New Fireside Chat – SelecTViews
SQL Server 2011 upcoming features, SQL Server tip, recent news and more.
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Featured White Paper(s)
An Introduction to Workload Tuning
Workload Tuning is just what it sounds like: tuning the performance of all processes that comprise a database workload in one… (read more)
Free On-Demand 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
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Are You Ready for the Holidays?
Now is the time. Do you have your escalation procedures in place? Do people you work with know what to do if something happens with your servers? Do they know how and when to get in touch with you?
If you’ll be away from the servers you’re responsible for during the holidays, make sure you do a few things to get ready:
– Document and make sure people know where to find the document, the procedures for escalation if something happens. Who should they call, and under what circumstances?
– Let people know when you’ll be out of the office. If you let them know now, along with your deadlines for letting you know they need something done before you go, you’ll be able to better enjoy your time off without surprise requests.
– Do you have your remote support options in-place and tested? Make sure you can get to your servers from the outside world via VPN or other secure facility. Test it, make sure it’s working.
– Check your automated procedures – make sure they’re running and performing as they should be. This will keep issues from piling up on you during time away from the office.
If you take a few steps now, you’ll have a better chance of not being faced with a rush, emergency situation that requires your attention each step of the way… or at the very least, you’ll be prepared to respond effectively.
So, What’s Your Take on the Cloud Now?
It’s been awhile since I asked, and I was curious whether your impressions of, uses for, and plans for the cloud have evolved? What do you plan to do? What do you plan to not do? What are your concerns at this point? What are you most looking forward to?
We’ve had a lot of activity in terms of content and speakers that want to talk about different things with the cloud (sort of sounds like "The Claw" from Toy Story). But I’m really looking for your real-world expectations as you move into 2011. Is this the year of "yes, we’re taking stuff to the cloud, in production" or is this a test year for you, or something entirely different? Please let me know – drop me an email, I’ll be sure to share the feedback.
For us, it seems like the first applications that are moving are data warehouse/BI solutions for existing transaction systems. People seem to be willing to move the denormalized/aggregated data to the cloud for reporting and sharing with those that should have access. This seems to me to be a good way to start. You can keep your transaction, core line of business systems where you’re comfortable, but offload some of the work to the cloud so you can see how things will be managed, done and maintained there. You’ll also get the opportunity to test performance and see how things tweak and tune there since BI systems are so query-intensive. Seems like a winning approach – is this what you’re doing?
Send me an email at swynk@sswug.org – let me know if I’m all wet.