Featured Article(s)
A New Approach to Cubing Data: The Need for Something Different
OLAP cubes are steeped in well-documented benefits: speed of thought response times, hypothesis testing, business term presentation, and more. BUT they have some trade-offs such as LAN traffic for the cubing building process, external engines, single version of the truth, and more. Learn how a new technology is making us think of our OLAP in a different way. OLAP is never going away, but OLAP optimization may be the next step in an economic climate of shoestring budgets.
PowerShell Follow-Up, Thoughts, Uses
I’ve had a few people write in asking "what, exactly, is PowerShell??" Probably the easiest way to describe/explain what it’s all about is by giving you a few links to explore:
– Wikipedia – what is PowerShell
– And you Must visit the PowerShell Guy
That said, it does seem to still be in it’s starting phase at this point – there are some strong proponents of it out there, and people doing more with it every day, but mainstream adoption, especially if the comments I’ve received are any indication, is still underway.
Anand: "Yes, I do use powershell and the task what I do in powershell includes backing up the SQL Server objects including tables/views/procedures.
The database where I and my team is working on is around 15+GB and it is tough to take backup of the database each day, so we have created a powershell script that takes the database object (script) backup every day, zip the file and save the file name as “YYYYMMDD.sql” in a designated folder.
It will be interesting to see what are other users doing with powershell and SQL Server 2005."
Mike: "My company uses PowerShell with SQL Server for clients running SQL Express. Whereas we don’t have access to SQL Agent in the Express editions, we can use Windows Scheduled Tasks and PowerShell scripts to create scheduled backups. We employ a script which creates backups from parameters passed in the Scheduled Task.
Such parameters include database instance, database name, type of backup (full/diff/tran), path for backup, and a retention number of days (all files older get purged). We obviously get our hands a little dirtier, but the end result has worked well for the clients."
SQL Server Video Show
[Watch] SelectViews: The show today features experts in all sorts of great technologies: Tim Heuer, Lynn Langit and Thomas LaRock are here. They talk about what drives them, what they see in the field and a whole lot more.
Also Available:
[Watch] Brian Knight, Matt Masson and Shannon Bray.
[Watch] Donald Farmer, Jeremy Lowell and Ben Hoelting.
[Watch] Chris Shaw, Daniel Galant, Rachel Appel and Rebecca Isserman
Announcement: Free Community Event Friday
Our next SSWUG.ORG community event is now open for registration! This one-day event will give you some great information on a number of topics, and it’s free and open to the everyone. Think of it as a virtual (global!) user group meeting. We’ll have information on SQL Server, .NET, SharePoint and other goodies. Here are the sessions:
– Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services – Designing and Managing High Performance Cubes: Donald Farmer
– Useful, effective, pre-made SharePoint templates– from Microsoft, for free: Callahan
– Silverlight for Beginners: Tim Heuer
– Introduction to Data Dude: Ted Malone
– SQL Server Round Table: Paul Nielsen, Chris Shaw, Stephen Wynkoop
These are "most requested" type sessions and I think you’ll have a great time, learn some great tips and get a chance to chat with others doing similar things. Getting registered is simple; just head to the community event site and you can get registered.
Featured White Paper(s)
SQL Server and SharePoint – The More You Know, the Better Off You Are
The SharePoint platform is growing and so is your role as a SQL Server DBA. This dependency creep may mean that you’ll be as… (read more)