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 .

"No cubes can be found" message from SSRS 2008 R2

Today I had a problem that I have already came across some time ago. In Visual Studio 2008 (BIDS) I created a SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS 2008 R2) report and connected this report to an Analysis Services Olap Cube (SSAS 2008 R2). Then I created a new dataset and when I started the Query Designer, the following error message appears: "No cubes can be found".









After looking at the cube properties, I noticed that the "Visible" property of the cube was set to "False". This property should be set to "True" to enable connectivity in client applications.



Hopefully I can help someone with this!

Welcome to our blog!

Welcome! Before we describe what you can get from reading our new blog, we want to introduce ourselves to anyone new to this space. BI Architects is a specialist in Business Intelligence Solutions and is located in the Netherlands. Our mission is to offer customized Business Intelligence and System Integration, through honest advice and implementation projects where quality, commitment, up to date knowledge and understanding in and optimizing of the processes of our customers stands central.

What can you find at the BI Architects blog? Our blogging team will cover a wide-range of Business Intelligence topics, including Dimensional Modeling, System Integration, Project Management, News, Information on trends, and more. Check back on a regular basis to read about:

• Project Management approaches in Business Intelligence projects
• Business Intelligence with online Project Management software from Clarizen
• Business Intelligence in Trading & Risk Management with Commodity XL (CXL) from Triple Point
• Sharepoint 2010 dashboard solutions
• Innovations in Business Intelligence software

Our blogging team will also describe practical solutions for challenges we have with tools like:

• Microsoft Visual Studio
• SQL Server
• SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
• SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)
• SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)
• Sharepoint 2010
• etc.

So, enjoy reading, and don’t forget to comment. We want to hear from you.

The BI Architects Blogging Team