicing tools and experimenting with things to see how best to present information, we’ve found relationships between activities on days of the week, areas of the site and so-on.
The reason I’m bringing this up is to offer up a bit of a challenge. When you have a few minutes, fire up PowerPivot and then just experiment with it. What can you find out that is surprising? What types of things are exposed just by putting data in groupings that may seem somewhat random or unexpected? You may be surprised by some new ways of looking at your information, and the process is really quite straightforward.
Take a look and see what you can find in your own data! I’ve been very impressed!
Using SSIS?
Check out Eric Johnson’s upcoming class – 12 different sessions, SSIS from the ground up.
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