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Friday, February 27, 2009

Two Books from SQL Server Central

SQL Server Central, most popular web site on SQL Server, has released two books called Best of SQLServerCentral, Volume 5 and Best of SQLServerCentral, Volume 6. Two articles of mine, The OUPUT Command (Vol 5) and SSAS Database Backup (Vol 6) are in those books.

v5

v6

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Visio & SSAS

Do you know that you can connect to a SSAS database from Microsoft Visio. Yes from Visio. Most people don’t. If you are a one of them falling to don’t category, my latest article is for you.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Warren Buffets Advice for 2009

We begin this New Year with dampened enthusiasm and dented optimism. Our happiness is diluted and our peace is threatened by the financial illness that has infected our families, organizations and nations. Everyone is desperate to find a remedy that will cure their financial illness and help them recover their financial health. They expect the financial experts to provide them with remedies, forgetting the fact that it is these experts who created this financial mess.

Every new year, I adopt a couple of old maxims as my beacons to guide my future. This self-prescribed therapy has ensured that with each passing year, I grow wiser and not older. This year, I invite you to tap into the financial wisdom of our elders along with me, and become financially wiser.

* Hard work: All hard work bring a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.

* Laziness: A sleeping lobster is carried away by the water current.

* Earnings: Never depend on a single source of income. [ At least make your Investments get you second earning ]

* Spending: If you buy things you don't need, you'll soon sell things you need.

* Savings: Don't save what is left after spending; Spend what is left after saving.

* Borrowings: The borrower becomes the lender's slave.

* Accounting: It's no use carrying an umbrella, if your shoes are leaking.

* Auditing: Beware of little expenses; A small leak can sink a large ship.

* Risk-taking: Never test the depth of the river with both feet. [ Have an alternate plan ready ]

* Investment: Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I'm certain that those who have already been practicing these principles remain financially healthy. I'm equally confident that

those who resolve to start practicing these principles will quickly regain their financial health.

Let us become wiser and lead a happy, healthy, prosperous and peaceful life.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Debugging SQL Server Stored Procedures

If you are a developer, it is needless to stress the importance of debugging you complex codes. In Visual Studio, you have the luxury of debugging you codes with fancy features. Now you can integrate SQL Server Stored Procedures to Visual Studios to debug those. See the step by step information from the following six videos.

Video1 Video2 Video3 Video4 Video5 Video6

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Running SQL Profiler without sysadmin Privileges

In SQL Server 2000, if you wish to run SQL Profiler you need grant sysadmin permission to the user. This was not encouraging for the system administrators.  In SQL Server 2005, you have the option of granting permission only for SQL Profiler, so that the users should not be a member of sysadmin group.

USE master
GO

GRANT ALTER TRACE TO username;
GO

In case you need to revoke the permission, you granting permission only for SQL Profiler.

USE master
GO

DENY ALTER TRACE TO username;
GO

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

SQL Server BI Comes into Fashion

Apranga Group, the leading fashion retailer in the Baltic States, has contracted Microsoft partner New Vision to implement its business intelligence solution based on ProfitBase and Microsoft SQL Server.

Apranga Group currently operates 71 stores in Lithuania, 21 in Latvia and seven in Estonia. The company was experiencing a challenge in selecting a single standardized business intelligence (BI) platform. A short implementation time was a top priority, as Apranga had a very strict deadline. The ability to modify and extend the deployed BI solution easily was another important requirement.

Following an extensive evaluation process, Apranga Group contracted Microsoft partner New Vision to implement its business intelligence solution which uses Microsoft SQL Server. This BI solution is based on Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) templates from ProfitBase. The templates enabled Apranga to kick-start the BI solution rapidly, saving time on analysis and implementation, minimizing risks and reducing costs. New Vision’s competence in Microsoft Dynamics NAV combined with data connectors from ProfitBase saved a lot of effort loading a data warehouse. Integrating historic legacy data sources was easy and the customer had an Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) system finished in only two and a half months.

Following the implementation of the BI solution, Apranga Group is able to analyze sales and inventory in a single BI system using SQL Server Reporting Services and Office Excel Pivot Tables tools. Previously the same data was analyzed by several different reporting and BI systems.

The standardized BI solution at Apranga Group now covers all stores and chains it operates and contains nine years of historic data. The solution has become a central point of information for many employees. The company is planning to extend the BI solution with new functionality according to their business needs.

This article first appeared in the spring 2009 edition of Retailspeak magazine.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Accessing Cubes from Excel 2007

Microsoft Excel can be used to access SSAS cubes databases. Latest article by me written on www.sql-server-performance.com is to explorer features of Excel to connect to SSAS cubes.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Book on SQL Server Replication

Two articles of mine on replication DDL Replication in SQL Server 2000 and 2005 and Peer-to-Peer Transactional Replication in SQL Server 2005 are selected for a SQL Server Replication book. This book is published by E-COM and book is available for sale. This book is in Russian and i would like to thank Alexander Gladchenko  for giving me this opportunity. I will get a copy of this book though I can’t read it :).

dbfriend Video Center

I have started creating on SQL Server and those are published at http://www.dbfriend.magnify.net. To start with, I have created a short video on how to display SSRS tables with different row colors.

I am not a flashy presenter and these video may not be in super quality. However, I am trying to improve and sorry for any inconvenience.