Microsoft downgrades storage capacity from 25 GB to 7 GB

Microsoft has released SkyDrive applications for Windows and Mac , that integrates the cloud service into the operating system. In addition, the storage capacity for new users is decreased from 25 GB to 7GB.

Microsoft has also adapted the available storage capacity. Previously, SkyDrive users had access up to 25GB of space to store their files. Now this is reduced to 7GB for new users.

For current users who have files on their SkyDrive, 25GB may be retained, however they must separately indicate that they want to keep their 25 GB of storage. According to Microsoft uses roughly 99 percent of users less than 7GB and therefore few people will get into trouble by the reduction.

If you want to keep the 25 GB of storage instead of 7 GB go here!

BI Architects visited the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 symposium

Yesterday a delegation of BI Architects visited the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 symposium at the Media Plaza in Utrecht.

During the symposium Microsoft presented the new version of their informationplatform SQL Server 2012. Richard Chin, general manager SQL Server strategy at Microsoft, kicked off the symposium with a keynote. After the keynote the symposium was divided into three blocks: Breakthrough insight with SQL Server 2012, Delivering Mission Critical Confidence to the Modern Enterprise and Building the Modern Enterprise with Hybrid IT.

A view at the stunning Media Plaza during the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 symposium.

As BI Architects we were mostly interested in the block concerning business intelligence, Breakthrough insight with SQL Server 2012. This block included a keynote from Marcel Westra, technology specialist BI at Microsoft NL, explaining the vision behind SQL Server 2012 and demonstrating the new features like PowerView and the integration of Hadoop (Big Data).

All of the speakers outlined five points off improvement for SQL Server 2012:

• Greater availability. Deliver the required 9s and data protection with AlwaysOn, delivering added functionality over CTP3 that allows customers to experience multiple, readable secondaries for distributed scale of reporting and backup workloads and support for FileTable and FILESTREAM which brings first-class HA to complex data types.
• Blazing-fast performance. More effectively govern performance in multi-tenancy environments like private cloud. Resource Governor enhancements include support for 64 resource pools, greater CPU usage control, and resource pool affinity for partitioning of physical resources and predictable resource allocation.
• Rapid data exploration. Empower end users with new insights through rapid data exploration and visualization. Discover new insights at the speed of thought with more feature/functionality in Power View, the highly interactive, familiar browser-based data exploration, visualization, and presentation experience for end users.
• Credible, consistent data. In addition to CTP3 functionality delivered for Data Quality Services and Master Data Services, customers can better support heterogeneous data within Data Warehouses through new Change Data Capture (CDC) support for Oracle.
• Optimized productivity. Optimize IT and developer productivity across server and cloud with the new SQL Server Data Tools, a unified development experience for database and business intelligence projects, and cloud-ready capabilities within SQL Server Management Studio for snapshot backups to the Windows Azure Platform. Additionally, SQL Server 2012 offers a new version of Express – LocalDB. SQL Express LocalDB is a lightweight version of Express with all its programmability features, yet runs in user mode with a fast, zero-configuration installation and short list of pre-requisites. For more information and to try it out, go here.

There are three main editions planned for SQL Server 2012: Standard, Business Intelligence (new) and Enterprise. Business Intelligence adds better reporting via PowerView, PowerPivot for SharePoint Server, Data Quality Services, Master Data Services, and an In-Memory Tabular BI Semantic Model.

For more information about the new features go here.

All of the keynotes will be posted online by Microsoft,  keep watching this blog to find out were you can watch them!

Update:
The videos aren't online yet, but Microsoft sended the presentation to us in the PDF file format. Download the 15 MB zip file from this link.

Query to find the size of the database and database file

Technique 1:


     EXEC sp_helpdb

Technique 2: For a specific database:

sp_helpdb'adventureworks'

And you get the following output: (this one gives you the database and data file information for a specific database)




Technique 3: be in the context of the database and run sp_spaceusedGives you the database size and certain more properties of it:


     EXEC sp_spaceused

This is what you get:

Technique 4: use sys.master_files


SELECTDB_NAME(database_id)AS DatabaseName,
Name AS LogicalName,
size*8/1024 Size_in_MB,
max_size
FROM sys.master_files
WHEREDB_NAME(database_id)='AdventureWorks'
GO




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Reporting Services 2008r2 (SSRS): New Webservice Endpoint

The report server includes a new management endpoint named ReportingService2010. This endpoint merges the functionalities of both the ReportingService2005 and ReportingService2006 endpoints, and can support management operations of the report server in both native mode and SharePoint integrated mode. It also includes new features that are introduced in SQL Server 2008 R2, such as shared datasets and cache refresh.

