Featured Article(s)
Troubleshooting Linked Servers in SQL Server 2005
In this article, Alexander Chigrik explains some problems with SQL Server 2005 linked servers. He also tells how you can resolve these problems.
Importing Data? Cool Blog Posting
Our friends at DataDefractor have a blog that talks about all sorts of tips for importing and massaging data for your system. I’ve talked about their product before – but this blog post has some really great information about working with a tool from IBM that takes your table-based HTML data and makes it usable in Excel (or for other things like imports) by changing it around to XML. It’s a bit more involved than that – but check out the blog entry – great information.
SQL Server 2008 "Launch" Event
(Sorry, with all due respect ,it can’t really be a launch when the release is months away.) I was thinking through the demos that Steve Ballmer was showing about SQL Server 2008. The big emphasis is first on SQL Server performance. The performance metrics and points that keep coming up are those that work with data warehousing and analysis. Not necessarily the big, massive warehouses, but query performance in a BI-type environment in general. A lot of emphasis has been placed on this and I think it’ll show in the overall product when we get it going.
The thing that was crystal clear though is that there is a huge emphasis with SQL Server on its integration into the Office line and specifically into Excel for front-end analysis. I actually wrote a bit about this after TechEd last year (and the year before) and seeing the continued emphasis on not only Excel as a tool, but also just overall support for getting information out of SQL Server – it’s all good. I think once people understand the real power that is available with the right front-end tools combined with the right data looks – I think people will start to understand what we can do with all of these massive data stores we’ve built.
If you’ve not seen the demos, or come up to speed on what’s happening with data query and analysis support in 2008 (and even 2005), you really should take a look. The ability to look at information and drill down into it is really not only impressive, but it’ll bring really solid decision-support-type abilities to your use of SQL Server.
I’m not sure the analysis, query and reporting integration into Office is the be-all, end-all reason to upgrade, but it’s a start. There are some other things coming that are mission-critical and can really bring good features to your installation – more on those tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the BI query support – it’s pretty dang impressive!
Webcast: Managing Change with Your SQL Server
We’ll look into what options you have for managing change – from documenting your systems to how triggers work and how you can apply to them to your databases as an audit measure. We’ll also investigate other technologies you’ll want to know about when considering how you control and manage change with SQL Server.
> Register Now
> Live date: 3/11/2008 at 12:00pm Noon Pacific
Featured White Paper(s)
Are AJAX Applications Vulnerable to Hack Attacks?
This paper reviews AJAX technologies with specific reference to JavaScript and briefly documents the kinds of vulnerability c… (read more)
Structuring the Unstructured: How to Dimensionalize Semi-Structured Business Data
The Business Intelligence industry is paying more and more attention to the ever-growing heap of unstructured and semi-struct… (read more)