If the report server is configured for native mode or SharePoint integrate mode, the WSDL for the management endpoint can be accessed using one of the following URL:

http://<Server Name>/ReportServer/ReportService2010.asmx?wsdl

The ReportService2005 and ReportService2006 endpoints are deprecated in SQL Server 2008 R2. The ReportService2010 endpoint includes the functionalities of both endpoints and contains additional management features.


For more information, see Report Server Web Service Endpoints.

BI solution delivers insight on CXL P&L attributes

BI Architects develops Business Intelligence (BI) solutions for its customers ranging from commodity trading and enterprise risk to project management.

In this video blog I want to present a BI solution we have developed for one of our customers, that uses Triple Point’s Commodity XL (CXL), giving essential insight in the in the causes of the position and mark to market movements, including physical operations (P&L attributes).

The presentation depicted below describes our customer's needs, CXL and the solution itself.



For more information on our CXL BI solution for gaining insight on P&L attributes, please contact our sales manager Erik Rongen-Kleintjens via E.Rongen-Kleintjens@bi-architects.nl .

For more information on Triple Point’s Commodity XL (CXL) software, go to tpt.com .

Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Beta to Land on February 29th

Along with the release of Windows 8 Consumer Preview, Microsoft will also be unveiling Visual Studio 11's beta version next Wednesday.
Visual Studio 11 along with Team Foundation Server 11 has "hundreds" of latest features and Microsoft is addressing a very small selection before the release of the beta version. Visual Studio 11 will offer holistic solutions and also performance enhancements for various regularly performed tasks.

Unlike Visual Studio 2010, which is full of attractive colours, the new Visual Studio 11 is more "grey" to look at. For improving the scope to focus on text without any distraction the company decided to get rid of bright colours on the Integrated Development Environment (IDE), reported ARS Technica.
The new version is simpler as well as flatter as it does not have subdivisions, gradients and any other unnecessary details. This Metro designed version looks a lot like Visual Studio 2003, Office XP and Expression Blend. However, there is another version having darker theme but same simple and flat design.
Microsoft confirmed that Visual Studio 11 beta and .NET 4.5 beta will launch on 29th February.

The default toolbars in VS 2010

The default toolbars in VS 11

For more information about the GUI go to MSDN.

No left navigation when new webpartpages are created in SharePoint 2010

Creating webpart pages or basic pages in SharePoint is done with a click of a button. But when you view the page you've created you won't get to see the left navigation menu. The cause I reckon is that the left side navigation is defined in the Master Page in the "PlaceHolderLeftNavBar" content place holder and templates for webpart pages shipped with SharePoint are overriding this content place holder and delete its content. 


The solution for this is to change the page so it will not override the menu place holder, but inherite it from the Master Page. The place holders we are interested in are: "PlaceHolderLeftNavBar" and "PlaceHolderNavSpacer". 


Start by opening the SharePoint Designer. Open the webpart page or basic page you want to add the menu to. In code view look for the following lines and delete them:

      <asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderLeftNavBar" runat="server"></asp:Content>

and

      <asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderNavSpacer" runat="server"></asp:Content> 

and

      <SharePoint:UIVersionedContent ID="WebPartPageHideQLStyles" UIVersion="4" runat="server">
      <ContentTemplate>
      <style type="text/css">
      body #s4-leftpanel {
      display:none;
      }
      .s4-ca {
      margin-left:0px;
      }
      </style>


Save the file. You will get a warning saying you are about to customize the page. Just go ahead.


Hope this saves time.

Clarizen posts BI Architects video to Social Media

We were very happy to see the posts of Clarizen, leading global provider of collaborative online project management software, in the Social Media referring to the video we made of our Clarizen BI Solution.

Thank you, Hilee Avrahami of Clarizen, for bringing this video to your customers and followers attention!

Here you can have another look at our video:



Our Business Intelligence solution for Clarizen adds reporting functionality that helps the project managers monitor, track and report project progress (including KPI's and earned values), the finance department enable swift and correct detailed invoicing and the management team gaining direct insight in the performance/profitability of projects.

For more information about the extension for Clarizen please contact our sales manager Erik Rongen-Kleintjens (E.Rongen-Kleintjens@bi-architects.nl).

Hermann-Otto Israël

BI Architects project manager

Change of address

On January 1, 2012 BI Architects has moved to a new office which is located in Breda, Netherlands.

Our new address
Claudius Prinsenlaan 128
4818 CP Breda
The Netherlands